My Supplier

My Supplier

THE SUPPLIER

Now He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. 2 Corinthians 9:10

One thing we must all learn is to see God as our source. You must decide you will look to GOD ONLY as your source of supply. You need to tell God that you’re going to look to Him alone to provide for your needs and that you won’t look anywhere else.

We get ourselves in trouble when we confuse the channel with the source. God may use your salary from work as the channel to supply your needs, but your employer is just the channel for God’s provision – and He can shift to another channel anytime He wants. When you start to look to something or someone else to meet your needs, when you begin to confuse the channel with the source, then you start getting into trouble. You start worrying.

We allow worry and fear into our heart when we start looking to our job as the source, instead of the channel of our supply. You start thinking, “What if I lose my job?” You know what – the channel may close, but the source of your every need is still alive and abundant. When God turns off one channel, He can turn on another one.

You need to give God the right to choose whatever channel He chooses to fulfil the need. It may be a channel different from that which you are used to or expect. In fact, God may deliberately choose a different channel in order to teach you to keep looking to Him for all your needs.

It’s exciting to just let God be God. It’s exciting to watch God meet a need in a way that you never thought possible or could have never thought up on your own.

Prayer: Receive the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and ask Him to bless the work of your hand and multiply all your investments.

Scriptural Reading: 2 Corinthians 9:6-15

My Supplier

Delight In The Lord

Delight In The Lord

DELIGHT IN THE LORD

Delight yourself in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4

Whilst waiting for the full realization of what we have believed God for, we are encouraged to maintain an attitude of gratitude and joy by delighting ourselves in the Lord. That simply means to get excited about the things of God. It means to praise, worship and glorify the Lord even if the answers to our requests are delayed.

All of us get tempted to worship and praise God only when things are going on well with us. We get so obsessed with our problems and yield to despondency. The joy of the Lord dries up. The smile wears off our faces. Instead of living in expectancy of a miracle, we allow the spirit of depression to dominate our moods.

God requires that we delight ourselves in Him as part of the process for getting the desires of our hearts fulfilled.

• Practise Praise. When you are tempted to yield to self-pity, just open your mouth and speak words of thanks and gratitude to God. Your feelings may be down but allow praise to well up in your heart.

• Participate in the joy of others. When you hear that someone else has received a miracle or been blessed by God, share in their joy and be genuinely happy for them.

• Promote God’s work. Occupy your time of waiting with service in the house of God. Let His work be your delight and He will make your delight His work.

Prayer: Thank God for how far He has brought you, declare that whatever He has purposed for your life will come to you.

Scriptural Reading: Psalm 37:1-11

Delight In The Lord

Take The Initiative

Take The Initiative

TAKE THE INITIATIVE

For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7

Another principle for connecting with people is this: Be courageous and take the initiative! Don’t wait on somebody else to connect with you. You must take the initiative to connect with them. This often takes courage. Why? Because when we’re full of fear and anxiety, we don’t get close to each other. In fact, we back off from each other. We’re afraid of being rejected, manipulated, hurt, or used.

Fear does three terrible things to relationships:

•  Our fears make us defensive. We’re afraid to reveal ourselves. When people point out weaknesses we retaliate and defend ourselves.

•  Our fears keep us distant. We don’t let people get close to us. We want to withdraw and hide our emotions. We don’t want to be open and honest.

• Our fears make us demanding. The more insecure we are the more we try to control or dominate things. We try to have the last word in a relationship. It’s always a symptom of fear and insecurity.

Where do you get the courage for taking the first step in connecting with someone? You get it from God’s Spirit in your life. The Holy Spirit makes you courageous in your relationships. When you are filled with the Holy Spirit you love people. You enjoy being with them. You’re not afraid of them because God’s Spirit is in your life. The Bible says “God is love” (1 John 4:16) and “Love casts out all fear” (1 John 4:18). The more of God you have in your life the less fear you’ll have in your life.

Prayer: Bind and cast out the spirit of fear and timidity from your heart; ask the Lord to connect you with the people who will help you move to your next level.

Scriptural Reading: 2 Timothy 1:1-12

Take The Initiative

Be Considerate

Be Considerate

BE CONSIDERATE

Let each of you look out not for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Philippians 2:4

The second principle for connecting with people is to be considerate of other people’s needs. In other words, if you want to connect with people, you’ve got to start with their needs, not your own. That’s how you make that initial connection. There’s an old Chinese proverb that says, “Seek to understand before seeking to be understood.”

The Bible talks about this in Philippians 2:4: “Look out for one another’s interests not just your own.” That is such a counter-cultural verse. Everything in our culture – from the moment we’re born – tends to train us to think ‘me first.’ As a result, we’re all disconnected because we’re all thinking about ourselves and not thinking about the needs of other people.

Yet, one thing we all need to always keep in mind is “It’s not about me!” The world doesn’t revolve around you just as it doesn’t revolve around me. You’re very special in God’s eyes. You were created for a purpose. But the world does not revolve around you.

Here’s another truth – If you want your needs to be met, first start focusing on meeting the needs of other people. Why? Because God wants you to learn to be unselfish. He wants you to learn to love, to be generous like Him.

Part of being considerate of other people’s needs is making allowances for their faults. Colossians 3:13 says “Bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. Proverbs 17:9 says, “Love forgets mistakes.” It’s not that you are blind to someone else’s faults; rather, you choose to overlook them. Great friends are good forgetters.

Prayer: Ask the Lord to touch your heart and give you a heart of love for all people.

Scriptural Reading: Philippians 2:1-11

Be Considerate

Honesty

Honesty

HONESTY

He who gives a right answer kisses the lips. Proverbs 24:26

One of the keys to connecting with people is this: Be candid about problems in the relationship.

Being candid and being connected go together. You don’t have one without the other. Genuine, healthy, deep, meaningful relationships are built on honesty, not on flattery. An honest answer is the sign of true friendship. Flattery is a sign of a manipulator, not a sign of somebody who is genuinely your friend.

All of us have blind spots. The question that really matters is: do you have anybody in your life who loves you enough to point them out? You cannot grow unless somebody points out the things that you can’t see in your life, but that need changing. Let me give you three rules for being candid in relationships:

1. Compliment in public, correct inbprivate. Do this with your children, your spouse, your employees, and your friends.

2. Correct when they’re up and not down. When I’m feeling good, I can handle almost any correction. When I’m feeling tired, I can’t handle anything. Timing is everything when you’re being candid.

3. Never offer correction until you’ve proven that you are also willing to be corrected. Remember: seek to understand before seeking to be understood. You open up your life before you expect someone else to be open with you.

Connecting means we care enough to be candid. Is there an issue you need to be candid about?

Prayer: Ask the Lord to give you wisdom to be honest and candid in all your relationships.

Scriptural Reading: Proverbs 24:23-29

Honesty

The Power Of Thanks Giving

The Power Of Thanks Giving

THE POWER OF THANKSGIVING

Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men! Psalm 107:8

In the Old Testament, we find an interesting story of how King Jehoshaphat took an uncommon approach when his enemies waged war against him. Instead of sending in his army first, he sent in the choir and musicians. Imagine the scene: “All right, soldiers, tomorrow at dawn we will mount an offensive attack against the Assyrian army and the strategy is that the choir and the musicians will lead the attack.” Most of his soldiers might have thought he was out of his mind.

But God had directed Jehoshaphat in this unusual battle tactic. We read that Jehoshaphat appointed people to sing to the Lord, praise the beauty of holiness, and go out in front of the army saying, “Praise the Lord, for His mercy endures forever.” And that is exactly what they did. The Bible tells us that when they began to sing and praise God, He sent an ambush against the enemy, and they were destroyed. They won a great victory not through ammunition, but through praise and thanksgiving.

In approaching God to ask for new blessings, we should never forget to thank and praise Him for the blessings He has already given. If you would stop and think about how many of your prayers God has answered and how seldom you have come to Him just to give thanks, you will be ashamed of yourself. We should be just as deliberate in giving thanks to God as we are in asking for His help.

Prayer: I praise You, Lord for You are good and Your mercy endures forever.

Scriptural Reading: Psalm 107:1-16

The Power Of Thanks Giving

Don"t Get Disqualified

Don’t Get Disqualified

DON’T GET DISQUALIFIED

And Samuel said to Saul, “You have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the LORD your God, which He commanded you.” 1 Samuel 13:13

The moment we accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, we are enrolled in a spiritual race. One of the mandates of any competition is that we play by the rules or we will be disqualified. This is true in every race, but perhaps especially so in the spiritual one.

First Samuel gives us the story of King Saul, a man who did not play by the rules. He began his reign in victory and ended in humiliating defeat. He lost his character, power, crown, and in the end, his very life. Based on Saul’s life, let us share some few principles on how not to win the spiritual race.

• Ignore the Little Things. Saul’s failure was not immediate, but when pride turned into envy, and he ignored what God had plainly told him to do. Likewise, it is not for us to pick and choose what parts of the Bible we like and don’t like. We are to obey God even in the smallest matters, because “small” sins turn into big sins. They certainly did for Saul.

• Never Take Responsibility for Your Actions. More than once Saul blamed others for his own bad choices. Saul just wanted to save face. He forgot that no matter what, God knows the truth.

• Get Jealous, be Driven by Hatred. Saul’s animosity ultimately destroyed him. He became jealous when God anointed and began using David, the young shepherd boy. We need to understand God chooses whom He will choose. Don’t let jealousy and hatred destroy you.

God has given you, like Saul, potential. He has given you certain talents and gifts. It is up to us to run the race well and play by the rules. Don’t get disqualified. Don’t allow disobedience, pride, jealousy and hatred to destroy your future. Walk by the Spirit and live by the Word of God.

Prayer: Ask the Lord to guide and lead you in all your ways so that you will not be disqualified for the reward.

Scriptural Reading: 1 Samuel 13:1-15

Don"t Get Disqualified