Tag Archive | Holy Spirit

Acts 1 – Wait for the promise

Sep7

Good morning y’all.  Welcome back from our break 🙂 . Today we begin our study on the book of Acts. We will be studying Acts 1 – 5 this week.

I’m blogging through the bible a chapter a day with Good morning girls. You can check us out at www.goodmorninggirls.org.

Courtney from GMG has done an intro into the book of Acts and our study for this week. Click here to read the intro.

Back to our study for today 🙂

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Verse 4 caught my attention.  Especially the phrase “wait for the promise”.

“And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said,“you have heard from Me;” (NKJV)

Most times there is usually a waiting period from the time God gives a promise, to the time the promise is fulfilled. Some of us are impatient, we want instant results (***covering my eyes**** I’m one of them).  Sometimes God answers instantly and other times He wants to teach us patience.  Abraham waited 25yrs for the promise to be fulfilled. Scripture says he hoped against hope. Physically it was impossible for Abraham and Sarah to have a child but Abraham still believed and had faith in the One who promised. He knew God was faithful to bring to pass that which He has said.

God is not a man that He should lie, if He has said it, then He surely will do it (Num 23:19).
Habakkuk 2:3 says:
“For the vision is yet for an appointed time;
But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie.
Though it tarries, wait for it;
Because it will surely come,
It will not tarry” (NKJV).

The disciples were told to wait for the promise and wait they did. God didn’t let them down, He came through on His promise as we will see in chapter 2 tomorrow.

What has God promised you? Friends hold onto it, even if it feels highly impossible to you. With man it might be impossible, but with God all things are possible (Luke 1:37).  Psalm 27:14 says:
“Wait on the Lord;
Be of good courage,
And He shall strengthen your heart;
Wait, I say, on the Lord!” (NKJV)

When God gives a promise, it’s not in our place to question when the promise will be fulfilled.  Ours is to believe it will surely be fulfilled at the right time. The disciples in verse 6 asked Jesus about the timing of the prophecy. Jesus responds to them in verse 7 by saying, it’s not their business to know the timing – that’s God’s business!!!.

“6 Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority”. (NKJV)

The key thing is to make sure we believe the prophecy and do what God asks us to do while waiting for the fulfillment of the promise.

What they needed to concern themselves with, was doing God’s business and for that they needed empowerment which came in the form of the Holy Spirit. Part of the work of the Holy Spirit is to empower us be witnesses for Jesus to the world around us. Of our own might, we won’t be able to do this. Verse 8 says:

“But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me[a] in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (NKJV)

The disciples had a decision to make regards replacing Judas. They didn’t take it lightly but consulted God before making the decision.

” And they prayed and said, “You, O Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which of these two You have chosen to take part in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place.” And they cast their lots, and the lot fell on Matthias. And he was numbered with the eleven apostles” (24 -26 NKJV).

They included God in their plan. Are we including God in our plans no matter how trivial the plan maybe? Proverbs 3:5-6 tells us to trust in the Lord and lean not on our own understanding, in all our ways acknowledge Him and He will direct our paths. The disciples chose not to lean on their understanding, so they prayed and asked God to help them choose. After praying they put their faith into action – they applied their faith.  It’s definitely good to pray but we also have to get up and act on our faith. James 2:20 tells us faith without works is dead.

Prayer:
Dear Lord we thank you for today and for the opportunity to learn at your feet. We ask for the grace to wait patiently on you and not loose hope. Give us the grace to be obedient, doing what you have asked of us while we wait for the promise to be fulfilled. Help us to trust you more Lord and we ask for a fresh release of your spirit over our lives. Thank you Lord. In Jesus Name we prayed. Amen.

Thanks for joining today. Tomorrow we will be studying chapter 2. Pls feel free to share your thots on the chapter

Have a blessed day 🙂

***With God all things are possible***

Proverbs 7 – Run! Run!! Run!!!

Jun23

Good evening y’all. Today we are studying chapter 7 of the book of Proverbs.

I’m blogging through the book of proverbs with Good morning girls. Check us out at www.goodmorninggirls.org

Be blessed 🙂

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Verse 2
“Obey my commands and live! Guard my instructions as you guard your own eyes”. (NLT)

This verse caught my attention. It says we should guard Gods word as we would our own eyes. Our eyes are needed so we can see where we are going and don’t stumble – needed for guidance. Gods word is our spiritual eyes. It guides us along the best path for our lives. Without God’s word we are spiritually blind. If we spend a lot  protecting our physical eyes, then how much more our spiritual eyes.

Let’s invest in Gods word. Store it up and meditate on it till it becomes a part of us.

Verse 6 – 27
“While I was at the window of my house, looking through the curtain, I saw some naive young men, and one in particular who lacked common sense. He was crossing the street near the house of an immoral woman, strolling down the path by her house. It was at twilight, in the evening, as deep darkness fell. The woman approached him, seductively dressed and sly of heart. She was the brash, rebellious type, never content to stay at home. She is often in the streets and markets, soliciting at every corner. She threw her arms around him and kissed him, and with a brazen look she said, “I’ve just made my peace offerings and fulfilled my vows. You’re the one I was looking for! I came out to find you, and here you are! My bed is spread with beautiful blankets, with colored sheets of Egyptian linen. I’ve perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let’s drink our fill of love until morning. Let’s enjoy each other’s caresses, for my husband is not home. He’s away on a long trip. He has taken a wallet full of money with him and won’t return until later this month. ” So she seduced him with her pretty speech and enticed him with her flattery. He followed her at once, like an ox going to the slaughter. He was like a stag caught in a trap, awaiting the arrow that would pierce its heart. He was like a bird flying into a snare, little knowing it would cost him his life”. (6 – 23 NLT)

“So, friends, listen to me, take these words of mine most seriously. Don’t fool around with a woman like that; don’t even stroll through her neighborhood. Countless victims come under her spell; she’s the death of many a poor man. She runs a halfway house to hell, fits you out with a shroud and a coffin”.(24 – 27 MSG)

You can’t stroll along sins house and expect not to branch in. You shouldn’t be strolling in the first place. When you come across sin, you RUUUNNNN for your life. You can’t play with fire and expect not to get burnt. In those verses as the man strolled by, sin approached by and enticed him and he fell into the trap.

How many of us stroll daily along sins path and eventually get enticed and fall for it? I know I do sometimes. I will give an example to drive home my point. I’m trying to be healthy, so I’m watching what I eat. Now I know there are few aisles in the grocery store I ought to avoid but I tell myself I will walk past, I won’t stop even though there are other ways to get to my healthy food section. So here I am, pushing my trolley, walking past those aisles and all of a sudden I look and I see my favourite desert is on sale for less than half price. So the battle begins….my mind tells me walk away we are eating healthy but my flesh starts to remind me of the taste of the desert and at this point, I am caught between two world’s. Eventually my flesh wins and I console myself by saying – ‘oh well it’s a one off’…. ‘I’ll work it out’ or  ‘I’ll skip a meal’. Now I could have avoided this dilemna had i taken another route to my healthy section.

What I am trying to say here is that, toiling or playing with sin is a dangerous game. Let’s learn to run away as far as we can with the help of the Holy Spirit from sin. I think about the story of Joseph in Genesis. Had he stayed a lil longer and tried to rationsalise potiphars wifes offer, he would have missed it completely but thank God he RAN for his life. Yes he ended up in jail for running but the reward at the end was far greater than the few mins of pleasure he would have had with Potiphars wife, that probably would have cost him is life.

Hebrews 12 : 16 -17 says:

“Watch out for the Esau syndrome: trading away God’s lifelong gift in order to satisfy a short-term appetite. You well know how Esau later regretted that impulsive act and wanted God’s blessing—but by then it was too late, tears or no tears”.(MSG)

Don’t stroll through sins neighborhood.  The cost for strolling is too high. Sin would take you where you didn’t intend to go, keep you longer than you planned to stay and cost you more than you wanted to pay for it.

RUN! RUN!! RUN!!!

Thanks for joining today. Pls feel free to share your thoughts on the chapter.

Have a blessed evening 🙂

***With God all things are possible***