Tag Archive | Jesus

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 30 – Just enough is all you need…

Jul24

Good afternoon y’all. Happy Friday.

Thanks be to God for seeing us thus far in our study of Proverbs. We are in chapter 30 today.

From Monday 27th July, we will be doing a week in depth study of Proverbs 31. Courtney from good morning girls has done a brief info on this for us. Check out her blog post here…

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For those who are joining for the first time, I’m blogging through the bible a chapter a day with Good morning girls. You can check us out at www.goodmorninggirls.org

Back to today’s reading 🙂

Be blessed 🙂

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“O God, I beg two favors from you; let me have them before I die. First, help me never to tell a lie. Second, give me neither poverty nor riches! Give me just enough to satisfy my needs. For if I grow rich, I may deny you and say, “Who is the lord ?” And if I am too poor, I may steal and thus insult God’s holy name” (NLT).

“And then he prayed, “God, I’m asking for two things before I die; don’t refuse me— Banish lies from my lips and liars from my presence. Give me enough food to live on, neither too much nor too little. If I’m too full, I might get independent, saying, ‘God? Who needs him?’ If I’m poor, I might steal and dishonor the name of my God.” (MSG)

Oh my! These verses are so relevant for where I am right now. I have been making similar request to God this past week.  By God’s grace, I realised that a hint of pride was starting to set into my heart (especially since I’ve been experiencing a lot of breakthroughs and increase in my life recently. That temptation to take the glory to one’s self instead of giving it back to God has been rearing its ugly head) so I’ve been asking God to help me remain humble in the midst of the blessings and overflow He is bringing my way; that my heart will not be led astray by the increase.

The writer of today’s chapter was also praying and begging God in a similar manner. He asked God to help him deal honestly and not tell lies; that God will bless him with just enough to satisfy his needs, so that he won’t become too proud or have to steal and bring shame to God’s name. I am humbled by his prayer. This man realised he needed God’s help to achieve this level of maturity and wisdom. He understood the danger of pride and greed in ones live.

God wants to bless us, but He is delaying it for some because He knows we can’t handle the blessing yet: it is most likely that (for some of us) our hearts will be lead astray or we might decide we don’t need Him anymore!

Let’s learn to be humble and be content with what we have and learn to make the most of it.

Scripture says, “…godliness with contentment is great gain…”.

My prayer today is that God will bless us with just enough that we need to carry out His plans and purposes for our lives; and that our hearts will not be lifted up and we will not bring shame to His name, In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Thanks for joining today. Please feel free today leave your thoughts on the chapter.

Have a blessed weekend 🙂

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