Welcome to the last quarter of 2008, we thank God for keeping us alive to see this quarter and I know individually we will have reasons to say thank you. It is very important that we remember to acknowledge God’s grace and mercy upon us because if not for His grace and mercy I personally don’t know where and what my life would be like today. I know some of us may have said some prayers at the beginning of the year and those prayers till today seem unanswered, I would just like to encourage you with Paul’s word in 1Pet4:19 that says “So if you are suffering in a manner that pleases God (because you are doing what God said..MSG), keep on doing what is right, and trust your lives to the God who created you, for He will never fail you..NLT). Don’t give up on God yet, at the right time, He will come through for you, please don’t be discouraged, know that He is working behind the scenes, it might not look like He is but believe me He is, do not compromise now by looking for an easy way out (the world’s way), stay the course, God knows what He is doing. Our lives are not sustained because we can explain what He is doing but because we can trust in what He is doing, though we will never understand His ways. A Christian writer Peter Marshall said “It is a fact of Christian experience that life is a series of troughs and peaks. In God’s effort to get permanent possession of a soul, He relies on the troughs more than the peaks, and some of His favourites have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else…..” God uses our challenges to get our attention; He sometimes gives us the circumstances to make us dependent on Him.

In our Bible reading, Paul prayed that God should take the thorn in his flesh away but God refused, like us, Paul wanted God to remove the difficult situation in his life but God on the other hand wanted to reveal His power over the circumstance. He wanted Paul to learn to be totally dependent on Him and that even though he had a weakness, it should not stop him from doing the work that God had called him to do. God wanted to teach us through this that our difficulties should not drive us away from Him, but we should trust that He is able to sustain us through those difficult times. Difficulties are a part of life but we should not allow them dictate the way we live, irrespective of our struggles and challenges, we should learn to trust God to see us through no matter how long it takes.

Our successes are our greatest threats. They have a way of telling us we can do things by ourselves. When things come too easily too often, we get puffed up with pride and we become vulnerable to temptation. We become prideful and begin to forget our need for God and think we can do it ourselves (we think we have the winning formula). When pride creeps in then we leave room for the devil to attack. God allowed Paul to be humbled, the thorn in his flesh was what qualified him to do the work of an apostle not the visions he always had. It reminded him of the source of his strength.

HUMILITY is our best defence and it is cultivated through setbacks. We come to the cross because of our needs. God uses our setbacks to bring about good, to drive us to Him, to prepare us for future success, to get our lives back on track, to help us see ourselves more clearly and most importantly to help us see others more compassionately, so next time a setback leaves you feeling empty handed, look again, you might find that you have received a priceless gift. Let the devil know that this is an opportunity for you to grow in Christian character and an opportunity for you to minister to others so they don’t make the same mistake you made, so thanks be to God for the setback. In the hands of God satan is our servant that works for us, as God overrules his evil schemes to build our character. I am telling you the devil will be mad as hell because he was waiting for tears, he was waiting to discourage, instead, you are giving thanks to God because you know and trust, that every disappointment is a blessing from God.

Whether our limitations are God ordained or self made, God will always see us through. He uses our shortcomings and our abilities to glorify His name. Faith in God allows us to go as far as we can, while trusting in God’s grace to overcome the difficulties we face daily.
 
WELCOME TO OUR MONTH OF DIVINE PROMOTION.