THE REWARD OF FAITH

THE REWARD OF FAITH

“Oh, my lord, what shall we do?” Elisha’s servant asked.

The king of Aram (present-day Syria) was at war with ancient Israel and had sent an entire army to the city of Dothan to capture the prophet Elisha. They came by night, so when Elisha’s servant woke and went out early in the morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city.

“Don’t be afraid,” the prophet said. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” And Elisha prayed, “O Lord, open his eyes so he may see.”

Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. (These events are recorded in the Bible, 2 Kings 6:8–17. Read the rest of the chapter to find the amazing outcome!)

In this story, the angelic army was already there, but Elisha’s servant was afraid because he hadn’t yet seen them. Why must we always see with our own eyes in order to believe? We have the Bible promise, “[God] shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways.” Is it not enough to believe because God’s Word says so?

Seeing is the reward of believing, not the other way around.

Why does it have to be this way? Why does God make it so hard for us? Why do we have to take everything by faith? The answer lies in that last little word—“faith.” It wouldn’t be faith if we could see. Jesus said to Thomas, “Because you have seen Me you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

This principle of faith is something on which God places a great deal of importance. It’s also something that He gives us credit for (Hebrews 11:6) because it is a sign of our love and trust in Him, that we believe Him and His spiritual power and the principles He lays out for us in His Word.

We walk life’s hot, hard, dusty roads battle-weary and scarred, but we arrive in heaven triumphant. The angels blow their trumpets to herald our victory. We held on when it seemed the whole world was against us. We didn’t sink when the storms of life rocked our ships. Satan attacked us on every side. He threw his worst at us, but we survived. We held on. We did our best. We believed! We won the war of faith. Henceforth is laid up for us a crown of righteousness.

(A FRIEND STORY)

Several years ago when I was very ill, recovering from a bout with cancer, Jesus told me that He had given me an “angel of comfort” to be with me during those difficult times. I never saw her face, but through many long days and lonely nights, when the pain was at its worst, I could feel her presence, like a tender mother’s, as though my head lay in her lap while she held me close and stroked my head. It was such a blessed feeling of peace, like a soft, warm aura that enveloped me. In spite of the pain, I found my heart filled with wonder and thankfulness for that special touch from heaven.

I am now certain of one thing: angels are not far from us, floating around on clouds in heaven. They are here, all around us, standing ready night and day to serve, aid, comfort, and protect us. I may not be able to see them, but I know they are near.

When I receive my heavenly crown someday, I will know that I didn’t earn it by myself; I was aided in my fight of faith by a “great cloud of witnesses,” the invisible armies of heaven. On that glorious day I will want to meet my angel of comfort and the other dear ones who walked with me and lifted me up when I was weary. On that day, I will thank them face to face.

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John 14:12 ASV – I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.

Luke 17:6 ASV – He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.

Romans 10:17 ASV – Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.

Onyedikachi Kingsley Ogbonna (Surv.)

HOW FAITH WORKS

HOW FAITH WORKS

 

God loves to precipitate a crisis. He sometimes lets things happen to make us pray and believe Him for the answer. He wants us to take a definite step of faith by making specific requests and expecting specific answers.

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Faith in God, trust in God, gives a feeling of rest of body, peace of mind, contentment of heart, and spiritual well-being. When we know that God loves us, we know everything is going to be okay.

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We’re supposed to believe God’s Word simply because He said so. It’s like a child who has to trust his parents even though he doesn’t always understand why he must do or not do this or that. He just has to “do it because Daddy says so.” Because the child trusts his parents and feels secure in their love, he takes their word for it. That’s the way we should be with God. We should say to Him, “Yes sir!” and believe it and do it simply because He says we should. That’s one way of showing our love and confidence in Him.

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How do you get faith? It’s a gift of God and available to anyone who wants it. The problem is, a lot of people don’t want it until they need it, and then they suddenly find they don’t have the faith they need because they have no background of faith in God’s Word. As no good building is without a good foundation, there is no solid basis for faith without the Word; faith in God is built on His Word. So if you feel like you’re weak in faith, there’s a simple cure: God’s Word will increase your faith.

“Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God”—meaning it comes through reading God’s Word or learning from someone who is teaching about God’s Word. The more you fill your heart and mind with the words of God, the more faith and the less worry, fear, and stress you will have.

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When you pray, expect an answer. God is bound by His Word, so remind Him of His promises. Never doubt for a moment that God is going to answer, and He will. He has to. He wants to. Trust Him and thank Him for the answer, even if you don’t see it immediately.

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Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.—Martin Luther King, Jr.

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1 Peter 1:7 ASV – These have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire–may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

2 Corinthians 5:7 ASV – We live by faith, not by sight.

1 John 5:4 ASV – For everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.

Onyedikachi Kingsley Ogbonna (Surv.)

FINDING FAITH

FINDING FAITH

One day, while browsing in a bookshop, I came across an encyclopedia with a section of Bible-related articles. I was curious to see how a secular scholar might depict the great men and women of the Bible, so I began to read some of the short biographies—the prophets Daniel, Jeremiah, and Isaiah; King David; Samson; the apostles Matthew, Peter, and Paul. …

One after another, things I had accepted as fact were brought into question: Three people may have written the book of Isaiah; the apostle Matthew may not have written the Gospel of Matthew; Paul may not have written some of the epistles that have been attributed to him. On and on it went. With phrases like “mythological symbolism,” “legendary accreditations,” and “obscure visions,” the author went on to explain in great detail how every book in the Bible was flawed or shouldn’t be taken literally. Adam and Eve should be thought of as “symbolic prototypes of mankind.” The book of Genesis was merely “a way for certain authors to express their theories on the origins of human life and cultural identity.”

I had only skimmed a few pages when a hollow feeling settled in my stomach. Part of me wanted to close the book, but another part kept flipping the pages, looking for some statement that reaffirmed my faith in the Bible. Then my eyes fell on the closing sentence of the entry on Jesus Christ. “In all the inevitable questioning over the biblical account of the resurrection of Jesus, one fact seems beyond dispute: Jesus’ disciples were prepared to stake their lives on its veracity.” And so have countless others down through the ages, I might add. The author, in his scholarly attempt to debunk God’s Word, couldn’t explain away its power.

I felt vindicated, then ashamed at how little faith I had shown just moments earlier. That closing sentence had driven out and slammed the door on the doubts that had entered and tried to take hold of my mind.

I realized then why so many people still have faith in the Bible, even after reading books like this encyclopedia, which undermine faith through their skeptical and narrow views. It’s because through the Bible they have come to know its true Author, God, and His Son, Jesus Christ.

God is alive and well; Jesus not only rose from the dead, but He now lives in every heart that invites Him in; and the words found in the Bible are alive and powerful. How do I know these three things to be true? Because I have experienced them for myself. I believe the Bible because I have seen its effect in my life.

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Matthew 15:28 ASV – Then Jesus answered, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.

Hebrews 11:1 ASV – Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

1 Peter 1:21 ASV – Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.

Onyedikachi Kingsley Ogbonna (Surv.)

LIVING HOPE

LIVING HOPE

I was thinking recently about death—how in spite of all the advances in medical science, death happens eventually to every living creature.
I was curious to see what the Bible had to say about this, and found some amazing things.
Death, it turns out, was not part of God’s original plan for His creation; it was the result of man’s disobedience to God. God had intended for man to live forever, but He could no longer permit that because of man’s fallen, sinful nature. Death is the penalty of sin, and it is one we all must suffer. “Through one man [Adam] sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.”

The good news, however, is that the sting of death has been overcome. Jesus Christ conquered death through His resurrection. The Bible calls Jesus’ resurrection the “living hope.” Because Jesus was raised from the dead, there is the promise that others will be raised too. This will occur at Jesus’ second coming, when everyone alive who has accepted Jesus into their hearts will receive new, supernatural bodies, like Jesus’ at His resurrection.

And to those believers who have passed on before this event, Jesus promised that death would not be the end but rather the threshold to a new life in the spirit. He said, “Because I live, you will live also.” For believers, death is like passing from one room into another and closing the door. They are set free from the weight and other limitations of their physical bodies and liberated into the boundless world of the spirit.

All around the world, many thousands of people have had what are now commonly termed “near-death experiences.” These people died, perhaps following an accident or during a medical procedure, but then were revived. Many of them recalled later that during the time when they were clinically dead or very close to death, they entered the world beyond. There they were overwhelmed with the feeling of being loved by a being of light, which many identified as Jesus or God, and they also saw angels, departed loved ones, and even pets. It was the most wonderful thing they had ever seen, they said, with a beauty and glory beyond anything they had previously known. One other thing that many of these near-death survivors have in common is that they no longer fear death, for they have experienced, even if only for a moment, the next world.

If we trust in Jesus, we too have a living hope of entering this dazzling new dimension when our present lives are over. There we will enjoy the splendors of heaven for all eternity, without any of the pain or problems we have now. “And God shall wipe away all tears from [our] eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”

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Romans 5:12 (NIV) Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—

1 Peter 1:3 (NIV) Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

John 14:19 (NIV) Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.

Onyedikachi Kingsley Ogbonna (Surv.)

It Is Written .... Faith

#Taxi please take us to church" the taxi driver looked at Martins and his family and said "your money na 1000 Naira" they haggled back and forth until they agreed at a price.

Martins needed a car badly, he was spending a fortune on taxis and there were times when he and his family would be drenched under the rain because they couldn't find a taxi. He had been praying about it but nothing seemed to happen until he came across a scripture in the bible that says Isaiah 61;7 (KJV) For your shame ye shall have double.

Martins had faced a lot of shame for not having a car, many times, water got splashed on him and he had to go back home to change his clothes, he had to rely on friends to pick him up and take him where he needed to go sometimes. It was quite difficult to move around without a car.

When Martins saw that scripture in the bible, he was excited and he told his wife that they could believe God for 2 cars instead of one car so they started buying things they needed for 2 cars; they got steering covers and a car seat for their baby then they began to thank God for their cars.

Martins wanted 2 Mercedes Benz cars; a black C Class 2010 for himself and a wine GLK 2010 for his wife. Both cars cost a little fortune but the bible had said they could believe for double! So they believed the word of God.

Martins was waiting for a taxi one morning when he saw an elderly man trying to change tyres for his car. He approached the man, pulled his suit and helped to change the tyres. The man looked at him and said "my son, I am Dr. Nelson, thank you so much, many people have been passing but you were the only one that stopped, I want to reward you, come to my house"

After work, Martins went to see Dr. Nelson and the man asked what he could do for him, Martins did not know what to say, Dr. Nelson then said, " I notice you don't have a car, do you like Mercedes?" Martins' eyes popped open and he began to tell the man how they had been believing God for two Mercedes Benz cars.

Dr Nelson laughed and said " your dreams just came true, I am the sole dealer of Mercedes in Nigeria and I have just the 2 cars you want. I will give you the 2 cars.
Martins started crying, Dr. Nelson told him " you remind me of my son that died 2 years ago and those cars were part of the presents he got as wedding gifts".

Martins drove the C Class and he got someone to drive the GLK home. His wife saw the cars and said "who are they for?" He handed her the key to her GLK but she didn't believe until he told her the whole story. Martins and his wife got on their knees and began to praise God for His goodness and mercies.

Beloved, what have you suffered or what are those things that have caused you shame? God said you can believe him for DOUBLE! Have you been living in a one bedroom for many years? God said you can believe Him for a 3 bedroom, have you been relegated at your office for many years? God said you can believe Him for double promotion, have you been without children for a long time? God said you can believe Him for twins! 

When God comes late, it's because He wants to come big! Don't think of how it will happen, don't think of the circumstances around you just BELIEVE and thank God for DOUBLE. It will happen, wait for it, it's coming!

My 20 year dream is to see the Gospel preached to a billion people through the social media. You too can be a social media evangelist, kindly share and repost this Gospel of Jesus Christ so that others can be blessed just like you have been Blessed.

May you have double portion.