MBJ- DAY 3

I read Genesis chap. 7-9 (New Living Translation)

In the first four versus of chapter 7 God gave Noah a detailed lay out how the kinds of animals to take on to the boat. In vrs 2 God even approved the kinds of animals that Noah was to put on to the boat. God directed him vividly. He didn’t just go out there-Noah- and pick out any pair of the animals- the ones for eating and the ones for sacrifice aside the ones he preserved. God is the master strategist. We have to let God direct us in everything we do. So many times we leave him out of our lives in the most simply things we do. If we allow God to take control of every area of our lives, you’d realize that there’s more inner joy that will later beam out of you, more fulfillment and peace in life. We say that Jesus is the Lord and Master of lives, but is he? A master of your life means he is the MASTER, not you anymore. It is what he directs what he wants. Often we just caught up in things of this world that matter to us, academics, business, jobs, money, and we think that God shouldn’t be involved in those quest too much. Of course, we’ll go and ask Him to bless us but how many ask Him, “God so what should I do with my money?” “God you’ve given me enough and I want to bless other people, so me how?” God is the master of all, I’m telling from personal experience, when you let God over your business, He’ll take care of it and you. Make God your business and He’ll make yours his. Do you know that the small things such as the how much of sugar should you put in your coffee, God can direct you if you let Him. The small thing such as the clothes you should wear on a given day, God can direct you so that you go out and people look at that old shirt of yours that God told you to pick today and they tell you, “I like your new shirt!” If you let Him be Master of your life. If you let Him, oh boy! God can even show you how to take your bath.” God limit God to certain things about you. Let Him take over.

Let’s go back to our Bible journey otherwise we’ll end up in other dimensions. I want you to look at something in vrs. 1 of chap 7.  “Finally, the day came when the Lord said to Noah, ’…and I consider you alone to be righteous.” Can you answer this question my dear readers? Can God look from heaven and say you…yes YOU! Can He look at your life and say my son is righteous and he’s still faithful unto me in this perverse and wayward generation? I’ll not say anything further about this, think about your own self for once.  

Did you realize you the rains came upon the earth? Most at times I just imagine it came only from the skies. Look in chap 7 vrs. The Bible says the underground waters burst from the earth, and the mighty torrents from the sky. That was so mighty flood and God showing His dislike for what had happened. He wiped off everything from the whole earth to start again with Noah’s family and the animals he preserved in the ark.  Dislike is even a little word to use, but for lack of words. Can you imagine? Even the highest peak was completely covered with water (vrs.19) and scientists have even proven that that a world flood has happened before. Oh my God it rained for so many months…my mind just can imagine it, because three days rain where I lived destroys a lot of thing and causes big gulleys and floods then over a 100 days of continuous rainfall. Remember I told you that it wasn’t just rain from the skies but water from underground the earth gushed out.

In chap 8 God stops the rain and the waters recede . See how the rains stops in vrs. 2 “The underground water sources stop their gushing and the torrential rains stopped.” The same way it started, it ended.God is always a God of principle, He doesn’t jump steps. Even with a flood he doesn’t suddenly dry everything up, it was step by step…then imagine with your life. He still goes step by step. Don’t rush through life, God oesn’t, it takes His time and does why every handiwork of His is beautiful and awesome. If we are patterned like Him we must do likewise, it you want everlasting success in all we do. Don’t rush! One of my favourite quotations by Norman Vincent Peale says that, “Slow down for whatever you really want will be there when you get there if you work towards it without stress, without pressing. If proceeding under God’s guidance and in His smooth and unhurried tempo, it is not there, then it was not supposed to be there.” Jump to vrs. 22 of chap 8, “As long as the earth remains there will be springtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night.” There’s a time for everything…relax and take your time.

God had wiped off the face of the whole earth, we know that right? Yeah! so now how were the people going to come back. Told you before in the previous days, God created once and he set the principle. God put his principle to work. Vrs. 17 God told Noah to release the animals after the floods had dried up to produce in great numbers. Great numbers to fill the whole earth! Noah didn’t selected animals and placed them in specific, God Himself spread them all over the earth. So where were the people going to come from? Noah’s family of course! His sons we will discover in chap 10 that they produce all the generations on the earth. One thing before we continue, let’s go back to vrs. 21 of chap 8. God promised not to curse the earth again, or destroy all living things even though people’s thoughts and actions are bent toward evil from childhood. What are you thinking? Hmmmmmmmmm…man is naturally and humanly inclined to do evil but anyone who sets himself apart from all that others and looks to God only. His business becomes God’s business.

Chap 10 from vs 18, we discover the curse Noah place on the descendant of Ham, his son for seeing his nakedness and not covering it. Yeah! You saw right, his descendant. Ham was the one who saw the nakedness of his father but Caanan his youngest son was cursed. It is a whole book, this portion of scripture. This curse went a long way to affect the Caananites and their descendants. I picked up a book today by Zipporah Koranteng titled ‘Generation of Races’ pp. 36-65. If you want to learn more about the black man becoming a slave and what the curse from Noah caused also in the Middle East as we have it now, find this book and discover for yourself. This woman discloses that Noah was too smart too curse Ham directly Look at Gen. 10:8. Noah knew too much to curse someone that had just made a covenant with God. Remember what God said to Abraham, “whoever curses you I’ll curse.”

My Bible journey goes on…

 

MBJ- DAY 2

I read Genesis chaps. 5 & 6 (New Living Translation)

The first thing anyone would notice in the chap 5 of Genesis would be the ages of the men who lived before. They lived for so long, above 600 years. The only person I discovered who lived for shorter years then who Enoch. He lived for 365 years and then (vrs. 24) says he suddenly disappeared because God took. Why? Obviously because he lived in a close relationship with God. At that time after man fell people did have that kind of close relationship with God anymore. I believe Enoch was an exception and that is why God took him away. He didn’t have to die. Some Bible commentaries say that the names mentioned in this chap of Genesis are the descendants of the people.

One more thing, if you haven’t really read this portion of the Bible you would think that Adam and Eve had only three sons, Cain, Abel, and Seth (who came to replace the second). But No! in vrs. 4 the Bible say that Adam…had other sons and daughters.

God allowed the people in those times to live longer to populate the earth. They had so many children, so many! You read in chap 6 in vrs. 1 when the population began to grow rapidly on the earth. They multiplied and because they drew away from God they were in sin. Imagine? If there were so much then sin was so much too such that God said in chap 6:3 that God said, “My Spirit will not put with man for such a long time, for they are only mortal flesh. In the future they will live no more than 120 years.” Yep! You heard right! :O No more did man live above 120 years. When God says something, it is done!

Something happened in vrs.4 of chap 6. The Bible says, “In those days, and even afterward giants lived on the earth, for whenever the sons of God had intercourse with human women, they gave birth to heroes mentioned in legends of old.” I didn’t understand why the sons of God had intercourse with women when God had withdrawn from man. I began to check other translations of the Bible then I discovered that the sons of God were the fallen angels. The Living Bible calls them evil spirits. But why of God? God created them all but they disobeyed him and fell with the devil.

It was chaotic at that time! God saw the extent of people’s wickedness, and saw that all their thoughts were consistently and totally lived. Unbelievable but in vrs.6 “…the Lord was sorry he made man”  and decided to wipe man off the earth. But he saw found favour with Noah and his family for he was righteous. Do you realize something? In Enoch’s time when people were drawing away, God separated on to himself and in this time Noah was the one God chose to save him. Why? Because they had close relationships with God. We need to be close to God to separate on to him. God will move the earth if he wants to save just one person who is in a relationship.

God instructed Noah and he obeyed. We know the story but I want to show you something. God preserved his principle on the earth. He had already created, he wasn’t about to re-create the earth after the flood. He made Noah put a pair (Gen. 6:19) of every living thing in his boat-male and female to be kept alive. Someone would ask, “so why not the plants too?” God had sown the seeds in the ground; remember I show you that previously in MBJ-DAY 1. God is a God of principles. We all know He could have done everything again but he chose to let his principles work. God preserved Noah large family made up of his three sons and their wives and his wife also. They would later multiply the earth.

 

MBJ- DAY 1

I read (Genesis chaps. 1-4) in the New Living Translation of the Bible. (NLT)

I know this passage over and over again so many times before but I had never really seen this verse the way I saw it today. (Gen. 1:6) The world was so full with water that God divided the waters into two, one portion above and another below. The space between the water He called sky. So then above our sky in the spiritual realm there is water. It makes imagine how the heavens have so beautifully been crafted. If on earth here, that waters below brought about the so many oceans we have now. Gosh! Then in heaven I bet there’s a beautiful ocean. Ok! Ok! Don’t get lost with me in imagining. Take note that in (Gen 1:8) how we had the land we are on. The Bible says that God gathered the waters beneath the sky so that they will be dry ground which the Bible calls land. If God didn’t gather the water there will no nothing but the oceans but the master creator knew what was beneath the waters.

I’m sure most of you be get amazed by what I discovered here. Look in Gen1 from versus 11. God spoke to the land to produce seed-bearing plants and grass but I can assure that actual hadn’t plants and trees hadn’t come out yet. God put the seeds into the ground. It is not like how sometimes our mind forms the imaginations in our minds that when God spoke trees and plants started springing up. I show you proof. Jump to Gen 2:4-6 quickly. The Bible says that there were no plants growing upon the earth. Why? Lord God hadn’t sent any rain. Why was rain needed then? To water the seeds in the earth! I know that God is not a God that rushes through creation. He never rushes through anything. He is a step-by-step God and He is a God of order. He planted the seeds first and then he caused water to come out from the ground and water it and then man to cultivate it.

Let me show us something in Gen. 1:27 then we come back to chapter 2. “So God created people in his own image; God patterned them after himself; male and female.”(NLT) Did you see what I just saw? God patterned my being after Himself. Do you realize what it means? He made us creators like himself. People who can’t fail in anything they do! People who can’t be poor or ever have need. He made us people who have everything we ever needed or wanted and he placed it within us just like Him and like Him we have to speak it into being. We can’t have sickness and ‘incurable’ diseases inhabiting our bodies. Finally in Gen. 1:28-30, He told us to make the first man to make more people like himself and God gave them dominion over all he had created.

In Gen. 2:9 I saw God created two trees and put them in the middle of the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life. God told man in chap 2 vrs 16-17 to eat from any tree in the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This is what beats my imaginations! Why didn’t man eat the other tree then? The tree of life because you realize in Gen. 3:22 before God banished man from the garden He said, “What if they eat the tree of life? Then they will leave forever!” (NLT). 

In Gen. 2:18-19 God saw that it wasn’t good for man to be alone and so He decided to make a companion for him but there was no suitable in the Garden. God then caused Adam to fall into deep sleep and took his ribs and closed up the place from which he had taken it and formed woman. Everything that God had placed in man was now in the woman. But this is what I want to show you. God is a master surgeon. The Bible says He knows our frame and even when we were in our mother’s womb He knew us. (Jer. 1:5) He didn’t have to stitch man back up! He just closed it! That is the God I serve!

Gen. 3:7-15 after they had eaten the fruit the Bible says their eyes were opened and realized they were naked. When God came and Adam told him that they were hiding because they were naked. He was furious! God when he finished making them look at them and said, “it is good!” and now man had found a flaw in his work. God knew they had eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and then the blame game started. Watch this. Adam blamed his wife and she in turn blamed the serpent. Realize this now. God didn’t have a discussion with the Serpent (Devil). He didn’t have any business with the devil and saw He just cursed him outright.

In my last chapter for today Gen 4 I discovered why Cain was rejected. Oh I knew already but I discovered something different. Gen 3:3-5, “At harvesttime Cain brought to the Lord a gift of his farm produce while Abel brought several choice lambs from the best of his flock. The Lord accepted Abel and his offering but he did not accept Cain and his offering. This made Cain very angry and dejected.” (NLT)  I’m sure now you seen it. It wasn’t that Cain offered God bad farm produce. He offered a gift. A gift is usually good. You can’t offer a bad gift to someone, can you? No! Abel’s offering was the best of the best from his flock. You can’t offer God what is good enough. You offer Him the best of the best in everything, your heart, your money, etc…

 

 

MY BIBLE JOURNEY

     I have decided to read through the whole Bible. It somehow amazes me- people find it easy to read books as huge as the Bible but yet haven’t found time to read through the whole Bible once. I’m not saying you are the only one at fault. I’m also part but I’ve resolved to read through the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation. Why do we have to make the Bible only a pick up and take to church book? People! We have got to look into in ourselves personally. To make this journey fun, why don’t you join me in doing the same?  Read as many chapters you can daily not rushing through but taking time to understand every words and every sentence.  I’d tell you about some of the discoveries I make along the way. Holy Spirit help us on this journey; grant us insight and the will to complete. I will name it the posts as MBJ and the corresponding day, such as MBJ-DAY 1, MBJ-DAY 2 in that order. I will categorize these posts under My Bible Journey so it won’t be hard to find in case you want to go back.

Take your Bibles and let’s go.

 

MY GOD OF TWENTY YEARS

     Hello Daddy I just wanted to come to you to say a big thank you to the day you thought about forming me in my mother’s womb.

Thank you for when you formed me in my mother’s womb. Thank you for when you carefully formed my bones and in body.

 Thank you for when you brought me into this world successfully on the 1^st of July 1989. I was so ecstatic that I cried in glory of your works that my five senses worked to perfection.

Thank you for the already made milk you prepared for me and the loving home that you welcomed me into.

Thank you for making me the first born son of the wonderful you selected to be my parents.

Thank you for the first steps I took in crawling on to my two feet.

Thank you for provision you made available to my parents to cater for me- my food, clothing, shelter, water and other material elements.

Thank you for when you gave my parents two other children after me. Thank you for my beautiful sisters, Edwina and Davida. I know I wanted Davida to turn out to be a male when she was in the womb but I thank you for you knew the amazing little sister she would turn out to be for me.

Thank you for the making Benjamin my cousin come live with us since he was 7 and that he became a brother that I always wanted.

Thank you for the constructive criticisms my mother rained on me daily growing up and even still. Many times it gets me down but then when I carefully ponder, it raises me higher past my mistakes.

Thank you for those times when my dad beat me when I did things that displeased him because it all helped to shaped me into who I am now. Even for the times when I went to bed early when I had done something wrong to avoid my father’s chastisement only to wake up in the morning to receive it I say thank you.

Thank you for the friends and family I had, have and will continue to have all around me, in my community, church, school, society, nation and world as a whole.

Thank you for all my teachers who have taught me even the very tiniest bit of knowledge throughout all the classes and schools I have been in.

Thank you for the two car accidents I know of that you saved me from and for the many others I do not know about I say thank you.

Thank you for fighting my battles for me and lifting me up from the jaws of death.

Thank you for the angels of the Lord that encompassed me round about.

Thank you for results you gave me in all tests, assignments and examinations I took I say thank you.

Thank you for the day you convicted me and I made a decision for follow you for the rest of my life by accepting Jesus as my Lord and Personal Saviour.

Thank you for the water and Holy Spirit Baptism you gave me and I say Papa thank you for your gift of salvation.

Thank you for all the servants of God and vessels of God who brought my way and those I had the privilege of sitting under their feet to help me grow spiritually in getting to know you.

Thank you for when you helped me to discover my inborn talent and ability through some friends. Thank you more especially for the gift of writing you gave to me to be able to touch the lives of many.

Thank you for the ideas and manifold wisdom you grant to me daily in the writings.

Thank you for the past relationships I got into and for the reason that they taught me a lot about how to treat people especially women.

Thank you the one I’m now in and for how far you have brought Vida and I.

Thank you for my unique personality and identity.

Thank you for those hard times that I go through which makes me stronger.

Thank you for the way I smile, talk, laugh, sleep, drink, walk, run, think, sit, stand, run, write and for the many other things within my character I cannot continue to mention.

Thank you for making me like and you granting me the ability to love- You, me and all others around me.

Thank you for those times went I felt I couldn’t go on any longer for I learnt to trust in my God that watches over me.

Thank you for the times when I had no money in my pocket and my finances not good for I learnt that my Father owned the whole world and I was heir to his throne. In those times you carried me through and made sure I never lacked my basic needs.

Thank you for the idea for granted me a few days ago that will change the course of my life.

Thank you for every single time I talked to you and you listened.

Thank you for every single birthday I celebrated and now 20 years of age I say Daddy thank you.

Thank you those times when I was so afraid and shy for who gradually built my confidence and made me fearless.

Thank you for me not getting angry when people think I would.

Thank you for taking me to Ivory Coast- the little French I study, the tons of experience I had in work, the lovely people I met there, the money you gave to me to invest back home, the long distance calls I made, the stressful times I had in work and for pulling me through and for the wonderful family and friends that took care of me, for divine favour you showered on me, and the safe journeys you gave me I say thank you.

Thank you for granting me admission in Presbyterian Boy’s Secondary School and for taking me from there to the University of Ghana. For the courses I undertook and I’m still taking I’m still say thank you.

Thank you for direction that you always give me every second in my life.

Thank you for the life of the blessed person who is reading this now.

Thank you for making me a blessing in the lives of many people

Thank you for giving me life in the first place for without if I would never have enjoyed what plans for me.

Thank you for being with me.

Thank you that I will never stop thanking you in my life for you are Good!

Thank you for the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit who are ever-present in my life.

I know that even as I celebrate my 20^th birthday which will mark a turnaround in my life, I appreciate all you have done for me. I cannot even start to imagine what you have in store for me and so I thank you for what you have done and what you keep unfolding day by day to me.

Thank you for everything!

Thank YOU! In Jesus’ Name…AMEN!

 

A Hint for Father’s Day

I want to give you an idea on what to do for your father on Father’s day, this Sunday. I hope you hadn’t forgotten. Buy a simple normal father’s day card and then get as many people that know your dad to fill in the card – write something little about him and sign their names under it. They can write anything they want and it doesn’t matter but of course it should be about him or wishing him something…anything!

You see, usually everyone goes and buys a card individually and signs their names and gives it to someone (dad). Give it a few years when the others come, the old ones will fade in his memory but imagine that he opens the day someone place in his room with thousands of people (maybe just the family) who have written something little in it. You think it will fade in his memory years to come. No because it was a surprise and he he’ll always wonder how you got some people to fill up the card.

Hey it is doesn’t cost much money to do that. Good in a case when you don’t have enough cash but you want to do something thoughtful for your dad. It may be a little late now but you can do it. you go two including today till Sunday.

Tell me about it later. I just got my dad’s card filled in by his co-worker.   

Wish your dad, or anyone in that position in your life like that…A Happy Father’s Day. And if you’re already a father, congratulations man! Hey, Happy Father’s Day!

 

What Were They Thinking? #8

• Fear not that you night fail…Fear rather that you might never succeed if you never dare to try.
• Fear not that might make a mistake believing in your dream…Fear rather that if you don’t go for it you might stand before God and He’ll tell you that you could have succeeded if you had more faith.
• Fear not that if it doesn’t work out you’ll be embarrassed…Fear rather that if you don’t try that time will only prove you could have succeeded! The saddest words of pen and tongue are these: “It might have been.”
• Fear not that you might fail…Fear rather that you will never succeed if you don’t start taking risks.
• Fear not that you might be hurt…Fear rather that you might never grow if you keep waiting for painless success.
• Fear not that might love and lose…Fear rather that you might never love at all.
• Fear not that others might laugh at your mistakes…Fear rather that God will say to you, “O you of little faith.”
• Fear not that you might fall again…Fear rather that you might have might it the next time you’d only tried once more and given it all you had.
• Failure doesn’t mean you were dumb to try; it means you had courage to explore and experiment to see what would work and what would not. Failure doesn’t mean you don’t know how to make decisions; it just means you have to make another decision. You can overcome the fear of failure when you re-define failure that word:
• Failure doesn’t mean you are a failure…It does mean you haven’t succeeded yet.
• Failure doesn’t mean you can accomplished nothing…It does mean you have learned something.
• Failure doesn’t mean you have been a fool…It does mean you had a lot of faith.
• Failure doesn’t mean you’ve been disgraced…It does mean you were willing to try.
• Failure doesn’t mean you don’t have it…It does mean you have to do something in a different way.
• Failure doesn’t mean you are inferior…It does mean you are not perfect.
• Failure doesn’t mean you’ve wasted your life…It does mean you have a reason to start afresh.
• Failure doesn’t mean you should give up…It does mean you must try harder.
• Failure doesn’t mean you’ll never make it…It does mean it will take a little longer.
• Failure doesn’t mean God has abandoned you…It does mean God has a better idea!
• Failure doesn’t mean you’re finished…It does mean you have a chance to try something new.

…Failure Is Never Final

Taken from Robert H. Schuller’s,

“Success Is Never Ending; Failure Is Never Final”

Chap. 3 pp 57-58