IDENTITY

When we know who we are, when we are sure of our case, when we are established in our identity, we know what is in our jurisdiction. We begin to realize what authority we command. People around the world know that legal practitioners are some of the most difficult people to handle. Most governments and organizations are battling with these professionals in courts of law! The battle is in the term justice. Since they know what is due to them in their capacity as human and/ or lawyers, they are aware of what is rightfully theirs and trying to deny them that is not acceptable and they engage a legal battle without hesitation!

When you know who you are, you are not tossed to and fro by unnecessary madness! You take your stand and remain adamant! You know that ‘since the day of John the Baptist, the kingdom of God suffered violence, and the violent shall take by force’ and respond in kind to any organization or any form of arrangement that’s applying force against the word of God. You are aware that ‘you are a chosen generation, a royal priest hood, and a peculiar nation’ and any knowledge or school of thought which stands against that description is not of God and should be handled as accordingly! Believe me dear, no one will play games around you, even the devil together with his strategic operation teams will have a hard time trying to map your way.

When you know, who you are, it’s simple to be your best! One study conducted concluded that most people around the world are driven by an emotion of fear! You know that we are not given the spirit of fear but sound mind. You speak a language of kings! When people tell you that you are a good for nothing, you know that ‘the stone that the builders rejected became a corner stone’. When rejected, disappointed and in tears, you know that from greatest rejection and disappointments, there is great appointment and recognition! Though you live among them, you are not of them!

An eagle is an amazing bird; no wonder God used this bird in most of his illustration throughout his word. Eagle commands great respect in the animal kingdom. Though it’s living with other birds and animal it is surely speaking a different language. Some of its secrets are hidden in its identity, which it technically transformed into authority. An eagle admits that due to its body size (identity), its difficulty to take off, so it resides on high hills and mountains and when it begins to take off, it throws itself down the mountain and before it crushes to the ground, it will have gained momentum and begins to mount! Do you ever wonder why the bible says mount like eagles? Technically it’s the only bird that does not fly! Zoologists concur that no bird can fly as high as an eagle. Literature shows that it’s the only bird that can survive a violent thunder storm by technique, not mere coincidence because it has the ability to fly above clouds when it rains!!! The irony of it is that this is the bird which struggles to take off!

Knowing your identity means even taking into consideration your weakness and shortcomings, and then prayerfully transforming them into unique ability to make a mark on your world and people around you. The question is what is your weakness in life? How has your weakness affected your life? Are you getting down people’s nerve because of your weakness? What have you done to transform that into an assert, in which you and only you will own! Let me tell you the secret, your weakness is your greatest treasure, it was among the best things that pleased God after he created you! That fragile heart is a jewel of love and compassion, not a platform to continuous heart break! That brilliant mind is ideas manufacturing centre, not a manipulative instrument! That bold and strong heart signifies climbing the ladder through boldness and undying assurance, not to terrorize other student at school by bulling them!
REFERENCE SCRIPTURE
2nd Corinthians: 12 Vs 9-10

Slow Killing...

‘But, your siblings are much smarter than you’, ‘you are so dump you can even follow the teacher on simple fundamentals’, ‘all you know is athletics and football, but when it comes to academic work you are as good as dead’. Heard that before? More often than not we are raised to believe that competition is the way to go up. It’s so unhealthy that even our education system is founded on competition. What the system fails to account for is each individual’s ability and area of gift; consequently athletes are compared to academically gifted persons, weight lifters are compared with book lifters! How do you compare a cup and a fork, a chopstick with a dish?

Our parents are actually killing the potential in most of our best gifts in the world today. God knew me before the earth was founded and he was just pleased because I was good. So now, somehow, someone tells me I am as good as dead! That is spiritual, psychologically and otherwise unacceptable! I am not in any way advocate against challenging our children to reach their heights, no! All I am saying is that, perhaps we are at a time when we can start another stage, another level in human development where an individual is to compete with his/her potential, other than others. Families are in pain today because apparently John compares you to Tracy, and how she was much better than you. Why don’t we appreciate people for who they are and build them? No matter how much I try, I will never be like Mpho and the more I try, the more I frustrate myself and believe that indeed I am just as good as dead! What a painful death! I call this nature of competition a slow death, because it destroys ones wishes, ones ambitions and justify in all means that you are nothing but a relic!

This brings us to an important issue; identity. For us to go far, to have total possession of God given authority, we have to know who we are and most importantly appreciate that. This is a particular challenge for our youth. All guys want to be tall, handsome, and muscular with a strong-low toned voice and driving BMW as their first car. Nice ambitions, if you can do that, we are happy for you and bless the Lord with you for that, but if you can’t, please don’t kill yourself over that and it shouldn’t make you any lesser of a human. We are from different financial backgrounds, and we will do all we can to ensure that we make the best of the worst scenario! This is also a great challenge to woman. Guys let’s face it, I find woman to be the cream of existence, despite all this some woman are not treating themselves with respect, How can a nice, well built young woman be running up and down sourcing money in any possible way to do breast implants? It’s simple; you are competing with that fellow in the magazine. Admit who you are before the sight of God. Revelations Chapter 5 verse 10 sums it very well ‘you have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on earth’ NIV. Isn’t that enough sister?

Jealousy, bitterness and witchcraft can grow and always emerge as end products of this slow killer. Because you earned your PhD after 8 years, you fail to appreciate that some will earn it in 2 years and for some reason when you heard that Jimmy earned his PhD degree in 2 years you dismiss the program as a flop! Don’t you think that’s been bitter? All we need to know is that we are who we are, and we want to be best of ourselves, and do what we do, for what we do is the reason we find life worth living and fulfilling.
REFERENCE SCRIPTURE:
Revelations: 5 Vs 10

LET US PRAY...

 Of recent, disturbing things has been taking place throughout the world. The earth quakes, plane crushes and attempted bombs, but to mention a few. These have particularly disturbed us. From http://dawncometh.blogspot.com we pass our condolences to the victims of these devastating scenarios, we remain adamant, that some day... somehow, dawn shall be accompanied by joy in your lives.

Treasure on earthen vessels

We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. 9Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead (2 Cor 1:8-9)

For I wrote you out of great distress and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to grieve you but to let you know the depth of my love for you.(2 Cor 2: 4)

Who would imagine that a highly acclaimed, greatest apostle of all times would write such words? I am not talking about just any man here, I am speaking of a man who walked so closely with God that he would go on to write more than 75% of the New Testament, a doctor of the law, a man who confidently called himself an apostle of God in Christ Jesus, a man who walked in the demonstration of the power of God, a man who is simply an embodiment of a great walk with God. Yeah, I am talking of Paul. I don’t know about you but early in my Christian walk I wouldn’t imagine that such man would be so pressed down by life’s pressure that he would despair of life let alone think he’s been sentenced to death.

As great and inspirational as Paul was, we see the human side of him. We get to realise that he had highs and lows, he did get discouraged. I want to suggest something and do so plainly; no matter how spiritual or anointed you are, there are times when you feel real human. Moses asked God to kill him if he was not going to help him with the burden of wailing Israelites, the Psalmists once in a while did get so fed up with their enemies that they wanted to see them destroyed. Life does get hot sometimes and when it does, the human side of us tends to have an upper hand. The paradox of the Christian life is the tendency of having experiences that do not tally with expectations. I mean when you were preached to before receiving Christ, you were told that when you come to God everything will be alright but you get in there and find that its not quite the case. In fact, it just seems to get a bit harder. Like one man of God put it, “Someone just told you its gona be ok, they just did not tell you when”.

In any case, my interest is not the fact that life does throw things at us once in a while. My issue is the fact that regardless of what life has thrown and continues to throw at us, we remain standing. Regardless of the fact that Paul faced got so despaired at life that he thought he had a death sentence, he did not only remain standing but he could still put pen to paper and offer amazing words of encouragement. Despite even the attack from the so called saints, Paul still soldiered on. I mean it’s bad enough being attacked from outside the household of faith but if it comes from within, it becomes something else. If you’re told how rubbish you are in preaching by the people you encourage and pray for so earnestly, it’s just so hard to take. I mean, I don’t know it could have been that Paul wasn’t such a good orator (not many good orators get people dozing off to a point of falling and breaking their necks). But hey, we can testify to the power and revelation that broke loose when that guy put pen to paper. The issue of being a “rubbish” preacher would probably have gotten to him and hurt him as evident from his talking about it. Just like Paul, many of us have had life blows to endure and deal with and we still remain standing. So the million dollar question is how do we do that? Why is it that after going through all we’ve gone through, we’re still going strong? What is it about you that after receiving that life blow, you’ve just dusted yourself off and you’re ready to give life another shot?

I believe that the answer lies in the 7th verse in the fourth chapter of 2 Corinthians when Paul beautifully declares, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of power maybe of God and not of man”. Ladies and gentlemen, there is something in the inside of you that God deposits when you receive him into your life that just turns you into more than a mere human being. No wonder the psalmist declared, “what is man that you’re so mindful of…you’ve made him a little lower than angels”(paraphrased). My encouragement today is very simple, do not let the enemy intimidate you into thinking you’re not gona make it out of whatever life has thrown at you. I don’t really care whether, it’s the devil, your poor decisions or whatever that has landed you into whatever issues you’re dealing with. All I know is that you can not only deal with it but remain standing strong when the dust settles because wired within your Christ given identity is the ability to make it. There is a treasure in that vessel of dirt that makes you extra-ordinary!

BINOCULAR VISION

Dioptrics, is one field of study that gave humans a thorough understanding of how optical lenses work. Breakthrough in this field is applied on larger ground, from correcting human eye lenses to astronomy. Among the inventions that came as a result of success in this physics field was the development of a device called binoculars, which is a set of lenses strategically placed to allow long range view. Humans admitted that the need to extend their view beyond borders was a stroke of genius. Today binoculars are widely used in everyday life.
For over the years motivational speakers and servants of light have been and are still preaching that if an individual wants to go far in life, she/he must look beyond horizons. In other words, they must adopt a binocular vision. What a common man, with common lens views, are things in the vicinity. When a common man looks at the situation, and concludes it to be problematic, a man wearing binoculars, says this is a challenge that’s presenting a life time opportunity.
Something is unique when using binoculars and this is important for us to grasp. When using this device, you have to be positioned in an elevated place for you to focus afar without any obstruction. Equally, by deciding to adopt the binocular vision, you automatically get elevated. You begin to see 10 years ahead, you plan years ahead, you are occupied and will not spend any of your valuable time bickering why you are always washing dishes, and you see what a person who tells you that you are a ‘loser and good for nothing’ cannot see. You are busy adjusting the knobs.
Since my first contact with this device I have always been excited to view around. Somehow, when in possession of the instrument, you just want to view. Had that experience? That’s true, adopting binocular vision is a motivation on its own to view around, you somehow start to draft your business plan. You start to approach that sister you have so long believed God for. You acquire courage, you stimulate your faith! You get untouchable, you start speaking in other tongues, you begin to preach to the lost, and you have peace when your world seems crumbling on you, because you see the unseen, you smell the odorless, you touch the intangible!
Jesus Christ is the Lord of the binocular vision. What manner of man will be laid for others fault? What manner of man will be chastised for my healing! What manner of man will have 6 inch nails through his wrist and never complain? What a man is this, that will still say forgive them for they know not what they do when wearing a crown of thorns on his head? What man can be so generous to say whatever is mine, is yours? Help me find this man! Then, I will show you the binocular vision. When you get this vision, you become a superior breed. You have a clear understanding that 'money' is not the paper or coin you exchange at the counter when buying stuff... Your mind is open and you realize that it’s a hypothesis developed in ancient times to try and value what you have or can offer... and that the paper and coin is a means to reflect what you got, consequently having a lot of those papers or coin in your bank account doesn’t make you any valuable. At this point bank robbers look deeper in themselves and take pleasure in been of value to the society by contributing to its development, and adopting possession of the real meaning of money mentality. When with this vision, an executive quits a job that is involved in corrupt tendencies despite a huge month-end salary. Having this vision is a guarantee that a husband will be part of the reason why his wife is an ever happy lady.