Insight #33

FIGHT IV: GUARDING YOU GREATEST POSSESSION

This week we’ll continue our study on fighting as a Christian by looking at how to guard one of the greatest tools God has ever given man to use in his stay on earth to overcome anything. This is the mind of Christ. This week we’ll begin on a journey to see how the devil tries to rob you of that tool by blinding you to it, corrupting your mind and other devices he would employ. God bless you as you read.

The devil is extremely cunning, I’m telling you this so that you’ll know that you can’t outsmart him with your own wits, but you need divine wisdom. Let’s look at one of the basic ways he tries to stop you from using the mind of Christ. This is through blinding you to the fact that God has a special provision for you to use to dominate on the earth. He does this by using all sorts of difficulties and hardships to blind you to the fact that you’re worth something. For example, a student who keeps on failing an exam over and over again. Such a student is likely to feel that God can’t help him in that course, and for as long as he thinks so, he’ll never realize that the mind of Christ has been made available to him, if only he’ll just activate it. This tactic is usually common in young converts and weak Christians but if you’re suffering from this you need to start putting God’s word in your heart and mouth. You must also realize that there’s nothing too difficult for God to handle. Once you’ve done this, the devil’s arrows will bounce off you harmlessly.

Another way the devil tries to stop people from benefitting from the mind of Christ is by corrupting their minds and taking them far away from the place where they can access all that God has for them through the mind of Christ. For teens, this entails bad friends, unholy parties, and lustful activities and so on. This tactic is used mainly used against people who have already activated the mind of Christ and are fully functioning in them. These activities are targeted at diluting the person’s faith by making you spiritually weak. Like we learnt in one of our previous studies, the extent to which you’ve developed your faith and your spirit man that you have will determine how far you can maximize the mind of Christ in you. So basically the devil tries to get you to a place of such spiritual dullness and insensitivity that you can’t utilize the mind of Christ effectively. Some people even get corrupted to the point that their faith level is so low and sometimes, they even backslide. One thing I feel you need to watch out for is bad friends. This is one of the major ways the devil comes at people to weaken their spiritual lives. The bible specifically says in II Corinthians 6:14, “Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers.” This doesn’t only apply to marriage or such relationships. It also applies to friendships. It is extremely important that you guard yourself in that area properly. The scripture we just looked at goes on to say in verse 16;

16) And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk with them; and I will be their God and they shall be my people.

17) Wherefore come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.

As we can see our friendships are extremely important when it comes to keeping our spiritual life safe and strong. As we just saw, we need to separate ourselves from bad friends so that God can dwell in us and allow our “mind of Christ” to function as it should.

You must remember to keep away from bad friends and continue to put God’s word in your heart, mind and mouth in order to keep your faith strong and the mind of Christ in you working as it should. Join us next week. GOD BLESS YOU.

Prayer: Dear father, please help me to keep your word in your mouth and heart, Lord help me to see the wrong friends I have in my life and to disconnect form them. In Jesus’ name amen.

Insight #32

FIGHT III: THE MIND OF CHRIST

This week we’ll continue our study on fighting as a Christian by looking at a very important tool God has made available to us all as Christians which is the “mind of Christ”. Let’s take a look at I Corinthians 2:9-16.

9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

10 But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.

11 For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.

12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.

13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

15 But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.

16 For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. ( KJV)

From the above scripture, we can see that as Christians, we have received the spirit of God which reveals to us the things that are freely given by God to us. Note that in verse 14, the bible says that “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” This tells us that there are some things God has prepared for those that love him (verse 9) which only those who are spiritually discerning can know about talk less of get them.

Now, the ‘main point’ is God has prepared some special things for those love him, which essentially refers to all Christians but it says that only the spiritually discerned can know these things to their full extent. The devil knows this and would do everything possible to make sure that you don’t get to this place of spiritual discernment and this is why you must fight extra hard to reach the level of spiritual discernment in your spiritual walk.

Before I go further, you should know that spiritual discernment means the ability to understand something that isn’t obvious. How? Well it is not with your physical mind that you carry out the “discernment” we’ve been talking about. It’s with something way, way higher which is “THE MIND OF CHRIST” refer to the scripture we studied at the beginning, verse 16b says, ‘But we have the mind of Christ.’

What do we mean by the mind of Christ? The mind of Christ refers to a renewed and transformed mind which has been spiritually aligned after Jesus’ mind, enabling you to think and behave just like Christ. Can you see the beauty of this? Not only does having the mind of Christ enable us to know to the full extent those things God has in store for us, but it also grants us the ability to understand any aspect of our academics because nothing can ever be too difficult for the mind of Christ. Also when you have the mind of Christ, you succeed in everything you do, you can never be a failure, and you won’t lag behind spiritually.

As one who has the mind of Christ, you are different from everyone else and you must behave as such. As usual, you know the devil won’t take this lying down. He will fight you tooth and nail and you must resist him as hard as you can. He would seek to use all sorts of temptations to lure you from the advantageous position you have by using lust, money frivolous distractions and other worldly things…even your own temper to get you to lose the mind of Christ.

Join us next week, as we look at how to guard the mind of Christ in you and avoid contamination from the world and the devil’s distraction. Confess the following over yourself this week.

· Because I have the mind of Christ, There’s nothing I can’t understand, learn, master or excel in. I excel in all my academics and endeavours in Jesus name.

· Because I have the mind of Christ, whatever I get involved in prospers and the will of God concerning my life is being revealed to me in Jesus name.

GOD BLESS YOU.

Insight #31

FIGHT II

Welcome to yet another edition of insight, a weekly write-up for teenagers and young adults for the purpose of enlightening teens on God’s plan for their lives and also to help them handle various situations they go through every day. At insight we believe that even though kids might be the future, teens are the immediate future, so I strongly believe that teens of whatever age or class should take themselves serious. God bless you as you read.

This week we’ll continue from where we stopped last time. This is, ‘how to fight’. The last point we considered last week was “Using the word of God that you’ve put in your heart”.

(iii) Use your confession strategically.

Last week we learnt that putting God’s promises in your mouth and using it continuously is a way in which we are to fight for our rights as Christians. But that’s not enough…in order to achieve maximum results from your confession; you have to do it strategically. What do I mean by this? I mean you have to take extra time to study the bible and listen in church in order to find the confession that suits your current situation best. Let me give an example; a common mistake a lot of students make is to use “I’m head and not tail, on top only and not beneath” in order for them to understand what they learn in class. Even thought this piece of scripture is extremely valuable, it’s not too applicable to that situation…why? Well it’s because that scripture says you’ll be the head… which is relative i.e. it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll have the understanding of all the subjects you do, it only means you’ll be head and not tail…so whatever you need to be head, will be given to you because that’s what you asked for. A more suitable confession will be… “I have more understanding than my teachers” this applies almost directly to the situation. Hence, making this a better choice for that situation. That’s the power of strategy. This confession guarantees you all the understanding you need, and combined with the first confession we discussed will guarantee that you’re always head too. The beauty of this is that when you combine both, you have both understanding and outstanding success guaranteed. This is the power of strategy. Use it wisely. Always remember that God gave you faith, promises, and intellect to be used as thus; Faith to back up the promises you have converted into your confession and intellect to choose the scripture that best applies. And most of all, the Holy spirit to help you coordinate and oversee the whole process. Remember the promises are there in the bible, it takes you to find them and organise them in the best way possible and use them to fight against the devil.

Remember to join us next week as we continue our interesting study. GOD BLESS YOU.

Prayer; Dear father, I ask that you’ll help me to understand why and how I’m to fight against what the devil might try to force on me, using your word and power. In Jesus’ name. Amen.,

Insight #30

FIGHT

Welcome to yet another edition of insight, a weekly write-up for teenagers and young adults for the purpose of enlightening teens on God’s plan for their lives and also to help them handle various situations they go through every day. At insight we believe that even though kids might be the future, teens are the immediate future, so I strongly believe that teens of whatever age or class should take themselves serious. God bless you as you read.

These days most Christians just waltz around as if they aren’t different from anyone else. They portray themselves as people who everyone can take advantage of. A lot of us (Christians) believe that as Christians we are supposed to just take anything life throws at us and accept it. Some people even believe that some negative things that happen to them were from God. Well regardless of your beliefs or opinion concerning such issues, I’m here to tell you that as a child of God, you’re supposed to FIGHT. What do I mean by fight? When should you fight? And how should you fight? All these questions will be answered as we begin this new topic today.

First, I’ll explain what I meant by fight. To fight as a Christian doesn’t mean using your fists to settle things neither does it mean using violence. Fighting as a Christian involves you knowing your rights both as a citizen and more importantly, as a Christian. As a Christian you are special, you are different and the negative rules of life don’t apply to you. Now the devil knows this but he likes to play on people’s ignorance. He knows that as long as you’re ignorant of vital scriptures, he can rob you of your victory, and he can keep you failing your exams, he can keep you sick, he can keep you in sorrow. This is why you must fight. In life the devil will keep imposing these things on you except you stand up and fight because if you don’t the devil is going to keep you bound by failure, poverty, sorrow and a whole list of other negative things.

Let’s move on to when you must fight. You must fight every day. Why, because the devil is relentless in his efforts and will work tirelessly to frustrate you as a Christian and to cheat you out of what God has for you. And you must be ready to fight, fight and fight…as a Christian, the bible says that you are a warrior. A warrior doesn’t fight once, a warrior fights continually and is always ready to fight.

Having considered all these conditions, now we will look at how to fight. There are many ways in which we can fight against all the negative situations the devil will want to bring our way. Those ways include;

(i) Having a strong understanding of the word of God; This is important because, you wont know what to fight and how to fight against it if you don’t know that youre being cheated somewhere. This might not look like a means of fighting but it is extremely crucial in your battle against the various devices of the devil.

(ii) Using the word of God that you’ve put in your heart; It isn’t enough to have an understanding of God’s word but you must put it into active confession by constantly and incessantly saying what God has said concerning your situation. You will get more accurate in your confession because accuracy is extremely necessary for you to get the best results.

Join us next week as we continue this crucial study. God bless you.

Prayer; Dear father, I ask that you’ll help me to understand why and how I’m to fight against what the devil might try to force on me, using your word and power. In Jesus’ name. Amen

Insight # 29

TRUST GOD ALL THE WAY

Nowadays, a lot of people go around claiming that they are trusting God for one thing or the other, while in reality, their trust is in a hundred things besides God. You might also fall under this category, and today’s study is about trusting God completely. In Proverbs 3:5-6, which says, “5 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. 6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” I want to bring out some things the bible says we should do;

(i) trust God will all our hearts

(ii) lean not on our own understanding

(iii) In ALL your ways acknowledge him.

This is a very popular scripture which I’m sure most of us can easily recite but let’s look closely at the second portion of that scripture which says lean not on your own understanding. In the world today especially among Christian teenagers, there’s a lot of “leaning” being done. Most people think they’re smart enough to do things ranging from studying for exams, to making money yet as they go about their “ways”, they claim to be trusting or depending on God when they have a stiff plan they are following seriously. Before I go any further, I’ll like to point out that this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make plans when you need to do things, or you shouldn’t think when you’re carrying out your tasks. It simply means you should acknowledge God before you make your own plans by consulting God in prayer; ask Him to guide you as you make plans in accordance to what He wants you to do.

The mistake most people make is that they don’t consult God while making plans, they just inform Him of their plans, that is, they don’t actually wish to change their plans even if God says so. You must guard against this mistake. Also whenever you need to do anything (exam, test, and interview), make sure you’re depending on God not only by saying you are but by also backing up your words with confession from the scripture that is related to your situation. This is the proof that you’re actually depending on God for the thing. Having said all this, let’s take a look at the scripture again, verse 6 says, “In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths”. This means that until you acknowledge God in your ways, he won’t direct your path in that endeavour. This is the sole reason for the success and failure of Christians. When you truly depend on God, you are bound to succeed but if that’s not the case, then success isn’t guaranteed for such a person.

Let’s take one last look at the beginning of that scripture which says, “Lean not on your own understanding” this is extremely important not only in this context but also in the sense that it makes you more humble when you don’t lean on your own understanding but on God’s own. You become wiser because you now take decisions the way God wants you to take them and your life becomes extremely fruitful because you are now doing things as if God is the one doing them. This is what it means for God to direct your path. Remember to put all these things into practice. GOD BLESS YOU.

PRAYER; Dear God, help me to stop leaning on my own wisdom but to depend on you truly and completely in everything I find myself doing. In Jesus name. Amen.

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Insight #28

FUNCTIONING IN THE RIGHT RELATIONSHIP

This week, were going to continue our study on functioning properly in a RIGHT relationship. Last time we were looking at the issue of communication. Let’s continue.

Communication

In a relationship, you’re supposed to know how to manage your words and body language effectively so as to maximize the relationship, by this I mean that you should know when to speak, how to speak and most of all, when to be silent. Each and every one of us has his/her sad days; those days when everything seems to go wrong. It is in such times we need friends who know the right words to say to us and how to lift us out of that pool of depression…this is what I mean. We don’t need those who come and make our situation worse by mocking or saying hurtful words to us. The same goes for you, when a friend is feeling down, you should do everything in your power to bring him out of his bad mood. Also you must make sure that every time you talk to your friends, you should allow them to say their mind concerning you. I once read that, “your friends are a mirror of your character” that is, if you really want to know how your character is, ask your friends. This also means that you have to be the kind of person that receives correction well. You are expected to do the same for your friends.

Also you need to constantly encourage your friends to become the best they can be, don’t settle for mediocre friends. You must demand the same from your friends as well. You should use sentences like, “you can do this” and such words of encouragement.

You should always be happy for your friend’s success

It is very easy to become jealous when you’re in a relationship. Especially when your friend has more physical things than you, is richer or better looking, has better grades or is more popular than you. Also it’s possible to be envious when a friend is succeeding when you’re failing. As a Christian, God expects you to be happy for a friend when he succeeds even when you fail. You must be a constant encouragement to your friend in every situation….you must let his success become yours so that when he succeeds, your happiness for him will be genuine and not out of hypocrisy.

Jealousy destroys you and your relationships; it annoys God when you envy others. Someone once said, ”If you envy someone, you’re their inferior”. You must also make sure that when it’s you that’s succeeding and not your friend, that you don’t keep talking about your success in such a way that will make your friend feel bad or inferior. Anytime you succeed and your friend doesn’t, spend more time comforting him than singing about your success.

You must pray for your friends

This is the most important thing you must learn how to do in a relationship. You must learn how to pray for your friends always at least every day. This is what keeps a good Christian friendship strong. Also you must learn to share words of prayer and inspiration with your friends. This keeps both of you focused on what really matters—GOD… never forget this. Any friend that refuses this isn’t your friend and you need to get out of that relationship as soon as possible.

Join us as we continue with our exciting study next week. GOD BLESS YOU.

PRAYER; Dear father, please help me to be a better friend by communicating properly, praying for my friends and to always rejoice at my friend’s success. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

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Hey Everyone

Hey guys Joshua here,

I'm going to create a group on facebook in order to expand the scope and accessibility of insight. I'll keep you guys updated....cheers & God bless :]

Insight #27

FUNCTIONING IN THE RIGHT RELATIONSHIP

Last week we saw how to assess your relationships and before that we learnt to always define our relationships. This week we’re moving on to the next step. After you’ve defined a relationship and you assess it on a regular basis, and you’re convinced that the relationship is both beneficial and a righteous one, then you need to move on to the next step.

The step we’re examining today has to do with learning to function the right way in any given relationship; what is expected of you, what isn’t expected of you, what isn’t expected of you and what you should expect from certain relationships, depending on how close you are, In this study, you’ll basically learn the limits you should place on every relationship. This step is crucial because it will help you to maintain your relationships for as long as necessary. This step is as follows

(i) You must take interest in your friend’s life and he/she is expected to take an interest in yours. Like we saw in our last study, you should avoid parasitic relationships. Applying this to the point we’re considering now, you must not continue any friendship in which your friend doesn’t concern himself with your affairs, by looking out for you, making sure you keep on the right path. At the same time, you shpuld do the same for your friends. Never do anything that will cause any sort of damage (whether physical, emotional, and financial) to your friend and you are also allowed to expect the same from your friends.

(ii) Accept your friends for the way they are, but love them too much to leave them the way they are. This goes against the popular saying that goes, “Love your friends the way they are”. This isn’t exactly bad, but it’s not good enough. Now, what do I mean when I say, “Love them too much to leave them the way they are” I mean if you notice any attitude, negative habits, tendencies, behaviours, words and sometimes, actions that may lead them to disaster later on in life, or get them in some sort of trouble as they go on. If you notice any of such, then you need to advice your friend with caution care, understanding and love, not in a derogatory manner; don’t make them feel bad about themselves. In the same vein, you should expect them to be able to do the same for you. Let me take the time to tell you that any “close” friend of yours that never calls you to order when you’re doing something wrong isn’t a good friend at all. Good friends should encourage you as well as correct you. The same goes for you; you should expect your friend to advice you and point out all the negative attitudes and habits they see in you too. After doing this, both of you should prayerfully and patiently work on yourselves and on each other in order to become better people. In case of a serious problem, you should both see your pastor.

(iii) Communication: this has always been a major issue in most relationships now, you need to understand that its not everyone you have to tell your deep secrets. Make sure that its only those close to you that know much about you. Note that not everyone must know every detail about you. Learning to know when to withhold info about yourself and when to release it is extremely important. We’ll look into this in detail in our upcoming study. Remember to put into action all that you’ve seen in this study. God bless you.

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Insight #26

This week, we’re continuing our series on relationships. Last week, we were introduced to the concepts of relationships and the difference between associations and friendships. We learnt that we must define every relationship that we’re in so as to properly direct our focus, attention and time.

The second thing we must do with our relationships is to assess them. This step applies to both your friendships and associations. Let’s look at this in greater detail. We all know looks can be deceiving as well as the fact that people change overtime, it is necessary to make sure that your relationships are still affecting you the right way consistently. Consider this, you meet someone who seems nice, morally upright and shares the same interests and values as you, and you immediately become friends with such a person but deep down the person was pretending all the while or maybe got influenced negatively down the road. By assessing your relationships, you’ll be able t notice such negative traits and changes in your friend early enough for you to warn him and try helping him. Whereas if you don’t check on your relationships from time to time, you’ll end up imbibing some of those negative traits yourself. Don’t forget that you need to assess your relationships from time to time to know if a certain relationship is still beneficial to you or not.

What to do

(i) You must ascertain that you’re not the only one giving out your energy and time.

For example, if you have a friend who isn’t always available for you when you need him, but you’re always there for him when he needs you either in your academics, finances, heath wise and spiritually. Such a relationship is parasitic in nature and will only waste you and lead to frustration as time goes on.

(ii) You must make sure that you’re becoming a better person as a result of a relationship

How do you do this? You may wonder, well its easy, first you need to sit down and think back. Since that relationship began, have you become a better person as a result of that relationship or have you reduced in any area of your life? Have you become more God-fearing, Obedient or respectful? Have your values gotten stronger or not?

If the answer to any of those questions is no, then you have to review such a relationship or if necessary, end the relationship.

(iii) You must review what you talk about and what you do with friends from time to time.

Check the content of your conversations with friends. Is it clean, free of impure language and free of gossip? I’m sure we all know the danger of gossip and backbiting. You must make sure that you are not a partaker of gossip. Cut off any friend that constantly brings gossip to you. Also you need to check your activities. What do you spend time doing with your friends? Make sure there aren’t any sinful activities such as drinking, chasing girls/boys, and smoking, wild partying and so on. If you find yourself in such a relationship, cut off from it immediately because it will ultimately lead to destruction.

Now let’s take a look at some disadvantages of not assessing your relationships on a regular basis.

(i) Bad friends will take advantage of you by enjoying in areas where they aren’t contributing to your life.

(ii) When you’re being affected by wrong friendships, it will be extremely difficult to trace where the problem originated from.

(iii) You will unknowingly pick up wrong habits that will ruin you later on

(iv) You will keep some friends who are out to see your failure.

There are more disadvantages of not assessing your relationships but this is enough for now. Remember to be a doer and not just a hearer. I’ll advice you to get a notebook in which you assess your various relationships in. GOD BLESS YOU.

PRAYER; Dear father, give me the grace and wisdom to assess my relationships wisely and Lord, every area where bad friends have taken advantage of me or done damage to me, I ask that you bring about a restoration in Jesus name. Amen

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Insight #25

RULES FOR RELATIONSHIPS

Relationships can be broken down into two aspects which are; friendships and associations. A lot of people get these two mixed up but you shouldn’t. Associations with people could arise due to numerous reasons such as neighbours, classmates, mutual friends and so on but you must realise that certain associations must never cross the line. We’ll discuss this in detail as we move on.

Friendships are a higher step from associations. I want you to pay close attention to this because this is where a lot of people have gone into miserable and unprofitable relationships. A friendship should never “just happen”. Friendships must be carefully though through and prayed about. Never have, or call anyone your friend until you’re sure you want to be friends with them. You’ll see why as we move on.

Now, the first thing you must do in any relationship is to DEFINE it. That means you consciously decide whether the other person involved is a friend or just an association. This may seem trivial, but one of the worst things you can do is to have undefined relationships in your life. They will rob you of your time and energy and also bring you lots of pain. It doesn’t stop there though, if you decide someone should be your friend, and then you decide how close you’ll be to them and how valuable the friendship will be to you.

The advantage of defining your relationships is that you will be able to determine how much energy you spend on each friend, how much of your time or resources you can give to each friend, and whose words of advice, correction or encouragement will mean more to you. Before we continue, there are a few points I would like you to consider.

(I) Your friends or associations contribute to the outcome of your life. Let’s look at Proverbs 13:20;

20 He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed. (KJV)

(II) Your friends or associations determine if you’ll increase or decrease in every area of your life. Therefore they can affect your success.

(III) The kind of friends you keep will eventually form your character. If you want to have a sound character, look for someone with a sound character to befriend, just as we read in the scripture above.

(IV) Everyone needs friends, no one is an island. There are people God has purposed to be your friends.

Secondly, never have friends that are immoral or ungodly, no matter what. Even if you have been classmates since you were in nursery school. This doesn’t mean that you wont share the gospel with them, it just means that you don’t “hang out” them or spend unnecessary time with them. The reason for this is simple, because of their negative or wayward lifestyles, a lot of bad behaviours and negative tendencies are in them. And the truth is those things could enter into your life if you aren’t careful

Join us next week as we continue our series on relationships. Also if you have any bad friends or associations that affect you negatively, especially by wasting your time and energy, you must withdraw from such relationships and ask God to remove anything that might have come into your life as a result of those relationships.

PRAYER: Dear father please help me to pick the right friends and associate with those who will bring blessings into my life and disconnect me from any wrong relationship I’m in Jesus name Amen.

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Insight # 24

DEALING CORRECTLY WITH PERSECUTION

This week, were going to discuss something that every Christian will go through at one point or the other in their lives. This is the issue of persecution. Contrary to popular opinion, persecution isn’t just when someone is faced with death threats or toured because of Christ; it could also be discrimination at school, maltreatment and mockery. So today, we’re going to look at hoe God wants us to handle persecution and the reward that will come our way as a result.

As we sae above, persecution isn’t always as extreme as most of us think, no one has to put a gun to your forehead before we can say that were being persecuted. Persecution comes our way in different forms. For example, in school people might mock you or even laugh at you when you do the right thing or when you stand by your values. If everyone cheats in class and you report it to your teacher, if your classmates then begin to abuse you verbally, that’s persecution too. Based on these things, lets define persecution as, “The process of harassing or acting unfairly to towards someone as a result of their religious beliefs. Based on this definition, I’m sure by now; you’ll have seen that everyone goes through persecution at one point or the other.

Now that we have seen that we all go through persecution, let’s take a look at how we should handle it. Before we move on, I’d like to point out that it is necessary to make sure that you’re not going through harassment or unfair treatment because of something wrong you did (1 Peter 5:15) Always make sure that it’s because of your faith that you’re receiving that kind if treatment. If not, find out what you did wrong and rectify it. And if you’re being harassed for no reason you should report to authority.

(i) God wants us to be happy when we go through persecution

Let’s look at 1Peter 4:13-14

1 Peter 4:13-14 (New Living Translation)

¹³ Instead, be very glad—for these trials make you partners with Christ in his suffering, so that you will have the wonderful joy of seeing his glory when it is revealed to all the world.

¹⁴ So be happy when you are insulted for being a Christian,^[a] for then the glorious Spirit of God^[b]rests upon you.^[c]

Here God tells us to be happy when people insult us for being Christians because then, God’s spirit rests on you and you’ll also become partners with Christ in glory because or those experiences. Please note that if you go through persecution with bitterness and anger in your heart then you’re robbing yourself.

(ii) God wants you to stand firm and be strong in the face of persecution

Take a look at 1Peter 5:9

1 Peter 5:9 (New Living Translation)

⁹ Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith. Remember that your Christian brothers and sisters^[a] all over the world are going through the same kind of suffering you are.

Here, we’re told to stand firm in our faith. Don’t be discouraged because no matter what it is that you might be going through, another Christian somewhere has, or is going through the same thing or even worse than what you’re going through, so you don’t have any excuse for giving up. Also if you stand firm, God has promised to strengthen you, restore and support you through your time of hardship.

(iii) God wants you to pray for those who persecute you.

Take a look at Matt 5:14 and Rom 12:14

You must always remember that God loves the people who persecute you as much as everyone else and he wants them to be saved. Instead of cursing them and being bitter, pray that they will someday come to the light of God’s word. Just like Jesus and Stephen did when they we’re being persecuted as well.

So, what exactly does God promise us? Let’s take a look at Matt 5:11

Matthew 5:11 (New Living Translation)

¹¹ “God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you^[a] and say all sorts of evil things against you because you are my followers.

Here Jesus tells us that great blessings await us in heaven when we go through persecution faithfully. Also when you’re persecuted and you go through it with the right attitude, God’s spirit rests on us and guides us in our daily lives. So make sure you endure and stay faithful till the VERY end. GOD BLESS YOU.

Insight #23

FORGIVENESS

This week, we’re going to look at the issue of forgiveness. What it means and what its all about, why we need it and most importantly, why God requires it from us.

Forgiveness. What is forgiveness? We obviously have a lot of our own ideas and theories concerning this but one definition I like a lot is, “to forgive someone is to stop feeling displeasure at his acts or actions that have hurt you”. There’s a very common mistake a lot of people make concerning forgiveness which is, they believe that all they have to do is say. “I forgive you”. Forgiveness is a much more complicated process than just merely saying it with your mouth, It has to come from the depths of your heart. i.e. you have to mean every word you say when you tell someone that you forgive them. Also take note that forgiveness doesn’t mean that the person’s action didn’t hurt you, it just means that it’s not a barrier to your relationship anymore. Understanding this will help you to truly forgive people from the heart and not just with your lips. I don’t want you to live under the assumption that all this is easy or pleasant, but it takes discipline and awareness to achieve. Discipline yourself to be able to forgive someone no matter what they’ve done to wrong you. This statement made by Jesus in Matthew 6 vs. 14-15 will help you to understand better; Matt 6:14-15 (ASV)

14)For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

15)But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses

Let that serve as a reminder that if you don’t forgive others, God wont forgive you either, but if you forgive others, God will also forgive you.

Now that we’ve seen what forgiveness is really about, let’s look at why we need to forgive people.

(i) As we saw in Matthew 6:14-15 above, We need to forgive others so that God can forgive us.

(ii) Grudges hinder our prayers.

God won’t listen to what you have to say if you come to him with grudges in your

heart against other people. Instead of wasting your time holding on to grudges, why not let go and let God answer your prayers.

(iii) Because God has forgiven you so much

Lets look at an example; Imagine you lend a friend 5000 naira and you tell him to repay you next week. Next week comes and he is unable to pay you and with his current su=ituation, you doubt if he’ll be able to eventually pay you. He starts pleading vigorously with you to forgive him and you do. The next day in school, you see the same guy harassing someone who owes him just 20 naira. It gets so bad that he threatens to take his shoes if the boy doesn’t return his 20 naira. How will this make you feel? Will you be ready to forgive him next time around? So also God is always unhappy when he sees us holding unto grudges against people after he forgave us of so many sins.

Let this thought be your motivation as you go out this week, “If God can forgive the numerous sins of over 6 billion people daily, then I can forgive the few people around me who have hurt me”.

Join us again next week. GOD BLESS YOU.

PRAYER; God, you have forgiven me so much. Forgive me again for refusing to forgive those that have hurt me, I have no right to hold on to grudges and Lord, help me to come to a place whaere I can easily forgive anyone from the depth of my heart. Amen.

L

Insight #22

Mind your mind

This week, in continuation of our series, we’re going to be looking at protecting our minds from the devil’s lies and seeds of fear. Well you may be wondering what positive and negative words have to do with the protecting mind. The truth is, it’s what you think about most that will eventually come out of your mouth and be expressed in your actions. Also our thoughts and what we meditate on will eventually form our personality. In Proverbs 23:7, the bible says, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he”.

I could go on and on about the mind and its importance, but the question is, “how does it apply to the issue of using your words correctly? As we learnt earlier, God made us speaking spirits, but he also gave us minds. The truth is, if you spend all your time thinking about car accidents and negative things, this will be what will form most of your conversational content with friends and people you mean. The danger of this is that the more you think about evil things, the more likely you are to believe in them, even to the point that you begin to doubt God’s ability to keep you safe on the road or in your endeavours. Before you know what is happening, you’re already grooming fear in your heart and the more fear you have in your heart, the less faith you’ll have in your heart. Last week we saw that faith is needed to bring our positive confessions to reality, so also fear is needed by the devil to bring our negative confessions to reality. That’s why so many people are in trouble today because the let so much negative news dwell in their minds and in their speech and they wonder why what they were afraid of ended up happening to them. On the other hand though, when you spend your time soaking in God’s word, you groom the faith in your heart and eliminate the fear in your heart.

Now that we’ve seen why our mind is important to our confession, let’s take a look at how we can keep our minds in the proper position and shape in order to boost our faith and eliminate all fear and doubt.

1) Spend more time in God’s word

In order to keep your mind in shape, you need to soak in more of God’s word, make sure that when you read your bible, you read it to know of God’s promises to you and to understand your identity in Christ and not just as a ceremony. Also you should keep those words on your lips, confess God’s word over yourself and family at least once a day. This is the primary step to building a healthy mind.

2) Watch those you spend the most time with.

If your friends are negatively minded people who are always talking about disasters, and all sorts of evil that goes on in the community, you need to detach from such because the more time you spend with them, the more they plant seeds of fear into your heart and before you know it, you’ll start saying things like, “I can’t travel on this road because a lot of accidents happen there” or “this subject is too hard for me or this teacher is too wicked”

Instead of having those kinds of friends, get friends who speak the word of God constantly and who confess only the positive. Also, you need to ignore those who might try to mock you for being “too holy” or for being “a pretender” or they can say, “your own is too much, aren’t we all Christians? Run away from such people, they will only discourage you and bring the level of your faith down and increase doubt and fear in your hearts. Surround yourself with those that will continually encourage you to do the right thing and also correct you when you’re speaking negatively.

Don’t forget to put all what you’ve learnt today into practice and to get rid of anyone who helps you groom your fear; this could also apply to bad TV programs and music and so on. Make sure at all times and in every situation, you have God’s words on your lips. GOD BLESS YOU

PRAYER; Dear father, please help me watch my mind properly and Lord everything that is bringing fear and negativity into my heart, help me root it out in Jesus’ name, Amen

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Insight #21

This week we’ll continue our study on the effect of words. As we saw last week, God is a speaking spirit. He created earth by his words. And that’s not all, he made us in his image (i.e we’re speaking spirits too) and the great thing about it is that our words carry such a peculiar power that we choose life or death by our words. Let’s look at some more things our words can do.

(iii) The power to overcome

Now, we all go through various challenging situations, we even have some days when absolutely nothing goes our way. This is normal, and is also very easy to deal with but what most of us do is begin to say the negative. I’m sure you’ve heard statements like this, “I don’t know why but I just can’t understand maths” or “Every time I have a headache, it means I have malaria”. These are the kind of things the devil loves holding on to in order to oppress people. As usual, there’s a way out. Most Christian teenagers haven’t realised the fact that the devil can’t do anything to you except you give him permission through your words. YOU MUST KEEP THIS AT THE BACK OF YOUR MIND AT ALL TIMES! It’s extremely important. Let’s take a look at James 4:7

7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. (KJV).

I’m going to explain further. So as to avoid complications & misunderstanding, let’s look at the scripture step by step…1). “Submit yourself to God”- as we saw in our previous study,, for your words to carry the desired effect, you must draw close to God and submit yourself to Him. 2) “Resist the devil”- How? -By using your mouth. Every time the devil brings a feeling of sadness, depression, illness to you, instead of going around looking for pity and confessing negative, you pull yourself together and quote the scripture. Remember God said “resist”, not suggest or say softly. You say it with assurance and confidence and the devil will surely flee from you. So remember, the next time you are faced with a tough situation or sickness, God has given you the power to overcome and this power is in your words.

(iv)The power of “total self control”

Have you ever wondered if it was possible to achieve self control such that you’ll never miss quiet time, make silly mistakes and live exceptionally? Well look no further because God has once again made it possible. How? The answer is by controlling your tongue (words that come out of your mouth). Let’s look at James 3:2 in the NLT version.

2) We all make many mistakes, but those who control their tongues can also control themselves in every other way.

Wow. This is a beautiful promise that God has given us, once you can tame your tongue, you can control yourself in every other way. Do you know what this means? Your flesh will be totally subjected to your spirit and therefore, all those things you wanted to do (prayer, worship, bible reading) you will be able to do them smoothly. As wonderful as this sounds, it won’t just come automatically, you have to work very hard for it. That means that you won’t gossip, backbite, and talk about corrupt things with friends, negative and unproductive things. Let me advice you. This particular one might take some time, but God wants us to be persistent because the devil will try to throw serious discouragement your way but you must stand your ground, resist him and claim the beautiful prize God has put in place. Please note that even when you’ve tamed your tongue, it’s a continuous process in which you keep guarding against anything that will corrupt your words (e.g. bad TV programmes, bad friends e.t.c).

Join us next week as we move on in our series. GOD BLESS YOU.

PRAYER; Dear father, please help me to control my tongue and speak the way you speak and to use the right words for each situation I’m in. Please give me the perseverance I need to resist the devil when he tries to make me speak negatively and Lord help me to build a stronger relationship with you in Jesus’ name, Amen

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Insight #20

This week we’ll be looking at a new topic titled, “Watch what you say”. As we may all know, God is a speaking spirit. He created earth by his words, and one thing we as Christians should understand is that when God made us in his image, he also gave us the power to use words. Haven’t you ever noticed that only man, amongst all living things has the power to use words? Well this week, you’re going to understand this privilege and how to use it in your favour.

Before we go on, there are some things you’ll need to understand first. Obviously, we know that we speak using our mouth (our tongue especially). So anytime in the scriptures where emphasis is being laid on the tongue, note that it also means the words you use. Also you must note this, its extremely important; The positive effect your words will have, will depend directly on how close you are to God and how strong your spiritual life is. The more unserious you are as a Christian, the weaker your words will be. So having said that we’re going to study two major points under this “gift” God has given us.

(i) The power of life and death.

Proverbs 18:21

21) Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof. (KJV)

In Prov. 18:21, the bible tells us that the power of life and death is in our tongue. Don’t think this means that it is physically in your tongue. NO!!! This means that the power of life and death lies in the words you use over yourself constantly, so if you’re used to saying negative things about yourself, then you must stop this very moment because you’re not helping yourself. Let me explain further because of how serious this issue is. You must watch what you say at every point in time and if you ever catch yourself saying something negative about yourself or anyone around you, cancel it by saying something good instead. The best w ay to maximise the power of life in your tongue is to quote the scriptures. There are many promises God has made to us in the bible which he intended for us to turn into our confession, such as “I’m head and not tail, on top only and not beneath” and others like that. These are tools that God has given us to sharpen the “life side” in us. You mustn’t forget that if the effect your words will have, depend on how close you are to God.

(ii) The Power to possess.

Mark 11:23

23) For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. (KJV)

Here we see another key ingredient we need in using the power of the tongue rightly… which is FAITH. Faith is essential to confession because our confession is of little effect if we don’t believe in it. And to make things worse, a lot of teens have faith in their negative confessions especially when it comes to academics. They walk about saying, “That paper was too hard” or “That teacher is very wicked when he’s marking” or “No one has ever gotten up to 70 in this subject”. We all know these common negative confessions that teens make. The funny thing is that most of the time, it happens to them but we as Christians must rise up as a different set of people and use our tongue rightly. In the above scripture, Jesus used a mountain as an example to show us that the sky is not the limit when it comes to your confession. Always remember that no matter what you need as long as it agrees with God’s will for you, if you say it, you will have it.

Join us next week as we continue our powerful study on the effect of our words. God bless you.

PRAYER; Dear father, please help me to choose life by the words I say (say, “I choose life today”) and I cancel every negative word I’ve said over myself in the past. Lord help me to build a stronger relationship with you in Jesus’ name, Amen

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