Psalm 127

Good day  I'd like to share with you some of the responses I've received from various people that receive the emails/messages/letters I send out. This method of reaching people (messaging & letters) is only ONE OF MANY WAYS in which the Holy Spirit can work and make a difference in someone's life. It's like constructing a building, where the person we're trying to reach is that building, and by laying one brick upon another, we trust that God will draw them to Himself ... one brick may be getting someone's contact and sending them these messages - another brick may be that person meeting someone at work who attends church, whom they befriend - it may then be someone else who gives them a Christian book - there be another person keeping that individual in prayer - then it may even be a billboard or sticker that they come across that reminds them about God - then it's meeting someone who will invite them to church, etc. ... and this journey may even take 5...

Good day In Part 6 we looked at taking our shield of faith. In today's message we'll be covering the helmet of salvation. Ephesians 6:14-17 Stand therefore , having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation , and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints. In the message about the breastplate of righteousness, I mentioned that the condition of our heart is important because we produce after what we believe in our heart, and that we are told to protect our heart by putting on the breastplate of righteousness, which I defined as, "our heart is protected by our understandi...

Good day In Part 5 we looked at having our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. In today's message we'll be covering the shield of faith. Ephesians 6:14-17 Stand therefore , having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one . And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints. In battle the shield was used as protection to guard against an attack from the enemy. This particular shield was large enough to cover the entire length of the soldier's body. It was also designed in a manner that enabled the soldiers to lock their shields together horizontally and ve...

Good day In Part 4 we looked at putting on the breastplate of righteousness. In today's message we'll be covering having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Ephesians 6:14-17 Stand therefore , having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace ; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints. Ancient warfare battles were lost or won very largely according to the weight of the masses of men that were hurled against each other; and the heavier men, with the firmer footing, were likely to be the victors. One of the important things needed for a soldier to ...

Good day In Part 3 we looked at girding our waist with truth. In today's message we'll be covering the breastplate of righteousness. Ephesians 6:14-17 Stand therefore , having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness , and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints. In battle the breastplate was used as protective equipment to guard against blows to the chest (heart). This area is vitally important to the human body as any severe blow could lead to death. Therefore for the believer, and in the context of the passage, it implies that guarding/protecting our heart is importan...

Good day In Part 2 we saw how important obedience is to God and that the basis/foundation on which we "take a stand" has to be founded on His word and being obedient to that word. I also mentioned that the word of God needs to become our standard - our benchmark - when it comes to how accurately we demonstrate our allegiance towards Him. It cannot be based on our opinion, our parents' opinion, the government's opinion, what may seem popular at the time, what's trending, whatever "my truth" may be, whatever "truth" is convenient or popular or most comfortable to follow. To take a stand means that before anything else, my agenda, my focus, my priority, my purpose is to seek to obey the word of God for myself - and not only in my life, but in my marriage, how I conduct myself in the workplace, how I raise my children, etc. - and to see His word shape and transform my life into His image and likeness. As we move on from this foundation, we see in ...

Good day In part 1 we saw from Scripture that there's an expectation from God for us to be certain about where we stand regarding our relationship towards Him. That there should be no uncertainty or ambiguity around where we stand. That we're either with God or we're not; and that if we claim to be with Him, then there's a level of commitment in speech and action that accompany that claim. The conclusion was that it's clear that God requires us to take a stand regarding our allegiance towards Him. If that is the case, then what does it mean to take a stand? (or how do I demonstrate my allegiance towards God) This is where people may have different opinions on what this should look like...for some this is publicly opposing other religions, for others this may involve public protests, for others this may include signing certain petitions... For others taking a stand may be updating their WhatsApp status every morning with a Bible verse, or sharing Christian posts via ...

  Good day Towards the end of last year I took some time to pray and ask the Holy Spirit which message/series He'd like me to speak on next, and the phrase that I believe I heard in my spirit was, "Take a stand". When searching for the definition of the phrase on the Internet, I came across the following: To take a stand means to have a firm position about an issue. It means to defend one's point of view or beliefs, or to speak up about something important to you, or to support an issue or topic. It means to come to a decision, draw the line, resist, put up a fight, be resolute, steadfast, assert. It means to take a position in favour of, or in opposition to, someone or something. After taking the above definitions into consideration, a question that came to mind is, does the Bible speak about "taking a stand"? ... I then looked up scriptures that either directly, or by implication, indicate to us that God expects us to "take a stand" (and more sp...

Good day I trust you're doing well by the grace of God and wish you everything of the best for the year ahead. I sat in a meeting recently where someone was speaking about the fact that we need to respect our time. How our lives are made up of time and how it's something that, when it's gone, it's almost impossible to get back. They went on to say that if we knew that today/or this week were our last days on the Earth, how would that thought change our priorities, where all of a sudden many things that we thought were important might become less significant and we'd be encouraged to use our time differently. We'd probably be more intentional in our decisions/actions and less inclined to waste the limited time we have left, and instead be more constructive. Also, how differently would we treat those around us, would we be more patient with family, would we tell them how much we appreciate and love them. Would we be more kind and generous towards friends or even s...

Good day As I've previously mentioned, righteousness is a gift from God that we receive by faith in Jesus Christ. It gives us access to God's presence and the right to be in covenant with Him. For today's message, we're asking the question - is that enough, is that all there is to it, is it as simple as just praying a prayer of faith, declaring that I'm now righteous and going about my everyday life ... or does God expect anything more of me? I'd like to answer that question by referring to the below example: Imagine that righteousness was like an access card or maybe even an Identity Document (ID) or passport. It's something that indicates that you have a right to enter a particular building or in the case of an ID or passport, the right to be in that specific country. Without it, you wouldn't be allowed to go in - so that is what God's gift of righteousness is like ... The other side of this however, is having an understanding that even though we ...

Good day In today's message we'll be taking a brief look at some of the other benefits made available to us because of God's gift of righteousness. It's important to point out that when the Word of God says, that we are children of God, joint heirs with Christ and seated with Him in heavenly places (and have access to all of the other benefits listed below), that this is not based on one's feelings at a given moment in time or allowing our emotions to dictate whether this is true or not. This is something we do by faith. That is why the Bible calls us to walk by faith and not by sight. (2 Corinthians 5:7). This means that we believe that this belongs to us - That this is who we are when our spirits get born-again (John 3:1-21) - That we have a right to access, experience and walk in all of these, again, not because of anything we've done, but simply because we believe on Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour. Amen As we've previously discussed, righteousness ...