“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, Because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners’- Isaiah 61:1 (NIV)
Once I came across a gentleman who had become a Christian in the course of a long and successful career as an investor on the Chicago stock Exchange. Prior though a multimillionaire he was not happy and fulfilled until the day he received Jesus as Lord and personal savior (John 3:16). Excited with his new found life in Christ, he loved nothing like sharing his faith. He regularly gave out Gospel tracts to his staff. Then one day he got a rude shock.
His firm did a lot of business with the government which came out with a ruling forbidding mixing faith and state. The businessman was therefore stopped from sharing the Gospel at his workplace, which he loved more than anything. He was not amused. Subsequently, he decided to sell out his interests in a successful firm he had founded, and retire.
Today, there are places around the world where sharing of faith in Christ is becoming harder and troublesome. Interestingly, some of these are places where Christianity has its roots, before spreading out to the rest of the globe, as like in many parts of Western Europe. However, through the cunningness of Satan, he has taken over some of these places, imposed laws that make it difficult to preach the Word of God. Like carrying out work with government, where believers must first sign up to embracing practices the Bible forbids, or else lose federal aid.
Elsewhere, in most of Africa, this is not the case, yet, for most nations. Believers have a choice to share their faith in the market place and work with state governments without being coerced into practices their conscience forbids. We should therefore not loose sight of these freedoms or take them lightly. We have a two fold task. First, to pray for those places where it is increasingly becoming a taboo to preach the Gospel; and, secondly, thank God for the freedoms we enjoy, to practice and share the Gospel of Christ, which we should not take for granted!
Prayer for today: Lord Father God of Abraham, maker of heaven and earth, today I thank you for being in a nation where I am free to share my faith in you, even at my work place, and may I not take this freedom for granted, but fully use it for your glory, this I pray in Jesus’s name!
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19/04/2024 - 20/04/2024 All day“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland” ( Isaiah 43:19).
Just before fire was unleashed down on Sodom and Gommorah, Lot was told to pack up with his wife and two daughters and leave their homestead. Now, once out of danger, “But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt” ( Gen 19:26). Perhaps here we might pause and ask why she was bothered to look back.
Of course it could have been that old “curiosity killed a cat” mistake! Yet, it could also have been Lot’s wife was not sure where she was going and longed for her old life back. This is a common error. There was nothing stirring to look back. Just before Lot’s neighbors had attacked his house eager to rape his visitors. “They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them” ( vv 5). Was there anything worth looking back to!
The case of Lot’s wife could be anyone else’s experience. The Lord has plucked you out of some mess. You have been delivered to a new life. Yet, somehow you decide to look back, as though there was anything good and worth longing for. Sometimes it is a bitter past you have been delivered from. Other than rejoice in your new blessings you keep being drawn back!
A wise caution goes, “As a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly” ( Proverbs 26:11). If the Lord has just led you out of a certain mess why look back like it was much better! Instead look ahead, for “he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters, who drew out the chariots and horses, the army and reinforcements together, and they lay there, never to rise again, extinguished, snuffed out like a wick: Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past” ( vv 17- 18).
Prayer today: Lord Father God of Abraham, maker of heaven and earth, I thank you for delivering me from the darkness of the past and I look forward to a bright new future in you, this I pray in Jesus’ name!
