A Sacrifice of Thanksgiving

Cravings! A lot of us understand the power of craving for food like chocolate, pizza or something else. Sometimes what we crave will do us no good and sometimes it becomes the bright spot of that day. In the last few days, I developed a craving in my spirit for loud joyful music that I can dance to and connecting the dots for me was a passage I read in Psalm 50 and the phrase that jumped out to me was 'Sacrifice of Thanksgiving'. Being in the dispensation of grace means that I don't need to follow the guidelines laid out in the old testament for such sacrifice, but I can do one thing! King David danced with such abandon that he lost his clothes, his son Solomon made an extravagant offering to God that brought down the glory of God, so by these reason, I want to offer a sacrifice of praise and dance to God.

My Thanks to God for the following: His unfailing love and mercies, goodness and faithfulness, the gift of waking up each morning when some did not have that opportunity, protecting me from both seen and unseen dangers that surrounded me, for fighting my battles for me, supplying  my every need, healing me from sicknesses and diseases. Praise be to God Almighty for showering me and mine with favor, for making ways where there seems to be no way, for the family and friends am surrounded with, for every answered prayer and working all things out for my good. Blessed be the name of Jesus because that name opened closed doors in my life, his blood redeemed me from sin and shame and gave me the gift of eternal life. I cannot finish counting what God has done because they are numerous. I just say 'Thank you Jesus.

Am determined to set aside time everyday of this week to dance and worship God and am encouraging you to join me. You can find a lot of music that you can really dance to on YouTube. You can dance to the video below or click on the various links.

https://youtu.be/c5ealV_vGpY

https://youtu.be/hwSEVWE7ng4

https://youtu.be/Ra4HWj1jrJA

https://youtu.be/c5ealV_vGpY

https://youtu.be/c5ealV_vGpY

Testimony

To read testimonies of what God is doing in the life of people, the link below leads to the Christian Broadcasting Network(CBN) 700 club program.

http://www1.cbn.com/video/WOK284v3/woman-finds-remedy-to-unrelenting-knee-pain


Have a great and blessed week of rejoicing in the Lord.

The Power of Prayer

Prayer!!!, a beautiful and wondrous means of communication between man and God, it could be just a whisper of 'I love you God' or a desperate cry of 'Jesus help me, save me, I need you now!'. Engaging in prayer is simply letting God in and our self out, showing our utter dependency on the One in whom "we live and move and have our being" Acts 17:28.


The topic of prayer is inexhaustible because from Genesis to Revelation we find stories of how people poured out their hearts to God in different circumstances and situations. Not only do we see people pray, but we read of answers to prayers. Sometimes we can get weary when it seems like the heavens are closed and our expected answers are taking time, I encourage in such moments to say
"Jesus, help me, Strengthen me from my inner man, help me to keep trusting as I wait".

I found the testimony below to be simply riveting. It shows that prayer is indeed powerful, that God is awesome and that unified prayer accomplishes much. God is faithful and his mercies never end.

 

 

Click on the link below to read the testimony am sharing this week. It's a podcast of Jesus Calling and you will also find a narration of the podcast.

 

http://www.jesuscalling.com/blog/the-power-of-prayer/

 

 



"If the Lord had not"

 

Psalm 124:1             "If the Lord had not been on our side—

                                  let Israel say—

Psalm 136:1,4 & 23 "Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.

                                 His love endures forever.

                                 to him who alone does great wonders,

                                 His love endures forever.

                                 He remembered us in our low estate

                                 His love endures forever."

I wonder if you have ever had "if only moments", such moments tend to be filled with regret or remorse for things not done well, or failure to achieve a particular goal. On the other hand, because God is God alone and all power in Heaven and Earth belongs to him, we can have moments where we can not but acknowledge that, "If the Lord had not"; helped me, saved me, delivered me, heal me e.t.c;. The testimony shared today reflects one of such moments.

Meanwhile, kindly allow me to request for submission of your story, something that God has done in your life either in the past or recently, its' all to the glory of God and to encourage your neighbor who is going through something similar. To make it easier, you can make an audio recording using the sound recorder on your cell phone and send it to itestifytoyou@gmail.com. Thank you.

DIVINE INTERVENTION:

My name is Joy and God has blessed me immeasurably with a great spouse and children. The testimony am about to relate is on how God divinely intervened in a situation that doctors could not provide answers. I got pregnant with my 3rd child when I least expected it, I was not a happy camper because it was unexpected and also because my previous pregnancies were rough rides. I decided to pray and asked God to make the pregnancy a dream for me, that I will not experience any illness and will be strong throughout. God was faithful as that pregnancy was indeed like a dream, I was so strong that friends who visited me a day before I put to bed, did not believe the news as they did not see me like someone about to drop.

The delivery itself is another testimony as God preserved my life when I lost consciousness during labor, I eventually had a C-Section. The main story is on what happened after discharge from the hospital. All was well until the first baby check up at two(2) weeks. It's expected that a new baby will lose a little weight after birth, but however, my baby's weight loss was very high. The doctor asked me a series of questions to ascertain that my baby was feeding well, sleeping as expected and how frequent was urination and bowel movement. My answers were quite okay, so the doctor asked me to bring the baby back in ten(10) days. 

 

 

Naturally as a mother, I became worried and perplexed as I was trying my best to take care of my baby. At the second visit, there was a further loss of weight, at that point, the Pediatrician became concerned, She checked him out and found nothing wrong. I was interviewed by a Nutritionist to determine if I was eating well and if there will be need to start bottle feeding on powder milk. I was told to come back again the following week. By this time, I became deeply troubled and was prepared to do all I can to help my baby. I purchased Enfamil and started bottle feeding. However after one week, there was a further weight loss. A baby that weighed about 6lbs at birth was now weighing about 3lbs.

Consequently, we were referred to the Children's Specialist Hospital in my area. During the day we spent there, my baby was monitored and tested, but we were told to go home around 11pm that night as they did not observe neither discovered anything wrong. I was emotionally wrecked that day as I reached my wits end, I was desperate to see a turnaround in that situation. When I got home around 12 mid night, I carried my baby to the bathroom, put him on the counter top and said " God, there you have him, I did not want another child but you decided to bless me with him, so if indeed you are God and nothing is impossible with you, touch whatever is wrong in my baby's body that even the doctors could not see". After praying, I poured anointing oil on his head and rubbed it on his body as well.

To the glory of God, I started noticing changes in my baby after three(3) days and by the time we went for our weekly checkup he had gained about 3 ounces. I was excited and knew God has answered me. The weigh in after another week showed an additional 3 ounces gained. The pediatrician called me aside and asked "Tell me, what have you been doing differently in the care of your baby?" I answered " nothing at all but Prayer". By the time my baby clocked three(3) months, he had stopped bottle feeding, stopped our weekly visits and at six(6) months weighed double the range he should weigh at six months. God divinely intervened when I had reached my wits end and when doctors could not provide answers. Anytime friends and people around want to call my baby's name, they will put 'Big' in front of his name. God wiped away my tears, took away my sorrow and put joy and laughter into my life.

Thanks be to God, who is ever attentive to our prayers. The name in the above testimony was changed as per the sharer's request. 

Can we worship God together by listening to the music below?

God You Are Good by Don Meon

From Pit to Solid Ground

Have you ever felt like 'am sinking', and can't seem to hold on anymore? Have you ever felt trapped and unable to find a way out? Feelings like,'this is it, I can't do this anymore' or 'I wish there is someone out there that cares about me', all these feelings and more happens or has happened to us at one point or stage in our life. When we hit rock bottom and can't seem to break free from the pit of despair, depression, poverty, sickness or addiction or something else, there is someone right there waiting for our cry of 'Help me', 'I need you', 'I surrender all to you', Yes Jesus is waiting for us because He said in Matthew 11:28 ""Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." The testimony below was culled from an article published by faithgateway and also a " I am Second video featuring Brian Welch. I happened to watch the video a couple of months ago and when I read his testimony from the article, I felt like sharing it in order to encourage someone not to give up. Feel free to either read or watch the video, some related facts are the same and a few details are new in each one. A Little Tidbit: My eyes was opened to something quite important in the Bible and relevant to our Christian faith last Sunday, so if you have time check my reflections page to read about it.   With My Eyes Wide Open: From KoRn to Jesus by Brian "Head" Welch, from With My Eyes Wide Open
I’ve often wondered why there isn’t some kind of system in place that decides who can and can’t have kids. Think about it. Any moron can have a child. Take me for example. I was an alcoholic meth-head with a train wreck of a marriage who spent more time on the road partying with his band than he did at home playing with his kid. Not exactly what you’d call father-of-the-year material. Granted, I wasn’t a complete idiot. I did help form a successful band, and we did go on to sell almost 40 million albums and win two Grammys. For more than a decade, we were at the top of the music scene. Sold-out concerts. World tours. Award shows. Money. Fame. Professionally speaking, we had it all. Our personal lives, however, were pathetic — especially mine. But even morons can change. In 2005, after years of living the typical rock-star lifestyle plagued by substance abuse, serious domestic issues, and eventually divorce, I decided to accept an invitation from my friends Eric, Doug, and Sandy to go to church. I had just moved back to my hometown of Bakersfield, California, to be close to my family. A single dad, I was trying to raise six-year-old Jennea by myself, and I needed help — a lot of help. Thank God my parents were, and still are, amazing. They loved Jennea to death and were extremely supportive, but I was still struggling. And I was tired. Tired of being a meth-head. Of living a double life. Tired of fighting with depressing, suicidal thoughts. I had tried willpower and doctors to help me get clean, but I always ended up with less than impressive results. So when Doug said, “Hey, Brian, why don’t you come to church with us on Sunday?” I decided to go ahead and give church — and God — a try. That’s when it happened. I had an encounter with Christ that changed my life forever. I didn’t see him with my physical eyes — it was much deeper than that. I saw him with the eyes of my heart, and my spirit knew the exact moment he walked into the room and actually touched me. I was suddenly and completely consumed by a love from another dimension as Christ literally came to live inside of me that very moment. I had heard people talk about Christ residing in a person’s heart, but this was a reality being powerfully demonstrated in my life right then. It’s pretty impossible to describe heavenly things with earthly language, so just know that what I’m attempting to describe is way better than these words. Earthly language can only symbolize what the beauty of the heavenly reality actually is. Everything changed for me in that moment. I felt God’s divine love flow through me, and that love infused me with an incredible power. It gave me the power to break free from meth and every other addiction I had, and it gave me the strength to walk away from a wildly successful music career so I could focus all my energy on the one thing that mattered more to me than anything else in the world — raising my daughter. God, in his infinite mercy, had pushed the reset button on my life, and I was determined to make things right. I was clean. I was eating better. I was exercising. I was going to church and developing my relationship with Christ. I had officially left KoRn (very publicly, I might add), and now I was about to spring the huge surprise on Jennea. You see, the thing Jennea needed the most in her life at that time was stability. Her mother, Rebekah, had fallen into drugs (along with me) and disappeared out of our lives back when my little girl was just a baby, and all Jennea really knew about me was that I wasn’t around very much. Well, all that was about to change. One morning, while Jennea was playing with her toys, I crouched down in front of her and said, “Jennea, guess what?” “What?” “I’m going to quit work so I can be at home with you full time.” Jennea’s eyes lit up, and she broke into a huge smile. “Really?!” she squealed. “Yeah. I love you, and I want to take care of you all the time from now on. What do you think?” “Cool!” she shouted, wrapping her arms around my neck in a hug. I was on top of the world. The look on her little face was worth more to me than all the gold and platinum albums on earth. I was loving every second of it. This was it. I was going to create a whole new life for us. So what did I do? I did what all morons do. I did the complete opposite of what I should have done. When you’ve been a rock star for eleven years and are fresh off of a two-year meth addiction, even when God opens your eyes to experience his love, you don’t automatically gain the ability to always make good decisions. And let’s be honest, I wasn’t the best at making good decisions to begin with. Some of my intentions were good, but even then my timing and execution were horrible. My first idiotic move was yanking Jennea out of the school she had been attending because I wanted her to go to school at our new church, Valley Bible Fellowship. Then a few months later, I pulled her out of that school and hired a friend to be her nanny and homeschool her. Why? So I could eventually go out on tour later that year. That’s right. The ink in the magazine articles about me quitting KoRn to become a clean-living, Jesus-following, stay-at-home dad had barely even dried, and already I had yanked my daughter out of two different schools and hired a nanny so I could hit the road again. Yep... I was doin’ great. I’m what you might call an all-or-nothing type of guy. Whatever I do, I do it big — 100 percent — even when it completely contradicts something else I’ve committed to doing 100 percent. Yeah, I know. It doesn’t make a lot of sense. Like I said, sound, logical decision making wasn’t exactly my strongest trait back then. After I left KoRn, I became convinced that my new calling was to become a solo artist and change lives through my music. So I started working on new songs and basically ran around like a chicken with its head cut off, making plans to record my solo album and prepare for a big tour. I was running on pure spirit-driven adrenaline. Passion pushed logic and common sense right out the window, and for a few short weeks, I was convinced that by year’s end I would start touring full time again — and be there for Jennea at the same time. Then one day I woke up and realized I was being an idiot. I had made a promise to my daughter, and I needed to keep my word. I still felt called to reach out to people through my music, but for now anyway, the world would have to wait. There was one little girl who had already been waiting for me long enough. Read more Click on the this link to watch the video or watch directly on this page. I am Second- Brian Welch