Thoughts of Our Fathers (TOF)

READ: Matthew 22:15-22
Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's.
Matthew 22:21

Remember the words of Jesus when He said, “give unto Caesar the things that belong to Caesar and unto God the things that are God’s. Every father, no matter who he is, is due the honour commanded by God for him. God does not lose anything when Caesar receives the taxes that belong to him. That is why Jesus said that people should go ahead and give Caesar his taxes.

God’s kingdom does not lose anything when fathers receive the honour that belong to them. The morals, the holiness and the righteousness of the kingdom of God will not be compromised when a father is honoured. Many people are “over righteous”, self righteous and judgmental when it comes to the sins of their fathers. They use the errors, the flaws and the obvious sins of their fathers as excuses to withhold the honour that is due them.

Like Pharisees, they see the commandments of God as mutually exclusive. In other words, you cannot maintain the moral standards and at the same time give honour to a father if he has committed any such sins.

If it were the case that only perfect fathers were to be honoured, then there would be no need of the fifth commandment, “Honour thy father…” (Exodus 20:12) because there is no perfect father on this earth!

Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?
—John 11:40

If you are a young man or young woman hooked on dissent or despair, ready to split, then lend me your attention. My answer concerns your dreams, and the element in your make-up called “faith.” All that God requires of anyone in taking his first step toward Him and toward total self-fulfillment is faith—faith in His Word, that teaches that God loves you and that you were alienated from Him by sin, that Jesus Christ died on the cross for you, that when you make a personal surrender to Him as Lord and Savior, He can transform you from the inside out.

And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have aught against any.
Mark 11:25

Few people realize just how closely connected faith and forgiveness are. Jesus taught about that connection in His sermon on mountain-moving faith that's recorded in Mark 11:22-26.

He said, "What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. And when ye stand praying, forgive" (verses 24-25).

Jesus backed those two sentences up together on purpose. He wanted us to know that releasing those who have wronged us is fundamental to receiving from God. He wanted to impress on our hearts the fact that we cannot have our prayers answered and hold grudges in our hearts at the same time.

Unforgiveness clogs the faith channel and keeps you powerless against the mountains in your life!

If you've been praying for something and you just can't seem to get an answer, check your heart for unforgiveness. Ask the Holy Spirit to bring any grudge that's hidden there to light. Unclog the channel of faith and you will soon see things you've been praying for come to pass.



Scripture Reading:

Matthew 18:21-35

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.
—Matthew 11:28-30 (The Message)

That sounds good, doesn’t it? I’ve had enough “heavy stuff” in my life, and I want to enjoy freedom. When you are overloaded with the cares of life you need some help. Your mind needs rest from worrying, your emotions need rest from being upset, and your will needs a rest from stubbornness and rebellion. So you need to be humble enough to call out to God and say, “I need help!” Your beginning doesn’t have to dictate your ending. Get God involved in every area of your life and allow Him to lead you into “real rest.”

Deuteronomy 28:4
“Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks.

Would you want to buy a chair that Jesus made? I would, even if it cost US$1,000 because it would be of superb quality. Whatever Jesus did, He did it with perfect excellence.

And because Christ is in you, the things which you produce will be of exceptional quality too. That includes your children, who will be champions. Deuteronomy 28:4 says, “Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks”.

God was using terms that the Israelites understood since they were farmers and shepherds. Today, “your ground” is the place of your work. This means that “the produce” of your work shall be of excellent quality.

That is not all. God promises that quantity will always follow quality because Deuteronomy 28:11 says that the Lord will “grant you plenty of goods, in the fruit of your body,” which means that you will have plenty of children, “in the increase of your livestock, and in the produce of your ground,” which means that your business will flourish and you will be a leading producer in the area of your specialty.

My friend, your excellence and plenty do not come by your efforts. They come by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who paid for you to have divine provision—“though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich”. (2 Corinthians 8:9)

Jesus was made destitute of all material things at the cross. He had nothing! As He hung on the cross, He watched the Roman soldiers gamble for His robe. His last possession on earth was gambled away. He became poor, so that you could be blessed with the excellent and the plenty!

Memorise: Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee: Thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands. Job 14:15
Read: Isaiah 59:1-3 (KJV)

1 Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:
2 But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.
3 For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness.




Bible in one year: Exodus 10:21-12:42, Psalms 113
MESSAGE
Alienation or banishment is a form of punishment in which a guilty person is expelled from a region and forbidden to return. Alienation is commonly used by God in the Bible to cut off sinners from His presence. A good example is the banishment of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden as a result of their disobedience to God. Open Heaven Thursday 1 December 2016:- His ears are not dull. I pray that you will never do anything that will cause God to cut you off from His Presence in Jesus’ name. Isaiah 59:1-2 says:


“Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; Neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, And your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.”


Christians today are daily challenging God by constantly indulging in acts that are clearly recorded as reasons for alienation in the Bible. For example, some people intentionally dress scantily on the street. Can you imagine somebody purchasing a nice pair of trousers, and deliberately using a blade to rip it to shred before certifying it ‘fit’ to wear? If you cannot clearly spell out what passes as decent Christian dressing for yourself and your household, then you are the one to be held responsible for the loose behaviour and excesses of your family members. This is tantamount to an open invitation to alienation or banishment from the Presence of God, which explains why some Christians suffer unexplained attacks from the devil. The Presence of God departs from such Christians, making them an easy target in the hands of the devil and his agents. May the Lord deliver every child of God in this category today in the Name of Jesus. [Open Heavens Devotional 2016]


Indeed, the Lord’s Hands are not shortened, neither are His ears heavy that He cannot hear our cry for help. Sin is always responsible for alienation from God. In what ways has your weakness, carelessness, and nonchalant attitude contributed to sin and immorality in your family or the Church of God? Repent and make amends today before it is too late.

You know what you know.

One of the hardest pieces of advice to wrap your head around as an entrepreneur is the time-tested notion of “trusting your gut”. It was a nugget of wisdom I was given time and time again by veteran business owners and founders. But what exactly did that mean? Fortunately, hindsight is 20/20 and it is much easier to describe this leadership lesson through experiences we’ve lived through as a business.

When we first started Practice Makes Perfect as a 501(c)3 in 2010, our team was trying to run academic summer programs for as many children as possible. That meant operating a bottom-of-the-pyramid-like solution by spending as little money as possible and serving as many people as possible. After our first summer, we realized education is not the space where we should be cutting corners or skimping on quality. As a result, we’d have to find a way to raise more money faster or get schools to contribute to the cost of delivering on our services.

Our team of two people at the time believed we were providing services that were valuable enough to warrant a school investment. As a result, we went from giving schools a free program to charging them $400 per child. Every single one of our partners that had received our programs left. For months, schools told us they had no money. At times, it felt hopeless. We wanted to serve children, but couldn’t rationalize why schools weren’t willing to allocate their resources to support the work we were carrying out.

Nonetheless, my gut said there were schools out there that valued our services. Sure enough, after months of outreach and countless meetings, we secured four school partnerships in NYC and one in DC that contributed to the costs of the program. Following another successful summer and lots of constructive comments, we iterated on our model. The changes pushed us to go from $400 per child to $1,600 per child.

As you can imagine, our team had nearly tripled and here we were hitting the pavement again believing schools would pay four times more money the following year. After hundreds of rejections and half of our former partners choosing not to renew their partnerships, we finally managed to secure three new partnerships. Despite people on my team losing faith and arguing that we needed to find another source of revenue to supplement the cost of the program, we had a gut feeling schools could support the cost if they valued the services.


By persisting in those times when our gut told us to, we built the revenue model that has continued to fuel our growth. There is an element of luck in entrepreneurship and the advice on trusting your gut comes the closest to rubbing against that luck. Truthfully, there have been times when companies have persisted too long when they should have made a pivot. The reality is that the answers are not clear or black and white and so you don’t have a better option than to just trust your gut.

READ: Proverbs 31:10-31
Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.
Proverbs 31:10

Virtue (goodness) is the personal trait that makes a person genuinely helpful. Virtue makes you do good to people and not evil. A virtuous woman does good to her husband and not evil.

The Bible says beauty is vain. It is only when virtue comes into a female that she does good to a man. Virtue is very different from beauty. Beauty is useless but virtue is valuable. When a person does good to someone he will be rewarded. Virtue makes a person hardworking, energetic and enterprising. The only person described as virtuous in the Bible is the virtuous woman of Proverbs 31. Her main characteristics were hard work and lots of industrious activity. She would rise up early, she would gird up her loins and she would make things happen for the whole household.

This cannot be said of many beautiful women whose principal achievement is to dress up and make themselves look more and more artificial. Their beauty is a façade and a cover up for their emptiness. Their enhanced appearance is a sign of the level of deception you must expect from such non-virtuous characters. You will have the greatest shocks when you are married to someone who has no virtue. You will be met by laziness and inactivity. You will also be met by the poor provision of food, sex and anything that doesn’t happen in the public eye. The virtuous woman of Proverbs 31 was more concerned about meeting the needs of her household than impressing outsiders. A virtuous woman is full of truth, reality and genuineness.

“There is sin in their homes, and they are polluted to the depths of their souls. But I will call upon the Lord to save me—and he will.”
—Psalm 55:15,16 (TLB)

The broken home has become the number one social problem of America, and could ultimately lead to the destruction of our civilization. Since the basic unit of any society is the home, when the home begins to break, the society is on the way to disintegration. It is a threat to the American way of life. It does not make screaming headlines; but, like termites, it is eating away at the heart and core of the American structure.

It is high time that our so-called experts on marriage, the family, and the home turn to the Bible. We have read newspaper columns and listened to counselors on the radio; psychiatrists have had a land-office business. In it all, the One who performed the first marriage in the Garden of Eden and instituted the union between man and wife has been left out.

Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip.
Hebrews 2:1

It's happened to all of us. We get a little of the Word of God under our spiritual belts. We have a few victories. Our lives are going great for the first time in years. Then suddenly we slip and it all falls apart. We find ourselves having to start all over again.

That's what happened to the people the book of Hebrews was written to. They made such great spiritual progress that they got to the place where they should have been teachers. Then they slipped back so much, they needed baby food again. (See Hebrews 5:12.)

What caused them to fall so far? They let other things get in the way of their faith. They let the promises of God slip, so they slipped.

That's happened to a multitude of believers in the last several years.

"Well, Brother Copeland," they said, "we're tired of that faith stuff." Or, "We just don't have time to spend that much time in the Word."

They've turned their attention away from the promises of God. It's not that they didn't believe them anymore. It's just that they directed their attention to other things. They let their Word level drop and since low Word level equals low faith level, they soon began suffering defeat in areas where they once had victory.

Don't let that happen to you. When things are going well, don't just ride the tide of God's blessing. Dig deeper into what God has for you. Give more earnest heed to the promises of God. Concentrate on moving ahead, on becoming so strong in the Spirit you can not only get your own needs met, you'll meet others' needs as well!

Remember: Low Word Level = Low Faith Level = Slip.

Don't get so busy enjoying today's victory that tomorrow ends up in defeat. Look into the things you've learned. Give the Word more of your attention—not less. Keep moving from faith to faith. Instead of trying to trip you up, Satan and his bunch will be crying, "Oh no, that faith man is coming after us again!"


Scripture Reading:

Hebrews 5:11-14, 6:1-12