Thoughts of Our Fathers (TOF)

Catch Z's and please your spouse.

In today’s busy world, we don’t leave ourselves much time to recuperate from our hectic schedules. In the United States alone, as many as 50-70 million adults report having sleep or wakefulness disorders including conditions like snoring and sleep apnea.

These sleep obstructions don’t just interfere with our restfulness. Lack of sleep can also impact the happiness in our relationships.



A study conducted by Florida State University found that when husbands and wives get more sleep than they usually do on the average night, the following day, they report increased happiness and satisfaction in their marriage. Basically, more time spent sleeping leads to a more content relationship.

These findings makes it even more imperative to get a good night's sleep even though it isn’t always easy. The average adult needs at least 7-8 hours of sleep per night but reports getting less than 6 hours instead.

In order to unlock the benefits of more sleep, you have to get the restfulness.Consider making some night time upgrades to bring more pleasant dreams to you and your partner.
1. Makeover Your Bedroom



If your bedroom isn’t conducive to rest, you won’t be getting the extra shut-eye you need. There are a few easy ways to makeover your bedroom into a more comfy and inviting space.

Invest in thick blackout curtains that will obscure outdoor street lights or the morning sun and let the soothing darkness lull you into a restful sleep.

What you sleep on matters too so look into high count, light weight sheets or a quilted mattress topper to pamper your tired body. Once you feel comfy and relaxed, restful sleep isn’t too far behind.
2. Ban The Gadgets



There’s no doubt that we like to spend time on our electronics, but that's part of what is keeping us awake. Fix that by banning electronics in the bedroom.

Set a curfew and enforce it when using phones, computers, and tablets. The stimulation you get from checking your electronics before bed and in the middle of the night prevents your brain from entering into deep sleep.

Also consider limiting television use at night. Falling asleep with the T.V. on will prevent restful sleep because of the light and noise it will fill your bedroom with. Ban the screens an hour before you plan to sleep and use that time to let your brain wind down instead.
3. Eat Better To Sleep Better



What we put into our bodies matters. What you had for breakfast yesterday may control how you’re sleeping tonight so be conscious of what you’re taking in and when.

Stimulants like coffee and alcohol need to be avoided close to bedtime. You also wouldn’t want to try sleeping right after a big meal. It will make you feel sleepy, but that sleep will be restless because of responses from the digestive process.

While it’s important to stay hydrated all day, drinking lots of water before bed will keep you up all night. If you need a snack before bedtime, choose a banana, almonds, or low-fat yogurt. All are great natural sleep aids.

Extra sleep will make you more energetic, focused, and happier so don’t skimp on the sleepytime. After all, if it means having the marriage of your dreams, it’s worth it to spend a little extra time in dreamland.

Revelation 1:8“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,” says the Lord…

The doctor has just told you that you have an incurable disease. The X-rays and blood tests confirm it. Your worst fears have come true and you feel like your future has been sealed.

My friend, the doctor’s report is not final. Jesus declares to you, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.” (Revelation 1:8) He has the first word as well as the final word in your situation. The experts and medical reports don’t!

Alpha and omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. But Jesus did not speak Greek. He spoke Aramaic or Hebrew. So He would have said, “I am the Aleph and the Tav.” Aleph and tav are the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet. So what Jesus is declaring to us is this: “I have the first word in your situation. And I have the final word in your situation!”

Each Hebrew letter has a corresponding picture. Interestingly, aleph is associated with an ox and tav, a cross. Together, they make up a beautiful picture of what Jesus did for us—He is the sacrificial “animal” on the cross. It was for us that He suffered, bled and died.

When Jesus hung on the cross, He took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses. (Matthew 8:17) That is why your sickness does not have the final word in your life. Jesus does, because He took your sickness upon His body and paid for your healing with His blood.

When Jesus hung on the cross, He took our curse. (Galatians 3:13) We were supposed to be cursed because of our sins, but He took our place and the curse fell on Him. Today, we take His place and His blessings fall on us!

So why settle for the curse of sickness or even poverty when the price for your healing and provision has been paid by Jesus? Sickness and poverty do not have the final word in your life. Jesus does because He redeemed you from every curse!

Beloved, when man says that it is impossible, Jesus says that it is possible. The Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, has the final word in your situation!

READ: Matthew 13:13-17

But strong meat belongeth to them...who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
Hebrews 5:14

Mature Christians have their senses alert, exercised to discern or distinguish good from evil. The word "senses" is derived from the Greek word, aishtheteria that means, "organs of perception".

The organs of perception are the eyes to see, the ears to hear, the nose to smell, the skin to feel and the tongue to taste. The Bible is telling us that these organs of perception if they are spiritually alert, can also be used to discern spiritual things, to detect good and evil things.

The Lord took me to today's Scripture passage to form a solid basis for this revelation. Jesus said, "Blessed are your eyes...and blessed are your ears..." He was speaking about their organs of perception (aishstheteria). When you move out of the natural realm, you will begin to perceive things with those very eyes and ears you have. He told the disciples that their eyes saw more than natural eyes see. Such eyes can also see visions, revelations and the supernatural. He also stated that their ears heard a little further, the voice of the Holy Spirit.

God wants your thoughts and feelings to be sensitive to supernatural things. We must feel the "move" of the Holy Spirit, feel the presence of God, and feel the healing anointing. The Holy Spirit is offended when we do not respond to His presence.

The principal revelation I want to bring to your understanding is that the supernatural operates through your organs of perception: your eyes, ears, thoughts and feelings.

Memorise: Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil. Proverbs 3:7
Read: Genesis 16:1-4 (King James Version)

1 Now Sarai Abram's wife bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar.


2 And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the Lord hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai.


3 And Sarai Abram's wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife.


4 And he went in unto Hagar, and she conceived: and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes.




Bible in one year: Numbers 34-36, Jeremiah 25:1-16, Hymn: Sing hymn 4
MESSAGE:
After several years of waiting for God’s promise to be fulfilled, Sarah sat down one day, had a long thinking session, and came up with an alternative plan which she presented to Abraham, and He accepted it. She had been barren for several years and was now obviously tired of being in that state; hence, she decided to give Hagar, one of her salves, to her husband hoping to get a child through this arrangement. How mistaken she was! Sarah’s experience has a lot to teach contemporary Christians. When God is leading you in a certain direction, or if He has made a promise to you, any contrary opinion or alternative is borne out of impatience, doubt or unbelief. It’s when people can no longer wait for God’s plan that they come up with their own alternatives. Open Heavens 2017 Wednesday 3 May 2017:-Finding alternatives. One lesson from this story is that man’s alternative charts a new course for you, which can take you completely out of God’s original plan.


Just like Abraham and Sarah, many people have come up with alternatives that have landed them at destination they never expected. But for God’s patience and mercy, the step Abraham and Sarah took was enough to derail from God’s original course. Today’s open heavens message. The reason why the Holy Spirit says in Proverbs 3:5-6 that you should subordinate your plans under God’s will is so that He can guide you along His original plan for your life. Believe it or not, God has a plan for your life (Jeremiah 1:4-5). If you follow this plan, you will definitely obey God’s word and remain in His will. God’s word never negates His will for your life (James 1:18). The question is, “Are you still in God’s plan?”


To keep within God’s will, you must be filled with His word and His Spirit, prayerful, watchful, thankful and humble. Why? The natural man within you will always come up with alternatives to God’s perfect plan for your life. You need to be watchful because some alternatives may look like the original plan, but in essence, they are miles apart. If you will access God’s perfect plan for your life, then you must leave no space for the flesh or the devil to give you an alternative. You must trust, rely on and completely depend upon God. God’s choice is always the safe choice. For this reason Proverbs 29:25b says,

...but whoso putteth his trust in the LORD shall be safe.”
If you depend on God 99% and leave 1% for an alternative, that is enough to derail you. Never reply on what you think you know or your assessment of the situation. No matter how brilliant your ideas may be, God has something better. Bring your plans before God’s searchlight and let Him tell you if it’s okay or not.

PRAISE CONCERT!!!

And all of us...are constantly being transfigured into His very own image in ever increasing splendor and from one degree of glory to another....
—2 Corinthians 3:18

We all make mistakes every day of our lives. But if we love God and want to do what is right, He keeps working with us and loving us into wholeness. We don't have to feel rejected in the meantime. God sees the end from the beginning. He knows where we are now and is fully aware of every one of our faults, but He also knows where we can be if He keeps loving us and encouraging us to go forward. God changes us from one degree of glory to another, according to 2 Corinthians 3:18, but He also keeps loving, accepting, and approving of us while we are making the journey.

The Scripture tells us that a voice came from heaven two different times and said, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Why was this necessary? I believe that Jesus needed to hear these words, and I believe we need to hear the same expression of love and affirmation. Knowing that God is on our side gives us confidence. Jesus received God's encouragement, and we need to do the same. Don't concentrate on everything that is wrong with you. That will distract you from proper fellowship with God. Thank God for your strengths and turn your weaknesses over to Him.

When God finished all of His creation, including man, He looked at it and said, "It is good!" God intends to work in and through you, so relax and believe that God approves of you!

Love Yourself Today: Say out loud, "I am God's beloved child. He approves of me and will finish the good work He started!"

Memorise: As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: 1st Peter 2:2

Read: 1st John 3:1-3 (KJV)

1 Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.


2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.


3 And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.




Bible in one year: Numbers 20-21, Jeremiah 21:1-10, Hymn: Sing hymn 6
MESSAGE:
All those who have accepted the Lordship of Jesus Christ over their life are children of God, by the grace of adoption through Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1:5). As children of God, while God has some responsibilities to make a success of our walk of faith in this world, we also have some responsibilities we have to bear in this regard. Peter, in today’s memory verse, points out that one of our responsibilities as children of God is to desire things that are beneficial to our spiritual growth. When some new converts become children of God, due to zeal without knowledge, they begin to nurse some good desires which are inappropriate or unhealthy for sustaining their victory in the Christian race. For example, some converts after giving their lives to Christ immediately begin to desire the office of a pastor, evangelist or Christian minister of any sort. Although these are good desires, they are inappropriate and ill-timed. The first responsibility of a believer when he or she becomes a child of God is to desire the sincere milk of the word so that he or she can grow to maturity through it. It is after this that he or she can think of rendering service to the Kingdom work. Open Heavens 2017. Physically speaking, when a little baby desires to eat bread, yam, or rice, such desires could kill him or her. In the same vein, when a newborn believer desires to be a pastor or an evangelist overnight, he or she would not last long. This is the mistake some Christian organisations make when they make converts out of Muslims and traditionalists and immediately turn them into tools of evangelism. The resultant effect is that such converts, without having depth in the word of God, would begin to see themselves as evangelists. Based on my experience and observations, more often than not, such converts don’t last. For this season, children being born into God’s family must take time to study the word of God and become well grounded in it.


In our Bible reading today, we see another responsibility of children of God, which is that they must keep themselves pure (1st John 3:3). After being cleansed and purified by the Blood of Jesus, children of God have the responsibility of not going back to their old vomit or staining their garment of righteousness with the filth of this world (Ephesians 5:26-27). Practically, you achieve this by measuring your action against the standard of God’s word. Open Heavens Devotional 2017 Wednesday 26 April 2017:- Ressponsiblities of God’s children I. Anything that is contrary to the word of God is filth that must be avoided. This is the more reason why all children of God need to be grounded in the word first before anything else.

Luke 15:22–23

“But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry;

What would you say if your son, whom you had given a large inheritance to, came crawling home one day after wasting all his money on riotous living?

In the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11–24), the father did not say one word about loss or waste, though his son had indeed wasted his inheritance on riotous living. The father only saw his son’s homecoming as an opportunity to show him how much he loved him and to restore to him what he had lost.

Like the father in the parable, it is your heavenly Father’s desire to embrace you and show you how much you are loved. And it is His good pleasure to restore to you what you have lost.

Perhaps you have lost something recently, or you are frustrated that something has gone to waste due to a bad decision you made. My friend, God does not see the finality of the loss or waste the way you do. When you come to Him with it, He sees it as an opportunity to restore to you what has been lost or wasted.

Even if, like the prodigal son, you feel far away from your heavenly Father, or you feel that you have disappointed Him, don’t despair. The truth is that the moment you come to Him, He immediately restores to you the robe of honor to clothe your nakedness, the ring of authority to declare your position of power and dominion, and the sandals on your feet (which servants do not wear) to reinstate you as a son in His house.

He reassures you that you had never lost the position of sonship. And He celebrates your return to Him with the killing of a fatted calf because you are His beloved child whom He cherishes.

Beloved, in your Father’s house, you not only come under His complete protection, but you also enjoy His inexhaustible provision and unconditional love!

Leave it all behind.

Everywhere it seems that people are working on self-improvement; some work to transform their physique, some their spiritual health and others focus on their relationships.

Self-improvement is a powerful first step towards living with greater strength, yet we may be ready for a deeper and more complete transformation of ourselves.

Some fix their weight, yet their pain is still there. Others cut ties to those that drain them, yet their anxieties remain.

Transformation is all encompassing and requires us to get real about what ails us.

In the natural world, hosts of animals undergo a metamorphosis, changing all aspects of themselves in order to better adapt to their environment. Similarly, our own metamorphosis awaits.

What is it that no longer serves you?

Research has found that people are often stuck in self-defeating behaviors such as: putting ourselves last on our list of priorities, spending money we don’t have on things that are not a priority, drinking excessively to escape our thoughts and worries, overeating to cope with stress and a paralyzing worry about what others think of us.

Clinical professor at the UCLA School of Medicine, Dr. Daniel Siegel found that lasting personal transformation happens as we change those bad habits. Transforming our thoughts, our breathingand belief in ourselves promotes lasting change in our lives.

Dr. Siegel reminds us that, “the mind is like the ocean. And deep in the ocean, beneath the surface, it is calm and clear.”

When we start overeating and drinking to excess, we stop and ask why.

When we overspend, pick up that dreaded phone call instead of working out and continue to put ourselves last on our list of priorities, we use our thoughts to make an immediate shift.

Tell yourself to: put the item back, set down that phone and that taking care of yourself is not a luxury but a necessity.

Our thoughts hold the power to shift our lives. Like the depths of the magnificent ocean, inside ourselves is the calm, clear guidance for which we’ve been searching all along.

READ: Haggai 1:1-14

Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house lie waste?
Haggai 1:4

One of the secrets to prolonging your days on this earth is to be involved in the building of the house of God. Some years ago, I noticed a man who was really blessed of God. The man had lived to a ripe old age and had many children and grandchildren. In his old age, he was rich and in good health. Most people at that age would be flat broke!

I asked the Lord, "Why is this man blessed?"

The Lord showed me that this was a person very much involved in the building of the church. He was somebody who had spent a lot of his personal money building the church. The Spirit of God whispered to me, "The people who involve themselves in building the church, whether spiritually or physically have a special grace upon their lives."

Consider the centurion who needed a miracle for his servant. The people told Jesus that the man deserved a miracle because he had built them a synagogue (Luke 7:4, 5). Good things from Jesus were about to flow into this man's life because he had built a church.

I once heard a great man of God ministering at the sodcutting ceremony of a church in my city . This man of God made a statement that I will never forget. He told the congregation, "Build God's house and God will build a house for you." I have never forgotten those words. Build a house of stability and safety for God's people and God will make your dwelling secure.