Isaiah 2
2 Now it will come about that in the last days The Mountain of the house of the LORD Will be established as the chief of the mountains, and will be raised above the hills; and all the nations will stream to it.
3 And many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; That He may teach us concerning His ways And that we may walk in His paths.” For the law will go forth from Zion and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
4 And He will judge between the nations, and will render decisions for many peoples; and they will hammer their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, and never again will they learn war.
5 Come, house of Jacob, and let us walk in the light of the LORD.

There is a lot of meaning in the above verses, which I would like to exposit for you as your spiritual manna (Exo 16:15/Luke 22:19), out of my love for the Lord Jesus (John 21:15-17). Verse 2 needs to be understood in the context of Dan 2:45 & Heb 8:10-11, which in the light of Col 1:16-20 says that God is going to increase His righteousness upon the earth with time, till all the earth is filled with the knowledge of God (Hab 2:14) and unbelief will be an insignificant minority. Verse 3 needs to be looked at in the context of Rev 22:17 and Mat 28:18-20, which speaks about the Holy Spirit calling the people to hear the preaching and the teaching of the Gospel. Speaking about Law, we ought to understand that there are three aspects of Law i.e. Judicial Law, Ceremonial Law and Moral Law. The Judicial Law is what is given the State to maintain Law and Order in society, while the Ceremonial Law was given the Old Testament Church as pointing to the redemptive work of Christ, while the Moral Law is the standard given every believer to live by. Today, very few Churches have such an understanding of Law, for most Churches in holding to Christ and rightfully doing away with the Ceremonial Law (Heb 10:1-7), they unwittingly reject the Moral Law and the authority of the State concerning the Judicial Law as well, owing to their poor understanding of the Bible. The Moral Law is the very character of God, as described in Psalm 119, which goes from Alef to Tav (Old Testament Hebrew)… like the Alpha and the Omega (New Testament Greek) we are familiar with in ascribing to the Lord Jesus (Rev 1:8). When the Law goes forth in verse 3 i.e. God’s word goes forth from Zion, we know that those who receive Jesus as Lord and Saviour shall glorify His grace and mercy (John 3:16) but those who refuse Him shall glorify His wrath and justice (John 3:18/Rom 2:12) because God’s Word shall not return to Him void (Isaiah 55:11). Every believer taken from the family of Adam and grafted to the Church, inherits this nature of God in being conformed to the likeness of Jesus (Rom 8:29). This is the very purpose of every human being, who are all made in the image of God, broken in Adam but restored to all godly fullness in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is from here we understand that if there is to be peace in the world, it can only be on God’s terms and never our own but this peace is what God is going to bring about by His might because nothing in creation exist which does not serve His righteous purpose and so as the Church is given to walk by faith and not mere sight (2Cor 5:7), we learn from verse 5 to walk in the light of His promise concerning Salvation because Salvation is not based on merits of depraved men (Psalm 49:7-15) but on the saving merits of the righteous Jesus Christ (Rev 5:7-12).

Psalms 37
4 Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will give you the desires of your heart.

Mat 5
9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

John 1 (in reference to Jesus)
12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name,
13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

Concerning our adoption into the family of God, we understand from scripture that this is according to the will of God. If believing in the Lord Jesus Christ was something established purely on a person’s free will then that person would never be a new creation in Christ (2Cor 5:17) and could never conform to the likeness of Christ nature unless there is a complete change in the orientation of his/her desires, where a person no longer delights in pleasing himself/herself but his/her delight is in the Lord, which is what being born from above is all about (John 3:3). If we understand the implications of the fall of Adam and Original Sin, we then recognize that the reason each person is self-serving naturally from birth is because each person is a law to themselves. Thankfully the Sovereign will of God presides over our free will and so we have institutions like the State in place, which is given to function by the Judicial Law and this is what keeps unbelievers in check from the fear of being apprehended by the Law but as for the believer, he/she is given the very Moral law of God as his/her own nature/character and so he has nothing to fear from the Judicial Law because unlike the world fallen in Adam (1Tim 1:8-9), his/her desire is not sin in pleasing of self at all costs but his/her desire is God in exercising the righteousness of God.

Mat 10
34 “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.
35 “For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
36 and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household.
37 “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.
38 “And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.
39 “He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.

The Moral Law as taught to us in Exodus 20:1-17 and Mat 22:36-40 says we ought to love God first and second love our neighbour at par with ourselves. However, the citizens of the world in their unbelief do not see God as first but themselves and so everything else and every other person is nothing more than the means they use to serve themselves. We ought to understand that people in their unbelief are incapacitated from finding security in God, instead people find security in the masses and so they are ok doing wrong and believing in a bunch of lies as long as they have many people with them doing the same thing. These fools are not accountable to God, they are unreasonably accountable to only themselves and that is why they live as they please. Take the instance of the Parable of the Vine-growers (Mark 12:1-12), the defaulting tenants here are the unbelievers who go about life with their poor stewardship over the earth, as coming from their refusal of God and when the real stewards show up these defaulting tenants give in to their destructive nature and act maliciously towards the adopted sons of God who are the real heirs of the earth, because Adam’s failed stewardship upon the earth is restored to only those who are in Christ.

John 15
18 “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. 20 Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. 21 They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.

As much as a thief hates being called a thief and a homosexual likes being called gay, we ought to understand that the world hates the truth about themselves but will God cease to exist so as to allow the world to continue living by their foolish lies just as they so please, that will verily not happen and so we ought to understand that the world hates the Church & God, only because we reveal to them that they are on the highway to hell. So peace can never be on the terms of every individual in this world because they are each a law to themselves in their broken communion with God i.e. their righteousness of self is not the righteousness of God thanks to the fall to Adam, who relieved himself of the righteousness of God to receive to himself and for his posterity a righteousness of their own (Gen 3:1-6). The reason God put the Judicial Law in place (1Tim 1:8-9), is because from the world’s self-righteousness comes the world’s desire for anarchy and death. It is no wonder that the people of the world are fascinated with substance-abuse which throws them out of the control while near-death experiences proves to be their entertainment because it feeds their appetite for death and anarchy with such a godless rush. It is for reasons such as these that peace can never be on the terms of self-seeking men/women who sabotage what is good; on the contrary peace is on the terms of God’s righteousness and so for peace to exists there is need for truth and revelation of God, which is where the Word of God comes in (Rom 10:17), in tutoring us about the saving merits of the Lord Jesus Christ (John 14:26).

Hebrews 4
12 For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.

2Tim 3
16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;
17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

To conclude, we know from John 1:1-18 that the Word of God, is God i.e. Jesus Christ. We also know from John 4:24 that God is Spirit and from 2Tim 3:16-17 that scripture is God breathed, meaning it is the very life-giving breath of God that gives every believer life in Christ (John 20:22), which was formerly lost for all in Adam (Gen 2:7,17). So I would close by echoing the fact that this peace of God, which am talking about is not going to be brought by the willingness of men but by the mighty nature of God. This peace that God is going to usher into this world is metaphorically described in Isaiah 11: 1-11, which I would strongly advise you to read. The Stump of Jesse or the Root of Jesse in Isaiah 11 bears reference to the Lord Jesus Christ (since the Messiah was prophesied to come from the lineage of David), while the Mountain of the Lord bears reference to the people of God i.e. His Church, which will be firmly established in that day. For those who have a gloomy disposition concerning the end of the world, I would like to tell you that that gloomy disposition only reflects your unbelief because unbelief is never constructive in nature but destructive and God does not share in that fallen nature. It is for this reason when we look at Isaiah 60:20-22 and 1Pet 3:1-13 in the light of Ezek 36:27, we understand that the Lord by His sovereign will shall move His people to delightfully hasten righteousness in world, so as to hasten His coming because the ending is going to be a happy one.

Peace (Luke 10:5-6)!

Job 2
9 Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die!”
10 But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.

It’s popular among Charismatics who love to cherry pick their scripture, to believe that adversity shows a lack to faith because according to these, faith in God is a Shangri-La where no sorrow is allowed to touch them. We however understand from Phil1:29, that we who have received Jesus as Lord over our lives, are given to strive for His righteousness in this world, to this extent is righteous suffering on our part, that it showcases our devotion unto Him in Spirit and truth (Jn4:24), which He is absolutely worthy of (Rev5:9-14). The lives of the Godly thereby exhibits how we live for the Lord Jesus Christ.

Rom 14
7 For not one of us lives for himself, and not one dies for himself;
8 for if we live, we live for the Lord, or if we die, we die for the Lord; therefore whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.
9 For to this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.

If we look at Gen32:28 & Mat16:18, we know the Angel of Lord is the Old Testament Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who is known to swear by His own name (Gen22:10-17) because He is God and bring things to pass by His own power (Gen22:17-18). What’s most interesting is God’s promise to the children of Abraham in Gen22:17 is “…and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies” while in Mat16:18 Jesus’ promise to those who believe in Him is “…and the gates of Hades will not overpower His Church.” This truth is so essential to the Christian faith that it is echoed again by Paul in Gal3:16 because Jesus is the victory God promised us from sin. In Him is God’s Salvation and victory over our enemies and even death (1Cor15:54-57). From the above we also realize that the Church did not begin with Pentecost, as many are given to believe but the Church began with Adam because the promise of Christ redeeming His people is sited in Gen3:15 when God righteously judges Adam and Eve for their disobedience.

Hebrews 12
3 For consider Jesus who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
4 You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin;
5 and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, Nor faint when you are reproved by Him;
6 For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, And He scourges every son whom He receives.”
7 It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?

I’d like you to see Job2:9-10 which I mentioned in the beginning of this post in the light of Hebrews12:6-7 mentioned above. Unlike the Prosperity Gospel heretics whose doctrine emerges from the choicest picking of scripture while having no harmony with rest of the Bible, the Bible on the contrary, holistically teaches that there is such a thing as righteous suffering (1Pet3:13-16) because we who are His sheep are the New Testament Israel. Biblically, Israel is defined in Gen32:28 as those who strive with God and men and prevail. Now, this definition ought to be seen from the perspective of God’s unconditional sovereignty because in sanctifying His people, God subjects His Church to affliction from the world (as though it were a controlled environment – 1Cor10:13), while the redeeming power of Christ sustains us through these fiery trials. This is beautifully picturized in Dan3:8-28. Look at it as a silver smith who fans the fire in a furnace while holding the silver in a crucible, the silver from which the dross is to burned out (Job23:10).

Ps 119
73 Your hands made me and fashioned me; Give me understanding, that I may learn Your commandments.
74 May those who fear You see me and be glad, Because I wait for Your word.
75 I know, O LORD, that Your judgments are righteous, And that in faithfulness You have afflicted me.

Take a look at the above scripture. In the context Jn 1:18 & 14:13-15 we see verses 73-74 above offers us a lot of spiritual meat because Prov9:19 teaches us that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom unto an understanding of His commandments (Moral Law). For you see, who David waited on in his moments of trial was Jesus Christ (Jn1:1), in whom God and His Salvation is revealed to all mankind. So to what effect is the Moral Law you may ask! Well, the question is what would you cling to when you are tried by the Lord our God. Would you hold to God & His righteous in the midst of trial as Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego did in Dan3:16-18 or as Paul did so in prison by writing joyous letter to the Churches (Plmn1:1,7). The Lord Jesus teaches us in Mat22:36-40 that the Moral Law requires you to love the Lord your God first and above all things even yourself and next to love and be concerned about those around you as you are about yourself. This sums up the Ten Commandments for us. So the question is would we hold to Jesus’ Commandments (the Moral Law → 2Jn1:5) in the midst of trial?

John 8
31 So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine;
32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

John 15
16 “You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.

Well, unlike the humanist approach to Christianity, which discounts the Sovereign will of God for the free will of men as though they were mutually exclusive, the Bible teaches us that Salvation is 100% by the power of God because you see the living Spirit granted us (Ezek36:26-27/Jn3:3,16), is by the merit of Christ who overcomes our hostility and damn indifference towards God and propitiates our sinful nature unto the righteousness of God (Rom3:9-26). It is He, who has begun this work of Salvation is us (who truly belong to Him – Jn10:14,26) and it is He who shall bring it to completion (Phil1:6).

Rom 8
28 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

To conclude, while the world excuses its unbelief with the suffering present in the world, most of which is its own handiwork, the godly are given not to complain through the wilderness but to pray and ask God to see life from the perspective to faith and not sight (2Cor5:7) because we are not living to serve ourselves but God (Jn12:24-26). The world is filled with people living for themselves and this is where they err because the truth is only God is God and so unlike sin which we propagate in serving nothing more than ourselves, the righteousness of God on the contrary transcends all, in bringing creation to serve God, who righteously serves Himself in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ (Col1:16-20).

Phil 2
12 Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

We live in a world that requires us to take a righteous stand without having the masses back us because God makes it to be so that we don’t trust in people but trust in Him alone (Jer17:5, 7). Though we are saved by grace (2Tim1:9), works is the evidence of our change in heart (Ezek36:26-27/Jn3:3/Phil1:6), which turns from serving ourselves to serving God.

James 2
14 What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? 17 Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.

If you look at the definition of Israel from the perspective of Phil1:29, we get a glimpse of God’s might and sovereignty. The Church is the new Israel (Gen32:28), whose name signifies one who strives against God and men, and prevails. This is best explained from Dan 3:8-28; Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were thrown into the furnace for not paying homage to the golden statue of King Nebuchadnezzar. Now you see, to the world this may seem as the repercussions for being righteous. However, this is merely God sanctifying His people in the furnace of affliction (Ps119:71-75). Why, because God is worth it (Phil1:29). So, who sustains His Church in the furnace, it is God Himself. He is like a silver smith who fans the flame of the furnace while holding the silver in a crucible to purify the silver. So it is with the Sovereign Lord, who sanctifies us in this world into the likeness of His Son (Rom8:29).

Heb 12
Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

In Jesus is life and in Him we turn from serving ourselves to serving God. In serving God we acquaint ourselves with holy fear, which drives us to live our lives according to the Moral Law, not because we otherwise don’t want to but because we realize the sheer weight of God’s good pleasure in our existence. The world lives by a counterfeit standard of religion, where wickedness is the very means of their survival and so they are given to act unrighteously under the sway of Satan (1Jn5:19). True religion on the other hand understands our life and its sustenance is practically in the hands of God and so just as the world is given to unrighteousness from unholy fear of wicked repercussions, so too the Godly are given to act righteously from the holy fear of God.

Mat 10:28
Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

This is what separates the world from God’s Church, the world is given to wear the mark of the beast on their right hand and forehead from their fallen desire for counterfeit religion (Rev13:16-17), while His Church is given to wear the Moral Law on their right hand and forehead (Deut6:8) owing to Jesus who has propitiated their sinful nature (1Jn4:10) unto the righteousness of God (Rom5:17). Please note that to wear something on the forehead and right hand symbolizes one who thinks (wear on the forehead) and acts (wear on the right hand) from that particular standpoint.

Isaiah 40:31
Yet those who wait for the Lord Will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary.

If you were to go through the TULIP, you would come across the Perseverance of the Saints and this is precisely it, because to Persevere in His righteousness in the midst of Trial even with fear and trembling is to wait on the Lord, just like the parable of the ten virgins, where the righteous five are given to burn the oil in their lamps in waiting for the Lord (Mat25:3-4) because I guess burning the oil in their lamps is synonymous with exercising the righteousness of God while waiting on Him and trusting in Him to bring that breakthrough in His time.

Acts 16
29 The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. 30 He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
31 They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.” 32 Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. 33 At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his household were baptized.

To conclude, Salvation is in knowing Jesus Christ is Lord over your life, meaning your life is accountable to Him. With such a godly bearing on life, we are to persevere in the righteousness of God because though the godless masses may seem like Goliath before you, it is only to provoke that holy fear in you to God’s own glory because He is worth all your anxiety in following after Him. After all, He is God! In any case, knowing Jesus as Lord over your life empowers you by His Holy Spirit (Phil4:13), making you capable to do His good pleasure and who then can be against you when God is for you (Rom8:31) because you are learning to want what God wants (Ps37:4) and there is no stopping you then.

Rom 8:28
28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Heb 12
6 For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, And He scourges every son whom He receives.”

In the context of Ezek 36:26-27 & Jn 3:3,16, we understand that when a person goes through the trials God sets before him/her, what sustains that person through that fiery trial is the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ, as sited beautifully in Daniel 3:8-28. I don’t know how many of you are familiar with the purification process of noble metals such as gold and silver. Noble metals have a very high melting point, much higher than that of its impurities and so when metals like gold and silver are heated up to their melting point, these precious metals are then ready to have the dross removed in their molten metal. This is something along the lines of how we are sanctified into the likeness of Christ or shall I say the image of God. Please note that the likeness is in terms of moral character and not by physical appearance.

Psalm 119
71 It is good for me that I was afflicted, That I may learn Your statutes.
72 The law of Your mouth is better to me Than thousands of gold and silver pieces. 
73 Your hands made me and fashioned me; Give me understanding, that I may learn Your commandments.
74 May those who fear You see me and be glad, Because I wait for Your word.
75 I know, O LORD, that Your judgments are righteous, And that in faithfulness You have afflicted me.

An eminent 19th century theologian Charles Spurgeon once stated that the Christian when afflicted, should not be like a pet dog which bites the stick when disciplined by its master but should instead realize from whose hand his/her trial has come. I am citing this because we very often like to vent ourselves out on inanimate objects and our neighbour for being the reason/source of our anxiety. In such cases we need to step back from that situation and see it from a Biblical perspective so as to learn what God is trying to teach us from His reproof.    

Job 23
8 “Behold, I go forward but He is not there, And backward, but I cannot perceive Him;
9 When He acts on the left, I cannot behold Him; He turns on the right, I cannot see Him.
10 “But He knows the way I take; When He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold.

It must be understood that one cannot be sanctified into the likeness of Christ unless he/she is born of Christ Spirit, so as to bear noble substance, which comes from the indwelling of God’s Holy Spirit (1Jn4:4). I wonder how many of you are familiar with the concept of HALT, which is:

• Hungry

• Angry

• Lonely

• Tired

In most cases when you are suffering from anxiety, you are possibly dealing with either one of these trigger factors. In either case you need to HALT and think, what exactly it is that is making you feel so anxious in that moment. If you are grumpy because you are hungry then get something to eat. If you are Angry over something you can do little about then relax and listen to some Mozart, which is really relaxing. If you are Lonely, call up a friend you’ve been meaning to call for some time and have a chat. If there is nobody available for you to talk to in that moment, you can spend some time pouring your heart out to God in prayer. If you are Tired, then put off what you are doing in that moment for a later time if you can, and get some rest.

Deut 29
29 “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law.

Isaiah 54
8 “In an outburst of anger I hid My face from you for a moment, But with everlasting lovingkindness I will have compassion on you,” Says the LORD your Redeemer.

Isaiah 40
31 Yet those who wait for the LORD Will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary.

Now there are cases where HALT may not work for you and this is precisely what I am writing to you about. Many a times the cause of anxiety is not knowing what we are to do in that moment. In such cases, you need to reflect on what Deut 29:29 has to say and let your soul find its rest in the Lord Jesus Christ (Mt11:28). This is your time to wait on the Lord. Remember, no matter how great your anxiety is in that moment, you need to do what is right in the light of scripture until that moment arises in which God orchestrates a breakthrough for you (2Pet 1:19). Remember, though your trials may be great, if Jesus is indeed your Lord, you need to wait on Him because true prostration unto God lies in seeking the will of God, over your own and Jesus is indeed worthy of such true worship (Jn4:23).

Rev 5
11 Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders; and the number of them was myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands,
12 saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.”

Rev 7
13 Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, “These who are clothed in the white robes, who are they, and where have they come from?”
14 I said to him, “My lord, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

Now, you may ask… how exactly does one wait on the Lord so as to find solace in trial? Well, I cannot teach you everything the Bible teaches in this post but I can surely advise you by saying you need to know your Bible from cover to cover. In waiting on the Lord, you are to secure your heart in deliberate and wilful obedience to the Moral Law and take every other destructive thought captive to Christ (2Cor10:5). Remember, the Moral Law states that you shall first love the Lord your God above all and second you ought to love your neighbour as yourself.

Proverbs 12
25 Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs it down, But a good word makes it glad.

To conclude, I would like to say… when faced with anxiety, which you cannot manage with HALT, you need to continue doing whatever you are doing, while guarding your mind against every thought of giving into rampage and yield to that in which is exercising God’s good pleasure but only as that opportunity presents itself in its time. Remember, Christ is Sovereign (Mat28:18)! So your solace in trial is in adhering to Jesus’ way, seeing His purpose and not your own even in the midst of affliction (Prov21:2). This very much defines the Perseverance of the Saints, in which we come forth as gold.

God bless!

Joshua 1
8 This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.

Contrary to the kind of meditation that is trending in the world, the meditation the Bible teaches the believer is not one where you sit around doing nothing. Today we hear of yoga, which requires you to empty yourself of all thought. This however is far from what the Bible teaches concerning meditation because God teaches the believer His precepts (Ps 119:14-16), which the believer is supposed to remember and apply responsibly in his/her interactions with the environment and its people (Mat5:13). Today people want to learn meditation from people who have forsaken all responsibility and have seemingly attained enlightenment by wandering aimlessly through the land and smoking weed. 

Psalms 77
6 I will remember my song in the night; I will meditate with my heart, And my spirit ponders:
7 Will the Lord reject forever? And will He never be favourable again?
8 Has His lovingkindness ceased forever? Has His promise come to an end forever?
9 Has God forgotten to be gracious, Or has He in anger withdrawn His compassion? Selah.
10 Then I said, “It is my grief, That the right hand of the Most High has changed.”
11 I shall remember the deeds of the LORD; Surely I will remember Your wonders of old.
12 I will meditate on all Your work And muse on Your deeds.
13 Your way, O God, is holy; What god is great like our God?
14 You are the God who works wonders; You have made known Your strength among the peoples.
15 You have by Your power redeemed Your people, The sons of Jacob and Joseph. Selah.

When I mull over what passes off as meditation in this day and age, I can’t seem to get my head around the Morning Laughter Yoga I often came across during my morning walk. Science says that a good laugh relieves stress and leaves your muscles relaxed for about 45 minutes but I don’t think this works when people force themselves to laugh. This is precisely my argument against the kind of unnatural breathing meditation requires today. The Bible often defines prayer as wrestling with God (Gen 32:24-30/Col 4:12), which is not to bring God to settle to our terms but it is war waged by our living spirit imputed in us through Christ (Jn 3:3,16) against our sinful nature in coming over to God’s terms and righteousness (Ps77:6-15). Such wrestling is real non-simulated meditation which requires you to given your 100% to God.

Deuteronomy 6
5 “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

Such manner of prayer gets your hearting racing with shortness of breath and as your eyes are on the verge of tears you come to terms with what is known as the “Perseverance of the Saints”. The righteous perseverance of these Saints is by the merit and to the credit of the Lord Jesus Christ because sainthood is God calling men/women in His Son Jesus (Rom1:17) to meditate by the might of His Holy Spirit, exercising the Moral Law in thought and deed unto God’s good pleasure.

Romans 8
3 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,
4 so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
5 For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
6 For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace,
7 because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so,
8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Just as a person going to work mentally prepares himself/herself to handle a few things that he/she anticipates beforehand, so also is meditation, which does not require you to empty your thoughts but instead introspect what you have been doing so far and make that change in your life which is for the better. Remember the Moral Law requires you to put God first and second love your neighbour as you love yourself. That is to say, your meditation on God’s precepts should help you plan, how you aim to please God through the day and through your life. If you are feeling uneasy through the day you need to think back through the day as to what triggered that uneasiness in you and deal with it according to the knowledge of God.

Psalm 1
1 How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, Nor stand in the path of sinners, Nor sit in the seat of scoffers!
2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night.

Remember, true meditation is not about emptying yourself but about filling yourself with the Holy Spirit because in Christ is your zeal for God and life. The world hates responsibility, which is something you see in abortion, in people raising their own children without discipline, in educational institutions, workplaces and politics. People love taking credit but naturally from fallen Adam despise the responsibility they must have for their environment and their neighbour. It is for this reason the world meditates by emptying itself of all thought because they will do anything to flush out the guilt of their failed stewardship upon the earth (Gen1:28), which their self-serving nature has no capacity to every realize or admit. Responsibility may be righteously painstaking but for those whose lives are accountable to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit empowers these with zealousness to accomplish their task because Jesus is worth it (Rev5:10-12). 

2Timothy 3
16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Understand, the Bible equips and readies the person mediating on scripture for Godly responsibility towards his/her environment and neighbour because unlike the world, the believer does not live as though he/she is a law unto himself/herself but that his/her life is accountable to Jesus. When you understand God is sovereign and pray to Him in your trials, your breathing automatically follows a rhythm, which relaxes and comforts you because you are placing your trust God, which makes every other thing fall in its place.

Hebrews 4
12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

As I conclude this post, I am hoping you understand that the prerequisite to such meditation is the knowledge of scripture because as Hebrews 4:12 says, the word of God is alive and active, the Word is life breathed out to us by God (Mat4:4). So when we reflect/meditate on scripture, we are enlightened by the Holy Spirit concerning the precepts of God, which is for the holistic benefit of our wellbeing. So unlike the world which practices its sloth even in meditation by way of emptying themselves out, true meditation requires you to diligently study the word of God i.e. The Holy Bible, which you are required to know from cover to cover.

God Bless!

Quite often, I have come across regular Church going people say, that religion is nothing but what society has developed, so that people would listen to what is good. Now there is a negligible fraction of truth to that statement but for a regular church goer to say that, is nothing but hypocrisy. Hypocrites are precisely what people are naturally from Adam because they believe religion should do nothing more than appeal to their good nature but when religion does that they rarely take notice. However, if you speak the truth about them to their face, they will take notice but hate you for it and so it is that people are naturally hypocrites from Adam because nothing is more bitter to these fools than the truth about themselves.

Proverbs 9
8 Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you, Reprove a wise man and he will love you.
9 Give instruction to a wise man and he will be still wiser, Teach a righteous man and he will increase his learning.
10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

It is for this reason people at their best can only believe in humanity because under such a belief system they can do as they please from their unbelief and make victims of those who cannot fight back. Take Abortion for instance, those liberals fools feel secure in ascertaining that those unborn babies cannot fight back but do you think God is going to sit quiet as millions of helpless babies are murdered? This is the very nature of unbelief among those who claim to believe in humanity as over the truth about God and Christ.

Prov 15
28 The heart of the righteous ponders how to answer, But the mouth of the wicked pours out evil things. 29The LORD is far from the wicked, But He hears the prayer of the righteous.

Today people think that the wicked are those who are rotting in prison for murder, rape, robbery and fraud. Then there are those who think that you can continue doing what you are doing until you get caught and then when society brands you as wicked, then you are wicked. However, this is far from the truth because the spirit of the anti-Christ has worked in men ever since the fall of Adam (Gen 3:1-6). These demonic spirits work in the hearts of all people because of Original Sin. So a wicked person is not necessarily a person who is on the police records but any and every man whose life is not in communion with God through Jesus Christ.

Romans 3
22 This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— 26 he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

27 Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. Because of what law? The law that requires works? No, because of the law that requires faith.

You see the reason people feel they are praying but their prayers are not heard is because their hearts aren’t set straight with God and they are implicitly asking God to serve their own rebellious nature. The Bible teaches God looks at our motives when we pray and though we may claim our prayer to be most philanthropic, our motives might be really messed up but no hypocrite will admit that. You see being hypocrites by nature, people are generally given to pray from a motive, which is not genuine but detestable in God’s sight (Mat7:3-5) and God will not listen such prayer because He cannot be mocked without damning repercussions. So, if you are really looking for your prayers to be answered, you’ve got to know God and His purpose.

Prov 8
34 “Blessed is the man who listens to me, Watching daily at my gates, Waiting at my doorposts.
35 “For he who finds me finds life And obtains favour from the LORD.
36 “But he who sins against me injures himself; All those who hate me love death.”

James 4
3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.

Against much of what the world’s heretics would like you to believe, God hasn’t left this world orphaned and neither does He play a non-interfering role with humanity. The issue is, when people see things in the world not going as they please, they think God is up to no good because they believe that God exists to serve humanity. You see, this stems from the very same lies these hypocrites fool themselves with, because from the very reason they have fooled themselves to believe that society created God so people may listen to what is good, from that very same reason they undoubtedly feel God exists to serve humanity. Such is the blasphemy they breed about God in their minds and then wonder why God does not answer their prayer. Why should God answer their prayer when these fools believe that God is an invention of society? Should God answer their prayer because He exists to serve Humanity? I hope you are able to see the damning unbelief we are dealing with here because this by itself defines wickedness.

John 6
43 Jesus answered and said to them, “Do not grumble among yourselves.
44 “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.
45 “It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught of God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me.
46 “Not that anyone has seen the Father, except the One who is from God; He has seen the Father.
47 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life.

You see, in order for you to pray, it requires you to know God, which is only possible through Jesus Christ because Jesus is the Son of God who came some 2000 years ago (Lk1:28-35), taking upon Himself the complete nature of man by being born of a virgin and thus having no part in inheriting the sin of Adam. This Jesus was the sacrifice God offered on behalf of us men who had no capacity for God’s righteousness and as the Bible teaches that life is in the blood, so it is with the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ that we have forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God. It is for this reason that the Bible refers to Jesus as the Lamb of God!

1 John3
21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God;
22 and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.

John 1
17 For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.
18 No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.

I may not know where you stand in your relationship with God but this I can say for sure that intimacy with God grows richer only with brushing shoulders with the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ. His Might rubs-off on you as you learn the righteousness God requires of you as a person. It is a high unlike any other and one which only keeps you asking for more of Jesus because when you know Jesus, you want nothing more than what God wants and that greatly pleases God. It’s like a child asking for or doing something that makes his father proud.

Psalms 37
4 Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will give you the desires of your heart.
5 Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, and He will do it.
6 He will bring forth your righteousness as the light And your judgment as the noonday.

Unlike the Christianity, our famous TV evangelist and the popular Charismatic movement is bearing witness to, asking in prayer is not about asking God as you please so as to satisfy your own appetite but it is asking from the knowledge of knowing God’s will because the true Christian’s strength is in exercising the joy of the Lord and not in satisfying his or her own appetite. I have come across and admonished many so called Bible believing Charismatics whose reason for praising God in the midst of their congregation was: I was praying for an iPhone and God answered my prayer or I was praying for a car and God blessed me with one.

Mat 6
24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.

I pity the senseless direction of the Charismatic school of thought because when these people testify in the midst of their congregation about God satisfying their appetite for material things (as though it was the crux of their religion), their congregation replies by quoting scripture like Ps2:8 saying you must ask for big things, without knowing that the big things we need to ask for are concerning that which please God and not in serving our own appetite. Such is the plight of the Charismatic movement that their religion is not to stand on Jesus’ righteousness and ask for that which pleases God but to ask in prayer for that which satisfies their own appetite since they subconsciously perceive that it pleases God to serve them. This then is no different from unbelief and so it is that these Charismatics are only fooling themselves in saying they are living for God when their religion is more about satisfying themselves.

Mat 6
31 “Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’
32 “For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.
33 “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Though I shall admit that there are many Charismatics who love God, the real problem is that only a small fraction of these have read their Bibles from cover to cover (Hosea4:6). With such an appalling rate of Biblical illiteracy and sloth, their congregations are left with nothing, but to do only what their pastors/leaders say. The average Charismatic therefore is very much unlike the Bereans of Acts 17:11 and though these may be given to say that they are Bible believing Christians, that is far from the truth. The reason I am citing the Charismatics in this post, as I have done in many others, is because asking in prayer is the punchline of the Prosperity Gospel, which is something I need to caution you against because money was never and shall never be the motive for true faith in God.

John 15
5 “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.
6 “If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.
7 “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

To conclude, we understand from Romans 5:17 that we are reconciled to God in the Lord Jesus Christ. In this manner our stewardship which was lost in Adam is restored to us in the Lord Jesus Christ because the image of God in which we were made (Gen 1:26) sought to reflect the God’s nature and will, in living out our Christian/Godly stewardship over the earth. So it is in prayer that we who are made in His image can only truly ask with proper purpose, when we ask for not what we want for ourselves but what we want according to God’s own righteousness.

Mat 5 (Jesus says)
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

Today, when Christians discuss “how to love your enemy”, it seems common sense and practicality are thrown out of the window for the sake mushy religiosity based on an eisegesis as over an exegesis of scripture. The reason I feel compelled to write on this topic is because there are people out there who desire to do that which pleases God but have spiritual elders who are poorly equipped with scripture and thereby incapable to holistically counsel them in the light of scripture. We ought to remember that a good exegesis is done when scripture is interpreted in the light of scripture, if a verse is interpreted so as to favour the prevailing humanists/liberal mind-set, not only does that not harmonize with the rest of scripture, which stands as its background but it ascertains a teaching which was never Biblically called for, to be the foolishness God supposedly requires of the individual from unholy fear.

Mat22
36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

If you were to take a look at the Ten Commandments (Ex20:3-17), you would notice that the first four commandments deal with the Christian’s religious accountability unto God, while the other six deal with the Christians accountability toward his/her neighbour. Now this neighbour could be anybody who exists or whom you can make contact with in your environment, yes even your worst enemy if he/she is around (Lk10:27-37). However, this does not mean that you ought to go hug them as you see them or ask them out for dinner or even smile at them from an out of place feeling. It just means that you should be courteous in your dealings with them and even help them out if they or their property is in danger.

Exodus 23
4 “If you come across your enemy’s ox or donkey wandering off, be sure to return it. 5 If you see the donkey of someone who hates you fallen down under its load, do not leave it there; be sure you help them with it.

As a true Christian, you need to understand that your enemy only hates you because he/she hates the nature of Christ that is burgeoning in you (Jn15:18-19). That hatred between the seed of Satan and the seed of Christ is what God has put in place from the beginning (Gen3:15) because light can have no fellowship with darkness (2Cor6:14). This means the Christian can never be intimately involved with the unbeliever because the glory of God pleases the Christian while a sinful satisfaction of self is what pleases the unbeliever.

Rom 12
18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. 20 On the contrary:
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
    if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”

Today, what the world knows about love is merely a mushy feeling that pampers the other to do as they please but if you were to read the scripture from Mat22 above, you would notice that love requires us to bear responsibility unto God and neighbour. Love is not merely a wavering emotion but a duty given the Godly to act from the nature of Christ (Phil4:13) because when the individual is born from above, he/she turns to God by the merit of Christ (Jn3:3,16 & 15:4). So you notice that the individual is called to be Godlike in nature, in his/her calling to be Christlike (Ezek36:27), as the moral law of God occupies the person’s heart (Jer31:33), making God’s precepts the individual’s new nature because we are a new creation in Christ (2Cor5:17).

Rom 9
22 What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction?

1Cor13
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

From 1Cor 13 we notice that patience is a virtue of love and in Rom 9 we see that God exhibits such love through patience upon the wicked who are merely vessels of wrath prepared for destruction. So in being called to follow after God (Mat10:16,25), we are called to be gentle and live as peaceably/wisely with them as you possibly can (Prov16:7/Rom12:8).

2Tim 2
23 Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. 24 And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, 25 correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, 26 and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.

That is to say that scripture does not expect you to make your enemies your close friends or count them among your loved ones because such intimacy is not possible for you who are in Christ to have such communion with those whose communion with God is broken. In other words, the reason you would not be able to share intimate fellowship with your enemy is because what your enemy delights in, will probably make you feel squeamish.

Col1:21
21 And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, 22 yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach— 23 if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister.

To conclude, most of us believers would know how we lived back in the time when we were unbelievers, knowing now how patient God was with us while we never knew the rich intimacy of Christ’ fellowship back then (Col1:21-22). We thereby are not given to determine beforehand whether the patience/curtesy we exhibit unto our enemies, shall be a conduit of God’s mercy allowing for closer/likeminded fellowship with the individual (2Tim2:25) or whether it would merely be leaving room for God’s justice (Rom12:19) because Salvation belongs to God and as Rom 9:15 says God has mercy on whom He has mercy and compassion on whom He has compassion.