Life. The journey we are all on. Different paths leading each of us on varied experiences. We rise, we fall and hope to share our story to the benefit of someone else. Mine is a story of persistence. Persistence in hoping and trusting in God, believing I could achieve what others thought impossible. The first was believing I could get into a top global business school without the ideal GMAT score. I sat that 2011 Saturday in Church with the MBA dream still in its infancy and I heard a voice - 'you will go for your MBA, free of charge'. Yes I did hear a voice. And so the journey began - a 5-year waiting season.
Author: Mr. Streetz
What could ‘gods’ look like in our lives today?
"Beware of fleshly lusts which war against your soul!" - 1 Pet 2:11. In Bible times, the people (aka gentiles/heathen) who surrounded the Israelites worshipped images, sculptures etc...lifeless things that they held in high esteem above the true God. As it was in those times, worshiping these gods was very common and attractive. At a more fundamental level, it’s attraction was partly borne out of an unwillingness to hope in the unseen and the ease of pleasing/manipulating the seen. The more society moved towards worshipping these idols, the quicker its values deteriorated as the quickening power of the holy spirit’s working process on the mind weakened. Better said, the act itself may not take an inordinate amount of time but it could have longer lasting effects which draw our minds away to things that do not glorify God.
The Midianites – who were they? 🤓
Studying the history of the Midianites through the pages of the Bible reveals some interesting facts. Most fascinating is that they were almost annihilated by Moses who had married one of them (Zipporah) and had lived with them for 40 years while he was in exile. For Moses, he must have found it really hard to war against his wife’s own people, slaying their kings and rulers as well as people. You may be surprised at the number of other things the Bible tells us about these people:
When Joshua wouldn’t leave…
Exodus 33:11 Joshua is such a great Bible character that the Holy Spirit thought it worthy to dedicate an entire book in the Bible to Him. The first time he comes up in the Bible was in Exodus 17:9 and it happens to have been when Moses instructed him to go fight the Amalekites. The … Continue reading When Joshua wouldn’t leave…
Why God allows “the wilderness” and the importance of responding correctly while in it
God didn’t intend for the Israelites to spend 40 years wandering in the Wilderness. In fact, God thought them ready to possess the promised land within 2 years of leaving Egypt. But right at the border of receiving the promise, the people succumbed to fear, rebelling against God, disobeying Him and lacking faith to step forward. Oh what a shame - right at the border! In God’s eyes, this was an exceedingly great sin and not only were the people who doubted destroyed, but the people were made to wander in the desert for another 38 years. 😞
The power in building the walls of your mind 🙅🏾♂️🙅🏾♀️
The cultivated mind is the measure of the man. An ordinary mind, well disciplined, will accomplish more and higher work than will the most highly educated mind and the greatest talents without self-control.
Like brother like sister – Tracing the roots of Laban and Rebekah, Masters of Deception 👿
It’s quite surprising how the siblings, Laban and Rebekah, were so innately deceptive. In fact, Rebekah’s deceptive spirit was so deeply engrained in her heart that when Jacob worried that his father could find out about their trick, she said “Let your curse be upon me, my son...” 😮 I therefore wondered where she could have picked up this terrible heart of deception from. 🤔
God wants to give you “a future and a hope”
Jeremiah 29:11 says God wants to “give us a future and a hope (i.e. an expected end - KJV)”. 🤔💭 Trying to make sense of this I noticed that NKJV/NLT equate KJV’s “expected end” with “a future and a hope”. But why, what could these mean? There is surely an end i.e. a future that God has planned for us, but God gives it to us through hope. The future and hope come hand in hand, like the fist to a glove. It is an end that we actively expect, a future that we hope towards. God gives this hope to us. He puts visions of the future He desires for us into our heart and wants us to hope, long and work towards it. This is corroborated in Phillipians 2:13, which tells us that when we walk with God, the desires of our heart and our resulting actions are of Him. Faith’s definition in itself is substantiated in hope (Heb 11:1).
Echoes from the wilderness: The cloud and pillar of fire. ☁️🔥
Why did the cloud and pillar of fire keep moving all over the place during the Israelites’ journey in the wilderness? Studying it, I found that in our wilderness seasons, God tells us when to move and when to stop. Whether it was two days, a month or a year that the cloud/fire remained static, the Israelites also remained in place and did not journey. Each movement or stopping was done at the command of the Lord. (Num 9:23). Better said, the wilderness period is intentional of God and His children must root themselves in Him so they know the reason for the season and what to do therein.
The mirage of answered prayers and why God tests our faith. 💔😢
Have you ever been in a situation where you’ve been praying to God for something, it looks as if it’s all coming together but then you end up with nothing? Sometimes it takes the form of there being a lot of activity which looks as if God is finally moving but in the end you still end up disappointed?