The Miracle in your Mouth

What have you released into your atmosphere this morning? Have you legislated the outcome of the happenings in your day? We live in a causal realm, so don’t just accept what life throws at you, wake up and issue commands and counter-commands, that enforces what is written. Playing a victim in life does not benefit you nor anyone. Self-pity is only an indication that you are in the pit. You may be in the pit today but that is not your destination, arise, shine for your light has come and the glory of God is risen upon you.

Your life can be likened to a garden, and the plants in this garden, as the result of the seeds of your word spoken. If you don’t want to see it in your future, don’t give a voice to it. When we speak we are not only saying what we feel or think, but also we are issuing commands and granting permissions for existence.

Thou shalt also decree a thing, and it shall be established unto thee: and the light shall shine upon thy ways. (Job 22:28)

Again death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.              (Prov. 18:21)

What product is your tongue manufacturing: Death or Life? Life is manufactured when what we say is consistent with the word of God. Death is produced when we say what we feel and think in the midst of our confusion, trouble, and worry.

Nobody will intentionally grow weeds in their garden, weeds are wild. So it’s not a matter of not saying anything negative or bad, but it’s about consciously, consistently, and intentionally declaring your identity consistent with what God has said about you in His word.

If you don’t intentionally declare and enforce who you are, then you will have to live other people’s definition of you. One day Jesus asked His disciples, “Who do men say that the Son of Man is?”  And they replied, “Some say you are John the Baptist; others say Elijah; still others say Jeremiah or one of the prophets”.

From that day onward, Jesus began making a series of I AM statements because He did not want His real identity to be tarnished or warped by the school of public opinion. He said of Himself; “I AM the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will give the light of life”, “I AM the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he dies, yet he shall live…”, “I AM the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”, etc.

Stop looking everywhere else except God for help, the miracle is in your mouth. It’s not about what others are saying about you that matters, what are you saying about yourself? What kind of conversation do you have with yourself when no one is around?

 It’s not about being proud or braggadocios, it’s about conviction in the heart as a result of knowledge from God’s word overflowing from the deep wells of the soul of man. You will also speak if you believe.

We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak;  (2 Corin 4:13)

Don’t look on and beg for mercy while life passes you by. Life has never been fair, it’s not going to be anytime soon. But all hope is not lost, the miracle is in your mouth!

David did not kill Goliath with a sword, his words killed him.

⁴⁵Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied.

⁴⁶ This day will the Lord deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee; and I will give the carcases of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.

⁴⁷ And all this assembly shall know that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is the Lord‘s, and he will give you into our hands. (1 Samuel 17:45-47)

Every closed mouth equals a closed destiny.

Go, search through the word, study it, eat the scroll and when your belly is full, then speak. Then and only then will you see; light shining out of darkness, your life coming into divine alignment with the vision and purposes of God, favor surrounding you as a shield on every side, your yokes destroyed and the heavy burden lifted off of your shoulder.

Please Repeat this Confession:

I AM the seed of Abraham the world belongs to me. I AM a victor any day, anywhere and anytime. I AM the light of the world, darkness is far from me and my household. I AM a burning and a shining light, I Have clarity of thought because I have the mind of Christ. I don’t talk foolishly, I speak well, I speak wisdom. Glory to God.

The Laws of Life

The laws of life are like light-houses, which are consistent, permanent, and immovable. Irrespective of dispensation or civilization or era their foundations stand sure. Being indifferent to color, social status or country, or religion, the laws of life apply to all nevertheless.

 Technology has not reduced the gestation period of an expectant mother, the last time I checked.

No man can violate or break a true law. When you go against a law, the law hurts you; you don’t hurt the law. For example, when you jump from a pinnacle, you don’t violate gravity, gravity violates you; pulls you down. And the consequences can be calamitous. The law is not destroyed, you destroy yourself.

The knowledge of the laws of life and their right application is the beginning of life. Since the time that God created the world and rested, God has not created anything new. He set in motion, the cause of nature and its laws, and how every created thing must be sustained and has since that time not interfered or changed how anything should function.

The product called human being still comes in two models; the male and the female model. The sun still continues to be the ruler by day and the moon by night. There are still twenty-four hours in a day and seven days in a week. We just need to understand that certain things never change.

Laws have inherent principles that regulate the nature of life. They also regulate the nature of relationships. Most of the things people attribute to God or the devil are neither here nor there and it is a result of their lack of understanding of the laws of life.

God does not punish anyone for wrongdoing, punishments and rewards are already inherent in the laws of nature. For example, if the fish becomes tired of water and decides to no longer live in it, the consequence is death. God does not need to kill it. This is because the law for the fish is, it needs water to live. The fish does not have the luxury of an option if it wants to live to choose whether or not to have a relationship with water. It is a must! For survival.

When the plant is disconnected from the dust of the earth, death begins immediately, because the law of the plant is the dust of the earth. Everything God created has its source. He called out the creature from its source.

When God wanted to create the fish and all creatures that will live in the ocean, He spoke to the waters.

When He wanted to create plants and animals that will be on the land, He spoke to the earth.

Guess what He spoke to when He wanted to create mankind? Himself!

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. (Genesis 1: 26 – 27)

As the law of the fish is water, and the law of the plant and the mammals is earth, the law of mankind is God. The soul begins to die when it disconnects from God. Man’s connection to God is non-negotiable and mandatory. We disengage at our own peril. We don’t hurt God when we ignore him and break His laws, we rather hurt ourselves.

The absence of law is the beginning of destruction. God’s laws are not burdensome or restrictive as some people may have us to believe. He gives us laws out of love, only to save, not from just physical death but also eternal destruction.

Unless thy law had been my delights,
I should then have perished in mine affliction.
I will never forget thy precepts:
for with them thou hast quickened me.

(Psalm 119: 92 – 93)

By Percy Selorm Agbeblewu

Chosen for Pain

Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that continues to bear fruit, He [repeatedly] prunes, so that it will bear more fruit [even richer and finer fruit].  (Amp 15:2)

With careful observation, pain seems to have been programmed into nature by the Creator for a purpose. Everything that must grow must of necessity go through some cutting per our opening verse. It is amazing because whether the cutting is done to take off a non-productive branch or to increase fruit production, the pain felt is the same.

It is a matter of perspective. If you see the cutting as an act to get rid of you, you will avoid and fight the process required to increase your growth.

Do you know how pearls are formed? Pearls come from oysters or other shellfish like mussels and clams and if these shelled creatures enjoy a calm, peaceful, pain-free existence, they never produce a pearl at all. They only create pearls if an irritant, like a tiny speck of pebble or sand or a parasite becomes trapped in the sensitive tissues within their hard shells.
 In order to soothe and remediate the pain caused by this invasion abrasion, oysters and shellfish emit a substance called Nacre that coats the irritating invader with a smooth, slippery, translucent layer.
 They then repeat this process over and over until the irritant is coated with many layers of Nacre, forming a beautiful pearl.

A pearl of great price is our pain wrapped in God’s perfection.

I once saw this writing at a gymnasium “No Pain, No Gain”, how true! Those who wish for an easy life, murmur and blame others when their expectations are not met.

Pain is the incubator that births new dreams and visions that would never have been realized in comfort. 

The art of turning pain to power is the secret of all great achievers. When one masters the pain of failure, then and only then is he ready for success. 

Nelson Mandela suffered for twenty-seven years in prison with hard labor, cracking hard rocks all those years. His mastery of the physical, psychological and emotional pains, kept him alive when his fellow men were dying out of hopelessness. He later return from prison to become the first black president of his nation.

The evidence of this transformation is seen in his own words,
“As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.”

Unlike the great men and women of old, this generation is hard-up for depths of personalities of such intensity and magnitude. This is rather a microwave generation who want to be great overnight without going through any process at all. This is a generation that cannot be rebuked by their elders and sees correction and the rod as a curse.

 Hence with all the advantages of technology, the corruption of the human character is at it’s all times worst. The border line between good and evil has been erased and the moral corruption has become an incurable epidemic of enormous magnitude.

Jesus Christ, our quintessential example, was crushed beyond recognition on the tree, that He may impart eternal life to all you will later believe in Him. It is not for nothing that more than two thousand years afterwards, the world still cannot get over Him.
The extent to which we allow ourselves to be broken and crushed in the process of our given assignment will determine how useful a tool we can be in the hands of the master. 

I leave you with the words of Kathryn Kuhlman: “God does not seek a perfect vessel, He only asks for a vessel that is broken and available ”. How broken are you?

By Percy Agbeblewu.

Conquer or Die

You have just one life to live, will you let it count for something good?

You have just one life to live, will our planet be a better place because of you?

Will there still be a trace of your existence after your casket is closed?

These are hard and yet deep questions, that continue to linger in the soul as time gradually ebbs into eternity. We have dreams and visions, which we hope to accomplish one day, but yet the uncertainties of life and it constant buffeting turns to plant doubts in our hearts as to the possibility of the accomplishment of our dreams.

The greatest tragedy is not that men die, but what dies in men while they live. There are many who take in oxygen and give out carbon dioxide but have no evidence of life. The evidence of life is growth and multiplication. The tree that does not bear fruit is cut down and thrown in the fire. Whatever does not evidence life is just occupying space.

You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt loses its savor, it is good for nothing, but cast to the ground and trodden under feet of men.

You cannot conquer what you fail to confront and what you do not confront will always be a torn in your flesh causing psychological, emotional, and mental hemorrhages. When a man conquers himself, then and only then, is he ready to conquer his world.

There is no great name in history that did not conquer an injustice or evil or at least died trying to make a difference in the life of others. Great names are not remembered because of how they sound but because such offered unparalleled service, not out of duty, but out of compassion, love, and self-denial for the benefit of humanity and restoration of hope to many.

Hence though their mortal remains waste way in the graveyards, their names continue to leave indelible memories in the hearts and minds of hundreds of generations thereafter.  

Leaving a well-paid job as the Headmistress of St. Teresa’s School in Calcutta in India and the comfortable confines of the Roman Catholic convent, Mother Teresa experienced what she later described as “the call within the call”. In her own words, “I was to leave the convent and help the poor while living among them”. She opened her first hospice care and in her words, it would care for “the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, and all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone”.

Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif called her “a rare and unique individual who lived long for higher purposes. Her life-long devotion to the care of the poor, the sick, and the disadvantaged was one of the highest examples of service to our humanity.”

There are few who ever became great without sacrificing comfort or suffering some lose in one way or the other but like in wine production, the crushing of the berries releases the profiting content that is enjoyed by many in their homes and at parties. Don’t complain that life is hard, don’t say if things were different, I would do something. Do something with them as they are. Facing your life as it is now and winning is the object. When things go hard and money stops coming in, or you lose your job and everything goes wrong, don’t say why me? But say try me and go on and conquer.

Arise and shine for your light has come, ARISE AND CONQUER.

By Percy Selorm Agbeblewu.

All Have Ability

There is a gold mine hidden in every life. Every man has success hidden away in his soul. No one else can find it but himself. What you have undeveloped, has no or little value. Put yourself into life. Study, drive yourself, and always remember that your worst enemy is inside of you. All men are not born on an equal pedestal, but no man is born without ability. God never created a failure. All failure is man-made as a result of man’s personal ambition to be self-independent. Everybody was created a masterpiece, as difficult as that may sound; a work of great, outstanding artistry, skill, or workmanship.

All have ability and there is no overdevelopment. It does not matter who you are or your circumstances. They have never made a handicap that could hold a man that had in him the yeast to rise.

Your excuse for failure is no longer tenable because many have come from nowhere and with all their issues, contributed significantly to the development of their communities and nations to the extent that they cannot be forgotten. Their mortal bodies may have long decayed and returned to dust but their names are forever written not only in letters of gold in the annals of history but also in the hearts of men where their precious names cannot perish or be corrupted by time.

Remember berries are crushed underfoot in the process of winemaking. This crushing process breaks the skin and starts to liberate the content of the berries.

What is in you can only be exposed for profiting through crushing circumstances and situations. Until the Alabaster flask is crushed or broken the expensive ointment is of no use to anybody, not even the critical Pharisees.

The true-life story of Eliza Edmunds Hewitt epitomizes this assertion. Eliza was born on this day, June 28, 1851, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Educated in the local school system, she graduated as valedictorian of the Girl’s Normal School that she attended. She became a teacher in the public schools of her city.

But then came misery. Her career screeched to a halt when she was forced to bed with a painful spinal problem. Her debilitating condition was caused by a reckless student striking her with a piece of slate. Lying in bed, she could have been bitter. Instead, she studied English literature and began to sing and write heavenly and timeless tunes from the bed of affliction.

We remember Eliza Hewitt today because of those hymns. Had she never been bedridden, she might not have written them. Among the best known are, “Give Me Thy Heart, Says the Father Above,” “When We All Get to Heaven”, “Will there be any Stars in My Crown?”.

There are few who have reached the top who had not been handicapped. Obstacles stand in the way of the man who climbs. The trouble with too many is that they want to get it too easily.

Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated, thus, everyone’s task is unique as his specific opportunity to implement it.

History does not remember us because we explained and justified our situation or challenges in life, anyone can do that. But we are remembered because the challenges and the situations had no power to devour our inner richness poured into us by the Creator and that we emptied ourselves through service, for the benefit of our generation and even generations yet unborn.

By Percy Agbeblewu.

Not Another Religion

Christianity has come a long way right from the dark ages till now, a lot has taken place and God does not waste any experience, the good, bad and ugly have been used by God to fulfil His purpose on the earth. Right from the beheading of saints to the burning of believers against stakes amidst indescribable torture, God has been faithful and the fire of the message of the gospel remains unquenchable even now.

Only a few today know what it took to get the Bible printed and distributed in every corner as we see today. Men and women of unquenchable faith have paid the ultimate price for this generation to access that which was taboo in their days. Christianity as a religion is the fabrication and effort of men to serve a god they don’t know. Religion, therefore, is a leap in the dark.

Human nature yearns for power, recognition and fulfilment in this life and even hereafter: the reason for the numerous religions in our world.
Every religion promises a life of fulfilment, power, peace, and protection from harm for its followers, etc but the authenticity of these promises is all around us today.

Some schools of thought believe religion is the cause of about 90% of our woes. A lot of calamitous crimes and activities have been perpetrated with impunity all in the name of religion and it would not be far from the truth to say that religion has caused us more harm than good.

In the light of the above the solution to the problems of our world: slavery, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, segregation, racial discrimination and in this new millennium: religious terrorism and xenophobia, is not yet another religion, G-8 meeting or peace marches but the re-establishment of the kingdom of God in the earth realm.

Religion seeks to take earth to heaven but kingdom mentality empowers citizens to bring heaven to the earth. It was not the goal of Jesus to introduce one more religion on the earth called Christianity. His desire was to empower His followers to develop the capacity to super-impose the kingdom of heaven over the earth realm. So He taught them to pray;

“When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in
heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom
come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth”

Christianity is divinity living in humanity. It is the Spirit of God indwelling a yielded vessel dispensing the goodness and the love of God to humanity. Christianity is an active and living intimate relationship with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Any other kind of Christianity devoid of these is another religion.

The world does not need another religion, the world needs Jesus.