Smallest Seed

Ransacked! If you have been successful (more so materially), you gain friends. People befriend you. You become Mr or Ms Popular. And the tickling accolades that overfeed the ego deaden your senses. Pride deadens discernment. Moreover, it weakens God's flesh on you. Success that breeds a spirit of pride is like a magnet that attracts betrayal. People befriend you for ulterior motives. It's dog-eat-dog out there, people using each other for mundane glory. You give them your hand and they gobble up your arm. The worse part is that, you'd never suspect it. Pride has this curse. Because of her success, Edom was able to form alliances with other nations. Acceptance into alliances, even today, can make you wallow in pride, because only the successful are recognized and permitted entry into them. While she was rich the alliance was secure. While she was able to offer things and grant demands to her allies, the going was great. Later, however, her "friends...

Edom was "up there." Success is God's will. There was nothing wrong with Edomites living on high mountain tops, secure in their rock cleft dwellings. In fact, Esau (from whom Edom was derived) had the first-born blessing. He was a son of Isaac, who was a son of Abraham. He was lined up for blessings until he despised his position and sold it to Jacob. From "up there" God brought him down. He lost his first born rights to Jacob. Often, success can make us despise our position in God. Being a successful hunter and getting Isaac's favor, he thought he was so secure. What harm would losing your first-born rights do if you're already dad's favorite? And Jacob? He's nothing but a house cook, a mama's boy, a home boy. He'd never amount to anything. When you despise your inheritance in favor of success, you also begin to despise your brother. A lot of believers can sacrifice God in favor of mundane favors. Do they succeed? Oh yes, more tha...

Perfection Comes from Failures Edom was enjoying the height of pride, until one day he mused: "Who has the power to bring me down to the ground?" Success has the tendency to deceive. It's better to face failures upon failures if it makes you meek and wise. Perfection comes from failures. As you fail and learn you become perfect in Christ. Perfection is not how the world views it, as Edom had once viewed it. Perfection is not an achievement (you can never make it happen); it's an endowment of grace that ever-increases in glory. That's genuine perfection.  Remember, grace is NEVER a license to excuse sin--or even a vehicle to sin less. Grace is power to kick out sin and wickedness from our lives daily [Titus 2.11-12]. The wicked uses grace for a license to sin [Jude verse 4]. Success can easily blur our eyes and make us short-sighted about our life walk. We see only the success at hand, not the subtle attacks of the enemy in the vainglory of succ...

Image from  groningen.nieuws.nl. I thought of posting here a bible study outline I did for a friend. It's about having God's favor: Verse : Esther 2.12-17 Title : "Getting the King's Favor" Passage : [12] Before a girl's turn came to go into King Xerxes' chamber, she should have completed 12 months of rigid beauty treatments required of women--6 months for oil of myrrh treatment, and 6 months of perfumes and cosmetics. [13] And then she went to the king in this way: she would be given a free choice on whatever she wished to take with her from the Harem to the king's palace (to attract the king with). [14] Come evening, she would enter the king's bedroom, and in the morning be sent to a place in the Harem under the care of Shaashgas, the eunuch in charge of the concubines. She was not allowed to see the king again unless he wished for her and called her by name.  [15] When it was Esther'...

Pride in the heart is worse than pride in the mind. Heart pride may even appear meek and lowly but the superiority complex is there deep within. Pride in the mind may be noisy and talkative, but it's often shallow and reversible.  Heart pride is deadly. It is deep seated. It's a stubborn stumbling block. It's something like a pastor who is all-out for his church denomination, vowing to die for it. Does this sound familiar?  "I will die a ________ (name of denomination). These are hopeless conservative and dogmatic ideologues. No different or better from rabid communists or capitalists. They're intellectually unhealthy to be with. Well, it's different if you're unwaveringly proud of Jesus Christ, His Kingdom, and His Word. In this case, you should be rabid to the extreme, though people of man's mind will fear and avoid you. And they are among people most deceived. "Your heart pride has deceived you, you who live in caves on high mountain...

If you have any concerns or complaints about life, you have no one else to address it to except God. He alone is . Besides Him, there is none. It says somewhere that Satan is the god of this world. True, but only as far as God allows him. Satan is just among millions of tiny particles beneath God's footstool, squirming and clamoring for His audience. Satan cannot make anything happen anywhere on earth as God can. In fact, He alone makes things happen on this planet. God alone. He said to Edom: "See, I will decimate you among the nations; you will be despised to the max," [Obadiah]. Whatever happens in current events, whatever happened in all history, it was all out of God's sovereignty. God's deciding hands. Satan could only ask permission for every little act he is allowed. Without God's go signal, he cannot do anything.  God can act directly or indirectly any time He wants. In Edom's case, God sent an envoy carrying His message t...

Yesterday, we had a terrific time watching Mark 12 unfold before us in an awesome vision. The discipleship church God gave me to handle (for a while) saw how God's vineyard is presently doing and how His household operates in it.  Tenants Tenants are renting the vineyard. and tenants are bible-believing people (like the Pharisees and law teachers in Jesus' time) who are tasked with collecting fruit. They need not plant because the vineyard Owner, before leaving, put up everything needed in it--the hedges, tower, wine press, and the plants themselves. In fact, it says the Owner "planted" a vineyard. And His design is for one single vineyard, not subdivisions. The tenants or farmers are not household servants--they're there supposedly to gather  fruits so that when household servants are sent to collect them they'd be ready. But tenants are not servants--they're there for two selfish ulterior motives--to keep the fruits for themselves and gr...