A bit too comfortable

Friends,

Have you been living in partial victory?
Do you find yourself struggling against the same issues, day after day, month after month, year after year?

It's not the first time for you, for me, or for anyone else.

But the children of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites who inhabited Jerusalem; so the Jebusites dwell with the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day.
Judges 1:21 [NKJV]

The tribe of Benjamin did the same thing that all the others did. They took the land and declared victory. Indeed they were victorious. But they did not drive out the ones that they defeated. The victors therefore did not take full possession of their reward.

The Jebusites are a threshing people. They represent the weight of condemnation and self-recrimination. They beat us over and over with the guilt and reproach of our sinful past. In so doing, they drag us back to relive that past, to repeat those same stumbles, and to deny us the full experience of living under the blessing of God.

Why did the Benjamites allow the Jebusites to live with them? Who knows.

Why do we allow the sins and the weight of our carnal past to remain with us? Why don't we drive it out? Are we too comfortable with the familiarity of those life choices?

Choose today, brothers and sisters. Continue to live under condemnation and guilt and shame. Or drive out that Jebusite spirit, and live in the freedom that abundantly flows from genuine repentance.

Be encouraged, Jose

Make it about Him, not you

“Thus you shall speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying: ‘Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, “Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.” Look! You have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands by utterly destroying them; and shall you be delivered? Have the gods of the nations delivered those whom my fathers have destroyed, Gozan and Haran and Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Telassar? Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivah?’”
2 Kings 19:10-13 (NKJV)

Sounds familiar, hun? You've watched all the cable news and networks and the airwaves. Its the news of the terror in the air, the pervading recession, the lost jobs, punctured destinies, shattered nest eggs, market implosions, a comatose but slowly recovering world economy, daily threats of losing the remnants of your treasures. And as if the rain of dread and the deficiency of 'good news' isn't enough, then you receive the letter like Hezekiah below....

And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD. Then Hezekiah prayed before the LORD, and said: “O LORD God of Israel, the One who dwells between the cherubim, You are God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. Incline Your ear, O LORD, and hear; open Your eyes, O LORD, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God. Truly, LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands, and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were not gods, but the work of men’s hands—wood and stone. Therefore they destroyed them. Now therefore, O LORD our God, I pray, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You are the LORD God, You alone.”
2 Kings 19:14-19 (NKJV)

For every turn in our life there is an action needed for breakthrough. You can only smile in front of a closed door when you have the key. Halleluyah!!!!! Hezekiah upon receiving the letter did not reach out to anyone like he did previously (read 2 Kings 19), he took the world's letter to the Living God and stated his case. Hezekiah made it about God not himself or his nation. With a steady relationship with your Creator, make this your core strategy to deal with all issues of your time.

Be encouraged,

Afolabi