What an empty life looks like….

“Then He spoke a parable to them saying:

“The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully.

And he thought within himself, saying, what shall I do,

since I have no room to store my crops?

So he said, I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build

greater, and there I will store all  my crops and my goods.

And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up

for many years, take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.”

Luke 12: 16-19

 

We all know how this story ends,

 

“But God said to him, Fool!

This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will

those things be which you have provided?

So is he who lays up treasure, and is not rich toward God.”

Luke 12:20, 21

 

This story shows us what an empty life looks like.

The rich fool had so much in his hands and instead of using it

to make a difference in people’s lives he thought about how

he could consume it on himself!

 

You can’t make a difference if all you think about is how you

are going to be provided for.

The rich fool could have impacted so many lives but he didn’t.

He didn’t understand what he really had.

 

I have a friend who is a dancer by profession and I watched one of his

dance videos yesterday.

I was so impacted by it and the one thing that stood out to me

was how he was using what God had given him to bring glory to God.

That’s what it’s all about friends.

God has given you talents and gifts but it is all meaningless if you are not

using it to bring glory to His name.

Are you using what God has given you to touch your family, neighbor,

unsaved friend, community, city, nation and world??

That is why you have been given talents and gifts.

That’s why you were created.

Your purpose is always about touching people. When God created

you, He made you in such a way that you would shine in the darkness.

 

My challenge to you is to think about what God has given you.

How can you use it to show God’s love?

How can you use it to impact the people around you?

Your challenge is my challenge.

Let’s make sure we are using the gifts God has given us to bring Him glory.

As I sign off I will leave you watching

my friend’s dance video. I pray

it ministers to you as it did to me….

photo credit: google images

 

Rolain

The true gift……

                                    photo credit: google images

 

I want to bring something back into order, something that

has been tarnished, and diminished in the world

today. The world may have forgotten but we must not forget.

We cannot forget. “What is he rambling on about”, you might be

asking??

 

What do you think is the best gift God can give you?

Salvation yes…!!!! But I am talking about what comes

after salvation.

The world has put value on possessions. Some think God’s

best comes in the form of money. But the word is very

clear about what God’s best gift is:

 

Don’t you see that children are God’s best gift?

The fruit of the womb his generous legacy? Psalms 127:3 (MSG)

 

We have been deceived as the body of Christ because we have put

other things first. We have desired other things which is not a

bad thing. Don’t get me wrong….God has so much in store for us.

But we must not lose sight of His greatest gift to us, children!

Parents need to teach their kids about family and legacy!

As single men and women we need to think about our legacy.

Our career is important but I feel we have put that ahead of

everything else. It’s not “cool” to think about family anymore!

God’s definition of the best gift is children but do we think like that?

As I write this it is cutting me as well. It’s a hard

thought. We have become so selfish. We only think about

ourselves and what WE can get. But God is thinking so

much grander…..

May we get a revelation today…….Amen!

 

Rolain

Is Christmas still relevant today?

I love Christmas!

But I have a question.

What does Christmas really mean?

(Deep in thought……)

Christmas is about Santa Claus

It’s about giving and spending time with family. It’s about food (lots of it) haha

It’s also about the birth of Christ! For Christians this is the main purpose of Christmas.

It’s that time of the year we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior.

But as I reflect on Christmas a few things come to mind:

The 2014 Isla Vista killings – where a man shot and killed six people and injured thirteen others before committing suicide! I can only imagine what the families are going through!

The disappearance of Malaysian Airlines earlier this year which resulted in the loss of hundreds of lives! Hundreds of families will spend Christmas alone!

The death and loss caused by ISIS. There are people still fleeing for their lives. There are people still losing loved ones. There are lots of people living in fear because of ISIS.

The kidnapping of 200 girls by the Boko Haram.

Women and girls who have been trafficked and haven’t been rescued!

The list goes on and on!

As I thought on this I thought to myself,

Surely Christmas is more than gifts, food, Santa Claus, and family? Those things are important but what does Christmas offer to the person who has lost everything?

Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. (‭Luke‬ ‭2‬:‭10-11‬ NKJV)

We were lost doomed to die but Jesus came and changed that. He reversed our death sentence to one of life! When I think of Christmas, I think of the hope it brings!  A hope that the world desperately needs. A hope WE desperately need!!

Christmas offers hope for everyone! No matter how bad things are, no matter how hopeless they seem, there is hope! Don’t be discouraged, don’t lose heart. You have been given a second chance!

Christmas is a beacon of hope to all that need hope!

Bad things have happened and are still happening but the birth of Jesus Christ is the answer to the pain and the terror that has happened.

When you think of the birth of Jesus Christ, His death and what He accomplished should come to mind! You cannot separate those two powerful, world changing events!

He came to give us life, peace, joy, a reason to live again, hope and a whole lot more!

If you are in pain, if you are alone, if your future looks hopeless know this:

There is hope for you……

You have a second, third, fourth chance!

God cares for you and looks after you.

Christmas represents HOPE for everyone!

Merry Christmas to you all.

Rolain

An Introduction on faith…..

 

Do we really understand all we need to understand about faith? I don’t think so. And as I read Hebrews 11 I was more convinced of that fact. There is so much we don’t understand about faith, so much we need to learn. As we begin to understand more of what faith is the deeper we can walk in it. The men and women of old had a different view of faith and we see it in the stories we read. Let me not get ahead of myself….

As we begin let us look at the definition of faith according to scripture.

Hebrews 11:1 – Now faith is the assurance (the confirmation, the title deed) of the things [we] hope for, being the proof of things [we] do not see and the conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses].

That is the way the Amplified Version puts it. I like this definition a lot because I understand a little about title deeds. An individual doesn’t need to take people to his house to convince them he owns the house. All he has to do is show them the title deeds. Even though the house can’t be seen the title deed is the person’s proof. And so it is with faith. Your faith is the “title deed” you carry around. We can’t see the house, the car, the career or whatever it is you are trusting God for but the faith you have in God is your proof! It is the tangible proof that God will give you what He promised. But with that being said, how does faith work? To answer that question let us look at another passage of scripture.

The Message bibles says it like this,

By faith, we see the world called into existence by God’s word, what we see created by what we don’t see. Hebrews 11:3

This is the essence of faith. “What we see created by what we don’t see”. God didn’t wait to see, feel, touch, taste for Him to create. Let us learn from Him. Your life may look like nothing is happening but have faith.  Your life seems meaningless but it’s not. You need to speak and act upon what God has shown you. It may seem out of this world but you need to speak it out. Faith doesn’t wait for things to take shape and happen before it acts, no! In the darkness, in the bareness faith works!

To drive this point home let us look at another scripture:

By faith, Noah built a ship in the middle of dry land. He was warned about something he couldn’t see, and acted on what he was told. The result? His family was saved. Hebrews 11:7

Let us imagine this because I think it’s pretty amazing. Noah was warned by God about a flood. He had never experienced a flood before. So because he feared God he built an ark. How crazy must he have looked by everyone! The word says, “He built a ship in the middle of dry land”! Wow. Did he have to struggle with doubts? Did he ever stop and think, what the heck am I doing? We don’t know all that but what we know is he built a ship on dry land. God wants us to start building our ships. It may not make sense, it may sound like the craziest thing in the world, people will mock you, but that is not what matters, believing what God tells you is what is important. Having faith in Him is the most important thing.

As I conclude this post let us look at one more scripture:

By an act of faith, Israel walked through the Red Sea on dry ground. The Egyptians tried it and drowned. Hebrews 11:29

Faith will let you go places other people can’t. Faith will sustain you in situations that would kill other people in normal circumstances. Who has ever walked through the Red Sea or any sea for that matter?? But because the Israelites had faith God parted the Red Sea so they could walk through it. The Egyptians thought it would be an easy task but how wrong they were. If we rely on our flesh we will fail. If we think we are strong enough or clever enough we will fail. The best of flesh is still flesh. Faith is the only thing that will allow us to do the impossible. Faith is the only thing that will get God’s attention.  So let’s picture this scenario,

The Israelites had faith and they walked through the Red Sea

The Egyptians didn’t have faith in God but thought because they were the strongest and fiercest, they could walk through the Red Sea. They were wrong, dead wrong!

As I end this post I would like to share another scripture:

But without faith it is impossible to please and be satisfactory to Him. For whoever would come near to God must [necessarily] believe that God exists and that He is the rewarder of those who earnestly and diligently seek Him [out]. Hebrews 11:6

Faith is so much more than we imagine. Without faith we will not be able to connect to God. Without faith we are like two people trying to communicate to each other in two different languages. It’s impossible! God responds to faith. God is pleased with our faith. Faith in God is what moves mountains! I am not talking about a faith in self or something like that. I have been talking about faith in God. This is just the introduction. In the next post I will continue sharing insights I got from Hebrews 11. It is really a powerful chapter on faith……..God bless

Rolain

To be continued…….

 

 

The “Gifts” God gives us…..!

I don’t know where to start and I don’t know how to begin this post. All I can say is that the word “gift” has

taken a whole new meaning for me. A few months ago I found out my friend, was leaving the country for good! We were first friends, then he became my boss, then pastor, then mentor, then family!

My world turned upside down that day. I had people leave before and it was painful but this, this was a whole new level.

My pastor’s wife called me and sat me down as she told me the news. I was devastated and confused. Why God I asked?

This can’t be happening I thought. I had known my mentor’s family for over 10 years! I knew them when they

had their first son. They have four boys now and I love them to bits.  Anyway I remember going to God and

crying out to Him for answers to the question why. Nothing came. Instead revelation came……

 

God showed me how they were gifts from Him. I met my mentor when I had just met The Lord. I am a sinner

now but back then I was much worse. If there is a word worse than sinner I was it. I was truly lost. I had no

direction and no plan. I had crazy issues I was beginning to work out. I had just became a Christian and this new

life was still…..new! I was dealing with a lot of things. I had no confidence and I had no self esteem. When he

employed me a year after meeting him I stole money from him! It was that bad. I WAS that bad! But thank God he never fired me or called the police. He gave me a second chance…….

 

I didn’t trust anyone back then and when he tried to help me out I would think he had some evil intension! When he disciplined me at work I would take it personally. When he made a joke about me I would get extremely angry. My stuttering was so bad back then which didn’t really help things! So believe me when I say, things were bad back then, really bad!!!

But God used him and his wife to mold me into who God wanted me to be. They taught me so much. They stood by

me when I had family issues. They helped me out financially countless times. They sat down and taught me so much

about God and life. In one of the darkest times in my life they were there.

 

God showed me how that was not an accident.

He knew all the change that needed to happen in me. He saw all I was going through and because of that He sent them

into my life. They were gifts. We serve a God who is the giver of gifts but the mistake we make is thinking gifts come in the form of money only. That’s not true. God’s gifts are so much more than money. They are deeper than that. During that time I never thought of them as gifts. We had our good times together and we had hard and difficult times.

 

The fact of the matter is this. God sent me gifts in the form of my mentor and his family. I just didn’t know it at the time and I never gave them the honor they rightly deserved. I wish I never took them for granted. I wish I honored them more and thanked them more for all they had done for me. I can’t put into words all that they did for me. A lot of who I am is because of their input in my life.

They saw so much potential in me and stood by me patiently. They are my family. I am telling you all this because….

…….they left on Wednesday this week! It’s been a hard week I must admit. They had my back. But in the midst of the pain God showed me how He will bring other “gifts” into my life after all; those “gifts” came from Him. He is the giver of all gifts. My mentor and his family never willed or planned to do all they did for me. God was behind it all. My mentor never knew the kind of impact he would have in my life but God did because He planned it. God was behind it all……

Yes, I am sad and broken at them leaving but I am also at peace because God has some amazing “gifts” in store for me.

I pray I be a “gift” to someone else as well. Would God use me to be the kind of “gift” my mentor was to me……

 

Have you acknowledged the “gifts” God has put in your life? There is a reason He has placed them in your life.

Don’t take them for granted. Thank them for all they are doing for you. It is not easy for them. There is always a

sacrifice on their part. May we always appreciate the “gifts” God has given us, always!

 

 

* This post is dedicated to the Stewart family. *

The Stewart family!

 

Rolain.

Why has God given me passions and desires???

This week has been a great one. Great because I have been thinking a lot. Thinking about next year, thinking about this year and so on. One of the thoughts I had though have been about the things God has given me. For example, my passion for kids. Not only my passion but the gift of being able to connect with children. It’s not something everybody has I know. I see now that it’s a gift from God. This is what I wrote in my journal yesterday:

20 December 2013

Lord, I have been wondering. What purpose do You have for me concerning children? I see the gift you have given me with children. It’s not normal. Does your plan revolve around kids church or is there more? I would like there to be more and not just with the kids in kids church but in the world. This gift you have given me is for a reason. You called me for something very specific concerning children and I want to be open to all that You have for me concerning children. I love kids so much especially  our kids at church. 

This is what I am trying to show you, the things you are great at, things you are passionate about that no one else is, God has a plan. The passions and interests and likes and desires you have are not for nothing. God wants to use them to do great things. Don’t take those things for granted. Ask God what He would have you to do with the passions and desires and likes He has given you. It is not an accident that you like what you like and love what you love and are passionate about the things you are passionate about. I take comfort in that. I am hopeful that God will show me what else He has me to do with all the passions and likes and interests He has given me.  And I pray the same thing for you. There is so much more God has planned for you. The gifts God has given you are for a reason. The desires and passions you have are for a reason. God wants to bring them to maturity. He is going to use them in your life to do great things….

Rolain

The “Acre of Diamonds” principle.

There are only a handful of people that have not read “Acre of diamonds”. It’s really an amazing story. If I would summarise it I would say it’s about a farmer who never knew what he had in his own backyard. He sells his farm so he can pursue a rumor about diamonds but eventually kills himself because he can’t can’t find them. The new owner finds a strange rock the size of an egg only to find that it’s a diamond. Apparently the farm was filled with diamonds!!! If only the previous owner had looked at what he had first before looking outwardly.

A lot of us do that as well. We always look to the outside for answers, for solutions and so on. Don’t get me wrong, we need advice from people. We need each other. In fact, the word says in the multitude of counselors there is safety. What i am talking about is taking responsibility for your life. No one else is responsible for you. Stop blaming other people for where you are. Stop using other people as an excuse to do nothing. You have so much in you. God has given you so much. You just have to open your eyes. Ask God to show you what He has given you. You’d be surprised at the things He shows you.

Lets look at a very interesting portion of scripture. This is where i have taken the “acre of diamonds” principle. The scripture is in Proverbs 21:20:
There are precious treasures and oil in the dwelling of the wise, but a self-confident and foolish man swallows it up and wastes it.

If you are wise there are precious treasures and oil in your dwelling. Do you know that? It may not seem like but its true.
What this scripture is saying is, precious treasures come our way. God blesses us all with these treasures but the wise man knows what to do with them. In fact, the thing that makes a wise man wise in this context is that he can recognise the treasure. And because he can recognise it he knows how to use it. That’s what makes him wise.
So let me ask you this, as you read this are things coming to mind? Maybe it could be a course that you did. It could be a degree or diploma that is just sitting gathering dust at home. Maybe you have a gift that you don’t use that could actually be the answer to your prayer. Maybe you have influence with people but you don’t recognise it. Maybe you have a vehicle that could be used for God’s glory. The list goes on and on. The point is this, what are you doing with what God has given you. Its a fact that He has given you “precious treasures and oil”. It all just boils down to what you doing with it.
When i got this revelation i looked at my life and realised that there were a lot of “precious treasures and oil” that He had given me that i could use. I realised how i didn’t see them the same way God saw them. God saw them as “precious treasures” and i saw them as “those things”. We need to change the way we view God’s blessings. Familiarity will make us lose the importance of what has been given to us. Kill familiarty at all costs. It will short circuit Gods blessing in our life.

Lets move to the last part of that scripture which says:
“but a self confident and foolish man swallows it up and wastes it”.

The thing that seperates a wise man and a foolish man is what they do with what they know. And this last portion shows us that. A foolish man will waste his “treasure and oil”. There is a good chance that he hasn’t got the faintest idea what is in his hands. He has not got a revelation of what he has been given. And that is why he swallows it up and wastes it.
Don’t waste the talent God has given you. Don’t waste the gifts He has blessed you with. Don’t waste the “treasure and oil” He has given you.
You have a choice to make today. You can either use your “treasure and oil” to accomplish your destiny or you can swallow and waste what God has given you. The choice is yours. Don’t be like Esau who never realised what he had. He was the first born which meant he would inherit the best of what his father owned. But he threw it away all because he was hungry! This is what the word says: Then Jacob gave Esau bread and stew of lentils, and he ate and drank and rose up and went his way. Thus Esau scorned his birthright as beneath his notice. Genesis 25:34.
He failed to see and recognise what God had given him and because of that he “scorned” it! That’s what happens when you treat the blessings of God in your life lightly.
As i close i want you to ask God to show you the “precious treasures and oil” he has given you. Ask Him to help you not take it for granted. Ask Him to give you a revelation of how important a role they play in your life.
So what you going to choose? I pray you make the right one today.
Make the right decision today.

God bless

Rolain.P