If I Give Tochi a bag of Gold and put scorpions inside,
So that when she puts her hand inside the bag the scorpion bites her, then on her death bed ‘I had staged to meet Courage in a burning bush’ then Courage tells Tochi I can save her and she brings me and I heal Tochi, and she gives me praise.

Later, they got to find out I was the one who put the scorpion in the first place, would that make me a good person??

NO!!

Don’t be afraid to ask ‘God-questions’ on scriptures that contradict what you have come to know about God and get a thinking CAP, I have one and I use it.

You have to know God from Jesus,
It is so so so so so IMPORTANT in understanding and interpreting scriptures.

If you don’t look from Jesus, you are sure to miss it.

And also, these questions help you understand that some words used in verses of scriptures actually teach something entirely different and we lose focus because of what our minds have been programmed to.
I always emphasize reading in context.

2days, ago in a discussion with someone I told her she would not make heaven, who am I?? Jesus gateman??

But it was in an argument to show her what she was doing to herself.
If you take that word out of the context and say that I said that someone will not make heaven.

You would be lying against me, but you would also have ‘scriptural backing’ for it.

Since birth, you have learnt use of English, then you got better and more skillful with it.
Yet we don’t try to put half as much effort in studying scriptures that much.

Its in Reading that it becomes clear and established in your heart,
Teaching might open your eyes a bit, but when faced with a person who has also been taught wrongly, you ll realize that checking it and establishing it from scriptures would have done you a lot of good.

I have a disciple who is very zealous, when I teach her, she goes out and mention it, then sometimes she gets hacked and return with disappointment, I give her answers to those hackings, why??? Because what I taught her is just a tip of what I have studied on that topic.

NOBODY can teach u everything they know. But you can know everything your teacher knows, by reading what He reads

If you have seen me handle scriptures and you admire it,
Let me tell you the things I used in order of priority

the King james Bible
*an APP with 27 different Translations
*rarely *Greek concordance to check root words (but when I do this I come back to establish it in the scripture)

I have found root words that confuse more self,
So I stay safe in scriptures and scriptures alone.

I have also read books of people that bless me deeply
Kenneth Erwin Hagin is one of them

I love him so much that there is hardly a book of his on print that I don’t have
I go hungry and trek just to get his books at times

BUT, I hack him always with scriptures.
I have seen him misinterpret a verse in the bible.
And he himself has admitted to doing so before, he repented (sincerity)
So it comes back to one book

THE BIBLE.

Read it, read it and keep reading.

Let me say something I don’t usually say because its nobody’s business

I HAVE NEVER GONE THROUGH THE WHOLE BIBLE ONCE.
It means I haven’t read the whole bible before

I know people that do it at least once every year, he is my friend, and I teach him.

When I pick the bible to read, I read it.
I have been on Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians and the book of John 7-11 for days now
I found them particularly interesting

Paul spoke well of Christ’s coming to the Thessalonians
And then many things in John 7-11 is not recorded in other gospels.

So I get curious,
WHY???

These things don’t come from doing morning devotion and running off.
I don’t like being hacked in scriptures, it is important that I know about this eternal life I have gotten

And before you brush it off as ‘Their thing’
I got saved in 2010 and got to know about God’s grace barely a year ago, August last year to be precise

So it hasn’t been a year yet
How much growth you can see in a little time depends on time given to scriptures
If it is the morning devotion, don’t make it a routine, learn something,
Tackle questions that come up
Don’t brush them off

This life we have been called to is important
Just pray for understanding,
Pray and study, then pray again
Ask questions, keep at it

Paul gave Timothy a recommendation that I want to have someday

2Tim 3 NLT
14 But you must remain faithful to the things you have been taught. You know they are true, for you know you can trust those who taught you. 15 You have been taught the holy Scriptures from childhood, and they have given you the wisdom to receive the salvation that comes by trusting in Christ Jesus.

From Childhood, Timothy have known and has been taught scriptures.

Please do same
You grow.

Take a ‘knowing God’ habit to scriptures
So when you are knowing a person, you can be sure what he can do and what he can’t do. If you find him exhibit two directly contrasting characters and you leave it

You have not known Him. Or let me say you have not come to take knowing Him serious.
For a believer, you find answers to life’s troubling questions from scriptures
You know things to believe and things to cast out @ first glance from scriptures

Hear what Paul told the Thessalonians

2Thess 2 NLT
1 Now, dear brothers and sisters, let us clarify some things about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and how we will be gathered to meet him. 2 Don’t be so easily shaken or alarmed by those who say that the day of the Lord has already begun. Don’t believe them, even if they claim to have had a spiritual vision, a revelation, or a letter supposedly from us. 3 Don’t be fooled by what they say. For that day will not come until there is a great rebellion against God and the man of lawlessness is revealed-the one who brings destruction.

4 He will exalts himself and defy everything that people call god and every object of worship. He will even sit in the temple of God, claiming that he himself is God.

Focus on verse 2

……. 2 Don’t be so easily shaken or alarmed by those who say that the day of the Lord has already begun. Don’t believe them, even if they claim to have had a spiritual vision, a revelation, or a letter supposedly from us.

Even if they claim to have had a spiritual vision.

But that is all the church knows about the second coming;
Visions of earring and trouser, and short skirts and tattoos

….and trumpet almost blown and Jesus shows His hands and God gives us time

Did the world get better after that?? NO
It grew worse

CHURCH THINK.
Hear Paul’s admonition to Timothy

I would show you this, and then show you how Paul did full time ministry

I don’t know why am saying all this but I think young ministers are here, take care on how you run…… Let’s hear what Paul told timothy

2Tim 3 NLT

1 You should know this, Timothy, that in the last days there will be very difficult times. 2 For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred. 3 They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander others and have no self-control. They will be cruel and hate what is good. 4 They will betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride, and love pleasure rather than God.

It goes on…..

5 They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. Stay away from people like that!
6 They are the kind who work their way into people’s homes and win the confidence of vulnerable women who are burdened with the guilt of sin and controlled by various desires. 7 (Such women are forever following new teachings, but they are never able to understand the truth.)

It gets interesting…..

8 These teachers oppose the truth just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses. They have depraved minds and a counterfeit faith.

9 But they won’t get away with this for long. Someday everyone will recognize what fools they are, just as with Jannes and Jambres.

Then the admonishing

10 But you, Timothy, certainly know what I teach, and how I live, and what my purpose in life is. You know my faith, my patience, my love, and my endurance. 11 You know how much persecution and suffering I have endured. You know all about how I was persecuted in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra but the Lord rescued me from all of it. 12 Yes, and everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.

13 But evil people and impostors will flourish. They will deceive others and will themselves be deceived.

Now see Paul’s ministry

1Thes 2 NLT
1 You yourselves know, dear brothers and sisters, that our visit to you was not a failure. 2 You know how badly we had been treated at Philippi just before we came to you and how much we suffered there. Yet our God gave us the courage to declare his Good News to you boldly, in spite of great opposition.

3 So you can see we were not preaching with any deceit or impure motives or trickery.
4 For we speak as messengers approved by God to be entrusted with the Good News. Our purpose is to please God, not people. He alone examines the motives of our hearts.

See how they showed themselves as men approved of God:

5 Never once did we try to win you with flattery, as you well know. And God is our witness that we were not pretending to be your friends just to get your money!

6 As for human praise, we have never sought it from you or anyone else.
7 As apostles of Christ we certainly had a right to make some demands of you, but instead we were like children among you. Or we were like a mother feeding and caring for her own children.

8 We loved you so much that we shared with you not only God’s Good News but our own lives, too.
……Examples worth emulating, it goes on

9 Dont you remember, dear brothers and sisters, how hard we worked among you? Night and day we toiled to earn a living so that we would not be a burden to any of you as we preached God’s Good News to you. 10 You yourselves are our witnesses and so is God that we were devout and honest and faultless toward all of you believers. 11 And you know that we treated each of you as a father treats his own children.

In your ministry, the choice to put God first or your belly first is yours.

Its not in the message with mouth, it is in the doing.

It is not out of place for the minister to also be the one giving people money seeing that they don’t have.
I say this now and I imagine

It is not out of place for Cedars to be the one giving honorarium when they are invited by a people who don’t have much.

Work and have money to do your ministry with

Let me stop talking,
Stay in Grace.

Because of the Truth which lives and stays on in our hearts and will be with us forever: Grace (spiritual blessing), mercy, and [soul] peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ (the Messiah), the Father’s Son, in all sincerity (truth) and love.

And now I beg you, not as if I were issuing a new charge (injunction or command), but [simply recalling to your mind] the one we have had from the beginning, that we love one another.

And what this love consists in is this: that we liveand walk in accordance with and guided by His commandments (His orders, ordinances, precepts, teaching). This is the commandment, as you have heard from the beginning, that you continue to walk in love [guided by it and following it].

For many imposters (seducers, deceivers, and false leaders) have gone out into the world, men who will not acknowledge (confess, admit) the coming of Jesus Christ (the Messiah) in bodily form. Such a one is the imposter (the seducer, the deceiver, the false leader, the antagonist of Christ) and the antichrist.

Anyone who runs on ahead [of God] and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ [who is not content with what He taught] does not have God; but he who continues to live in the doctrine (teaching) of Christ [does have God], he has both the Father and the Son.

If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine [is disloyal to what Jesus Christ taught], do not receive him [do not accept him, do not welcome or admit him] into [your] house or bid him Godspeedor give him any encouragement.

For he who wishes him success [who encourages him, wishing him Godspeed] is a partaker in his evil doings.
 Let your character or moral disposition be free from love of money [including greed, avarice, lust, and craving for earthly possessions] and be satisfied with your present [circumstances and with what you have]; for He [God] Himself has said, I will not in any way fail you nor give you up nor leave you without support. [I will] not, [I will] not, [I will] not in any degree leave you helpless nor forsake nor let [you] down (relax My hold on you)! [Assuredly not!]

So we take comfort and are encouraged and confidently and boldly say, The Lord is my Helper; I will not be seized with alarm [I will not fear or dread or be terrified]. What can man do to me?

Remember your leaders and superiors in authority [for it was they] who brought to you the Word of God. Observe attentively and consider their manner of living (the outcome of their well-spent lives) and imitate their faith (their conviction that God exists and is the Creator and Ruler of all things, the Provider and Bestower of eternal salvation through Christ, and their leaning of the entire human personality on God in absolute trust and confidence in His power, wisdom, and goodness).

Jesus Christ (the Messiah) is [always] the same, yesterday, today, [yes] and forever (to the ages).

Do not be carried about by different and varied and alien teachings; for it is good for the heart to be established and ennobled and strengthened by means of grace (God’s favor and spiritual blessing) and not [to be devoted to] foods [rules of diet and ritualistic meals], which bring no [spiritual] benefit or profit to those who observe them.

So let’s go outside, where Jesus is, where the action is—not trying to be privileged insiders, but taking our share in the abuse of Jesus. This “insider world” is not our home. We have our eyes peeled for the City about to come. Let’s take our place outside with Jesus, no longer pouring out the sacrificial blood of animals but pouring out sacrificial praises from our lips to God in Jesus’ name.

Make sure you don’t take things for granted and go slack in working for the common good; share what you have with others. God takes particular pleasure in acts of worship—a different kind of “sacrifice”—that take place in kitchen and workplace and on the streets.