IF YOU CAN’T BEAT THEM…

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Peer influence is one thing that every single one of us deal with on daily basis. It doesn’t matter if you are young or old, male or female, big or small, rich or poor, you have a level of peer influence you are dealing with. If it is not to hang out and have some bottles of beer with your friends, it is cheating your way through or even cheating on your spouse. You just have these peer influences to deal with.

These issues can be seen at the work place, school and religious set ups. A staff who usually goes to work early gradually begins to report late to work because of the influence from older workers who have found a way to cover their tracks. A committed church worker suddenly begins to slack in duty because of negative influence from fellow church workers. I can go on to site instances, but I guess you are beginning to get my point.

“If you can’t beat them, join them” is one ideology that has coerced people into joining the band wagon to do the wrong things and a lot of people have found themselves in very destructive paths that they don’t know how to get themselves back on track.

If you are struggling with overcoming peer influence, there is a way out for you. If you can’t beat them, stand out. When you stand out, you become a standard. I do not disregard the need to exert some sort of positive influence on your peers. However, it is better to stand out than to be negatively influenced while trying to be a positive influence to your peers.

That majority of the people are doing it does not make it turn from wrong to right. That you see a pastor doing something does not make it right if it is wrong. I say this not with indignation, but I really need us to understand that a wrong process cannot turn right because someone you hold in high esteem is doing it.
Remember, if you can’t beat them, STAND OUT! 

#THE PROCESS

Please share with others and let it bless them as it blessed you

Stay blessed.       
  

©TRANSFORMING WORDS SERIES
(Transforming the World through the Word)
http://www.transformingwordseries.wordpress.com

EVERYDAY JESUS…not today?

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…and to the church [assembly that meets] in your house:

Grace (spiritual blessing and favor) be to all of you and [heart] peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah).

I give thanks to my God for you always when I mention you in my prayers; Because I continue to hear of your love and of your loyal faith which you have toward the Lord Jesus and [which you show] toward all the saints (God’s consecrated people).

[And I pray] that the participation in and sharing of your faith may produce and promote full recognitionand appreciation and understanding and precise knowledge of every good [thing] that is ours in [our identification with] Christ Jesus [and unto His glory].

For I have derived great joy and comfort andencouragement from your love, because the hearts of the saints [who are your fellow Christians] have been cheered and refreshed through you, [my] brethren.

Therefore, though I have abundant boldness in Christ to charge you to do what is fitting and required and your duty to do; Yet for love’s sake I prefer to appeal to you just for what I am—an ambassador [of Christ Jesus]—Once there was he  who was unprofitable to you, but now he is indeed profitable to you as well as to me.

I am sending him back to you in his own person, [and it is like sending] my very heart.

It has been my wish to do nothing about it without first consulting you and getting your consent, in order that your benevolence might not seem to be the result of compulsion or of pressure but might be voluntary [on your part].

Perhaps it was for this reason that he was separated [from you] for a while, that you might have him back as yours forever;

Not as a slave any longer but as [something] more than a slave, as a brother [Christian], especially dear to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh [as a servant] and in the Lord [as a fellow believer]. If then you consider me a partner and a comrade in fellowship, welcome and receive him as you would [welcome and receive] me.

And if he has done you any wrong in any way or owes anything [to you], charge that to my account. I, write it with my own hand, I promise to repay it [in full]—and that is to say nothing [of the fact] that you owe me your very self!

Yes, brethren, let me have some profit from you in the Lord. Cheer and refresh my heart in Christ.

I write to you [perfectly] confident of your obedient compliance, knowing that you will do even more than I ask. The grace (blessing and favor) of the Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah) be with your spirit.

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Okay so I have picked a part of your bible and shown you. The message passed by that particular part of the Sword is that of Brotherly love and forgiveness… Jesus said, ‘Love your Enemies,’ and before you day ,’pft!!’ Remember that was you once…

Now, go…go… Find that passage in your Bible and read it for yourself…gooooooooo!!!

SHADES OF GREY…

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I live in a time and day where matters are no longer addressed the way they ought to. Names have been coined for some gross moral misconducts in the view to make light of them. In my little foray through English language, I have discovered that when a person uses the wrong word(s) in a sentence or speech, terms have been created in the English dictionary to accommodate the errors. You can call it malapropism, parapraxis, eggcorn or even mondegreen depending on the effect. In the end, it all boils down to wrong use of words. All of those terms are just shades of grey.

What is my point? Things have gone so berserk that we no longer see things as either black or white, we now see things in shades of grey. If you are able to cut corners or bypass processes, that is smartness. If you are able to cover up your tracks as a cheating spouse, you are the real deal. Having a record of multiple divorce cases now makes you a role model in relationship matters. If you are able to successfully siphon public funds without leaving traces behind, then you are not a corrupt politician.

Friends, what I am trying to say is simple: We need to get back to following the right processes. We need to start looking at issues the way they ought to be looked at. If you’ll have to come out of your box, change your lenses and look at issues the way they ought to be looked at, it will be a worthy venture. When it comes to the process, there are no shades of grey, it is either black or white; either right or wrong. It is up to us to make things right.

#THE PROCESS

Please share with others and let it bless them as it blessed you

Stay blessed.       
  

©TRANSFORMING WORDS SERIES
(Transforming the World through the Word)
http://www.transformingwordseries.wordpress.com

EVERYDAY JESUS…lives in you

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Okay, first of all … I am eternal. I would have said ‘we’ but I’ve learnt to be careful about accusing other people of their own immortality… I am eternal, and I have an offer for you.

God has given us himself, not to be hidden on a shelf and dusted off on Sunday but to purify us from death, not to be killed by self but dusted off as sons; day to day, he invites us to say, and know!! Yes …we are eternal.

I want to tell you tales of how I chased tails, and I mean females, but what ails me to spell well about is the fact that we are sleeping walking. While lullabies of ‘May God bless you’ are repeated like broken records, we fix our pupils on the flesh and let men leads us whose lids are shut by pointless efforts of trying to ‘get rich or die trying’. 

I am he who gives you the power to make wealth, says the Lord of Lords.

God has given us himself, not to be hidden on a shelf and dusted off on Sunday but to purify us from death not to be killed by self but dusted off as sons; day to day he invites us to say, and know! Yes… we are eternal.

There was once a rich man whose servants were off in other lands busy with businesses that were to bring their master more wealth. He had provided to reward richly the ones who were most profitable.

But the servants ran their businesses into debt and had to go into slavery to pay their debts. But the rich man had a plan, he told it to one man; and sent hints of it to his servants in slavery…

The son of the rich man was sent to lend a hand to the enslaved servants, but they didn’t recognize him so they grabbed and gave him to their creditor who recognized him and was only too happy to sign the deal.

Now, free, the servants wandered about afraid to return to their master while the son served their sentence in the creditors den…but then, the son of the rich man, like his father, was a business genius and 3 years later, from being a slave, the son took over the creditor’s business.

The servants were all gathered in one place one day when the Son walked up of them. They were afraid, but he calmed them, ‘it was all part of the plan to free you from your creditor and take over the creditors business so he would never enslave you that way again. My father sent me to tell you he’s adopting you as his children. I will be your brother if you accept his invitation.’

The servants were overjoyed, because as children of the rich man they would be entitled to all his wealth. They’d never work another day.

‘No’, the son said, ‘Go into all the world and tell the good news of what my father has done; through me to prove his offer’.

God has given us himself not to be hidden on a shelf and dusted off on Sunday but to purify us from death and not to be killed by self but dusted off as sons day to day He invites us to say , to know, yes… we are eternal.

The simplicity of this analogy leaves me living with one thing left to leave before I leave. I offer you, God offers you the offer to offer your body as a living sacrifice to be joined to him as one spirit… and don’t think like the world wants you to, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you can prove what is that perfect, good and acceptable will of God …who given us the ministry of reconciliation, and all things needed for life and godliness, and all spiritual blessings in heavenly places…

There are no blessings in heaven for you… because, God has given us himself not to be hidden on a shelf and dusted off on Sunday but to purify us from death and not to be killed by self but dusted off as sons day to day he invites us, to say, to know, yes!… we are eternal.

If you accept his offer, you can bless someone today! By saying it, knowing it … remind them, surprise them, say to them, ‘we are eternal’. Because Everyday, Jesus is.

HURT!

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I’ve never felt so much pain in my life before
I stood motionless as I watched the dust, the debris rise and fall
My father, my son, my very soul forever lost at the sound of that bomb

There is no more hope
Just pain
Pain I can’t live without
Pain I cannot begin to understand.

I’ve never felt this much anger
My heart beats and pounds against my ribs like a wild beast wary of its cage
The flames glared before me and within yet there was no place for fear
Just raw, lethal anger gnawing at my consciousness
There is no more peace; just anger

Anger I do not wish to quell
Anger not soon to quench
No more wishes, no more hope
No more thinking, no more words
Just this maddening silence
Me and my pen fighting to have it all make sense

My mind is all but lost
My body beyond hurt
My spirit is ignored
I only wish someone could hear me
I only wish someone could save me
I only wish for someone anyone
That could take it all away

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
Isaiah  53:4-5(KJV)