Heralds Digest

  ““ I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come .” John 16 : 12 - 13 NKJV When David prayed “ Give us help from trouble, For the help of man is useless. ( Psalms 60 : 11 )”, we can tell he knew how truly useless the human help. The best of human help can be sincerely honest, but it is still solemnly useless in comparison to God’s holy help. In his race against Goliath at one point, David responded to king Saul’s honest help with helmet, coat of mail, sword and armours “ I cannot walk with these, for I have not tested them”. David put off the honest help of king Saul to wear the holy help of God, i.e., the name of the Lord God of Host and the dependable army of Israel. More than even the honest physical presence of Jesus with the disciples, Jesus said “ N...

  “ Let the peoples praise You, O God; Let all the peoples praise You. Then the earth shall yield her increase; God, our own God, shall bless us. God shall bless us, And all the ends of the earth shall fear Him.” Psalms 67 : 5 - 7 NKJV It is no news that the people’s engagement in reactionary praise are outrightly ignorant of the power of progressive praise. When the psalmist says “ Let the peoples praise You, O God; Let all the peoples praise You ”, it suggests that people’s minds are naturally chained and imprisoned by some sort of giant syndrome. During the psalmist’s days of internship, he was exposed to many fearsome giants, like lion and bear, even before meeting Goliath, the 9-feet tall champion of the Philistine. Those whose feet and hands or minds are shackled by the fear of the giant figure in their lives cannot praise God. Whereas, it is only the sincere praise of the majesty of God above all the manipulative gestures of giants that can set true believers aside for bre...

  “ He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him. ”” John 14 : 21 NKJV When Jesus said greater works are manifested through His disciples because of His ascension, He anticipated every disciple to be His manifest to the world. A manifest is a comprehensive repository of the commandments or words of God.  Imagine every disciple of Christ as the embodiment of Jesus in this world of sin, compromise and unrighteousness, Jesus and His world will become evident in our family, business, and societal lifestyles with rebukes to unrighteousness and the returns to the ministry of reconciliation. Unfortunately, today, pride and arrogance would not always allow the influence of the words of the Lord to take root. For example, when king Saul can no longer retain being little in the eyes of the Lord, he jettisoned being the master’s manifest and modified the words of the Lor...

  “ So, when he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him. If God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and glorify Him immediately. A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” John 13 : 31 - 32 , 34 NKJV Reciprocating any gesture of love with love is common; the only challenge arises with the call to love our enemies in truth. “ So, when Judas Iscariot had gone out to mobilize for the arrest of Jesus Christ ”, Jesus preached the demonstration of the glory of God on the basis of love for one another, including our enemies. But everyone knows that the reflection of God’s glory in our lives embraces the accommodation of pain, persecution, betrayal, like it happened with Jesus Christ and Judas Iscariot. And having conquered the pain and agony at Gethsemane, Jesus was able to love Judas unconditionally. Unfortunately, we are often interested in pre...

“ For You, O God, have tested us; You have refined us as silver is refined. You brought us into the net; You laid affliction on our backs. You have caused men to ride over our heads; We went through fire and through water; But You brought us out to rich fulfillment. ”  Psalms 66 : 10 - 12 NKJV The praises of God for externalities are comely; anybody can shout to celebrate physical transformation of state and status of his standard of living. No wonder why heads are forced low and shoulders down when we navigate the challenges of life and confront ceaseless opposition.  Notwithstanding, the wondrous works of the Lord at all seasons in the affairs of true believers are never abated. God is always at work in the hearts of believers, especially in trying times. For example, in the midst of the wilderness of life, the psalmist was able to discover the wondrous works of God: “ For You, O God, have tested us; You have refined us as silver is refined” . In spite of the wicked inten...

  “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.” John 12 : 24 NKJV We all know that only grounded grains can bear flourishing fruits for the benefit of the system; but we most often prefer the use of gainful grains through our trust in micromanaging. To show that we are fully in-charge of the situation and circumstance, we have come up with intelligent standards, schemes, schedulers, and automation systems for proper monitoring, accountability, and control. And in the absence of any conflicting counsel from God in the use of these human intelligence, systems that are governed by these gainful grains often do well with justice, productivity, accountability. Unfortunately, the use of human intelligence are readily corrupted, unstable, and not always straightforward. Therefore, human’s gainful grains for career development, family accomplishments, and social relevance must be grounded ...

  “ The righteous should choose his friends carefully, For the way of the wicked leads them astray. The lazy man does not roast what he took in hunting, But diligence is man’s precious possession.” Proverbs 12 : 26 - 27 NKJV Prudence with men and purity before God appears to be two sides of the same coin of prosperity and life’s precious possession. With prudence, the heart of man thrives in hunting with fellow men, through career development, family engagement and ministerial accomplishment even in the most adverse environment ... .because there is always something to roast in hunting, rather than rot in hurting. And with purity, the heart of man triumphs in hunting with God, through the same career development, family engagement and ministerial accomplishment. It implies that the state of every human heart is his precious possession. When the heart is blessed with both purity and prudence, diligence becomes its natural birthright against the subtle friendship with deceit, del...