Heralds Digest

  “ Then Achish answered and said to David, “I know that you are as good in my sight as an angel of God; nevertheless the princes of the Philistines have said, ‘He shall not go up with us to the battle .’” I Samuel 29 : 9 NKJV Going by the association of David with the Philistines, there are enormous dilemmas in peer pressure and sight stand in life, compared with the decency of spirit stand. Within the short exchanges for permission to service his sight stand, David lost Ziklag, his family and the entire family of everyone with him to the Amalekites. Had he not retraced his steps and reverted to the spirit stand, he wouldn’t have been able to recover his loss; and he would have extended his calamity by a conflict of interest to defend king Saul and Jonathan at the battle from the clutch of death. Obviously, we all lose more to the devil by trying to admire a sight stand with the people in our lives, families, professional and ministerial careers. And unlike Achish discredited D...

  “ Then Pilate said to Him, “Are You not speaking to me? Do You not know that I have power to crucify You, and power to release You?” Jesus answered, “You could have no power at all against Me unless it had been given you from above. Therefore the one who delivered Me to you has the greater sin .””  John 19 : 10 - 11 NKJV The courage and confidence of Jesus in response to the Pilate pillage are instructive of every believer’s power of prevailing prayer. No doubt, those who always wield the political and administrative influence of their Pilate pillage are captives under their own strength. For example, king Saul had embarked on his wild goose chase of David under extremely restless circumstances, falling asleep in the trail and holes of caves; and exposing his vulnerability to attacks from the enemy. While the pillage would always claim “ Do You not know that I have power to crucify You, and power to release You? ”, it has no power at all against the purpose of God. Oh that...

  “ A mountain of God is the mountain of Bashan; A mountain of many peaks is the mountain of Bashan. Why do you fume with envy, you mountains of many peaks? This is the mountain which God desires to dwell in; Yes, the Lord will dwell in it forever. ” Psalms 68 : 15 - 16 NKJV The opposite of real rest is fake fight; nothing more, nothing less. Unfortunately, life’s worries and anxieties on the activities of its enemies often occupy the attention of our hearts more than the promises of rest from God. Whereas, the evidence of fake fight is not the absence of the enemies’ wicked activity; it is the evidence of the absence of God. When the heart truly accepts the invitation to the presence of God, it accesses the real rest and recesses the fake fight. All its cares suddenly become the concerns of the Lord. Let the hearts with real rest focus on the Lord’s concerns, rather than getting disturbed by the enemies’ worries. And the Lord’s concerns, including His holiness in the midst of h...

  “ Poverty and shame will come to him who disdains correction, But he who regards a rebuke will be honored. A desire accomplished is sweet to the soul, But it is an abomination to fools to depart from evil.” Proverbs 13 : 18 - 19 NKJV While there is no doubt that the overriding motive behind human desires is prosperity, progress, and promotion, the experience of David in the wilderness of king Saul underscores the difference between deceitful and delightful desires. King Saul’s desire to retain his position as the king of Israel, after God has rejected him, is a perfect example of a deceitful desire. At one point in one of his wild goose chase escapades, Saul even said, “ God has delivered him (David) into my hand, for he has shut himself in by entering a town that has gates and bars ( I Samuel 23 : 7 )”. He had several opportunities to respond to divine correction, but he scolded and scorned all these corrective privileges until his deceitful desire ended in destruction. Where...

  “ The Lord gave the word; Great was the company of those who proclaimed it: “Kings of armies flee, they flee, And she who remains at home divides the spoil.” Psalms 68 : 11 - 12 NKJV When Pastor W.F. Kumuyi recently rephrased John 3:16 as the GOSPEL (i.e.,  God gave His Only Son , so no one will Perish but have Everlasting Life ), it left no one in doubt that this gospel is synonymous to the greatest gift. The gospel is always the word of God reserved for every believer’s proclamation by words, lifestyles, and conducts: “ Great was (and still is) the company of those who proclaimed it (the gospel)”. And just as the Word became flesh in Jesus, the word of God is expected to moderate every believer’s principle of daily living, social life engagement, and work ethics. Unfortunately, most believers would readily look away from the word of God when seeking worldly gifts; and thereby subjecting themselves as preys for the enemies’ manipulation. Whereas, every believer’s pr...

  ““ 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...