"Learning from Paul's Detours"

       I know what it is to be need , and I know what it is to have
       Plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and
       Every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living
       In plenty or in want.
                                                                    PHILIPPIANS 4 : 12

THE APOSTLE PAUL'S FIRST DETOUR lasted about three years After his conversion. Paul, who was still known as Saul, was ready to start preaching and telling the world Jesus, whom he had opposed, was indeed the Son of God. But nobody trusted him. There was even a plot on his life that he narrowly averted. He healed for the desert and stayed there for three years.
      After that he met with Jsmes and the brothers in Jerusalem for two weeks. Nothing however, seemed to come together so he returned to his native Tarsus in the Zagros Mountain and made tents for the next ten years
      Finally Barbabas sought Saul and said, "Brother Saul, God has need of you." He could have responded, "I've been ready to go for thirteen years," but he didn't. The path was now becoming and more apparent. After a period of fasting and prayer, the elders of the church in Antioch sent  Barnabas and Saul on  their first missionary journey.
     The apostle Paul soon learned that the path contained many more detours--imprisonments, rejection, persecution, a thorn in the flesh, shipwreck and affliction. Ladder men would have quit, but he did not.
     He knew that God was fully in control and that the detours were the unexpected turns and stops that God had designed in his life. The moment that you also understand that the detour is the path, you acknowledge that the Holy Spirit is the One directing the traffic.
     

"Another Detour Sign"

         They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts;
          he made water flow for them from the rock; he split the
          Rock and water gushed out.
                                                                           ISAIAH 48 : 21


YOU ARE ON YOURWAY to a friends house when you're confronted with a large sign that reads DETOUR. It's a bkinking yellow sign with new paint.
         You have three possible responses. The first is rebellion, refusing to accept the somber warning and deciding to drive ahead anyway. You can shift your car into low gear, rev up your engine and crash through the detour sign. If however, there is danger of which you are unaware, to push through the detour sign would be stupid and foolish
          Or you can be passively resigned. You may take the detour and avoid the disaster, yet gripe and complain. This, however, increases annoyance not proportional to the discomfort.
         Then there's resting in the Lord. George Muller put this way: "The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord and so are the stop!" Incidentally, that is what happened to David. After he was anointed to be king , he spent seven long year living in fugitive. Many of the psalm he wrote during those years speak of God as his refuge, his strength and his help. The issue is not whether you will face detours in your life but how you will handle them. Wise is the person who learns and accept the fact that the detour is the path. That's when you acknowledge that whatever happens, the sovereign God is fully in control.

"Your Cross Connection"

                              ThenHe said to them all, "If  anyone desire to come  after Me, let
                                  him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and  follow Me
                                                                      LUKE 9: 23 NKJV


SAINT  Francis  De  Sale wrote, "The cross God now  sends you he has considered with His all-know"Not my willing eyes, understood with His divine mind , tested with His wise justice, warned with loving arms, and weighted with Hisown hands to see that it is not be one inch too large and not one ounce too heavy for you,"
       What is your cross? Your cross is your connection with the will of God, and it demands your voluntary surrender of your own will to what the Father wants of you, No, this is not to be feared. It is to be acknowledged as climbing the steps to heaven, walking in the footsteps of Jesus, doing Hus will day by day. It is trusting God for His grace and strength to do what He demand of you
        The cross represents a simple, voluntary act of obedience and contrition. Scripture tell us that Jesus was obedient unto death, and that same obedience marks the man or woman of faith who can honestly say, "Not my will, Lord, but your
          When Paul said, "I have been  crucified with Christ and I ni longer live, but Christ lives in me, " it is the past tense with a present tense application. In others words, it all began at certain point. That was the day Paul shouldered his cross and began walking with the Lord, but it continues day by day.
          "Must Jesus bear the cross alone and all the world go free?" Asked Thomas shepherd in 1693. He then answered his own  question, writing, "No, there's a cross for everyone,and there's a cross for me. "Don't worry about what God may ask if you tomorrow simply bear the cross with your name on it and trustGod's strengthjydtfir today

"ALWAYS ACCEPTED"

He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him ---John 1: 11


Financial expert Warren Buffet, one of the Richest people in the world, was rejected Harvard Business School at age of 10. After Fail admission interview, he recalls a "feeling Of dread," along with concern over his father's Reaction to the news. In Resproctive. Buffet Say's "(Everything) in my life. . . That I thought was a crushing event at the time has turn out for the better."
       Rejection though undeniably painful, does not have to hold us back from accomplishing what God wants us to do. The citizen of Jesus hometown denied that He was the Messiah (John 1:11), and many of His followers later rejected Him (6:66). Just a Jesus's  rejection was part of God's plan for His Son (Isa. 53:3) so was Jesus continued ministry. Enduring earthly rejection and knowing that the Father would turn away from Him at the Calvary (Matt. 27:46), Jesus went on to cure sick, cast out demons, and preach good news to the masses. Before His crucifixion, Jesus said (Father ), I have finished the work which you have given to Me to do (John 17:4).
       If rejection has become a hindrance to the work God has given you to do, don't give up Remember that Jesus understands, and those who come to Him will always be accepted by Him (6:37).

"Money Talk"

           Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor
           To trust  in uncertain riches but in the living God.  ---1 Timothy 6: 17

            Marilyn and Steven  had been married just a few years, and money was tight. But as she
Looked at their threadbare and bedspread, she wanted to replace it. So she decided she would buy a new one with a credit card---hoping to somehow find the money to pay it off.
            Her devotional reading for the day surprised her when it pointed her to proverb 22:27 "If  you lack the means to pay, your very bed will be snatch from under you" (NIV). Marilyn decided not to go into debt for a new bedspread that day.
            Decisions about the way we spend our money are a personal matter between us and the Lord and can be difficult to make. But God hasn't left us without a help. He tells us: "Honor the Lord with your possessions" (Prov. 3:9). and "you cannot serve both God and Money" (Matt: 6:24 NIV).
            With such truths in mind. We look further in this word for help to use money wisely. We find this: "Beware of covetousness (Luke 12:15). Another says, "The borrower is servant to the lender" (Prov.22:7). And in 1Timothy we read. Be ready to give, willing to share" (16:18).
            Money is a big issue, God, provides for all our needs, can show us to use it to bring

YOUR Desire to know God

"You will seek me and find me when you seek
 me with all your
                                          JEREMIAH 29 : 13

      All over the world you find temples, mosques,
churches, and religious gathering of one kind
 or another. Why do you think such is the case?
Anthropologists respond that  humans have
religious nature, but the question goes deeper
than that. How did the longing for "something
more" emerge? Where did the desire to know
God and to worship Him come from? Who out
 it there? Christians are quick to respond.
"God did. That's how He made us!"
       The book of Ecclesiastes says that God
 "set eternity in the heart of men; yet they
cannot fathom what God has done from
beginning to end" (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
Dr. Hugh Ross, a scientist and a Christians
apologist believe that human curiosity is
evidence that not only were you created in
the image of God, but that most of all---
God exists.
       Does it matter whether your desire to
know God was hard-wire into your DNA
or simply born in your heart? The fact is
you want to know God so that you can  be
assured that you came into the world for
a reason, and that you can have peace Him.
       God would have been cruel to create
you with a desire to knowHim.unless He
had made provision for that need to be met,
 for your questions to be answered, and for
your search to end  in His embracing you in
His great love. He put that thirst in your
heart so that He could fully satisfy it. The
psalmist put it this way. "For he satisfies the
thirst and fills the hunger with good things"
(Psalm 107:9).
       Do you want to know God  in a deeper
and more fulfilling way? Humble your heart,
 bend  your knee and tell Him. Let the words
flow, tears too. He Know and understands.

"I LIMITTING GOD"

       Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited  the Holy one  of Israel.      -- PSALM 78:41

        Can you limit God? The Bible says Israel did. And we have limited him. We have limited God with our prayer life.
        John Wesley, founder of Methodism, said, "it seems God is limited by our prayer life. He can do nothing for humanity unless someone asks Him to do it."
        Why is that?
         God made the world and the fullness thereof. Then God made man and gave him dominion over all the works of  His hands. Adam was made the god of this world, Adam, however committed high treason and sold out to Satan. Then Satan became the god of this world (2 Cor. 4:4).
         God didn't just move in and destroy Satan. If He had, Satan could have accused God of doing the same thing he had done. But God devised a plan of salvation. And He sent His Son, whom Satan could not and did not touch, to consummate that plan. Through Jesus, God redeemed mankind!
         Now authority has been restored to us through Jesus Christ---and when we ask God, then He can do and will move. That is why it seems He can do nothing unless someone asks Him to do it.

"For My Benefit

And  he will love thee, and bless the , and multiply thee: he will also  bless the fruit  of the womb,  and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy wine, and thy thine oil, the increase of thy kind, and the flock of thy sheep, in the land which he swore unto thy fathers to give thee. Thou shalt be blessed above all people there shall not be made or female barrens among you, or among your cattle. And the Lord will take away from thee all sickness, and will put (permit) none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which thou know eat upon thee. . . . - DEUTERONOMY 7: 13-15.                                            

"And he will love thee . . . "Love thee! And put sickness upon you? And cause you to die when you're a baby? And cause some of you to be stillborn, and some of you to be sick and crippled? No! No! That's  not the Holy Scripture! "But that's not for us today,  

Are you sure? First Corinthians is in the New Testament, isn't It? Let's look at first Corinthians 10:11 to see if divine health is for us: "Now all these things happened unto them (Israel) for examples (examples, types): and they are written ( Who are they written for  - the Jews? No) for OUR admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come."
   Glory! Deuteronomy 7:13-15 was written for my benefit. It was written for my admonition!

Confession: Make your own confession of Deuterronomy 7:13-15. The Lord love me. . . He blesses me.  He blesses my children.

( and so on).