Maranatha Grace Church

Hello:

Book of Joel Challenge – Day 12 Joel 1 (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

Put on sackcloth, you priests, and mourn;
 wail, you who minister before the altar.
Come, spend the night in sackcloth,
 you who minister before my God;
for the grain offerings and drink offerings
 are withheld from the house of your God.
¹⁴ Declare a holy fast;
 call a sacred assembly.
Summon the elders
 and all who live in the land
to the house of the Lord your God,
 and cry out to the Lord. (Joel 1:13-14)

In our moments of trials we can adopt one of two positions, a position of self-sufficiency which will inevitably lead to despair and failure, or we can adopt a position of dependency on God which will surely lead to victory. After the calamities described in the Joel 1, God called the priests to mourn, to wail and to spend the night in sackcloth because there were no grain offerings and drink offerings in the house of their God. They were called to do all of these things because God’s house was not supported.

God always puts his interest before our interest. Even our sanctification is for God’s sake. King David in Psalm 23 recognized that truth, “he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake,” David exclaimed. Since God puts his interest above our interest, our intelligent approach should be to put God’s interest first in everything we do. “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” Matthew 6:33.

May the Lord richly bless you!

Hello:

Book of Joel Challenge – Day 13 Joel 2 (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

“I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten—
 the great locust and the young locust,
 the other locusts and the locust swarm^[b]—
my great army that I sent among you.
²⁶ You will have plenty to eat, until you are full,
 and you will praise the name of the Lord your God,
 who has worked wonders for you;
never again will my people be shamed.
²⁷ Then you will know that I am in Israel,
 that I am the Lord your God,
 and that there is no other;
never again will my people be shamed. (Joel 2:25-27)

Some bad experiences can give us with the impression that life has passed us by. You have worked in a place for a long time, when you are about to be vested you are let go. You have dated someone for a long time, and the whole relationship crumbled. You were happily married, and your marriage ended in a bitter divorce. You invested your money, and you lost most of it as you are about to retire. You feel you have wasted our time.

But this is not true, no experience is ever wasted for the Christians, for those whose trust is in the Lord. God promises to make it up to us. “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten (v.25), you will have plenty to eat, until you are full (v. 26).  When God repays us, he repays much more than what we have lost (v. 26). The words plenty and full denote the idea of abundance

A lot of times our lost is the mean for us to gain more. We gain a better understanding of the love and mercy of God toward us, and as importantly we effortlessly get into true praise and worship of the Lord who has worked wonders in our behalf. Material blessings from the Lord need not lead us into a life of self-sufficiency and pride, in the contrary God’s blessing should lead us to become more conscious of the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

May the Lord richly bless you!

Hello:

We have reached the end of the Book of Joel Challenge, tomorrow we start the Book of Amos Challenge.

Book of Joel Challenge – Day 14 Joel 3 (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

“Then you will know that I, the Lord your God,
 dwell in Zion, my holy hill.
Jerusalem will be holy;
 never again will foreigners invade her.

¹⁸ “In that day the mountains will drip new wine,
 and the hills will flow with milk;
 all the ravines of Judah will run with water.
A fountain will flow out of the Lord’s house
 and will water the valley of acacias. (Joel 3:17-18)

God desires to bless his people. This truth should be at the forefront of every child of God consciousness, we must know for certain that God loves us and wants to bless us.  The word of God tells us that God has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ (Ephesians 1:3).  We must then position ourselves to receive the blessings that God has provisioned for us, our being good receivers of those blessings will determine the outcome of our lives.

May the Lord richly bless you!