ANOTHER YEAR HAS GONE
It’s amazing that we are already in the last quarter of the year. How time flies!!! Thank God for his protection, guidance, preservation, healing, and leading through the year. The politics of the year has also been a Roller coaster rough ride. Through it all, with prayers for God’s mercy, we have persevered and there seems to a little light at the end of the tunnel.
Proverbs 14 vs 34: “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.” Let us all, as children of God, continue to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, and act righteously while praying for God’s mercy. It may be that the Lord will forgive us and turn things around for us as a nation.
Let us take to heart the parable of the ten virgins in these difficult times. Matthew 25 vs 1-13. The conclusion of the parable states: “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the son of man is coming.”
It has been a joy for me to watch how all of us in All Nations Assembly church have grown spiritually over the years. I continue to see how all of us are daily exhibiting the fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives. (Fruit of love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control).
We must continue to live like the wise virgins who had extra oil in their lamps; allowing the Holy Spirit free reign to work in our lives. If there was ever a time that we need Truth from the Holy Spirit, it is now. The Truth of what righteousness, as defined by God is, is extremely necessary in our real time. We live in an age of ‘alternative facts’ and ‘relative truth’. An age that subordinates all things to a good economy. Godliness and righteousness have become an after-thought. As people of God, let us obey what God commands in 2nd Chronicles 7:14 “If my people who are called by name will humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways , then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
Jesus urges us in Matthew 25 to be ready, not living like the five “foolish” virgins who were caught unprepared when the bridegroom returned. Matthew 25:6-10.
PRAYER
Day by day, dear Lord of thee three things I pray; to see thee more clearly, love thee more dearly,
follow thee more nearly, day by day. Amen. Merry Christmas and a happy new year to all.
[ PLEASE NOTE THAT FROM NEXT YEAR, THIS NEWSLETTER WILL BE BIANNUAL INSTEAD OF QUARTERLY]
Pastor Femi Ogundipe