Are you sure your treasure is the Kingdom of God?

Matthew 6:21

"For where your treasure is, there also will be your heart."

Are you sure the treasure of your heart is the Kingdom of God? To know what is the real treasure of your heart is to see how you prioritize your relationship with God. Do you miss your spiritual food which is the word of God for the sake of fulfilling your worldly agendas? I know this is something we speak about often but let's get real today and face the number one enemy of our life, the flesh! Paul said in Romans 7:15:

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.

Beloved the treasure of our hearts should be the seeking first of the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness. See Matthew 6:33.

Jesus said the Kingdom of Heaven is so precious in the eyes of the finder. So much so when he finds it, he will hide it in the field he found it and joyfully sell everything he has, just to buy that field. Matthew 13:44.

The Kingdom of Heaven is also like a precious pearl. To find it you have to have the heart of a merchant who appreciates this precious pearl. That merchant knew the great value of that fine pearl, so much so he sells everything he has, just to buy that one precious pearl! See Matthew 13:45-46.

Jesus also spoke about seeking His righteousness. The evidence that shows that the righteousness of God is the treasure of our hearts, is in the decisions that we make concerning His Kingdom especially when we have to deal with the worldly affairs that will be a hindrance to make God at the centre of our lives.

If we truly appreciate and understand the depth of the Sacrificial love of Jesus in His finished work on the cross, surely the treasure of our hearts will be to do His will. We will dare to pray with full of gratitude, "Not my will but Your will be done O Lord"

We will be willing to do whatever it takes to satisfy God's heart.

Prepared by the prophetic grace of God,

Pastor Susannah Edward

KOGSC

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Who do we truly serve and worship with our hands?

Jeremiah 25:6

“Do not go after other gods to serve them and worship them, and do not provoke Me to anger with the works of your hands;”

Throughout the Old Testament, we will notice something important that repeats to the people of Israel from one generation to another. No doubt they were faced with many enemies and nations attacking them but each time when God dwells among them and His presence is covering or protecting them, there is always a guaranteed victory. However when they began to be rebellious and worship idols they began to fall from grace and the results were defeats, sufferings, and shame.

The verse from Jeremiah 25:6 tells us that one sin that will surely provoke God to anger is idolatry. Idolatry is not only the worship of other "gods" but also serving them.

In today's context, as Christians there is a danger that we might fall into this sin if we are not careful. We may not be worshipping idols or statue of any sort but yet we can still fall into worship of idolatry and serving them. What are these forms of idolatry that we are in danger of falling into the work of our hands as in Jeremiah 25:6?

The Holy Spirit is teaching us something interesting today. The work of our hands that often we idolised and served are perhaps the following; riches, success, career, relationship, family or it could even be health.

Often we are told that we are masters of our destiny or if we do not help ourselves God will not help us. Based on these statements we begin to shape our minds thinking that we are in control of our future and how it would turn out. So we begin to put every effort to work towards our ambitions with our hands that signifies strength. We use our strength in the form of knowledge, control, power, experience, and ability to shape our career, family, and success to a point that we begin to idolize them. Our noble thought or good service has turned into a self-reliant and self-effort that God is no longer in the picture. He is no longer the person that we are seeking first (Matt 6:33).

So how do we know that we idolize them? The best answer to this is to check the things in our life that we prioritize most and place at the top of our daily routine above seeking the presence and counsel of God. Is at the top of our list our focus, concern, and worry on family that everything surrounds our children, spouse, etc...Or perhaps it is the focus on our career that we are so busy trying to make it to the top. Or could it be our health that we can be so obsessed with exercise, fitness, and our diet regime that we need to keep track of.

Well it is important to stress and make it clear that while our career, health and family are important to us; we need to ensure that God takes priority above everything else and we need to involve Him in every aspect of our life.

The greatest request that God will surely grant us is when we ask for the Holy Spirit. Start by asking the Holy Spirit to give us the hunger, desire, and passion to seek God's presence and establish a relationship daily that cannot be shaken and allow His wisdom to help us to involve God in every area and aspect of our lives. It is when we have this solid relationship with God that we involve in other areas of our lives that we truly know it is God the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit that we truly serve and worship in Spirit and in truth!

Prepared by the prophetic grace of God,

Pastor James Leow

KOGSC

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The blockage of progression

1 Peter 5:6

“Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that He may exalt you in due time.”

There are times in our lives we feel that God is asking us to do something but we see ourselves not progressing in whatever we do. The reason for this situation is, the voice that we heard is not from God. Many a times I hear people say God told me this, God told me that but I see no progress in whatever they are engaging in. The decisions that you make concerning your life matters to God the most. He will not ask you to do something only to see you fail.

In Romans 3:4 the Apostle Paul said that let all men be a liar but God is the truth.

Prior to that, in verse 3 he said, for what if some did not believe? Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect?

Certainty not, was a stern reply from him, let every man be a liar but God is the truth!

Beloved I want you to meditate on this verse and see where have you lost your trust in God. Paul was justifying that the judgment of God cannot be wrong.

The cause of your stagnation in the affairs of your life can be due to many reasons but there is one reason that God Himself will oppose and that is pride as the Apostles Peter and James said in their letters;

God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

Pride has to do with the ego that will always make you think highly of yourself and it will block God's blessings from flowing freely in your life.

Before you make a decision to do something think carefully if you really heard God's voice. In order to understand if it is God's voice, it is to good check on your relationship with God. Have you been in fellowship with Him so that you can hear His voice and obey Him?

I am not telling that God will not speak to you randomly, yes at times He will. But every time when God did that in the bible the life of the people was transformed.

Are your lives transformed?

A very good example is the Apostle Paul himself. When Jesus appeared to him on the way to Damascus His presence was so glorious that Paul was blinded because He met Jesus at the highest point of his egoism.

For 3 days he was blind and this made him fast with no food and drink for 3 days. The encounter with Jesus, when he heard His voice;

“Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” 5 He asked, “Who are you, Lord?”* The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. (Acts 9) must have been echoing in his whole being.

The encounter with Jesus transformed Paul's life dramatically that from being the Pharisees of the Pharisees who was so rooted and driven with the madness of the law and religious order he became the man who brought the greatest revelation of the grace of God ever by the powerful leading of the Holy Spirit. The grace revelation that Paul imparted to the church caused a huge impact and transformation to the church of Jesus Christ today.

Therefore to know if it is the voice of God that you heard check out these points:

1. Look at the fruits of that decision that you made? Are you bearing good fruit or bad fruit?

2. Seek the counsel of the Godly people around you.

Proverbs 19:20

Listen to advice and accept instruction, that you may gain wisdom for the future.

3. Do not compromise with your relationship with God. Spend time with God daily, feed on the Word of God!

4. Humble yourselves before the Lord and His grace will flow freely and you will see great progress in your life.

Prepared by the prophetic grace of God,

Pastor Susannah Edward

KOGSC

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What are we fighting for?

1 Timothy 6:12

“Fight the good fight of faith.”

The Bible teaches us that we need to learn how to fight the good fight of faith. How do we do it?

Firstly, Faith needs to be received as a gift from God. As one of the warfare weapons (shield of faith), Faith has been given to us as a gift from God by Grace for everyone who desires and prays for it. Eph 2:8 spells it out clearly for it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.

Secondly, faith that is received has to be developed through hearing, hearing, and continuos hearing by the word of God (Rom 10:17). Hearing not only through our physical ears but also with our spiritual ears. When we received it with our spiritual ears there must be a transformation within us that will manifest the works of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

The enemy's main agenda is to rob us of our faith in Jesus, our living word that was made flesh and dwell among us. To see the victory in our lives over the enemy is to resist the devil by submitting ourselves completely under the Lordship of Jesus Christ (James 4:7). The more we draw near to God, God will draw near to us (James 4:8). When God draws near to us, His presence in our lives is like a shield, a refuge, and a fortress that will make the enemy come at us in one direction and flee in seven.

Let us begin fighting for our faith and our blessings by fixing our eyes to Jesus the author and finisher of our faith. The secret of experiencing victory is to receive faith as a gift from the Father, develop it with the help of the Holy Spirit, and draw near to Jesus by His Grace.

Let us not fight the devil as victory has already been won by the finished work of Jesus on the cross. What we need is to lay claim of our faith in Christ Jesus for in Him is our confident hope, our glorious inheritance, and the immeasurable power to those who believe! Though in this world we may have trials and tribulations but be of good cheer, for Jesus has overcome the world!

Prepared by the prophetic grace of God,

Pastor James Leow

KOGSC

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