SFL LOCAL COORDINATOR
GOD LOVES US
Yet, in pursuit of our own meaning, we decided to live our own way, ignoring God and His plan. Our selfish ways (sin) separate us from relationship with God, leaving us broken and empty.
Out of love, and knowing we couldn’t fix our brokenness, God sent His Son, Jesus, to earth as the solution. Jesus lived a perfect life, yet chose to die to pay the penalty for our selfish ways. He then rose back to life, defeating death.
Because Jesus died, we are no longer separated from God. We have a way back into relationship with Him. Jesus is the way to true freedom, meaning and purpose. By defeating death, we know He is God’s Son.
To live in this freedom we must admit our brokenness, ask for forgiveness, and choose to let Jesus lead our lives. Only then can we live fulfilled and happy lives. Jesus changes everything. Forever.
BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS IN LOVE-PST CHAMPO
Matthew 22:36-40.
“Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
This is basically the most important For us all. Loving others as ourselves can save family relationships, friendships and most importantly, marriages.
But today we tend to miss the point, all we pray for is deliverance, Prosperity, healing. We pray for joy, peace and harmony in our homes and relationships but all these can manifest themselves when we receive GOD’S Love and walk in Love towards others.
1 John 4:19-21
When we understand well the Love of God towards us, it won’t be difficult to Love others. However, whoever claims to Love God (whom He hasn’t seen) and hates his neighbor (Whom he sees everyday), there’s no Love in Him.
Everything bad originates from not being able to understand how important Loving God really is. Our Love for God ought to be expressed in action, behaviour, attitude, thoughts and Words towards our neighbors.
The Bible says that offenses will come. If you live on this earth among people, someone is going to rub you the wrong way sooner or later. And, according to 2 Timothy 3:12, just because you are a Christian and identify with Jesus, some are going to hate You, betray you and disrespect you.
This is what we ought to be dealing with until the end, Loving God and Loving others as ourselves with no respectives.
To overcome Hatred, We need true Love and Spirit of Forgiveness. Ask for forgiveness when we hurt others and Forgiving those who’ve hurt us.
Most of the time, broken relationships In families, Marriages, friendships and so on are the fault of both the people involved. That is especially true in marriage. No man has ever loved his wife the way Christ loves the church, and no woman has ever honored her husband the way the church is to honor God. The key to resolving problems in all relationships begins with forgiveness and humility to ask for it.
Therefore, Embrace Love For That’s what defines the true nature of God.
We need Love in Our Nation, our Families, Relationships, Friendships and Marriages.
In the time like this where the world is invaded with an invisible enemy(Corona Virus), UNITY and Peace is the best way to fight against it. In families, relationships and Marriages, this is an opportunity to become better people and allow God’s Will to prevail. Everyone wants to be Safe but It’s more important thinking about the safety of others. Now this need Wisdom and better way of implementing certain things especially the Central Leadership. It’s not a time to put people at risk instead of protecting them, it’s not time to politicise issues because it invoices souls.
May Lord Help Us build stronger relationships in our homes and as Nation in Love.
For Further Readings:
Matt. 18:21-22
Luke 17:3-4
2 Corinthians 4:17
James 3:16
Pst R. A. Champo- Twapia Congregation, CWG Ndola- Copper belt Episcopate, ZAMBIA.
CHRISTIAN FIRST AID KIT.
When you’re facing a crisis, remember what Jesus said to His disciples the night before His crucifixion: “Let not your heart be troubled” (John 14:1).
Imagine what it would have been like to be one of Jesus’ disciples at the end. They watched as He was arrested, beaten, and crucified. All of their hopes and dreams were rooted in Him, and then He was dead and seemingly defeated.
The confusion, hurt, and pain from that alone were probably unbearable, but then came the thoughts: We have made such sacrifices, leaving family and businesses, risking it all on the belief that Jesus was the Messiah. Might it all have been in vain? How long before they come to get us? That is real stress and pressure.
I believe the disciples were facing a crisis that none of us will ever endure, yet what did Jesus say? “Let not your heart be troubled.” That statement is the first step in Christian first aid. When a crisis comes—and it will—reach for the first-aid kit, and let not your heart be troubled.
I personally believe that people’s first reactions to a crisis will dictate whether or not they overcome. Most people let their emotions and hurts run their course, giving them time to build huge strongholds of unbelief in their hearts. Then, after the strongholds have been well established, they turn to God and ask for help. They don’t realize that it’s much easier to keep the storm of a crisis from getting inside their hearts than it is to remove it later.
I think about the testimony of Alan and Debbie Moore, which many of you may have read. Debbie found Alan lying unresponsive on the ground. She called the ambulance, yet refused to panic. She was able to harness her emotions in the face of negative doctors’ reports and stand in faith for Alan’s healing from a massive stroke. She was so calm that the neurologist accused her of not taking him seriously.
“One-third of his brain is permanently damaged,” said the doctors. “His left side is paralyzed. He’ll never swallow or speak again, and he’ll need a stomach tube for the rest of his life.” Yet just nine days later, Alan walked unaided out of the hospital and returned to his job. A second MRI still showed “permanent” damage to Alan’s brain, but he remains unaffected by the stroke. He is a walking miracle, and I believe he is alive today because Debbie understood that step one of Christian first aid is to not panic, and “let not your heart be troubled.”
We live in a fallen world and tribulations will come. You cannot avoid them, but if you’re prepared, you can keep them from getting on the inside of you. I don’t care if you’ve been divorced, suffered financial disaster, or are facing cancer, God can turn your problem around if you will believe and not panic.
You can control your emotions, and you can control your feelings. You can control whether or not you have depression and whether you are encouraged or discouraged. Jesus would not have said to “let not your heart be troubled” if it were not possible. He would be unjust to tell you to do something that you couldn’t do. The fact that He told you to do it means you have both the capacity and the power.
In 1 Samuel 30:6, we read that David made the decision to encourage himself in the Lord while in the middle of a huge crisis, facing severe consequences.
“And David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but David encouraged himself in the Lord his God.”
David called for the ephod, which is the Old Testament equivalent of the Word of God. He inquired of God, he built himself up, and he encouraged himself. If he hadn’t, I believe his men would have killed him. But because he did encourage himself, his vision came to pass within forty-eight hours: He became king. What the devil had meant for evil, God turned to good.
ANdrew Wommack international Ministries.
CHOOSING TO LOVE IN DIFFICULT TIMES:
Sometimes it feels like news updates are coming every few minutes. When we give so much of our attention to events beyond our control, we can lose sight of the power that we do still have. We can choose how we respond to our circumstances. And perhaps even more important, even in the midst of those circumstances, we can choose how we treat others.
Recently we reminded you about the time that Jesus’ disciples were afraid their boat might sink, but then He calmed the storm. Just like Jesus’ disciples, we’re all in the same boat with Jesus — but we’re also in it with each other. And we can choose to encourage one another, to support each other, to love each other, and to point each other back to Jesus.
Here Are 4 Ways We Can Choose Love
1. Encourage one another.
We live in such an incredible time! Even when we can’t be physically present with one another, we can still call, text, email, connect on social media, attend church online, and more.
Do not withhold good from those who deserve it when it’s in your power to help them.
2. Support each other.
Some of the most meaningful things we can do are simple and practical. Check in with your neighbors and ask how they’re doing. Share whatever you have. Drop off a meal for someone who can’t get out. Pay for the person behind you in a drive-through. Send an email gift card to a friend.
3. Love each other.
Jesus said that loving your neighbor was the second most important commandment. And in the parable of the Good Samaritan, He explained what He meant by that word, “neighbor.” Paul even suggested we turn loving each other into a competition!
Try to outdo yourselves in respect and honor of one another.
4. Point each other to Jesus.
It’s Jesus who calms our storms. But it’s up to us to remind each other of God’s promises. And to pray for one another. You can do both these things — and more.
Just remember: No matter what we may be going through, we’re all in it together. We all live on the same planet. We all breathe the same air. Jesus said we would have troubles in this life. But He gave us His Spirit. And he gave us each other.
LET LOVE LEAD❤
KEY 3
When you begin to grow and mature and get away from the unhealthy relationships, you better become comfortable with criticism. Why? Because not everybody is going to be happy about your decision. You cannot please all people all the time. And people are going to make fun of you.
To break away from unhealthy relationships, you need to be comfortable in your own skin and confident enough to know who you are and the God whom you serve. Some people are going to look you in the eye and say, “Oh, so you think you’re better than us now? You’re Miss Righteous, aren’t you.” There are people who are going to try to pull you back. The loss of whatever you’ve been giving these people is going to make them upset.
When you begin to walk away from unhealthy relationships, people who have controlled you, manipulated you, used you, abused you, and know how to pull all the strings that keep you in that unhealthy relationship are going to increase the pressure. They won’t give up without a fight. And when they see you becoming whole and healthy, it becomes a mirror reflection of their sickness and their dysfunction, which will make them angry.
You will need to be rock solid in your conviction that you deserve better because God has shown you better.
When you know better in your heart, you do better. And so you can say, “I love you, but I can’t live with you this way. I love you, but I can’t compromise my character for anybody. I like you, but I’m not going to forfeit my destiny. So I’m going to let God deal with you as God is dealing with me, and you can call me whatever you want. Do whatever you want to do. Say whatever you want to say. I really don’t care. I’m going to love you. I’m not going to retaliate, because I am trusting God to take care of me as well as you.”
Here’s a visual of what you’ll face. If you’ve ever seen a pot of live crabs, you know that when one crab starts trying to climb out of the pot, the other crabs try to latch hold of it and pull it back down. As you are getting healthy and pulling yourself out of the pot, most of the people in your life are not going to say, “Here’s my hand, help me out, too.” No, most of them are going to grab you by your foot and try to yank you back down. You have to have the utter conviction that you are going where God tells you to go. You’re going to do what God says you can do. You’re going to have what God says you can have.
Trust God to give you the courage to end the relationship, and then trust Him to give you broad shoulders and thick enough skin to take the criticism you may face for ending the relationship. BY
PAULA WHITE.
KEY 2
You aren’t the Holy Spirit. Don’t enter into an enabling relationship in which you come to feel totally responsible for a person’s success or failure.
“Not me,” you say? You’d never try to play the part of the Holy Spirit in someone else life, right? You better look at your relationships a little bit closer and not assume that is the case. As long as we’re trying to change someone, we’re trying to be their God. It’s so easy when we need to be needed to get in the way of God doing what He wants to do. And so you have to get out of the way for God to do the work He wants to do.
In fact, the truest form of the word submission means this. If you’re a wife, you may have just broke out in hives when I mentioned the word. If you’re a husband, you probably said, “Yes, preach on it!” So much emotion over that one biblical sentence from the apostle Paul: “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:22). It’s enough to cause many women to hyperventilate.
But if you understand what the words mean, you can take the brown paper bag off your head and breathe easy. It simply means, “Wives, duck” (my paraphrase). It means to get out of the way. We make the mistake of thinking we have to pray this way for our husband: “God, please turn him into Casanova. Have him bring me flowers and love me like I deserve to be loved. Let him be all that, and let him look like a Greek statue.” Meanwhile, God’s is saying, “I can’t do anything.” So we get mad and ask God, “Why?” After all, He is the Creator of the heavens and earth, and surely He can fix our husband the way we’d like him to be. But God shrugs His shoulders and answers, “Because you’re in the way. The problem is not your husband. It’s you.”
Some of us keep getting in the way of God doing what He wants to do in our spouse or our child or our boss or our best friend. God may tell you that every time you give it over to Him, then you pick it back up and try to fix it yourself. So, duck. Get out of the way. First Peter 5:7 says, “Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.” To “cast” means to roll it over and give it to God and then leave it there. Give it up and don’t pick it up again, but leave it in the hands of God. And know that God is more qualified and better at doing the job and getting it done than you are. God knows exactly how to visit a person and how to change and transform them. He is God, and you are not.
And in all your relationships, don’t demand from people what only God can give. Only God can give you a deep awareness of how infinitely valuable and precious you are to Him, and what a glorious destiny He has for you. Only God can see and meet the unfulfilled needs in your life that even you don’t recognize. Only God can fix your heart. Only God can mend your mind. Recognize that no other human being can ever complete you, and you’ll save yourself a world of hurt. PAULA WHITE.
KEYS TO HEALTH RELATIONSHIPS.
How would you describe the health of your relationships?
Be honest, because it’s crucial for your life. Friend, you cannot conquer what you don’t confront, and you cannot confront what you don’t identify. Many people live in denial or repression. They continually say, “Everything is okay. It’s okay. We get along wonderful.” But it’s not okay.
Many of us in the church are master hypocrites—the ones who wear the theatrical masks and say, “Praise the Lord! God bless you!” and pretend to love one another. We fight like cats and dogs driving to church, then slip into our prayer robes and act as though we’re going to get power from God. We’re not going to get power from God by slipping into something we don’t wear all the time, because God is never fooled.
God is saying, “Listen up. Stop being hypocritical, and let’s deal with it.” To relinquish the unhealthy, you have to admit to yourself when something is not functioning. If you are presently involved in relationships that prey on your heart and rob you of control over your life, it’s time to make a change. Trust God to help you recognize when a relationship is becoming detrimental to you, to your ministry, or to the health of your family life.
There are four types of relationships in your life—those that add, those that subtract, those that multiply, and those that divide.
And so when something becomes divisive, or when something is subtracting, you have to look at the reality of that relationship and say, “It’s not working,” which means one of three things.
Number one, that relationship was only for season. Like those rocket boosters that lift you into the first atmosphere, they must fall off if you’re going to make it to the next level. You keep trying to hold on to the relationship, but God is saying, “It’s time for that relationship to fall off. I’m trying to get you to the next stratosphere, but if you try to hang on to those boosters, they will actually pull you back down and destroy you.” Some relationships are there for a season, but if you hold on past their longevity, what was once delightful will become destructive.
Number two, that relationship is one that God says you have to leave because the person will hold you to an old mentality and lifestyle. We saw this clearly in the call of Abraham. God told him to leave his country, his family, and his father’s house and go to a land that He would show him (Genesis 12:1). Some people will hold you to your past, so you have to leave. They will subtract and divide your life. You have to be real with yourself and the relationship and ask, “What do I do to move ahead to the place that God has for me?”
First Corinthians 15:33 says, “Do not be deceived: ‘Evil company corrupts good habits.’ ” You become a product of what you are around. And if you continue to hold on to a relationship that is no longer a part of God’s plan, then you will never fulfill the purpose that God has for you. You are trying to rehabilitate something that God is finished with. You cannot revive something that God says is not going to work.
Number three, if you think you’re going to be able to change that person and take them with you, you are deceiving yourself. You are lying to yourself. People change, but not much. The Bible says, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard its spots? Then may you also do good who are accustomed to do evil” (Jeremiah 13:23). The only way someone can change is through the Word of God that sanctifies and washes them, and you cannot force-feed the Word if they’re not hungry. All you can do is pray that God will get them in a place where they are starving for the Word, because the Word will transform them.
If you want to change your way of living, you’ve got to change your way of thinking. But until you are sick and tired of being sick and tired, you’re not going to change your way of thinking. And so, you can never change somebody else. You have to accept that person for who they are and recognize who they are.
PAULA W.
A BETTER WAY TO PRAY
BY ANDREW WOMMACK
I think all Christians would agree that we should be praying for our nation during this critical time in our history. Judicial activists are no longer interpreting the law but attempting to legislate from the bench. By using these activist judges in our courts, the ungodly are systematically attempting to remove all reference to and influence of God in our society. It’s even become politically correct to discriminate against Christians. Christianity is also the only religious influence that can be prohibited by law. We need the intervention of God to turn this situation around.
Prayer is a powerful weapon. But, there is a right and a wrong way to pray. Just like any powerful weapon, without the proper instruction, it may be useless or someone could get hurt. Wrong prayer is not only ineffective, it can also release the power of the devil. I’ve experienced this firsthand.
In the beginning of my walk with the Lord, I listened to a teaching which used an example of a teenager who felt very ineffective in witnessing for the Lord. This young man prayed and asked the Lord to do whatever it would take to use him as an effective witness in his high school. He specifically asked God to give him cancer and take his life if that was the only way he could show others the power of God in his life. The next day he came down with leukemia. At his funeral, four of his classmates accepted the Lord because of the way he had dealt with his terminal illness.
At that time, I didn’t know that God had redeemed us from sickness. I had been taught that in God’s sovereignty, He controlled everything that happened to us. So, I bought into this teaching “hook, line, and sinker.” I then gave this tape to a close friend of ours. She also accepted it as truth to the point that she prayed this same prayer. The next morning, she was rushed to the hospital and diagnosed with leukemia. At her funeral, four people accepted the Lord also.
Since then, I have learned the truth. God did not answer those prayers by giving two teenagers leukemia. Certainly, God received a measure of glory when those eight people accepted the Lord, but God doesn’t kill one of His children so that others can be saved. Satan is the killer; it was Satan who took advantage of the open doors these wrong prayers created. That’s why it’s important to know how to pray.
On this National Day of Prayer, millions of Christians will be praying for God to move in our nation. Typically, they will be pleading with an angry God to turn from His impending judgment and have mercy. That’s wrong praying. And as I’ve testified, wrong praying can open the door to wrong results.
There is a right way to pray for our nation. But first, we need to recognize that God isn’t angry any more. The war between God and man is over. That’s what the angels proclaimed at the birth of Jesus. Luke 2:14 says,
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”
These angels weren’t saying that from then on, peace would reign on earth and wars between people would cease. That certainly hasn’t happened. They were proclaiming the end of the war between God and man. Jesus paid a price that is infinitely greater than the sins of the whole human race. God loves the world, not only the church, but the whole world. He’s already paid for their sins as the Scriptures say in 1 John 2:2,
“And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”
Therefore, His mercy is now extended to all man not the judgment we read about in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, God’s punishment was poured out on individuals and entire nations. In the New Testament, God’s judgment was poured out on Jesus. Now, God’s mercy and grace are ours.
Through His mercy, we avoid getting the bad things we deserve, and through His grace, we receive the good things we don’t deserve.
GOD IS THE SOURCE OF OUR HELP…
My help cometh from the Lord , which made heaven and earth.
Psalms 121:2.
Many times on Earth it’s important not to forget the source of Your rescue. If you know how Important the source of blessings is, You wouldn’t want to let go of it. But sometimes we tend to run away from the situation because we are not very sure where our help comes from. Today this Morning, ask yourself that is God really source of my HELP?, do I recognize the Fact that God Is the Source of my HELP?. David in Psalms, knew who was the source of his help and he was confident about it. Baldly saying MY HELP COMES FROM THE LORD THE CREATOR OF HEAVEN AND EARTH. This morning I want to remind you that your source of help is your source of Life. GOD is the source of Our HELP and LIFE. We need the Word of God to believe this fact because just looking at How the Lord has been to us, It’s evident enough to believe He Cares about us. May the Lord Bless You and the Works of Your hands this entire Day😊😊😊😊
Champo Romeo Alpha 