My Lord, My Culpability, My Foolishness 

So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.(Romans 8:1, NLT)

Guilt is the opposite of clear moral sense. Guilt prevents the human mind from looking beyond the realm of faults. The man comes to believe he is merely a specimen of irresponsibility. To him, he cannot do anything decent.  The more he sees his wrongdoing the more he plunges into the depth of guilt. 
We are Christians, saved and delivered from our past lifetimes. Simply we are humans. We’re human, flesh and blood. We can breathe. Above all, we are imperfect creatures. God is the sole perfect Sovereignty. 
Christ says we are forgiven when we recognise our wrongs and confess them, and ask for pardon. 
Withal, we say, “no Lord, my sins are too much to be forgiven.”  In other words, we prefer to contradict what Jesus said. We choose to run, from the presence of Jehovah to embrace the falsehood of guilt conscience.
By so doing we incur sicknesses, failure, poverty, mental disorder, failed marriage, disobeying children, fatigue, untimely death, stagnation and et cetera. It may not sound legitimate to anyone reading this post. Nevertheless, I must emphasize that all of the above negativities occurs as result of personal guilt. 
Do we recognize that the virtues have seed and that they grow? If we admit that life has two sides; good and bad. If we think that the opposite of white is black, then we are getting the result. Consider for instance, happy people live better. Those who smile a lot, maintain their youthfulness and beauty. It the likewise for those that rather stay unhappy. 
Aside from the above/mentioned negativities, guilt suppress happiness. It brings depression, suicidal risks and attempt. It questions the Bible as well as the existence of God. 
Thus how can we erase guilt? By interpreting the words of God back to ourselves. We must in personal reaffirm our allegiance to God and there’s no better way to get this done except going back to the Bible. If God says we are free from guilt, then we are and there’s no ground for us to contradict His words. 

Get Out!!!

Jesus sent him away, saying, “Don’t go back into the village on your way home.” (‭Mark‬ ‭8‬:‭26‬ NLT)

Every Christian is shielded from harm by virtue of the presence of the Holy Spirit in his or her life. However, there are circumstances that this Christian must understand the need to avoid going to certain places and to certain people. 
Let us understand the book of Mark, chapter 8 verses 22-26. The account of the blind man of Bethsaida. To heal him, Jesus took the man OUT OF THE VILLAGE. Why did the Messiah do that? Why didn’t He just touch the man right there in the presence of the villagers? What is so peculiar about Bethsaida? 
It is uncomplicated. Some masses are not meant to be part of the divine intervention. Some folks are just ‘too over-righteous’ to accept the mere miracle of God. These villagers are likely to mock the presence of Jesus and accused Him of false healing. For sure, they won’t be the first to do that, after all, many people in the biblical days have insulted the Lord. But there is something odd about this village, its location and its people. Why? 
In verse 26, Jesus told the man to avoid travelling through that same village on his way home. In other words, the healed man is not even an inhabitant of the hamlet. What then was he doing in there before? At least that was where Jesus found him and got him out? 
There is no question that this man was stuck for years in Bethsaida. That was his barrier. Until Jesus intervened, that man would have perished there. 
Many of us pray endlessly to God to deliver us from our problems. Simply perhaps we need to look at what is holding us down. Possibly we should or have somehow known the reasons for the issues. We may not be as helpless as we imagined. We may know deep down inside of us that until we allow in changes we will remain stuck forever. Like the blind man, we are comfortable with our current location even though we knew God wants us to go out of there. 
Today, Jesus won’t come down from heaven to deliver us. He did for that blind man because He was still on earth then. We should acknowledge that the blind man was lucky to experience the Lord in person to intervene on his behalf. Still, we are not orphans as the Holy Spirit is here for us. 
Consider me, Brethren, if I say that God has been trying so hard to pull us out of the situations BUT we don’t listen. How many times have the Holy Spirit whispered to us, using signs, employing people, using our night dreams, and words to tell us to GET OUT of there? How many times God warns us to NEVER GO back in that respect. 
Every area is sanctified and covered for a Christian to enter BUT not all places are recommended for him or her. There are places filled with people that will pull us back, while, likewise, there are places with people that will lift us up. We need to live perpetually with the spirit of discernment so as to understand the instructions of the Holy Spirit.  
How long we learn to tune our subconscious mind to hearing from the Spirit of God will determine how long we will stay in our problems. As a matter of fact, some of our problems would have been settled had it been that we had listened to the Divine. 
Obedience is a virtue of a salubrious lifestyle. It’s very simple and costs nothing. It destroys nothing. Instead, it liberates the Christian from unnecessary headache and helps him or her from entering into the forbidden village that is packed full with forbidden people. 
May God heightens our instincts so that we will learn to pay attention to Him via our hearts and not our heads in Jesus name, 
AMEN

What would Jesus do? 

They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” (‭John‬ ‭8‬:‭7‬ NLT)

For the past two years, I have observed my faith been tested beyond my mastery. This is not the first time though. But in this specific case, every bone in me wants to whip out at my neighbour. I made a mistake of signing a contract for a flat that is not acoustically soundproof. To be straightforward, I was betrayed. Often when contractors sees the desperation of others, they won’t hesitate to trade on that, which was what occurred in my case. 

Whatever, I cannot shift back the hands of the clock to rectify that. I can only think about moving out of the flat and moving on to a perfect place where God has in store for me. 

Meanwhile, my neighbour derives extreme pleasure in making life difficult for me. Imagine what’s like having a cat in a flat like that? Broadly speaking, cats don’t sleep at night and having my bedroom right underneath my neighbour’s is a hell on earth. When he wakes up, I must wake up. When he snores , I must pass the night listening to him. When his cat runs here and there in his bedroom, knocking down objects (and in every part of their felt), I have been brutally jerked and still being jerks out of my slumber. I have penned two letters to him. I’ve run to the police. I have had numerous rendezvous with the house contractors and they’ve convicted him. 

Withal, there was no improvement. I’ve broken my ceilings while tapping to warn him. He would apologize, but persisted in the same thing. Of recent, he became partially disabled from an accident at work. Sometimes when he fought to walk with his cane, or when the ambulance came to pick and drop him, I felt nothing else but indignation. To worsen the situation he brought him a jobless hefty man to squat with him; someone, my neighbour explains, is there to help him in the house. Hence, we have a cat and two unemployed men (one disabled and one a very big man) in the flat above me. They are there 24/7. 

Often times I fled the flat to go and stay with my allies. I only come to the house once in three weeks and just stayed for three to five days before I go away again. The house contractors, other occupants and my neighbour know that this is because of him.  In short, everyone knows. Each time, I had frustrations, unforgiving thoughts and feelings towards my neighbour. I honestly couldn’t care less. I have heard this, but through him, I came to realize that, sometimes disabled people just deliberately harm others. Possibly out of the need to pour out their misfortune on others. 

One day, I was in the cleaning up and getting ready to go back to my friends’ place when I looked outside and saw two medics carrying up my neighbour in a wheelchair to his flat. His situation just keeps growing worse and worse. 

At that stage, I thought of Jesus. It is true this man wrong me and still behaving. It is true that I am paying for a flat that I cannot live in because of him. It is true that I’ve been led astray by the contractors who tricked me into accepting that flat. But what about Jesus? He had lived through worse situations than mine! If He were in my shoes, would He bothers to pray for healing for this wicked neighbor? Definitely, yes! 

That was basically what I did. I could not divert my thoughts from sending positive energies to him. Who knows, he may be suffering from the wrong he did to me because I’ve been praying to God to aid me.  But I’m not the one to pass judgment. Long ago I chose to pass over my problems to Jehovah, and I have never regretted that I did. 

Ever since I prayed for my neighbour, I experience peace. Somehow, my soul is at rest. I may never find the way to get out of that flat to a better place if I choose to remain in dispute with my neighbour. Hatred is a stumbling block to prayer. Now that I found consolation in a God, I hope that my neighbour finds his healing. 

Sexual Violence in the days of Dinah

But when the local prince, Shechem son of Hamor the Hivite, saw Dinah, he seized her and raped her.

Soon Jacob heard that Shechem had defiled his daughter, Dinah. But since his sons were out in the fields herding his livestock, he said nothing until they returned.

Meanwhile, Jacob’s sons had come in from the field as soon as they heard what had happened. They were shocked and furious that their sister had been raped. Shechem had done a disgraceful thing against Jacob’s family, something that should never be done.

But three days later, when their wounds were still sore, two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, who were Dinah’s full brothers, took their swords and entered the town without opposition. Then they slaughtered every male there,

Afterward Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have ruined me! You’ve made me stink among all the people of this land—among all the Canaanites and Perizzites. We are so few that they will join forces and crush us. I will be ruined, and my entire household will be wiped out!”

“But why should we let him treat our sister like a prostitute?” they retorted angrily. (‭Genesis‬ ‭34‬:‭2, 5, 7, 25, 30-31‬ NLT)

When Exactly Do We Need God?

May the glory of the LORD continue forever! The LORD takes pleasure in all he has made! (‭Psalms‬ ‭104‬:‭31‬ NLT)

The song, ‘When I think of you’, by Michael W. Smith, is an expression of the necessity to praise God.

He is the One. He deserves all praises, respect and honor! Forever He has been the Majesty, Ancient of days, Uncommon Favor, I Am that I Am, the Incomparable Faithful One, Merciful, Unchangeable, Immaculate.

How do we think of the Lord in our moment of public security? When do we seek Him? Or do we need Him at all?

By and large we tend to remember Him in our personal troubles, because at that point He seems to be all we have left to get us out of the mess.

Oftentimes, I couldn’t avoid wondering why we prefer to push God aside like a piece of unnecessary object during our happy days, while as soon as we discover ourselves in hot waters, we then rush back to pick Him up from that hidden corner we’d dump Him.
God sanctifies the person who upholds his commitment throughout both seasons: happy and sad times.

If we want a year-round victory in our lives, then we must reexamine our relationship with God. He is not a seasonal babysitter that is only meant to rescue us when needed.

But if we could do away with the spirit of hypocrisy in order to benefit from the everything heavens have for us.

All His promises hold true.

The Prayer of a Man who wants to know God

Father,

We thank you very much.

Teach us to praise you further than to complain more to you about our demands.
Grant us the consciousness of durable gratitude.
In times of joy, may we lean forever on you.
In times of sorrow, may we remember to draw near to you.
In times of doubt, may we dare to suck from your fountain of faith.
In times of fear, may we boldly tread the storms knowing you will never leave us entirely.

Aid us, Lord. Aid us to trash our narcissistic selves.
Aid us to repress the spirit of sefl-gratification.
Aid us to love our neighbours, and friends just like us.
Aid us to tolerate others.
Aid us eliminates the prejudgments of others, we’d accumulate.

Help us to curb the desire to hate our parents for past wrong deeds.
Father, equip us with the necessities required to cater for our parents throughout their lifespan.

Where we think, we are right, show us we are amiss,
Where we think we are holy, show us our dirty deeds,
Where we consider we are justified, show us our imperfections.
Where we suppose we are honest, show us our lies.
Where we believe, we have forgiven, show us our unrepentant thoughts.

Darling Father, please remind us daily who we are.
remind us we are nothing, but dust.
remind us not to forget that tomorrow may not arrive.
remind us of the fragility of our breath.
remind us our crossing over never implies our cessation with you.

Above all, Lord, in the meantime, we pray you to make us know you more.
Draw us closer as colorful magnets stick to fridges,
As the sun is inseparable from the sky,
as the water station in the land,
as man depends on oxygen to exist.

Accord us a heart filled with indebtedness.

In Jesus’s name, we pray,

AMEN