FAITH CAPSULE: This wicked world demands all to be awake, seeking God diligently.

Matthew 6

Coming to God is seeking God.
In the word of God, there is a required standard for all to seek Him diligently. 
Hebrews 11:6 records, “…he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”  
One seeking God with diligence is acceptable before God.
Seeking God is not enough by determination, but with a desire to seek and find God.
Among ways to seek God diligently are:
WAKE UP FROM SLEEPING 
Are you alive or sleeping before God?
This wicked world demands to be awake, seeking God diligently, and not be asleep spiritually. 
One that is not living for God is sleeping before God spiritually.
The parable of Jesus is an everyday truth with spiritual application.
It is an earthly truth with a heavenly meaning.
When sleeping takes the place of serving God, Matthew 13:25-30 records the consequence of sleeping from serving God, “but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’ But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them but gather the wheat into my barn.” 
The parable of Jesus reveals sleeping as the key for the wicked to gain entrance into life. 
Sleeping, not being awake before God, is far from God.
One sleeping spiritually is the evidence of not knowing God serve God acceptably, continually.
TO COME OUT OF WICKEDNESS is to live life to seek God diligently.
The wickedness of this world is awake continually.
Spiritually sleeping is asleep in the place of living life before God, positioning the self to become exposed to the wicked world.
God will judge the wicked world at His appointed time. 
Wicked ones often get away with their activities, but not discouraging not to be seeking God diligently.
Seek God and not become a victim of judgment over wickedness.  Ecclesiastes 8:11-12 warns, “Because the sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. Though a sinner does evil a hundred times, and his days are prolonged, yet I surely know that it will be well with those who fear God, who fear before Him.” 
God is watching, waiting for His appointed time for judgment.
Do not be discouraged not to seek God diligently.

Prayer for today: Ask God to enable you to seek Him diligently.

FAITH CAPSULE: Are you with limited understanding to serve God, right?

Numbers 14

A believer in God must serve and worship God with understanding.
As an acclaimed believer, are you serving God with all your heart, soul, and strength?
To serve God wrongly comes with a costly consequence. 
Uzzah served God with good intentions but lost his life. The attempt of Uzzah to keep the Ark of God from falling took away his life. His act of serving was against the Word of God which forbids anyone from touching the Ark of God. The Bible records, “Then the anger of the LORD was aroused against Uzzah, and God struck him there for his error; and he died there by the ark of God.” (2 Samuel 6:7) Uzzah failed to serve God to become terminated untimely. 
When the Israelites were coming out of the bondage of Egypt for over four hundred years, God required them to serve Him; however, their service was incomplete. The failure of the Israelites in times of challenges was their faith failure before God. In their challenging times, they confessed negatives by murmuring against God. 
God responded to the Israelites’ faith failure through Moses as stated: “Say to them, ‘As I live,’ says the LORD, ‘just as you have spoken in My hearing, so I will do to you: The carcasses of you who have complained against Me shall fall in this wilderness, all of you who were numbered, according to your entire number, from twenty years old and above. Except for Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun, you shall by no means enter the land which I swore I would make you dwell in.” (Numbers 14:28-30)   
Failure to serve God with the whole heart is evidence of not following Him fully. 
As a result of not following God fully, every Israelite that left Egypt above the age of twenty failed not to complete their journey to the Promised Land. 
Are you serving God fully to avoid a failure to arrive at the promise of God? 
With your desire to serve God, what is holding you back from serving God acceptably? Jesus responds to believers, “Then Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” (Matthew 16:24) 
Are you with limited understanding to serve God right?
Are you with a commitment to serving God?
Serving God demands following Him fully. Jesus admonishes, “If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me: and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.” (John 12:26) 
With understanding, serve God not to become terminated.

Prayer for today: Ask that you will serve God with understanding.

FAITH CAPSULE: With distance from the word of God is to be opened to false engagement.

Jeremiah 2

One that is in a distant position from God will be close to what is not of God.
Consciously or consciously, are you in a distant position from God or close to God? 
Taking to a distant position from God is far from the word of God. 
With distance from the word of God is to become open to false. 
Taking to a distant position from God is walking far from the word to miss out on the direction of God. 
To walk far from God will lead to falling and failure. 
The word of God is God. 
God is a jealous God that is not to go far from Him.
Are you walking far from God?
God spoke through Jeremiah to the children of Israel, “…What injustice have your fathers found in Me, that they have gone far from Me, have followed idols, and have become idolaters? Neither did they say, ‘Where is the LORD, who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, Who led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and pits, through a land of drought and the shadow of death, through a land that no one crossed and where no one dwelt?’” (Jeremiah 2:4-6) 
Know that God is a jealous God. 
Acknowledge God always, give Him continuous attention, and identify Him for seeing you through from the past to the present.
God spoke through Jeremiah that the children of Israel had failed to do right by not identifying Him for the past and not acknowledging Him for the present.
One that takes a distant position from the word of God, the rebellious act will take charge in the life of such before God. 
God wants all to hear and receive His word to heart. 
God said to Ezekiel, “Son of man, receive into your heart all My words that I speak to you, and hear with your ears.” (Ezekiel 3:10) 
Do you have an opening ear?
An opening ear shall give a place to gain the direction of the word of God into the heart.
In the heart is the place for the word of God to become established.
The point here is for all to give attention to the word of God by allowing the ear to give preference to the word of God. 
With attention in place for the word to enter, see in the word of God, to gain direction shall become the portion of one opened to the word of God. Find time to attend and listen to the word of God, gain understanding, and begin to see and receive direction from God. 
Get close to God by opening to His word, the only way to live by His direction.

Prayer for today: Ask to gain and maintain a close position in the word of God.

FAITH CAPSULE: Watch out, do not look outside the direction of God.

1 Samuel 13

Looking away from God is taking a position away from God. 
It is a wrong decision not to be in a position for God. 
Life is a journey, do not take to a position outside of God, and do not become derailed or terminated not to arrive expected end-of-life journey.
Terah, the father of Abraham, looked away from God in his journey.
Genesis 11:31 records, “Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Harran, they settled there.” 
Terah, the father of Abraham, must have a reason to have an engaging journey to Canaan.
However, Terah did not live to arrive at Canaan because he decided to settle in Harran, where he later died.
Why are you looking away from arriving at the expected manifestation? 
Terah looked away from getting to Canaan.
God called Abraham to Canaan.
Unlike Terah, Abraham did not look away from the calling of God over his life to Canaan. 
Turning away from God is not focusing on God to miss the direction of God. 
The wife of Lot turned away from the direction of her journey of deliverance into a journey of self-destruction. 
When it was time for God to judge Sodom and Gomorrah, He called Lot and his house out of destruction.
Genesis 19:26 records, “As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!” (Genesis 19:17) Condition for escape was not only to flee but also not to look back. However, Lot’s wife made a wrong decision to look back against the word of God and she became permanently terminated. The word recorded, “But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.” 
Making a decision that seems right in the place of the direction of God is a set for self-destruction. 
Proverbs 14:12 buttresses, “There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.” 
Let your decision be rooted in the word of God and not be a victim of self-decision.
The decision of King Saul was what seemed right to him to disobey the command of God.
Against the Philistines, Saul disobeyed not to wait for a burnt offering in response to the action of the Israelites.
1Samuel 13:6 records, “…the Israelites saw that their situation was critical and that their army was hard pressed, they hid in caves and thickets…”  
Saul made a wrong decision by burnt offering against the command of God.
Saul could not wait for God and did not arrive for God.

Prayer for today: Ask to remain focused on God for His direction all the days He has given you.

FAITH CAPSULE: The gift of God for all not to miss heaven when the trumpet sounds.

1 John 4:1-42

The gift of God for all is to inherit eternal life. 
The gift of God to all is an indescribable gift! 
The gift of God is yet to settle in for many to receive or believe fully accepting the gift.
The gift of God that is received, living for God is evidence of one that unwraps the gift of God.
All should understand and know the indescribable gift of God to appreciate the gift of God.
All must be meditating day and night that God wants all to inherit eternal life and not be a victim of failure, not have eternal life. 
Jesus alone is the indescribable gift of God. 
Jesus revealed Himself as the gift of God when a Samaritan woman had an encounter with Jesus. 
John 4:10 documents, “Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”  
God, the giver of all good, expects all to give back to Him in appreciation. All should give back to God an unconditional love for His gift because He is a jealous God. 
To love God is to fear God by doing good all through, to the glory of God. Claiming to love to fear God is living obediently to the command of God.
Apostle Paul points out that the purpose of the commandment is to love God. 
1Timothy 1:5-6 records, “Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith, from which some, having strayed, have turned aside to idle talk.” 
Paul was talking about the love that counts before God. 
Love before God is love that is worthy to provoke the attention of God to acknowledge obedient ones for His good.
Today ask yourself, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life.” 
It is a crucial question to be holding all, provoking all for doing good at best and not at less before God. 
Living a righteous life is a command from the word of God, doing at best before God. 
The word of Jesus speaks to all, “For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:20) 
The scribes and Pharisees know about the word of God.
Did they live life according to the word of God?
Are you an acclaimed believer of God with the word of God in the head, with no mind occupied by the word of God, and far from God? 
Live life for God, and embrace the indescribable gift of God.
Know and understand not to miss eternal life.

Prayer for today: Ask to enable living life for God and not to miss eternal life.