FAITH CAPSULE: Are you living life to please God? 

Psalm 5

A man that truly knows God and pleases God is not wicked. 
Knowing God will result in growth in faith.
One with faith will live life to please God.
Are you living life to please God?
The word declares that without faith, God is not pleased.
Hebrews 11:6 states, “But without faith, it is impossible to please Him…” 
Living a life that does not please God will not retain the presence of God. A man that truly knows God and pleases God is not wicked.
David identifies the character of God, “For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness, nor shall evil dwell with You.” (Psalm 5:4) Wicked way of life does not please God; it is evil and does not retain the presence of God.
David, a man after the heart of God (1 Samuel 13: 14) points out what wickedness is about in Psalm 5: 
The boastful is wicked and shall not stand before God (The boastful shall not stand in Your sight Psalm 5:5) 
One with iniquity is wicked (You hate all workers of iniquity Psalm 5:5)
Falsehood (untruth) speakers are wicked ones that turn the glory of God to shame (Psalm 4:2); (You shall destroy those who speak falsehood Psalm 5:6) 
Bloodthirsty and deceitful are wicked before God.  (Psalm 5:6)
Psalm 5:9 further identifies wickedness:
Wicked ones do not have faithfulness in their mouth; their inward part is destruction; the wicked do have the throat of an open tomb; wicked tongue flatters; wicked ones, with all their transgressions, have rebelled against God.
Is there any trace of wickedness in your life?
Jeremiah 12:1-2 also pointed out clearly who the wicked ones are:
“Righteous are You, O Lord when I plead with You; yet let me talk with You about Your judgments. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are those happy who deal so treacherously? You have planted them, yes, they have taken root; they grow, yes, they bear fruit. You are near in their mouth but far from their mind.” 
Knowing about God in the mouth is the route of a wicked one.
To know God is near to God with a place for God in the heart and not far from God.
Do you know God or know about God?
Are you religious before God?
Strive to come out of religion into the reality of God. 
Be spotless to live for God. 
God calls for all to be holy and without blemish. 
Give self to the word of James 1:21 as stated, “Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.” 
Wickedness is filthy (dirty) and does not have a place before God. 
Avoid being wicked, but allow the word of God to be rooted in you.

Prayer for today: Ask to enable living life that pleases God.

FAITH CAPSULE: The word of God is strength, secret to keep from the wicked world.

Judges 16

The testimonies of God are His testimonies.
The word of God is His secret.
The word of God is His strength.
When His word locates one, it becomes a portion of such not to become a failure answering to assignment in the word of God.
When the parent of Samson was barren, the word of God that is strength, secret, came to the parents of Samson (Manoah and his wife) as Judges 13:2-5 records, “Now there was a certain man from Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren and had no children. And the Angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, “Indeed now, you are barren and have borne no children, but you shall conceive and bear a son. Now, therefore, please be careful not to drink wine or similar drink, and not to eat anything unclean. For behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. And no razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb; and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.”
The word of God for Samson was a secret to avoid failure in the assignment of God over his life. 
The wife of Samson (Delilah) knows about the strength of Daniel, but she does not know the secret of his God as the strength. 
Judges 16:6 records, “So Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me where your great strength lies, and with what you may be bound to afflict you.”
Just like Samson, are you one with the word of God (strength) to be kept as a secret?
Samson did not keep the word of God a secret from God but revealed it to the enemy of his life.
Judges 16:15-17 documents how Delilah pressed Samson to reveal the secret of his strength: “Then she said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me these three times, and have not told me where your great strength lies.” And it came to pass when she pestered him daily with her words and pressed him, so that his soul was vexed to death, that he told her all his heart, and said to her, “No razor has ever come upon my head, for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother’s womb. If I am shaven, then my strength will leave me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man.”
Are you keeping testimony of God, His strength, His secret not to become a failure in answering the calling of God?
Learn the testimony of Samson, know to be keeping the word of God as the secret for your strength.
Do not become a victim of the wicked world.

Prayer for today: Ask God to order your mind not to become a victim of the wicked world.

FAITH CAPSULE: What are you asking God to do for you?

Joshua 1

God is a giver to do for one with a desire to receive from Him.
Matthew 7:7-9 records the encouraging word of God for one with a desire to gain from God, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks, it will be opened. 9 Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?”
What is your desire to be established in your life?
With a desire, ask to be occupied by the presence of God. 
PRAY BEFORE GOD:
Ask for the presence of God to occupy you.
God is a prayer-answering, caring father.
Revelation 3:20 records the caring of God wanting to enter, to occupy anyone with the desire for His presence, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come into him and dine with him, and he with Me.”
Are you with a desire to be occupied by God?
Psalm 119:130 identifies one with a desire to be occupied by the presence of God shall experience the entrance of God into the life of such states, “The entrance of Your words gives light; It gives understanding to the simple.”
The word of God is God. (John 1:1)
God is light. (1 John 1:5)
Ask God to occupy you, that His presence shall take over your life.
Proverbs 6:22 records what to experience when occupied, “When you roam, they will lead you; When you sleep, they will keep you; And when you awake, they will speak with you.”
Know God, a position to be occupied by His presence.
One that knows to gain and maintain communication with God meditates continually, keeping the presence of God day and night.
God told Joshua, “No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life; as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you.” (Joshua 1:5)
God with one is the evidence of one that carries the presence of God.
The word of God testifies that He was with Moses.
Moses meditates the word of God day and night. 
Like Moses, Joshua also receives a command to meditate, “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” (Joshua 1:8)
What are you asking God to do for you? 
Think and know to ask from God.

Prayer for today: Ask to be enabled to live by the word of God.

FAITH CAPSULE: Embrace the hand of God and not miss His promise.

Deuteronomy 1:1-22

God shall see you through. 
God is a faithful God; lying is not in His character; deception does not have a place in Him or before Him.
Whatever God says He will do is a done deal. 
God is faithful to His Word. 
Jeremiah 29:11 records, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not evil, to give you a future and a hope.” 
God that promises will purposely build one and not turn around to pull such down. 
The children of Israel had deliverance from the bondage of over four hundred years, evidence of God as a mighty Deliverer. 
The hand of God was carrying the Israelites to fulfill the possibility of His plan (Promised Land) as the Israelites constantly folded up their hands not to receive and embrace the hands of God.
The folded hands of the Israelites were rooted in sin, not to embrace the deliverance hand of God.
Moses encouraged the Israelites, “Look, the LORD your God has set the land before you: go up and possess it, as the LORD God of your father has spoken to you; do not fear or be discouraged” (Deuteronomy 1:21) 
The response of the Israelites to the encouragement of Moses was in vain.
They had a different mindset about getting to their Promise Land. 
They did not take to heart the word of Moses, the mouthpiece of God. Physically, the children of Israel were nearer to the Promised Land but far in the heart not to claim the promise of God. 
As the Israelites were supposed to be looking up to God, they turned to look at their challenges. 
In the life journey, a challenge to claim the promise of God can be a distraction in life.
Without a doubt, distraction will deny, delay, destroy, and not claim the promise of God.
Why not unfold your hand to embrace the hand of God to carry you and see you through? 
Continually engage the word of God.
Always confess positive in the face of challenge.
Do not look away from the promise of God not to miss out on the promise of God.
The Israelites did not respond to the direction of Moses that states, “Let us send men before us, and let them search out the land for us, and bring back word to us of the way by which we should go up, and of the cities into which we shall come (Deuteronomy1:22).”
The plan and direction of God were to take the Israelites to their Promised Land without giving attention to the world.
Has the Lord God spoken and not come to pass? 
Allow God to take you through just as He promised.

Prayer for today: Ask that the mercy of God shall answer for you not to miss out on the promise of God.