FAITH CAPSULE: Living life is a privilege of God.

Genesis 22

What is it that qualifies you to be alive, unlike ones that would have loved to be having a life but not alive anymore?
The mercy of God has kept those alive not because of knowing to live life better.
Living life is not a right, but it is the privilege of God to be alive.
Are you taking God for granted, for His gift of life that you have?
God, the Creator, creates all to exist for His glory.
Revelations 4:11 declares, “You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; For You created all things, And by Your will, they exist and were created.” 
One that is not living life for the glory of God is taking God for granted. 
Are you with excuses not to be living for the glory of God?
In your service to God, are you pleasing yourself but displeasing God? Take note that God is a long-suffering God, and none is with the license to be living life outside of existing for God, the Creator of all.
Stop taking God for granted but live life for God by lifting your hands before Him as submission with the expectation of reaching to God. 
Continually, living life for God is to remain connected with God.
God is a good God that is worth for all, to be living life for His glory.
Seeking God diligently with all heart and with all soul is to find Him. Deuteronomy 4:29 speaks to all, “But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul.”  
Among ways to live life for God, seeking God diligently instead of taking God for granted is seeking diligently, obediently to his word.
Living life to obey the word of God is a sacrifice that is consistent, costly, and not cheap. 
A sacrifice that takes self away from self to give all to God is seeking God diligently, being obedient. 
One that is living life obediently to the word of God fears God, is undoubtedly a treasure to God. Exodus 19:5 records, “Now, therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine.” 
Are you taking God for granted, not doing as commanded in His word?
Abraham lived life for the glory of God. Abraham could not withhold from the command of God but did as commanded by God, and God recognized the obedience of Abraham.  Genesis 22:12 records the testimony of the word of God towards Abraham, “Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now, I know that you fear God since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.” 
Abraham could not take God for granted but obeyed God, lived life for God by seeking God with all his heart and soul.

Prayer for today: Ask God to enable you to live life acknowledging Him.

FAITH CAPSULE: Steadfastly walk with God.

1 King 19

Following God, walking with God is to serve God diligently that demands to be steadfast.
Following God steadfastly is costly which anyone that is self-full cannot serve God diligently.
Following God is not a one-time or an on-and-off action. 
Following God is giving self to the word of God.
To be steadfast in the word of God demands to be fixed in direction or to be firm in purpose. 
To be steadfast in following the living word of God is not a self-satisfying engagement, and one who is self-full cannot be possibly steadfast walking with God. 
King David realized the importance and the need for one to be steadfast when he called on God in Psalm 51:10, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”
A steadfast spirit is what caused Caleb and Joshua to follow God fully. Caleb and Joshua refused to flow with the crowd confessing negatively against the word of God that promised them a land that flows with milk and honey. 
Caleb and Joshua steadfastly followed the word of God in the face of Moses and all the people confessing positively. 
The positive confession of Caleb and Joshua in the place of negative confession, God, responds saying, “My servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit in him and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land where he went, and his descendants shall inherit it.” (Numbers 14:24) Following the commanding word of God is being steadfast, the evidence of having a different spirit, following God fully.
Elisha received the calling of God through Elijah as “…He left the oxen and ran after Elijah, and said, ‘Please let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.’ And he said to him, ‘Go back again, for what have I done to you?’ So Elisha turned back from him, and took a yoke of oxen and slaughtered them and boiled their flesh, using the oxen’s equipment, and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he arose and followed Elijah, and became his servant.” (1 King 19:20-21) 
Elisha left all behind when he answered the calling of God. 
In answering, Elisha demonstrated steadfastness. 
He emptied himself by getting rid of all that could have held him back. 
Elisha used his oxen’s equipment as a boiler for the slaughtered oxen. Elisha followed the calling of God steadfastly. 
Whatever man cannot forsake for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven is what will become a forsaken one to become a qualified candidate for the Kingdom of Heaven.
Answering to the calling of God demands all to disallow whatever is in place to withhold as an excuse, not to be steadfast to the calling of God.
Be steadfast in following fully, and God will reward you.

Prayer for today: Ask God to enable you for a clean heart and renew a steadfast spirit within you.

FAITH CAPSULE: Knowing God is not the same as knowing about God.

John 21

Knowing God enables answering to the calling of God with understanding while knowing about God shall experience delay or be denied to answer the calling of God.
One that knows about God can quote of sing the word of God but not live life by the word of God.
Also, one that knows about God carries the word of God in the mouth but not in the heart of the character identified as wicked one. (Jeremiah 12:1-2)
Knowing about God can be the evidence of a lack of understanding but, when one gains to know God, turns to live life before God by knowing God, to live and excel for the glory of God.
Documentation of many such as Samuel, Moses, Samson, and the disciples of Jesus, at a point, know about God but later know God.
SAMUEL
Samuel was living at a house of God at an early age but did not know God, only know about God. 
1 Samuel 3:1 makes it known that Samuel ministered to the Lord, but when the calling of God located him, he could not answer because he did not know God.
Samuel does not know God, but he knows about God to seek help from Eli to answer the calling of God. 
Samuel was with limited understanding to answer to the calling of God.
Ask that God shall fill you with wisdom and spiritual understanding not to miss His calling over your life.
DISCIPLES DID NOT KNOW JESUS
During the journey of the disciples of Jesus at the road of Emmaus, Jesus showed Him, but yet the disciples prove that they did not know Him. The disciples that spent times with Him before He went to the cross only know about Him. (Luke 24)
Disciples demonstrate not knowing Jesus after spending time with Jesus, listening to His Word, and being the testimony of repeated miracles with Jesus Disciple did not know Jesus that called them out of fishing.
After He went to the cross, not knowing Jesus made them follow Peter wrongly to go back to fishing instead of going forward in the calling of God over their life. John 21:3-4 states, “Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We are going with you also.” They went out and immediately got into the boat, and that night they caught nothing. 4 But when the morning had now come, Jesus stood on the shore; yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus.” 
If the disciples had known God at the time Jesus was with them before He went to the cross, they would not have gone back to fishing after He went to the cross. 
The disciples knowing of Jesus was at the second calling of them like a fisher of men, at the resurrection of Jesus.

Prayer for today: Ask against a wrong following of not knowing God to become distracted from answering the calling of God.

FAITH CAPSULE: Who or what joins with you?

Numbers 14

The Israelites could not claim the promise of God as they failed to disengage the mixed multitude that joined their journey to the Promised Land. 
Exodus 12:37-38 documents the journey of the Israelites with the mixed multitude: “Then the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides children. A mixed multitude went up with them…”  
For the Israelites, a mixed-up multitude is an unholy mix-up. 
At the departure of the Israelites from bondage to the Promised Land, they could not disengage the mixed multitude.
As they progressed on the journey, the effect of mixed multitude caused trouble for the Israelites. The Bible records in Numbers 11:4-6, “Now the mixed multitudes who were among them yielded to intense craving; so, the children of Israel also wept again and said: “Who will give us meat to eat? We remember the fish which we ate freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; but now our whole being is dried up; there is nothing at all except this manna before our eyes!”  
The initiation of Israelites complaining before God was the complaint of the mixed multitude. 
God responds to the complaint of Israelites, “How long shall I bear with this evil congregation who complain against Me? I have heard the complaints which the children of Israel make against Me. 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 14:27-30)
Interestingly, Pharaoh and his chariots could not deny the breakthrough of over four hundred years of the Israelites in Egypt but the mixed multitude denied them.
The Red Sea failed to hold back the Israelites from breaking forth, but the complaint of the mixed multitude prompted the failure for the Israelites not to arrive at the Promised Land. 
Are you on the course or off course for your breakthrough in the journey of the promise of God? 
Here are some warning signals that mixed multitude is your company as you journey:
Mix-multitude will keep reminding you of the past when you need to focus on where the Lord is taking you.
Mix-multitude will only cause you to crave for want in the place where the need is met, with no lack.
Mix-multitude will give to complaining instead of complimenting God.
Mix-multitude will cause one to worry in the place of worship.
Consciously or unconsciously, who is the mix-multitude of your life journey?
Your mix-multitude is possible to be in numbers or not in number.
Your mix-multitude is possibly your closest that is near or in far.
Know to deny mix-multitude not to derail your life journey.

Prayer for today: Ask that God will deliver you from mixed-multitude.

FAITH CAPSULE: With sanctification, and sacrifice gain the presence of God.

Exodus 19

With sanctification backed with sacrifice, one shall experience the presence of God.
When God sent Samuel to go and anoint, to separate David as a living sacrifice, He sent him with a message for Jesse, “…I have come to sacrifice to the LORD. Sanctify yourselves, and come with me to the sacrifice.’ Then he consecrated Jesse and his sons, and invited them to the sacrifice.” (1 Samuel 16:5) 
In this message, it is clear that sanctification (consecration, dedication) comes before sacrifice. 
In another instance, sanctification was backed with sacrifice when Moses was to present the Israelites before God. Exodus 19:14-15 records, “So Moses went down from the mountain to the people and sanctified the people, and they washed their clothes. And he said to the people, “Be ready for the third day; do not come near your wives.’” 
The above testifies to sanctification before sacrifice by Samuel and Moses. 
It is evident through the pages of the Bible that sanctification comes before sacrifice.
By the evidence in the Bible, it is wisdom, knowledge, and understanding to let sanctification be in place before sacrifice to gain the presence of God, assess or provoke the hand of God for His favor. 
Seek God diligently with dedication (sanctification) with expecting your sacrifice (surrender) to become acceptable.
For example, sacrificial praise rooted in sanctification will position one to gain the presence of God.
What kind of praise have you been rendering to God when seeking the presence of God?
Psalm 47:7 admonishes all about praising God, “For God is the King of all the earth; Sing praises with understanding.” 
Understanding to know sacrificial praise that is rooted in devotion (sanctification) before God will gain the presence of God.
Praising God should not necessarily be in noise-making; praising God should not be an entertaining man; praising God does not have to be in self-pride but lifting the name of God. 
As a believer, to confess with sincere and genuine hearts (the act of dedication before God), sacrificial praising will locate the presence of God. 
God inhabits the praises of His people. 
When God is in your sacrificial praises, your enemies will become ambushed, and victory will become your portion. 
Who should praise God? 
Without any exemption, all should sing praises to God while having a life. The Psalmist said so, “I will sing praises to the Lord while I have my being.” (Psalm 146:2) 
In several pages of the Bible, those who fear Him should praise Him. Praise Him with the voice of joy, harp, and melody; praise Him among the people or in your secret closet. Psalm 34:1states, “I will bless the LORD at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.”
Praising Him all the time will raise you to Him. 
Live life by the word of God to gain His presence in all your ways.

Prayer for today: Ask that the understanding of God become your portion.