FAITH CAPSULE: How one keeps the heart will determine how far one goes with God.

Proverbs 4

The word of God repeatedly warns all to keep their hearts diligently.
Deuteronomy 4:9 states, “Only take heed to yourself, and diligently keep yourself, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life…”
To Keep oneself is to keep the heart diligently. 1 Kings 8:61 records, “Let your heart therefore be loyal to the Lord our God, to walk in His statutes and keep His commandments, as at this day.”
Proverbs 4:23 states, “Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life.”
How one keeps the heart will determine how far one goes with God.
Keep your heart diligently by opening the doors of your heart for the word of God.
The word of God is His strength, and when His word locates one by gaining entrance into the heart, the strength of God becomes a portion of such.
The heart of one is the center of strength. Jeremiah 15:16 testifies, “Your words were found, and I ate them, And Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; For I am called by Your name, O Lord God of hosts.”
Having the joy of the Lord is retaining the presence of God.
There is no strength like having the strength of God in life.
The more of giving self to the word of God is to know God and to increase in His strength which keeps one from stumbling to remain stable.
A heart occupied by the word of God will not have the mark of wickedness.
Jeremiah 17:9 admonishes all, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?
Ecclesiastes 9:3, “This is an evil in all that is done under the sun: that one thing happens to all. Truly the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil; madness is in their hearts while they live, and after they go to dead.”
The Bible demonstrates that the heart is where the rise and fall begins.
It is what flows from the heart of a believer that makes a believer living for God.
The heart of a believer will make or break a believer.
The heart is always the target for the devil to launch its attack.
Judas spent time with Jesus, going to places with Jesus. Despite his entire experience with Christ, his heart was not kept diligently to keep out the enemy.
The book of Luke 22:3-4 states, “Then Satan entered Judas, surnamed Iscariot, who was numbered among the twelve. So, he went his way and conferred with the chief priests and captains, how he might betray Him to them.”
Satan went after the vulnerable heart of Judas to do evil by selling Jesus out of his life.
Invariably, faith will fail when the enemy gains entrance into the heart not kept diligently.

Prayer for today: With desire, ask to be enabled to keep heart diligently.

FAITH CAPSULE: Give thanks to God instead of thinking thanks before God.

Psalm 150

Being alive this far demands appreciation for the goodness and mercy of God.
Expressing appreciation to God for the grace of life should be consistent. Psalm 150:6 states, “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord!”
By grace, the hand of the Lord has been keeping all this far.
To be alive is not because of merit but the mercy of God.
Living life is not a right but a privilege bestowed upon all by God.
As the year runs out, turn to God with heartful appreciation instead of thinking thanks, but give Him thanks with understanding.
Word of God admonishes praising God with understanding. (Psalm 47:7) Are you consciously aware that God expects appreciation?
To lack expressing appreciation is evidence of foolishness.
Foolishness is not only in verbal communication but in any other way of communication. Proverbs 14:1, “The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.”
As the year runs out, is your appreciation to God enough?
Do not be foolish, but thank God, for He deserves thanks.
Are you mistaking your strength as the source of your present location in life?
Do not be deceived by thinking that your strength has kept you thus far.
Do not allow your location to become an agent of self, to deny your expectation from God.
Jesus is the One that converts expectations to manifestation.
Jesus has never been limited or delayed by any location or situation when it is time to visit your expectations with manifestation.
Once in a desert, despite the late hour, where there was no food to feed a multitude, Jesus extended His hand of provision.
Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
He will extend His hand in any location and situation in place.
Jesus multiplied five loaves and two fish to feed a multitude of thousands.
Jesus commanded before the manifestation of the miracle of provision, “Make them sit down in groups of fifty.”  And they did so and made them all sit down.” (Luke 9:15)
As a believer, are you positioning for the visitation of His miracle?
Jesus did nothing to the loaves and fish until obedience was in place for His command.
After He observed obedience, “Then He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the multitude. So, they all ate and were filled, and twelve baskets of the leftover fragments were taken up by them.” (Luke 9:16-17)
In obedience to His command, expectation became manifested.
Are you having challenges to obey His commands?
Engagement in obeying God’s word is a way of manifestation of expectation.
Jesus did expectation yesterday and will do it for you in this season.
In this season, express your appreciation to provoke your expectations.

Prayer for today: Give thanks to God with a shout to provoke God’s blessing over your life.

FAITH CAPSULE: The Lord God delivers in all challenges.

Psalm 34

With Jesus, one shall overcome.
Rest your case in Jesus!
The challenge of Job testifies for all to know the reason to seek to rest in Jesus.
The book of Job 1:3 records possessions of Job, “…seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred female donkeys, and a very large household, so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the East.”  
Job was blessed physically, materially, and spiritually.
The word of God described Job as a blameless, upright, and one who feared God and shunned evil. (Job1:1)
God blessed Job with seven sons and three daughters. In one day, without warning, Job lost his blessings despite his standing in the Lord.
Job lurched from the pinnacle of prosperity to the pit of poverty.
Disasters became visitation to Job from earth and heaven.
From earth, his livestock and servants were raided and killed by the Sabeans.
From heaven, fire fell and burned up the sheep and servants, and wind destroyed his house and killed his children.
As if the loss of property and children was not enough, his health became a victim of an unexpected attack.
He was struck “…with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. And he took for himself a potsherd with which to scrape himself while he sat in the midst of the ashes.” (Job 2:7-8)
Amid all this, Job did not despise his God.
Job, a blameless and upright man with the fear of God, could not be excused from the challenges of this world.
The three friends of Job represented the world complicating challenges of Job by questioning his sin before God.
The affliction was the request of Satan over Job when Satan went before God stating, “But now, stretch out Your hand and touch all that he has, and he will surely curse You to Your face!” (Job 1:11) God did not deny the request of Satan but responded, “…Behold, all that he has is in your power; only do not lay a hand on his person.” So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.” (Job 1:12)
True indeed, the devil is an adversary of man before God. Satan has been moving around for whom to devour.
Psalm 34:19 encourages, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, But the Lord delivers him out of them all.”
As if the Psalmist is not enough encouragement, John 10:10 records all assurance to deliver, “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”  
Satan is a liar, a blatant thief.
With Jesus is the rest to overcome.
Rest your case in Jesus!

Prayer for today: Ask that the hand of the wicked shall be denied over your life and all your endeavors.

FAITH CAPSULE: Seek God diligently to experience His divine visitation.

Genesis 18

The desire to find God are the following points:
WALK IN OBEDIENCE
Living in obedience to God is to retain the presence of God.
To be obedient to God is the evidence of faithfulness and not be a vessel of evil agenda.
Be obedient to God.
John 14:21 records, “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.”
BE SPIRITUAL
To be spiritual is to be prepared to receive from God by separating self from the world. For example, spending time in the word of God continually is taking a position to experience God’s visitation in His word. God gave His word to Moses for His people, “Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their clothes.  And let them be ready for the third day. For on the third day the Lord will come down upon Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people.” (Exodus 19:10-11) Prescription in the word of God was to prepare the Israelites and be ready to experience God. With sin, no one can reach God.
To be spiritual is to experience God.
BE PRAISE FULL BEFORE GOD
Praising and giving thanks to God is like being pregnant with the wonders of God. Jesus gave thanks to God to get provision in the place of lack. (John 6:6-11)
Experiencing the wonder of God in praising and giving thanks to God will expose one to the presence of God. Psalm 92:1 states, “It is good to give thanks to the Lord, and to sing praises to Your name, O Most High…” with praise and thanksgiving, head never dry of oil as confirmed in Psalm 92:10, “But my horn You have exalted like a wild ox; I have been anointed with fresh oil.” Be thankful to gain the presence of God.
ENGAGE EFFECTIVE PRAYER
One with effective prayer is to shut in with God and shut out the world.
All should seek God diligently at the prayer altar to experience His divine visitation. Jeremiah 29:13-14 records, “And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.  I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back from your captivity…” Without a doubt, prayer is an opening key to assessing the presence of God for His wonders.
BE SPIRITUALLY SENSITIVE
Spiritually sensitive shall be spiritually awake and not miss out on divine visitation, the position to experience divine assessment of God.
With spiritual sensitivity, sanctify your environment (where you stand, sit, or walk) talk wise and be watchful. Abraham could not miss unexpected divine visitation when he received the message of the son of promise and the message to deliver Lot from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. (Genesis 18)

Prayer for today: Ask to live to encounter His divine visitation.

FAITH CAPSULE: To experience divine visitation is not to live a wasted life.

Genesis 12

Divine (Godly) visitation of God is an asset in the life journey.
The divine visitation can be on the literal platform, the word of God.
One available at His visitation is possible for such one to experience termination of life struggle.
One not available is evidence to have missed the visitation of God not to engage in the calling assignment in life.
When God visits one, such shall surely reposition in the life journey.
Genesis 50:24, “And Joseph said to his brethren, “I am dying; but God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land to the land of which He swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.”
God visited Israelites in the bondage of over four hundred years.
The visitation of God brought them out of bondage.
Abraham had unannounced divine visitation in the word of God, and he was changed in the position of God for him.
There was no record that Abraham saw God in the physical. The divine visitation of God was in the word of God, His presence.
Abraham had an encounter to experience the wonder of God.
The word of God unplugged him from his country, family, and father’s house to an unknown land. (Genesis 12:1-2)
Abraham’s encounter with divine visitation replaced him with greatness to the glory of God.
Moses had no plan to return to Egypt after he escaped a murder charge against him for killing an Egyptian.
Divine visitation of God repositioned him for the glory of God.
Exodus 3:1-4 documents, “Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the back of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed.  Then Moses said, “I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.” So, when the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.”  
Moses’ divine encounter was in the word of God, and he was led into a divine assignment for his life.
Giving oneself continually to the word of God is taking a position not to miss out on the visitation of God.
Through the pages of the Bible, the story of life visitation of God.
One who knows understanding of God will make the secret of a dwelling place and not miss out on the divine assignment under heaven.”
To experience divine visitation is not to live a wasted life.

Prayer for today: Ask for visitation of God and not live a wasted life.