Grateful people – they are people able for self-sacrifice!

ByPastor Rufus Ajiboye Reading Time: 3 minutes

I greet every reader on this wonderful day that was created by God!

May God give you spirit of wisdom and revelation about His Word which is alive and working.

God is love, and because He loves, He sacrifices. All the persons in the Bible that were called the friends of God, were able for self-sacrifice.

Today, let us look at the life of Abraham.

It is written in the Bible that when God’s angels came to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, God said, „Then the LORD said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?” (Genesis 18:17) In the Russian translation of the Bible the second part of the verse goes like this, „He is my friend, and he must know this.”

How did Abraham draw God’s attention to himself? He loved God not only in words, but also in works. During his life, Abraham built many altars for God and offered many sacrifices to Him.

This is a description of one of these altars:

“The LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him. From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the LORD and called on the name of the LORD.” (Genesis 12:7-8).

Again, we see that God is initiator of everything. If we think about God, if we are attentive towards His works, it will not be hard for us to offer sacrifice for Him. Why did Abraham build an altar for God? God appeared before Abraham and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.”Abraham built and altar as a sign for his gratefulness for God.

Grateful people – they are people able for self-sacrifice!

What is our response like today? How do we express our gratitude to God for the fact that we live, that He protects us, that He has saved us, that we breathe, walk, and we have families and children? What God is doing for us today – does it help us be more open, sacrifice more and become better worshippers?

People of God’s Kingdom – they are people grateful to God. Develop gratefulness in yourself! Gratitude helps us walk in humbleness before God and turn to Him at all times. David clearly knew, if God was not with him, he would not be among the living.

“If the LORD had not been on our side when men attacked us, when their anger flared against us, they would have swallowed us alive; the flood would have engulfed us, the torrent would have swept over us, the raging waters would have swept us away. … Our help is in the name of the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.” (Psalms 124:2-5,8).

May you be known as a grateful person able for self-sacrifice, and God will definitely bless you.

May God bless you abundantly!

Until tomorrow!

Pastor Rufus Ajiboye

Similar Posts

  • Life is a test II

    AutorsPastor Rufus Ajiboye Reading Time: 5 minutes
    God puts us through test in order to search our hearts.We understand that God knows everything. Therefore, He must know what is inside your heart, right? It’s written in the Bible that God knows all my thoughts, isn’t it? If so, why does God need to test me in order know what my heart is filled with since he already know?

  • Life is a trust

    AutorsPastor Rufus Ajiboye Reading Time: 5 minutes
    You should understand there is nothing that belongs to you. Your life itself is not yours, it’s a trust God has shown to you. Understanding this truth changes the way you respond to what is going on around you.You do not live for yourself; you did not appear on this Earth by your own act of will or for your own personal purpose. God has given life to you as a sign of His trust for you. You are entrusted with life from God and the day will come when you will have to give account to God for the life He given to you, – for all your deeds and words while living in your body.

  • How to turn tragedy into triumph?

    AutorsPastor Rufus Ajiboye Reading Time: 4 minutes
    The world we are living in is full of tragedies, so the word tragedy itself is well known to all of us either christians or pagans. Though, studying the Bible, we understand that the in God´s initial purpose for human kind was something different. The Bible affirms God blessed a man.«God blessed them. God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”» (Genesis 1:28)

  • Do You Hear What God Speaks? IV

    AutorsPastor Rufus Ajiboye Reading Time: 4 minutes
    In order to hear God’s voice, it is necessary that you learn to stop and calm down – calm down your mind, feelings, emotions, and only then you can hear what God says to you. When you learn to hear God’s voice, not only will you have eternal life, but also life in abundance, which is concealed in you. There will be problems, but you will be able to rejoice, because you will be sure that your God has an answer for any question, your God is able to solve any problem. Human mind tries to calculate everything – how are all things going, how everything must happen. Our minds work like fast processors. But the problem is that situations appear in our lives, and we cannot solve them. What happens to our mind-processor then? It falls out.

  • Rejoice in the Lord!

    AutorsPastor Rufus Ajiboye Reading Time: 3 minutes
    The Bible says that «God loves a cheerful giver» (2 Corinthians, 9:7). So it says that God not only loves givers, but He delights in cheerful giving. It is so essential for us no only to serve God, but also to do it with joy.

  • The wisdom of repentance

    AutorsPastor Rufus Ajiboye Reading Time: 3 minutes
    We do not confess our sins to the Lord it affects our blessings. In the Scripture above it says that „for day and night Your hand was heavy upon me…” Heaviness of the Lord’s hand – it is not a sign of blessing; it is a sign of curse. An unrepentant life takes away an opportunity to move forward in any area of our lives. When we refuse to repent we lose vitality and power and drought comes instead. Vitality is a sign of a blessing, prosperity, but drought is a sign of curse. According to the Bible, in order for us to flourish and prosper and to gain riches we must have vitality or power (Deuteronomy, 8:18). The lack of repentance in a person’s life deprives him of this power.