Author: Pastor Rufus Ajiboye

Satan wants to hit our spirit via hardships, trials and problems. When your spirit is strengthened, you can overcome any kind of weakness, get through all kind of hardships and trials. So how can we strengthen our spirit? God´s word and His promises strengthen our spirit and overcome weakness and sufferings. In order to not give up, we need to learn how to lean on the word of God and His promises – fully and unconditionally. We have to learn God´s faithfulness and realise that God will never forsake us unless we abandon Him ourselves.

If you arm yourself with the knowledge that problems and trials are a test to all of us, and once it´s passed we receive a certain reward from God, then a holy desire to win given by God will be awaken within you. None of you is born willing to be a loser in this life. We all desire to win, but no win where is no battle. For the problems and trials are those battles we either get defeated or celebrate the victory at. Going through hardships and pain in our life, we better understand the price, Jesus paid for our salvation. «…you are partakers of Christ’s sufferings…».

If you won’t be alert and pray, you won’t even notice how eternal life will slip away from you. Have you ever tried to hold a live fish in your hands? Even if you manage to take it, it can cunningly slip out of your hands. In the very same way eternal life can slip away from you without you even noticing. You won’t notice the moment when that happens. You could go on with your religious activities, attending church meetings, praying, reading the Bible, but not be on the way to eternal life. None of these things is able to guarantee to you that you will surely keep eternal life. You know, so many unbelievers do all these things: they go to church, read their Bibles, pray.

By loud shouting disobedient Israelites only made their situation worse. It caused their enemies to mobilize and fight against Israelites. Faith is not emotions.

Faith is obedience to the voice and word of the Lord.

Faith is acting based on obedience and command of the Lord.

Faith is positive response of the heart to God’s instructions.

Faith is being on the same team with God.

As you know, human life consists of habits. There are also good and bad habits. Any habit that brings a positive outcome requires some efforts and discipline from us. Unless we have a habit of praying our prayer life will never become effective neither fruitful. Let me quote the statement of an Ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle who once said about habits – “We are the product of what we repeatedly do”. In other words, our habits are our essence. Therefore, in order to excel at something, we have to make it our habit.

The whole world lies in wickedness and darkness, but, looking at the people that have made prayer their priority #1, you realize that – so to speak – they are from another planet; they do not live in darkness because they seem shining. They have problems and their life is not any different, but they approach their problems in a different way and they look forward into the future in a different way. Prayer so alters their lives and strengthens their relationships with God that they do not notice things that others do.

If you put the necessary effort and overcome all the obstacles to climb up this mount of prayers, the glory of the Lord will be with you everywhere you go.

Dear brothers and sisters, dear pastors and leaders, dear ministers! Do you have your mount of prayers? Do you have this time when you stop in all of your rush in order to seek God in prayers Who is the only source of life?

God so desires for us to seek Him early in the morning. He so desires for us to return to Him. He wants to heal us and to bind up our wounds. God so wants to revive and restore us, so that we could live before Him. When we seek the Lord, when we seek to know Him, He comes and immerses us into His presence; He pours out His rain on us and waters the earth.

Yesterday we talked about how Moses set up a tabernacle outside the camp for all seekers of the Lord. We also saw that instead of entering the tabernacle and seeking the face of the Lord, Israelites were simply observing how Moses spoke to God and how God answered Moses.

“The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears, and delivers them out of all their troubles”(Psalm 34:17). God hears you when you cry out to Him and not when you sink in our despair and misery, when you grumble and ‘have pity parties’. There is a cry of faith, which God always hears, because He finds a call for help and intervention in it. In this prayer cry God sees faith in Righteous, Just, Loving and Almighty God.

Let us look at some expressions that we often use, ad let us see what God says about the same things in His Word.

*YOU SAY, “It is not possible!”

*GOD SAYS, “All things are possible for God!”

*Bible verse: Luke 18:27

“Jesus replied, “What is impossible with men is possible with God.”