Author: Pastor Rufus Ajiboye

“Nevertheless, God’s solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription: “The Lord knows those who are his,” and “Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness.” (2 Tim.2:19)

Practical righteousness is the solid foundation on which to build your Christian life and ensure that you receive God’s favour. If as a Christian you still continue to live in sin and make it part of your lifestyle, then you are eliminating yourself from God’s favour.

Through faith in Jesus Christ we become clothed in his righteousness and nature. In the our spirit we have the perfect character of the Almighty God even though we do not become perfect in our actions immediately after becoming followers of Jesus. We reflect God’s life, character and thoughts more and more in our lives to that extent to which we submit ourselves to the new nature in our spirit. Our daily submission to God’s nature and character in us is what I call practical righteousness that qualifies us for God’s favour.

«For You, O Lord, will bless the RIGHTEOUS; with favour You will surround him (the RIGHTEOUS) as with a shield» (Psalm 5: 12).

From the above Scriptures, we can establish that it is righteousness that qualifies a person for receiving blessings and God’s favour.

The foundation for favour is righteousness.

«And the Lord had given the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they granted them what they requested» (Exodus, 12: 36)

When God gave favour to the children to Israel, in one day they took away from the Egyptians an enormous amount of silver and gold. For 400 years the Israelites had worked in Egypt as slaves; they were mocked and oppressed. However, in one moment the favour of God restored to them everything the Egyptians were holding back from them. In a blink of an eye they were made rich.

«We have heard with our ears, O God, our father have told us, the deeds You did in their days, in days of old: You drove out the nations with Your hand, but them You planted; You afflicted the peoples, and cast them out. For they did not gain possession of the land by their own sword, nor did their own arm save them; but it was Your right hand, Your arm, and the light of Your countenance, because You favoured them» (Psalm 44:1-3).

It is so wonderful that God has given us a full manual for wholesome living. Bible is full of principles and instructions for a happy life on the earth, and – the most important – it gives us a guarantee of eternal life. Every wise person not only reads the Bible, but also uses its principles in his daily walk.

Favour is a secret desire of an individual to take part in your life and help you to be „the best you”.
Favour is the grace and benevolence of other people towards you.
Favour is the acts of kindness and mercy that others show towards you.
Favour also means having special privileges or someone’s support and/or help.

There are two options for the future. First option is what I call the predictable future. We must carefully look at our past and present. When thinking of the future we must realize that if we don’t change the things we do every day then it will be easy to predict our future, – the future won’t be any different than the present. If we do not make any changes today, then tomorrow we will have the same results; we will live in the same conditions, if not worse.

God wants us to cooperate with Him. His future and our future is a great, bright one. But we have to cooperate with Him to make sure this imagined future becomes a reality in our lives.

It might be that today you look small in your own eyes, but God wants to give you a great future. And He does not keep us in ignorance about the prospects for the future, and for this very reason He gave us the Holy Spirit. One of the things that the Holy Spirit does is revealing the future God has prepared for us.

We have been talking about the fact that we can plan together with God and partner with Him to construct a great future. We established also that great future does not happen automatically.

We are believers, but that does not mean that we do not have to think about the future. We should not be careless about our future even though we believe that our future is in the hand of God. God has given us a mind and He wants us to move forward and create a wonderful future for ourselves. A person who does not care about his future usually turns to be a failure. It is very important to plan for the future and to envision it.