Day 2 - The worries of tomorrow

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.

Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matthew 6:34 (NIV)

At times throughout the day I find myself getting so caught up in daily life that I miss out on my quiet time with God and I'm running on the fumes of God's word. Its so easy to worry about all the things that need doing in daily lives and Jesus understands this, He understands how easy it is for us to get caught up in worrying about what we will eat and how much to eat and what it is best to eat and drink and everything that we must do tomorrow and in our human lives and he tells us in Matthew 6:25-34 not to worry. He tells us not to worry about these things because they are not very important and your salvation doesn't depend on what we eat or how healthy or unhealthy we are in what we eat or drink there are more deeper things we should be avoiding like sexual immorality see 1 Corinthians 6:13 You say, “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both.” The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. You may be thinking but how do I stop worrying its easier said than done! 

The answer is in Phillipians 4:6-7 "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

The way to experience the peace of God is to pray to him he told us to present our requests to him. God is a loving God, he cares about us, he wants us to remain in contact with him which is why he tells us to pray in every situation. Let us therefore draw near to his throne with our prayers and requests not forgetting however to come with thanksgiving for all that He is and has already provided by his amazing grace for us in Christ Jesus. 

Be encouraged, 

Jaleen

P.S please check out this post if you want to become a Christian or know more

Day 1 - Heed the warning

 "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:9 (NIV)

Recently I was travelling in someone else's car and as we were travelling there were lots of signs and markers to show that there had been a diversion ahead due to roadworks or obstruction to the road but there were many signs and diversion routes that you had to obey to make it to the next clear road and avoid being stuck. I noticed that there was a long queue ahead where people had missed one of the signs and had failed to see the diversion sign and they had become stuck in traffic queues it became quite a mess. It reminded me immediately of a believers walk with Christ and convicted me of my own walk, often there are times where God will show us to do something which may seem small or unimportant to us he gives us warnings and we just ignore them and continue expecting to grow in our walk or for it to have no effect but the more we do this and continue ignoring these "small" things the bigger the consequences become. These things then become harder deal with and we may find ourselves becoming stuck in a bad situation all because we decided that our own way was better. Its time to heed the warning and turn to God, He knows better than what we know of ourselves (Matthew 10:30) and has our best interest at heart. I encourage whoever you may be to let go of your own will and surrender to God in whatever it is God is leading you to.

Pray this with me

"Lord I am fed up of going my own way in life and falling short of you. I just pray that you would forgive me of my sins and help me to walk in your way and for your blessed Spirit to guide me. Help me to surrender my will in all things and take up your will for my life instead of my own. Help me daily to carry my cross and follow you. In Jesus name I pray, Amen."
P.S please check out this post if you want to become a Christian or know more

My Testimony

I was bought up in a Christian household from the age of six. I never really worried about the way I looked until I started high school. As the oldest of six children I was the first to experience high school and I went to a high school in which i didn't know any people that came from my primary school so I had to make new friends. High school was a lot different from primary school and I felt like I had been thrown in at the deep end I didn't like high school at all. It started at 13 I started to worry about my appearance and noticed that I was different to most other girls my age and I became insecure as I compared myself to others I remember people would tease me for my height or other things and I wasn't like everyone else to make things worse I wanted so desperately to fit in. I was always quiet but this was different I became insecure and had low self esteem. I would always cover up the fact hat this made me miserable. Covering up became a habit and as time went on it started to develop into other things such as people pleasing. I tried to change myself but I couldn't ever find satisfaction in myself because I new how I really was and the emotions and worry I had. And the insecurity began to develop and ruin other areas of my life and I felt as though there was no hope and that no one cared about my life I felt worthless and hated myself and I just wanted to die. No one ever noticed this and probably would least expect this to be me because I always put on a front as if everything was fine when it wasn't.
I became dependent on people's approval to make me feel secure. This made me feel guilty and I began to try to seek God but I was still pleasing people and their approval and it gets to the point where you have to choose between the two. I felt as if I was divided between the two. Even though I would say I was a Christian there was no real relationship with God. At this time I remember I felt ashamed to tell people about God and was uncomfortable with people associating me with Jesus, looking back I think it was clear to say that I wanted to fit in with the crowd so I was putting people above God, I was afraid to be different.
As time progressed, I felt as if God had not given up on me and that there was hope and I really wanted to seek God for good this time and I think this was the start of God calling me to him I was reading God's word and praying frequently and I wasn't ashamed to. However, one thing that was wrong was that I was depending on my works to make me right with God and when I messed up I felt as if I was detached from God and I wasn't certain of my salvation and I was still trying to please people but just in a different way. It took a while but God in His grace enabled me to understand that Jesus had died for all my sins past, present and future. HE DIED FOR EVERY SIN AND HE DIED FOR ALL and yes that includes me and you who are reading this (See 1 John 2:2 and 2 Corinthians 5:15)  One verse that God revealed to me was Romans 6:14 "For sin shall no longer be your master for you are not under the Law, but under grace." this does not mean that we continually try to sin (see Romans 6:15) but God will enable us and only with God's help and through prayer to free us from bondage to sin. I learnt that Christ's death did not just involve the physical pain of crucifixion but he had to endure mine and the world's sin! How could I then depend on myself instead of the sinless Savior who paid it all? If I was trying to get right with God with my own words I was saying that Jesus' death is not sufficient for me. I learnt that I needed to get whole before God and pour my heart out before him. I repented (turned away from my sin) and turn back to God through prayer acknowledging that I was helpless without him. I turned from self to a loving Savior who was patiently waiting for me to come to him all along.
I came as I was with all my fear, insecurity, helplessness and flaws to God who restored me to himself through Jesus his son which is not my own work but the gift of God called His grace (Ephesians 2:8) for which I am eternally grateful and I am not sharing this to say that I have become perfect because I still battle with sin daily but God helps me to overcome sin by remaining in him, it shows that if Christ can heal and restore a broken sinner like me to a right relationship with him and he can certainly do the same with YOU if YOU let him. And Christ's blood washes me and He will continue to work in me until I meet him face to face. (Phil. 1:6)

I hope this encourages someone
God bless you,
Jaleen 

Feel free to e-mail me about anything at j.obilaso@gmail.com :)
P.S please check out this post if you want to become a Christian or know more

Pathway to Death

Hello hope you are all having a blessed Sunday!
I just wanted to talk about a few verses that God has placed on my mind recently and one that I looked up because it scared me quite a bit and I needed to understand it after reading one website in particular this is what I got. 
So the first verse was Proverbs 14: 12 There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. When I first read this I was scanning my head for all the things that are wrong in my life thinking what is God trying to say to me? So I decided to research the verse and found a commentary that spoke to me and also fit in with another verse that God has been showing me which is Galatians 1:8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. 

If you look around today there are so many religious beliefs, doctrines, parties and interpretations of scripture with some being more popular than others. Just because its popular with man it does NOT mean that this is the way to life. The way to life is narrow and there are few that will make it into heaven. Matthew 7:14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. Notice the word FEW will find it, Jesus never says the way to heaven will be popular or many will enter the way he says FEW. So what is this way? How can we be sure that we are on the right path? Well if we read a few verses down. Matthew 7:21 Not everyone who says to me "Lord, Lord." will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. The people who will make it into heaven will be those who are DOING the will of the Father in heaven. Are we DOING the will of God? seeking God's will is good but not on its own are we actually DOING his will to? I don't sit here condemning you but I'm convicted too, we need to make sure that we are DOING the will or God and pursuing it. Matthew 7:24 "Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. Let's not lose sight of our calling and start practicing what Jesus taught us don't get distracted  by the popularity and distractions of other things which are irrelevant. Our lives need to be built on Jesus as the rock this involves repenting of sin and obeying all of his teaching this is the only way to eternal life any other foundation leads to death.

God Bless you, 

Jaleen

If you have any questions about the blog or how to come to Jesus please feel free to e-mail me at j.obilaso@gmail.com
P.S please check out this post if you want to become a Christian or know more

Weaknesses

Recently God has really been guiding me to this verse lately so I thought i would share it with you:

2 Corinthians 12:9 But he said to me, "My Grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." 

When you take time to think about this verse and what it means it truly is amazing. God is saying that His power is made PERFECT in WEAKNESS. Not in strength, not in satisfaction, but he says in weakness. Its so easy to look at ourselves and pick out all our flaws and weaknesses and by doing that you can grow to hate yourself but that is not the purpose of our weaknesses. We have to look at the bigger picture. Our weaknesses are set up to reveal God's power but for this to happen we need to turn away from trying to overcome weaknesses and rely completely on God with them. In 2 Corinthians 12:8 Paul PLEADS with God THREE times to take away a physical weakness which we are not told what it is but we are told that it was a thorn in the flesh so a physical weakness which may have hindered his ministry yet God directed him to verse 9.  Often when we have strengths in areas it can cause us to get tempted to depend on ourselves which hinders our walk with Christ resulting in it being ineffective because we are making ourselves our own foundation when we need it to be about God and not us. If you have a physical weakness in your Chrsitian walk its not given to hinder you but that it can be used by God to reveal his power and to keep your eyes on him and not ourselves which I have also been learning through the reading and studying of these verses.
God bless you all, Jaleen :)
P.S please check out this post if you want to become a Christian or know more

Self Dependence

Hello and welcome to my new blog! 
God has been showing me recently that I don't pray enough in times where I am going through hard situations or temptation I often feel to take the matter into my own hands because I want control, I want to sort out the situation in my own strength and to be independent and then come in prayer and thanksgiving to God afterwards but God has been showing me recently that this approach wrong because its self dependence instead of God dependence and it leads to self praise 2 Corinthians 3:5 (NIV) Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. This means that we, as Christians need to be depending on God instead of ourselves in hard times if we depend on ourselves in hard times we are tempted to claim the glory of being able to depend on ourselves you may be thinking how do I depend on God? One verse that has really come to me during hardship and desire to pursue my own way is Matthew 6:33 "But seek first the Kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you. We seek the Kingdom of God first by putting our hope in Christ and seeking his word before anything else that means coming to him in prayer and reading before giving thought to any other worldly ideas and pursuits. When Jesus then says in this passage all these things shall be added unto you He is talking about the all of the worries of life. He understands that we will be tempted to worry and he tells us not to in Matthew 6:25-34 He tells us why we should not worry because God is in control of everything so the more we put dependence on our own control the more we will fall into worry. So today instead of pursuing our own solution to life's calamities remember God understands more than anything you even understand about yourself! Please take time to pray about seeking God's will instead of seeking your own will and your own dependence which will only lead you to worry. 
God Bless you all, love in Christ alone
Jaleen 
P.S please check out this post if you want to become a Christian or know more