The Illusion of Control

Hello everyone,

I once explained that many think God has complete sovereignty over the decisions we make, thus, everything on earth, but He doesn’t because He has given us the power of choice, so it would appear that we are free to do whatever we want and as such we have the power to control anything we want, it would imply that the illusion of control is not an illusion, but control itself? So what is this illusion of control?

According to Science Daily, “Illusion of control is the tendency for human beings to believe they can control or least influence outcomes that they demonstrably have no influence over.” But if we think we have control over things, where does prophecy fall under? For instance, the Bible prophesied about the virgin birth, which occurred, there were also prophecies about Jesus here on earth which He fulfilled. There were other prophecies which were fulfilled and prophesies yet to be fulfilled, doesn’t that make 'the illusion of control' an illusion which is unreal, as human beings think they have control over things but it is unreal? Let’s take a look at the scriptures.

God said to the Israelites in Deuteronomy 30:19, “I call on heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live.” God presented two options to the children of Israel, these two options are the only options that exist, but God only advised them on the way to take, if they decided to choose the opposite direction, it was their choice. However, God who knows all things, knows every move that would be encountered in any choice made, in other words, it appears as though He knows every route, and He who watches the heart would tell easily where each heart is set, this is most definitely how God knows our every move, but it is more mysterious and deeper than this.

From the moment Adam was created, God had provided a solution if man failed, which was the coming of Christ, as the scripture says that Jesus was slain before the foundation of the world, which would also imply that God had birthed it in His heart. But when Christ was born, He didn’t have a plan B because He knew Jesus would be focused, and would fulfill His purpose, or else He wouldn’t have birthed it in His heart that Jesus was slain before the foundation of the world. So, since this is happening, does that mean we have complete control over our lives without it already being predestined, as God has given us the power of choice?

The truth to all these is that God who designed this world from the beginning, kind of wrote all the ‘program’ of every character He ‘designed’, so nothing could surprise Him, even though we have the power to make choices, since He ‘designed’ us would already know what choice we would make.

One thing we need to understand is that even though God is operating as a character in the movie we are living, He is also outside the box of the movie. He is neither good nor evil, He is who He is, in other words, I AM THAT I AM, we cannot understand Him because the real Him is outside the movie which our script cannot comprehend, which is why He is beyond our imagination or wildest dreams. So, if we think we really have control over our lives, yes we do, but also, God knows every move everyone is going to take, you cannot take Him by surprise, which is why we need to work with the Holy Spirit who knows every right move to make without errors, so that within the movie that we live, we would have the control of our lives in line with the writer of the play—God!

May the LORD bless you and keep you, make His face shine upon you. May the LORD be gracious to you and lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace. AMEN.

                    

Why not accept Jesus today if you haven’t. Pray out loud, “Jesus, I confess that You are my Lord and Saviour. I believe in my heart that God raised You from the dead. By faith in Your Word, I receive salvation now. Thank You for saving me!” Congratulations, you’re born again, you are now brand new!

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GOD BLESS YOU.

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Unless otherwise stated, the following scriptures are gotten from New King James Version (NKJV)

The Shepherd's Voice, and His Sheep

Hi everyone,

Jesus in John 10:11 said He is the good shepherd, and He gives life to His sheep. His sheep here are those who listened to Him when they never had a Father and placed their lives in His hands. But my focus is on John 10:27-28, which says, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. ₂₈ And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.” The question now is, ‘who are Jesus’ sheep?’ and ‘how do they hear His voice and are sure it is His?’ These are my focus today.

The sheep Jesus spoke of is a figure of speech to explain the born-again experience, especially when He said He gives life to the sheep of His fold. Therefore, it is clear who Jesus’ sheep are—they are the Sons of God. Now, how do they hear His voice and are sure it is Jesus’?

Becoming born again isn’t an automatic ticket for you to suddenly start behaving perfectly, and hearing Jesus’ directly at a high level of maturity, why is that? It is so because when anyone becomes born again, the spirit of the person becomes the full, mature and exact Spirit of Jesus, but the soul needs to be trained and groomed to know Who the Spirit has become. It is when this is done regularly that the Sons of God can know when Jesus calls and be sure that He is the One.

When you see identical twins, they appear so hard to distinguish who is who, but when you spend time with just one of them regularly, the moment the other twin appears, you immediately see the differences between the twins. Likewise, we are to meditate on the word of God day and night, thus understanding who we have become, also knowing Jesus intimately, this is when we recognise the voice of the good Shepherd. The devil can try, but those who know their God won’t fall prey.

Jesus, being the Good Shepherd, has laid down His life for the sheep, this is why nobody can snatch anyone away from the Lord because He is our protector and deliverer. He guides and directs us as we follow Him. And as David said in Psalm 23:2, “He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters.” Jesus would go through every length to take care of us, beyond our wildest imagination. All we need to do is to meditate constantly on His word, and we would hear Him clearly and be sure.

May the LORD bless you and keep you, make His face shine upon you. May the LORD be gracious to you and lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace. AMEN.

                    

Why not accept Jesus today if you haven’t. Pray out loud, “Jesus, I confess that You are my Lord and Saviour. I believe in my heart that God raised You from the dead. By faith in Your Word, I receive salvation now. Thank You for saving me!” Congratulations, you’re born again, you are now brand new!

                                          

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For prayers and comments, send to the comment section below.

GOD BLESS YOU.

PLEASE LIKE AND FOLLOW MY BLOG

Unless otherwise stated, the following scriptures are gotten from New King James Version (NKJV)

Not Too Big For GOD To Handle

Hello everyone,

There are things you do or hear which could make you anxious or bring about worry. Maybe you saw your bank statement which is approaching red, or maybe you got a good sum of money and all of a sudden you looked at the list of things you need to get done which would eventually wipe out all the money; it could be that your landlord has given you a three month quit notice, and you don’t know where to move to with your family; it could be a health issue or you trying to get a job and bills upon bills keep piling up. These are enough reasons for you to worry or be anxious, but guess what? An innocent man was in prison, he understood how the challenges are which the devil uses as an avenue to creep in, and while in prison he wrote a letter to a church and a part of it he said, “Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the centre of your life.” This was written by Apostle Paul when he was in the prison, a letter he wrote to the church in Philippi, and Philippians 4:6-7 was quoted from the Message Bible.

I’ve had several reasons to be anxious, in fact there was something on my mind which wanted to cause a sort of anxiety for me just before I started writing the blog for this day, but as I looked into the scriptures and meditated on Philippians 4:6-7, I smiled because this had been the verses that had given a reason to always trust God in every situation. The Message says, “Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns.” In doing this, the peace of God that transcends all understanding would guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus.

Apostle Paul didn’t write this just to make us feel happy, instead he wrote what we are meant to be doing because worries and anxiety are ways the devil creeps into our lives and you then see how people forget God first of all, and they later start doing things out of desperation. Some even go to the point of taking drastic actions without thinking. But Paul wrote this to call us to order, reminding us that there is a God who is greater than all our problems put together and is our very help in time of need. God Himself said He will never leave us nor forsake us, nothing is too big for Him to handle. Which is why we praise God as we drop our petitions to Him, we strengthen our faith in Him, and His peace which we have in Jesus is activated in us, that peace that passes all understanding gives us that assurance and confidence that God has taken care of the situation.

Don’t be quick to worry, rather be quick to put your trust in Jesus, in Him alone can we find true peace of mind.

May the LORD bless you and keep you, make His face shine upon you. May the LORD be gracious to you and lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace. AMEN.

                    

Why not accept Jesus today if you haven’t. Pray out loud, “Jesus, I confess that You are my Lord and Saviour. I believe in my heart that God raised You from the dead. By faith in Your Word, I receive salvation now. Thank You for saving me!” Congratulations, you’re born again, you are now brand new!

                                          

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For prayers and comments, send to the comment section below.

GOD BLESS YOU.

PLEASE LIKE AND FOLLOW MY BLOG

Unless otherwise stated, the following scriptures are gotten from New King James Version (NKJV)

The Secret Behind Right Focus

Hello everyone,

I have often said we only focus on one thing at a time, in other words, God designed our senses to only focus on one thing at a time. And the truth is that what we focus on affects our thoughts, our minds, and our creativity. In Genesis 1 when God created Man, He created mankind in His image and likeness, thus we have the power to create.

When God says a thing, it comes to pass. If He sees a wall painted white and He says the wall is blue, the wall becomes blue when He looks at it, because nothing comes to existence unless He recognises the presence of its existence.

In our case, the person who says he is rich and the person who says he is not poor, could be saying the same thing, but the truth is that their focus is different, and why is that so? The reason is that the first person sees riches straight up and nothing else, while the other person sees poverty, even though he claims not to input it to himself. But the truth as I said is that their focus is different.

People fall ill once in a while. The way God designed us to get out of it is through the power of focus. The mistake many make is that they declare they are not ill, which is wrong. By saying you are not ill is recognising the existence of illness in your body, whether you input it on yourself or not. You must not recognise the existence of the illness.

To confess that you are healed, whole and strong is the right way and this is the truth which you are to confess to yourself. And why is that? The reason is that you only confess what you see, and what are we to see? Jesus! You only confess who Jesus is! What has illness got to do in Jesus’ body, so why are you going off point to something that doesn’t exist in His body.

No matter how much we try to please God through our effort, it can never be good enough to meet His standard. Jesus was, is and will always be the one to meet up to the standard of God. Actually, He met up with the standard of God, which is why He got a brand new life, and everything we ever dreamt of, even beyond our wildest dream has been given to Jesus by God. Thus, everything you aim to get which you cannot get is found in Jesus. Even those things which you think you got isn’t as perfect as that which Jesus has. So, Jesus is complete because He is the embodiment of all things, whether spiritually, or even physically [story for another day].

Therefore, the only way to attain what Jesus has is to become Him, since no other person can achieve what Jesus has gotten. Which is why there is the need to die and receive a brand new life, which actually is the exact life of Jesus. Thus, Jesus becomes your very existence (ref. 2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 2:20). Then, to get directions on how to live your new life, there is a manual, which is the Bible. The Bible can lead you correctly when you are searching for what is right, and can also mislead when searching for what isn’t right. Therefore, when studying and meditating on the scriptures in the Bible, you search for Jesus alone which is right. Why? It is because you need to know who you are, simple! And the Holy Spirit, helps you interpret the scriptures for you, and also when you rub minds with those of like minds, which are those who have the Spirit of Jesus in them.

And now that Jesus is your focus, focus only on Him, for in Him is perfection at its finest, exactly the life of Jesus, which also is the life of God.

Now, what does the devil do? He calls your attention to your physical body, which hasn’t attained complete transformation, which still has flaws because you are still being transformed through the renewal of your mind. The aim of the devil is for you not to focus on Jesus. But your body is not your focus, Jesus is! The more you focus on Jesus, the faster your body gets transformed into the fullness of Christ, physically, since you are already transformed spiritually.

Whatever does not exist in the body of Jesus does not exist, and should not be referred to for any reason. Making reference to it is what the devil wants because when you think you are rebuking it, you are not focusing on Jesus. You declare who Jesus is all times, which is why praise and worship is very powerful because it makes you focus on Jesus and not yourself, which is what the devil hates a lot.

Rather than rebuking the sickness, declare who Jesus is in your life because He is who you are. And by declaring who He is, is automatically negating the sickness without making reference to it. Dwelling in Jesus is strengthening your Spirit-man. This is the way out of years upon years of not getting your healing or whatever challenge you might be facing. Jesus has done it all, it is not time to plant, but the time to harvest!

May the LORD bless you and keep you, make His face shine upon you. May the LORD be gracious to you and lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace. AMEN.

                    

Why not accept Jesus today if you haven’t. Pray out loud, “Jesus, I confess that You are my Lord and Saviour. I believe in my heart that God raised You from the dead. By faith in Your Word, I receive salvation now. Thank You for saving me!” Congratulations, you’re born again, you are now brand new!

                                          

Log on next time.

For prayers and comments, send them to the comment section below.

GOD BLESS YOU.

PLEASE LIKE AND FOLLOW MY BLOG

Unless otherwise stated, the following scriptures are gotten from New King James Version (NKJV)