The Bible records the story of Ananias who reneged on his vow to God and his wife as an accessory to the fact. Ananias had promised to sell his land and return all proceeds to God; but after the sale, he had a change of heart. He decided to lie about the sale price with the view of only giving part of the proceeds to the Church. His wife was in full support of this decision. He went to church and presented his offering, but the Holy Spirit told Peter that Ananias lied about the sale price. When confronted on the spot, his immediate punishment was death. The same punishment was meted out to his wife only minutes after his burial. A really harsh punishment for breaking a vow!!

While God loves us unconditionally, His blessings seems to be on condition of our obedient response to Him. Throughout the Israelites journeys and the condition of their settlement in the promised land, their blessings was dependent on their "contract" with God. Their part in the contract was just to be obedient to God. This seems a very simple request, but many died as a result of disobedient.

There isn't a child of God who does not face challenges, impossible situation from time to time. For some, it is a daily experience - sometimes a continuous challenge. We've prayed, put our faith into action, prayed some more but still nothing happened. We've asked, seek, knock: but still nothing is happening - or so it seems. Like this father, we know Jesus can help, but we sometimes wondered, would He?

You can be the success God wants you to be. Your can be happy! Just follow the blueprint God gave you. In every facet of your life, acknowledge Him and allow Him to lead and direct your path. He promised that if you listen, you will hear His voice telling you the correct choice to make. Will you listen?

Jesus sought the fruit of the fig tree and found none because it was not yet fig season. He cursed the tree and the next day the tree was dried up from its root. Peter, being surprised at the quick change in the status of the tree, called Jesus’ attention to it. Jesus encouraged Peter to have faith in God. He gave Peter (and His other disciples) a quick lesson on faith.

Doubt - it has been his strategy from day one, one which proves successful time and again. One third of the angels in Heaven were deceived because they doubted. Eve was deceived because she doubted. In fact, if you should go through Bible Characters you will find that most of them were deceived because they doubted. They doubted God; the instructions He gave; the guidance He provides; that God can and that He will.

I know we all have our challenges, we all have our burdens. Notice I said burdens and not problems. But, whatever our burdens are – whether it be financial burdens, relationship burdens, family burdens, health burdens, job burdens, your seemingly inability to cope under all these burdens, the promise to you and me today is to cast our burden upon the Lord and He shall sustain us. Let us allow Him to carry them for us. He is much stronger than us anyway. He can deal with it. He will work it out. He will sustain us. He will never suffer the righteous to be moved.

Jesus said to his disciples, “Why were you afraid?” And to us His question is the same. When we take our eyes off Jesus and put in on the problems around us, we will loose our peace and our souls! The devil knows that if he can get us distracted from our real mission, even when we become over zealous about good things, he was in the winning seat. Let us put away all distractions that rob our time with God, that take our peace.

So, instead of murmuring or complaining, I will rejoice. People everywhere are experiencing hard times, but we can still rejoice. It doesn’t matter that your pantry is empty, or that your refrigerator holds only water – rejoice! If you have only a meal for the day, rejoice! If you can’t pay your bills, rejoice! In everything, give thanks and rejoice for this is God’s will concerning you. Don’t worry. God will work it out in His time. Just rejoice!!

You have a winning smile”, I used to be told. Once upon a time, I would smile and the world would smile back at me. Back then when I smiled, my eyes twinkled. My smile was genuine because I was happy. With no cares of life and in-spite-of my impoverished life, I was happy. My twinkled eyes happy smiles had stopped, not because I became over anxious with the cares of life, but because a friend told me that I was sending the wrong signal. I was younger then and didn’t know better, so I stopped smiling. As I grew older, I allowed other things to hide my smile.