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FINISHING STRONG, This Week: Sources of the Power of God
Many times men try to do spiritual things with physical power and wisdom; yet they expect spiritual results.
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It is a spiritual attempt to commit suicide to be telling people that we are children of God without having God's Power.
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So, for this week, the Holy Spirit Himself shall be telling us the Biblical ways to become a carrier of God's Power.
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CLICK HERE to read today's dosage.
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See you tomorrow!
FINISHING STRONG is the daily devotional of the BIBLE-WAY GOSPEL MINISTRIES by and through which we are daily fed from above, first thing every morning.
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The goal of FINISHING STRONG is to ensure that our first contact every morning is our Triune Father. This hopefully keeps our conversations with our fellow-men within the ambits of what God desires.
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Another invaluable importance of this daily devotional is that it helps keep us on the right track with God as it acquaints us more and more with God, thus cementing our relationship with our Father by making us know His Mind. This brings us into a closer relationship with the Almighty.
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We sincerely hope that as you join us daily, you will not only satisfy your soul but grow it as well, which is the ultimate purpose of God for the devotional.
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Thanks and God bless you richly in Jesus Mighty Name. Amen.
Past Topics
Wednesday, 19th August 2020
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Topic: Have Faith
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Anchor Scripture: “. . . Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.” – 1 Samuel 15: 22b
Focus Scripture: “By whom we have received grace . . . for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name.” – Romans 1: 5
Admonition
One of the most crucial topics in Christianity is obedience, which describes the extent to which man is willing to carry out God’s commands to Him. And as the Holy Spirit had taught in one of our past lessons, obedience is no obedience if it is not total; that is, carrying out God’s commands to the letter and doing so whether convenient or not (2 Timothy 4: 2).
What God desires from all of us, His children, is obedience to His commands, rather than the sacrifices, in tithes, offerings, services attendance, building churches, decorating churches for services, by buses for churches or cars for pastors and so many other things we do, by which we often erroneously believe we are serving God with them.
Please, do not get me wrong; I am not saying those things are bad or that they are unnecessary, but the point is that doing those things without thorough obedience to God’s commands amounts to deceiving oneself. I believe King Saul’s saga should suffice an instruction for us all, but what I have been seen so far is, pastors who are the beneficiaries of these things emphasizing them to their congregation to the detriment of more important issues such as obedience, faith, salvation, etc.
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However, our Anchor Scripture for the week, 1 Samuel 15: 22b and Acts 17: 24 – 25 have made it clear that God is not interested in those things, but in our obedience and true worship of His Majesty.
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God takes the issue of obedience very seriously as He never pardoned anyone who disobeyed His commands, not even David, the man after His heart.
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But if we must obey, there are steps to follow, and one of them is having faith. Faith becomes very central in obedience because all our acts of service and worship to God also revolve around our obedience to God. Let’s get this very clear now: all our acts of service and worship to God become null and void before God if we are not obedient to Him.
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Therefore, to really be prepared to obey God, we must first believe Him and take Him for Who He is to us and be ready, at all times, to do whatever He demands of us. The book of 1 John 5: 3 makes it very light for us by making us know that His commandments are not grievous. That is why I have always maintained that God will not ask you to do an impossible thing, but will ask you, definitely too, to do a difficult thing. A look through the history of patriarchs of faith tells us that faith is key to obedience.
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As we close this morning, the Holy Spirit admonishes us this morning to work on our obedience to God’s commandments, and the first step at doing that is through our unshakeable faith in Him. The truth is that we will not be able to obey Him if we don’t believe Him and take Him for His Words. The basis of disobedience, really, is a lack of faith. People who don’t have faith can’t obey God. People like that don’t FINISH STRONG; may you and I FINISTRONG in Jesus’ mighty name. Amen.
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Till tomorrow when we shall meet again on this beautiful journey of FINISHING STRONG together, please, keep keeping on in Him!
Jesus loves you!
Thursday, 20th August 2020
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Topic: Be Saved
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Anchor Scripture: “. . . Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.” – 1 Samuel 15: 22b
Focus Scripture: “And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.”
– Ephesians 4: 24
Admonition
According to the Holy Spirit, as we were taught yesterday, the first step to learning how to obey God is to develop an unshakeable faith in Him. This position however assumes that we already know Who the Father Whom we want to obey really is.
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And according to the book of Ephesians 2: 8, it is this faith that we have that will lead us to the second step in learning to obey God, that is, salvation. There is no gay-saying that the church today is full of stillborns; children, forcing themselves on a Father, though willing to accept them, but requires them to be of proper birth. Today, we have so many in the Christendom,
who want to go Home, but either don’t know the way Home, or are not willing to pass through the
Way before getting Home. I normally call them gatecrashers!
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Let me say this clearly now: there is no short-
cut to heaven! But the only Way is Jesus Christ!
As it was pointed out yesterday, religion and its hurly-burly activities won’t take us to heaven. Attending church services are nearly of no heavenly consequences except therein, we are being constantly exposed to the truth about the Kingdom of God. The many other sacrifices mentioned yesterday are just religious works that have no bearing as to our making heaven. Of a truth, those are the things the Pharisees valued and esteemed, but because Jesus Christ knew they bear no relevance to heaven requirements, He warned that “except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5: 20). Religiousness without Godliness is a waste of time!
The Bible admonishes that “deep calleth to deep . . . .” (Psalm 42: 7). That is why the admonition of our Focus Scripture this morning becomes important because by being truly saved, we would be made after God’s righteousness and holiness. It is this new-made man that can actually obey God. The book of Romans 8: 5 – 8 is very explicit and forthright on this; if we remain our old selves, we cannot please (obey)
God. Therefore, before trying to obey God, let us be sure of our salvation, through Christ Jesus, not by attending church alone.
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The truth beloved brethren is that no one that is truly saved tries (struggles) to obey God because obeying God becomes natural to them. If one is truly saved, they don’t struggle to obey God. See Luke 2: 49; John 5: 43, 8: 28, 38, 49.
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As we close this morning, enough of self-deceit because it will take us nowhere. Stop trying to obey God. The flesh can never obey God. It has been said in one of our lessons of the past that obedience is a form of worship unto God. God says He wants only worshippers who will worship Him in truth and in Spirit (John 4: 24). That is what we get and become when we are truly saved. When truly saved, obedience to God becomes very easy. The admonition this morning, therefore, is for everyone who nameth the name of God to be sure of their salvation, and obeying God becomes natural.
N. B. Please, pray that God will help you to have the true experience of salvation, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Till tomorrow when we shall meet again on this beautiful journey of FINISHING STRONG together, please, keep keeping on in Him!
Jesus loves you!
Click here to read Wednesday lesson
Monday, 24th August 2020
Topic: Get the Holy Spirit
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Anchor Scripture: “That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.” – 1 Corinthians 2: 5
Focus Scripture: “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you:” – Acts 1: 8
Admonition
I bring greetings to you from the Throne of Grace.
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In elementary Integrated Science, we learned that power is the ability to do work. That is, what helps us to do anything is the power in us. Without the power residing in us therefore, we may be powerless, and unable to do the things we may wish to do. That is why when we are hungry, our power often fails. Likewise, when there is no fuel in an automobile, it is powerless. The reasons for these are that the food we eat and the fuel we put in our automobiles burn to provide the needed energy for every action.
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Growing up, I used to know a brother who, although grown-up, but anytime he was upset by anybody, he will tell them, “I will report you to my mother.” He says this because he knew, just as everybody around knew, that the mother possesses some metaphysical powers and belonged to some groups in the kingdom of darkness. This brother knew he had no power to confront anyone that assaulted him. He, therefore, relied on his mother’s powers.
As Christians, children of God by implication, Hannah admonished us in 1 Samuel 2: 9 that by power shall no man prevail. That is, as mere men, we can’t and shouldn’t rely on our own strength to achieve anything, especially, spiritual things. And if we can’t rely on our own powers, then, like the brother in that little story above, we need to rely on the power of God.
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Our Focus Scripture today points to one of the most important ways of receiving the power of God; receiving the Holy Spirit. In my very few years in the ministry, I have seen many men try to use the power of God which they didn’t possess. To force things to happen, they engage a lot of gimmicks; some make people to turn round very rapidly and stopped them abruptly by which they lose balance and fell down, and the “man of God’ will convince the congregation that they fell under the anointing, power of God. Some engage their dynamic personalities to deceive many people. Also, I have seen people pray and sometimes, fast, for the power of God, but I haven’t seen from my Bible where Jesus Christ asked us to pray and fast or ask for the Power of God. What He says is that we shall receive the Power of God when the Holy Spirit comes upon us. What He tells us to ask for from the Father is the Holy Spirit (Luke 11: 13). Worst of all, some people pay money to buy bottles of oil or even a handkerchief believing that the power of God is kept up in a bottle or a piece of clothing. The Scripture they are using to deceive you (James 5: 14 – 15; Acts 19: 12) did not say that the Power of God is inside the oil, rather, in the prayer of faith. The truth, brethren, is that God can use anything to do anything, but principally, we ourselves should be the carriers of the power of God, not a bottle of oil or a piece of clothing.
As we close this morning, it is painfully observed that most of us Christians do not know the importance of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Many of us are just plainly oblivion of the impacts He could have on our race as Christians. I should think we need to ruminate better on the early Apostles as recorded in the book of Acts of Apostles. As rightly espoused by our Anchor Scripture for the week, we need the power of God in our lives so that our faith may not rest on the wisdom of men which they often roll into doctrines for us, but on the power of God. This is so because if our faith rests on the wisdom of men, FINISHING STRONG may become impossible (Jeremiah 17: 5; Matthew 7: 21 – 23). Let us conclude this morning by saying that a Christian without the Holy Spirit is just a church-goer; they may never FINISH STRONG because they lack the power of God to FINISH STRONG. I pray that will not be our testimonies in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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N. B. Please, pray that God will release His Holy Spirit upon you in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Till tomorrow when we shall meet again on this beautiful journey of FINISHING STRONG together, please, keep keeping on in Him!
Jesus loves you!
Tuesday, 25th August 2020
Topic: Know the Scriptures
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Anchor Scripture: “That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.” – 1 Corinthians 2: 5
Focus Scripture: "And Jesus answering said unto them, Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God?” – Mark 12: 24
Admonition
I bring greetings to you from the Throne of Grace.
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Yesterday, the Holy Spirit espoused on us, how expedient it is for us, in our quest for the Power of God, to possess Him. The truth is that without the Holy Spirit, no one can walk and work in the Power of God because according to our Focus Scripture yesterday, Acts 1: 8, we only receive the Power of God when the Holy Spirit comes upon us. May God grant us understanding in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Another way by which we could possess and wield the original Power of God is by studying the Scriptures. Unfortunately, we live in a busy world today, where most people don’t have time to study the Word of God because they are busy with some other things. We live in a world where people prefer “see and pay.” I tell you of a truth, many go to church today because there is a physical figure there in the name of pastor, General Overseer, Founder, etc, through and in whom they trust. That is why many people’s faith is in their churches and in that physical figure therein. And that is the reason even when they have an ordinary headache, they don’t believe they are divinely empowered to kick the headache out of their body and enjoy good health, but until they see their pastor or what have you.
Let me tell you a fact that is being hidden from you: the Power of God is in His Word. Remove His Word from Him, and what you will have is God that has no Power to do anything. This is so because even by the time you remove His Word from Him, there wouldn’t be any God again. Those words sound like blasphemies to you, right? Yeah, it must if you are not conversant with His Word. But that’s the truth! God is His Word and His Word is God Himself (John 1: 1).
I use to have a neighbour who attended one of the most populous congregations here in Nigeria, and every Sunday he came back from his church, he will always tell me thus: “Brother Bidemi, today papa said . . . .” This papa said became so frequent that I got pissed off and had to ask him one day and I said to him, “every day, it is papa said, papa said, you have never said God says. Is God not speaking in His Word again?” He just looked at me without saying a word, turned and left. The bane of most Christians today is that we value the failing subjective words of men than the infallible Word of God.
As we close this morning, Hebrews 4: 12 tell us the power in the Word of God and if we take His Word up and use it, we will get exactly that result. One of the reasons Christianity today lacks the original manifestation of the Power of God is because we don’t know His Word. His Word works wonders in the past, and it can do it again even today in whatever we trust Him to do. The onus is on us to use it, albeit, appropriately. I here give you just one example from the book of Acts 3: 1 – 8. Peter and John didn’t use water, oil, mantle or any other thing with which you are being deceived today. They just looked straight at the man and commanded him to be healed in Jesus’ name. That’s the naked Power of God on display! Remember that Peter and John were mere men like you and I. The only difference is that they knew the Word, contained it in their hearts, believed it and used it. And wow! It worked!
Lastly today, brethren, I have said it in umpteenth number, “how much you know about God will determine how far you can go with Him.” That’s a billion-dollar fact! If you want to carry God’s Power and wield it, then get to know the Scriptures. Or do you think Apostle Paul’s admonition to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2: 15 was for fun? The Power of God is in His Word and it is only available to those who can and are ready to search for it. We need His Word to FINISH STRONG because according to our Focus Scripture this morning, it is an error not to know God’s Word. Such people by implication cannot know the Power of God and can never FINISH STRONG. I pray we all FINISH STRONG in Jesus’ name. Amen.
N. B. Please, pray that God will give you the grace to study His Word, the understanding of the Word, and the courage to ALWAYS reference it in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Till tomorrow when we shall meet again on this beautiful journey of FINISHING STRONG together, please, keep keeping on in Him!
Jesus loves you!
Wednesday, 26th August 2020
Topic: Preach the Gospel
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Anchor Scripture: “That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.” – 1 Corinthians 2: 5
Focus Scripture: “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.” – 1 Corinthians 1: 18
Admonition
I bring you greetings from the Throne of Grace.
During His earthly ministry, Jesus Christ had only one concern: teaching about the Kingdom of God; in order words, preaching the Gospel. Each time people look for Him, He will always tell them thus: “How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?” (Luke 2: 49; John 4: 34. 9: 4). Our Master was always about His Father’s business, preaching about the Kingdom of God. Before His ascension, He commissioned His disciples to do likewise (Matthew 28: 19 – 20), but they didn’t start, according to His instruction, until the Holy Spirit was released upon them on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2: 1 – 4). After this great event, the Apostles, just like the Master, went about the Father’s business, preaching about the Kingdom of God. They never allowed any distractions or any other thing to take their attention. Some people among the congregation wanted to distract them, but Peter told them they can’t leave the Father’s business to attend to unimportant things (Acts 6: 2). Is that still the same situation today? Even the few that are preaching, how many of them are preaching the true Word of God?
Many of us today marvel at the wanton display of the great Power of God during Jesus Christ’s and the Apostles’ times. We cry and wail today for a replicate of that good olden times. We always sing, pray hard and sweat for “His glory to fall” on us. Many go out of the way of the Gospel to get other powers and bring them to us as the Power of God. Many Christians often fall for it because they actually don’t know what the Power of God looks like and how it often manifests itself. Today, we crave the Power of God because of the overwhelming effects of the powers of darkness all around us. Many are fasting day and night to receive the Power of God, but they are not ready to do the needy. Two days ago, we mentioned being endowed with the Holy Spirit from above. Yesterday, we were told that the Power of God is in His Word and that we should get busy with the Word. Today, we are told to go out and preach the Kingdom to the people if we want to wield the enormous Power of God.
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Somebody may wonder how preaching the Gospel brings about being endowed by the Power of God. Yeah, it is good to so wonder. But it does in two ways: preaching the Gospel has a way of keeping us from sins. Go and check the statistics of the number of pulpit men who are messing up and see how many of them preach the true Word of God. Very few of them do. Most of those messing up preach the other gospels; materialism and prosperity. If you are a preacher of the true Word of God, anything you want to mess up, something inside you will keep telling you that you have preached against that. At that point, if you truly have the Spirit of God, you will engage your reverse gear. The second way preaching the Gospel endows us with the Power from above is that it is a testimony to God Himself. God has never failed and He will NEVER fail. When you witness, preach, Him to people, what you are doing is calling on Him to come and prove Himself, and He will ALWAYS do just that!
He will never disappoint Himself nor you. A great manifestation of His Power once will ginger you to go out and do it again. Then what the Bible says that “His strength is made perfect in (our) weaknesses” (2 Corinthians 12: 29) will come to play.
As we close this morning brethren, one of the reasons you neither carry nor manifest the awesome Power of God in any of its manifestations is because you are keeping your mouth shut about the Kingdom of God. Remember, Jesus Christ warned that if any man be ashamed of Him before men, He too will be ashamed of us before His Father, our Father, in heaven (Mark 8: 38, Luke 9: 26). And if you don’t know, part of that being ashamed of you is not releasing the treasures of the Kingdom, chief amongst which is the Power of God, to you. Or do you think Apostle Paul just did marvelously for God for nothing? In Romans 1: 16, he declared thus: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” So, if you desperately desire to become a true carrier of God’s Power, start preaching the Gospel. With it, you can be sure of becoming powerful in God and FINISHING STRONG.
N. B. Please, pray that God will give you the courage to ALWAYS PREACH His Kingdom in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Till tomorrow when we shall meet again on this beautiful journey of FINISHING STRONG together, please, keep keeping on in Him!
Jesus loves you!
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Friday, 28th August 2020
Topic: Partake in the Afflictions of the Gospel
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Anchor Scripture: “That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.” – 1 Corinthians 2: 5
Focus Scripture: “. . . but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God.” – 2 Timothy 1: 8
Admonition
I bring you greetings from the Throne of Grace.
One of the hard truths of this great race that I have always told people is that Christianity is not bread and butter as it is being projected by most men and women on the pulpit. And the lies that Jesus Christ had suffered all there is to suffer and that we are not supposed to suffer for the sake of the Gospel remains what I called it, a lie. If it were to be true, we are not supposed to have martyrs from among the Apostles. This is it: Apostle Paul, after all his sufferings for the Lord, was beheaded. Apostle Peter and Andrew were both crucified upside down. Four soldiers together pierced Thomas through with their spears in east of Syria. Simon, the zealot was sacrificed to the sun god. James was stoned and clubbed to death. Matthew was stabbed to death in Ethiopia. On and on like that, they all gave their lives for the Gospel. They died cruelly because they preached the Kingdom of God.
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Today, the story has changed. Ministers today tell their congregations a different story of how to be a Christian. The story all over the places today is all about the goodies inherent in what Christ has done. Ministers today labour every day to open the eyes of their congregations to the millions and millions of dollars that the Apostles of old were too blind to see. Ministers today are not concerned about how the people of old helped in the propagation of the Gospel, but in how much the people could make and how big they could become if they know Kigdomnomics.
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Today, we have ministers going about with armed body-guards who are protecting them from “unwarranted” assaults from “unbelievers.” Unfortunately for the Gospel, these are people preaching faith in God and in His Christ. Today, we are too material minded to notice the absence of the Power of God in our meetings as long as people are buying cars, building houses, getting new jobs, etc.
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Hardly do we hear today of Christian meetings where prayers were offered and the buildings of their meeting places shaken to their foundations. We are not ready to pay any price, but we want the prize. To become a career of God’s Power, there must be a willingness to suffer for the Gospel. Without this, there is the possibility of misuse of the Power if given. What seems to rule most Christian denominations today is the spirit of fear. That is why we fear to speak against evil, even those manifesting in our midst.
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As we close this morning, 1 Peter 4: 14 in support of our Focus Scripture says that when we are reproached for the sake of the Gospel, happy are we because it shows that the Spirit of glory of God is resting on us. We must have the understanding that all the people who moved their generations for God and those Apostles in the Bible and therefore wielded enormous Power of God went through fire willingly for the sake of the Gospel. That was why God graciously bestowed His Power on them because they were faithful. The promise of Jesus Christ that we shall do what He did and even more has neither changed nor failed and it will come to pass in our lives too, if we are ready to stake all for Him. Brethren, it takes courage to serve God because as I have always said, “God did not promise us a safe journey, what He promised is a safe landing.” Anyone who wants a safe journey may never FINISH STRONG because they are pleasure seekers and pain avoiders. The Author and Finisher of our faith afore-knew all He was going to go through, yet willingly, He offered Himself a sacrifice for us all. That is why He is the custodian of the enormous Power of God today (Matthew 28: 18; Colossians 1: 16 – 19; Philippians 2: 8 – 11).
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N. B. Please, pray that God will give you the courage to ALWAYS PREACH His Kingdom in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Till Monday when we shall meet again on this beautiful journey of FINISHING STRONG together, please, keep keeping on in Him!
Jesus loves you!
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