Beloved: grace, mercy and peace be yours from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. I am glad to welcome you to another week of the month of May 2023. My prayer is that God will strengthen your heart to continually trust Him, regardless of the circumstances of your life or of our country, so that He may fulfil all His good intentions concerning you, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
As many of us can see today, more and more of our young men and women are daily turning to swindling, banditry, money rituals, prostitution and several other vices in order to survive. And despite all the news of the terrible things that are happening to those involved in these evils, most of them are not deterred at all. Instead, they keep overlooking the consequences of what they are doing for the temporary enjoyment they are getting from them. And to make things worse, we now have many parents approving of what these young ones are doing. How sad!
But what is responsible for this kind of attitude? Why will people daily see in the lives of others around them the consequences of choosing to go in certain directions in life and still choose to go in the same directions? One main reason for this is desperation. When people are desperate to survive and to also enjoy their lives, at least, to some degree, they will be willing to do just anything and ignore the consequences.
So, if you find yourself willing to do about anything to survive in this world, regardless of what doing so might do to your soul, to your life and to the people close to you, you must understand that you are desperate. And what is responsible for desperation? It is ignorance of God.
When people are ignorant of God, they will also be ignorant of His love for them and of His power to take care of them. And when people are ignorant of God’s love for them and power to take care of them, they will not trust Him to take care of them. Therefore, if they find themselves in any situation that threatens their existence or enjoyment of life, they will become desperate in saving themselves from it.
But no man can save himself from any problem or difficulty. It is only the one that God saves that will be safe. That is why our Lord Jesus says, “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.” (Matt 16:25NIV) Did you see that? It does not matter how desperate you are to save yourself from poverty, sickness or death, you will not succeed, if that desperation does not drive you to God. And we can see all around us how many, in their desperation to save themselves from poverty, disgrace, sickness, barrenness or death, are ruining their own lives, destroying their homes and making our world a more dangerous place to live in.
So, stop acting in desperation and doing just about anything that comes to your mind in order to enjoy life, get healed, get married or have children. King Saul once acted against the will of God in desperation in order to save his kingdom. Yet he lost what he was trying to save. And if you too allow desperation to make you go contrary to the will of God for your life, you will also end up being a terrible loser, regardless of how hard you try to win. (Cf. 1Sam 13)
But if you hand over your life to God, He will surely preserve it for you and see to it that you have everything you need to live a meaningful life and to also enjoy your eternity with Him. What, then, are you going to do? Are you going to continue to live in desperation and frustrate yourself out of this life? Or are you going to give yourself and your burdens to God and patiently watch Him take adequate care of you? My prayer is that the Spirit of God will cause you to do the right thing about this matter, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Have a great week.
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