just one hour – REALITIES MINISTRIES

Lawal, J. O. (2025, April 13). Put them to death. From Pastor’s Desk, Vol. 12, No. 50.

Beloved: Grace, mercy and peace be yours immeasurably from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. I am delighted to welcome you to another week of the month of April 2025. My prayer is that God will daily teach you to take advantage of His grace to walk in victory over every kind of sin or weakness of the spirit, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Why did I offer this prayer for you? The reason is that it is the will of God for us to put to death any kind of sin that may be associated with our lives. Look at what Paul says about this to the Colossian brethren:

“Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.” (Col 3:5-10NIV)

Can you see all the things that we must put to death and also rid our lives of? Then can you observe that we are the ones to put these things to death in our lives? That means even though we are now children of God and new creatures in Christ, the bad things we used to do will still want to find expression in our lives and make a mess of our faith. That is because it has become cultural for us to do them.

But as Paul tells us, it is because of all these evil things that the wrath of God is coming on the disobedient. Therefore, we must not give ourselves to them again. Instead, we must put them to death. And can we actually put them to death? Do we have the ability to put them to death?

Well, if we could not put them to death, God would not say that we should do so. The reason He tells us to do so is that we can do so. But how do we do so? We cannot do so by simply wishing or determining to do so. Peter, for instance, was determined not to deny Jesus. Yet he denied Him three times in a row in one night. So, being determined not to do what is wrong is not enough; we must also possess the ability not to do what is wrong. Otherwise, the pressure of sin may weaken our determination and drive us to do what is against the desires of our hearts. (Cf. Matt 26)

All of this is why the bible further says to us. “For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.” (Rom 8:13NIV) Did you see that? It is only by the supply of the Spirit of God that we can put any kind of sin or bad behaviour to death in our lives. Otherwise, we can only find ourselves failing again and again.

So, if you want to end any kind of sin in your life, you must turn to the Spirit of God for the enablement to do so. How? First, you do so through prayer. Second, you do so by meditating on the word of God and confessing it to yourself. Third, you do so by fellowshipping with the people of God that are walking in righteousness. And as you consistently give yourself to these things, you will soon enough see for yourself that those wrong things that you are struggling with in your life have been put to death by the Spirit of God.

Have a great week.

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Just One Hour_J.0_Lawal

Lawal, J. O. (2025, March 30). Just one hour! From Pastor’s Desk, Vol. 12, No. 48.

Beloved: grace, mercy and peace to you without measure from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. I am delighted to welcome you to the transition week between the months of March and April 2025. My prayer is that God will daily strengthen your heart to do all that is right for you to do to remain pure and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus. Amen.

In order for our Lord Jesus, when His time came, not to shrink back from dying on the cross for the redemption of humanity, He needed to do one thing. What was it? He needed to pray. And how much time did He need to pray? He did not need a whole week or a whole day to pray. He needed just one hour to pray.

Now how did we know that all Jesus needed at that time was just one hour of prayer? We knew through Scriptures. As the account goes, as He saw that His time was at hand, He took three of His disciples, Peter, James and John, with Him to pray in a place called Gethsemane. But instead of praying with Him, they were simply sleeping. And that was because they were very tired. Just look at what the bible says about these things:

“Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Simon,” he said to Peter, “are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.”” (Mark 14:37-38NIV)

Did you see that? How much time did Jesus expect these disciples to spend in praying with Him? Just one hour! Of course, Jesus could pray to God for more than one hour. Before this time, He had prayed on several occasions for hours, sometimes all through the night. So, He did not choose to pray for one hour on this occasion because He could not pray for more hours. Rather, He chose to do so because He knew that a lot could be changed or done through even one hour of prayer.

Now, of course, because of that one hour of prayer that He offered to God for His soul in that hour of darkness, He received sufficient strength and courage to die on the cross and obtain eternal redemption for us. But what about His disciples who could not join Him in praying for themselves for just one hour? They all went on to deny and desert Him. And if He had not prayed for them before that their faith would not fail, that would have been the end of their relationship with Him.

What is this teaching us, then? It is simply that we cannot measure or quantify what our heartfelt prayer can accomplish for us or for all humanity, even if it is only for one hour. In fact, just one minute of prayer can be the difference between life and death, success and failure, victory and defeat. How long did it take David to pray that God would frustrate the counsel of Ahithophel? It probably took him less than a minute. Yet that prayer changed everything about the rebellion he wanted to end. That prayer led to his victory over Absalom. (Cf. 2Sam 15:31)

Am I now saying that you should only be praying for just one minute or just one hour? No! To say the fact, there are problems that will probably take us hours or days of prayer to handle. But if we will learn to recognise that our prayers can change history, then, we will begin to make the most of every moment we have to pray, even if it is just one hour. And my prayer is that our hearts will be filled with adequate strength from God to daily walk in the light of this truth, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Have a pleasant week.