I present a few nuggets from Illuminare in 2019. Enjoy!
- Faith is not unintelligent. Jesus didn’t die for robots.
- The starting point of successful marriage is the right choice of partner.
- Your spouse must be your friend, your best friend. Friendship occupies a large swath of space in marriage.
- The Holy Spirit is your mentor. A critical function of that mentorship program is supply of intelligence.
- The ability of God to dwell in the past, present and future simultaneously is what the Bible technically refers to as “immortality.”
- Morality is a human society regulatory protocol. It’s not the basis of salvation. Imputed righteousness is. We are donees of grace – unmerited favour. Ephesians 2:8-9.
- Marriage processes you. It has deterministic capacity. It is one of the great institutions. So much so God adopted the principles embedded in it to fuse Christ and the Church.
- An unreasoning, unquestioning and un-examining generation of Christians is a danger to the faith and a danger to their nation.
- Branding makes people pay habitual obedience to a set of stimuli.
- Emotional constipation is not the definition of manhood.
- The dimension of the gifts of the Spirit you exhibit is determined by the calling and grace upon your life. Daniel never prayed for rain, Elijah did. Daniel prayed for insight and intelligence.
- You don’t have to be a pastor to have a profound understanding of scriptures, or to operate in the gifts of the Spirit. Every Christian is supposed to operate in the gifts of the Spirit.
- An empowered congregational mass will spread the gospel faster than a lone ecclesiastical actor. Pastors must empower the people to do the work of the ministry. It’s not about the pastor it’s about Christ.
- In material pursuit we so easily miss the things that really matter in life – things like friends and family, like charity and kindness, like joy and harmony, like love and contentment. Our primary pursuit ought to be God. Every other thing is an addendum.
- You don’t have to have huge resources to accomplish great things. Your number one resource is faith – that confident belief things will happen as envisaged.
- Believe in yourself. Stop censoring yourself, let the market determine your fate. Put your ideas out in the open.
- Have a discerning spirit. Don’t put yourself under a spiritual controller. If you can’t take a step without consulting your pastor you’re probably in bondage.
- If you have a dream you don’t like, reject it. The Bible says to cast down imagination and to bring every thought to the obedience of Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:5.
- Kids don’t think of anything in particular, neither do they do anything in particular. Kids don’t have a care. It’s how Jesus wants us to be.
- God’s grace overwrites your shortcomings.
- There’s a difference between the personage of the Antichrist and the spirit of the Antichrist. The Antichrist will eventually emerge but his franchise is already in the world.
- The primary affliction in an unhappy marriage is depression.
- The man who can be honest with God will experience God’s mercy.
- Get to know the person you want to marry before you make a commitment. That is wisdom. Don’t marry a stranger. That is gambling.
- Salvation is founded on God’s sovereignty.
- Jesus is the humanity, Christ is the divinity. Jesus Christ is a hypostatic union of humanity and divinity – 100% man, 100% God.
- Truth is not subjective it is the PERCEPTION of truth that is subjective. Perception may vary from individual to individual but truth is constant.
- A very thin line separates genius from insanity.
- Intellect should not detract from faith, intellect synthesises with faith.
- In God’s conception the pastor is a human resource development executive. He’s supposed to train the people to do the work of the ministry.
- A calling is not always ecclesiastical. A calling can be in government.
- Science can’t be opposed to God. God created science.
- Human goodness cannot be the standard for righteousness. There’s no constancy.
- Faith only works when you see what you can’t see. It requires you ignore the evidence in front of you. You must switch the picture to the vision you desire.
- Marriage is not a Christian thing, it’s a humanity thing. Marriage was not instituted after Jesus rose from the dead it was instituted in the Garden of Eden.
- You can increase your creative and reasoning capacity. If you want to expand your analytical and creative capabilities you need to read, and you have to read wide.
- The more successful you are the more discipline you need. When you’re rich enough to finance sin you become your own temptation.
- Structure is expensive but it is needful if you want to grow in business. If you’re in business and you want to multiply you have to build structure.
- You cannot afford to marry a stranger – someone you hardly know. Marriage is too intimate for that kind of thing. Know the person you want to marry before saying yes. Unless of course you like surprises.
- There’s a societal factor to the deceitfulness of riches. Mark 4:19. When you’re doing well in life the world will applaud you. Success has a chorus band. You won’t be short of praise singers. Psalm 49:18.
- When wealth becomes a god in your life spiritual affection will be transferred. You can’t love God and Mammon in equal measure. Matthew 6:24. And a poor man can love Mammon as much as the rich man.
- Analytical reasoning follows logical discipline. You need to train yourself to think logically. You won’t succeed with the kind of reasoning sometimes exhibited on social media.
- Love is meaningless without sacrifice.
- It is futile to run away from God when we sin. Not going to church will not solve the problem. The Bible says that if we sin we should simply ask for God’s forgiveness and He will forgive. 1 John 1:9.
- Righteousness cannot exalt a nation when the righteous won’t participate in governance.
- When the Bereans did a cross-analysis of the claims made by Paul the Bible called it nobility. Acts 17:11. Intelligent faith is noble.
- The Holy Spirit can’t remind you of what wasn’t there. Jesus said the Holy Spirit will “remind you of everything I have said to you.” John 14:26. The data must be existent. The Spirit works with available data.
- The apostles were human beings. We sometimes forget that. Paul was so human he famously scaled a city wall – in a basket! 2 Corinthians 11:33.
- Every Christian is supposed to preach the gospel. Every Christian can lay hands on the sick and the sick will recover. Every Christian can cast out demons. Every Christian can baptise in the Holy Spirit. Mark 16:17-18.
- This is my last #Illuminare for 2019. I’m going on hols. I hope you have a memorable holiday. Wishing you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year in advance!