Heaven On Earth

20/05/2017

Never Give Up on Your Dreams...

23/06/2016

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Coming soon to other cities. Please share.

06/03/2016

ALWAYS WELCOME HERE

Early this morning my eight year old daughter came into our room, got on our bed, cuddled up and instantly went back to sleep. She does this often. She never thinks she won't be welcome, she takes it for granted that she has access to come and be with her parents.

Not because she didn't make mistakes the day before. Oh no! She scattered her room and was made to arrange it back. She didn't finish her homework and promised to do so the next day. She sang loudly while her daddy was making a business call. She didn't wash her plate and was sent back to do so etc etc.

Yet the next day she still comes right in, knowing she will be welcome. Knowing we are fully committed to her wellbeing, her growth and her success.
..and it made me think "This is the way we should be with GOD."

JESUS said this simply in Luke 18:16 "But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God."

Our salvation is not by our works. God's love and grace is greater than our many mistakes. Most of us, especially in Africa, have been brought up to fear a terrible GOD. "God will strike you down if you don't..." "God will destroy you if you do..." "God punish you there!"

The love of GOD is only shared when we want to 'win souls' and even then sometimes we focus on the fear of hell more than the love of God.

Perhaps that is one of the reasons why many of our churches have become legalistic, unloving places where people don't feel welcome anymore, they just feel judged. Perhaps it's why more and more people are looking for solace and solutions outside the church instead of in it.

GOD loves us - period. Nothing we do can change that. Yes, He is also a just and holy God and requires that an atonement be made for sin. Because HE loves us so much, He sent His Son to make that atonement. Now the price is fully paid and we can come to Him freely as His children, joint heirs with Christ.

Will we make mistakes? Yes we will. 1 John 1:8-9 says "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
Why is He 'just' to forgive us? Because Jesus paid the price and as a just God He will honor that sacrifice.

People are often concerned that this teaching gives people a freedom to live in sin. So not true. My daughter knows I love her and she can always come to me. Because she loves me too, she's going to do her best to make me proud of her. When she makes mistakes, she is quick to apologies and try to make things right.

I love my husband and because of that love, I want the best for him always and do my best to ensure that and vice versa. Now every married person knows we sometimes hurt our significant other. In fact this happen more than we admit to others. When my actions hurt him, because I love him, I try to make amends as quickly as possible. I don't take his love fore granted, I cherish it.

When we truly love God and build a close relationship with Him, we don't want to disappoint Him, we want Him to be proud of us. So we live our lives according to the guidelines He gave in the Scriptures and by the leading of The Holy Spirit in us. When we go wrong, we are quick to admit it and work to avoid it as God's grace helps us.

Let's show and share God's love. It's what we all need the most. It's what Jesus Christ came for. We could have gone on with the old order of The Law but the Bible refers to it as imperfect and a shadow of the new order of Grace.

We try to 'make' ourselves 'holy' BEFORE we come, when really ONLY God can make us holy WHEN we come. All our righteousness are as filthy rags before Him. (Isaiah 64:6) and only by Grace are we saved. Only by His Word and Holy Spirit working in us are we transformed by the renewing of our minds.

God loves You. You are always welcome in His presence. Take off the weight of fear, doubt, worry and condemnation. Let go of sins and weights that hold you back and simply "come boldly to the throne of Grace to obtain mercy and find grace to help in times of need." Hebrews 4:16

Come today, come every day.
Come and worship, come and pray.
Come with your tears or come rejoicing.
Come knowing you are always welcome before your Father's throne.

ALWAYS WELCOME HERE.

Written by A Beneficiary of God's Love,
'Motola

(Motola Oyebanjo is a Strategic Communications & Media Consultant. Singer, Song writer & Worship Leader.)

09/02/2016

Have You Heard This Recently?

JESUS LOVES YOU....Yes, You.

No matter who you are,
No matter the colour of your skin
No matter how slim or how big
No matter what you have done
JESUS LOVES YOU.
Why not tell Him you love Him too...
Then go ahead and tell someone else.

03/02/2016

WEDNESDAY WORD:
Whats in your backpack? How heavy is it? Just come!

WEDNESDAY WORD: What’s in your backpack?UncategorizedFeb 3, 20160 2Have you ever tried to run carrying a loaded backpack? Its not easy. Its actually dangerous as it can damage the lower extremities of your body like your shins, knees and lower back. Oftentimes many of us are trying to run the race o…

01/02/2016

Answers to last week’s quiz of the day.

Who was the very first man in the Bible to marry more than one wife?

The first ever recorded case of polygamy was in the book of Genesis 4:19. Lamech married two women.

God, speaking to Prophet Nathan, said that if the wives and concubines of David were not enough, He would have given him more.
How does God view polygamy today?
Even while allowing polygamy, the Bible presents monogamy as the plan which conforms most closely to God’s ideal for marriage. The Bible says that God’s original intention was for one man to be married to only one woman: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife [not wives], and they will become one flesh [not fleshes]” (Genesis 2:24). While Genesis 2:24 is describing what marriage is, rather than how many people are involved, the consistent use of the singular should be noted. In Deuteronomy 17:14-20, God says that the kings were not supposed to multiply wives (or horses or gold). While this cannot be interpreted as a command that the kings must be monogamous, it can be understood as declaring that having multiple wives causes problems.
Why did this view change?
It is not so much God’s disallowing something He previously allowed as it is God’s restoring marriage to His original plan. Even going back to Adam and Eve, polygamy was not God’s original intent. God seems to have allowed polygamy to solve a problem, but it is not the ideal. In most modern societies, there is absolutely no need for polygamy. In most cultures today, women are able to provide for and protect themselves—removing the only “positive” aspect of polygamy.

01/02/2016

WELCOME TO FEBRUARY!

Happy new month to you. God's promise for you this month is: Amos 9:13-15

"Yes indeed, it won’t be long now.”

“Things are going to happen so fast your head will swim, one thing fast on the heels of the other. You won’t be able to keep up. Everything will be happening at once—and everywhere you look, blessings! Blessings like wine pouring off the mountains and hills. I’ll make everything right again for my people Israel:

“They’ll rebuild their ruined cities.
They’ll plant vineyards and drink good wine.
They’ll work their gardens and eat fresh vegetables.
And I’ll plant them, plant them on their own land.
They’ll never again be uprooted from the land I’ve given them.”
God, your God, says

Hold on to His Promise to you as it will definitely come to pass in your life this month and beyond.

Have a blessed month!

01/02/2016

INSPIRATIONAL MONDAY
As a man was passing the elephants, he suddenly stopped, confused by the fact that these huge creatures were being held by only a small rope tied to their front leg. No chains, no cages. It was obvious that the elephants could, at anytime, break away from their bonds but for some reason, they did not.

He saw a trainer nearby and asked why these animals just stood there and made no attempt to get away. “Well,” trainer said, “when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it’s enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.”

The man was amazed. These animals could at any time break free from their bonds but because they believed they couldn’t, they were stuck right where they were.

Like the elephants, how many of us go through life hanging onto a belief that we cannot do something, simply because we failed at it once before?

Failure is part of learning; we should never give up the struggle in life.

28/01/2016

The recent trend causing controversies in Nigerian homes lately is this issue of polygamy.
Now, while the male folk smile at the thought, it is not really welcome among women, cos we really don’t like sharing.
What are your thoughts on this? Is this morally just?

These thoughts lead to the Quiz of the Day:
Who was the very first man in the Bible to marry more than one wife? Easy? I know! You think you know your Bible right? Comments! Let’s hear it!

27/01/2016

WEDNESDAY WORD
Have you ever said to yourself, ‘I would have never thought I would be here at this point in my life’? We all have plans and dreams we want to accomplish in our lives but sometimes things just come up like a rip current that unexpectedly carries us out to sea.

Rip currents are powerful, channeled water currents flowing away from the shore that can quickly pull swimmers out to sea. They account for more than 80% of rescues performed by surf beach lifeguards. What are some rip currents in your life that are getting in the way of the plans God has for you, your marriage and your family?

Don’t let the rip currents of life carry you off track from what God has planned for you. Remember that when they are God’s plans for you, He will strengthen you to accomplish them.
Drivenchurch

27/01/2016

INSPIRED STORY - IN HUMAN FORM

We shared this a long while back. It's worth reading again...

INSPIRED STORY: ...AND HE CAME IN HUMAN FORM

(Culled from Ayeni Ekundayo's email posts)

There was once a man who didn't believe in God, and he didn't hesitate to let others know how he felt about religion and religious holidays.

His wife, however, did believe and she raised their children to have faith in God and the Lord Jesus Christ despite his disparaging comments. On one snowy Christmas Eve, his wife was taking their 2 children to a special Christmas Eve service in the farm community in which they lived. They were to talk about the birth of Jesus that night. She asked him to come along just like she had done so many times before, but he refused her once again...
"That story is nonsense!" he barked. "Why would God lower Himself to come to Earth as a man? That's ridiculous!"

So she and the children left, and he stayed home.

A while later, the winds grew stronger and the snow turned into a blizzard. As the man looked out the window, all he saw was a blinding snowstorm. He then sat down to relax before the fire for the evening when he heard a very loud thump... Something had hit the window...so He looked out but couldn't see more than a few feet. When the snow let up a little, he ventured outside to see what could have been beating on his window.

In the field near his house he saw a flock of wild geese. Apparently they had been flying south for the winter when they got caught in the snowstorm and couldn't go on. They were lost and stranded on his farm, with no food or shelter. They just flapped their wings and flew around the field in low circles, blindly and aimlessly. And a couple of them had flown into his window, it seemed.

The man felt sorry for the geese and wanted to help them. The barn would be a great place for them to stay, he thought. It's warm and safe; surely they could spend the night and wait out the storm. So he walked over to the barn and opened the doors wide, then watched and waited hoping they would notice the open barn and go inside. But the geese just fluttered around aimlessly and didn't seem to notice the barn or realize what it could mean for them. The man tried to get their attention by waving a lantern, but that just seemed to scare them, and they moved further away. He went into the house and came with some bread, broke it up, and made a bread crumb trail leading to the barn, but they still didn't catch on.

Now he was getting frustrated. He got behind them and tried to shoo them toward the barn, but they only got more scared and scattered in every direction except toward the the opened barn doors. Nothing he did could get them to go into the barn where they would be warm and safe.

"Why don't they follow me?!" he exclaimed. "Can't they see this is the only place where they can survive the storm?"

He thought for a moment and realized that they just wouldn't follow a human. "If only I were a goose, then I could save them," he said out loud. Then he had an idea! He went into barn, got one of his own geese and carried it in his arms as he circled around behind the flock of wild geese. He then released it.
His goose flew through the flock and straight into the barn -- and one-by-one, the other geese followed it to safety. He stood silently for a moment as the words he had spoken a few minutes earlier replayed loudly in his mind: "If only I were a goose, then I could save them!" Then he thought about what he had said to his wife earlier that evening. "Why would God want to be like us? That's ridiculous!"
Suddenly it all made perfect sense to him. That is what God had done! We were like the geese--blind, lost, and perishing. God had His Son become like us so He could show us the way, and save us!

As the winds and blinding snow died down, his soul became quiet and pondered this wonderful thought. Suddenly he understood why Jesus Christ had come. Years of doubt and disbelief vanished with the passing storm. He fell to his knees in the snow, and prayed his first prayer:
"Thank You, God, for coming in human form to get me out of the storm!"

(Culled from Ayeni Ekundayo)