Flashes of Thought.

The session was intense, the atmosphere electric, and our mother was in her element. Gone was the soft and gracious voice of the nurturer. Here was the roar of a lioness among her cubs, teaching them how to roar like herself. The message that day was simple: “ Daughters, know how to carry your God.” The lesson was drawn from the Book of  1Kings 11:1–4, concerning the foreign women whom Solomon loved. “ But King Solomon loved many strange women… of the nations concerning which the Lord said unto the children of Israel, ‘Ye shall not go in to them… for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.’… And it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods.” (1 Kings 11:1–4) Not much is said about these women except that when they came to Israel and to Solomon, they came with their own gods. The influence they carried was so strong that even Solomon—the wisest king in Israel—was turned away from the Lord. These women carrie...

“ But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things…” — 1 John 2:27 Scripture in 1 John 2:27 gives a wonderful assurance to the believer: in this maze called the world where we find ourselves, we do not have to get lost for lack of a guide. We are assured that there is a Teacher within us who teaches us all things. His specialization is in all things. He can teach you business, psychology, relationships, mathematics you name it. His reserve of knowledge and counsel is wide and inexhaustible. Such is the nature of the Holy Spirit, our Teacher. He knows all things, and He teaches all things. But there is a caveat. That the Teacher knows all things does not automatically mean He will teach the student all things. No. While the Teacher is capable and willing, the posture of the student determines how and what will be taught. How we posture ourselves toward thi...

Solomon is a striking example of what Scripture means by a city set on a hill. Far from being a mere illustration, he reveals the vast capacity of the human heart and soul to accommodate many influences, for the Bible records that he loved many foreign women, a thousand in number. Many ancient biblical cities accommodated such populations.  The man possessed by Legion is another witness to this immense capacity of the human heart to sustain myriads of distraction and destruction. A legion was an ancient Rome military unit of about three to six thousand soldiers. It is therefore no wonder that when the demons were driven out of the Gadarene demoniac, they entered two thousand swine and drove them violently into the sea! Pause and consider for a moment the nature of this man. Scripture in Mark 5:1-13 shows he was unsubdued and unhinged. Attempts were often made to restrain him with chains, yet none could hold him down. He was given to self-harm, cutting himself with stone...

Matthew 4:2 is a verse that sets the premise for one of the most momentous points in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ. Having fasted forty days and forty nights, going without food, the Bible says that He was hungry. It was from this point of hunger that the enemy launched his first customized attack. The nature of hunger is that it creates vulnerability in us. Knowingly or unknowingly man will almost do anything to satisfy his hunger. This does not apply only to physical hunger, but also to emotional, psychological, and spiritual hungers. It is from these hunger points that the devil attempts to manipulate our lives and outcomes. Remember Esau? Hungry to the point of death, he forfeited his birthright. Remember the Egyptian servant in 1 Samuel 30, who, after receiving water and bread, revealed the secrets of his former master. What of the prodigal son who was reduced to eating pig pods because of severity of his hunger? Points of hunger make us vulnerable and susceptible ...

    Oh, Unleavened Bread of God, that I may eat of You. The children of Israel ate manna, the bread of angels. But only You, The Bread of God, will satisfy the hunger of my soul, and heal the diseases of my heart. The Showbread of God, that my eyes may feast on Thee, and be cured of all blindness. Unleavened bread of God. Sinless. Spotless. Incorruptible. In Thee may I find my fill. And my life be made whole.  Mark 14:1 [1]IT WAS now two days before the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread , and the chief priests and the scribes were all the while seeking to arrest Jesus by secrecy and deceit and put Him to death. Shilako. 

 1 Samuel 2:18  But Samuel ministered before the Lord, a   child girded with a linen ephod. A poignant verse that pierces my mother heart. We live in the days of the idolatry of children. Days where men and women are so consumed with their children, at the expense of God. Dark days when ignorantly and stubbornly, parents continue to give their children to Molech, that ancient god to whom the Israelites sacrificed their children. Through ungodly training and upbringing, many children are the trophies that are rejoiced over in the temples of Dagon, even as the Philistines rejoiced over the heads of Saul and his sons. Many parents have children that belong to them but don't belong to the Lord. A tragedy! But scripture tells us of a woman who, at the height of her desperation and consequent illumination made a vow to the Lord. She made a vow to give her child to the Lord, if only He would open up her womb. And so before conception, the child was already conse...

One of my favorite songs carries a line so gripping that it has lingered with me: “ You’ve got this way of taking away those shadows that hung around.” As I sat with those words, it dawned on me that to be human is, in many ways, to live under shadows. From the moment we are conceived in the mind of God, carried in our parents as egg and sperm, formed in the womb, born into family, and shaped within community, we are shaped by countless shadows. Some nurture us. Others wound us. And even those shadows we don't recognize or fully understand, we feel their weight all the same. Shadow, as a symbol, is deeply significant. First , shadow speaks of protection and refuge . Think of walking under the scorching sun, your body yearns for shade, the shadow of a tree or a building to offer relief. Or remember being a child, frightened by a barking dog, instinctively hiding in the shadow of your mother. Shadow was safety. Second , shadow signifies presence and closeness . You ca...