Church Notes: Following God's Plan (Pastor Peter Ayo-Alabi)



Dear Reader,

God is super amazing and thoughtful for every and anything we go through! For this Sunday, I was ready to isolate myself and follow through with listening to the Rhemaword service first with a fight, lol, emi eyan Hulk Hogan! Abeg, I do not fight o. So planning, I joined the Saturday service, which thankfully we continued today: Following God’s plan for your life: Divine Geography. Unlike my previous Church Note, I’ll note this like a dialogue. The text was from Ruth 1:1-5, explaining the relocation of Elimelech to Moab and the aftermath.

Today’s summary is from Pastor Peter Ayo-Alabi, which was dynamic in that pre-set questions were asked to four stewards that relocated overseas pre-covid. Just to juxtapose why, let’s peep the topic again and reflect. The key words here are “Divine” and “Geography”, which relate to having “Stewards in church” share their “Relocation” experience. The dialogue focused on four questions, which were on the process before relocation, challenges faced moving to a different country, prayer/Christian life and witnessing.

Synchronizing all responses, there are key things to learn from being a member and why having the cover of a local church is important for Christian growth are summarized as follows:
  • Process before relocation: Contrary to the rigor people face to travel and settle overseas; a common feedback from all four stewards was it seamless for them. They all sought God’s divine leading till they felt no restraints in their spirits, spent time praying, consistently joined Rhemaword Devotion and researched well on where they were led to go;
  • Challenges faced: The pandemic sure has caused a change in the way things are done globally, and being in the front lines of it sure would pose a challenge, but we are assured of God’s protection. Deuteronomy 31:6. Other challenges mentioned include, language barrier, new cultures, being far from family and their beloved;
  • Prayer/Christian life: Most people believe the myth that when you are in the society where everything works, you no longer need God as much as when you are in a developing nation. This isn’t the case as every believer has to be deliberate about his/her relationship with God, have accountability partners to encourage you, draw a daily spiritual checklist – read your bible, pray in tongues, worship, confessions and join service – fit your work schedule to your spiritual growth and as we growth the impact makes us want to do more spiritually; and
  • Witnessing: As believers, we are to profess and preach the Gospel to all Mark 16:15-16. However, due to the different cultures, most people abroad are used to staying on their own. Hence, the reliance on the Holy Spirit as the convincer is key and also asking per time what strategies (either using social media, building friendships, helping them with difficult tasks, praying for them and sharing the word) to use to relay the gospel about the birth, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus for us 1 Corinthians 15:3-4.

In addition, as Christians we need to constantly learn to check in with God before we make decisions, 1 Corinthians 6:17, as we are sons of/and we believe in God, 1 Corinthians 6:19&20. Checking in with God is synonymous to acknowledging him in ALL your ways, Proverbs 3:5&6. As we read in the text, Elimelech moved to Moab and thereafter died with his two sons leaving three widows to fend for themselves. However, we know that death is not in God’s plan for us, John 10:10. 

As our topic references, proverbially he left for greener pastures overseas due to an economic crisis – famine. As seen in the economic indices of this times, do not follow the bandwagon to relocate just because others are. As believers, even after our research or fact check on the place we want to relocate to, it is KEY to check with God. Acts 16:6-10. This can be confirmed by a KNOWING in our hearts, just like at salvation we knew that we had been accepted as heirs/sons of God - Romans 8:16 & 28.

Lastly, the plan of God guarantees PROTECTION, DIVINE PROVISION, SUCCESS and DIVINE RELATIONSHIPS.
  1. Protection – God ensures evil does not come near us and even when it does, he saves us from it. You are protected in the location God ordains for you;
  2. Divine provision – God’s provision is addressed to particular places per time. You become VISIBLE to ALL CHANNELS of divine supply if you are in the place God sends you to;
  3. Success – God has ordained for you to be successful per time in his plan;
  4. Divine relationships – God orchestrates divine relationships void of judgement for us when we are in his plans, not high-maintenance relationships. He uses people to confirm things for us, Acts 20:22. Per time, we need to check being desperate or letting, our needs overwhelm us. We have to constantly remind ourselves this “We are loved by LOVE!”

Join us this week for Devotion by 6am everyday.

Stay blessed!

Aramide 😇

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Personal Finance: Setting Up Firewalls

Image
Dear Reader, Firewall and Finance? Who you? Where are you from? *in Indabosky's voice* . Simply put, "What’s the relationship?". There is actually a connection between both terms, which will be explained in this article.  When we think about Firewalls, we think about it's science, which refers to a network security system that monitors and controls incoming and outgoing network traffic based on predetermined security rules. I know that may be a lot of computing jargon, but stay with me, let’s think it through the Finance K.I.S.S way. Personal finance refer to financial management strategies, which an individual performs to budget, save, invest and spend resources over time, taking into account various financial risks and projections. To juxtapose personal finance and a firewall, in my opinion, a common link is strategies put in place to protect something – in this case your money. As a Firewall would, these strategies controls your financial inflows a...
Read more

Finance 101: Let’s Get This Bread

Image
I was about 70 pages into an economics and finance text, whilst multitasking on the submission of my finance piece - “You plan and then Pandemic” for a magazine this Eid holiday and decided to peep Instagram for a bit as per short break. As a fire girl, I saw a post I saw on Fire-boy's Instagram and made a non-style finance adaptation to it. “Every day we are upping finance levels. Raising the bar. I am talking about investments. I cannot lavish on certain things that I used to because I am a different caliber. If I have what I say, I am then I must prove it by net worth. By finance.” I readjusted the words to suit how I see financial growth improve and change people’s mindset, network, self-care, and preparedness for adulthood, impact, independence and a long list of other comforts. A major shift in personal finance (to a better and stable level) can be a result of how much you actually know about it and the economies that govern finance and related fields such as econo...
Read more

Valuation of hard-to-value equities: Initial Public Offerings (IPOs)

Image
Introduction: What are IPOs? An initial public offering (IPO) refers to the process of offering shares of a private corporation to the public in a new stock issuance. Public share issuance allows a private company to raise capital from public investors. What are private corporations? Private companies range from single-employee, unincorporated businesses to formerly public companies that have been taken private in management buyouts or other transactions.   The diverse characteristics of private companies have encouraged the development of diverse valuation practices. To gain an insight to valuation of private companies and IPOs, the difference between a private and public company should be understood. The major difference include: Stages in life cycle; Size; Overlap of shareholders and management; Quality and depth of management; Quality of financial information; Pressure from short-term investors; and Tax concerns From the list we can infer that pr...
Read more