STEWARDING DESIRE

Stewardship is one of the virtues we see and learn throughout Scripture. Stewardship is gaining mastery over what you have been entrusted with tending it, developing it, and bringing it into its intended purpose without wastage . This reminds me of prophet Isaiah speaking concerning the Messiah he said " God's pleasure would PROSPER in his hands ."

He meant ,Jesus would steward the Fathers will till it's completely complete and nothing would fail in His hands because he wasn't going to abandon the mission for pleasure or convinence.

The book of Ephesians reminds us that we are God's dwelling place by His Spirit and that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. Being His temple comes with an expectation that we keep and tend what He has entrusted to us because he also helps us do that through the sufficiency of His grace .

But stewardship is not only about the physical. We are also called to shepherd and steward our souls by the renewing of our minds through the Word.

And today, I want us to look at one aspect of the soul: desire.

Desire is innately woven into us by God. We were created with the capacity to long, to pursue, to delight, to hunger, and to seek. But God does not just  want us to have desires that lead us to leaning on our own understanding ,He desires that our desires are stewarded according to His intent.

David puts it beautifully in Psalm 37:

Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.

Psalm 37:4

Often, we  interpret this scripture as meaning that God has the responsibility of meeting all our hearts desires.

But perhaps we ought to pay attention to the order.

Delight yourself in the LORD.

The delight comes first.

As we delight ourselves in Him, He becomes the object of our affection and inclination,the source of our satisfaction, and the One who shapes our desires. We are brought to the place where what we desire is increasingly aligned and conformed to what He wants for us.

The promise is not simply that God will supply every desire we naturally have. It is that as we delight in Him, our hearts are being formed to incline to His will for us that what we desire not only looks like His but is also from Him .

David gives us another beautiful picture in Psalm 42:

As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.

Panting is a deep longing, a deep thirst for something and so here is something beautiful about the deer. 

It has a strong sensory system within it which helps it detect danger and navigate its environment , its pursuit of water becomes especially significant in dry and difficult terrain.

It been created with acuity senses that  influences where it goes either for safety or to quench it's thirst.

What a picture for the child of God.

There must be a posture in us where our inclinations and desires are shepherded by our need for God Himself  and not only our desire for what He can give us, but being with Him 

Stewarding desire is yielding yourself to Him.

Stewarding desire is delighting yourself in Him for the. does He teach your heart what satisfies it's longing.

Stewarding desire is learning to say no to what would entice and entangle your soul to ungodliness.

Stewarding desire is allowing your soul to rest in God alone .

DAILYWELL-PEACE ✨

IT IS WRITTEN ✍️

Jesus has a history of quoting the scripture , meaning he read 

Sometimes he'd ask " What's written in your law?

Other times he would declare "it is written."

And other times he would ask , have you not read? 

Meanwhile, you who is always singing "I behold until I am formed' keeps skipping the long letters written by some of his disciples. 

What colour is your problem, abi🤣

Your Lord read,scrolls.

Bereans were called noble because they searched the scriptures to ascertain what they heard.

In the book of Revelation ,Christ says blessed is everyone who READS , please read,it's more blessed to read than to constantly keep saying " I feel in my heart"

Jesus would have said "I feel it in my heart that bread isn't everything 😄😄 he was precise.He knew it is written.

Feelings are good but terrible substitutes for "it is written"

He desires us to come to the knowledge of who He is and that is through his Written word.

A heart settled on what God has said in his word is often seen when chaos arise ,because in moments of chaos, you do not rise to emotions  you stand on revelation.

When the word is the lamp to our feet and a light to our path, we are well led . 

Christ has a record of reading, he even has a book with him as proof 😄 and if he didn't want you to read,he would have sent a podcast link , a reel or a playlist,not a book with chapters ,genealogies ,super tedious lamentations which you keep fast forwarding👀

It is written,Go read .

Slowly.

Repeatedly .

Prayerfully .

Until it settles , otherwise Paul is in the cloud of witnessess judging our laziness 😄

BEHOLD

We've been studying the book of John and this statement by John the Baptist has stayed with me for a while now:

John 1:29

Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

His pointing to the Lamb was to tell the world that the blood of lambs and bulls could not take away sin, but here was One who could,a solution has been made available and sin now has a way of being done away with.

for it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Heb 10:4 

The other word that stands out and kept appearing is BEHOLD which is largely what I have been meditating on .

To behold is to gaze upon, to be in awe of, to consistently fix your eyes on. After your sin is taken away, your gaze still has to be on Him.

Looking to Jesus who is the author and finisher if our faith. 

David testified of this in Psalm 34, saying that those who look to Him are radiant and their faces are not covered in shame. Because shame is a result of condemnation. So every year when the sacrifices of bulls and goats was offered ,it reminded the people of their sin but to those  In Christ He says ,there's therefore Now no condemnation because son has been done away with and our conscience has been purged to serve the living God .

While writing to the Corinthians, Paul said 

Bt we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

Before beholding , realise He takes away the veil then you been till you are transformed .

Every time I have read a Scripture with the word behold, I have paid close attention to what is being beheld as the subject matter.

For instance:

✨Isaiah 43:19 — “Behold, I will do a new thing.”

This is an invitation to look at the new thing, to perceive that God is actually commited to doing it so forget the old .

✨Revelation 3:20 — “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock.”

This is an invitation to incline your ear to the door because He is standing there and knocking. Be willing to open.

Beholding Him is always a drawing into His kind of life. It is a narrow path that leads to an abundant life.

✨Behold, He is making all things new.

Beholding is a wonder .  James 1:25 would have us understand that it is those who look into the perfect law of liberty and continue therein that are  blessed indeed.

Prophet Isaiah said it this way , He keeps in perfect peace those whose minds are stayed on Him . Perfect peace is a guarantee to a mind that's stayed on God 🤗 

There is a continuation after looking, it's not a glance and go,it's staying fixated our situations not withstanding.

Also interesting to note: it was God who first told man to behold what He had created then John redirects our gaze back to Him.

And in closing , Rev 21 guess what the King says to you;

 ' Behold , I make all things New ' 

BEHOLD HIM! 

DailyWell-Peace ✨

TENDERNESS 2

I had an interesting lesson the other day .

I was required to lead prayers as we began our service, which was a great privilege. But because it was the second service, I also had the responsibility of helping set the house in order by asking those who were not joining the service to exit the auditorium.

Some chose not to move, so I began leading the prayers and continued with the service.

Later, my leader called me aside and said, “Next time, have people move out and let everyone else who remains be active in the service.”

It was a simple correction, but as I thought about it, I realized how often we talk about being corrected without considering how we receive correction.

Sometimes correction comes, and our first instinct is to explain ourselves.

'they weren't listening

And before we have even considered what was said, we are already defending what we did.

But I found myself thinking about tenderness.

Perhaps one of the ways we know that a heart is becoming tender is by how it responds when it is corrected.

A tender heart doesn't mean you never make mistakes,it means your heart remains malleable when the mistake is revealed.

A tender heart remains teachable

DailyWell-Peace ✨

TENDERNESS

There was a time I was asking the Holy spirit to teach me how to be tender as a woman. So He did , and we began unpacking little heart issues 🤗

And as I searched the Scriptures I found these two scriptures ;

✨I will give you a heart of flesh Ezek 36:26

✨A contrite heart You will not despise psalm 51:17

It began to dawn on me that tender working begins on the inside before it ever becomes an outward expression.

A tender heart is a heart that is easily moved towards God. It gravitates towards what pleases Him. It is willing to be shaped, corrected and made malleable by the hands of God as the Potter .

Tenderness is first an inner working ,the positioning of the heart to incline towards God's character and eventually to live that out loud.

So, we began by looking at the fruit of the Spirit in Gal 5 which is the outward expression of what has taken root within.

And one thing I found interesting is that Scripture calls it the fruit of the Spirit, singular,not fruits because these virtues are meant to function with great dependence because they are of the same spirit.

      ✨Where there is love, kindness follows

      ✨where there is faithfulness,self control remains

And perhaps this is where tenderness begins to make sense.

Tenderness is not simply being soft spoken or agreeable. It is the outcome of a heart that has been continually yielded to the Spirit of God.

It is what happens when the character of Christ begins to shape the way we respond to God, to ourselves, and to others. 

Tenderness is what happens when the Spirit is given room to shape the heart and the shaped heart eventually speaks, moves, loves in the way it is shaped . 

DailyWell-Peace ✨

EXPECTATIONS PT 3

PATIENCE IN THE WAIT 

I was going through a deep disappointment because I thought what I was expecting would have worked out by now. I had imagined the outcome, trusted that it would happen, and when it didn't, I was disappointed.

Until I took it to God.🤷🏿

And in that place, I felt Him ask me a question: When you set out on this journey, why didn't you engage Me?”

That question became the beginning of this three-part series.

Because as I sat with God and examined my motives , I realized that what I had been expecting had, in part, come from a place of selfish ambition.

Not because God doesn't intend to give me what I desire, but because the foundation of my expectation was wrong.

In Part One, we established that our expectations must come from God. He must be both the source of our expectation and the One we trust to bring it to fulfillment.

In Part Two, we saw that:

Expectation flourishes in the heart that fears God, refuses comparison, and faithfully follows His way.

And now, in Part Three, we come to another important part of waiting:

PATIENCE.

the hope of the righteous shall be gladness: but the expectation of the wicked shall perish.

Prov10:28

Hope is not merely wishful thinking that something will happen,biblical hope is placing our expectation in Someone—God.

It is looking to Him with confidence, trusting that He knows what He is doing, even when we cannot yet 'see' the outcome in totality.

And this is where patience becomes so important.

Patience is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, and it is a great virtue in the life of a believer. God calls us to wait; not vainly, not anxiously, and not hopelessly, but with hope in Him because the hope of the righteous shall be gladness.

Many times, we want to rush the process.

We want things to happen according to our timing. We can even become frustrated with God because He isn't moving according to the schedule we have created in our minds.

But patience says:

“God, I trust You enough to let You decide and in that patience becomes active trust not passive resignation. 

It is fully trusting God to do what He has purposed to do, in His way and in His time. 

Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.

Prov 3:5

Sometimes the hardest part of waiting is surrendering our understanding of when.

✨We know what we want.

✨We may even believe God can do it.

✨But can we trust Him enough to leave the timing in His hands?

He is not confused about your future,He is not late.

He is not trying to figure things out as He goes. He's got it all together.

He is sovereign.

So, while you wait, don't allow impatience to make you take back what you surrendered to God.

Don't let disappointment convince you that you have to make things happen fast for yourself .

✨Wait.

✨Trust.

✨Hope.

And let God be God.

Because sometimes the miracle is not only in what we are waiting for, but in who we become while we wait.

Teach your heart to wait on God.

What He does, how He does it, and when He does it are all safely in His hands.

DailyWell-Peace ✨

EXPECTATIONS PT 2

In Part One on expectations, we established that our expectations must originate from God. He must be both the source of our expectation and the One who brings it to fulfillment.

Today,let's look at this scripture,

for surely there is an end; and thine expectation shall not be cut off — Proverbs 23:18

This wise saying gives us a beautiful assurance: our God given expectations will surely come to pass. Yet this promise is not isolated from its context because the preceding verse says;

let not thine heart envy sinners: but be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long - Prov 23:17

The fulfillment of our expectations is closely connected to the condition of our hearts. Solomon warns us not to allow envy to take root but instead to remain in the fear of the Lord continually.

Why? Because envy quietly corrupts the heart. It replaces joy with resentment and gratitude with comparison. Once envy is entertained, it is only a matter of time before it begins to shape our words, attitudes, and actions. Envy becomes the root from which bitterness grows, and bitterness is something Scripture commands us to put away (Eph 4:31).

Our expectations, therefore, must not be influenced by what we see others receiving . They must be shaped by the fear of God. As we keep our eyes fixed on Him not looking to the right or to the left we remain anchored in His will rather than being distracted by comparison.

Verse 19 of the same continues;

Hear thou, my son, and be wise, and guide thine heart in the way Proverbs 23:19

The heart must be guided. Left to itself, it naturally drifts toward comparison, impatience, and discontent. But when guided in the way of the fear of the Lord, it remains steadfast, trusting, and with a living hope.

Holy fear continually directs the child of God to fix their gaze on Him alone. It teaches us that His timing is perfect, His promises are sure, and His plans for us are never delayed by the success of another.

When our hearts remain free from envy and firmly planted in the fear of the Lord, we rest with confidence, knowing that our expectation shall not be cut off.

The progression is from the posture of the heart (fear the lord) verse 18 gives the promise and assurance of it's fulfilment and in closing the responsibility to guide the heart .The three must remain in harmony