MLB Matthew 5:14-16, “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do they light a lamp and place it under a grain measure, but on a stand; then it shines for everyone in the house. Similarly let your light shine among the people, so that they observe your good works and give glory to your heavenly Father.”
MLB Isaiah 60:1-3, “ARISE, SHINE; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you! For behold, darkness shall cover the earth and a dark cloud the nations; but the LORD shall arise over you, His glory shall be seen upon you. Nations shall walk in your light and kings in your dawning radiance.”
•We need to walk in the light of the understanding that the glory and or light of God upon us.
•We need to change our attitude and walk in understanding of who we are in Christ
•We should not let other people, situations, etc detect to us who we are
•We need to have a correct and right value system about ourselves
•We need to have the correct esteem about ourselves
•The scriptures above tell us to “LET YOUR LIGHT SHINE” and ARISE AND SHINE” That leaves us with the responsibility to shine and not God.
•For you to let your light shine, you need to have a correct value system about yourself and correct self esteem
•Remember the world is in darkness and we need to shine
Things that may influence your value system
•self esteem
•background
•how other people treat(ed) you
My example:
a) I came from a divorced family, my parents divorced when I was about 5 years old. I saw the day my mother was fired from home. That made my understanding, appreciation or value of a woman/mother very skewed.
-because of that background, my current appreciation of a woman (that includes my wife) needed God’s grace
-I did not really experience what we call a mother’s love. When I was now grown up and had access to a relationship with my mother, I did not have any passion for her. I could not fake it, it was not there. I had to decide to accept and love as my mother.
-I saw my father beat up my step mother, I saw my cousin wounded by his wife.
-Beside my real mother, there are other 3 women that I had to address as mother before my father died!
b) Also when growing, I was in a harsh background.
- I remember I used to eat with my cousins (Michael & Sipho), who were 6 years and 11 years older than I. You can see that for me to have enough, I had to brace myself up!
- There was no much love, I had a lot of unpleasant nick names, I remember my grandmother used to call me “isivoko sikaMahleka lesi”, others used to say I have a big head, big eyes, big eye brows (they are big that I have to comb them every morning), big teeth, e.t.c
-As a young boy, I had suicide thoughts at times, to kill myself, I only lacked the courage to!
c)On top of that, I was poor. I did not get enough food, clothes, school requirements, etc.
d) But I started having wishes about life. I would imagine myself succeeding in being rich. I used to think like this: “when I get to 18 years, I will do or be this, when I get to 30, I will be this, and a thought will come, “and then you will die” When that thought came. I would stop thinking about the future because by then I did not have the solution for death as I was not born again.
You can see from the above that I have all the natural reasons to have a low self esteem and not amount to anything in life. But when I got born again, praise God, I refused to let that affect me. The bible says in Christ I am a new creature. I saw myself in light of who I am in Christ. Today, I do not feel inferior to anybody! I stand with and or before anybody, no matter how great and I do not feel any less! But I had to get my mind renewed by the Word and see myself in the light of who I am in Christ.
Walk in the light / glory
•You can choose not to let your background or up bringing affect you
•You have to get your mind renewed by the Word and change your thinking
•See yourself valuable, God loves you as He loves Christ.
•You were redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. 1 Peter 1v17-19
•Change the specks or eyes that you look yourself with
•Find out what the Word says God made you to be and walk in that light. Let the glory or light of God be seen in your life.
•If you understand, you will walk in holiness, success, prosperity, health and be a blessing to others.
The Full package of the Gospel
•Sometimes I have heard people talk negative about “faith preachers” or what they call the “American gospel”, they say the gospel is not about healing and prosperity. Well I agree there are extremes in teachings at times but something for sure, the gospel is not about poverty and sickness!
•By now I should be on record that I do teach about success and prosperity, I do not apologize for that, I believe and live by that conviction and will continue to teach it! The bible teaches that and that settles it!
•The reason we have to break it down into faith, love, healing, fruit of the spirit, gifts, prosperity, etc is that many a times we do not understand everything at one go. The whole package of the gospel or salvation has all the above and more.
•People criticize divine healing saying God uses sickness to correct us but when they get sick they rush to seek medication!
•Some criticize prosperity and success teaching but borrow money to meet their needs! They seek money every day but do not believe God wants us to have money, how ridiculous!
2Peter 1v4, Ephesians 1v3
There are enough resources in this world
•Let me challenge you if you think you are rich or if you think there are no resources in the world
•It is said if we were to share the earth’s resources equally, we would all have enough.
•It is said in the world, 20% of nations and or people own 80% resources while the 80% population has 20% of the resources
•An average annual income per person in the world is about $US7500 (about 37 million Zim dollar per month) and in America it is over $36000 (about 180 million Zim dollar per month).
•There is therefore no reason for people to abuse the resources when children of God are suffering. (Ecclesiastes 10v7)
•One American businessman has a $12 million (720 bill) penthouse, a $40 million (2.4 trill) mansion ,a $20 (1.2 trill) million vacation home
•Bill Gates, the richest (once) had over $US100 billion wealthy though now has 56 bill, his house is about $US125 mil (7.5 Tril). Salary plus bonus $US966667 (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
•The 100 top billioniers in the world joinly have over $US1.4 trillion
Value System
•You need to change the way you treat others also. Value yourself right and value other people right also.
•If you understand the value of other people, then you will treat them right.
•Value and treat your spouse right
•Value and treat your children right
•Value and treat other brethren right
•The way you treat others may also be influenced by the way you were raised and treated yourself.
•Despite your background and history, you can change your destiny and future. You can change the face of your family, church, city, etc
•When I look at myself and the call of God in my life, I do not see myself inferior or less important to the other international speakers of our day. It does not matter the size of my light, what matters is to walk in what God called me to be.
•Your value is not determined by material things or possessions.
•What you have or do not have does not add or subtract value from you.
•Do not place your value (and that of others) on things that lose value like possessions and money.
•With the glory of God upon you, you can change and positively affect those around you, your family, church, society, city, generation, etc.
•You can break curses and bad things that have been in your blood line or genealogy.
•Rise up and walk in the favor of God
•Understand that you have God’s grace, love, nature, ability, light, glory, mercy, etc
•See yourself in the light of that which God has done for you
•You have God the Father, Son & Holy Spirit in you!
1John 4 v4
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