Building a Relationship with God and with Others: A Book of Devotion and Prayerful Reflections

© Copyright 2012 John Onu Odihi.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN:

978-1-4669-2715-5 (sc)

ISBN:

978-1-4669-2716-2 (hc)

ISBN:

978-1-4669-2717-9 (e)

Trafford rev. 07/17/2012

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Dedication

To the Lord Jesus and the people He shed His blood to redeem so they can be reconciled to God the Father.

Acknowledgements

This book has been written out of my life experience as a sinner saved by grace. Almost everyone I have met since this great life in Christ began decades ago has contributed to my life including those who intentionally or otherwise hurt me and my interests. The people who make up this later group probably contributed more because they drove me into the loving arms of my Master to know the truth that beneath are Everlasting Arms. I am most indebted to Dr. Lewis Larkin formerly of the University of Brunei Darussalam who reviewed the manuscript many years ago and made useful suggestions. To Dr. Debbie Ho also of the same university, and of St Andrew’s Church, Bandar Seri Begawan, I am grateful for her invaluable suggestions. I want to thank Mr. Alex Anteyi who since reading the manuscript in London many years ago never stopped to encourage me to publish it. I am grateful to my dear wife, Awa whose love and grace prove to me daily that God truly loves the unlovable and through that love can make something beautiful of broken lives!

Contents

How does God Want Us to Live?

Living A Life of Worship

Living A Life of Love

Forgiveness

A Grateful Life

Living in Love

Being Merciful

Patience

Mind Your Own Business

Encouragement I

Encouragement II

Going It All Alone

An Ambassador for Christ

Building Our House on the Rock

God is Able

Winning Ways

Praise God

Sharing with Others

We are Gifts

Confessions

The Way of Joy

God is Faithful

It’s All About God and His Pleasure

Trust God and Do The Right

Don’t be Afraid

God Is Our Refuge

The Right Way

The Path of No Fall

Only a Faint Whisper of God

God in You is Victory

Joseph: An Example of a Surrendered Life

Fear Leads to Sin and Death

Spirit of Servanthood

We are Appointed to Bear Fruit

A Vision of God

His Autobiography, My Biography

Keeping It Simple

Love through the Way We Speak

Love Speaks the Truth

How to Speak the Truth in Love: The Motive Question

Speaking the Truth in Love: The How Question

The Lord Jesus Our Model of Speaking the Truth in Love

He is Faithful No Matter What

Can We Really Have a Relationship with God?

Building A Relationship With God And With Others: A Book of Devotional Readings and Prayerful Reflections is offered with the prayer that God will use it to bless every one that reads or uses it. It is also offered with the prayer that the user may live worthy of the Lord and pleasing to Him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of the Lord and strengthened by Him. Also, it is my prayer that all Christians and indeed all people may know the love of God and true success (i.e. victory and fulfillment) in life by surrendering and living according to the will of the Creator God.

The human faculty is faulty when it comes to believing in God and His goodness to us. God’s love is the surest thing in the world. However, in spite of many years of walking with the Lord and daily experiencing the good graces of life as favours from Him, many of us still don’t believe in the love of God. We are tempted to believe that when we abandon ourselves to God—the best way to live—we will be short-changed. Because we don’t believe in the infinite love of God for us, we give ourselves to Him reservedly. This is an insult to God and to His goodness. I am convinced through my personal experiences that God will take total responsibility for any life that is completely surrendered to Him. God will never abdicate His responsibility of love for any of His children. To help us put our complete trust in God, Jesus Christ, God’s Son tells us that His Father cares even for the sparrows that are of much less value than we are.

If you want to know whether you truly believe in God or can completely surrender your life to Him, honestly ask yourself this question. Do I feel safer with obeying God for my protection against something I fear than I feel using my own strategies? If you cannot truly answer this question in the affirmative, your belief in God is not adequate. Can you trust God and love your enemy (God’s will for you) rather than hate, avoid him or be indifferent to him or her? Life is always lived on promises. When we fully obey God (a result of our faith in Him) He will bless us beyond our imaginations. When we surrender our weaknesses to Him, He strengthens us with His might (recall Gideon?); when we surrender our scarce resources for His use, He multiplies it back to us (recall the widow of Zarephath and the little boy with two loaves of bread and five fishes?). Sometimes, perhaps many times, our blessings are not material but they are not less satisfying. God calls us to live our lives according to His laws. Let’s take Him seriously for truly without Him we can do nothing that is good. I encourage you dear Saint to win by surrendering to God—that is the winning way! Give all your life to Him no matter how whole or broken it may be! God can and will make something beautiful of your life when you do so. Amen.

john onu odihi

Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam

June 2012

How does God Want Us

to Live?

He has showed you. O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and walk humbly with your God

(Micah 6:8)

How does God our Maker and Lord want us to live? Although this appears to be a simple question, our understanding of how God wants us to live does not appear so simple when our lives are used as a measure. The gap between our theory of faith and our practice of it is indeed very wide for the average Christian. There is so much confusion in the way the average person lives in an average day. We may be happy now only to become so sad moments later. We may espouse peace and love in our words and live out conflict and indifference in reality. We may praise God in one moment and curse our neighbour in another. Many times our speech and actions depend on the audience. We are obliging before authorities or where we hope for potential benefits and are condemning and harsh when we relate to subordinates or weak people. On the average we are therefore living contradictory lives. The biblical injunction is that we live one life that is in tune with the will of God. As people who confess the Lordship of Jesus Christ in our lives we cannot live double lives just as a spring cannot give both fresh and salty water at the same time. Let our tongues be employed to do the highest job it can ever do—praising God and edifying our fellowman. Let us not "[w]ith the tongue… praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. Can both fresh and salt water come from the same spring? (James 3: 9-11).

The Bible has a lot to say about how we live. As God’s spiritual children all our goals in life should sum up to one major goal—the will and glory of God in all we do (1 Corinthians 10:31). The Ten Commandments are a guide to how our loving heavenly Father wants us to live in relation to Him and our fellow human beings. Indeed through these commandments, He has showed you. O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8). As Christians both our words and our lives should please God. We must walk our talk if we claim to know the lordship of Jesus.

Living Out the Will of God

Begin the day with worship (prayer). Pray that God’s will be done in your life as well as in the entire world. Recognize that the power to live the will of God is graciously available to you through the Holy Spirit. Nobody, no matter how powerful, can make you live for God if you don’t want to. The opposite is also true. No powers in all the universe can make you live against God’s will when you choose to live in it. Satan cannot, no tyrant can. This is why you are accountable to God for how you live. God’s gift of will, which you have, brings responsibility. That responsibility brings accountability! Commit yourself to living to please God. Praise Him always. Thank Him for His graces. and be merciful to others rather than curse them when they do evil to you. It will not be easy but it is not impossible with God’s grace available to you. With grace and practice the old way of living will be broken and the new way of living will become your habit.

Reflection

Today, without doubt, you will have opportunities to praise God and give Him thanks and to demonstrate mercy to people. Everything can bring us to worship and thank God. Don’t think vengeance but forgiveness and say kind and helpful words to people not hurting words. You can pray thus: God, my Father and Helper, kindly help me to praise and worship You today. Help me to be merciful to others as You are to me for Your glory I pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Suggested Further Further Bible Reading

James 3: 1-11

SURRENDERED TO YOU

Lord Jesus, I want to live my life

Surrendered to You always

Not like a patient unconscious

On a surgeon’s surgical table

Dead to the world of pain

Through anesthesia

I want to live surrendered

Like You lived surrendered

To Your Holy Father

When You understood it all

The unspeakable pain

Of body, soul and spirit

And yet could say to Your Father

Not My will but Your will be done

Lord I know it’s going to hurt

Not sometimes but most times

Because You’ve told me

I would face trouble in this world

Because I am called by Your name

Because the world hates You

Help me by Your grace

My dear Lord I pray

To live surrendered

To You, to Your holy ways

Not sometimes but always

Like the stream of Your grace

That flows from Your heart

Not sometimes but always

For Your glory now

And forever

Amen

SURRENDERED

I want to live surrendered

Not like one captured

In a battlefield

When overpowered

By the enemy

But I want to surrender

Lord to You like a beloved

Yields to the will of the lover

So that their hearts may beat as one

I want to live surrendered Lord to You

Because I know You have the big picture

Not only of my life but also of the universe

Because You planned it from the long ago

To serve Your purposes and bring You praise

Father, I know that wherever I go with You

Is the best place to go and the best to be

Because where You are is heaven

Help me dear Lord to surrender

To always surrender to You

Silently like darkness to light

Though they are so opposite

Darkness always yields

To light silently, so quickly

Soon light permeates

Dissolves darkness

Into oblivion

Till all around is light

Lord help me

To yield fully

To Your fullness

Giving You my all

So that You may be my All in All

HUMILITY

Humility you are so scarce

In the quarters of the proud

Yet you’re the formula of ascent

Hidden from the eyes of the boastful

The braggart scorns humility

Like the rich scorns filthy rags

Yet it’s the mark of the truly great

Humility you are the wreath

Around the neck of the humble

You protect them from the sudden fall

That befalls the boastful proud

Your path is grace-strewn

An invisible hand lifts up

Those who have you

A strong force is against

Those who scorn your path

How you are the way up

But how ignorant we are

Of this timeless truth

Those who climb up

Through your path

Have nothing to fear

They are on stable ground

Not so the arrogant

They are always falling

On slippery ground

Living A Life of Worship

Jesus declared, "Believe Me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem . . . a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. God is spirit and His worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth

(John 4:21-24)

Introduction

Our worship of the Living God is primarily our respect and holy fear of the Awesome Being who is Spirit and Father of our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ. If worship is a result of status, integrity, holiness or any other good quality, then God alone deserves to be worshipped. He is alone in all the good qualities known and unknown to us human beings. He personifies each and all the good qualities. Also, He made and sustains the universe. He alone should be worshipped because He alone is true Majesty!

How do we or should we worship God? God desires worship from us as His creatures but He has His conditions. Our worship must demonstrate our respect and highest honour for God. It should be in truth (i.e. sincerely done) and in the power of the Spirit