Rooted and Built up in Christ

Hey lovely people! I know it's been a while since I wrote and I'm deeply sorry. I've been swamped up by school but now that I'm on holiday, I plan to write more  :). Lately, I've been thinking a lot about relationships- family, friendships, and romantic. So my next posts would be covering these. Today we'll be looking at an aspect of the family relationship, which is the sibling relationship. While going through Facebook a few weeks back, I saw a meme which was a picture collage depicting siblings in two different scenarios; the first was of them partying together and goofing around and the second was of them wrestling in a boxing ring. The caption of the meme read something along the lines of: there's no in-between in sibling relationships. And I couldn't agree how more true this caption was! So I began to wonder, why do we feel such extreme emotions towards our siblings? We love them so much at one point in time and would do anything for them ...

As I start writing this post, some of the lyrics to two of Israel Houghton's songs come to mind. The first is from the song "Your presence is heaven to me" which starts off with this: "nothing in this world can satisfy but Jesus you're the cup that won't run dry". The second is from the song "more" which lyrics begin with: "all we want and all we need is found in Jesus". The summary of these two songs is that it's only God who can truly satisfy us. And how do we know this? You prayed to God so hard for that job and now you have it but you're still not really fulfilled/happy. You prayed to God so hard to bring that man/woman into your life and now they're there but you still complain. You prayed to God so hard to get into that school and now you're there but you're fed up and can't wait to graduate...and the examples could go on. All these just show that nothing/nobody in this world can completely satisfy u...

Hello lovely people! So as we all know, Valentine's day is around the corner and I know some of my single ladies out there are already beginning to feel the "single woman's blues" so the purpose of my post today is to encourage us. First of, can I just say that as Christians, we are to show love to every and anyone we come in contact with the 365/366 days of the year so let's not get all worked up about one single day in the year dedicated by the world for couples to get all mushy. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong in celebrating Valentine's day. However, the point I'm trying to make here is that as Christians, love should be our lifestyle and that we're not supposed to show love to only a select group of people in our lives but to everyone. Romans 5:5 says that God's love has been "poured out into our hearts" so we ought to be generous with our love! Ecclesiastes 3:1 says "For everything there is a season, a t...

We probably have heard this quote or similar sounding ones before: "The first to apologize is the bravest. The first to forgive is the strongest. And the first to forget is the happiest". While this quote encourages us to do things we normally find difficult (apologizing and forgiving) to do; it has the wrong motivations. Apologizing and forgiving is not about being brave or strong but about being obedient to God. We should apologize or forgive not because we want to be seen as the "bigger or better person" but because God said so. Doing these things to be seen as "bigger or better people" is pride and God hates pride (Proverbs 16:5). Secondly, God has instructed us to love everybody and love is not proud (1 Corinthians 13:4). Besides the fact that forgiveness is a commandment from God, there are two other primary reasons why we must forgive. We'll explore them below. We must forgive because God forgave us Jesus showed his love for us from the...

The idea that we have to get our lives "cleaned up" before coming to Jesus is very false. We sometimes believe that changing our bad habits or turning away from our sinful lifestyles is a prerequisite for salvation yet it is the other way round. Living as changed people is only possible when we allow Jesus into our lives because it is only Him that can truly change us; we can't do it on our own. So let's stop feeling unworthy or saying things like "I can't pray to God or I can't go to church because I'm so full of sin or because I partied too hard last night or because I've been sleeping around or because I'm a hypocrite and blah blah blah. The truth is Jesus doesn't care, he wants us to come to Him just as we are. Jesus did not come to call "those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners and need to repent" (Luke 5:32) and it is through Jesus that we are made righteous (2 Corinthians 5:21). Let...

"God first" has become the popular quote used by people on their Instagram profiles. It is so loosely used that people don't even really realize what it is to actually put God first. We are all in some way guilty or have been guilty of saying "God first" but our actions reflecting otherwise. We have let that job, school, boyfriend, girlfriend, TV show or hobby take the place of God in our lives. We don't spend time in the word or in prayer or we don't want to attend church/fellowship because we believe all these activities are just going to take up our time and we're very "busy" people so we don't have time to "waste". But the truth is that we create time for the things we value no matter how busy we are and that is why we're still able to watch our favorite TV shows or hang out with those special people in our lives even after a hectic day at school or at work. Same thing goes for God, if we really do value him/love ...

Hey lovely people! It's been a long time:( :( School has been so busy and that's why I haven't posted in a while. However, I'm going to try my best from now on to post at least twice every week :). So today we would be discussing the different names of God.  First off, names  in scripture are very symbolic; they speak to the nature and purpose of something or someone. For example, think about the meaning of the name Jesus, it means savior and that was indeed the reason why Jesus came to the world; to save. Hence, God's different names give us more insight into who he is. Below, I have listed seven names of God I really like because the names of God are very numerous and sometimes words are just not enough to describe who he is. The more time we spend in the word, the more names/ revelation of God's character we would discover. Now, here we go: Elohim - it means “Creator, Mighty, and Powerful”. Elohim is the plural form of the word El which means power or...