Walking in Obedience

Obeying God can be easy or it can be hard, but whether easy or hard it is always peaceful. Don't fight it, because there is a blessing attached to obedience. When we obey our parents they bless us and do much more for us because we gladden their hearts. How much more our Father in Heaven when we obey Him? God loves us so much and He knows what is best for us. But just as teenagers like to rebel  because they think their way is better and their old fashioned parents do not understand them, so do many children of God do the same. God is not old fashioned. God is really really cool and awesome! Have you ever looked at all the technology gadgets you are enjoying today? Do you know that God created the people who invented smart phones for instance? God opened up that part of their brain to advance the world. God is very aware and very current. Our God is not old fashioned.

God's intelligence supercedes ours incomparably so, what does He do? He humbles Himself and comes down to our level so we can grow in Him by giving us specific instructions our human brains have the capacity to process and understand. In Genesis 19:17 explicit instructions were given to Lot and his family to escape for their lives and not look behind them. Very simple instruction. Sometimes God demands that you move away from your comfort zone in order to serve Him more efficiently and fulfill your purpose. If you keep your eyes on Him, you will flourish. If you moan and groan about what you are leaving behind, you are like Lot's wife and the consequence of her disobedience was instant. She turned into a pillar of salt! When you look at the life of Abraham and the life of Lot, the difference is very clear. One walked in obedience and one did not. One lived for God and one lived for the flesh. When we live to satisfy ourselves instead of the God who created us, our lives can go off track and end up tragically. Obeying God is worth it. He already knows what lies ahead but we don't, so why not submit?

I recently moved back to Nigeria (my home country) by the leading of God. I lived in the US from 1999 - 2015. I had been away for so long that everything seemed so strange to me. But I have not been sad for one day that I obeyed His leading. I am so peaceful about it even though it has been a major change for me and my family. If you are someone who takes your relationship with God seriously and you love Him and seek to obey Him, you will know when He does not endorse a decision you make. Any decision you make in your life that does not have the peace of God attached to it, is not of God. Seek God in everything. Seek His will for your life, your marriage, your children, your career, your ministry. So He can guide you to fulfill your maximum purpose. Without God's guidance we are derailed and only by His grace and mercy are some able to recover before major tragedy strikes.

“He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.”

John 14:21 KJV

The best way to show we love and honor God, is to obey Him. Jesus will reveal more and more of Himself to us if we obey His Word and seek to do His will. We should never be disobedient because there is always a consequence. Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt never to breathe again, laugh again, touch or be touched. She was stuck, a statue left to the mercy of others.  If we disobey God, we are inviting stagnation into our lives. We will not flourish and depend on others to survive. We become charity cases and liabilities instead of being assets. Don't let others chip away at you because they need salt to cook in their households. Don't let others take advantage of you because you refuse to follow the ways of God. Stagnation is one of the worst things that can ever happen to us. Stagnation prevents us from fulfilling why we are created and if we are not fulfilling why we are created, we are empty vessels. We must be productive for God and filled by God so we run our race effectively. We cannot be productive if we disobey God. May God help us to truly tune in to Him and trust His ways are perfect for us. 

© 2016 Bella Alex-Nosagie

To surrender your life fully please read the Blog post: Invite Jesus into your Heart. Start a new chapter in your Christian walk today and forever. God loves you and so do I!

Walking in Total Surrender

What kind of Christian are you? Are you a Christian that seeks to deny yourself and your needs and desires in order to walk in the will of God? Or are you a Christian that acknowledges Jesus as your Lord and Savior yet He is not The Lord of your life? I gave my life to Christ when I was 6 years old but I did not surrender my life to Christ until I was 30 years old. There is a difference my friends. There is a difference between approaching Christianity as a religion instead of a relationship. I grew up in church and there was a reverence for God but I can't say there was a love for Him. How do I know there was little love for Him? How do you treat someone you are in love with? You seek them out everyday. You love to be with them. You stay on the phone all day or chat all day sometimes you even forget to eat or drink because you miss this person so much. You tell them everything even mundane things that happened during your day. You want their opinion on everything even if it's to pick out your nail color or perfume or outfit or hairstyle after all you are dressing for them right? Ladies c'mon, you know what I mean when you are madly in love!

Many Christians may have given their lives to Christ but they have not surrendered their lives to Him. I know this because I was like this until God opened my eyes to my spiritual state. He instilled a deep hunger and thirst for Him that had never been there before. I would wake up barely acknowledging Him, go about my day and even be too lazy to pray to Him and read His Word. Don't get me wrong, I went to a Christian school joined every choir I could possibly join singing praises to God and serving Him but not for the right reason. I loved the gift more than the giver of the gift. I'm trying to paint a picture for you so you can understand what I mean. You can be going to church and working in church but still not living a life surrendered to God. When God becomes your priority. When you want so much to please Him, you ask Him to take away attributes in you that do not bring glory to His name. When you are so hungry for Him, you feel you can't breathe in this superficial world you want to run away and isolate yourself so you can bask in His presence without any distractions. You want more and more and more of Him and can't get enough of Him! You do not  see obeying His Word and His commandments as a tedious chore but a pleasure because you love Him and you want to please Him. When you feel so strange in this world like you don't belong in it and you can't wait to go home to Him where you truly belong. When you are ready to go where He tells you to go and do what He tells you to do no matter the personal cost to you. When you are ready to live and die for Him. 

Search your hearts, do you love yourself and your things more than you love God? Quick exercise: Think of something you love very much, if you are asked to spend time with God and do God-driven things instead of self-driven things like what you love so much, are you ready to give this thing you love up? When God woke me up by a series of traumatic events in my life. There was nowhere else to run to but Him. So I lay on the floor and surrendered my life. First of all, I repented of putting myself and my possessions before God then I told Him I was ready to be used by Him and for Him alone. I asked Him to use me for His glory, as His vessel. I learned to pray asking that His will be done instead of making demands like a rebellious teenager and expecting Him to answer my prayers because I knew what was the best for me. I learned to commit my fears, desires and joys into His hands and ask that His will be done for He has the best for me. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, please check yourselves today. Are you living for God or are you living for yourself? Are you  looking forward to spending eternity with Him or death terrifies you and you want to live forever because life is so good? True Christianity is an intimate relationship with God and it's also a lifestyle. Jesus Christ is coming back for those who are surrendered to Him and living for Him. Those who are worshipping Him in spirit and in truth not those who are mixing the ways of the world with their Christianity. How are you living? If Jesus were to spend a day with you in your home what will He see? Will He be allowed to enter all the rooms in your home or just the living room? Will He see someone who is living for Him daily or just someone who "lives" for Him on Sundays? If you have been guilty of compartmentalizing God  and living more for yourself than the One who made you, ask for His help today. Tell Him you desire to hunger and thirst for Him so He can fill you with His precious Holy Spirit. He will hear and change you from within.

© 2016 Bella Alex-Nosagie

To surrender your life fully please read the Blog post: Invite Jesus into your Heart. Start a new chapter in your Christian walk today and forever. God loves you and so do I!

Walking in Peculiarity

God can change you. God is deep. God is mysterious. We can never know all of Him but He knows everything about us. The innermost parts of us. He knows us better than we know ourselves for He created us (Psalm 139). Don't limit God. Don't think anything is impossible with God. Don't think you can never change. Ask God in. Ask Him to totally take over you and watch how He will empower you to be like Him. 

There is a prayer I love to pray constantly. "Father, anything that is in me that is not of you, please remove it. Anything that will prevent me from experiencing the fullness of you, please remove it and the taste of it permanently from my mouth. Fill me with more of your Holy Spirit and less of my flesh. Make me to be more like you, that when you look upon me you find me pleasing to your sight". And when God began to answer this prayer, it amazed me. Suddenly, things I used to enjoy before, I no longer found pleasure in them. I began to wonder what was wrong with me because I could no longer fit into the world like before. The world no longer held any excitement for me. All I wanted was more, more and more of God. I then realized the power of the prayer I had been praying. God was truly changing me and making me peculiar. This scripture I had learned as a memory verse when I was child now became real to me. I am chosen, I am royalty - the royalty of God not of man, I am holy and acceptable unto God - for I must be holy to be used by a holy God, I am peculiar to the world, He has called me out of darkness into His marvelous light. Light exposes, purifies and expunges. God is light and His instruments which are you and me, must shine. In order to be used fully by God, He must take away the darkness in us. The parts of us that yearns to blend in with the world and do what other human beings are doing. In order to be holy and to look more like Him and be like Him, love what He loves and hate what He hates, we must be pruned of our worldly ways. This is a lifetime journey and requires living daily in the will of God. You and I need God every single day. We need His power and purification daily because the flesh and the spirit are naturally contrary to each other (Galatians 5:17), the flesh must be crucified for the Spirit of God to prevail in our lives.

When God begins to work in us, we suddenly find we are no longer satisfied with earthly standards. The Spirit of God takes us to a greater height in order to serve an excellent and perfect God. God is holy and God is perfect, the only way we can be holy and acceptable to Him, the only way we can be perfected to do what He has called us to do, to be who He has created us to be, is to invite Him in daily to overtake us. The things that were previously impossible for us, will now be possible. 

Let me give you an example. I have always loved to sing and have been doing so since I was 6 but I could never write a song. I would start writing but have "writer's block". I had friends who could write with ease, but I could not. I slowly accepted I would never write a song. Not all singers are songwriters anyway, so I didn't let it discourage me. But let me tell you something. When I prayed a prayer of total surrender to God. And I told Him that He should just freely have His way in me and activate the gifts in my life that He had put in me to serve Him effectively. Suddenly, I was hearing songs in my spirit. I was shocked! I have now learned to have a recording device close when I am worshipping God because new songs begin to come out of my mouth and I must document it. David said in Psalm 40:3 that God put a new song in his mouth and I am telling you it is the same for me. I always thought when I would eventually work on my album it would be only English songs but that is not God's plan for my life. I am hearing ethnic songs in my spirit. Since I have fully yielded myself to God to be used by Him, I am not complaining or arguing with my Maker. He knows the best for me. He knows the people He wants me to reach. He is showing me how great He is by enabling me sing in languages I do not fully understand so I can discover the depth of His power. Language is powerful and God is teaching me a lot.  It is very exciting being led by the Spirit of God. 

I challenge you today to be totally sold out for God and watch Him make the impossible possible in your life. Things you could never do. Things you never thought you could do, you will begin to do. 

"Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,”

Ephesians 3:20 KJV

God has created you for a purpose in your generation. You must inquire of Him what exactly He has created you for. That is why we have gifts and talents. All are to be used for the glory for God. God can only fully use us once we are heavenly minded and living for eternity with Him and nothing in this world. Once God is a priority in your life and you make it known you are here to serve Him. And you ask Him to equip you for your purpose. You will be amazed at what you will be able to accomplish. I am now at a place where I can finally work on my music and I tell you it is God's music divinely from His throne room. I could not imagine having an ethnic song on my album because I don't speak any language other than English very well. But God created people who do not speak English and He wants me to reach them. Even those who speak languages other than English but also speak and understand English fluently, when they truly want to express themselves deeply they switch to their ethnic language. There are some words where the English language is not sufficient enough to express from the heart. God understands this as the Maker of languages. God is awesome!

I am excited and joyful to be discovering parts of me that will fulfill my calling. Parts of me that will move the Kingdom of God forward in areas I could never foresee. Where I am weak, He is making me strong. What I cannot do, He is sending divine helpers of destiny to ensure I do it. If He can do it for me, why will He not do it for you? He loves you so much. Please give your life to Him in totality and watch Him work through you. Let us humble ourselves and let our Maker work through us. Walking with God demands a lot of sacrifice because He requires a faithful heart. And you will be tested to see how faithful you are. God will meet you at whatever level you give to Him but I encourage you to grow and seek more of Him. If you want to experience the fullness of God and true intimacy with God, you must sacrifice a lot but it truly pays off. The happiest I have been in my life is when I fully surrendered to God to have His way come what may. The storms still rage and life gets real hard but nothing and no one can steal my joy because I know who I am in God and I know what I am living for. I have chosen to make Heaven and reign with my King. Whatever will prevent me from ruling with King Jesus at the end of my life or when He comes back to rapture His Church I have asked Him to remove. And I am glad to see the changes within me all to the glory of God. There is nothing wrong with you once you begin changing to God's specifications. All is right with you my friend, and all is well with you. God is real. We must live for Him now so we can reign with Him in eternity. If the world calls you weird or strange or peculiar, be happy for your Father has made you peculiar. It is a high compliment to be called peculiar because it means you fit in with God and fitting in with God is what counts. The path to Heaven is narrow but glorifying Him with our peculiarity ensures we will make it. 

If you will like to fully surrender your life to Christ. If you are ready for a change and tired of being stuck and stagnant. Humbly repent and ask God to fully take you over. Rededicate your life to Him and begin a new chapter in your life. Read the Blog Post: Invite Jesus into your Heart. Congratulations, for your life will never be the same again. God loves you and so do I!

© 2016 Bella Alex-Nosagie

Invite Jesus into your Heart Today!

 

Jesus Christ died for you and me, and loves us beyond our wildest imaginations. God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Spirit are one in three persons. Each is a unique individual but they are all God (John 10:30, John 14:9). God the Father is the creator of the Universe. God the Son came down to earth to die for our sins. God the Holy Spirit is the Counselor and Comforter (John 14: 16-17) that dwells in us when we receive Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior.

 

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me (John 14:6).

 

Let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole. This is the ‘stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.’ Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved (Acts 4:10-12).

 

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16).

 

If you want Jesus Christ to reside in your heart forever and always and to spend eternity with Him when you die say the following prayer:

 

Lord Jesus, I come to you now to present myself. Today, I have come to truly believe that you are on your throne in Heaven and that you love me. I confess to you now that I am a sinner and I am not worth being considered to be associated with you. But you are truly a merciful God, who loves all. I therefore ask you humbly to forgive me all my sins and remember them no more from today. Please have mercy on me and forgive me. Cleanse me with your precious blood and make me a new person today. Thank you for doing this for me. I desire to follow you from today, serve you and obey your commandments as written in the scriptures. So help me Lord. From today, I make you my Savior, Master, and the Lord of my life. Thank you Lord Jesus, for giving me a new life. I pray in Jesus name. Amen.

 

Welcome to a New Life in Christ!

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new(2 Corinthians 5:17).

 

• Find a church to grow in and to be physically and spiritually supported. 

 

• Read your Bible. Start from the Gospel of John to understand the ministry of Jesus Christ and His love for humanity. The Gospel of John is a more intimate and profound look at Jesus’ministry on earth compared to other Gospel accounts (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). Perhaps it is because it was written by the disciple closest to Jesus, Apostle John.

 

• Christianity is to be Christ-like. It’s not an overnight journey as Jesus Christ begins to prune away things you have always done before that will not bring glory to His name. He is your role model. Other Christians are not because only Jesus Christ achieved perfection in the flesh. Read your Bible to understand how to be a Christian.

 

• Pray to Him for guidance and help, and to build a relationship. A prayer is a conversation between you and Him. He left an example for you in the Bible if you don't know how to start: 

 

In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen (Matthew 6:9-13).

© 2014 Bella Alex-Nosagie

Know Who You Are!

People trying to box you in. They say, "Look this way, talk this way, walk this way and you just may be good enough for us". You are so busy trying to fit in with others expectations that you are losing yourself. You are forgetting you were created unique. You don't look like anyone else that's a hint that you were created to stand out! How can you stand out if you look exactly like someone else? Identical twins get to a stage where their own unique personalities emerge. They may look identical but their preferences are not. 

Don't let the world tell you who you are. Show the world who you are! You were fearfully and wonderfully made by God (Psalm 139:14). You are that special ingredient in the soup of life the world needs. You were created to be a catalyst in your environment. Don't let anyone drown out your individuality. God created you with so much love and loves you as you are. It will be really great if you could love God and acknowledge Him. He created you to fulfill a purpose. You are alive for a reason. The only way to figure out what you are here for is to get close to God. 

Yes, evil exists in the world and human beings are doing evil things. God created us with free will. Some choose to be good and some choose to bad. What are you telling the world with your existence today? Are you going to let others label you and determine how you should live your life? Are you going to season the world with good or with evil? Be who you were created to be and not who the world is creating you to be. You are a reflection of God's glory, so choose to glorify Him with your life. Selah!

© 2016 Bella Alex-Nosagie

Walking in Holiness

Holiness is important to God. This is made very clear in The Word of God.

“Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:”

Hebrews 12:14 KJV

It does not get any clearer than this. How can we serve a holy God and not be holy? How can we not view sin with disgust when our Holy God finds it disgusting? 

“But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.”

1 Peter 1:15-16 KJV

The only way we can be holy is to surrender every aspect our lives to our holy God. Only the expert and perfecter of holiness can make us holy and acceptable unto Him. To be fully used by God, we must be holy. Love what He loves and hate what He hates. 

Only the Holy Spirit of God can change us from within to be acceptable and meet His holy standards. It is the Holy Spirit that renews our mind so it does not conform to worldly thoughts and actions. 

“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.”

1 John 2:15-17 KJV

It's about falling in love with God and looking to please Him with your life. When we are in love we seek to learn everything about who we are in love with. We seek to please them. Some even go as far as changing who they are so they can maintain the relationship. But that is the difference between the love of God and the love of man. We cannot change who we are to please God, only God can change us to please Him. He knows our hearts and can see if we are being pretentious or sincere. 

So, let us fully surrender to God and be patient to allow Him work in us. It is amazing the changes that begin to happen within when we fully yield ourselves to God. When God molds and shapes us into who He created us to be, it is absolutely beautiful. But we have to invite Him in first to fully have His way in our lives. Are you ready to let God use you for His glory? Are you ready to live a holy life pleasing unto God and God alone? Are you ready to stop being a flesh pleaser and start being a spirit pleaser? 

“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.”

Romans 8:14 KJV

Then ask Him in today and watch Him fully make all things new in your life.

© 2016 Bella Alex-Nosagie