Daily Archives: May 8, 2024

Run To Win ( by Pastor Chris Oyakhilome)

Teevo: Run To Win

There’s A Prize To Be Obtained In The End)

TO THE BIBLE: 1 Corinthians 9:24-25 MSG
“You’ve all been to the stadium and seen the athletes race. Everyone runs; one wins. Run to win. All good athletes train hard. They do it for a gold medal that tarnishes and fades. You’re after one that’s gold eternally.”

LET’S TALK
What we read in our opening verse lets us know that, in Christianity, we run to win and obtain the prize.

We’re likened to sportsmen: “Now every athlete who goes into training conducts himself temperately and restricts himself in all things. They do it to win a wreath that will soon wither, but we [do it to receive a crown of eternal blessedness] that cannot wither. Therefore I do not run uncertainly (without definite aim). I do not box like one beating the air and striking without an adversary” (1 Corinthians 9:25–26 AMPC).

The Bible shows you what to do to be at the top of your game: become temperate in all things; exercise self-control.

Like an athlete, there’re things you should do and there’re things you shouldn’t, just so you can keep in form. Those athletes do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we do ours for an incorruptible crown. Hallelujah.

Notice what He says in the twenty-seventh verse: “But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified” (1 Corinthians 9:27).

He instructs us to do everything to win, but according to the rules, so you’re not disqualified. Don’t run to miss the prize; run to win it!

And as you run your race, and fulfil your ministry in the Gospel, lay aside every weight (Hebrews 12:1-2).

Don’t let sin be an encumbrance in your life. Refuse to allow anything to take your focus off the Master.

Remain steadfast, unmovable, and always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as you know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord (1 Corinthians 15:58).

Go Deeper

2 Not that I have already attained,[ c] or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. 13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have [ d]apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:12-14;

12 Therefore then, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses [who have borne testimony to the Truth], let us strip off and throw aside every encumbrance (unnecessary weight) and that sin which so readily (deftly and cleverly) clings to and entangles us, and let us run with patient endurance and steady and active persistence the appointed course of the race that is set before us,

2 Looking away [from all that will distract] to Jesus, Who is the Leader and the Source of our faith [giving the first incentive for our belief] and is also its Finisher [bringing it to maturity and perfection]. He, for the joy [of obtaining the prize] that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising and ignoring the shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Hebrews 12:1-2 AMPC


Speak:
I’m a spiritual sportsman, disciplined to do the Word, and fully yielded to the leading of the Spirit. I run straight toward the goal in order to win the prize and fulfil God’s call and destiny for me. I remain steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. Hallelujah!

Daily Bible Reading
ONE YEAR
John 4:1-26, 1 Kings 1
TWO YEAR
Mark 8:34-9:1, Numbers 11

Act:
Study and meditate on 1 Corinthians 9:25-26.

You’re The Tabernacle of His Presence ( Pastor Chris Oyakhilome)

Rhapsody Of Realities 8 May 2024 By Pastor Chris Oyakhilome
TOPIC: You’re The Tabernacle Of His Presence

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? (1 Corinthians 6:19).

MESSAGE:

In the Old Testament, the children of Israel transported the presence of God from place to place every time they carried the Tabernacle of Witness, which contained the Ark of the Covenant.

In 1 Kings 8:9, the Bible tells us specifically that,“There was nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone, which Moses put there at Horeb, when the LORD made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt.” The only thing in the ark was God’s commandments.

Today, your heart is the ark of God; that’s where the Word is. Remember what the Lord said in Jeremiah 31:33: “But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.” This was fulfilled in us when we were born again.

We were born again by the Word of God and have become one with the Word; we’re living epistles, “…written, not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone but in fleshy tables of the heart” (2 Corinthians 3:3). Blessed be God!

You’re now the living ark of testimony and the tabernacle of His presence, “…for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (2 Corinthians 6:16). He dwells in you now. His hands are in your hands, and His legs are in your legs. He walks in you and talks through you.

Where you go, God goes. You’re in Him and He’s in you! Not only are you now in the presence of God, you carry the presence of God. Every time you show up, you come with the presence of God. No wonder the Bible says in Colossians 1:27, “…Christ in you, the hope of glory!”

CONFESSION

My life is for the glory of God, because the Holy Spirit lives in and operates from the quarters of my heart. Therefore, Satan and anything associated with darkness have no place in me, in Jesus’ Name. Amen.

FURTHER STUDY:

Colossians 1:26-27 – [Even] the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: 27 To whom God would make known what [is] the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:

Romans 8:10 – And if Christ [be] in you, the body [is] dead because of sin; but the Spirit [is] life because of righteousness.

John 14:16-17; And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; 17 [Even] the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.