Do not let go

After the excitement of knowing God and being baptized with the Holy Spirit, came that time to face reality. Time for me to wake up and exercise my faith to the spiritual truths of this world. Many battles began opposing my faith and leading me to the path of doubting my spirituality.

I received blows of hunger, desperation, mockery, shame and being lonely. At that time, I had very few reasons why I should not let go of the gift I have been given by God. I had many, but beyond count reasons why I  should drop the towel. I was attacked by this painful reality almost every minute of the day.

There was a time where I felt like my decision of giving my life to God was a mistake because now my life has gone from bad to worse. It troubled me but I kept searching for more reasons why I shouldn't give up.

I'll be honest, I never found more reasons than the few I already had. All I could hear from my faith was, "Thato, if you need more reason why you should stay with God, keep going with Him and you will know".

It was true. You will never know something if you have never experienced it, right? That was my faith.

And I know because I have counselled many people lately who are attacked by the same problem that I faced and I always tell them I don't regret my decision to stay with God. It has been amazing because I have learnt to "be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that my labor is not in vain in the Lord." 1 Corinthians 15:58

Keeping this in mind, regardless of who you are, your position or your status, God has got your back.

Do not give away what you have received because "it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame." Hebrews 6:4-6

Not only will it be impossible because you have left the faith, NO. But because you have put Him in to open shame - doubting His power for eternity.

If you let go of your faith, of the Holy Spirit entrusted in you to give you eternal life, you are OPENLY saying that God is a failure. You are saying He is not eternal but He will eventually come to an end. Then it will be impossible to save you again because you would have no part in His kingdom.

Let those who have an ear hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

Stay blessed.

Paying Tithes

When I first came to the church, I was 10 years old and I did not know anything about God but only to pray. I saw my mother tithing and I thought to myself, "she is one of the most committed people of the church". I wanted to be like her. I didn't want to understand what tithe was but I wanted to give because I want to be like my mom- committed to the church.

I took envelopes of tithe in the church and gave anything I had just for me to receive the consecration of the tithers on the alter.

Oh how vulnerable I was.

I began to be very interested in knowing about what I was doing after a few months. I asked my mother and she taught me how to tithe. The pastor used to teach how to tithe in every service he held and I would be so excited about hearing the good news of being a tither. I remember when I finally got it right, how excited I was in my faith. That was the only right thing I was confident about. It gave me a push to want to more things right for God.

That was when my spirituality changed and I was only 12 years old.

Today I am grown and it is with pleasure that I am given an opportunity to teach others about the importance of Tithe.

After a year since I have invited my tenant who lives with her son at the back of my yard to the church, I was honored to sit down with them and teach them about tithe in their cottage. The excitement look I saw on their faces was priceless when they finally decided to be faithful tithers after I have taught them through the help of the Holy Spirit.

Amazingly, while teaching them my faith was revived also. God revived me not to tithe as a tradition or because I know how to tithe but to always do it in Spirit because tithes are holy.

"God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” John 4:24 Giving tithes is to serve God, thus it must be done with trembling and great respect.

Stay Blessed