B.A.Y.O.R : December 2016

At the Crossover Service last year of House on the Rock – The Refuge Abuja, Pastor GoodHeart told us to ask God for just one thing that we wanted Him to do for us in 2016 and I asked Him for a change of address...

We started looking around for a place in January and on the 2nd of February, Psalm 44:3 became our reality when we moved into our home.

A few weeks later on the 18th of April 2016, we welcomed our beautiful daughter; Melissa OlokikiJesu Martins. God gave Diva, my excellent wife, such grace and carriage during the pregnancy that many didn’t know she was due on hearing the news of ‘Kiki’s arrival.

One other very significant blessing we experienced as a family in 2016 was “on-time-provision”. Psalm 23:1 became our perpetual reality as finances flowed in; sometimes from unexpected sources. There was hardly a month that we didn’t experience miraculous provision; often times before we prayed for it.

God further proved Himself as “The God That Makes Me Look Good”; not merely in appearance but in work competence. Times without number, I solved problems I had no skill set or prior knowledge of. In those moments, the Sweet Holy Spirit would whisper a solution that was spot on.

I thank God for miracles of preservation and protection; we drove countless times on the same roads that claimed several lives and property.

I thank God for the privilege and opportunity to serve in music and writing.

I thank God for the several other things memory might fail me to recount.

My family would like to use this medium to say a big "Thank You" to Jesus.

Thanksgiving creates more opportunities to give thanks.

In counting our blessings, we are more than likely to lose count especially when we pay attention to those blessings we think don’t count.

¹⁹ Then He commanded the multitudes to sit down on the grass. And He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples; and the disciples gave to the multitudes. ²⁰ So they all ate and were filled, and they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments that remained.

Matthew 14:19-20

What would have barely fed a few at first, became more than enough afterwards…

Challenges are somewhat indicators of blessings about to come or of those we’ve received.

The table is always closer than the enemies around...

⁵ You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over.

Psalm 23:5

³ When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,

The moon and the stars, which You have ordained, ⁴ What is man that You are mindful of him,

And the son of man that You visit him?

Psalm 8:3-4

In taking time to pick up the extras, twelve baskets were realized.

When we take time to think, even the seemingly insignificant becomes a genuine reason to thank God.

¹⁷So Jesus answered and said, “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? ¹⁸ Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?” ¹⁹ And He said to him, “Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well.”

Luke 17:17-19

Thanking God for what He’s done before is application for more.

May the blessings of 2016 be a tiny fraction of those to be seen in 2017.

God Bless You!

Unless otherwise stated, all scripture references were taken from the

New King James Version of the Bible.

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