“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me and he has anointed me…to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.” (Isaiah 61:1, 3)

At the conclusion of the DWOD for Sept. 11, 2013, I had issued an invitation to you, our subscribers, to share testimonies in which a life which was like a yucky overripe banana was transformed into a yummy loaf.

With her permission, I am sharing with you a testimony sent by one of my elementary school classmates, Jewelcy Jawahar.

“I would like to share about my loving cousin Mr. Stephen Dan Jose. When I was a small child, he used to be a drunkard roaming in the wilderness, though he had a loving family behind him. It is electrifying to hear his testimony and how he became a child of God.

Though he was born in a Christian family, he led a wayward life. He spent all the money he earned in drinks.

But, one day, he heard God’s calling while he was alone in the forest. Then he started to go to a prayer cell and gradually his life changed.

After that, he faced a lot of problems, debts, etc. But, he stuck to His Almighty and now he is doing His Ministry particularly among the drunkards. His life is like the bread made of very ripe bananas. Praise be to His name.”

In yesterday’s “Prime Time With God” devotional, Os Hillman shared this incredible testimony that will warm your heart.

“Victoria grew up like many middle income families. She loved school and was even the in her homecoming court all four years in high school. After some tragic family deaths during her teen years, she began to experiment with alcohol and drugs. She was raped, underwent multiple abortions, and began working as a dancer at local nude dancing club, which she continued for more than four years.

After suffering nosebleeds from her cocaine addition, Victoria became very involved with the new age movement, nearly had a nervous breakdown, and eventually became suicidal. By the age of 28 she was homeless, stranded and fired from her job as a strip-club dancer. Barely 100 pounds, she was no longer profitable to the industry. Then a Christian gave her a Bible. The first book she read was Job and something gripped her heart. A church family took her into their home. They surrounded her with love and pointed her to who she was in Christ. Victoria says, “Jesus is the only healer of deep, deep wounds.”

Now, years later, Victoria’s compassionate heart is focused on reaching other lives on the brink of life or death. She founded a ministry called Victoria’s Friends, which goes into the heart of the darkest places of the city in the strip clubs. Trained women ministry volunteers bring baskets to the dancers in their dressing rooms with no motive other than to show they care. Men stay outside the clubs and pray for the women going inside. It is the ultimate rescue mission. It is the love of Christ expressed in a simple, but powerful way. This act translates into relationships that are formed between those who continue to show their love for them.

Hundreds of young women have come out of this lifestyle because one woman decided to do what others had done for her – rescue her from the pit of darkness.”

Praise God who takes yucky bananas and transforms them into yummy banana bread!

“…Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.” (Matthew 6:8) “And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” (Matthew 10:30)

On Thursday evening of last week, Sulojana and I decided to use a 2 for 1 cappuccino coupon at McDonald’s.

As we were waiting for our order to be fulfilled, one of the other workers asked: “Would you guys like to take this oatmeal? We just made it and no one wants it. You can have it for free, otherwise we’ll just throw it out.”

Oh, did I mention that it was now 8:15 p.m., which was breakfast time in Malaysia, perhaps, but not in Canada?

Regardless, a freebie is a freebie. I meant to say, God’s favour is God’s favour. How dare we turn down this token of favour, especially when it was free?

The oatmeal came with a small supply of raisins and diced apples, as well as a package of brown sugar. But they offered no milk.

I mean, how do you eat oatmeal porridge without milk? So, I asked for some. The employee looked at me kinda funny, as if to say: “What do you need milk for? This should be moist enough.”

Regardless of his misgivings, he offered me two choices—buy a small carton of milk or take a few creamer-size containers of milk. Would it surprise you to discover that I opted for the one that spelled favour, I mean free?

We took the four miniature tokens of favour to a booth and started fixing up the porridge. Much to my surprise, the porridge was actually quite moist. I only needed to add the contents of two of the containers.

Big decision time. What do you do with the remaining two? Do you toss out tokens of God’s favour into the trash receptacles? Of course, not!

At my encouragement (or was it command?), Sulojana deftly deposited them into her handbag. And we went home and put them in the fridge.

In all fairness, I did have a slight theological debate in my brain that night. Was the act of bringing the two containers home a violation of the eighth commandment: “Thou shalt not steal?” Or was it an act of stewardship? I mean, rather than add to the garbage piles of the world, we acted responsibly by using them in a humane way, did we not?

Of course, in the midst of this internal conversation, I could not discount the fact that being of Indian origin, I simply could not resist a freebie! (As proof, I offer the aforementioned incident where I had no trouble receiving the gift of the free oatmeal).

Once the debate ended in my favour (with yours truly as the moderator), I slept like a baby that night with a very clear conscience.

Fast forward a couple of days. Our Sunday morning breakfast usually consists of cream of wheat porridge, which Sulojana always makes, but she was not home. She was staying overnight at the home of one of our members after being away Friday and Saturday at Women of Faith in Rochester, NY.

So I decided to make myself a bowl of oatmeal porridge instead in the microwave.

As per custom (see above), I went to add milk, only to discover that there was none left. Just as I began to steel myself for the prospect of consuming porridge in this less than moist state, I spied with my little eyes two miniature containers of 2% milk screaming: “Come and get us!”

I don’t know how you would interpret this incident, but I would like to think that our heavenly Father, who cares for us so deeply that he numbers the hairs on our head (a not so easy task with my full mop, but a relatively simple one with Darren’s, ha, ha!), knew my need even before I asked for it, and prompted me on Thursday night to bring those little containers home.

Amen? (or Nay, man?)

“For the spirit that God has given us does not make us timid; instead, His spirit fills us with power, love, and self control.” (2 Timothy 1:7)

To say that it was frustrating would be an understatement. There I was, driving on Scott Street in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, attempting to adhere to the rule of “plus nine”. It was impossible.

What is this rule, you say? It simply means that in the city, except in a school zone, you can drive the posted speed limit plus nine km and you will not get a speeding ticket.

Please note that this is applicable to speed limits of 50, 60 & 70 km only. When posted speeds are 80 km and above, we adhere to the “plus nineteen” rule.

But I digress. You’re curious to know why it was impossible to implement the “plus nine” rule, right?

Blame it on the white Porsche Boxster. More precisely, the middle-aged driver of the aforementioned speed machine.

He stubbornly refused to drive faster than the posted speed limit of 50 km/hour.

Now, I am no expert on the Porsche Boxster, but, I knew instinctively that it could go a lot faster than the Buick Regal that was promptly obeying my prompts to go “nine plus”.

In the interests of ensuring journalistic integrity, I verified this fact by perusing the Porsche website and found that “The Boxster with six-speed manual gearbox accelerates from 0 to 100 km/h in 5.8 seconds and reaches a top speed of 264 km/h.”

Contrast this please with the chariot in which I was chugging along. Investigative journalism revealed that the Regal zooms from 0-100 in 9.3 seconds flat, with a maximum speed of 180 km/h.

In automobile terms, the Boxster is a hare, the Regal a tortoise. No contest whatsoever. The Boxster wins feet down, every time on every count!

Despite sitting at the controls of such a powerful machine, the driver chose to abide by the law.

Yes, I was frustrated. But, after hearing Holy Spirit whisper something in my ear, I was also full of admiration for the driver.

What was the whisper, you ask? He said: “Now there is a fine illustration of meekness for you, Jeeva.”

Meekness…I am sure you immediately thought of the Beatitude: “Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5). Right?

Although mousy people are usually labelled “meek” by society, did you know that the Biblical definition of meekness is not weakness, but “strength under control?”

The most popular way for preachers to explain this is to use the example of a horse, such as a wild stallion, which never loses its raw power, but is trained to use it according to its master’s control.

The Thoroughbred Boxster has a horsepower of 267 at 6700 rpm, compared to 200 at 5200 for the Shetland Pony known as the Regal.

In other words, the driver had more power to burn, but chose not to. He was indeed modeling meekness.

Dear DWOD friend, you may be tempted at times to show off how much power you have. You may even mistakenly think that you can win others over by an awesome display of brute force.

That is worldly thinking. According to Jesus, the way to be recognized as a great leader is by demonstrating your ability to control the power that is at your disposal. It is not only a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22). It is also an act of obedience.

Now you know why Jesus described himself as being meek. (Matthew 11:29)

Believe it or not, limiting your speed will actually accelerate your progress on the road to your destiny.

“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:4-5)

Last night, as I was snoarking (a term I coined to describe the times you fall asleep while soaking in the Presence of the Lord…lol), I had a dream.

In the dream, I noticed that the bedroom window looked like someone had made an attempt to break in—with a twist, literally. The aluminum frame had been twisted at one end, so that it could be pulled back to make room for the thief to enter without the noise of breaking the glass or puncturing the screen.

How would you interpret this dream?

Here is what the Lord showed me. He warned me that the enemy of our souls (who is described as a thief by Jesus in John 10:10) is attacking us at the place of intimacy with the Father (bedroom). He knows that if he attempted to do it in an obvious way, making much noise about it, with a direct attack, we would be quick to notice it and prevent him from coming in.

Instead, his strategy is to twist the framework of our faith little by little and make us believe that intimacy with God is not really all that important.

After all, we are too busy serving the Lord. We are too tired from doing His work. We can’t afford to take the time to be with Him, when there is so much ministry to be done.

We don’t need to spend time in the word…after all we hear from God clearly. We obey when Holy Spirit tells us what to do. What more do we need, eh? Yadi, yada.

Get the idea?

Before we know it, we neglect one of the most essential elements of life in Christ. As intimacy with the Lord is reduced, neglected or downright ignored, we give the enemy permission to deceive us into believing that we can live our lives without it.
Jesus makes no bones about the fact that without intimacy with Him, we don’t stand a chance.

“Without Me you can do nothing.”

The Greek word translated nothing (ouden) actually means, are you ready for it, NOTHING. Nada. Zilch. Not a blessed thing.

Over the past few weeks, the Lord has been speaking to me directly as well as through friends about the NECESSITY of INTIMACY, especially at this critical juncture in time. I have re-affirmed my commitment to the Lord to spend a minimum of an hour a day, where I do nothing but spend time with Him and let Him minister to me.

This is a time with no agenda. I am not seeking revelation. I am not seeking strategy. I am not doing this to get something out of Him. I am doing this, simply because I need to, I want to…and more importantly, because He needs me to, He wants me to.

Without Him, we can do nothing. With Him, we bear much fruit. Take your pick. (The word “pick” should give you a hint as to the right choice!)

In the dream, I noticed that even though the framework was twisted, it was still not completely sheared off. In other words, the opportunity to straighten it out is still there.

Dear DWOD friend, would you take this word to heart and stop the attempted robbery before the enemy gets too far with his scheme?

I hope so. I pray so. Let it be so. Amen.

Walk with the wise and become wise; associate with fools and get in trouble. (Proverbs 13:20)

Last night, as I was seeking the Lord for a word for a newcomer to our Activate! Evening at Forks Road East United Church, He showed me a picture of her sitting on a bench/pew seated between two women. Then she stood up from her spot, turned to her left, took a few steps and sat between two other women.

I sensed the Lord saying that the move she was called to make was not from an evil to a good spot, but from a good to a God-spot. I also sensed that when she moved over, she would start moving forward into her destiny.

This vision got me wondering about whether at least some of you, our beloved DWOD subscribers, are experiencing delays in reaching your destiny simply by where you are seated right now.

To be more precise, by who you are seated with, the company you are keeping, the people around whom you are hanging.

God places a high value on where we sit and with whom.

Remember this verse? Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers… (Psalm 1:1)

In I Corinthians 15:33, the apostle Paul quotes what was likely a common proverb known to his readers: Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.”

We have usually seen these verses as being applicable to those who are openly leading sinful lives. We refer to those hanging around the “wrong crowd” and getting addicted to alcohol, drugs, pornography, violence, etc.

Needless to say when you wilfully choose to violate God’s laws, you are putting the brakes on advancing toward your destiny. If you are somehow still caught up in any of these sinful behaviours and patterns, then you need to do something about it right away, so you can be set free from their grip.

But the Lord was making me aware of a danger that is a bit more subtle than that. This tends to affect those who have already made a conscious choice to follow Him, yet still continue to place themselves in spots where their company inhibits them from becoming all they can be.

Sometimes it may not seem that significant, but even hanging around another group of Christians who are always putting others down and passing judgment on everyone else can hold you back from moving forward into your destiny.

Keeping such company brings pride into your spirit. “Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit precedes a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18) Doesn’t sound like you’re going to make much progress with pride, are you?

Some may lead you to believe (mistakenly) that you can continue to sin, because it’s all been taken care of at the cross. Or you may be hanging around “good people” who have no obvious vices, but their thought process may be mixed with New Age philosophy which exalts the self to the status only God deserves.

Get the picture?

Dear DWOD friend, could the Holy Spirit be calling you today to change seats? Ask Him to show you if you need to get up from where you are and go to where you need to be. Then will you please move over and move forward toward your divine destiny?

I hope so. I pray so.