Dear Encouragers, today I’m writing to ask you to support the victims of earthquake in Syria and Turkey. By donating a token, you can help the people who have been affected. To donate, scroll down the page and click on the donation icon. Thank you for your support and efforts during this time—It’s supporters like you that help us change the world every day.

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 We wish you a prosperous new year. May the Lord order our steps and keep us all safe throughout the year. Amen

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 We will focus on the Developmental Stage called youth (Ages 12 to 29 for our purposes) and the characteristics that tend to make it a turbulent period. For better understanding, we will look through the lens of a Developmental Psychologist Erik Erikson who identified 8 Psychosocial Stages of Development – from Infancy to Old age. He considered each stage a building block that is crucial to maturation across the life span. In other words, if the expected tasks of a stage are not mastered well or appropriately resolved, it may extend to and affect other stages later in life. Through the Attachment theory we see the significant impact early childhood parent/child relationships can have on an individual’s ongoing and later adjustment to life i.e. ability to successfully accept and perform roles in the society.

In the Developmental Stage of “Youth” where the main task is finding one’s identity and roles, “Identity Crisis”, a term coined by Erikson, often occurs. If unresolved, identity confusion results. At this stage the individual is moving away from dependence and seeking independence/autonomy BUT the skills needed are not yet fully developed. Furthermore, as the young person is trying to figure out his or her identity, he/she is also experiencing an acceleration of physical growth and undergoing an enormous psychological and behavioral changes. In addition, he/she experiences changes in social expectations and perceptions. All these changes in the youth can make adaptation to the changed situation very difficult and stressful. Hence the need for us to be concerned about the mental health among the youth and how/what to do to support them into stability and health.
We shall remind ourselves and look into:
• The characteristics of the Youth Developmental Stage that make the concerns about Mental health so crucial. Knowing that mental health refers to a person’s condition with regard to their emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how a person thinks, feels, and acts. It also helps determine how a person handles stress, relates to others, and makes healthy choices. What does this age need?
• With this understanding of the natural characteristics of the age of youth and the resulting turbulence if unassisted or unsupported! How do we walk along/support our children and youth to maintain good mental health? To prevent, find solutions/cure to the fast deterioration into serious mental illness
• In our present society, worldwide, let us name some major sources of increased stresses and confusion – Family setting/expectations, school setting/expectations, social setting/expectations, government/rules and regulations, technology, general socio-economic conditions of their environment etc
• What is my role as an individual in addressing this? What can I do as an individual as a child of God, as a believer in Christ to reduce the current crisis in the society?
• Adults – Parents, Grandparents, Youth Pastors, Neighbours, Church members, etc. Why are you quiet up till now? What actions are within your reach that you have not used up till now? Are you now thinking of what steps to take to influence the future of our youth more positively?
• There are available, dependable solutions and possible cure of mental health problems based on Scripture. Is there any hope for a better future for our children and youth? What and where is the answer? In God and through God only – What does that mean?
These are the suggested Scripture verses for meditation –
• Psalm 139:13-16; 13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
• Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.
• Jeremiah 1:5 5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
• Mark 12:30–31 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these
• Matthew 22: 37-39 Jesus was asked once which commandment of the Law was the greatest. He answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’
• Ephesians 4:32 “And be ye kind one to another, [and] tender-hearted.”

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“If the foundation is destroyed” – the phrase itself shows that something is wrong with the foundation and then continues with “what can the righteous do?”. Jesus is the foundation as we have heard from the previous message as seen in Isaiah 38 vs 16, I Corinthians 3 vs 10-11 and Ephesians 2 vs 19-22. If your marriage is established on the sure foundation which is Jesus Christ you will not be ashamed, no matter what comes across the marriage.
Our lives must be built upon the sure foundation who is the Lord Jesus and must continue to abide in the Lord, most of the time the reason for problems in marriage is because we have moved away from the foundation. When we don’t have constant fellowship with the Lord, that communication is cut off.
Once that happens you open the door for the devil to come in and you start to see faults in your spouse. Ephesians 5 vs 22-33 If you do your part the Lord will take care of the rest but often times, we expect our spouse to do their part and we, our part.
HOW DO YOU BUILD ON THE FOUNDATION
Luke 6 vs 46-48 This bible verse talks about building your life on the solid rock and not on sand so that when the troubles of life come you can stand strong and not crumble to them. We build on the foundation by obeying the Lord Jesus Christ (Matthew 4 vs 4). We are to study the word of God which will help in building our marriages. Another step is meditation which includes confession. That is what the Lord said in the Bible: that man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. The main thing that destroys marriage is when you don’t remain in close fellowship with him the foundation is cracking, and the marriage is sure to break down. Now let’s assume that the marriage is broken already the Bible has answers to that in Isaiah 58 vs 12 only the righteous can rebuild a broken-down foundation and this involves returning to the Lord and this can be seen in Matthew 11 vs 25-30 which implies that he can turn things around, your spouse hearts attitude, etc simply because all authority has been given to him.
The beginning of restoration is going back to the Lord being honest with him and telling him as it is because he knows it all and he is willing to help you if you come to him. Trust him in prayer (Psalm 23 vs 1-6) he is the restorer of souls so he can also restore your marriage/relationship too because he is our Shepard and you have to depend on him no matter what comes your way.

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was at Golgotha. The disciple whom Jesus loved (John 13:23) was the only male disciple that was at Golgotha comforting Mary, the mother of Jesus. The others had fled. The two disciples Cleopas and another in this story, were obviously also fleeing Jerusalem for their lives. They all feared that once their Master had been killed, the government authorities would come after them, as was and is still always the case.

But then Jesus appeared along their side on their way and they were shocked that he appeared not to have known of this most sorrowful calamity that had left the disciples helpless and hopeless. Even when Jesus was still physically with them, the disciples had felt helpless and hopeless before. Their boat was apparently sinking and here was Jesus sleeping, his head on a pillow! (Mark 4:38) Jesus don’t you care that we perish?

Today, you may also feel helpless and hopeless. There are many people and families in Nigeria, China, Russia, Ukraine and even the US whose loved ones have been needlessly and wickedly killed. There are those even in the United States who have been wickedly killed as a result of racial hatred. Even as we read this, there are those who are being pursued in order to silence Truth and Righteousness. And you may just have been calling on Jesus for something you know is within His Will for these many years!

And you may wonder, as a Christian, that it appears Jesus is no more. You see yourself in the valley of the shadow of death, pushed to a lonely cold valley of silence where you cannot hear God. Like the parents of Leah Sharibu and the remaining Chibok girls in Nigeria, rudely plucked from their beds in the boarding school, in their teens, in the middle of the night and either since killed or enslaved and abandoned to their fates by the government of and the prosperity preaching Church leaders of Nigeria. Jesus, don’t you care that we perish?

Today, whatever the situation in which you find yourself, just take a pause and look beside you. He is there! The God of Psalm 46 is there even in the middle of the Furnace of Fire. (Daniel 3:8-25) He will not allow the fire to kindle on your body. Turn to Him in prayer. Turn to Him in Faith, Turn to Him in His Word. Shift your focus from the problem to Jesus the SOLUTION.

Set your face like flint upon Him. When you do that, He will first comfort you. His Name is the Comforter. Then He will open your eyes of understanding to know that even though He is sleeping in the boat, His head on a pillow, because He is in the boat with you, that boat will never sink.

Happy Good Friday!

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We have been through much already this decade, what with coronavirus epidemic, terrible weather-related storms all over the world, hateful racial killings all over the world, increased troubled spots of wars and utter mindless display of wickedness and of oppression of man by man, again all over the world. We direly need a change; we direly need peace which only the Prince of Peace can provide.

We need a new beginning. We need to pursue and overtake, every good thing that has been forcibly taken away from us by the enemy of our soul. We need to seize this opportune moment, provided by the world-wide celebration of Jesus, the Resurrection and the Life, to obtain Salvation, and to experience anew the resurrection of those things that are dead that should be living: Love of God, Love of our neighbor, every one of them, without exception.

I urge you during this LENTEN season, to set apart at least three days during which you will not pray for yourself but pray for specific others, missionaries or nations, as the Spirit lays on your heart.

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We have been through much already this decade, what with coronavirus epidemic, terrible weather-related storms all over the world, hateful racial killings all over the world, increased troubled spots of wars and utter mindless display of wickedness and of oppression of man by man, again all over the world. We direly need a change; we direly need peace which only the Prince of Peace can provide.

We need a new beginning. We need to pursue and overtake, every good thing that has been forcibly taken away from us by the enemy of our soul. We need to seize this opportune moment, provided by the world-wide celebration of Jesus, the Resurrection and the Life, to obtain Salvation, and to experience anew the resurrection of those things that are dead that should be living: Love of God, Love of our neighbor, every one of them, without exception.

I urge you during this LENTEN season, to set apart at least three days during which you will not pray for yourself but pray for specific others, missionaries or nations, as the Spirit lays on your heart.

We need a new beginning. We need to pursue and overtake, every good thing that has been forcibly taken away from us by the enemy of our soul. We need to seize this opportune moment, provided by the world-wide celebration of Jesus, the Resurrection and the Life, to obtain Salvation, and to experience anew the resurrection of those things that are dead that should be living: Love of God, Love of our neighbor, every one of them, without exception.

I urge you during this LENTEN season, to set apart at least three days during which you will not pray for yourself but pray for specific others, missionaries or nations, as the Spirit lays on your heart.

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I tried many times to get up and failed each time. My knees were too weak to make it, my phone was not within reach; my wife who was at home could not hear my yelling even though I cried repeatedly at the top of my voice. So there I lay trapped in a bathtub! 

So I began to thank The Lord that as I crashed in the bathtub I had not hit my head on the tub,  had not broken any bones nor dislocated my weak knees, had not hit my ribs on any sharp edge. And I continued to thank the Lord that there was heat and hot water. The temperature outside was 29 degrees. So I stayed still… waiting… knowing that He who had shielded me from all those terrible possibilities of that fall, was at work. He would rescue me. 

So I started to pray that (1) I would learn whatever the Lord wanted me to learn as I waited; (2) that His Spirit would nudge my wife to move to the direction of the bathroom, so she would hear me as I shouted her name.

Lo and behold, as I waited, He did. The Lord moved my wife to come to the direction where she could hear my cry for help! She came looking for an item that she thought was near the bathroom where I was. So she helped me out. That was 2 long hours of helpless waiting, trapped in a bathtub.  

Later, she found that what she was looking for was actually right in front of her where she had been working.  God moved her at the right time in answer to prayer.

This Christmas, concerning that situation, concerning that stubborn issue or matter, learn first to thank the Lord for what He had not allowed to happen in your life. Continue to thank Him for His Presence with you even where you are. Psalm 46. God is in the midst. Thank Him for His Promises in His Word and wait to see the Salvation of the Lord. The Savior is here! Simon waited and was not disappointed. Ana waited and was not disappointed. Though He tarry, he will come right on Time. Merry Christmas. 

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