OPEN HEAVENS 2017 LESSONS ON VOWS – Friday May 12th 2017 Memorise:  That which is gone out of thy lips thou shalt keep and perform; even a freewill offering, according as thou hast vowed unto the LORD thy God, which thou hast promised with thy mouth. Deuteronomy 23:23 Read:  Judges 11:29-36 (King James Version) 29 Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he passed over Gilead, and Manasseh, and passed over Mizpeh of Gilead, and from Mizpeh of Gilead he passed over unto the children of Ammon. 30 And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands, 31 Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering. 32 So Jephthah passed over unto the children of Ammon to fight against them; and the Lord delivered them into his hands. 33 And he smote ...

 May 12, 2017 The Advocate Amy Boucher Pye John 16:7–15 When he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. John 16:13 As I boarded the airplane to study in a city a thousand miles from home, I felt nervous and alone. But during the flight, I remembered how Jesus promised His disciples the comforting presence of the Holy Spirit. Jesus’s friends must have felt bewildered when He told them, “It is for your good that I am going away” (John 16:7). How could they who witnessed His miracles and learned from His teaching be better off without Him? But Jesus told them that if He left, then the Advocate—the Holy Spirit—would come. Jesus, nearing His last hours on earth, shared with His disciples (in John 14–17, today known as the "Farewell Discourse") to help them understand His death and ascension. Central in this conversation was the coming Holy Spirit, an advocate who would be with them (14:16–...

LET THE CAPTIVES GO -DEUTERONOMY 15:12-23 KEY VERSE: "And if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee" (Deuteronomy 15:12). Generally in life, there are two broad categories of captives: the lawful or willing captive (slaves/servants) and the forced or unwilling captive. Some servants give themselves over to their masters to serve them for a particular period of time on an agreed wage or salary as seen in the case of Jacob with Laban, his uncle. However, at other times, servants are bought as captives of war or from parents or guardians who cannot support them with the basic necessities of life, as a means of raising money for themselves. These are bond slaves who most often, will have to serve their masters till death or until when they are strong enough to pay for their freedom. In Israel at one time, God gave a commandment specifically about slaves/servants...

RHAPSODY OF REALITIES FRIDAY, 12TH MAY.  http://bit.ly/2dZqtLQ GLORIFY GOD IN YOUR BODY. 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). Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit; it’s God’s house. 1 Corinthians 6:20 says, “For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” You’re to glorify God in your body as well as your spirit. This means you can’t afford to have your body ravaged by sin, Satan, sickness and disease. You must say, “No” to the devil, to cancer, asthma, leukemia, or any kind of sickness or infection! Declare, “No illegal transaction of the enemy can take place in my body, because the Holy Ghost lives in me!” Understand that though your body is God’s house, it’s your responsibility to keep it flourishing in health. You have the right to decide what happens in your body. Romans 8:13 says, For if ye ...

MAY 12 Why We Should Love Our Enemies Devotional by John Piper “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.” (Luke 6:27) There are two main reasons why Christians should love their enemies and do good to them. One is that it reveals something of the way God is. God is merciful. “He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45). “He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities” (Psalm 103:10). “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32). So, when Christians live this way, we show something of what God is like. The second reason is that the hearts of Christians are satisfied with God and are not driven by the craving for revenge or self-exaltation or money or earthly security. God has become our all-satisfying treasure and so we don’t treat our advers...

FRIDAY, MAY 12, 2017 GO UP HIGHER TEXT: LUKE 14:10 BIBLE TEXT: "But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, friend, go up higher"� (Luke 14:10). A flock of sheep once sighted a ewe and her lambs on a podium enjoying a stack of hay. They rushed to the scene and made series of futile efforts to have a bite. They stood on their hind limbs, bleated and rammed at the podium all to no avail. Unknown to them, there was a staircase behind the podium that the ewe and her lambs carefully climbed to the top. Unfortunately, the hay was not visible from behind. So, even the sheep that made attempt through the stair quickly and impatiently dashed back. This is the way of some youths today but in actual fact, the way up is down. Our text, shows that the way up is down. All great preachers started by being broken in repentance to receive salvation while most multi -million dollar industries started as small and...

Identify Who You Are by Joyce Meyer - posted May 12, 2017 Let him turn away from wickedness and shun it, and let him do right. Let him search for peace (harmony; undisturbedness from fears, agitating passions, and moral conflicts) and seek it eagerly. [Do not merely desire peaceful relations with God, with your fellowmen, and with yourself, but pursue, go after them!] —1 Peter 3:11 Paul said, “I want to do what is right, but I can’t” (see Romans 7:15-25). He was a new person on the inside because he was born again, but he still had to resist the temptation to sin. Paul explained that “the sin [principle]” (v. 20) continues to dwell in us. We want to do right, but we don’t have the power to perform it, because evil is ever present to tempt us to do wrong. Only God can deliver us from this tendency to sin; that is why we must ask Him to deliver us from evil each day.