A New Year (part IV)

By Odon Bulamba (02.01.04)

There was another lady in the Bible, she was lot’s wife. When it was time to leave Sodom, God told them, ‘because you need your lives don’t look behind, just keep going.’ That lady, her husband and her two daughters started their journey and on her way she was feeling in her heart that she had to look behind her to see what was going on there. Maybe she started to think about money that she left, maybe she started to think about saucepans that had been left behind, maybe she was thinking about sweet potato, her ideas were there in Sodom.

According to the Bible Sodom was really pretty, Sodom was really green like New Zealand and all farmers at that time wanted to be in Sodom. The lady’s thoughts were there, although her body was going forward but her head remained in Sodom and because of that attraction of the past, and of things that were behind her, she decided to turn around, she decided to accomplish her feelings, to satisfy her feelings above God. She turned around and as a result she was punished, she couldn’t move anymore, she remained there and when she remained there her daughters didn’t say, where is our mum. The husband didn’t say, where is my wife? They kept going, they carried on with their journey and she remained there.

Whenever we are working with God we have to respect his instructions, if God will say look forward, just look forward. If God says walk with me, walk with Him, don’t turn your eyes, don’t look on your side, don’t think about what happened. ‘oh I know last year this person did such and such to me, I will not accept that, I know that my friend told me such and such thing and so from now on I will make a decision, this year I will make a revenge.’ No we have to forget about plans like these ones because we are living a new life, we are living a new life.

As the Bible talks about alpha which means the beginning and when the beginning is there it means that nothing else exists because the beginning is the beginning. You cannot say there was something and then the beginning started, no, the beginning of something is the beginning, nothing precedes it. If we start this year as a new year, this is the beginning of this year and we don’t have to load our hearts or our souls with problems or with whatever happened last year, no, we don’t have to, we have to start the new year with new things, with new strategies, with a new gospel.

For you and me, what shall we do with this year that is coming? What shall we create? What shall we give breath to so that it can find life? Our families, our friends, who shall we bring to Jesus Christ? Who shall we help and say don’t look behind you, let’s carry on, let’s focus our eyes on Jesus.

Once God created man He said, this is all, I have to rest now. God was happy and I think this year must be a year of happiness for us. This must be a year of success, a year of fulfilling whatever we have to fulfil. It’s true that God created everything and He was happy to create them but on the sixth day God found that He really fulfilled all His tasks, I’m happy with all that I created and then He put Adam in the garden of Eden. So what shall we do during this year and we’ll give it a special place somewhere in the gospel? Shall I give my tithe? Shall I offer to God something, shall I sing to Him, shall I dance for Him, what shall I give to God that will represent something really special for Him, for which I know that there is a garden somewhere for which I will keep this treasure.

We have to think about that and know that this year is not a year of problems, it’s not a year of difficulties or misunderstandings. This year we are called to live the true happiness, the true joy and victory. If you don’t have a plan yet for 2011, this is the time to think about it and if you have planned something already, think now about your plan and your God. You can have your physical plan; I’ll buy a house, or a car, or I’ll go such place or I’ll do such for Odon or Colleen or Gustave or whoever, that’s your plan but what did you plan with God? Put God in tests and you will see how God is good to answer and to intervene. Let’s say we are sitting here and if you can hear Leah scream, what will Leah’s mother do? (I’ll go and check on her). That is the first thing, the mother will never say, ‘can I go?, never. She will just stand up and go there, although the baby will never the mother’s name, she will just scream but the mother will know that it is Leah and she must go, she feels she has to intervene.

And that is the same way with God, whenever we yell, ‘God we need your help, we are crossing a hard situation’, God doesn’t have to ask Moses or whoever is sitting next to Him can I go and help? Never, He will intervene. Only if we open our mouth and we call on Him and to scream doesn’t take ten minutes to be honest. If I scream now, one second is enough and everybody will ask what is going on there.

We have to call God. Many people when they want to call to God they think oh maybe I have to contact Kennedy to talk to him first and then he will advise me and after him I will get advise from Sylvie or Jessica and then Colleen and I can do it for five days. Whatever Jessica will tell me and Colleen will tell me will not match with whatever Pete will tell me and I will start to say, o what will I follow now, what can I do? So we are free and if we are free we have to speak to God freely, there is no formula which we are supposed to use to tell God, ok God before you listen to my prayer I must do this ceremony, no.

So we will stop there tonight, I will tell you: “be strong in the Lord, Jesus loves you and He loves all of us. He is our Lord, He is taking care of us, but He is calling us to be next to Him and He will be also next to us. If we trust in Him He will also trust in us. If we give to Him our time He will also give to us His time. If we call on Him He will answer. If we tell Jesus we need Him, He will be proud to tell us that He needs us too. If we tell Jesus we want you to intervene because we are unable, He will feel really that He is really glorified because we recognise His value. If we tell Jesus we want your presence among us He will feel the King or leader of our lives and He will intervene but if we keep quiet maybe He will not know what to do for us. He knows our needs, that is true but He is waiting for us to say something to Him”.

So we have to stop there, in the Lord I have to wish you all a happy new year, a year of joy, blessings, victory, light, and a year of power, success in all our activities, success in all our prayers, success in our meditation and everything that we will do for our lives and for God’s glory.

Lets pray, “Thank you Jesus because you are our leader, we are at the end of this meeting, let your power be with us. Meet us o Lord our God, we commit this year between Your hands. We need Your help and Your assistance. Guide us, bless us, show us the light, show us the way. In our conduct we need you, in our work we need you, in everything that will happen in our lives, Your presence will be really, really important. Jesus our God we have our family members, we have friends, our children, our wives and husbands, our brothers and sisters who need You in their lives, who want to see your power. God as you walked with Moses, we want Your power to be with us so that we can be the Moses of our families, we can become Moses of Your people, we can become Moses of our brothers and sisters and through us they can see You God performing miracles. Through us they can discover that You are really powerful. Oh Lord our God, we need our problems to runaway from us, we need o God to see Your light in our lives, we need to be protected by You, we need to walk with You, we need to cross the sea of difficulties and problems, we need to win and become victorious against all the powers of darkness, Jesus our Lord. We need anointment, o Lord Jesus, hold our hands and walk with us. We welcome You Jesus in our lives, control our lives, we give You the chance to reign in us, reign in our lives, reign in our family, reign in everything that we will do. Wherever we will go, we need You always, don’t leave us. Whenever we call on You, intervene straight away because our only solution is You, no one can help us, no one can intervene except you. Oh God, be our blessing and Be our Lord from now until the end of time. On the sixth day God You created something really special, something that you like, that you love and that was the day you created us God. We want also during this year that something can be created, something can come from us which will glorify Your Name, which will look like the creatures that you created on the 6th day. God we need to bring souls to You, accept those souls, convert their lives, make our people to be transformed. We know that satan is fighting against them, we know that sins are attacking them but God make us winners. Give them freedom from the power of darkness, so that they can see Your blood in their lives, so that they can see Your Hand touching them, so that they can feel comfortable through You o Jesus. We can’t transform their lives but everything is possible for You. Bless this house, bless everything present here, bless those people who are not with us tonight, be with them O God. We thank you because You are a God who takes care of us, in Jesus name we are praying, Amen,