Blessed are those that mourn

“Blessed are those that mourn for they shall be comforted” Mathew 5:4

By Hayley Boud

Blessed are those that mourn.  It doesn’t sound like a blessing.  When we mourn we are more than sad.  Mourning is something very difficult.  It is extremely hard.  You lose your peace, you don’t feel like eating or doing anything, you lose your motivation.  We usually mourn because we have lost something very important to us.  How can that be a blessing? 

We should mourn when we sin or see sin in others.  When we fall into temptation, we should feel that it is difficult like losing something important because we have lost the most important thing of all, our relationship with Jesus.  We also lose our relationship with others, our reputation, our opportunity to share Jesus and maybe even lose the souls of others. 

This should make us lose our peace and makes us feel sad and not feel like eating.  When we let God down and others down, we should feel that sadness of losing something important to us.  That feeling is a blessing because at that moment, we have true repentance and we can be comforted because Jesus can now remove the sin from us.  We can be comforted knowing that when we repent, Jesus’ blood can clean us and we can get back what we lost and no longer lose it again.

When we repent we make a decision to never go back to the same temptation and by doing that we can be comforted knowing that our relationship with God is restored.  It can also restore our relationship with people and our reputation.  However, we should know that sometimes we lose things for good when we sin.  For example, we can lose the souls of those around us because of our bad example.  E.g. the Anglican minister who was really mean to me.  This made me think that I would never, ever go to an Anglican church.  Had I not been a Christian I would have been put off Christ all together.  This lady would have lost a soul.

Let’s feel that sadness in our hearts for lost souls so that we can be a good testimony and not lose our reputation.  Very often once our reputation is lost, it is lost forever.  This should make us mourn and then we can be comforted by Jesus knowing that He can work through us to save souls so long as we make that decision not to fall into temptation.  If we sin, we should feel the burden of our sin and the consequences of our sin so that we can truly repent and then we can be comforted knowing that Jesus purifies us and He wipes the slate clean.

The round-about

Once again glory to God for being here today.  Today is a new day and tomorrow is coming and we have no idea what it will bring for us.  Are you ready to receive tomorrow?  If yes, praise God.  If not, think twice.

 

Mark 6:37

They came to Jesus saying, we need something to eat and He said, “Give them something to eat”.  This is what I will call that the roundabout.  At the roundabout you find three or five or six different roads coming from different corners of the city and you have to decide what road you will take and if you choose the wrong one you may end up in the wrong destination but choose the right one and you end up in your destiny.

 

Jesus was preaching and suddenly He said, “We have to go because the crowd was increasing” and He went into the boat with the disciples.  Those on the land will run by the boat and wherever the boat landed, the people would be there.  Humans were rushing to catch up with Jesus.  Maybe the disciples said, “We can breathe now that we have left them behind, we are now free” but then suddenly the crowd shows up again.  Jesus looked at the crowd of people with compassion and said, “I can see they are like sheep without a shepherd and they need someone to look after them”.

 

How often do you have compassion on others, to yourself, to your work and what you do with that compassion?  Jesus has compassion on us and He knows we need someone to feed us and look after us.  The disciples knew the Word of God but they weren’t supplying enough to these people.

 

Jesus started to preach to them, to feed to them and after taking it all in, time was not waiting for them and now it was late in the evening.  The disciples stood up, “Lord, these people are tired and it is getting late”.  Look how the disciples are teaching God the time and reminding him that time is ticking, you are taking too long.  Sometimes we shake God, look time is passing, why are you taking long before you let us go, feed us, give us the answer to my prayers.

 

These people are hungry, they need food.  Maybe the disciples themselves were hungry.  Jesus looked at them and said, “Give it to them”.  You ask God for something and He puts it on you to find the solution while you have nothing.  Jesus didn’t have any food in His hands but they were asking Jesus for food to eat.  Give them food to eat was his answer.

 

When you reach a roundabout and you haven’t decided which lane to take, you panic and maybe stop in the middle of the roundabout and then a person will beep at you and you will miss the road and try again.  Sometimes God takes us around and around and you have to give yourself the answer.  You are capable, don’t stop at the roundabout because you will create a problem and someone might be killed.  You can’t say, I will leave my car here and walk.  You need to move at the roundabout and have to get prepared for vehicles that come and we have to be alert on right and left, how will I escape.

 

Jesus said it is your role to play, find something for these people.  How?  Ourselves, we have nothing.  We are too far from the shops.  How will we do this?  They were moving and thinking what they could say, they didn’t have money or shops or enough bread to feed everybody.  “How many loaves do you have?” Jesus asked His disciples.  He knew they had nothing.  The disciples were not prepared to stay there forever and were sure they will go back home and won’t need to bring food with them.

 

This is the challenge God sometimes puts us in.  You have to give offering and people will tell you, I have nothing.  Maybe give your heart, voice to sing.  He needs what you give from the deep of your heart.  Jesus said, “Put those people together in groups of 50s and 100s.  The disciples counted.  How long can it take to count those groups and when they were counting, they were hungry and tired while people are moving and disturbing the order so the disciples had to count again.  After counting and putting them in the groups, “Who has food among you?”

 

The little boy whose mother gave him 5 bread and 2 fish spoke up.  Jesus came by water (on the sea) and the people ran on the land.  The fish comes from water and the bread comes from the land.  The fish and the bread met together in the bag of the little boy.  No one knew what was inside of the bag while people were hungry.  The boy spoke up, I have some bread.  Five loaves.  A crowd of thousands and you only have five bread.  Jesus said, bring it here.

 

Once they brought it to Jesus.  Before they saw the bread and fish, they have to unpack the bag.  You can have all the blessings with you while others are crying with hunger but you have to unpack what is inside.  When you think about the desert (where they were) you think about dry land with sand and no grass but miraculously there was grass here because Jesus said to sit on the grass.

 

You might be in a situation where everything in your life is dry (love, relationships, money is dry) but God can make grass for you with a group of 50 people to make happiness in your life.  In that big crowd of people with a little child with his little bag of fish and bread and no one noticed him because he was just a child.  Maybe the disciples were only asking adults and putting the children aside.  That is what the church is doing today.  I’m a pastor, I only want to talk to pastors.  You people down there, I have nothing to do with you.

 

Lord our God blesses you through small things.  The first Adam was created as a man but the second Adam was born as a baby.  Jesus was born as a child.  Why not come down as a fully grown man?  The Kingdom of God is like children.  The secret behind children?  Jesus calls us children of God even though we are adults.  I’m an adult but God will say, you are my child.

 

This young boy didn’t cook the fish or bake the bread, the mother did the job and gave it to him to eat.  The mother did not come with the boy, he went by himself.  The boy is among the crowd of adults with fish and bread hidden, bring him out.

 

When you are at the roundabout in your life, look at the children (those who are humble and will tell you the truth).  Jesus took the five bread and counted them.  How long would it have taken to count?  Two seconds to count the fish and bread while the disciples had to count groups of 50s which took time.  Five plus two equals seven which we all know the meaning of that number.

 

The people were sitting down waiting and hungry.  Be patient.  Jesus picked up the bread and broke it piece by piece.  Hurry up Jesus, we are hungry.  Jesus broke it into small pieces and maybe some pieces were dropping on the ground.  Finally the blessings started to show up.  The power of breaking the bread started to show up.

 

If you want blessing in your life, accept to be broken first.  Accept to be broken in pieces and accept that you are nothing and that is when God will bring you a huge blessing that can feed 4000 men.  If you don’t want to be broken because it hurts, God will tell you, “If you don’t accept to be broken, forget about my blessings”.

 

All those in the Bible who were blessed, even healings, He will tell you, you are a sinner, sin no more.  I will break you by informing everyone here, you are a sinner, don’t sin anymore.  Imagine you are exposed in front of the crowd.  How will you feel?

 

This rich person, “I’ve done everything God, now tell me how to inherit the Kingdom of God”.  Give away your wealth.  “No way, I’m against that”.

 

This young boy made a big sacrifice to give away his food and he stayed there empty handed because he gave everything away.  He didn’t hide it or keep for himself but gave for the entire crowd, “Jesus take it all, do what you want”.  How often do you give to God all that you have?  We very often hold onto half of it and only give God a portion because we believe we will lose something. 

 

God is asking you to give it all and the boy did.  Suddenly they forget about the boy and only focus on their own loaves and fish.  They started to eat.  After eating the bread, the Bible says that 12 baskets were collected.  Why do you cry or complain about your situation everytime and tell God you don’t have enough?  God is saying you have your bag with you, five loaves and two fish, it’s enough for you and others but why don’t you bring it out and share with others.

 

I only have $10, what can I do with this? I have two kids, maybe we can have fish and chips and then while I’m thinking, Ange turns up with four girls and then Annette with Chris.  If I buy $10 chips with this crowd of people, my children will not have enough.  We become selfish, I will wait for them to leave so we can have enough.

 

God says, “I have given something small in your pocket but you don’t want to share with others”.  Some will prefer to use the money for a movie ticket while someone is hungry.  Where is love, where is Christianity?  Aren’t we like the disciples, God has given them a crowd and He feels compassion because they had no leader.  The disciples had knowledge for themselves but not to share with others.  Judas had money but didn’t suggest to buy food, “No, I’m a good accountant, we don’t have to spend money”.

 

When it is a matter of money, people become serious.  Because of love of money, people will fight the government, their bosses, the shopkeepers, “you gave me the wrong change”.  Here Jesus is teaching us to give it all.  The boy didn’t say, “mummy said its mine, I can’t share it”.  He opened his heart, “here it is”.  Now this small boy is written in the Bible as sharing his food.  Where were the adults?  Maybe some adults had something small but didn’t want to give it, they kept it for themselves and when the miracle was performed, they thought, oh I should have given.

 

We sometimes run behind God and ask God for something and He says, “You have it,” and you go around and around the roundabout and God says, “Give what you have”.  What you have to do is open your mouth and ask God what road should I take?  That is the first mistake Adam did.  When the serpent arrived and gave Eve the fruit.  Why didn’t they wait for God and ask Him if they were allowed to eat it.  Because of lack of patience they didn’t want to wait.  We always need patience in life.

 

If you don’t have patience, you don’t have love.  Those who sat down waiting, they could not see this if they couldn’t wait for the disciples.  Once the miracle happened, the job of the disciples was to distribute the food and people were eating with joy.  How do you feel when people eat with joy with you?  Some might feel like telling the visitors, “You have eaten enough now, stop now,” because they are thinking of tomorrow. 

 

When God gave the manna, that bread could only be eaten today and not tomorrow because God gives more tomorrow.  The blessing that you get, even the talking that you do, seeing people are all blessings so use it and share in a nice way with others.  Be kind with others.  Treat others like human beings.  God is asking us to use our blessings so others benefit from it.  If you have extra shoes, give them to others and that is how you get more blessings.  After giving away, you will be surprised to see you still have 12 baskets of blessings (After eating, Jesus said to collect it all the leftovers). 

 

We send our children and we want them to be children of God.  When satan comes in our family and wants to snatch our child, what do we do?  Stop, give him/her back and you fight.  The secret to finding the solution is to pray, seek God first.

 

God says, I’m here for you.  Show off pastors will pray and command Jesus and Jesus says, “I will not do it, who are you to command me?”  Give your problem to Jesus directly, He will break you but give you the solution and you will get all the blessing.  Don’t minimise yourself, you have enough because five loaves fed 4,000 people.  Two words in front of God is enough.  A pastor can never sort out your issues, talk to God, He is your friend and God and provider.  God can do it.  There is no other solution except for God. 

 

Instead of going around the roundabout, ask God which way to take and He will tell you which exit to take and you will continue your journey.

What is joy? What is blessing?

By Odon Bulamba (26 September 2003)

The Bible says that when two or three are gathered together to serve the Word, God is always with us. And the Spirit of God is here to lead us and teach us more. Blessed are those that believe in the Lord because the Lord will trust them. Blessed are those that believe in the Lord because they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who believe in God because the kingdom of God belongs to them and I am very happy because we believe in Him and because we are going to reap the fruit of all these blessings. We are going to talk a little bit about blessings but before talking about blessings I am going to ask about joy. What is joy?

God’s joy comes from the depth of your heart and there is also joy that is showed by our physical being and when God’s joy is with you, you sometimes don’t even feel hungry. And that is why some people can fast for 50 or 60 days without dying, they can fast for 20 or 30 days without eating or drinking anything. They completely forget about hunger because they are joyful and when a human being is joyful, all the body is excited, he will have a smile on his lips and everything around him will please him and he will forget about his problems and will feel something is boiling in his heart and this makes him happy.

Who doesn’t need joy in his life? I’ve never found someone who is an enemy of joy but always enemies of anger or mistrust. When you don’t have joy you feel sick. Sometimes even your body doesn’t want food and what is pleasing to the eyes doesn’t even attract you when you are in distress because you don’t have joy. But when you have joy, even if you break glass, this is a small problem.

This is the first point to help a Christian to solve his problems. If you have a problem and need a solution, try to find joy in the Lord first. Joy in the Lord will make your problem very small and when this problem is minimised you will have enough time to think about it and act accordingly. So when you have a problem, don’t accept this problem to lead you to distress because if you lose your joy you will be very annoyed and you might not even find a solution to your problem. Joy also helps in times of temptation. When you are tempted and you have the joy of the Lord you will always feel victorious and feel that God is with you. You will understand that this small problem will pass and you will be victorious. Many people when they have joy they don’t fear death. They say even if death would come now I would be ready to go and I would be in God’s kingdom today, because of joy only.

We won’t talk too much about joy but we are going to talk about blessing. What is a blessing? Every day people say God bless you, what is it?

If we look at blessing, a blessing first of all is eternal and difficult to define because it is very big. It has a few dimensions. As for us Christians today, God has called us to bless. A blessing might be a prayer, it might be a wish, a prophecy, and it might be also a will of a man towards a man. If I want for example God to bless your work I am ready to kneel down and I will tell God that my will is that Michelle’s work might be blessed and because God said that every word that comes from my mouth might be considered, from there you will be blessed.

In Genesis 24:35 we find an example to see how God blesses His own. This is Abraham’s servant that talks, ‘God blessed my master and he found material goods’. We can all ask God to find material things. God is able to give us material things if we ask him and this will be a blessing. So when I need clothes or a house or a car, or camels, I am entitled to tell God, ‘I want you to give me this to me. I won’t buy it or ask anyone but I want you, God, to give it to me’.

How does God give us material things? Sometimes through other people and sometimes miraculously. So if I need something and I need to be blessed by God it means I need an abundance in these things. When I tell God I need shoes, God can give you one pair of shoes but when you ask God, I want a blessing to find shoes God might give me ten pairs of shoes and that is what makes the difference between a prayer. Many Christians pray and say give me the gift of the Spirit for example and God is able to give you one or two gifts or give it to you for a short time. But if you really want God to give it to you always tell God, bless me, I need your blessing by receiving your gift of the Holy Spirit. Because an eternal blessing I will be with us forever.

Another example, someone asked God to give you work. It is good to ask for work, but maybe you will work for one or three years and then it will be over. But if you asked God for the blessing of the work, God will open the doors of blessing, you will have this work and everything that you do at this work will be blessed. And God will always be with you. This is the first way and through that, people will start testifying that you are blessed. People will never say, ‘Colleen knows how to find money’, they will say, ‘Colleen is blessed, Sylvie is blessed, Michelle is blessed, everybody is blessed’, because we don’t find it with our own means. When men look for things there are always limits. But when God blesses, men get more and the blessing too can be given to our families.

God bless my children so they might know you. God bless my husband so he might be saved. God bless my brother or sister so they might see God’s hands in their lives and this is a prayer of freedom. Freedom comes from blessing. When you want to set free someone who is sick, or in distress, of course to use the name of Jesus is good but ask for God’s blessing first. Say to God, may your blessing be in the life of this person.

Genesis 1:32, when God met Adam He said, be blessed and multiply and this multiplying keeps going today. Up to today we keep seeing Adams descendents but Adam had a problem at the beginning and his problem was that he couldn’t find some one that was similar. He was annoyed with that and God gave him a wife. God knew that with only one wife they wouldn’t be happy. When they argued, who would intervene and when they will be in distress, nobody would comfort them. So God said, here it is, I give you the blessing of multiplication and when God gives a blessing, nobody can stop it. The devil can never stop it and men can’t either. So please ask for the blessing every time you pray and there you will be really victorious.

Psalm 103:1,2. First of all God blesses man and it is up to us now to bless God. What does it mean to bless God? To thank him for everything He has done in your life; physically and spiritually. Tell your soul, my soul bless this Lord. Bless the Lord for all he has done for you.

Before telling your soul, bless the Lord, you must know what your soul is. What is your soul? It is life. Our lives must bless the Lord and to bless the Lord is to be thankful for what He is doing. When we see the sun in the morning we must bless the Lord. When for example we have a rest during the night, we must bless the Lord. When we walk we must bless Him and everything that breathes must bless the Lord. So the soul that is alive must absolutely bless the Lord. Why don’t we bless the Lord in our actions? Because often we don’t realise that God needs a blessing.

This is God’s principal; if you want more you must give. If you give Gods blessings, God in His time will bless you too. But if you don’t bless the Lord, you will be blessed of course but not to the point you will be very joyful. And the Bible says that whoever will bless Israel, I will bless him also. We have already talked about Israel - it means to fight with God. And when you bless this step of this fight between you and God, God will bless you too. When you go through difficulties and you want God to do something and you bless God during that time, you will be really blessed.

Isaiah 65:16, Whoever asks the blessing for himself the blessing will be given to him. It is written that what was in the past won’t be there anymore, it is going to disappear. So when you ask for a blessing you must get expect a change. Tell God, bless me Lord, for eg bless my studies and I will pass with 90% this year, last year was 70% and the year before was 60% but this year I want 90% so bless me in that. And I believe that the past is the past and I believe in something new and God will do something if you bless yourself.

Who would not like to bless yourself? Every day we say God bless me, so say today in Jesus name bless me. In Jesus name I bless myself. Because my son does not believe in Jesus Christ, today I will bless him and what was past was past and from now on I see him as a Christian so I bless myself with that prayer. At work for e.g. you go through a difficult time, bless your time, bless your surroundings and bless yourself and you will see how God will do something.

Genesis 31:55, in the morning Laban woke up to bless his children. The first thing was the blessing. I’m going to ask you a question; Colleen, when you wake up in the morning, what do you tell your husband? Colleen said, “Are you awake”. Sylvie when you wake up in the morning what do you tell Michael? Sylvie, “I say, I love you Michael”. Early in the morning we must absolutely bless others. Oh God bless this man, bless my wife, God bless my family, my children, I bless you, my husband I bless you this morning may God be with you during the day. Because a blessing is a door and you will never enter a house if you never open the door. You must open the door first so that you might find your way. And if you leave the door closed you will not go through. So it is better to bless our families in the morning. It’s better to bless our children, our husbands and wives and every body else with us in the morning without forgetting God. Amen!

Isaiah 2:20, when the morning came people started throwing away every thing they offered to idols because it was a new time, it was a time when they realised that they didn’t have to keep this anymore. They discovered it was not the right time to keep what they had any more. So we must think about the rats and the bats. We must throw away everything we have as idols and when we speak the blessing we must reject the curse. And the curse represents things that are like idols, the curse represents everything that comes from the devil, it represents hatred and jealousy and every power of man. We must throw it away as the bible says to the rats and the bats. We have already talked about the bats here and who knows what the rats are?

It’s a very clever animal and it is a destructor, it doesn’t care about what man likes. The rat doesn’t say sorry and his teeth are always here to destroy. And the rat will never be afraid to destroy your clothes and you will never know if a rat is happy or angry and sometimes rats attack people. When you sleep at night the rat comes and attacks often the heel, he smells and then he eats the man’s heels. And when you move it stops so that you might not feel the pain and then it keeps eating. This is the principal of the rat. The rat always hides what he is doing. He will put his nose underneath the cushion of a chair, he will hide his nest in a place where man can’t see. And his nest will be built with clothes or books and he does everything to destroy.

And we know some people have rats as their friends and as pets. They eat with rats and walk with rats and spend money on the rats. But the rats will never spend anything for you. They will only be there to destroy. And there are people who give opportunities to the devil and don’t want blessing in their lives and they want to use lies. They prefer to use deception and hypocrisy and using things that are not really blessed and all these just eat up their souls. But if we ask the blessing from God we are asked to throw all this away and ask ourselves what I am doing, is it a blessing or not, isn’t it idolatry? Even if it is gold, diamond or silver or something valuable, am I not worshipping another god apart from my God.

Once when I was praying to God, God told something to me through Jeremiah 2:22. Even if you use soap, even if you clean yourself for five days with soap your sin will still be there. And many people wash their body and use deodorant and use nice soap, they wear make up but this doesn’t change anything before God. What is the role of soap? I think we use it to clean and to kill germs. But for God that is not enough. It’s like the blood the Israelites used to clean themselves, the blood of animals was not enough, it would only cover sin.

Only the blood of Jesus is sufficient to purify. That is why last time I told you that the Bible is a holy book. When we talk about holiness we see straight away sanctification and sanctification is something very useful in the Christian life. We have talked about sanctification superficially but I think we will talk about it more in depth so we might understand what it means to be holy, so we might understand what soap means for the Christian life.

When you are holy, whenever you ask for a blessing, the blessing will be given to you. When you are holy, whenever you go through a problem, God will always be with you. When you are holy, even if people laugh at you, at the last minute God will raise you up as He did for Job and others. Blessing doesn’t cost anything and doesn’t require a 15 minute prayer; it’s just a question to open your mouth and talk, that is it. If for example, my friend is a sinner, I can tell God, ‘I bless this girl, may her sin be erased. I bless this girl’s life and may her life be changed immediately’ and her life will change abundantly.

Eventually we are going to read Numbers 6:23-27, so if you want the name of the Lord to be on the life of your brother or sister, if you want your life or surrounding to be blessed, the formula is there. It is very simple. It doesn’t take 15 minutes of prayer and if you don’t know this one by heart, open your Bible and read it and you will tell God, I want to bless Sylvie, oh Sylvie may the Lord bless you. May the Lord shine on you, may the Lord give you his peace, may the Lord give you his grace and may the Lord’s hand be with you and that is it. This is the blessing that she gets, whether she wants it or not, she gets it. She might accept or not, but this blessing is given.

Blessing is like rain, when the rain falls even if the rain is ready or not to receive this water, the ground will get it. Even if the ground says I am wet, that is enough, the rain will come and water will never reject water. And when the rain falls even if there is thunder, thunder will never stop the rain. Maybe people will be scared but the rain will never be scared, the rain will keep going and that is the same thing with blessing.

The Bible says that satan makes the noise of a roaring lion but the noise it makes will never stop the blessing because the blessing is like rain. Even if you bless someone who is in satan’s camp or if you bless a problem that is so big to you, nobody will stop this blessing and God will be over this person and God will be over everything that you blessed.

Do you know the little secret Moses had? When Moses talked, God would always manifest Himself; when Moses would say make this water turn into blood for example, God would just do it and this is the secret of the blessing. Open your mouth, talk and it’s up to God to do it, that’s it. Don’t minimise yourself, don’t say no for me it won’t work. Try and you will see. And if you want it tonight, try it and you will see the result. Blessing is not a gift from God, to say that I don’t have this gift, to say this gift belongs to Michael only, it’s not mine, no blessing is for everyone. If you believe in God you are here to bless and your blessings will be blessings. The blessings you give will really be given and God will fulfil.

We are going to pray and bless whatever and whoever you want, bless your family or whoever and we will see what God will do.

I am fearfully and wonderfully made

By Angela Bhandal

I am fearfully and wonderfully made…what does this mean and do we believe it?

Psalm 139:13-14

I recently went to a plastic surgery conference and learnt how amazing the body is and how difficult it is to repair it when damaged or sick.


Psalm 139:14 reads; "I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are your works, and my soul knows very well."

In the original Hebrew text, the word 'fearfully' means: with great reverence and heart-felt interest and respect. The word 'wonderfully' means: unique, set apart, uniquely marvelous.

What does God see when He looks at us? What really does he see? God helped me understand this question by analysing ourselves. When we look at our children what do we see? I marvel when I look at my three beautiful girls that have been created by myself and my husband. I am constantly amazed at how they grow and the things that they say or how they interpret the world. How did they get from being a baby to a 7 year old? How did their legs stretch/their bones grow along with their skin? Amazing.

In Ephesians 2:10 God talks about us as being his masterpiece or workmanship - something of great worth and to show off and be proud of.


Amazing Facts About the Human Body System
There are thousands of these human body facts which are bound to leave you spell bound and wanting more. We have listed some of the most interesting ones for you below.
• The human head measures approximately one-quarter of the total body length at our birth, but one-eighth of the total body length by the time we reach adulthood.
• As adults we have fewer bones than what we had as babies. During infancy, there are 350 bones present in out body, but as we grow the bones fuse and by the time we reach adulthood, we are only left with 206 bones. Read more on how many bones are in the human body.
• The length of blood vessels in our body would sum up to about 60,000 miles if they are laid end to end. Around 2000 gallons of blood is pumped through these vessels every day.
• The human lung contains around 3000 million tiny blood vessels known as capillaries. If these blood vessels were laid end to end they could stretch over an area of 1500 miles.
• Skin is the largest organ in the human body. The skin of an adult man can cover an area of approximately 20 sq. ft.
• Talking about the cells, the largest cell in the human body is the female egg, while the smallest cell is the male sperm.
• A man's testicles produce around 10 million sperm cells every day. These are enough to repopulate the entire world within a period of 6 months
• The acids present in our stomach are strong enough to digest zinc. If our stomach was not capable of continuously producing new stomach lining, these strong acids would have digested our stomach. Read more on anatomy of human abdomen.
• Every one knows that the human brain is very sharp, but not many people know that a single cell of the human brain has the capacity to store as much information as the information in 5 Encyclopedia Britannica's. Read more on facts on the human brain.
• When it comes to supporting weight, the human bone has immense power. A single block of human bone, the size of a matchbox, has the capacity to support a whopping 9 tonnes.
• One of the most amazing facts about the human body is that it can give off heat enough to boil a gallon of water within half an hour.
• Although the human nose is not as sensitive as dogs, it can remember around 50,000 different scents with ease.
• Each of our fingernails and toenails take around 6 months to grow from its base to the tip.
These were some of the most amazing facts about the human body for kids and adults alike. You liked them! Didn't you? OK, you can also have a look at some of the most interesting facts about the nervous system and some of the most fascinating facts about the digestive system.

Useless Facts About the Human BodyIf the amazing facts about the human body weren't enough, here are some more interesting facts about it. They may not be of much use for us, but that doesn't mean they are not interesting.
• Each square inch of human skin has approximately 32 million bacteria on it. Wait! You don't need to panic as most of them are harmless.
• Skin shedding is not restricted to animals, human beings also shed copious amounts of skin in form of skin flakes. In fact, every individual sheds around 40 lbs of skin throughout their lifetime.
• There are around 500,000 sweat glands on a pair of human feet, which can produce around a pint of sweat everyday.
• Although, all the organs of human body stop growing after we cross a particular age, the ears and nose continue growing.
• Interestingly enough, an average individual produces around 25,000 quarts of saliva in his lifetime. That can fill two average sized swimming pools.

Amazing Facts About the Human Body courtesy of Buzzle.com

Joy and Blessings

By Odon Bulamba (summary only - 26 Sept 03)

What is joy?

God’s joy comes from the depth of your heart. It comes from inside and is emotional and spiritual but manifests itself in the physical. Some people are so full of joy they can fast for 40 days and not feel hunger! You can know a person is joyful because all the body is excited, he will have a smile on his lips and everything around him will please him and he will forget about his problems and will feel something is boiling in his heart and this makes him happy. When you don’t have joy though, even the smallest problem will feel like the biggest mountain and people can even become physically sick because of lack of joy (depression).

This is the first point to help a Christian to solve his problems. If you have a problem and need a solution, try to find joy in the Lord first. Joy in the Lord will make your problem very small and when this problem is minimised you will have enough time to think about it and act accordingly. So when you have a problem, don’t accept this problem to lead you to distress because if you lose your joy you will be very annoyed and you might not even find a solution to your problem.

Joy also helps in times of temptation. When you are tempted and you have the joy of the Lord you will always feel victorious and feel that God is with you. You will understand that this small problem will pass and you will be victorious. Many people when they have joy they don’t fear death. They say even if death would come now I would be ready to go and I would be in God’s kingdom today, because of joy only.

What does it mean to be blessed?

There are three topics we will talk about tonight regarding blessings:

1. God blesses us
2. We bless God
3. We bless others

Blessing first of all is eternal.

1. God blesses us

In Genesis 24:35 we find an example to see how God blesses His own. This is Abraham’s servant that talks, ‘God blessed my master and he found material goods’. We can all ask God to find material things. God is able to give us material things if we ask him and this will be a blessing. So when I need clothes or a house or a car, or camels I am entitled to tell God, ‘give me and I want you to give me. I won’t buy it or ask anyone but I want you God to give it to me’. How does God give us material things? Sometimes through other people and sometimes miraculously.

So if I need something, it’s important to pray in this way, “please God bless me with....” E.g. if you need more work or a better job, ask God to bless you with more work rather than just saying, please give me more work.
This is the first way and through that people will start testifying that you are blessed. When men look for things there are always limits. But when God blesses men get more and the blessing too can be given to our families. God bless my children so they might know you. God bless my husband so he might be saved. God bless my brother or sister so they might see God’s hands in their lives and this is a prayer of freedom. Freedom comes from blessing. When you want to set free someone who is sick, or in distress, of course to use the name of Jesus is good but ask for God’s blessing first. Say to God may your blessing be in the life of this person.

Genesis 1:32, when God met Adam He said be blessed and multiply and this multiplying keeps going today. Up to today we keep seeing Adams descendents. When God gives a blessing, nobody can stop it. The devil can never stop it and men can’t either. So please ask for the blessing every time you pray and there you will be really victorious.

2. We Bless God

Psalm 103:1,2. First of all God blesses man and it is up to us now to bless God. What does it mean to bless God? To thank him for everything He has done in your life; physically and spiritually. Tell your soul, my soul bless this Lord. Bless the Lord for all he has done for you.

What is your soul? It is life. Our lives must bless the Lord and to bless the Lord is to be thankful for what He is doing. So the soul that is alive must absolutely bless the Lord. If you want more you must give. If you give God blessings, God in his time will bless you too. But if you don’t bless the Lord you will be blessed of course but not to the point you will be very joyful. And the Bible says that whoever will bless Israel I will bless him also. Israel means to fight with God. When you go through difficulties and you want God to do something and you bless God during that time you will be really blessed.

Genesis 31:55, in the morning Laban woke up to bless his children. Early in the morning we must absolutely bless others. Oh god bless this man, bless my wife, God bless my family, my children I bless you, my husband I bless you this morning may God be with you during the day. It’s better to bless our children, our husbands and wives and every body else with us in the morning without forgetting God. Amen!

3. Bless Others

Numbers 6:23-27, so if you want the name of the Lord to be on the life of your brother or sister, if you want your life or surrounding to be blessed, the formula is there. It is very simple. It doesn’t take 15 minutes prayer and if you don’t know this one by heart, open your Bible and read it and you will tell God I want to bless Michelle, oh Michelle may the Lord bless you. May the Lord shine on you, may the Lord give you his peace, may the Lord give you his grace and may the Lord’s hand be with you and that is it. This is the blessing that she gets, whether she wants it or not, she gets it. She might accept or not, but this blessing is given. Blessing is like rain, when the rain falls even if the ground isn’t ready for it or it is already wet, nothing will stop the rain. The ground will not be able to stop the rain and that is the same thing with blessings. Even if you bless someone who is in satan’s camp or if you bless a problem that is so big to you, nobody will stop this blessing and God will be over this person and God will be over everything that you blessed. Don’t minimise yourself, don’t say no for me it won’t work, try and you will see. And if you want it tonight, try it and you will see the result. Blessing is not a gift from God, to say that I don’t have this gift, to say this gift belongs to Michael only it’s not mine, no blessing is for everyone. If you believe in God you are here to bless and your blessings will be blessings. The blessings you give will really be given and God will fulfil.

We have to remember though that God’s blessings are sometimes different to what we consider a blessing. Eg. I once asked God to bless me to have wisdom in my way of talking and He blessed me with a headache that was so severe that I could only say the bare minimum and I understood that God was helping me to learn what is and what isn’t important to talk about.

Another girl I once knew asked God to bless her so that her parents might come to church and she got cancer in her leg and because it amputated so high, she could no longer find her own way to church and her parents were obliged to take her and praise God because they were now going to church.

So let’s not think negatively when things are not going the way we think and let’s not tell God He has cursed us but remember to praise Him and bless Him and thank Him for the blessings He gives us even if we can’t understand at the time why we are crossing such a hard situation.

We are going to pray and bless whatever and whoever you want, bless yourself, your family, your friends and don’t forget to bless God and we will see what God will do.

For the full message please email: littlebethlehem@windowslive.com