Hannah

Time is not waiting for us and is passing so fast.  What you saw yesterday has gone and you will not see it again.  We are living today by grace and we are not sure what will happen tomorrow so hold onto what you have now because in the future, it may not be yours.  Be proud what God has given to you now because you don’t know what will happen tomorrow.

I’m happy to be here this morning and I wasn’t sure if I could make it but by God’s grace, I am here.

1 Samuel 1, Samuel is a prophet we all know.  Before Samuel existed, someone else was there, the parents of Samuel.  Today I want to share about the parents of Samuel.  Elkanah was the father of Samuel.  He was rich because he could afford to marry two wives.  Elkanah married the first wife, Peninnah and after that he took the second wife who was the mother of Samuel, her name was Hannah.

Those two wives lived together in the Samuel’s place.  One, Peninnah, was blessed and could give birth to children but Hannah could not give birth.  God decided to close Hannah’s womb.  Hannah was so beautiful and she was a kind and committed wife and had the qualities of women of that time could have but one thing was missing and that was to have a child.

In the old time, every women from the community of Joshua wanted to give birth because God promised Eve in the garden of Eden, the child that you will give birth to will do something against satan.  Satan will bite the heal of the child and the child will defeat satan.  It was a race for every single women to give birth to a boy because you never know, maybe it will be the one to fulfil that promise, the child who will defeat satan.  It was ike a competition.

When Elkanah took Hannah, it was a big ceremony.  When we come to Jesus, He says, I want you to be my wife, be my partner and walk by my side, we will have a wedding ceremony.  When women prepare for their wedding there is happiness, excitement, counting down the time.  That joy was growing bigger in Hannah’s heart because she knew that very soon she will live with Elkanah, “Very soon I will get pregnant, give birth and have descendants and maybe one of my children will be the child to defeat satan”.

That joy of getting married can make people not to sleep thinking about the big ceremony and what to wear etc.  Then when Hannah was living with her husband, things changed.  The wedding has gone and now she is the wife of the house: cooking, cleaning, washing, doing different activities for her husband and family and her deep desire was to have a child. Meanwhile the other wife was giving birth maybe every year.

Hannah was wondering what was going on.  How come she can give birth but I can’t?  It didn’t stop there.  Peninnah started to mock Hannah.  Even if Hannah was good in cooking Peninnah will say, “yeah, you might be good in cooking but shame on you, you didn’t have a child”.

Every year the community of Jewish people will go to give God offerings and during that time Elkanah would take his two wives and children and share money or what his family had to offer to God.  Although everybody was happy Hannah was sad and miserable because she didn’t have a child. 

Jesus has made us to be his wife and expects us to give birth to children but the shocking thing is that Christians don’t care if they don’t give birth.  What is to give birth? To make disciples.  Paul wrote, some people are called His children.  You can have a spiritual mother/father meaning that someone brought the gospel to you and you are saved.  Jesus is waiting to see what kind of fruit you will produce because if you don’t produce fruit, you will be cut off.  You can be a wife of Jesus but when you don’t produce (even if you have nice green leaves) if there is no fruit, there is the chance to be cut off and thrown in the fire.

The birth that we will give, that is what will defeat satan.  If I have the fruit of kindness and I am kind, it is not easy for satan to defeat me. I should be kind to my soul and that will make me to not sin.  All the fruit that you will bare will help you to defeat satan and once you fail to carry the fruit of the Holy Spirit but instead carry the fruit of the flesh, you will be defeated.

Hannah needed to give birth, this was the pain of her heart and the problem inside of her.  The husband was like, I am worthy more than 10 children to you.  If Jesus is here, that is enough but we should produce fruit.  To have Jesus in your life is not enough.  If you want to follow Jesus, you have to carry your own cross which is your soul.  For your soul to be alive, you need to produce.  That is why the Word of God says, faith without action is dead.

The church will tell you today, I trust in Jesus and He is doing everything for me.  No, Jesus should not do everything for you.  You have some responsibilities.  There is a contract in the life of Jesus.  Yes, Jesus I will marry you, yes, I will follow you for the rest of my life.  Remember the first disciples, Jesus said follow me and those disciples left everything, their jobs, their families and all that they enjoyed in life and followed Jesus,

Then after a time, He started to tell them that He will die.  The disciples must have wondered, what will become of me if you die?  I left everything to follow you.  We must follow Jesus and surrender all and know it is only for a short time, we might lose everything because of Him.

Hannah was provoked by Peninnah, “Your beauty is nothing because you don’t give birth”.  Your womb is empty.  Sometimes God will bring you in front of situations where there is mocking, people criticise you and nothing you do is pleasing to others.  Hannah realised her help will never come from a human being, “I should bring it all to God”.

Hannah went to the place of offering and opened her heart and started to pray, “Lord listen to me, this is the pain that I have been going through”.  Today in the church before to pray people start to think about what they will say when they pray and they start to choose their words carefully and use maybe words that they have memorised.  The one who is going through pain and hardship won’t have time to search for beautiful words but will break down in tears and spew it all in front of God.

Hannah cried in front of God, expressing her feelings.  When you pray, how often do you cry to God? How long do you take to kneel down to tell God about your problems and how often do you admit that the only solution is God.  Hannah couldn’t eat.  When you have a serious problem - that is the best time to come to God and bring it all out.

In the church we look left and right to see who is next to me.  I concentrate on what is next to me and I lower my voice and I forget that this is my time with my Lord and I shouldn’t be distracted.

By praying Hannah asked for a son, “if you give me this boy, I will give him back to you”.  What a big contract, what a powerful prayer.  If you fulfil my prayer, in return that is what you will get God.  After some time God fulfilled Hannah’s desire.  Hannah became pregnant.  You may be walking with Jesus every time but when you haven’t had time yet to kneel before God and present all your problems, it will just be a routine of prayer without changes.  If you take your situation seriously, God will take your situation seriously. 

It will be monotonous – repeating the Samuel prayer every time.  Why do you go to church?  Because it’s Sunday, because others go, to meet with others, to read the Bible or is it to meet with Jesus and to produce the fruit of the Holy Spirit?  I need to be seen as a mother who cares.

Adam was a man and he couldn’t do everything by himself.  Eve was given to Adam to help him.  You are the Eve of the church.  He has given you a body, spirit and mind that should produce and multiply. When the Holy Spirit enters you and you conceive, do you keep that pregnancy or do you cause it to abort?  Do you keep the Word of God or do you destroy it because you don’t want to become a true Christian and give birth?  We are all weak but when we kneel before him, He intervenes.

Hannah was pregnant.  I’m sure she was walking proud.  Her husband loved Hannah more than Peninnah.  Now maybe Elkanah wanted to spend more time with Hannah.  Peninnah was becoming jealous.  Do you know how many people God will put aside just for you, “I want to listen to you Levi because you are bearing something in you”.

After giving birth everything went well but the challenge came because she had promised to give her son back to God.  Imagine having to give your first born away. Not easy.  How much are you women attached to your babies?  Here for Hannah, she understood that soon her son must leave.

What contract have you taken with your God?  When your child is taken away, when will you see him again?  Hannah didn’t give the child away on the first year but took him on the second year and gave him to Eli.  When you are blessed with something and you are given something that you have been asking for, do you also give back to God what you promised to do?

We often say God give me strength and I will praise you.  When God gives us strength, do we then praise Him?  God give me this job and I will do this for you.  When we get the job, do we keep our promise?  Very often we fail.  When we fail we try to find excuses and those excuses are unfounded. 

Jesus is reminding us today, do you want to carry your cross, follow me.  I will give to you what you need but what you have promised to me, give back to me.  How often do we lie?  If you give me strength I will go to the Wednesday meeting but on Wednesday you decide you are too tired, you break your contract.

When one party fails to keep their part of the contract, then the contract fails.  If I don’t pay Tyrone who agreed to paint my house, then there is a conflict.  Very often we create a conflict with God by engaging in a contract and not fulfilling it.  Shouldn’t we repent? We have been lying to you God and giving false promises although you continue to bless us, we continue to lie to you and think our God is blind and doesn’t know what is happening.  God knows.

Eli saw Hannah praying and he thought she was drunk.  When was the last time you were praying and people thought you were drunk?  I’ve never been drunk but those that get drunk forget about themselves and stumble when they walk.  A power seizes them and they see three roads instead of one and can’t walk straight.  They can walk through things and not feel pain and don’t feel shame or shy.  The next morning they feel the pain.

Do you get lost in prayers?  If not then ask God to teach you how to get lost in prayers and get drunk in prayers so God can resolve your problems.  E.g. Pentecost.  When was the last time you sang and danced for your God and people thought that you were drunk?  When was the last time in your bedroom that you shouted and prayed as a drunk person?  When you are drunk you don’t choose your words, whatever comes you spew it out.  God loves it when you spew it all out to Him.

God understands you, your feelings.  Put your feelings in your prayer.  Don’t let God feel like you are boring when you are praying.  You might not find time again so give it to Him now.

When you have children that don’t talk and are shy, how do we feel?  One time I took one of my children somewhere and in front of everybody she was supposed to say two words but she couldn’t.  Instead of talking, she kept coming back to me.  Everybody understood that she wasn’t confident.  When you are confident, then everybody will open their eyes and try to listen to what you are saying.  Tell God to build up your confidence like Hannah.

Hannah knew very well that her last solution is God, “I don’t have to take revenge against Peninnah or keep things in my heart.  What people say doesn’t matter but what matters is what I’m telling my God”.  Once you reach that stage in life you will know how to carry your cross.  Remember our time is very short.  Very soon, God will ask you, “give your life back to Me now”.

Everything that God gives to you, it is not yours and you will give it back to Him.  Are you ready to give it back to Him?

The Secrets of the Cross

By Odon Bulamba

We are going to share the Word of God and I will try to go here and there to put all of this together.  Last time I talked about carrying your own cross and if you want to follow Jesus, you have to carry your own cross. Then I talked about Hannah who wanted a child and all she went through which is part of carrying your own cross: when you have a problem and people think differently.

Today I will talk about the cross of Easter and our cross we carry.

When Jesus was arrested, He was given a cross to carry and was forced to carry it and had no choice.  Although, He was tired, although He fell, they told him to stand up again and keep carrying your own cross. We don’t know how good the path was or if He had to go up hills but it was a long day and a big challenge for the Son of God. Carrying your soul is not a joke, it is quite hard and challenging.

Looking after your soul you will feel God’s pressure and God forcing you and you may fall down, feel tired, feel thirsty but God will push you and the Word of God will push you to encourage you to stand up and carry your cross (soul).

By Jesus carrying the cross we have salvation and when you say that you don’t want to carry your cross (soul), you may destroy that gift of salvation.  By carrying the cross, people were watching Him, stoning Him, some were mocking and others were against the whole story.  When you become a Christian, some will mock you for becoming a Christian and we start to hide our Christianity because we don’t fit in society.

For Jesus, He had to take it to the last point because he knew, “if I fail this mission, the whole humanity will fail.  I was sent to redeem humanity”.  You and I were also born for a purpose, we have a mission and the first mission is to look after your soul (carry your cross) and then save people.

Jesus went to Golgotha and now we are going to Golgotha.  We will reach a place where we are exposed in front of everybody.  Jesus was nailed to the cross that He carried.  When you accepted Jesus in your life and you started the journey to Golgotha and the whole world looked at you and knew you were a Christian, then temptation will arrive.  People will tell you, “if God is in you and on your side, why does this and that happen to your life?  Tell God to remove you from there,” and you will be nailed to your cross (soul) and you will not be able to be detached from your soul.

When you are doing things, think about your soul first.  If I steal $5 I will kill my soul.  My hands are nailed to my cross (soul) so they can’t move to steal.  If my feet want to take me somewhere wrong, I have to remind myself not to remove my feet from the cross or I will lose eternal salvation.

Jesus said, “Father forgive them”.  When you become a Christian, the first slogan must be forgiveness no matter what people do against you regardless of whether they have said sorry or not.  Pray for them and don’t wait for them to come back to you.  Forgive first, regardless of what they did because people can do things against us without knowing what they are doing.

Because of the love of your cross (soul), you have to pray to God for those you love for salvation so they can be next to you in the Kingdom of God.  How often do you pray for your neighbours, colleagues, your enemies to sit in the Kingdom of God?

Jesus said, “today I will see you in the Kingdom of God with me”.  Pray for all of Hamilton, New Zealand, the world to have salvation, to see them one day in the Kingdom of God.

Jesus said, “Women, this is your son and son this is your mother”.  Truly, the mother of Jesus was not the mother of that disciple but Jesus was meaning that we should treat each other as our parents and children.  The way you love your children, you should love others.  When your children make mistakes you don’t say that you will never talk again but you repair things and miss each other and pray for each other and try to live in unity as a family.  We should live in love and consider each other as family, like your own child.  You feel like you can’t change the love you have for your son and they will remain your son forever.  He can deny me or not but he is my son and it can’t be changed, it is a gift forever and those beside you, you should love as a son forever.  You should treat others in this way.

Jesus said, “My Lord why have you forsaken me”.  Sometimes we feel like God has forsaken or forgotten me.  Where are you God in my life? I am crossing this situation and I feel far from God.  When we feel this way, do we shout to God, “Lord wake up, and don’t forsake me Lord, be present every step of my life”.  God is like the air in our lungs, we breathe Him in and out.  If we can try to stop breathing, we can’t.  Breathing is effortless and costs nothing but your body needs it more than anything.

God wants you to have Him in your life every second of your day, breathe in and out God, when you talk, sleep, walk and when you are doing everything, think about God otherwise you will die.

Jesus said, I’m thirsty.  When you are taking care of your soul, you must be thirsty for the Word of God.  How often do you feel thirsty to pray, worship, or talk to God in a personal way?  When you are not thirsty, ask yourself, why don’t you drink enough these days.  One time I was sick and the first thing my doctor asked me was, “how often do you drink water?”  The doctor encouraged me to drink 10-15 glasses of water/day.  It sounded a lot but the doctor said it was what I need or I will kill myself and I will destroy all that God has given me.

The doctor was from South Africa and he said to me, “if your body is a temple of Jesus, why don’t you look after it.  He gives you clean water and clean cups.  Consume that water because at home, we fight for that water.  Sometimes we see frogs coming from our taps.  Here we play with water and misuse it”.  We have the Word of God in our hand in New Zealand but we don’t use it.  We avoid it while in other places to find a Bible is a problem and you can’t afford a preacher.

When you are thirsty, what do you do? When your soul is thirsty, what do you do? What are you thirsty of?

Jesus said, “It is finished”.  What was finished, the torture, the suffering, the time to be in front of the crowd.  Everything with a beginning has an end.  Your life has an end and very soon He will call you back and He will say, “your life on earth has finished”.  When it is finished, you commit your spirit into the hand of the Lord.  Jesus will say, “soul come back to My hand because your time over there is finished”.

How long do you have on this earth?  There will come a time when God will say, it is finished.  It doesn’t matter if you have assets or a degree or if you have good health or you are big or small,when it is finished, you have to commit your soul back to God.

The day of judgement is coming and your soul will stand before God and all your actions, attitude and all that you did will stand in front of God.  Although your body can remain here buried, your soul will take your actions.  What are your actions towards others, God and yourself?  How good are you to yourself?

I thought it was too hard to drink so much water, do I really care about my body.  When my soul needs to read the Word of God and I don’t, do I care about myself.  When Jesus says, change your way of living and I don’t, do I care about my soul.  If you die now, what will you present before God?  He doesn’t care about what you own, He only cares about your soul, the soul He gave to you.

Remember the story of the man who was given two coins and he buried them because he didn’t want problems with his master.  One day Jesus will say, “I gave you a body, soul and spirit, now present to me the result.  For 60 years you lived on the earth, what have you done on earth in that time?”  Do I have any feedback to give to God about my spirit? Do I have a final report to present to God about my soul?  For my body, yes, I used to sit in church but what about my soul.

Your body is only a third of your existence.  You can satisfy your body but you must also satisfy your spirit and soul.

Colossians 3:12

We who have been chosen by God, God loves us so much and sent His only child to die for us, He gives to us a clue to clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.  You can have compassion but it is naked.  You can have patience but it might be naked. 

Adam was living in the garden and the evening that he ate the fruit, God said, “where are you,” and Adam said, “I am hiding because I am naked”.  Adam's appearance didn’t change but he wasn’t covered properly.  When your patience isn’t covered properly, you have to clothe it.  What is the nakedness of compassion?

Jesus was on the cross crucified naked.  Adam was naked and God covered him.  After bringing Jesus down from the cross, they covered him.

Here are five things that we should be careful about.  We need them to wear proper clothes.  I had my shower this morning and chose my clothes.  I have a 4-5 briefcases full of clothes to choose from.  I lay my clothes out to choose which ones I will wear.  Sometimes I iron my clothes and then change my mind and iron new clothes.  Then I wear my clothes and I make sure that I look nice.  Even going to the supermarket, I must dress nicely because I don’t know who I will meet at the supermarket.

If I meet with my boss, I will be ashamed to look dirty.  We love so much to appear good and cover our bodies and prepare our clothes.  When we go to work, we prepare something to wear and for our souls it is the same. 

Look at your humility.  Sometimes I am humble but I can’t bear this anymore.  Don’t let your humility be exposed, don’t feel it is stretched and you can’t take anymore but cover it.  You have to do it daily, minute after minute. 

If food falls on you, you have to change your clothes.  Sometimes people hurt your compassion or kindness but don’t leave the stain there but put on new clothes.  This is the way children of God should work. 

Jesus said, “Lord forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing”.

These 7 sentences of Jesus, what do they teach us?

Colossians 4, devote yourselves to prayer and being thankful.  It’s not for God to devote Himself to you but for us to devote to Him.  People are extremely weak in prayer.  God who we call Lord my Father, He is waiting for us to talk to Him.  We try to make our prayers as short as possible because we have no time.

One time we were praying and in the middle of the prayer the phone rang and we were all wondering who was on the phone.  One time someone prayed for 7 minutes and we were all unhappy.  How long do we take to pray?  It is an appointment with you and God, you have invited Him to sit at the other side of the table.  You should ask God, what should I wear at the interview, what should I say, how should I work once I am there, show me how Your Name will be glorified through this job but we don’t, we just ask for the job.

Levi went to visit a little boy in Hamilton and when it was time to go home he said he wasn’t ready because of his friend but when I said KFC, he was ready to leave his friend.  Sometimes we only need God when we need something quick for our bodies.  I want you God because I want something from You and then we disappear.  Jesus is teaching us today that we have to remember God is God and not a human being and we have to treat God with respect.

By carrying our cross, we have to remember that we will stand in front of God one day and there is no one more important than Him.  Pray to God to ask him how to support your soul, how to clothe your patience, kindness, humility, compassion and forgiveness with nice clothes.

Take Up Your Own Cross

By Odon Bulamba


Blessed are those that understand the purpose of God in their lives because they will more likely hit the target and purpose.  Our purpose on earth isn’t just to enjoy but for a mission.  Once in a mission, always remember that at some stage we will go back to report to the boss.  All missions have an end and everything on this earth has an end except one thing, our soul.

God created human beings with the body, spirit and the soul.  Those three things work together but for God, the body is somehow less important, just a tool to help to carry and support the spirit and soul of a human being.  The role of the body is to work for the soul and spirit and once that mission is completed, that body will remain on earth and return to the soil while the soul and spirit will go back to God and give feedback of all that you have done while you were on earth.

Proverbs 11:1, God doesn’t like a balance that isn’t honest.  With a balance we can see a weight on one side and a weight on the other side and for it to be balanced, the weights must be equal.  E.g. 10kg paper equals 10kg stones and will require more paper required to balance the stones.

When God created you and me, He gave us a body and inside of us is the spiritual part and now He looks at us to see how we use our balance.  The balance of my body is often unfair.  I wake up early to shower, shave to look nice, I eat when I’m hungry and drink water when I’m thirsty.  I use my money to buy coffee when needed.  I respond to all the needs of my body without hesitation.  Sometimes when my body tells me that I’m tired, I find the right place to rest.

On the other side, the spiritual life and my soul is making an alarm, do I respond? Do I use that balance? Sometimes I tell my soul to wait, I’m not ready yet to answer or respond to your needs.  Sometimes I tell my soul, I am busy but when your stomach tells you that you are hungry, you stop what you are doing to find food and if you don’t feed yourself, you will starve and you lose your strength and then after a few days people will see you have lost weight and you may die for not feeding your body.  If people see you around town without clothes, they will be shocked and maybe even call the police.  When your soul is naked, what do you do?

Our cross is to take care of our souls.  It is not an easy job but a hard and tough job.  We can easily take care of our body and when we need money, to ask others for money.  When my soul needs something that I don’t understand, it becomes more challenging.  For me to respond to my physical needs, I have to first of all identify them.  I need a new pair of shoes, ok, my project is to buy a pair of shoes.  What needs to I know about my soul?

That is why Jesus said we should understand the secret of the cross. In heaven it was said that someone has to go to earth to redeem people.  It was not specified about the cross.  Maybe, Jesus was thinking about the lamb being slaughtered but if I had known about the cross, maybe I wouldn’t accept because of the suffering.  To take care of your soul, it is not an easy task.  God chose your soul rather than your body.  Your will live for eternity but your body will die so which one is more important?  The one that lives forever.

Our body grows old day after day but your soul never gets old.  God has taken this treasure the soul and said, “here is your cross, carry it and look after it”.  It is not only a matter of reading your Bible and memorising scripture but your soul has requirements.

There is a parallel between your soul carrying the cross and Jesus carrying the cross.

Imagine if we remove the word cross from your Bible? The Bible will not have any meaning because all that we talk about is about the cross.  Through the cross we have this and that.  God has put great importance in the cross because He wants to teach us today how to consider it.  Many people were there at the cross of Jesus and many had no clue or understanding what was happening and that the cross was something important for salvation.  All they could see was torture.

Jesus was taken in front of the authorities.  Jesus tried to defend himself, keep silent and regardless of Him being right and righteous, they said, “you have to carry your cross”.  When you are saved, regardless of your innocence you will find challenges and people will fight against you.  You don’t belong to the world.  There will be a fight.  Warnings were given for our souls.  Prepare yourself for a battle, spiritual and physical.  Satan roars like a lion and he wants to attack you because you want to take care of your soul.  Those who loved you yesterday will attack you.

The cross was given to Jesus, not to play with it or admire it but he was told to carry it and He was forced to carry it.  Wherever you go, your soul is with you, when you are asleep, when you wake up, when you go to the toilet, your soul is attached to you.  To carry things we have to think first of all how to carry it.  How will you carry a cross?  Maybe on your back?  Some might use their heads.  Others use their hands.  The essential is to use your hands.  Without hands it is almost impossible to carry something.

Why do we give our lives to God’s hands and not his thigh or chest?  What is the importance of hands in your life?  We don’t put our souls in a drawer where they can be secure but in God’s hands because it is safe there and He can use his hands to mould us like a potter and make us how He likes.

How do we carry our cross (soul)?  Our hands have five fingers on each hand.  The number 10 is in the Bible and by looking, we can learn a lot.  E.g. 10 commandments teach us to look after our souls.  This is a pillar of knowing how to balance your physical life and spiritual life.  First commandment, no other God before me.  This is a signal that God has been telling us.  There are many Gods in this world and they exist.  In Africa for example, around July men will go in the bush to meet with the god of that tribe and it is all in secret.  The spirit can move quickly from one place to another and transport many people at once.  That spirit can teach you rituals and circumcised you and afterwards you come back to the city declared a man.

If that god is going around and meets with a woman, she will die.  There is one tribe that believe that this is the true god but it is witchcraft.  You must only have one God.  Once you know Jesus that should be your first commandment.  To create you in God’s image means that we must imitate Him in our actions.  If you want to honour God, try to imitate Him.  This is the first step to look after your soul.

Jesus took up His cross and started His journey.  The more He was walking, He started to feel tired.  Something that maybe weighed 20kg, after 5km will be too heavy and you can’t do it.  Remember when you were saved, the first few weeks, you felt strong and you loved so much God and you wanted to contribute and participate but today we are too tired to read the Bible, go to church.  At some point Jesus couldn’t carry the cross and Simon had to help him.

The cross is heavy, your soul is heavy.  How to carry it?  When you wake up every morning, tell God the first commandment, let me today consider you only as my God, help me today to know that I don’t have any other God apart from you.  Let me treat others as you treat others.  If someone does wrong, I will forgive them.  I will accept what others do and let it go.

The second commandment is to have no idols.  What do you adore?  Maybe food.  When you talk about food, Levi will jump and will do the thumbs up and he can tell you about pizza and chips.  Once you give Levi food, he can eat it but after sometime, he will stop eating when he is full.  We can have a desire something but have a limit so not to adore or kill ourselves for it.

Maybe you adore your house, your job, your children, your country and your soul is there saying, you shouldn’t adore something greater than God.  How much do you love yourself?  I have to look after my body which is good but do I also look after God who lives in me and if yes, how?  God gives to us and in return we must also give back.  We use our balance wrongly.  We want God to give and give but we don’t give back, “God you have everything so I won’t give”.  God gave you everything in balance.  If you believe in God, He believes in you.  You trust in God, He trusts you.  He gave you a soul because he trusts you to look after it.

The third commandment is to not blaspheme.  What is blasphemy?  Taking God’s name in vain.  You wake up in the morning, “oh my God.  Jesus!” People use it like a swear word and use it wrongly and some will say, “in the name of Jesus, I am telling you that it is the truth”.  Tell your soul and yourself, “no I shouldn’t do that”.

Jesus picked up the cross and began the journey.  He put it on his shoulder and used His arms and neck to hold it and His legs had to be strong to carry it.  To have strong legs you need to train them.  Your legs should walk on the right path.  To follow Jesus He says, “carry your cross and follow me”.  Where?  You must first understand the destination before following.  He picked up His disciples, “Mark, follow me?”  Where were they going?  None of them asked, “where are you taking me?”

For us today, Jesus has taught us that when we follow Him, He is the path of heaven, the Kingdom of God.  That is the journey and you have to carry your own cross.  “I have done the work and paid for you but it is up to you to look after your own soul and carry your cross”.  Use what you have to carry it, your legs, and arms.  The more you walk, the more it will become heavy.  Many sinners today know very well the Word of God but at some point we start to defend our sins with the Word of God instead of saying sorry and trying to fix it.  Sometimes we say, “God will do the job, when God will be ready, He will come for me”.  That is crazy when He has said to follow me.  You are waiting for Him to come back.  It doesn’t work like that.

If you know the value of your soul and you realise that God believes that the soul is the most important thing in your life, you should look after it while you are trembling.  Jesus said He is preparing a place for your soul, not your body.  The body will die and those who are alive when Jesus comes back, the body will be transformed to a heavenly body.  You have to work for your soul.

Remember every morning to remind yourself that there is only one God that you should adore and you don’t need to adore anything besides God and avoid any type of blasphemy and hurt the feelings of God.  Don’t be blind and say, God will understand.  God becomes angry when we go against His will and He is unhappy.  For that reason, He has punished the world and killed because we don’t respect Him. 

Jesus, when He left His house that day, He knew that he would be sacrificed and He would have to carry a cross. You had no idea that Jesus would meet with you and give you a cross to carry.  Here is salvation, “I accept you Jesus to be my saviour and I give you my life”.  The soul will be the only item to face God on the day of judgments.  Your soul will take all your actions in the same way that Jesus took all our sins.  Your soul will stand in front of God on judgement day.

If you are not preparing your soul, then you will try to fish in the sand instead of the water.  If you are only preparing your body and your intellect to meet Jesus, you will be wrong because He only cares about your soul.

10 commandments are very helpful.  We will finish this next time.