Non-negotiable requirements for growth
“Though thy beginning was small, yet thy latter end should greatly increase.” Job 8:7
are conditions we need to fulfil if we are going to increase. Let us look at some of them. 1. Growth requires vision. Jabez saw himself differently from how his parents saw him. They associated him with pain, difficulty, poverty and littleness. He was able to visualize something better and bigger and a more prosperous life. He cried out and reached out for it.
I don’t know how your parents saw you or what they have associated you with. You don’t have to accept the characterization of your parents, friends or enemies; you can be better and you can be bigger!
You need to see something better if you are going to have something better. As far as your eyes can see. Everything happens in your mind before it happens in your life. So your size is limited by your vision. The size of your prosperity is limited by the size of your dream.
But this is one important thing I don’t want you to miss concerning your vision. It does not speak at the beginning especially a huge vision. Habakkuk 2:2-3, “And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. [3] For the vision is yet for an appointed time, BUT AT THE END IT SHALL SPEAK, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.” It may appear like not much is happening but you have Jabez. You could see the hunger in the to stay with it. Remain focused. Many tone of Hannah’s prayer (the mother different things have happened but of the Prophet Samuel). Every person I’ve stayed with the vision God gave who has accomplished a great result me. We are not there yet but we have has been a man or woman of great made tremendous progress and I am passion. Passion enables you to make certain it will surely come to pass! the required sacrifice to get things
Vision requires focus! People will done. Lose everything but not your laugh at you but stay with your vision. passion to succeed. When you find People may leave you but don’t leave a man of passion you find a man of your vision. People may even try to possessions! When you find a man undermine you but stay with your of great passion you find a man of vision. You may even make mistakes great results! When you find a man and feel discouraged but stay with it! of great passion you find a man of You may struggle for a long time but great position! It is your passion that stay with it! “…but at the end it shall distinguishes you from the rest. speak, and not lie: though it tarry, 3. Growth requires passionate wait for it; because it will surely come, prayer. Jabez’ hunger for change it will not tarry.” Someone’s vision drove him to pray passionately. He which was spoken over 25 years is got answers! 1Chronicles 4:9-10 at the point of fulfilment now! God (NLT). Same with Hannah! You is stirring and waking up things and don’t pray casual prayers when bringing them into alignment that destiny is on the line. You travail the vision may be fulfilled. There will to birth souls into the Kingdom be a tremendous difference within a (Isaiah 66:8) and travail to get them few months to one year. At the end, established (Galatians 4:19). EVERY it shall speak! That prophetic season DELIVERY REQUIRES LABOUR! of fulfilment has come! It takes praying for the lost to get
2. Growth requires passion. them converted. Every accomplishment begins with Your prayer for enlargement a strong desire. The level of your must begin with prayer for the hunger will determine the efforts enlargement of the church. Thy you are prepared to make in order to Kingdom come, thy will be done make things happen in your life. It on earth as it is in heaven. When takes a strong desire to produce great you pray for the multiplication and results. The question is, how badly advancement of the church, your do you want to expand? You could Father who sees in secret will reward discern the hunger for growth in you openly (Matthew 6:6). urging person in contemporary Nigeria. the On July 28 2017, a fully loaded ailing petrol tanker ran into an 18-seater commuter bus and exploded in flames at Felele-Lokoja, claiming the lives of over a dozen persons. Photos and video footages of the charred and mangled bodies of the victims, which went viral on the social media, showed the desperate struggle of human beings to survive, before they finally succumbed to the fire. Yet, it is over a decade since the contract for the dualization of the Abuja-Lokoja road was awarded: another symbol of the rank corruption that has decimated human lives in Nigeria. But is the government bothered? I am not too sure. Those who should care have access to private jets and fully secured SUVs, with ambulance and security, for their travels. Only ordinary Nigerians suffer.
The reality of Nigeria today is of a people who have been battered and whipped into submission by the harsh socio-economic conditions. Millions are caught between starvation and suicide. These are not the sorts of people you’d expect to protest against the callousness of government. Nigerians have perfected the art of low expectation from their leaders. A situation where ‘anything goes’ is just good enough. By some inexplicable reasons, we are incredibly comfortable and excessively patient with shocking levels of mediocrity and incompetence. No one wants to break the tiresome circle of docility and subjugation. We take pride in our resilience. Our ability to forget and quickly bounce back from conditions and circumstances that cripple people in other climes is listed among the top of our natural endowments. Yet this typical Nigerian resilience has become an excuse for stupidity and irresponsible followership, unwilling to hold leadership to account.
On the occasion of Buhari’s
4. Growth requires effort. “He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich.” Proverbs10:4. He remains small who is unwilling to work. Personal growth requires personal effort; likewise corporate growth requires corporate effort. For Isaac to grow his business and finances, he had to cultivate a very large expanse of land and sowed seeds even when the conditions were not favourable. It was the time of famine.
5. Growth requires good health. “But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.” Malachi 4:2. Whether it is an individual, a company, church or nation, health is required for growth. A healthy economy is a growing economy. God will heal your mind, body, business and everything that needs healing and you will grow and become very great, in Jesus name!
Get ready for explosive growth in every area of life, in Jesus name. 100 days in London, The Guardian Newspaper listed seven pains of President Buhari’s medical vacation. The most devastating pains are the lack of faith in our country’s health institutions that it has caused and the bad example it has set for other elected public officials, in addition to the tension it is causing in the country. So, should Buhari resign? That should be the reasonable thing for a man of honour, whose famed personal integrity has been used to taunt us beyond acceptable levels of hyperbole. This is the only way the ailing president, who has stayed away from his duty post for a combined period of six months, can spare the nation the negative fallouts of his obstinate hold on to power. For a man whose incapacitation was visibly felt in his voice as he frantically struggled to speak in Hausa language during a radio broadcast at the last Eid-el celebration, and in his thoroughly emaciated physique in recent photographs, nothing else will avail.
But will Buhari resign? A man and his personality cult of followers, who think, live, and behave as if the Nigerian presidency is their birthright, and that Buhari is doing the nation a great privilege by occupying the position, to contemplate such a move might never come. Should he even dream about it, emissaries will be sent to him to ask him if “he is out of his mind.” After all, even Jesus was said to be in such a state when he went back home and kept working tirelessly to attend to the crowd of people that swarmed around him, without taking a break to eat (see Mark 3:21). The only difference is that in the present case, Buhari is not working and has stopped the nation from working, but is eating comfortably from the nation’s treasury.
So, where are our prophets?