Can we repay kindness? Can you show kindness without expecting to be repaid?
We give and receive acts of kindness daily. Kindness can be shown as advice, money, support, gifts, caring, forgiveness, shelter, food, clothing, help/assistance, respect, sympathies etc.
Generally, we think that when someone does something good for us and we subsequently show this person appreciation or kindness that this means we have repaid or equalled or zeroed out the kind act.
However, kindness once given or received cannot be duplicated or recalled in the future. It does not matter whether you believe that the act of kindness is of little importance or inconsequential: each act of kindness, even when it looks similar to previous acts/deeds, is unique to the day in which it is given or received. This is because you cannot recreate or duplicate time, day and the totality of the surrounding circumstances that gives rise to the persons need for kindness. It does not matter if the kindness you received was big or small. You needed something and someone provided it at the time of your need.
Do not burden yourself by trying to outdo or diminish another person’s act of kindness. Kindness is not a loan and you should not expect to be repaid. When you show kindness, be grateful that you were able to give, and when you receive kindness be grateful that you are able to receive. A grateful person is usually happier than someone who does not understand gratitude. Let your show of appreciation of kindness be true, knowing, that you can never repay kindness no matter how small or inconsequential you deem it to be. Today is a brand new beginning, another fresh new start. Adopt the right attitude for giving and receiving and become empowered by both the spiritual and physical benefits.
Thank you for joining me today and I pray that God grants you heavenly wisdom to discern what is important in the way you live.
As a first blog, my initial topic on guarding your mind would have been a bit difficult to follow because of the many terms that I would have used whilst writing my blog. So I have chosen this topic as my introductory talk. In my blog, each time I refer to God, I mean Yahweh. This is the name God has asked that he be called.
Times are changing with more and more people
having this feeling of inadequacy, mental health, relationship breakdown,
frustration, fear of failing and contentment with the past and all it has to
offer is fast crumbling. I believe the solution to regaining of control of your
life is through the reconnection of the mind with your spiritual self. The Man
that God made you to be in the first place. We have compromised our conscience
to suit the general drift of thought without thinking of the consequences.
I will try not to embellish the truth so you can benefit from it. I have learnt most of the topics I will be discussing with you through personal life experience and as you know, life experience is often not polite or embellished so I will talk from my heart. Most times we think we are in the know and begin to advise God on what we want and exactly how we want it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with making specific requests but it has to be done in line with the principles God put in place for managing the earth and heavenly realms. One thing I have learnt is that God is not moved by lip service or tears to cause Him to change. God is who he says he is and if you want to get his attention you have to tread the principles he laid out. This principle is for the benefit of all men.
It is important to know where we stand in our
belief. In the bible God said he does not like people who cannot make up their
mind whether they are for him or not. He also said he cannot stand idols and he
will destroy them. God also said he adores worship so this means he wants to be
worshipped.
Belief
When you think of yourself, would you say that
you:
hold a strong belief there is God.
Or would you say that sometimes you have
doubts if there is God.
In the case of the 2nd answer, do you believe
there is power sharing between God and the devil?
Or have you decided that you believe in the
devil?
Finally, you would prefer not to believe in
either God or the devil or anything.
The reason I am asking is because it is not
really possible for anyone not to hold a belief and it is not possible for
anyone not to be aligned to that which is good or bad. As we know, the society standard
is that God is good and the devil is bad or evil.
Whatever belief you have expressed, I suppose
you must have weighed each option before making a choice. It could be that you already
dismissed the talk about God and the devil as I have heard people say as ‘nonsense’.
If you take a moment to reflect on this, you will find it can’t be true as this
people must have been operating under a belief system. Everyone has a code of
principles and if you will: superstitions and everyone imagines that these
rules help them navigate life successfully. They deal with crisis situations
based on their own self-belief. So,
in crisis, they adopt this belief in the hope that it would resolve the
situation. The more your formula appears to work, the more trust they put in themselves.
They are self-believers and do not acknowledge God or even the devil and any other
gods other than themselves. In short, what they have actually saying to people is
that they are a god and they hold the absolute power to direct their life and
end it as they please. But they missed out their absence in the creation of
their own lives.
Self-belief is built out of the materials passed
on be it by Christians, Satanists, Pagans, idol or other religious or secular
groups. All the books you have for resolving your relationship issues, the
online apps for sleep, fitness apps, financial news to see what is influencing
the market, and how about the astrology reports in the newspaper column.
Someone taught you how to say “touch wood”, and presented you with good luck
charms. Now wait for it: did you visit a card reader at the funfair, celebrate
Halloween. You read about Mediums and you visited one to enquire about you dead
loved one. These and more have built your belief-system irrespective of whether
you choose to acknowledge God or the devil. Deep inside of you, you know on
whose side you stand. Honestly, we all have beliefs and the only difference is
that some people have a more organized form of belief which they practice
regularly to bring out whatever results that their heart yearn for.
To make it easier to follow, if you do not
believe in God, you are a non-believer and that makes you a god unto yourself,
a small deity with human conceptions and no laid foundation. God views any god
other than himself as an idol. The issue with self-belief is that like other
gods, they crave worship and ascribe ultimate power to themselves. As an idol,
a non-believer is always in direct collision with God Yahweh.
The good news in all this is that God said he
welcomes anyone who comes to him and he will never turn the person away. Ego is
the main factor why people think they are non-believer. Let it go because it
carries a self-destructive penalty. All you need to do is retune your thought
and accept that you believe in God. It costs you absolutely nothing except your
ego.
God
This is a subject that would cause a lot of debate both from theologian, academics, atheist etc that will go on and on. But how empty is our conceptions of God. For example, we say God is all intelligent but we say his intelligence is flawed by feeding him information. We trust in our self. We despair because he has not met the time, we assigned to him. We cannot worship an all-knowing God outwardly; it means you do not believe he is what he says he is. Our motives underline our relationship. For some of us who are believers, it is pointless telling God how much you love him if you have no evidence to show this. God is simply who he says he is. No more and no less. Not to join the band of various school of thoughts and for the purpose of my podcast, I am going to tell you who I believe God to be and this is in accordance with my experience and the bible. To be in obedience to someone, you must understand who the person is.
I believe God is the creator uncreated.
He has no beginning and no end – Eternal
He says call me I AM THAT I AM
He is Immortal
He is Good
Omnipotent
Omnipresent
He is Love
He is Spirit
He is infinite intelligence
Eternal Truth
He is Perfect
He is limitless
He is Holy
He is Lord over all
He is the sanctifier
We have become so infamously wise and we believe
God should be taking advice from us. When our heart is not clear with our
belief we struggle. We can diligently search and understand God so we can
receive from him. Different people would like different answered prayers and
God is more than able if it is presented with love because he is love. If we do
not show gratitude for life, truth and love, how can we hope to ask with the
right attitude. Just like in a relationship, simply asking someone to love you
back will not necessarily make them do so. God has asked us to love Him. You should
take the first baby step and come to God with your whole heart. God understands
about your human flaws, remember he created you so you cannot hide from him.
The bible tells us that even before you thought of asking for forgiveness of
sin, he sacrificed his son Jesus Christ. Jesus was with God right from the
beginning of creation waiting for the appointed time so he can mend the
relationship between God and Man. We should be sincere in our love for God
Jesus Christ
Jesus is the son of God and he came to
destroy the works of the devil. The works of the devil started in the garden of
Eden. Man was conceived out of sin. The devil tempts us through our five
senses. There are five entrances into the body and these are the five senses: sight,
hearing, smell, touch and taste. These senses are the gateway to all the good, the
bad and the ugly things you hold in your mind. It sums up pretty much how you
perceive the world around. We need to be watchful of what we take in through
our senses. By watchfulness I mean a habitual struggle to be always good. This
in itself is reverence and a prayer. Our relationship here on earth mimic our
relationship with God. Jesus taught us about the love of God in the parable of
the lost sheep. The Shepherd left 99 of his flock to go in search of the one
lost sheep. This parable in in keeping with the conception of who God is. Jesus
taught God’s love for us. If someone you are in a relationship earnestly making
efforts not to offend you will be eager to support the person. But if we make
no efforts, we will grow worse in doing bad. So, when we feel we got it wrong,
take steps to make it right. This is what Jesus taught us. It is a struggle but
I know because I can silly mistakes but I feel God’s love always around me
Satisfy yourself and not anybody else that
you are not an idol, believe in God and believe that Jesus Christ is the son of
God who died for our sin. Please make this prayer to ensure that any past,
present or future sin is atoned. In the book John 3: 16 it says that whoever believe in Jesus is not
condemned and whoever that does not is condemned. The passage reads:
“God so
loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him
should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send
his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world
might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but
whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed
in the name of the only Son of God. Gain strength and gain it in the right
and sustainable way. There are many testimonies affirming this.
What do you have to lose but ego? Trash that
ego that is stealing your future and holding you prisoner. If you had made this
prayer before please continue with a sincere love for God.
I have always pondered this question: is love a choice? If so, what is the selection criteria? Or rather, who creates the criteria: is there a universal benchmark or are standards individually established?
When solving the former question, most people would answer yes: love is a choice and that the individual chooses who and whether to love at all. Invariably, to love is a person’s sole decision and nobody else’s business. But on closer inspection this opinion (the belief that love is an individualistically driven choice) reveals itself to be dangerous. Arguably, attaching love to ‘choice’ introduces dissatisfaction and potential tragedy into life.
To understand this, one must explore the meaning of choice and the impact of its application in one’s life. Choice creates a window of options or possibilities: which, consequently, gives room for something other than love to come into existence. This can be explained using two scenarios.
The first can be found when returning back to my initial question, of what is the selection criteria for love. Any considered answer becomes wider once choice is introduced. People can use a variety of physical attributes as a measure for when deciding who to give love to. This can be anything like having straight black hair or hazel eyes – most defer to the highly popularised: “tall, dark and handsome” aesthetic. Love does not exist alone in this scenario as one can clearly count vanity and the promotion of self-interests. Automatically, choice has created a restriction on the number of people who would fall into a “loveable” category only because they look a certain way. Conversely, a select criterion does not have to be based on physical looks alone, but it could include factors such as socio-economic class, family history, religion and race. Dangerously, should a person not find someone to love, they’ll be unknowingly choosing to live life alone. The bitterness from failing to find someone to love would cause the individual to fall back into something else: like hate or indifference to people. Interestingly, those who are deemed “un-loveable” would also find themselves falling into the same negative pool of emotions. In this illustration, choice has created a lonelier world for everyone.
The second scenario approaches the question of choice in love by exploring the human psyche. If you accept love as a choice then you should not be angry or surprised when people choose to be nasty to you – notably, they owe you no consideration, affection, appreciation or forgiveness. They are simply doing what you are doing too, exercising a choice.
Today, choice prompts the conscious or unconscious desire to use the words ‘l love you’ as a trade-off for love: akin to quid pro quo. The pressure to say the phrase has created two things; weaponised the expression as people now say it without meaning it in order to make themselves look good, create bond and trust or offer security to the recipient. I have always wondered if these three words are coming from a good place or whether they are unconsciously manipulative by design? What happens if we decide not to exchange words of ‘l love you’ to each other, would one feel less love? How do we respond to those who do not reciprocate these words? Do you give them the leeway to exercise their choice of indifference or hatefulness towards you?
We are told that God is love and we are created in the image of God. We are created to be love, to want love and to give love. Love is caring and forgiving even in little doses. When love is understood, being a doormat or a person with little or no self-value is not possible.
By maintaining love is a choice, we create indifference and hate on a two-way country lane. When God directs us to love our neighbour like ourselves, it follows that if you love yourself, you will reap the immeasurable benefits of loving others. More importantly, you will understand that the best love is the one you know you do not deserve or qualify for. Most marriages, friendships, family relationships, good neighbourliness that withstand the test of time, do so when love ceases to be a choice that is transactional with trade-offs. You accept people with their imperfections knowing that you also are imperfect. You cannot choose who and when to love: for you epitomise love. Your whole wellbeing is dependent on your understanding of love and how it works to keep your body and mind.
I thank you for joining me today and I pray you begin a new walk of love, one step at a time with practice and perseverance.
I do not post talks regularly and I would encourage you to subscribe so you can be notified when I post. Thanks.
In the book of Genesis, we see the bond between God and all His creations. Genesis declares that God loves and values His works. Although there was a breakdown of relationship when Man was cast out of God’s presence in the Garden of Eden, the connection between God and Man was not broken. To punctuate the point, a bloodline connection is not affected by the physical breakdown of family relationship. Even when a husband and wife go their separate ways the children remain tied through that union.
We desire to get connected because God has made us so: it is in our DNA. With ever-increasing technological advancements, social networking, community and diverse groups are at our finger tips. Using these mediums, we engage and search whole-heartedly believing our original connection with God is replaceable and commonly found. For this reason, we explore social networks or join clubs/societies designed to create an experience of social connectedness. Our gut feeling prompts us to keep searching out avenues for connection so we don’t miss out on ‘something special’. But we set ourselves up for disappointment when we bank on someone somewhere giving us a peaceful and satisfied life.
Most often, following our experience with connecting to people or groups, we do not feel productive, fruitful or satisfied. People both young and old, poor and rich find that they do not experience the promised connectedness rather they experience a more heightened sense of: not being valued, feeling alone, loneliness, helplessness, low self-esteem and general dissatisfaction with life. This feeling is found even amongst those in religions.
What are we missing and why are we losing the battle to feel connected? What and who do you want to be connected to? Crucially, why is this battle driving us to the wrong side of life? Pursuing the deep internalised desire to connect exposes us to danger, taking one through: endless night outs, emotional outbursts, drinking sprees, shopping sprees, drug addictions, entrapments in valueless courtships and marriages, countless holidays in search of peace and gratification, fanatical wellness and spiritual sessions all the while mounting debts. Desperately, we want to be seen, heard, appreciated, loved and valued by a person, group or community. In a bid to form connections in these social and political settings people pay heavy sums both monetarily and emotionally. In very bad cases, people paid with their life. But in reality, the more we distance our self from our Creator, the more we are running further away from the true original connection to life.
The connection we should seek is that of restoration of our relationship with God as we recognise there is a hole that needs to be filled. Jesus teaches in Luke 17: 21 that the Kingdom of God (the Bible also references this as the Kingdom of Heaven) is not something you can point to or see but within each person. Heaven is already within you to connect with and we become restored because of it.
Make peace with God: He is not asking for a perfect Man as He already knows your weaknesses. Rebuild this relationship so you can have a satisfied life. Illustratively, a plug with a blown fuse will not produce light even with a functional socket. We are the fuse; our body is the plug and God is our socket. God will not change for Man but Man must change for God. That is why we must get connected to the Kingdom of God so that we become light, productive and fruitful.
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