BABIES ARE THOSE WHO MESS UP NAPKINS ALL THE TIME1

When babies are not yet mentally well developed as earlier mentioned, they  have lots of problems with napkins.It is the same thing with baby christians- they struggle a lot with sin. This video tells you more about how, as a child who is conscious of God's presence, you can honour your father by listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit.

EXCELLING IN THE LIFE OF HOLINESS THROUGH: GOD CONSCIOUSNESS.-1

In life, there are certain things that when we know them or we have the relevant work tools, they make our life and our work easier than would have been without them. This is the simple reason I am going to try to bring to your attention today, to these important work tools, in our daily walk with God, which He has designed to help us to actualize our dreams of fulfilled lives as believers on earth and to make heaven at last. Remember that the Bible tells us that without holiness no man shall see the Lord.

The first work tool I will like us to look at today is what I call – “God consciousness”. The Bible makes us to understand that God is everywhere or is omnipresent. In Psalm 139 verses 7-12, we read as follows:

7 “Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?

8 If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold thou art there.

9 If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;

10 Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.

11 If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me.

12 Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.

13 For thou has possessed my reins: thou has covered me in my mother’s womb.”

Here, the Psalmist talks extensively about the Omnipresence of the Creator. One of the things that strikes me about this is the fact that he –David was aware of this presence, and that he was conscious of it to the point of allowing it to guide his actions, although we all acknowledge the fact that at times he slipped and lost this consciousness and sinned against the Lord and was equally punished.

It is therefore established from this and so many other scriptures that we may not go into now, that God is everywhere and that He sees all things and equally knows all things.

However, He does not make this presence noticeable all the time because carnal human beings who are depending on their five senses may not be able to see Him, or hear him, or touch or feel him because the awareness of that presence is beyond the five senses. But this knowledge, of the fact that Jesus said that he will be with us always, added to the fact that he never lied and will never lie, are enough to let us know, that he watches us all the time.

Now let me digress a little- Paul the apostle used commonsense or things that are commonplace at times to teach. In certain places you hear things like-“Does not commonsense even teach you …” or As Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 11 and verse 14, “Doth not even nature teach you, that if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?’, well that’s by the way.

 I heard about an experiment, which was performed in the 1940’s, in a company at the outskirts of Chicago, United States of America, in a company- an electrical company known as –‘the Hawthorne works’, company of America.

The company management commissioned some researchers to investigate what would be the effect of improving the lighting condition in the company on the workers’ productivity.

The researchers did their job, the workers were aware that they were being studied, or that what they produced was being monitored. As a result of this, all the while the researchers were in the company, the productivity of the workers remained very high or increased.

However, it was equally observed, that as soon as the experiments were stopped and the workers realized that these external monitors were no longer there, their productivity dropped down to pre-experimental levels. The workers had reacted to the fact that they were being monitored and so tried to their best to impress the investigators/researchers, and when they left they relaxed. In fact some people claim that productivity was even higher when the light was diminished, because they even made a greater effort then to achieve the best. In summary-the Hawthorne effect is a form of reactivity whereby the subjects improve or modify an aspect of their behavior being experimentally measured simply in response to the fact that they know that they are being studied.

Now if you go back to Psalm 139 above, and look at those verses carefully you will know that we are constantly being watched and guided, and studied by God. A consciousness of the presence of God will definitely help us to realize that we ought to be our best at all times.

Somebody reading this will say-well, I know that God might be watching me or definitely watching me, but I am His child and He loves me and should not take my mistakes seriously. After all He is my heavenly father. Oh yes- I know about that too, but would you actually resign to remaining a little baby that defecates on the napkin all the time- is that a wise choice to make?

Let us look at that from another angle- Think about this teenage boy or girl who says, ‘I and my daddy are friends, so he tolerates everything I do’. This boy/girl walks home from school and he sees his father who has already returned from his work relaxing in the sitting room, and instead of greeting his father, he/she starts urinating on the rug in the sitting room right there in the presence of his father, and in his/her mind he says to himself, ‘father will understand, he is my friend, am just feeling pressed’.  Then when the father complains the child will start shouting at him. Common sense tells us that this child deserves to be flogged, because the Bible says that foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction drives it away from him.

Now the things that will prevent this child from carrying out this foolish act are:

 1.The fact that his mind tells him that it is wrong to do that-that is a good conscience.

2. Secondly, the fact that he fears and respects his father, and honors his father-reverential fear.

Yet he knows that his father is his/ her friend and will not be afraid to watch the television and movies in his presence and laugh during a laugh it off show because his/father permits him/her to do that.

Finally in Malachi chapter1 and verse 6, we read as follows:

6 “A son honoureth His father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is mine honour, where is mine honour? And if I be a master, where is my fear? Saith the Lord of hosts, O priests, that despise my name, And ye say, wherein have we despised thy name?

Remember that we are priests and kings according to the book of Revelation, some may think that he is just talking to the old covenant priests or the Pastors only-No- he is talking to all of us.

Then if you are a friend of God, the Bible tells us in the book of Proverbs chapter 18 and verse 24 how to conduct good relationships/friendships.

24 “A man that hath friends, must show himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother”.

These scriptures simply tell us that if God is watching us and is with us all the time, and we say that he is our master or father, then He deserves our reverence, our honour, our respect and our obedience.

Holiness is not only a gift from God, it is a quality that God says that we can constantly improve on hence the call to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, wholly and acceptable to God (Romans 12 verses1-2). This is what you and I are called to do, though this is not a popular topic for a generation with itching ears.