How the devil works for you not to keep the word

1) Through offense: Matthew 3:20-21: 20 The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. 21 But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.

2) Through over-busyness: Matthew 3:22: 22 The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful.

So, what is the way out?

1) Schedule time to study the word

2) Find a gospel based teaching and listen to it

3) Minimise your reliance of entertainment or media that sows doubt in your mind

4) Refuse to be offended by anyone and anything

5) Find time in your busyness to spend time with the Lord

Favour Affirmation for the year

The favour of God surrounds me like a shield producing supernatural increase, promotion, restoration, honour, increased access, greater victories, recognition, prominence, preferential treatment, petitions granted, policies and rules changed and battles won that I don’t have to fight. Favour is mine in all things. This is my set time for God’s favour. God is doing for me what my natural abilities and connections could not do. I am blessed and highly favoured of God in Jesus’ Name!’

Favour Affirmation for the year

The favour of God surrounds me like a shield producingsupernatural increase, promotion, restoration, honour, increased access,greater victories, recognition, prominence, preferential treatment, petitions granted, policies and rules changed and battles won that I don’t have to fight.Favour is mine in all things. This is my set time for God’s favour. God is doing for me what my natural abilities and connections could not do. I am blessed and highly favoured of God in Jesus’ Name!’

The Power of the “Kept” Word

Luke 11:28: KJV: 28 But He said, “Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the Word of God and keep it.”

Other translations:

AMP: 28 But He said, “On the contrary, blessed (happy, favored by God) are those who hear the word of God and continually observe it.”

NIV: He replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”

NLT: Jesus replied, “But even more blessed are all who hear the word of God and put it into practice.”

NASB: But He said, “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and follow it.”

SLT: And he said, Rather, happy they hearing the word of God, and watching it.

3 words to pay attention to:

· Blessed is from Makarios – and it meand to be fortunate or favoured by God

· Hear is from akuo – and it simply means to hear what was said

· Keep – it is the Greek word “Phulasso” – and it means through the idea of isolation, to watch i.e. be on guard, observe

So, a person is favoured by God or is deemed fortunate when he hears the word of God and observes or obey it or puts it into practice

How do you put it into practice?

First you must hear it.

This is the reason why you can’t have faith beyond what you constantly hear.

Rom 10:17 NLT: So faith comes from hearing, that is, hearing the Good News about Christ.

Faith comes by hearing the Good News - not the bad news.

Fear will come by hearing the bad news

The word of God (specifically one based on the finished work of Christ) will build faith in you hence why you must hear it and hear it and hear it.

Don’t hear the gospel today and tomorrow go and hear fear-based message, it will destroy your faith or rather, your faith will become leaky!

If you have never heard a message that God has healed you in Christ, then you can’t believe for it and when you don’t believe for it, you can’t experience it.

Favour Affirmation for the year

The favour of God surrounds me like a shield producing supernatural increase, promotion, restoration, honour, increased access, greater victories, recognition, prominence, preferential treatment, petitions granted, policies and rules changed and battles won that I don’t have to fight. Favour is mine in all things. This is my set time for God’s favour. God is doing for me what my natural abilities and connections could not do. I am blessed and highly favoured of God in Jesus’ Name!’

The tenses used to describe the grace of God and our standing in it is a perfect tense in the Greek language which basically means “an event that occurs once but have a lifetime ramification”

What we have in Jesus is not something we can lose.

Your standing in Christ – His grace and favour is permanent.

So here we see that our past is justified, our present moments are favoured and our future is filled with the hope (the confident expectation of good) to enjoy the glory or reality of God.

The tenses used to describe the grace of God and our standing in it is a perfect tense in the Greek language which basically means “an event that occurs once but have a lifetime ramification”

What we have in Jesus is not something we can lose.

Your standing in Christ – His grace and favour is permanent.

So here we see that our past is justified, our present moments are favoured and our future is filled with the hope (the confident expectation of good) to enjoy the glory or reality of God.

The favour factor for the believer is rooted in God’s decision to not only be with us but under the New Covenant, to be in us. I am certain we have not plumbed the depth of what this means. Every believer has this favour factor. It is the force that brings God in on your behalf to put things in your favour in

the face of every contradicting forces. It is this factor that will put you where you natural abilities can never put you.

Every Patriarch enjoyed the favour factor. The favour factor is the presence of God. Luke 5:17 revealed how this favour factor manifested in the healing ministry of Jesus: “One of those days, as He was teaching, there were Pharisees and teachers of the Law sitting by, who had come from every village and town of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was [present] with Him to heal them.”

In 2025, the favour factor will help you. The same Holy Spirit that helped Jesus healed people and that raised Him from the dead is presently at work in you who has been joined together with the Lord Jesus.

The story of Jesus' birth carries a profound theme of a covenant-keeping God. Beginning with humanity's fall in the Garden of Eden, Pastor Davies highlighted how God prepared the way for Jesus' arrival through the promise of "the Seed of the woman"—a prophecy fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ.In Abraham, God found a faithful partner willing to offer his son in sacrifice. This act of willingness paved the way for God's intervention on earth, culminating in the redemption of the world through Jesus.

Today's message, The Covenant God of Christmas, reveals that God continues to honour His covenant. The name Jehovah Jireh, first revealed on Mount Moriah, foreshadowed Jesus' sacrifice on Golgotha. It was the good news proclaimed to Abraham in Genesis 22—a promise fulfilled in Christ.

As you celebrate this Christmas season, reflect on the faithfulness of the covenant-keeping God, who has fulfilled His promises through Jesus. Trust that He will continue to honour His word in your life.

Merry Christmas, beloved.