Happy Good Friday!!

Sometimes I wonder what’s so good about this Friday since it’s the day of the remembrance of the death of our Lord Jesus. But it’s good because we know that Jesus rose again. His story did not end in the grave and neither would ours.

It’s easy to give up when challenges come our way. When the going gets tough, we don’t want to go anymore, but our story hasn’t ended. God is always turning things around for good.  We will again arise! We will again shine! Because our light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon us. 

The statement “NO MORE CRUMBS” has been sitting on my heart for a while and has birthed many different revelations. Today, I finally decided to share this message cause God had finished a work 😆😆 Yeah, it is finished! 

It all started on the second day of the WOW women’s conference. A sister in church had won a cake during an auction. I was like “uuu I’m going to have a taste of that,” cause knowing how generous she is, there is no way she would have eaten that cake all by herself, she was going to share. 

So, after service, I was rushing to go home as well as keeping an eye on the lemon drizzle cake (foodie!). I went to prepare some milk quickly for my son for the trip home, only for me to return back to the church hall and all that was left were crumbs. I couldn’t believe it! 

She said I was too late. I said no way and nibbled at the crumbs from the plate. I was so hurt watching others eat their sliced cakes.

As I drove home, I was partly ashamed for settling for crumbs. A proud me would have just accepted my loss. But God used that to teach me a lesson and I really started to evaluate my life. Are there other areas in my life that I’ve been settling for crumbs?

From that moment I was really intentional about praying against missing encounters. A few days later, Pastor Dammy of PBC church, during our morning Bible study, made a statement – time and chance happen to us all (Ecclesiastes 9:11). He followed this up with the scripture of Romans 9:16 which says “It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.”. I then started to pray for mercy not to miss out on opportunities and blessings. Going to make milk wasn’t bad and it probably wasn’t the wrong time either, but I just happened to miss the cake sharing.

I remembered the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15:21-28 who came to beg for healing. She asked Jesus to heal her baby girl but Jesus said “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs” (foreigners/outsiders/considered unworthy). That is how we got the popular quote ‘healing is the children’s bread’.

Guys, I would have been offended. I would have left pridefully. But this woman was desperate and persistent. In faith, she said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.” Jesus was moved by this woman and healed her child.

It is such a moving story but I do wonder if she eventually moved from accepting the crumbs to accepting Jesus, the real deal. 

Healing is great. We want to be healed. We want to be promoted. We want to be blessed. We want to be wealthy. These are all amazing things. But they are crumbs compared to having Jesus. 

This realization hit me the morning I finally decided to write this post. I had been praying about a lot of things. April has so much promise and miracles awaiting. But as I studied my devotional, Bible in one year 2023 by Niki Gumbel: Day 96, there was a shift. It could have only been God because I usually prioritize reading the Bible scriptures over reading his notes but today I did. The title ‘Press Through’ picked my interest because “Press in – Return back to Bethel” is in a few days. 

As I “pressed through” his teaching, he started talking about spiritual persistence. He wrote “Jesus deals with some of the principal difficulties you may have in receiving from God,” and he went on to list – Doubt, Fear and Inadequacy. He pointed out, according to the scripture in Luke 11:9-13 that dealing with these difficulties requires us to ask, keep seeking and keep knocking and that “how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask and continue to ask Him!”

In conclusion and prayer, he writes: 

Lord, today I ask you to refill me with the love, power and wisdom that come from your Spirit.

I had to take a moment and pray because I realized I had actually been focusing on the wrong things. I was focusing on the crumbs instead of on the Holy Spirit. 

By His divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know Him, the one who called us to Himself by means of His marvelous glory and excellence.

2 Peter 1:3

Jesus in Matthew 6:33 says we should seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and we will receive what we need. The Holy Spirit is the kingdom of God within us. Everything we need is in the Holy Spirit, the divine power of God. We should ask and seek Him.

The Holy Spirit is the spirit of power, love and a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7). He is the spirit of wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge and fear of the LORD – not fear of man (Isaiah 11:2). He is the spirit that guides us into ALL TRUTH (John 16:13). He is an excellent spirit (Daniel 5:12). Therefore, with the Holy Spirit, I am guaranteed a victorious life.

So, everything I am praying about – promotion, wealth, success etc. – is actually in the Holy Spirit, because it is not by my power or might but by the Spirit. If God cannot fail; if the Holy Spirit cannot fail, how can I? 

By receiving the Holy Spirit, I receive the spirit of adoption to sonship and by Him, I cry ABBA Father! I am a child of God and hence I sit and feast at the table! I am entitled to the benefits of sonship, and so are you!

God also revealed to me that there are some people who foolishly swap their meals for crumbs. Some of us intentionally settle. A biblical example is Esau. My guy sold his birthright for porridge. I don’t know if it is British-style oat porridge or Nigerian-style yam porridge but he settled for crumbs. He despised what he had. 

Some of us unconsciously despise what we have when we go looking for the results instead of the Result Provider. We go looking for miracles instead of the Miracle Worker. We go looking for ready-made food instead of the Creator of the seed and soil; the One who causes the rain to fall and the sun to shine; the very One who gives the increase even before the food is harvested and gets into the pot.

No more crumbs. No more settling for less. No more focusing on the wrong things. 

I think you should repeat the above quote a few times. Jesus Christ died so that God can put his Spirit in us. We have all we need. 

SHALOM!