#TheJesusChallenege

Happy New Year Everyone...

Welcome to 2019!

How has your January been so far? I hope it's been rewarding spiritually and otherwise. As for me i made a resolution i hope i can keep, to put up more blog posts regularly this year. So help me God!

So you know how several challenges have been trending on social media? Complete with their hash tags, they take up the entire cyber space and that's all people talk about for the next few weeks they are able to receive people's attention. Recently we've witnessed the #10yearchallenege and more recently in my part of the world #thefallingchallenge. 

Well i came up with a challenge I'm sure the Lord will want us all to undertake every single day of our lives, #TheJesusChallenge. It's basically pointing us towards living more for Him and laying down our lives daily.

At the beginning of the year we usually would take out some days to fast and pray because a lot of churches encourage this and it seems like a nice thing to do for a Christian. I'll like to employ us all to go above and beyond to make our worship personal this year. If and when we do fast and pray or deny ourselves from certain things to devote time to the Lord, let it be because we desire to know and love Him more, we are genuinely seeking His face to understand how to get closer to Him and our hearts are bare before Him to do with them as He pleases. Because He knows what's best for us all.

So without further ado, here are some points i penned down for #TheJesusChallenge. I hope we enjoy giving more of ourselves to Him daily. 

#TheJesusChallenge

Episode 1

·         The purpose is not just to fast but to live a fasted life. Fasting means to stay away from food and other worldly consumables to focus on God. Get closer to Him, hear Him clearer, love Him more and prepare more accurately to obey His commands. To eradicate the focus and purpose of everyday life and make that focus Jesus Christ.

#TheJesusChallenge

1 Kings 8:61

“And may your hearts be fully committed to the LORD our God, to live by his decrees and obey his commands, as at this time.” NIV

·         The purpose is not just to stop sinning but to understand that sin is a nature outside Jesus Christ. Sin is Death’s messenger. Death sends sin to start the destruction it intends to finish. Be encouraged to embrace life in Jesus Christ by receiving grace to walk according to His commands and to please Him.

#TheJesusChallenge

James 1:15

“Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.” KJV

·         The purpose isn’t to go to church every Sunday as an obligatory responsibility but to be the temple of God. It means no abuse must come to your spirit, soul, body.

Spirit: Watch what you let get past you or overtake you: Anger, bitterness, envy, unforgiveness, rage, refusal to let some habits go, thoughts, considerations, plans, ambitions, motives, ideas.

Soul: Watch what you enjoy, spend money on, watch, read, friends you hang with, music you listen to, handles you follow on social media, places you go, what you’re proud of, what you struggle to accomplish.

Body: Watch what you eat, drink, consume, how you sleep, how you dress, your indulgences. Are you a slave to these things or completely in control of them?

Mark 12:30

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” NIV

Everything about you matters to Jesus. Everything! He wants you completely. If you ask me that’s a privilege. That the creator of the whole world desires you totally because of His immense love for you. But still he gives you a choice whether to love Him in return or go your own way. What will be your decision today? May the Lord help us desire Him as much as he desires us... Amen.

Until next time, remain ever in the presence of our God!

Shalom!

MJA

The Importance of Friends

Hello everyone.

Apologies for the long silence. I hope you have been well and the Lord is daily glorified in your lives. Today i bring to you write ups by someone who's writings have aided my decision making process especially when it comes to friends.

His name is Allison Hyacintho. 

Please check him out on social media. He speaks a lot on marriage and relationships. Today however is not about marriage but about the importance of friends as they may affect marriage or indeed any other important aspect of our lives.

Like the saying goes, "Show me your friends and I'll tell you who you are" and "Birds of a feather flock together."

Anyway please read and be blessed...

PRE-WEDDING PRAYER RETREATS

Hello funky believer, please can i talk to you for a minute?

Listen, I know that pre-wedding photos and bridal showers are awesome, I know it creates good memories for the couples and helps them bond intimately. I know how exciting it is to dress up in matching outfits with your spouse to-be and just have fun creating lasting memories with amazing photos and night parties with your gang. It is totally cool, but I just hope you also understand that as believers things are always a lot different for us, we don't just rush into a trend because everybody else is doing it, or because it is cool, what comes first is how much that fashion or trend adds to our christian life, i mean, how spiritually relevant is it to our love walk with God? 

Please forgive me if I am sounding like a killjoy, but rather than surround yourself with friends who will dress up in white outfits and take photos with you in a hotel room to post on social media, why don't you keep a small circle of fire-branded friends that can join you in a pre-wedding prayer and fasting retreat, and still stick around to pray for your marriage whenever you need them?

Rather than going out on a bachelor's night party with a gang of friends who will tease you all night about how you'll be getting stuck with one woman for the rest of your life, why don't you have a bachelor's vigil with friends who's prayers and personal walk with God you can trust? 

Hope you don't think I am trying to kill all the fun you have been dreaming to have, all I want you to see is how we can turn these exciting worldly interests into our spiritual advantage. When our friends are doing bridal showers, we can do bridal fasting and still have fun. When others are doing bachelor's night, let's do bachelor's vigil instead, is anybody catching this?

Start building up an army of friends you will need on that marriage journey, not the ones that don't have the spiritual capacity to go with you beyond the I DO. Start choosing your WAR FRIENDS carefully, start gathering spiritual guarantors who can stand in the gap for you in the place of prayer.

I encourage everyone to add this to their wedding plans, schedule a pre-wedding prayer retreat with fasting and tarry if your strength can carry, the pre-wedding photos and bridal showers can come later, but first, plan a retreat with your church, or a personal retreat at home with a few close friends whose prayers you can rely on anytime. 

This is a long term spiritual investment, this is what sustains the marriage long after the swagger of the bridal showers and bachelor parties has expired, I wish a lot of us can learn this. And if you don't have a few good friends whose prayers you can rely on, then I beg you to start building some now.

"The most important pre-wedding exercise is not the beautification of your wedding, BUT the edification of your marriage."

Hope this speaks to somebody, we are the chosen generation God will boast about!

Excuse me, I cannot buy groom's men suit for you when I don't have confidence in your prayers, God forbid that I use my marriage for fashion parade.
After spending money to make 15 bridesmaid dresses for your friends, 1 year later you're trekking from Shiloh to Redemption camp looking for miracle in your marriage while your friends are chilling in their houses, you cannot ask them to pray for you because they don't even look like people who pray for themselves.
Be there planning how to sell 2 yards of your Asoebi for 30k as a big girl that has arrived. Money you will still go and spend on prophets and pastors in prayer houses if you're not careful.
A life covenant as important as marriage and yet there is no single person in your bridal train that is spiritually relevant.
God forbid that you walk down the aisle surrounded by friends on high heels and selfie sticks.

The most important pre-wedding exercise is not the beautification of your wedding, but the edification of your marriage.... 

  God's grace,

Allison.

I hope you all are blessed by this. Until next time remember to pursue Christ always.

Blessings... 

MJA

Welcome To The Purity, Passion & Purpose Blog...

Hello everyone and welcome to my new blog...

My name is Mayen John-Alley. 

I'm starting this blog because I love Jesus, I seek a deeper relationship with Him daily through His Word and by His Spirit and i want to encourage people on their own personal journey to Christlikeness.

One of my favourite scriptures, Proverbs 24 verses 3 to 4 says:

Through wisdom is an house builded; and by understanding it is established: And by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches. KJV

God's Word is replete with scripture making us aware that as children of God we are the temple of God: A stature He wants well built and furnished so that He can tabernacle in us. What better foundation can we find outside the Word of God? 

I believe that sound teaching, discipleship, obedience and intense deliberate study of the Word of God will help us in our race to become that special building, that special vessel of honour fit for the Master's use.

Hence my decision to start up a Christian blog which expresses my passions to reach people around the world with the Word of God for the purpose of a deeper relationship with God and encourage personal, professional and an all-round change in character by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Watch out for several features, book reviews, videos, interviews, serious life topics, daily inspirations, and stories both fictional and non-fictional.

It's my prayer that through this blog many lives will be touched for Jesus, people will experience healing and wholeness, testimonies will abound, miracles will be experienced, God's Word will be exalted in many lives and homes, people will come into a richer fellowship with the Lord and above all we will be made ready, like a bride waiting earnestly for her bridegroom, for the second coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

God bless you all...

MJA