RELEASING YOUR POTENTIAL.

Releasing Your Potential.

1. Be fruitful! God’s command in Genesis 1:28 is most often understood as referring to procreation, but filling the earth with people is only part of the meaning. The Hebrew word for fruitful means more than just sexual reproduction; it refers to being fruitful in either a literal or a figurative sense. Fruitfulness can be qualitative in nature as well as quantitative. Mankind has never had a problem being procreative—a current global population of over six billion is proof of that—but we do have a problem with being fruitful in the other ways God desires. Essentially, being fruitful means releasing our potential. Fruit is an end product. An apple tree may provide cool shade and be beautiful to look at, but until it produces apples it has not fulfilled its ultimate purpose. Apples contain the seeds of future apple trees and, therefore, future apples. However, apples also have something else to offer: a sweet and nourishing food to satisfy human physical hunger. In this sense, fruit has a greater purpose than simply reproducing; fruit exists to bless the world. Every person is born with a seed of greatness. God never tells us to go find seed; it is already within us. Inside each of us is the seed potential for a full forest—a bumper crop of fruit with which to bless the world. We each were endowed at birth with a unique gift, something we were born to do or become that no one else can achieve the way we can. God’s purpose is that we bear abundant fruit and release the blessings of our gift and potential to the world.

2. Increase! Being fruitful is a good and necessary start, but it should grow into the next phase, increase. Once again, even though the idea here is to multiply or reproduce, sexual procreation is only part of the meaning. The Hebrew word for increase also can mean “abundance,” “to be in authority,” “to enlarge,” and “to excel.” It carries the sense of refining your gift until it is completely unique. It is impossible to reproduce what you have not refined. In this context, then, to increase means not only to multiply or reproduce as in having children, but also to improve and excel, mastering your gift and becoming the very best you can possibly be at what you do. It also means learning how to manage the resources God has given you and developing a strategy for managing the increase that will come through refinement. By refining your gift, you make room for it in the world. The more refined your gift, the more in demand you will be. Proverbs 18:16 (KJV) says, “A man’s gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men.” By refining your gift, you make room for it in the world.

What is your fruit—your gift?

What are you known for?

What do you have that is reproducible?

What quality or ability do you have that causes people to seek you out?

What brings you joy?

What are you passionate about?

What do you have to offer the world, even just your little part of it?

Fruit must be reproducible or else it is not genuine fruit. “Be fruitful” means to produce fruit; “increase” means to reproduce it.

3. Fill! The third phase of dominion is to “fill” or “replenish” the earth. Bearing fruit, refining our gift, and mastering the use of our resources create demand and lead naturally to wider “distribution.” To “fill the earth” means to expand our gift, our influence, our resources, just as a growing business would by continually improving its product, opening new outlets, and hiring more employees. Another way to look at it is to think once again of an apple tree. A single apple seed grows into an apple tree, which then produces apples, each of which contains seeds for producing more trees. Planting those seeds soon turns a single apple tree into a whole orchard. This expansion to “fill the earth” is a joint effort between the Lord and us. Our part is to be faithful with the resources He has given. He is the one who brings the expansion. The more faithful we are with our stewardship, the more resources God will entrust to us. That is a biblical principle.

4. Subdue! Fruitfulness, increase, and filling lead naturally to the end result of subduing. To subdue means “to dominate or control,” not in the negative sense of oppression, but in the positive sense of administration. Using business terminology, to subdue means to dominate the market. As we learn to manage our resources, God expands those resources and enlarges our influence. He increases our “market share,” so to speak. There is no limit to what the Lord can do in and with and through any individual or any married couple who surrender themselves and their resources completely to His will and His way. He wants to cover the world with His “orchards” of human fruitfulness.

"If you refuse to die empty, you've rubbed your generation and humanity at large."

SIX IRREFUTABLE PURPOSE OF MARRIAGE.

6 REASONS WHY MARRIAGE MATTERS.

God gave us marriage and He expects the church to stand for it and to support it. Most people don't know why marriage matters. As we teach from the Scriptures about marriage, there are at least six divine purposes for marriage to communicate.
Whatever state you're in  married, single, divorced, or widowed  the Bible commands everyone to honor marriage. The Bible says in Hebrews 13:4, Marriage should be honored by everyone. Everyone, married or not, should honor earths oldest institution.
Sadly marriage is no longer honored by everyone in our society. Today, marriage is dismissed as irrelevant by many people. Its demeaned by many people. People are delaying marriage more and more  many times for the wrong reasons. And marriage is being redefined. Its being ridiculed. Its being demeaned. Its being denounced. Its being discouraged. Marriage is disrespected.
Part of the problem is that nobody knows the basics of marriage any more.

1. God gave marriage for the connection of men and women.
First Corinthians 11:11 says, In Gods plan men and women need each other.
1Corinthians 11:11-12. Amp.  Nevertheless, in [the plan of] the Lord and from His point of view woman is not apart from and independent of man, nor is man aloof from and independent of woman;  For as woman was made from man, even so man is also born of woman; and all [whether male or female go forth] from God [as their Author].
God wired it this way. God thought up gender. God thought up sex. What a God! And God thought up marriage. The Bible says this in Genesis 2:18 It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a companion who is right for him. You need companions in all different areas. But there is nothing like the companionship of a marriage.
Mark 10 says, Gods plan has been seen from the beginning of creation, when he made us male and female. [God made males, God made females. And God chose what he wanted you to be.] This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united as one body. Now since they are no longer two but one, [God sees a married couple as one] no one should separate them, for GOD has joined them together. That passage says three things.
i. Marriage is Gods plan. Its not a tradition we can just throw out. God invented marriage when he invented you, when he invented me, when he invented humanity. Marriage is Gods plan.
ii. Marriage is between a man and a woman. There are a lot of other relationships but those aren't marriage.
iii. Marriage is to be permanent. What God joins together  God joins a couple in marriage  no one, no one else, should separate. Its meant to be permanent. Its meant to be for life.
2. God created marriage for the multiplication of the human race.
God chose to populate the human planet through marriage. For thousands of years billions of people have come into existence because men and women got married. God chose for everybody who's going to be in heaven to come into existence through marriage and sex.

Malachi 2:15 in the Message paraphrase says, God, NOT YOU, made marriage! His Spirit inhabits even the smallest details of marriage. And what does he want from marriage? Godly children from your union. So guard the spirit of marriage within you.
If you're married and you cant have kids, God is not disappointed in you. That's not what this verse is saying. What it is saying is that were all alive because some couple got together. For thousands of years God has used marriage to populate heaven. And if men and women weren't getting together, marrying and having sex then there would be nobody in heaven.
3. God created marriage for the protection of children.
God invented marriage for the protection of children. We all know that kids grow better, healthier, stronger when they grow up in a stable family with a mom and a dad.God knew that human children needed a safe environment. And you were going to need somebody to feed you and dress you and nurture you. You were going to need somebody to protect you, to guide you, to train you, to care for you and all these things.
Proverbs 14:26 says, Those who obey and respect the Lord have a secure fortress; their children have a place of refuge and security. Kids need to be able to grow up in a home that is a refuge.
4. God created marriage for the perfection of our character.
God created marriage for the perfection of our character. It is in relationships that we learn to be unselfish and to be loving. And no relationship has a greater impact on your life than marriage, if you get married. Maturity and the purpose of life is to grow up and realize its not all about you. Life is a laboratory of learning how to love. Why is love the most important thing in life? Because God is love. And God wants you to become like him. He wants you to learn how to love. We learn to love and learn to be unselfish.

The Bible says this in Proverbs 18:1 Its selfish and stupid to think only of yourself. Marriage is a lifelong course in learning to be unselfish because once I get married, I can no longer think about me. I've got to think about we. 
The number one tool that God uses in your life to build Christ-like character if you are married is your spouse. Oh no! Yep! Because every day you get hundreds of opportunities to not think about you. You get opportunities to think of the other person, to care about them. The number one purpose of marriage is to make me holy, not happy. That is counter-cultural, but it is the truth.
5. God created marriage for the construction of society.
Marriage is the fundamental building block of every community, church, state, nation, society and culture. If you know anything about history you know that where marriages are strong, cultures and nations are strong. You know that wherever marriages and families are weak, cultures and nations are in decline.

6. God created marriage for the reflection of our union with Christ.
Marriage is a metaphor. It is a symbol. Its a walking, living, object lesson of how much God loves us and how we are to be in relationship with him. Marriage is a model of a profound spiritual truth.
Ephesians 5 says, Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her He died so that he could give the church to himself as a Bride in all her beauty  In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they love their own bodies No one ever hates his own body, but feeds and takes care of it. And that is what Christ does for his church, his body. The Scripture says, a man is united with his wife, and the two become one body. This is a profound mystery  but I am talking about Christ and the church! So each husband must love his wife as he loves himself, and each wife must respect her husband.

No other relationship on planet earth, including the parent-child relationship, can adequately illustrate our union with Christ the way a marriage between a man and a woman does. This is the strongest reason why marriage cannot be redefined. This is the strongest reason why it must be protected at all cost. Because we are the body of Christ. We are the bride of Christ in union with Christ. And marriage is that metaphor.
It really doesn't matter what other people think about marriage. It doesn't matter what public opinion says. It doesn't matter what the opinion polls say. It doesn't matter what's politically correct or incorrect. What really matters is what God says. He's the One who invented marriage.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12. Amp.  Two are better than one, because they have a good [more satisfying] reward for their labor;  For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!  Again, if two lie down together, then they have warmth; but how can one be warm alone?  And though a man might prevail against him who is alone, two will withstand him. A threefold cord is not quickly broken.
Jesus must be honour in your marriage.

Vision Analysis

JESUS CHRIST PATTERN OF PRAYER

JESUS CHRIST PATTERN OF PRAYER.

Introduction:
This is the pattern for prayer that Jesus gave his followers to use. There are two versions of the Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4). The Matthew prayer is included in the Sermon on the Mount; Luke's version is Jesus' response to a disciple's request that he teach them to pray. There are some differences between the two versions.

Jesus seems to have regarded this prayer as a pattern, not a formula. In Matthew he introduces it with the words "Pray then like this." If the prayer was seriously meant as a model prayer, it is unlikely that it would be recited only once. Instead, Jesus would have used it on a number of occasions. If he meant people to pray "in this way" (as opposed to exactly in these words), then variations in the wording would be natural.

Some recent writers regard the whole prayer as concerned with the end of the world. They take the petition "Thy kingdom come" as central to the prayer and understand all the other petitions to refer in one way or another to the coming kingdom. The request for God to hallow his name is then seen as a prayer for the destruction of God's enemies who do not revere his holiness; the line about the bread becomes a petition for the final wedding banquet; and so on. There is a problem with this interpretation, though. It makes the words take on a more unnatural sense. It seems much more probable that we should understand the prayer with reference to the help we need in our daily lives.

Body:

1. OUR FATHER

The first person singular pronoun is not used anywhere in the prayer. We say, "Our Father,...give us..." This prayer is meant for a community. It may be used by an individual, but it is not meant as an aid to private devotion. It is a prayer to be said by God's people; it is the prayer of the Christian family.

In Matthew the opening words are "Our Father in heaven," whereas Luke has simply "Father." Those who pray like this are members of a family, and they look to God as the head of the family, one who is bound to them by ties of love. Matthew's "in heaven" brings out something of his dignity, and this is seen also in the petition "Hallowed [Honored] be thy name" (identical in the two versions of the prayer). In antiquity "the name" meant far more than it does to us. In some way it summed up the whole person. Thus this petition is more than a prayer that people will use the name of God reverently rather than blasphemously (though that is important and is included). It looks for people to have a reverent attitude to all that God stands for. They should have a proper humility before God, being ready to honor him as he is in all his holiness.

2. THY KINGDOM COME

Christians have always longed for the day when God will overthrow the kingdoms of this earth and when all will become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ (Revelation 11:15). This is included in the meaning of the petition. But there is another sense in which the kingdom is a present reality, a kingdom that is now in human hearts and lives. This aspect of the kingdom is brought out in the words added in Matthew's version, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10). The servant of God looks for the rule of God to become real in more and more lives.

3. DAILY BREAD

In the petition about bread Jesus is concerned with the material necessities of daily life. Jesus' followers are, it is true, not to be anxious about the things they need to eat and to wear (Matthew 6:25). But Jesus also taught that they should constantly look to God for such needs to be supplied (Matthew 6:32-33). The big problem in this petition is the meaning of the word usually translated "daily." It is an exceedingly rare word, and many scholars think that it was coined by Christians. It could mean any number of things: "daily," "for today," "for the coming day," "for tomorrow," or "necessary." The traditional understanding, "daily," seems most probable. But however we translate it, the prayer is for the simple and present necessities of life. Jesus was counseling his followers to pray for necessities, not luxuries, and for what is needed now, not a great store for many days to come. By confining the petition to present needs, Jesus taught a day-by-day dependence on God.

4. FORGIVENESS

The petition about forgiveness differs slightly in the two versions of the prayer. In Matthew it is "Forgive us our debts," while Luke has "Forgive us our sins." Without question it is the forgiveness of sins that is in mind, but Matthew's form sees sin as indebtedness. We owe it to God to live uprightly. He has provided all we need to do this. So when we sin, we become debtors. The sinner has failed to fulfill his obligations, what he "owes." Matthew goes on to say, "as we also have forgiven our debtors," and Luke, "for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us." The tense in Matthew indicates that the person praying is not only ready to forgive but has already forgiven those who have sinned against him; in Luke, that he habitually forgives, and he does so in the case of every debtor.

In neither form of the prayer is it implied that human forgiveness earns God's forgiveness. The New Testament makes it clear that God forgives on account of his mercy, shown in Christ's dying for us on the cross. Nothing we do can merit forgiveness. There is also the thought that those who seek forgiveness should show a forgiving spirit. How can we claim the forgiveness of our sins if we do not forgive others who sin against us?

5. TEMPTATION

Instead of the traditional rendering "lead us not into temptation," some versions of the Bible favor a rendering such as, "do not bring us to the test." The word usually understood as "temptation" does sometimes mean a proving or a testing. But it is the kind of testing that the evil one engages in, testing with a view to failure. It is thus the normal word to be used when temptation is in mind. If the whole prayer were to be understood in terms of the end of the world, then "do not bring us to the test" is no doubt the way this petition should be taken. The great testing time that comes with the upsurge of evil in the last days is something from which every Christian naturally shrinks, and the prayer would give expression to this. But it is much more likely that the prayer refers to life here and now. Christians know their weakness and readiness to sin, so pray that they may be kept from the temptation to go astray. It is true that God does not tempt people (James 1:13). But it is also true that it is important for the believer to avoid evil. (1Corinthians 6:18; 1Cornithians 10:14).

6. DELIVER US

Matthew adds, "but deliver us from evil" (as do some manuscripts of Luke). There is uncertainty as to whether the last word means "evil" generally or "the evil one." Either meaning is possible. Christians pray that they may not be tempted, and this leads naturally to the thought either that they may not become the victim of evil or that they may be free from the domination of the devil. It is the general thrust of Jesus' teaching that should decide the point, not the precise language used here.

This is where the prayer ends in Luke and in the oldest manuscripts of Matthew. Few would doubt that here is where the prayer ended in the teaching of our Lord. But many manuscripts, some of them fairly old, add the familiar words, "for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever." This is the kind of doxology that is often found in prayers in antiquity, both Jewish (1 Chronicles 29:11) and Christian. The early Christians used the Lord's Prayer in worship services and doubtless found this a splendid way to end it. In time, what was so acceptable in worship found its way into some of the manuscripts. We may well continue to end the prayer in this way. It is good to remind ourselves that all ultimate sovereignty, power, and glory belong to God forever.

Teaching prepared by Prophet Sam Adebayo.

Vision Analysis

Adebayo Muyiwa Live Stream

BUILD ON PURPOSE NOT ON PERSONALITY

The lifespan of an ORGANIZATION/CHURCH driven by personality, is determined by the years of the personality driving it. Where's late MKO Abiola's ITT telecommunication? Where's Concord Newspaper and Concord Airline?
The founder's of Mercedes has died, but the Mercedes company is still functioning properly.
Steve Jobs died precisely 5th of October, 2011 but Apple Inc is still making waves.
Jesus Christ was busy training His successors for 3yrs and 6months thereabouts, and after He passed on the successor built the church.
Build your organization on PURPOSE not on the euphoria of your personality.
IF WHAT YOU BUILT COLLAPSE AFTER YOU'VE DIED, YOU'RE A FAILURE.
BUILD ON PURPOSE NOT ON PERSONALITY.
##SAM#