Welcome to the glorious month of October! In celebration of Nigeria’s independence day, we had a Special Communion Service on Sunday and it was an exciting and joyful atmosphere in church even as the service featured special and inspiring dance and drama presentations.

Pastor began to teach us from 1 Corinthians 10:13, we saw from the scriptures that God is faithful and he will not allow us to be tempted beyond what we are able to bear but will with the temptation also make a way to escape so that we would be able to bear it, Pastor pointed out the contradiction between God providing a way of escape out of the temptation and we still having to bear it, she explained that the phrase “way to escape” actually means “end”, showing us that to every temptation, there is an end, that challenge is not supposed to last forever, it will end one day and when it does, we’ll still be standing, that is God’s promise to his children, our disposition to any challenge should therefore be a consciousness that it is going to end and an assurance that we are going to laugh and testify about it.

Pastor showed us in the word how God measures what we are able to bear knowing that we are different people with different challenges by taking us to Jesus’ explanation of the parable of the sower, in Matthew 13:20, Jesus spoke of tribulations and persecutions that arise because of the word, God measures the challenges he lets us face or otherwise based on what we have heard, he would only allow the challenge come to us when he knows we have heard something we can use to win, so a Christian should never be offended at challenges, God expects us to think deeply about his word till it is rooted in us and use that word to win. Pastor illustrated this by reminding us that exams are usually administered only based on what a student has been taught, it’s the student’s responsibility to listen and to understand but the information he needs to pass that examination must have been made available to him, in the same vein, the word of God we hear in church or while we study the word is so important, when the challenge comes, it is what we use to stand in victory.

Pastor charged us to be confident in life knowing that we have the greatest advantage, we have a God who is faithful and he sieves every challenge we face to fit us and not just that, he does not leave us in the dark, he has given us the instrument we require to win. The word of God shows us that we wrestle but not against flesh and blood, the goal in any wrestling contest is to remain standing at the end of the day, the word of God also shows us that the one in us is greater than the one in the world and that whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world, no matter how strong the challenge appears to be, as long as we don’t give up, we will win because winning is our birthright, no matter the challenge, there is a song of victory. At this point, Pastor went on to declare October as the month of Songs even as she instructed us to get ready to sing throughout this month; songs of victory, songs of praise, songs of worship, songs of celebration and songs of rejoicing. Glory to God!