Exhortations for The Soul

After Intercessory prayer this past Friday night and receiving that prayer for me and the new direction of this ministry, the Holy Spirit had me lingering in the studio for a bit. It must have been to hear this song that started playing by The Barnes Family that blessed me so much, because of this season I’m in.   The song is called God’s Promise. It was released way back in 1999. This section was repeated over and over throughout the song. And it resonated in my spirit. “Everything He said in His Word, He will do it for you. Every prophecy He gave, every promise He made, He will do it for you.” But they didn’t stop there. And I’m glad they didn’t. Because many times we expect good to drop in our laps even while we are doing bad. The Barnes Family went on to sing: if you only trust Him and let Him have His way, He’ll work things out for you. Only believe and you will see, He will do it for you. The song was just over 5 minutes and that’s all they sang - different improvisations,   as t

  One of the things we always say here at ZJoyVI is giving up is not an option. I tend to say that, I hope you know, to encourage people who are struggling to survive in a world that is being cruel to them, to hold on, be strong, rise above the challenges they’re facing, to keep on keeping on. So based on the question that was asked, can giving up be good and bad, here we are today feasting at the table - diving into the Word of God and attempting to shed some light on this mantra. The first thing we can agree on is that giving up can be a time of refreshing. The Bible supports this.   Isaiah 43:18-19 KJV “Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.” Ecclesiastes 3:1 & 6 “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: a time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a tim

Today, I want to draw our attention to something that is happening in all of our lives, whether we realise it or not, whether we admit it or not, and whether we like it not. In fact, the latter is very often the case, where we recognise that this thing is happening, but we do not like it, we resist it and the process either makes us rebellious or resigned into submission. What am I talking about? P R U N I N G. Pruning. What is that? And we may have had a similar exhortation before, but based on the times, this is worth emphasising. In the natural, when we talk about pruning, we think about farmers or gardeners or landscapers cutting off dead branches, buds, roots or leaves from a tree or a plant. This process is done to remove dead or diseased material, encourage growth, improve air circulation, improve fruit production, manage the size of the plant and to shape them into a particular size or form. So much for the natural, but that was necessary to help us to understand the concept in