emilynikanor

[emilynikanor]

An Act of obedience saved the entire human race.

It is through obedience to the Father that Jesus agreed to be nailed to the cross for the redemption of our sins. It is out of that act of utter obedience and surrender that His blood was shed.

As He gave up his life, the Father raised Him to life and the work of His ministry began to bear fruit and spread to the rest of the world.

What seemed like putting an end to the life of the Son of Man became what the world needed in order to be redeemed and reconciled back to the Father. His precious blood covered all my sins and the sins of the world. A powerful demonstration of love that I’m not sure I will ever be able to fully comprehend to the power of his blood (and his body).

But Jesus could not fulfil what He came here to do on earth until He died. His blood only became effective when it splashed. And His body after it was beaten and the wrath of God put on Him (for our sake).

Likewise, in our lives, we need to die to our own interests, our selfish desires and allow God’s plan for our lives to take over. We can not serve ourselves and serve God at the same time. We need to choose one and the other one needs to die. I would say , choose God because the thing with our loving Father is that, when we surrender our plans and die to ourselves for His Kingdom, He gives us our lives back in a form of a new life through the spirit and His plans for our lives far outweighs and exceeds the plans we could ever have for our own lives. His Spirit gives life and our flesh gives death because of sin in our flesh.

I remember a few months back I was holding on to something because I thought this is what God had called me to do in that season. But it just seemed like things were not working out. I was getting frustrated and this thing was beginning to cause conflict between my husband and I because we were off balance with each other about it…but truly the frustration was coming from within because I felt the weight of the assignment and I was comparing it to my ability to fulfil it. One day I got so frustrated I felt so angry and heartbroken that I didn’t want to continue with this assignment anymore. To preserve my heart I thought it would be better that I ‘give it back’ to Jesus, so in that moment of pain and frustration I surrendered this assignment to the Lord and I said to God; “Lord I’m giving this ‘thing’ to you in a form of a seed. If it’s from You, may You water it, and may You give body to this seed. And if its not from you, Lord let it die and burn it up”. It was also in that moment that the Lord showed me that I was doing this “thing’’ in my own strength that’s why I wasn’t experiencing grace through it. I had to repent!

You will not believe it but within a space of 2 months the Lord gave that ‘thing’ back to me in his divine order (proper structure) which is what I think He’s always wanted to do in the first place. We experienced supernatural overflow in that area, and for the first time my husband and I were both in agreement at all times regarding our steps.

God is truly a Faithful and Just Father who does not withhold good gifts from us. I have also learned that He wants our hearts more than He wants our deeds.

What areas are you struggling with in life? Have you fully surrendered those areas to Jesus? Because, whatever we surrender to Him, He will either give life back to it, or he will protect us from it by allowing it to die. John 12: 24 says “ Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds”.

God requires complete obedience and surrender from us and He wants our hearts more than He wants our good deeds. As you learn to surrender to God in complete obedience (especially when it’s difficult); I pray that God will bless you with His empowering Presence, Joy and Peace that surpasses all understanding. I pray that His perfect Will, will be done through your life so that God’s Name can be gloried.

John 12:27-28 “Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. 28Father, glorify your name!”

If you have already surrendered to God and you have been waiting for breakthrough, I would like to encourage you to keep waiting in anticipation. (a surrendered heart is not half-hearted). Keep aligning your heart with the Father’s heart, wait with praise in your mouth and wait with a posture of thankfulness because He is Faithful.

I came accross a beautiful illustration (seen below) from C.S Lewis Institute regarding what obedience looks like:

1. Read God’s will (His word by the Spirit)

2. Obey God’s will (His word through the Spirit)

3. Think God’s will (meditate on His word and His ways)

4. Pray God’s will (Repeat)

If you start doing these 4 things you will find yourself living in God’s perfect will for your life.

I would like to leave you with this verse from Luke 1: 45 NLT “You are blessed because you believed that the Lord would do what He said”

I bless you

Emily Nikanor

[emilynikanor]

Trust The Process

Trust the Process...a phrase we have heard so many times, yet, every now and then this phrase becomes real and personal and all I am left to do is to Trust, The Process.

The process is a journey, and this journey is a lesson; a practical lesson aimed to school you and launch you to the next level, or the next lesson. These lessons serve to teach you, prune you and to sanctify you. They serve to make you a teacher of your experiences or a  message of hope for those who are yet to encounter a similar challenge/process.

When you sit in a lesson you just don’t sit waiting for the lesson to finish so you can move on to the next lesson. You actually take notes, you do assignments, write tests and you make sure you understand because at the end of each semester, you know that you will write exams and if you do not pass you also know that you will do the module over again or rewrite the exams.

Why is it that when we are going through life lessons we quickly ask God to remove the pain or to make the lesson/challenge go away altogether?

I have simply learnt that the challenges we go through in life serve to strengthen and shape us into who we are supposed to become. If we trust the process and allow God to work in and through us, no matter how bad our experiences may be, God can make them ALL work together for our good.

In my entrepreneurship class I learnt about a process or cycle called Build, Measure, Learn (BML). This is a process where entrepreneurs build a product using minimum resources, and present the product to potential consumers to test their response to the product. After collecting data on the response of the product, entrepreneurs further build on the product, based on validated learning and they present the improved product to consumers again. Sometimes this cycle repeats itself until the product is strong enough to persevere in the market.

Similarly, God allows us to go through obstacles in order to build us into who He created us to be and to ultimately mould us in to the image of Christ.  

James 1: 2-4 says  Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

So while you are in the process, firstly know there is purpose and value in the process but the process should not define you. Recognize the season and take out your pen because its time for a lesson. Learn, pray, ask questions and take notes. You may not always understand in the moment why you are going through the test but will you Trust God and enjoy Him in the discomfort?!. God wants us to mature, be complete and lacking nothing.

Next time when you are going through a challenge. Pause, embrace the process, learn, take the test, pass, and Persevere. 

Trust The Process.

Bless you,

Emily  

[emilynikanor]

A message to 2020 brides and grooms to be affected by COVID-19 You will not believe how many of my clients’ weddings have had to be put on hold or postponed. 

Getting married is quite a big deal and I know many people are disappointed, to say the least. I know that people are dying and lockdown is the best thing for everyone right now, but I am here to tell you that IT IS OKAY to express your disappointment. It is okay to wish the government didn’t put up such strict measures for our own safety, because you had envisaged that by now, or by next month you would be walking down the aisle with the man or the woman of your dreams. So I am sorry that you had to postpone the wedding. I am sorry that as a result of the effect on the economy you will most probably spend more than you intended to. To put it plain, I am sorry that your dream wedding plans are slightly ruined. But today I am here to give you a new perspective and share some tips surrounding your wedding and Covid-19. 1) Don’t move in together….just yet. I know that was the plan that by now as you are supposed to be married, Right? Talk to your parents and rather get married legally and then move in together as wife and husband and have the big celebration afterwards. God will honour your marriage regardless of whether it’s a big celebration or not. The thing about moving in together before you are officially married is that you will start to see and know parts about your partner that you were only supposed to discover under the protection of the marriage covenant. (I’m now not talking about discovering a deal breaker secret etc…im referring to behaviors or habits that are off putting but can be changed over time) No one is perfect and when you are not bound to that person or legally committed to them it is very easy to get discouraged and start doubting if they are really the one for you… Especially once you have had a fight (which living in close proximity will surely bring out). Moving in together before marriage will also put you at great risk of dishonouring God and each other because you will struggle to control yourselves sexually. 1 Corinthians 7:9 says “But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion”. So it is better to get married. Sex in itself is a blessing that we are created to enjoy within the right boundaries, but if done outside of the protection and covering of marriage it can have great repercussions. 2) If you already live together, be patient with each other, extend grace to one another and do not judge each other. NOW is not a good time to judge each other’s character or asses one another’s ability to be a good husband or wife. Because of the uncertainty that Covid-19 brings, and being in lockdown (confined to one environment) people are anxious, fearful, stressed out and are under financial pressure. It could be that they are discouraged to stay motivated that is why they are spending a lot of time on the couch sleeping or watching TV. They are not lazy, they are just discouraged. Basically, if you start seeing your partner differently (in a negative way) Right now is a bad time to start making conclusions, so whatever it takes, train your mind to think the best of your spouse and always give them benefit of the doubt. 3) Set yourself up for a great marriage. Okay, so you have made a lot of investment into your wedding already. You paid for your wedding dress, you have already put down a huge deposit onto your venue and you were expecting your returns by now. So disappointing right? I would like to encourage you, don’t waste any more energy on what you can’t control but direct it somewhere positive like on what you can do now to make sure you have a better marriage. You can take this time to talk about your expectations in marriage or work on effective communication with your spouse to be (you have a lot of time to practice right now 😉) , or to learn your wife or husband to be’s love language so that you know how to lover them better. This will definitely improve your relationship and ultimately your future marriage. If you would like to know more about love languages please get yourself a copy of Dr Gary Chapman’s book: The 5 Love languages, or take a test on here https://www.5lovelanguages.com/profile/couples/ 4) For some couples lockdown may just be what you needed. Because sometimes we are still in the infatuation phase of the relationship, the euphoria of having the wedding of our dreams or spending the rest of our lives with our dream person can be overclouding. There is now no unnecessary pressure or rush (yes sometimes we rush to get marriage) and you are now blessed with more time to get to know your person better and to also ask yourself important questions like, what is marriage, and why am I getting married. You can not have a mindset of ‘if it doesn’t work I will just divorce’, and if you find yourself thinking like that, ask yourself why you are feeling uncertain and work on those things. Remember marriage is the most long lasting relationship that will have the greatest impact on the success of your life overall. 5) And lastly, enjoy one another. Go for walks, have long telephone or sofa conversations , etc, but keep safe and adhere to the lockdown rules. Know that God who knows all things concerning your life also knew that Covid-19 would take place while you were planning your wedding. He is not surprised by this and he promises us in Romans 8:28 AMP “” And we know [with great confidence] that God [who is deeply concerned about us] causes all things to work together [as a plan] for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to His plan and purpose.” So take a deep breath, instead of worrying or being anxious, pray and leave the matter in God’s hands. Trust God, and know that not only is He is Sovereign over what is happening in the world today but He is also concerned about what is happening in your life today.

[emilynikanor]

Be Healed, Be Whole, Be You Episode 1

[emilynikanor]

Welcome to My Blog. 
Emily is a Follower of Jesus, wife, mother and sister-friend. She is also a Certified Counsellor and successful Entrepreneur for over 8 years. Married to Desmond for 8 years; together they have two beautiful children, Ongame and Dahveed. “I am passionate about seeing people healed, transformed and thriving in who God has created them to be and to do. 
I believe that there’s so many people out there with GREAT ideas or people who have a great call on their lives but they are limited because of things that are holding them back from fully pursuing their purpose or fully living in the truth of who God created them to be. My prayer is that God will use me to help my sisters walk in light, truth and purpose.