WORDS OF LIVING WATER DAILY INSPIRATION
Monday, 3rd August, 2026.
*Theme: Don’t be Afraid
(Jere 28:1-17,Ps 119, Matt 14:22-36)
The disciples of Jesus were entertaining fear because of the storms on the sea and the fact of thinking they have seen a ghost. Meanwhile, this was the very person they wanted to be with in the boat. Because they were in the boat without Jesus, hence the cause of their fear.
We have allowed fear to rule our lives. Fear is a powerful force the devil is using to intimidate believers. As a result, we are not able to stand up in faith and fight the devil through prayer. We tend to think that the forces of the world are more powerful than God.
Don’t allow situations of this world to frighten you to the point of becoming very fearful in life. Sometimes we begin to think that Jesus is not in the difficulties we find ourselves, therefore we allow fear to take charge. Jesus is with us in all the human situations that we find ourselves. In our moments of difficulties, he is so close to us than before. Jesus never abandons his people to perish in the moments of challenges in life. Stand up to the situation and with the grace of God, you shall overcome it. No situation is bigger than Jesus.
As I have always been saying, what God can’t do doesn’t exist. He is capable of anything. We have allowed situations to bully us too much. As if to say, this situation is impossible to overcome. Some of us have allowed human beings to bully us in life. We have come to fear certain people as if they are powerful than God. Please don’t let anybody to frighten you in life. Those people are not God and they can never be. The power and the authority given to us is far far greater than whatever powers they have. Don’t give any chance to the power of fear in you. You are bigger than fear.
We only need to grow in our faith in Jesus. It takes a strong faith to overcome difficult moments in life. We have to also persist in prayer in order to overcome these mountains in life. Never give up in situations. Jesus is about to step in your situation. Things seem so difficult to bear, but with Jesus in your boat of life, there is hope. He brings hope to hopeless situations. When everybody has given up on you, there Jesus the mighty one comes in to change your story.
May God increase our faith not to allow fear to rule our lives. Amen.
Have a Blessed Week.
Shalom.🙏🏼🙏🏼
Rev. Fr. Akakpo Matthew.
WORDS OF LIVING WATERS DAILY INSPIRATION
Wednesday, 5th August, 2026.
Theme: Never give up in Prayer
(Jere 31:1-7, Ps (Jere 31), Matt 15:21-28)
Jesus uses the faith of the Canaanite woman to encourage us to continue to persevere in prayer. You can pray but if you don’t persevere, you may not see results.Whoever perseveres in prayer receives a positive result.
The Canaanite woman or the Syrophoenician woman could have easily giving up after hearing the discouraging statement from Jesus. But she never gave up. I know Jesus was testing her faith in Him, and she passed the test. She was not moved by the discouraging words at all. She remained focus and determined until she achieved a positive result.
Continue to wait on the Lord in prayer. Your right moment will come. It is a matter of time and your story will change. Never give up, surely God will answer you at the appointed time.
Someone has given up in his situation. You think that God has abandoned you and the fact that God can’t do it for you again. Please nothing is too late for him to do and nothing is too hard for him to do. In fact, God is never late in any situation. He is always on time.Nothing is impossible for God to do and as I always say what God can’t do doesn’t exist
It doesn’t matter how long you have been waiting on the Lord. You only need to wait on him for his own time. This is the challenge of us Christians, the fact of waiting. The spirit of waiting eludes us most of the time. We fail to wait and as a result, we end up going to other sources for help. Please have the courage to wait on the Lord, whiles you continue to seek his face in prayer. God’s time is always the best. As humans as we are it is not easy to wait, especially when it seems to be delaying. If you should find yourself in such situations you would understand. Please try to sympathize with such people and encourage them. Maybe if you were in their shoes, you wouldn’t have survived.
God would come to your aid and deliver you. Your moment will come. God will shame those who think all is over for you. Just trust him and hope in him. We have a God who never fails, so never give up. Stop crying and be strong because your moment of deliverance is just at the corner. Your God has a track record of doing mighty deeds in our lives. He has never fail and he will never fail you.
May God strengthen us never to give up even in difficult moments. Amen. Have a blessed day.
Shalom. 🙏🏼🙏🏼
Rev.Fr. Akakpo Matthew
NO CROSS NO CROWN
(Dan 7: 9-10, 13-14, Psalms 97, 2 Pet. 1:16-19, Mat 17:1-9)
The Transfiguration of Jesus teaches us a lot of lessons, but one of them is the fact that we need to suffer before we can enjoy our glory. The transfiguration is a prefiguration of the glory of Christ after His passion and death. But Jesus had to suffer the way of the cross before He was exalted by the Father through His resurrection. His death did not end it all, but he resurrected which is the reward of His suffering. The Christian life is characterised with a lot of ups and downs. This must come first before God can exalt us. We need to work for our salvation. In our Christian journey, one has to make a lot of sacrifices before we can grow in our Christian virtues. The Transfiguration was also to encourage the disciples that, they are not following the Lord in vain. A big reward awaits them after all these struggles for the sake of Christ.
The first reading was pointing to the event of the second coming of Christ. The fact that God had given him power and dominion over all creatures. He was given authority over all creatures both in heaven and on earth. St. Paul indicated in Philippians 2:6-11 that, God exalted Jesus’ name above every name, because he humbled himself to even die a shameful death. All nations have now been put under his feet to serve him. Jesus attained this state of glorification from the Father because he earned it. He actually suffered for it. Hence, if our master had to suffer before being glorified, then what about us his followers?
Peter in the gospel reading is just like some of us who wants to enjoy life without suffering. After experiencing the glory of Jesus at the mountain, he wanted them to remain there without coming down from the mountain. But he forgot that Jesus had to suffer before the transfiguration can become a reality. Before the account of the transfiguration, Jesus foretold about his death and resurrection, and the fact that we must deny ourselves to follow Him (Mt 16: 21- 28). He went ahead to rebuke Peter who tried to discourage Him about his suffering. “Get behind me, Satan!…” Mat 16:23. Of course, this was the immature Peter who was still a baby in the faith. But when he was matured he was ready to lay down his life for the faith. He came to understand that one must suffer in order to gain.
My dear friends in Christ, the Christian journey is not one that is as rosy as some pastors are making their members to believe in our days. For some of these pastors you do not mention suffering once you are a Christian. Once you are a Christian you and suffering are on opposite sides. This has made a number of their members to be frustrated in life when they are now facing the realities of life. Because psychologically, they are not prepared for such circumstances in life. This is a wrong Christian theology and for that matter it is unchristian to think that way.
The fact that the Lord made them to come down implied, there is the need to work for what they saw and experienced. Beloved, we need to work for our salvation on this earthly pilgrimage. If you want to go to heaven, then you have to work for it. At the final end of our lives, we shall be with the Lord in his glory. But there is the need for us to work hard to attain this final goal of our live. Jesus was telling Peter indirectly that, “my brother, nothing is achieved on a silver platter”. We want to be with Jesus and be like him with a transformed body, but this comes with efforts. The kind of life we live will determine whether we will achieve this status one day or not. The choice is ours to take.
Some of us don’t want to suffer in life, but we want to enjoy life. It doesn’t work like that. Once you are born as a human being, then you need to also struggle in this life in order to progress in life. Of course, some of us bring certain burdens to ourselves in life, which comes as a result of wrong choices we make in life. Not every suffering is as a result of our journey with Jesus. Sometimes we choose to follow our own human desires, which brings a lot of problems to our lives. This is what I call “self-inflicted crosses”. What you are going through don’t you also think it might be as a result of certain mistakes you made in life? Think about it and learn to avoid such mistakes next time. Such mistakes also become lessons for us to teach others not to also find themselves in our situation. It is important to do self–introspection and make important resolutions in our lives. But we don’t need to blame ourselves too much in such mistakes to the point of refusing to even forgive ourselves. It has already happened, we need to only learn from it and move on in life.
Some people are spending all their time in prayer camps and expecting a miracle to happen within a second. Am not saying miracles don’t happen, but we need to also work. As we pray then we need to also work as well. We are praying for God to bless us, but we have closed the shop and spending all the time in church. Prayer and work go together. You don’t only pray and forget about work, and you don’t work and forget about prayer. It is only God who can give you genuine blessings, the one which will endure forever. If you depend only on your strength alone you will fail. God alone can prosper the work of our hands.
In life you need to make efforts before you can achieve anything. You cannot just get up and achieve things so easily. You need to suffer and struggle to attain it. And mostly, when you struggle and you finally make it, you experience some form of fulfilment within you. Nothing comes so easy in life. Nothing comes so cheap in life. Remember cheap things never last in this life. You must suffer and make sacrifices in order to gain. May God grant us this grace to follow the example of His Son. AMEN. Learn to endure in difficulties. No sweat no sweet. No suffering no victory.
Have a blessed DAY, and A HAPPY FEAST DAY.
REV. FR. Akakpo Matthew
WORDS OF LIVING WATERS DAILY INSPIRATION
Friday, 7th August, 2026.
Theme: Choose God over the World.
( Nahum 1: 15;2:2;3:1-3,6-7,Ps (Dt 32), Matt 16: 24-28)
Our hearts should be centered on God but not on material possessions and things of this world. Some of us have allowed things of this world to control our lives to the neglect of God. We should remember that the most important thing in this life is to gain salvation in heaven.
The fact of going to heaven should be our bother everyday. All our daily activities should be motivated by this basic Christian hope.
Jesus asked a basic question in today’s gospel reading and I quote ” What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his life?” Matt 16:26 In other words, Jesus was saying that material things can’t grant us salvation. It is a useless venture if one gains all the riches in the world but goes to hell at the end. Material things are not bad in themselves, but how we use them.
Jesus is warning us against attachment to these things in life. We shouldn’t behave as if all our life depends on them. Our cars, houses, wives, husbands, friends, children, phones and whatsoever should never separate us from God. We should always be bothered about the things of God. How do I serve God better? We are to use these material things to to serve God and our neighbors. We are to use them to attain our salvation. Material things are to help us to serve God better.
Unfortunately, most of us think about worldly things and nothing else. We even love these things more than our fellow humans. There are people if you joke with their car, phone or any property they will harm you. I mean they can kill you because of that.The only thing they care about is properties, relationships. Things which will not last forever.
Jesus is saying that we should store up our treasures in heaven not on this earth. How many of these things are we sending to our grave when we die? Just take a moment and think about it. Remember this is a passing world, therefore live a good life to prepare a place for your soul in heaven. Things of this world can’t give you salvation.
Remain in God always. Always give priority to the things of God over this world. Remember one day you will die and where will your soul be?
May the Holy Spirit help us to always choose God over the world. Amen.
Have a Blessed Day.
Shalom🙏🏼🙏🏼
Rev. Fr. Akakpo Matthew
