Samoa Worship Centre Christian Church Manukau

28/06/2026

30/01/2026

Being prepared

‘The Lord, who delivered…will deliver me.’ 1 Samuel 17:37 NKJV

Every experience in our past prepares us for a future opportunity. God doesn’t redeem only our souls; he also redeems our experiences, both good and bad. He does it by refining our character, developing our gifts and teaching lessons we can’t learn any other way. We learn the most important lessons in the classroom of life through first-hand experience. The tests are challenging, but no curriculum is more effective. And how you pass the test is by growing in character, developing the gift or learning the lesson God is trying to teach you through that experience.

God is at work in your life. He is helping you get ready for your date with destiny. And he is doing it in ways that are practically imperceptible. David realised that slaying the lion and the bear prepared him to bring down Goliath (see 1 Samuel 17:37). And it’s not until you face your biggest challenge that God identifies how, when and where he prepared you. That’s when you realise that the battle was won long before you stood on the battlefield.

It was necessary for Moses to tend sheep for forty years before he could lead the flock of Israel. The disciples had to fish for fish before they could fish for men. A time of preparation precedes every divine appointment. And if we surrender to the preparation, God will execute his promise. If we don’t, he won’t. This is because God never sets us up to fail. The time you spend in the shadows is preparing you for the time when you will be in the limelight. The time you spend on the sidelines is preparing you to be on the front lines – and win.

27/01/2026

Keep a good attitude

‘Do not despise…small beginnings.’ Zechariah 4:10 NLT

Juan grew up in Puerto Rico, the son of a sugarcane plantation foreman. One of a family of eight, he lived in a three-room shack with a dirt floor and no toilet. His first job, at age six, was driving oxen to plough the cane fields. He worked eight hours a day and earned one dollar. Juan said it was in the cane fields that he learnt important lessons like being on time, working hard and being loyal and respectful to your employers. His job and small income were a great source of self-esteem. At age seven he got a job at a golf course spotting balls for golfers, and he began to dream of playing golf and earning enough money to buy a bicycle. The more he dreamed, the more he thought, ‘Why not?’ He made a golf club out of a guava limb and a piece of pipe, then hammered an empty tin can into a ball. Next, he dug two small holes in the ground and hit the ball back and forth between them. He practised his ‘golf’ with the same intensity he put into his job in the cane field, and he got good – very good.

In his thirty-one years as a pro golfer, Juan ‘Chi Chi’ Rodríguez won eight PGA tour events and twenty-four major tournaments, and he was the first Puerto Rican to be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame.

What can we learn from him? Two things: (1) Be willing to start small. The Bible says, ‘Do not despise…small beginnings’ (Zechariah 4:10 NLT). (2) Be willing to think big because you serve a big God (see Ephesians 3:20).