Why Magufuli administration misses the point on Government splurge

So TAKUKURU says Tanzania Daima was instrumental in the fight against graft but information regulators were incensed by it and banned the Kiswahili daily...is the Magufuli administration serious on war against graft when whistle-blower is banned? We think not!

Extortionate regime never wins elections but persecute the real winners

Methinks the oldman very wise why waste his child time in useless education
The parent knows the grading is a lie because despite top graded his child cannot read or write or ace the maths and has no interest to..

This happens when your thoughts are continually wicked...every utterance relates to breach the unwritten rules of the sanctity of the bedroom thinking everybody is captivated by it. Well, some of us are disgusted knowing there are better national issues to indulge our minds

Three Types of Victory in Your Life

José Henriquez was one of the thirty-three miners trapped 2,300 feet underground when a section of the San José copper mine in Northern Chile collapsed. It was 5 August 2010. For seventeen days all rescue attempts failed. There was no sign of life in the copper mine. The trapped miners had enough food for three days and a little drinking water. They faced the prospect of an agonising death through starvation.
I interviewed José Henriquez and his wife Bianca at HTB. He told how they had prayed to God for a miracle. He described the moment, on 22 August, when a drill broke through into the tunnel where the men were trapped. They hammered the drill with iron rods. They sprayed paint on it. They sent up many messages on it. Only one stayed on the drill as it went back up to the surface. The message read, ‘We’re fine. The 33 in the shelter.’
In total, the men survived a record sixty-nine days underground before they were brought to the surface. More than a billion people watched the rescue live on television. There were extraordinary scenes as everyone celebrated a wonderful victory.
The life of faith is full of challenges, difficulties and trials. But there are also times of victory. In the passages for today we see three different types of victory.

Psalm 18:16-24

1. Victory over your enemies

David faced many battles in life. He was surrounded by enemies. They were ‘too strong’ for him (v.17b). However, they are not too strong for God. God rescued him from those that were too strong for him and brought him into a ‘spacious place’ (v.19). ‘I stood there saved – surprised to be loved!’ (v.19b, MSG).
If you are in a ‘spacious place’ at the moment, remember to thank God for it. If not, cry out to God to rescue you. And if any of your family or friends are struggling at the moment, pray that God will bring them too into a ‘spacious place’.

Lord, thank you for the times when you brought me out into a spacious place. Today I pray for…

Matthew 22:15-46

2. Victory over your critics

Jesus’ opponents interrogate him with three questions: a trap, a trick and a test (vv.17,23,35). Each time, he is victorious and gives an answer that not only amazes (v.22) and astonishes (v.33), but also influences the whole of human history. What can we learn from Jesus’ answers?

Don’t divide your life into sacred and secular
The Pharisees planned to trap Jesus with his words. They said to Jesus, ‘Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?’ (v.17). The taxes they referred to were extremely unpopular. If Jesus had said ‘Yes’, he would have been discredited in the eyes of the people. Everyone would have hated him and seen him as a traitor wanting to help the Romans.

Yet if he had said, ‘No’, he would have been guilty of sedition and been liable to arrest and execution.

Jesus, in his unique wisdom, did not lay down rules and regulations but expounded principles that are timeless. He gives an amazing answer: ‘Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s’ (v.21).

Every follower of Jesus has a double citizenship. You have a responsibility to play your part as a good citizen involved in the structures of your society on earth.

You are also a citizen of heaven with a responsibility to God. In principle, the two – Caesar and God – need not be in conflict. You are called to be a good citizen of both. Get involved in the life of your society, don’t withdraw from it.

It is not that God is in charge of the ‘sacred’ area of your life and the government is in charge of the ‘secular’ area of your life. Rather, your whole life is under God’s authority. Part of your commitment to God is to honour and obey the demands that the government legitimately makes on you. In the same way that a coin would have born Caesar’s image, you bear God’s image (Genesis 1:26). God wants you to give him the whole of your life.

Know that there is life after death
Next, the Sadducees come along with a trick question about a woman with seven husbands. Because the Sadducees didn’t believe in the resurrection they designed a complicated trick question to show how absurd it was (Matthew 22:23–28).

Jesus replies, ‘You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God’ (v.29). Jesus uses the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible – which are the only ones the Sadducees trusted) to show that God is ‘not the God of the dead but of the living’ (v.32b).

He does this by quoting God’s words to Moses at the burning bush in Exodus 3:6: ‘I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’ (Matthew 22:32a). Although Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had been dead for hundreds of years, God did not say ‘I was their God’ but ‘I am their God.’ They are still alive.

Jesus is showing that this life is not all there is. Furthermore, there will be continuity between this life and the life to come. There is a physical resurrection. Yet, there is discontinuity too for we ‘will be like the angels in heaven’ (v.30). Above all, the Scriptures show that there will be a resurrection and if God is all-powerful, why shouldn’t there be?

Prioritise love for God and others
Then, the Pharisees come up with a test question to which Jesus gives a brilliant answer, which goes to the heart of the whole of the Old Testament: love God (‘with all your passion and prayer and intelligence’, v.37, MSG) and love people (‘love others as well as you love yourself’, v.39, MSG). Everything else is a detailed working out of these two commands (vv.34–40).

Having silenced his critics, Jesus then asks them a question about his identity. He shows from the Scriptures that the Christ is not just David’s son – he is David’s Lord (vv.41–46). He demonstrates that the Messiah is far more than simply a great human king. This not only challenges their assumptions about the Messiah, it is also a veiled indication to them of Jesus’ identity.
This is a moment of victory for Jesus: ‘That stumped them, literalists that they were. Unwilling to risk losing face again in one of these public verbal exchanges, they quit asking questions for good’ (v.46, MSG).

Father, please give me wisdom like Jesus to avoid the traps, to deal with the trick questions and to answer the testing ones.