Fighting For Your Rights

FIGHTING FOR YOUR RIGHTS

Some years ago I was on a flight from one city to another in the company of my senior Pastor. It was an evengelistic trip and also my first flight ever. I was hungry before we boarded the flight but I had no time to get anything to bite for two reasons--one, I did not have any money on me and preferred not to ask my pastor. Two, there was no time since we had to rush to board immediately we got to the airport.

Just few minutes into the flight a flight attendant approached my seat with some delicious snacks. She asked which one was my preference. Looking up with a gentleman’s smile I waived her off indicating that I was not interested in any. She passed me by. I looked behind me to see my Pasotor picking some with a cold drink to "flush" it down!! I was furious. Alighting from the flight I asked him why he didn’t order the snack for me knowing well that I didn’t have money on me and was hungry. He was shocked but realizing my ignorance, he laughed and said, "Bro. Dave, the snack is free on board. Our air fare included both the transportation and the refreshment"

I nearly went back into the plane!

From that day forward, especially that I also know that you can ask for "extra", I go for my right on every flight except when I am fasting!!

Ignorance kills. It makes a man with all the food go hungry. It is a disease that denies a man his rights.

This messgae is to open your eyes to the great opportunities and blessings available to you in Christ Jesus. By the process of creation, and of course, recreation, we have inalienable rights because of our joint-heirship with Christ. If the enemy has denied you of these, you’ve got to fight back and claim your rights.

Long time ago, Bob Marley wrote the following lyrics:

Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!

Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!

Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!

Get up, stand up: don’t give up the fight!

I disagree with the rest of the music which relates his own little understanding of God’s plan for mankind but the refrain above is accurate and valid.

According to the scriptures, you have inalienable rights that were not intended to be negotiated with anyone. And just like any other rights of a man can be violated and denied but can also be defended and maintained depending on the attitude of such a man, our God-given rights are subject to the same fate.

Genesis 1: 26-28 opens up the code of your rights as a child of God. Yes, the treason in the garden rubbished it but God in Christ Jesus has given you and me the opportunity to lay hold on these rights again.

“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” Gen 1:26-28

What are these rights you must not give up the fight for?

1. The right to be like your Father in Heaven. V.26, 27. The right to be sub-ordinate to no one, no other authority except His. Gen.1: 26-28; Jn.3: 31; Dt.28: 1, 13.

2. The Right to be blessed. V.28. Whatever blessing defines to mean

--Good life. Jn.10: 10; Ps.144: 11-15; Dt. 6: 10-11; 8: 7-10

--Good health. Dt. 7: 15; Ex. 23: 25

--Abundance. Dt. 8: 18; 28: 11-12

3. The Right to be fruitful. Gen.1: 28. God is against any form of barrenness in your life—physical, mental or spiritual.

4. Right to multiply. V.28. Companionship is the order of creation. Every living thing is to reproduce itself. God perfected that order by creating a woman to complement man. Whatever negates this order in your life is under divine sentence. “Let Reuben live and not die. Let not his men be few.” Dt.33: 6

5. Right to replenish the earth. To Relenish means to restore, refill, restock, replace used item. The earth has lost God-consciousness, peace, hope, health, decency and order. You are to replenish them. No wonder, “the whole creation is waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God.” Rom. 8: 19-22.