I begin March with a grand celebration!
This month, March 19th, is the anniversary of this blog. In March 2014, the Lord inspired me to start this blog.
Of course, I had no idea of what a blog entails but in obedience to God I persevered.
Today this blog has 2,017 followers both email subscribers and WordPress.
Permit me to to say a big thank you to everyone who have contributed to make this grand milestone possible.
I want to take this time to remind you of the reason I started blogging and the purpose of the Oil and Wine.
Why the Oil and Wine?
In 2011, after rededicating my total life to God, I felt the strong calling from God to go into full-time ministry.
I was not sure what full-time ministry requires, but I know it was not pastoral work.
While waiting on the Lord for answers I obediently studied His Word in my spare time allowing the Holy Spirit to interpret the scriptures.
In the latter part of the year, the Lord directed me to study the book of Revelation.
However, I was reluctant to do this since I thought that I was unqualified to study this particular book.
Then the Lord reminded me that the book could not be opened by the learned or the unlearned but by Jesus Christ Himself (Isaiah 29:10-13; Revelation 5).
The Lord Jesus Christ is the focus of the book of Revelation and He has the key to open the prophecies within this book.
As I began to study the first chapter of Revelation, the following verse popped out.
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty. (Revelation 1:8)
The Lord informed me that this verse is the key to unlock all the prophecies in the book.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the beginning and the end and so the book of Revelation is about His life and purpose from the beginning of creation until this world ends.
Immediately, my eyes became opened to the understanding of this book.
I realized that I did not have to fear studying the book of Revelation because it was written to give us hope and comfort.
As I studied the book, I wrote notes that eventually formulated in the book Harm Not the Oil And Wine and the name of this blog – Becoming the Oil and Wine.
The title of the book and the theme of this blog is based upon the following verse.
And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine (Revelation 6:5-6)
The Bible commentators and end time prophets stated that this verse meant world wide famine.
However, the Lord told me to empty my mind of previous interpretations and search for other scriptures in the Bible that talk about the oil and wine.
The story of the Good Samaritan was highlighted.
The Good Samaritan poured in the oil and wine on the wounds of the injured man (Luke 10:35-37).
These two products are known for their health benefits, but they also have spiritual implications in the lives of the believers.
The oil refers to the anointing of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the believers and the wine refers to the new covenant of the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
You can read more about the significance of the oil and wine here and here.
The wheat and barley are good seeds and refer to the believers, but the Lord wants us to advance from being merely wheat and barley Christians into the oil and wine.
At this stage, you will receive full blessings. Hence, He stated in the above verse “see thou hurt not the oil and wine.”
Lessons Learnt since blogging
One of the key lessons that I learned since starting this blog is the importance of obedience.
I did not have all the necessary resources such as a computer and the internet to start this blog, but I persevered in obedience to God.
Since then I have never regretted it.
Even though I do not have a million followers as yet, I consider this blog a huge success and I thank the Lord for taking me this far.
The Lord has poured out His love upon me and blessed me.
I experienced the everlasting love of God and found out that the Bible contains the best love words ever written.
As the Lord continues to pour out His love upon my life I tried to share this love daily to you, my friend, on this blog.
I pray that the love that shines forth from this blog will encourage everyone even those who the enemy used against God’s people.
Best of all I pray that the love of God will drive out fear from your heart and draw you closer to God.
February stats
Total number of posts published during the month of February are eighteen.
The total amount of views are 3,524 including 2,081 visitors. As usual the majority of those viewers (2, 072) are from the USA.
Top posts for the month of February:
The benefits of love – forty-seven likes and twenty-five comments and Maintaining a righteous lifestyle with forty-six likes and twenty-six comments.
Thank you all for viewing and liking these posts.
Other popular posts:
Believe and claim your victory
Blog Changes
I have decided to temporarily discontinue the daily thanksgiving devotion.
Instead, I will publish four posts each week of varying categories.
This will give me enough time to visit other blogs and make a more meaningful contribution to their posts.
I realized that it is not the number of posts that you publish that will make your blog grow, but it is the quality of posts and the amount of networking that you are willing to do.
The short break I took was relaxing and refreshing, but I missed blogging and reading your encouraging posts.
Thank you, once again, and I am looking forward to your continued support.
Becoming the Oil and Wine 
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