Words Of Encourage ment For Your Day ( Friday 02/22/2013)

God’s Truth, Not Yours

Romans 3:4 Amplified Bible (AMP)

⁴ By no means! Let God be found true though every human being is false and a liar, as it is written, That You may be justified and shown to be upright in what You say, and prevail when You are judged [by sinful men].

Numbers 23:19 Amplified Bible (AMP)

¹⁹ God is not a man, that He should tell or act a lie, neither the son of man, that He should feel repentance or compunction [for what He has promised]. Has He said and shall He not do it? Or has He spoken and shall He not make it good?

            I know it is often said that you can judge a person by the fruit that they bare.  You can judge a person that says that they hear from God by the manifestation of the words they speak.  How often have you thought you heard from God on and issue only to become frustrated when things did not turn out the way you thought you heard it?  How many times have people come up to you  and professed that they prayed on a particular subject and heard from God only to find that the words that they speak, or have sworn came from God cannot be found in the hallowed pages of God’s words to us? How many times have you seen people act not according to God’s word and say well God knows my heart?

            All too often it is our flesh that is getting in the way of the truth.  We despise pain and discomfort and instead of doing what it says in 2 Timothy 2:3-4, “Take [with me] your share of the hardships and suffering [which you are called to endure] as a good (first-class) soldier of Christ Jesus. ⁴ No soldier when in service gets entangled in the enterprises of [civilian] life; his aim is to satisfy and please the one who enlisted him.” We entangle ourselves in the “enterprise of civilian life,” and feed our flesh instead of adhering to the Spirit of God.  One of the saddest reflections to our witness and our faithfulness to God is that we would rather attempt to make Him out to be a liar to get what we want than to face the truth that we are not being honest and are not hearing from God as we profess.  Could It be just maybe we have not sought God, but sought the wisdom of man or our mind instead.  My mother used to tell me as I became a young adult and experience certain things that were not altogether lovely, that there is my truth, the other persons truth and the real truth (which is what God knows to be the truth of who we are, what we have done and how we have acted and behaved).  My Grandmother used to say to us you better know God for yourself, as I grew through many experiencing in the church and with individuals speaking on behalf of God, I have found out exactly what she meant, that everyone that speaks for God is not speaking His truth, or is speaking His word. You see I have learned that we must try the spirit by the spirit and see if it is of God.  The fruit is either God’s or its not, the words either line up with the word and will of God as it concerns how He has asked us to live and treat one another or it doesn’t.

            You see we have a form of truth that does not always line up with God’s truth, that’s why it is so important to know what God’s word says and to know His spirit for yourself.  Even those of us who have become good at twisting the Word of God for our agenda and to satisfy our flesh, that does not make the intent of our words true nor the application of God’s word truth.  It is vital for us to submit ourselves to God and to come into alignment with who He is so that we are not conjuring up a brand of “our truth” that does not match His truth.  If we abide in Him, then by all means He will abide in us, and so will His truth!

Words Of Encouragement For Your Day ( Wednesday 02/20/2013)

Who Are You Really Hurting

Proverbs 17:9 Amplified Bible (AMP)

⁹ He who covers and forgives an offense seeks love, but he who repeats or harps on a matter separates even close friends.

Psalm 7:15 New Living Translation (NLT)

¹⁵ They dig a deep pit to trap others, then fall into it themselves.

            One of my dear friends helped me to understand the message of these two scriptures within a story that they relayed to me recently.  The story was they were working in an environment where they were left unprotected by those in charge; they had hired someone that had self-serving motives and was unkind to their staff. When they gained an opportunity to speak to this individual’s boss, whom they had known longer and who had been a valued individual in their life, they were so frustrated with the situation they told him, how upset they were and then told him, that because they felt that way that they did they would not renew any of certifications for the position they held.  As she told me her story one of first things she said after her tale, was, “I was stupid, who did I hurt but myself?”  I heard recently that someone said that they would not pick up the phone and call someone that has been in their life for quite sometime, for various reasons, even though they had been a valued person in their life.  They qualified a phone call as having to chase people; why would anyone feel they are chasing someone they love if they know them and understand the dynamics of their life and they know the person loves them, genuinely. 

Every time I hear things like this, I shake my head and a place in my heart breaks, because every time an individual loses true focus and a grasp on what is needed for their own well fair or well-being, we will make decisions that are detrimental to relationships and in reference to what we will and will not do.  We will dig ditches (pits), thinking that we are hurting others and the result are quite the opposite, we are the ones who end up, falling into the trap that intend for others or we receive negative results because of the things we have said and done in our time of anger, frustration or misunderstanding that causes us to end up as my grandmother would say on the short end of the stick.  Hezekiah Walker wrote a song “I Need You to Survive” often times we don’t know who is praying for us, or is on our side, because we do not properly discern the situation or the individual and we let our emotions and imaginations and even our baggage run away with us.  Our Bishop says quite often how he is nice to everyone because he does not know who God may use to bless him.  I am a psychology major and last week we studying something called automatic thought, it is when we are trained to automatically think of something in a situation that produces feelings that cause us to react or have behaviors that may be counter-productive to positivity or good things.  Often it is these automatic thoughts that cause us to think that we should take things in to our hands and pay people back for what we think is occurring, and this because the thing that causes issues that we are destined to live with the consequences of for a long time.

Before you think that you will do something to pay someone back, or bring someone down in some way, stop and look, not just at the feelings of today, but the history of the relationship, and how the decisions you are making out of emotion will ultimately affect who you are, where you are going and who you are to become.  Be sure that you understand that when we act out of a lack of wisdom that we will reap the foolishness in our own lives and that we will reap the consequences of our actions.  Understand that when we become God there is no room for the real God to move, and he does not like anyone doing things and acting out of spite and anger that leads to sin.  Think before you act, or before you dig your next pit!

Words Of Encouragement For Your Day (Monday 02/11/2013)

Time Out For The Same Old Song

Acts 3:17-21 Amplified Bible (AMP)

¹⁷ And now, brethren, I know that you acted in ignorance [not aware of what you were doing], as did your rulers also. ¹⁸ Thus has God fulfilled what He foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ (the Messiah) should undergo ill treatment and be afflicted and suffer. ¹⁹ So repent (change your mind and purpose); turn around and return [to God], that your sins may be erased (blotted out, wiped clean), that times of refreshing (of recovering from the effects of heat, of reviving with fresh air) may come from the presence of the Lord; ²⁰ And that He may send [to you] the Christ (the Messiah), Who before was designated and appointed for you—even Jesus, ²¹ Whom heaven must receive [and retain] until the time for the complete restoration of all that God spoke by the mouth of all His holy prophets for ages past [from the most ancient time in the memory of man].

            During the Holiday season I was watching a movie, entitled “Fred Clause.”  There was a part in the movie when Fred went to work for his brother who was Santa Claus; while at the North Pole only one song was played all day which was “Here Comes Santa Claus.”  Day after day this song played, as Fred worked in the workshop for his brother.  One day that “same old song,” struck a nerve with him and he found himself over in the disc jockey booth hemming up the elf who was the disc jockey, and binding him up and placing him in a closet and then turning the channel to something new, something fresh. 

This morning I kept hearing the words tired of the same old song, and that clip flashed before me.  As I meditated on this, I heard this is how we sound to God every time we tell Him we are going to change and that we are going to submit to His will, and go where He has asked us and do what it is that He has asked us to do and then we still maintain the same posture, the same attitude, and the same wrong thinking and doing that results from that thinking.  Every time we say to God I will do better, if you will just get me out of this, and God blesses us and delivers us and we go back to that same behavior and same bad habits that got in trouble to begin with.  God hears the same old song being sung, until one day, He grows tired of the sound of song, that has produced nothing but empty promises and lack of submission to His word and His way and God get up and leaves the room, allowing things to enter our lives, to bring about change, and repentance.  Just as when people make empty promises to us, or we learn that their words are unreliable that we adopt an attitude of indifference and we may listen but we do not give those words credence because we have heard them before.  We can’t stand it when people do these things to us, then why in the world do we do God that way?

How long is that record of promises to change been playing in your life as it concerns God?  How long have we made promises to God about doing more, being better and coming into alignment that we have not followed through with?  Just as we don’t like the same old song being played in our lives or towards us, we need to act towards God the way we want to be treated.  Don’t make empty promises, and speaking what we think God wants to hear with no intention of follow through.  It is time to allow our words to be a sweet smelling savor unto the Lord and not something that turns the stomach of God, or causes His ears to hurt from the same old song being sung.  It is time to change the channel, change our song and become sincere in our pursuit of God, no more empty promises.  “Sing unto the Lord a new song!”

Words Of Encouragement For Your Day ( Wednesday 01/30/2013)

I Bow In Order To Stand

Micah 6:6-9 Amplified Bible (AMP)

⁶ With what shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? ⁷ Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? ⁸ He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, and to love kindness and mercy, and to humble yourself and walk humbly with your God? ⁹ The voice of the Lord calls to the city [Jerusalem]—and it is sound wisdom to hear and fear Your name—Hear (heed) the rod and Him Who has appointed it.

            Have you ever looked at your life and became a bit frustrated because it felt as if you were always in a position of falling down, or behind the curve ball?  Have you thought why am I continually in this place, the place where I am feeling like instead of things coming into alignment, I am being bent to meet the needs of others, or used up and often spit out?  Some years back, these were questions I found myself contemplating, and even asking of God and asking.  I even asked a woman that was my mentor, and her response was not startling, but baffling, she asked me had I truly bowed myself (submitted) to God? I was almost hurt by her question because at that time in my life I was on the praise team, a member of intercessory prayer, I was in MIT(Ministers in Training) training, I was a walking deacon and I was over teen ministry. I was her armor bearer, I was on hospitality and I cooked for my pastors.  I thought how in the world she could ask me this question when I was sold out to ministry but what she was asking was had I sold out to God and had I allowed not just my works but my soul and spirit to bow, and had I brought my flesh under subjection to God; had my “self” bowed to the Almighty God and allowed Him to become the one who lead my steps and not man.  She was asking had I learned to do what was pleasing in God’s sight and not to do things to gain favor with man, but that my desire was for His favor, far above and beyond any other favor.

            You see I learned in those days, we can do all of the right things, but when God is not the focus, they are not the right thing at all.  I am not saying to serve is a bad thing, but you will find that you may be frustrated and out of place and step, because you have not first submitted all that you are to God and allowed Him to purge out the things that would hinder your work, your focus or your wrong motives that may cause you to get off track and out of His will.  You see when we learn to bow our lives before God our focus is on pleasing God, being in His will and living a life that is orchestrated by Him, for Him.  When we are placing our confidence in man they hold the fate of our future in their hands and when they do not do as they have promised it can cause destruction in our lives and cause us to falter or sit down on the Calling of God on our lives when things do turn out the way that they may have promised or we may thought that it would come to pass.  We will often find ourselves falling, or face down in the hog pen because we are more connected to man than to God.  But when we are submitted to God and sold out to Him alone, we learn to discern situations, people and what we are called to do and we do not go into things expecting man to move on our behalf, but we understand that God is the one who does the moving for us and we understand divine order and purpose.

            The next time you are asking yourself questions like why I keep end up being used by people; why do I always seem to find myself struggling to stand up in the face of men.  Do an inventory and ensure that you have bowed before the Lord your maker, the one that truly has made heaven and earth and everything in it to include you.  Surrender your will, your plans, thoughts and aspirations to God, and let Him, be the one to establish them and cause them to come into a place of completion and success.  Cast not away your confidence, trust God with all that you are and ever hope and pray to be!

Words Of Encouragement For Your Day ( Monday 01/28/2013)

So That God Will Be Glorified

Isaiah 49:1-4 Amplified Bible (AMP)

Listen to me, O isles and coastlands, and hearken, you peoples from afar. The Lord has called me from the womb; from the body of my mother He has named my name.² And He has made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of His hand has He hid me and made me a polished arrow; in His quiver has He kept me close and concealed me. ³ And [the Lord] said to me, You are My servant, Israel [you who strive with God and with men and prevail], in whom I will be glorified.⁴ Then I said, I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and in empty futility; yet surely my right is with the Lord, and my recompense is with my God.

            I think it is safe to say the older we get the wiser we should become.  “There is a saying that says there is no fool like an old fool.”  This saying is so profound, because as we mature and live life, we should gain wisdom, knowledge and insight through our experiences in life.  It is sad when people don’t gain for their experiences and grow wiser and even in their old age they are filled with foolishness, and their life seems to perpetuate foolish things.  This morning as I prayed and meditated on something a good friend had written in her devotional, I had to ask, what have I stopped at that takes away from God getting or gaining more glory out of my life?  I thought about the fear that I sometimes allow to stop me dead in my tracks, or the reflection of past pains that I had allowed to keep me sitting and not doing what I understood was the call of God on my life; I understood the frustrations that I have allowed to cause me to question my faith.  I thought about so many things and I was determined to get these things corrected not because  I saw my life spiraling out of control, but because as I have grown older I realize, more and more each day, “I am not my own.” My life belongs to God as worship, and a light to others to draw them to God.

            I often have heard myself and many others make excuses for our living out of and away from the will of God in our lives.  We use the phrase well I am only human, often enough to allow it and its acceptance of it to be as comfortable as our favorite blanket or comfy robe.  We act the plum fool and then almost in the same breath tell someone how much we love God.  But as my mother and Grandmother before her would say, the proof is always in the pudding.  A man at a church I used to go to use to say, often during key points in the sermon, “How are you living?”  Every time I heard him say that it was a reminder that I could hear the word each week, and I could say what I wanted but the truth of who I was living for and living to glorify was in my actions, my behavior, my treatment of others and my overall lifestyle.  How are we living?  Moreover who is our life glorifying?  You see we were created to Glorify God alone, because He created us, foreknew us, and called us by name unto Himself. He could have chosen to call anyone, but He chose us, but the question is how are we living to repay that call, resemble that call, and honor that call?

            Many of us can say that we are good people, but are we living a life that is purposeful and meaningful to giving God the glory?  Do people know who it is who has called us by the way that we live, speak and treat others, or are they conflicted every time they are in our presence, or have we learned to just hide our mess well?  Only really us and God know for sure, but don’t think just because people don’t know that it doesn’t matter, we aren’t called to please people, but to please God.  We are called to submit ourselves and our lives to Him, in order for Him to gain and get the Glory out of the name that He has called and placed upon our lives!