Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day (Wednesday 06/30/10)

Where He Leads… Will You Follow?

Psalm 139:23-24 (Amplified Bible)

²³Search me [thoroughly], O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!

²⁴And see if there is any wicked or hurtful way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

I remember when I was in the military some friends and I decided to drive home for a four day roller, (a long weekend). We drove four separate cars and we were supposed to be following one another. But as we approached a certain stretch of highway, one of my friends broke from the plan and broke from following the lead car to go ahead, and take another route. Inadvertently, a cop was not seen as the car went speeding by and the car got a ticket. We had a plan and agreed we would stick together and follow the designated lead car, but that did not happen, as a result expense was incurred and time was wasted.

How often in life do we say to God, “Lord I will follow you,” and “where you lead I will follow?” “What you say do I will do,” only to speed ahead of God, try to stop short, take another route or stand still and not follow when the Master calls and says He has need of us. We want to get where God wants to takes us, but we often want to forgo the journey though. Even if we have not embraced the fact that the journey will be blood, sweat and tears, we often see it as the unknown and we do not like unknown or uncontrollable elements in our lives. For some of us it is a simple of act of not wanting to be in obedience to anyone, not even God. For others fear and apprehension precludes us from being able to move from our present position to actual engage the process of following.

If we could only grasp the fact that we can never get where we need to go, and get what we need to get from God if we don’t let Him LEAD! On any given day, on our own, most of us don’t know whether we are coming or going, then how in the world do we expect to get where God wants us to be. God is like a GPS, He knows the best routes, He knows how to avoid construction and detours, and He knows how to avoid spending money on tolls that we don’t need to spend or have to spend. If we could just see that follow God, no matter what “saves” us (yet again), we would gladly say where He leads I will follow. If we could do this journey on our own, what would we need God for, but we have to come to grips with the fact that we cannot be successful at this journey, and in reality we cannot even really make it on our own, or trying to lead the way ourselves…WE are blind by our own natural condition, so most likely we are going to end up somewhere, but usually nowhere close to where God intends or desires for us to be!

Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day (Tuesday 06/29/10

Who’s Earned Their Credentials In Your Life?

John 12:42-44 (Amplified Bible)

⁴²And yet [in spite of all this] many even of the leading men (the authorities and the nobles) believed and trusted in Him. But because of the Pharisees they did not confess it, for fear that [if they should acknowledge Him] they would be expelled from the synagogue;

⁴³For they loved the approval and the praise and the glory that come from men [instead of and] more than the glory that comes from God. [They valued their credit with men more than their credit with God.]

⁴⁴But Jesus loudly declared, The one who believes in Me does not [only] believe in and trust in and rely on Me, but [in believing in Me he believes] in Him Who sent Me.

My mother recently came home from her job where she is a school teacher, she was relaying a story to me about one her students. The students were having a science lesson, and they were discussing weather. As she was explaining some things in the lesson, she looked outside and said that the way it looked outside that it was going to rain. One her student’s went home and was discussing the day with her parents. As her parents prepared themselves to leave for Bible study, she told her parents that my mother had said it was going to rain. Her parents retorted and said “no it isn’t.” When they all came out of Bible study later that evening, it was pouring. Their daughter turned to them, and said I told you Mrs. James was a smart woman. Her parents were tickled, because to their child, my mom could do no wrong, and her opinion and information garnered more credit than even her own parents.

All too often this is our plight. We let people garner more credit than God in our lives. If God says something we often let people come in and hold the final report in who gets the confidence and credit in our lives. We rely more upon the word of man than we do God. Man’s credentials and our relationship with them dictate our reliability on them. The oddest thing in the world is God created the heaven and the earth, and man is only a creation verses a creator and we rely upon the creation more than the creator, how dysfunctional and backwards is that? We allow the influence of flesh to supersede, the influence of the spirit. We say we want God, but yet, we seek after man’s approval, and we believe them, more than we believe God. We believe each day that we get up and go to work that at the end of a week, or two week period we will yield payment for the services we have rendered, because a man or woman told us so. But when God says, that we are an overcomer, and He has given us the victory we struggle with that. We believe a man or a woman when we take marriage vows, but when God says “I will supply ALL of your needs, we doubt, panic and enter into fear. These are just two examples but there are so many more. WE doubt God’s credentials in our life, we doubt that He is big enough, smart enough, strong enough and more than enough to take care of any situation! But He is not. When He says it, He means it and it is SO!

It is time for us to remember who has the most powerful credentials, on record. God does! He is a God that cannot fail, nor can He lie. He is the Supreme Being that holds ALL power and ALL capability and capacity within Him. Stop relying on outside sources and understand that when He says something it is based upon fact, and covenant, not just assumption and familiarity!

Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day (Monday 06/28/10)

Today’s Devotional Written By An Inspired and Inspirational Young Woman: Tracy Koweh (soon To be Dixon)

Who’s to Blame

1 Samuel 15:22 (New Living Translation)

²² But Samuel replied, “What is more pleasing to the Lord: your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to his voice? Listen! Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering the fat of rams.

Today's message in the music comes from the title of Jadakiss's song "Why". The song is basically made up of a bunch of questions that he is asking about the world as we know it today? He is confused about the state the world has come to and is questioning God's timing, our morals, our rules as a society and basic wrongs in our governmental systems. After going through my own "why" season with God these past few weeks, I've realized maybe we are the answer to that simple yet complex question.

I remember an instance awhile back when Jai got a minor burn at a restuarant. I repeatedly told her NOT to touch the edge of the cooking station. I remember my many warnings and a few pops on the hand. Well, when the "in a blink of the eye" opportunity arose, she took it. Fortunately, she only lightly touched the surface but it was enough to let her feel the heat. So whose fault was it she got burned?

As I recall some of the craziest stories in the Bible, I can see how detailed instructions are from God. When God commanded Noah to build the ark in the middle of a drought, He gave him instructions right down to the measurements of the boards. When He gave instructions on building the tabernacle, He gave specific metals and furniture pieces to be used. When God gave orders in wartime, He gave individuals very unique and precise orders to carry out. Whether it was the time of day to attack, positioning of leadership, or when to take or not take goods from a defeated a foe.

So what if Noah built an ark but didn't use the dimensions God instructed him to. Would it be God's fault when Noah and his family flooded? Would it have been God's fault if Noah and his family were safe but all the animals were wiped out of existence forever? Was it God's fault when Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt, or was it her fault for being disobedient? God has given us all detailed instructions and warnings in His word, He has forgiven time after time, and sometimes we have been grateful of His mercy, but others we have underestimated and misunderstood it.

As we begin the start of another week, let us begin to take responsiblity for the consequences of the decisions we have made. Let us take a real hard and honest look in the mirror and see OUR shortcomings, OUR disobedience, OUR choices and begin to let God fix us up. Everything wrong or out of order in our lives is not the devil, not our childhood, not our parents, not our boss, not God, but sometimes its just a direct reaction to our "out of God's will" actions. Let us begin to truly live out the scripture that obedience is better than sacrifice. We don't always agree with God's plan or the way He chooses to play it out, but I am a living witness that if we do what He says, when He says it and how He says it, we will come out better, stronger and greater than anything we can imagine we can or ever will be.

Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day (Friday 06/25/10)

When I Grow Up…

1 Corinthians 13:11 (Amplified Bible)

¹¹When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; now that I have become a man, I am done with childish ways and have put them aside.

1 Corinthians 14:20 (Amplified Bible)

²⁰Brethren, do not be children [immature] in your thinking; continue to be babes in [matters of] evil, but in your minds be mature [men].

Over the years I have had several conversations about what my children wanted to do with their lives when they grew up. More recently my daughter who is seventeen has been having these conversations with me. For as far back as I can remember she wanted to become a world renowned chef, but over the last few years or so she still wants to be a chef but that is secondary to her aspirations of becoming a linguist. I have watched her dreams and aspiration, evolve as she has matured and grown. I still say at forty five when I grow up I want to obtain certain goals and to have certain attributes that people I view as more mature possess.

Today as I had time to reflect upon some gifts that God has bestowed upon me, I think of my grandmother and my mother, how I watched them pray for hours and minister to people. I watched how God would give them dreams and interpretations of dreams, words of wisdom and knowledge, thinking all the while they can keep that. My immature mind, could not fathom long hours on my face or on my knees establishing that kind of bond to get from God what they received. As I grew older and tests, trials and challenges began to hit my life I learned how to pray and get in God’s face by default. Through these issues I learned the importance of prayer and knowing God “like that” for myself. The legacy that was established generations before me, that I was in refusal to walk in when I was younger is now the call, gifting’s and work that I do. But it wasn’t until I got out of myself and my childish mindset that I was able to see what was good for me, what challenges me and what was and is God’s ultimate goal for me.

Not everything that we get warm and fuzzy over is what is good for us or even God’s plan for us. We have to mature to be able to accept what is God’s mature and ultimate goal and will for us. When we are immature, and in a childlike state we cannot see the work that it takes to obtain our legacy, God’s will and our destiny is not to break us, make us uncomfortable or stress us, but it is designed to bring us to a place of maturity, growth and utilization for God’s glory and the kingdom. So ask yourself when you grow up who do you see yourself becoming? Can you see yourself working and getting to God’s ultimate plan for your life?