Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day (Friday 04/01/2011)

Who Are You And What Are You Here For?

Ephesians 2:6-10 (New Living Translation)

⁶ For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus. ⁷ So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he had done for us who are united with Christ  Jesus.                                                                                      ⁸ God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. ⁹ Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. ¹⁰ For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

             Truly we are in a strange season.  I see God doing some awesome things through us and for us.  I can see God giving and pouring into the lives of some of His people giving them wisdom and knowledge in areas that people never knew they could operate in.  Recently my daughter was featured in a newspaper article in the Sunday paper, in the business section.  The articles that were written were a series of articles written about young entrepreneurs, which my daughter was the youngest of all the individuals written about by at least eight years.  We thought that was an enormous and amazing blessing, but then in the following days she was approached by the president of the Southeastern Virginia Food Bank, to sit on the youth portion of their council, as well as work with the young entrepreneurs program.  If all that wasn’t enough, she has been receiving a more steady flow of orders, for her business.  But when we thought that God had done so much, today I received an email, from the reporter who wrote the article saying that one of the most influential restaurant owners in the local downtown area was offering to give her space to cook and would become a customer, my mind was blown, by the awesomeness of God.  When my daughter found out she cried like a baby.  I began to explain to her that even at her young age she was getting it.  That God was honoring her faithfulness to serve Him, keep her body only unto Him and to tithe, to be an obedient and a respectful child that sows into the lives of others without asking anything in return. In addition this week, she had begun to sacrifice by waking up at 5 am to pray with other teens, and my God daughter for their needs.

            I remember as we approached the end of last year, God spoke a word to me during my prayer time; it was that 2011 was going to be a year of judgment, and that God was going to begin to separate the wheat from the tare.  That He was going to show Himself faithful to those who had shown themselves faithful to Him.  That the judgment was about identify those that are His openly.  As my daughter reminded me of these words, I could do nothing but shake my head in agreement.  But even with all of that had been said my daughter said to me, she did not understand why her?  I explained it was what she was created to do, that she was created for to honor God and then to do good works, we talked about that fact that as she has honored God with her life, and doing good that God was esteeming her and elevating her position, and placing her in a place that she had been identified and set apart as His own.  It has been an interesting journey for my daughter because she has always felt like the odd man out, in her group of friends; she has been one of the few to stay pure and to not find herself in a place of compromise.  She has been created unto good works, and identified unto the Father, who has given her these open doors, not for her to boast but to increase in the things she has been faithful over and to bring continued Glory to God.

            For many of us, knowing who we are and what we are created to do is something we have not figured out, mainly because we have been trying to map our journey, not to honor God or to help, but to increase our own notoriety.  But when we begin to understand that we are in a season that God wants us to give ourselves away to Him, in order for Him to use us, to bring Glory to His Kingdom and accomplish good works, it is then that we come into the understanding of who we are and why we are here.  You see self will not prevail in this season, nor will living a life any way we think, is okay.  This is a season of integrity, non-compromise and being submitted to God.   The quickest way to get God’s attention is to do His will in the way that please Him; looking for no selfish gain, but  living to bring honor to God, continually!

Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day (Thursday 03/31/2011)

Who Are You Standing For?

Colossians 4:12 (New Living Translation)

¹² Epaphras, a member of your own fellowship and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends you his greetings. He always prays earnestly for you, asking God to make you strong and perfect, fully confident that you are following the whole will of God.

            Recently, my God daughter has been lead into a season of intercession and prayer.  I smiled brightly as she entered this season, because I have known it well for years.  Laying prostrate and calling on the name of the Lord for others has been part of my spiritual DNA and I am blessed to have had this opportunity and been entrusted with this gifting.  For years I watched my grandmother get up before the sun came up and get down on her knees and pray, like her life depended on it for others, their needs and even things they did not know they needed.  I watched my mother cry out at home and in church for family, friends, churches, nations, as God lead her. I watched her travail in the floor with others for deliverance, salvation, giftings and callings.   I am watching as my daughters, spiritual and natural begin to pick up the charge of standing for others and pressing into God for the very life of those around them.  It is a legacy, but all too often it is not something that is taught or even really encouraged.  People think we have to be anointed with the gift of intercession to pray for others, but that is far from the truth.

            James 5:16 says, “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.”  We are supposed to have apart in praying for someone, besides ourselves.  We are supposed to stand in the gap for one another.  It is when we yield to God and to His voice and we are able to obey His call to pray for others, events, countries, and situations our prayers can become a hedge of protection.  It can be a vehicle by which God ushers in blessings, deliverance, healing and safety.  It can be a place of instruction and correction, reproof and rebuke.  It can be the place where God begins to unfold a plan and a purpose. It is also a place where God can send a warning or place a notice in the forefront.  When we take a stand we are part of an arena that can usher in power and authority.  One thing I do know to be truth is that many people do not want to stand in a place of prayer for someone else because it is thought that God may ask something of us or require us to give or sacrifice and for many of us we struggle with that and have not yet come to a place where we can get passed the selfish part of us that says I can pray, for others, but if it requires anything more I am out!

            Jesus stands at the right hand of the Father, making intercession for us, when we are good, and when we aren’t.  When we deserve it or when we do not (but do we really ever deserve it).  He doesn’t struggle with this assignment so why do we?  Primarily because we are fully man and we have not tapped into the fully spiritual portion of us that can help us overcome the flesh.  But a little know thing is when we stand for others, God sees that are can open up and meet our needs.  We also never know when we will need someone to stand in the gap for us.  What we can make happen for someone else God can make happen for us!

Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day (Wednesday 03/30/2011)

No Words…

Romans 8:25-27 (New Living Translation)

²⁵ But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.) ²⁶ And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. ²⁷ And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will.

            Today started off, with a list of things that I needed to do, for my businesses.  I had two pages of notes that needed to be dealt with and another page of miscellaneous items that needed to be taken care of.  But before my day “Officially” began, while it was still dark, at 4:57 am, in the stillness of my space, I  committed to pray, I committed to pray with my God daughter and the teens to include my daughter, about issues, hurts, pains, and things that needed a touch that only He (God) could provide.  Sometime later it was time to pray for the needs and request of those who are fasting with me, and those who just asked me to agree in prayer with them for different concerns, and heart felt needs, and desires.  As I earnestly sought God for those I love, know, and even some I didn’t, my heart lay heavy with my own concerns and misgivings over things, and relationships that remained unsettled.  Even knowing the way I felt my heart would not dare let me interrupt my flow for others to interject, my own request.  This battle was familiar to me and I had been to this place before.  I found myself with no words; no words to articulate my own pain, or my own frustration.

            As the day turned into afternoon and then into early evening, I received a phone call, that reduced me to a place of uncontrollable sobs, two people that I love and adore and that are truly my sister and daughter had begun to feel my burden and began to hear a call, that I had not made, and step out of a place of comfort and into a place of true friendship, sisterhood and Godly foresight, that I knew nothing about.  As my God daughter explained to me what they had talked about, and what they had decided on my behalf, I again had not words, but it was because I knew God had heard the very desires of my heart and the need that had me partial paralyzed. All I could do was weep, before the Lord.  In those moments all I could do was thank God for moving, and bringing an answer when I had not even felt worthy enough to ask the question.  He stepped into my right now, and made it known that He was King of King and Lord Of Lords, and even without a word being said He knew what I needed most to get me from being shackled to a situation to beginning to get free from it, quicker than quick, more suddenly than sudden.  God had used two people that although close to me, I did not go into detail about the truth of all that lay upon my heart.

            Many times we lack the words to articulate what we need, what we want and where need to be.  We are stuck; we lay prostrate in the presence of God, seeking His face for others, or even understanding that we need to be in that very place, but not having a clue what to say, or how to say it.  But I am so glad God reads our tears, our groans, our silence and especially our heart.  He knows what we have need of and the Holy Spirit will interpret that need, that pain that desire, that concern and that loneliness of the situation.  Jesus than takes all that we haven’t said but that the Holy Spirit has deduced and intercedes to the Father for us, and then it is God the Father that commands it to manifest on our behalf.  I am so glad that even in my weakness, my frailty, my inabilities, my worst and my best times there is a triune God that can hear the very cries of my heart and the very whimpers of my soul and He will answer, even when I feel, unworthy to receive, that answer.  “Casting All Our Cares Over On Him, For He Cares For US!” He hears when we don’t speak and He even answers when we have not even asked!  What an awesome God we serve!

Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day (Tuesday 03/29/2011)

So Busy Doin Me…

Proverbs 21:2-3 (New Living Translation)

² People may be right in their own eyes, but the Lord examines their heart.³ The Lord is more pleased when we do what is right and just
      than when we offer him sacrifices.

            Tonight I sort of hit a wall, came to an epiphany and made some resolutions.  Somewhere deep down inside I could hear myself saying I am fed up and I am just not going to take it anymore.  Most of my life I have been tender in heart and kind in spirit.  I still maintain that is how it should be, and that we should not have to suspect the worse in people, or have to constantly examine someone’s motives.  But I have found especially recently that people are so busy doin them, not doing God’s version of them, but the version that they see that they should be, that they have become reckless, and uncaring with God and those around them.  They have taken to doing what suits them, in the moment, what feeds their ego, and what keeps them happy, even if it hurts, destroys, or makes someone else miserable, uncomfortable or outs them in a place of lack or grieves The Holy Spirit. I wonder for one moment if the tables were turned would that be okay, to you if someone decided to conduct themselves in a manner that made you the sacrifice and caused you the pain?

            We are so busy doing us, being us, creating who we think we should be and recreating ourselves, to draw attention to ourselves with no thought for who it affects.  We forget that in those moments that you are getting those warm fuzzies that, they won’t last long before you will need another fix to make you feel that way again.  We forget that God is watching us, and judging us, as we act, and in our actions towards others.  We forget that the ditch that we often dig through our lack of compassion, consideration, nasty attitudes and just blatant disregard will be ours.  My mother use to say, don’t burn bridges that you may need to cross again.  But we burn them dismantle them, blow them up in some case, all in an effort to get our way and to have thing come out in our favor in only for a moment in time.  We answer only what we desire and what pertains or benefits us and we leave anything that requires us to be responsible or mature unanswered, undealt with and often unattended to.  All the while feeling no shame about our conduct, our attitudes, our motives or our lack of consideration for God, how He asked us to live or how He asked us to treat one another.   But the one thing I have learned in life is that Doing us, and leaving God’s will, His desire and commands out of the mix, will eventually lead us to our own place of despair, destruction and our own demise.  You see, nothing good comes from this flesh, because its origin is the Adamic nature, which is sin and self-serving and self-gratifying. It seeks its own, without thought for its creator, its original intent or its fellow man.

            As we go about our day, before we utter the words, I don’t care because I am doing me.  Or before we cop the attitude I need to be happy and the heck with everyone else. Before we serve someone else up, on the altar of self-serving motivation, we need to ask God to examine us, look at what is in us that is not in His will and will not align itself with His plan for our lives.  We need to ask, instead of how I can get what I want by any means necessary, how can I preserve and ensure the health and well-being of those who are friends, family members and loved ones.  We need to be choosing to do God and doing things His way, because after all He is the one who has the final say and judges not just our hearts but our motives and lives too! Get it right, you choosing to do you, and giving yourself a moment of pleasure can end up giving someone else a days, weeks, months or years of pain, and ending you up with and eternity of some painful discomfort, that you did not bargain for, think about it!

Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day (Monday 03/28/2011)

Today’s Devotional Written by An Inspired Individual, Who God Is Using: Mrs. Tracy A. Dixon

Calvary…Was it Wasted On You?

Matthew 27:28-30 (New Living Translation)

²⁸ They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him. ²⁹ They wove thorn branches into a crown and put it on his head, and they placed a reed stick in his right hand as a scepter. Then they knelt before him in mockery and taunted, “Hail! King of the Jews!” ³⁰ And they spit on him and grabbed the stick and struck him on the head with it. 

Today’s message in the music comes from Bruno Mars’ song “Grenade”. The chorus says: Gave you all I had. And you tossed it in the trash. You tossed it in the trash, you did. To give me all your love is all I ever asked. Cause what you don't understand is…..I’d catch a grenade for ya. Throw my hand on a blade for ya. I’d jump in front of a train for ya. You know I'd do anything for ya. I would go through all this pain. Take a bullet straight through my brain. Yes, I would die for ya baby. But you won't do the same.

The words pretty much say it all. Last week while having family time, Jai and I performed this song as a concert for Shane. Jai says that this is her song, and in the midst of playing around the spirit of God fell upon me like a ton of bricks. He told me to listen to the words and then He showed me that this was His song. He gave us His only begotten son Jesus to die for us, and some of us still choose to trash our lives every day. He took whips, hits, kicks, spit, punches, slang, lies, gossip, betrayal, hurt, doubt, pain, and even death for us on Calvary, and some of us won’t even give our lives to Him. Some confess salvation but won’t stop cursing, drinking, lying, clubbing and cheating.

What an insult to Christ that He would lay down His life for us, and we won’t lay down our pride, our will or our sinful nature to please Him. We want the blood and power of the cross but not the conviction and responsibility of it. God is not playing in this season and He is throwing out some grenades of His own. It’s time to give back to God. It’s time to lay down some things, turn over some plates, and sacrifice some lustful wants to show God that Calvary wasn’t wasted on us. He did not just tell us we meant more to Him than life itself, He proved it. He came to Earth and died for us. Let us wake up and live for Him.