Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day (Thursday 06/30/2011)

Are We Asking For The Changes That Are Really Necessary?

Psalm 51:1-15 Amplified Bible (AMP)

 ¹HAVE MERCY upon me, O God, according to Your steadfast love; according to the multitude of Your tender mercy and loving-kindness blot out my transgressions. ²Wash me thoroughly [and repeatedly] from my iniquity and guilt and cleanse me and make me wholly pure from my sin! ³For I am conscious of my transgressions and I acknowledge them; my sin is ever before me. ⁴Against You, You only, have I sinned and done that which is evil in Your sight, so that You are justified in Your sentence and faultless in Your judgment. ⁵Behold, I was brought forth in [a state of] iniquity; my mother was sinful who conceived me [and I too am sinful]. ⁶Behold, You desire truth in the inner being; make me therefore to know wisdom in my inmost heart. ⁷Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean [ceremonially]; wash me, and I shall [in reality] be whiter than snow. ⁸Make me to hear joy and gladness and be satisfied; let the bones which You have broken rejoice. ⁹Hide Your face from my sins and blot out all my guilt and iniquities. ¹⁰Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right, persevering, and steadfast spirit within me. ¹¹Cast me not away from Your presence and take not Your Holy Spirit from me.¹²Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit. ¹³Then will I teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall be converted and return to You. ¹⁴Deliver me from bloodguiltiness and death, O God, the God of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness (Your rightness and Your justice). ¹⁵O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Your praise.

            Recently as I prayed I could hear, are you really asking for what you need?  I fell silent for a moment as I began to assess my prayers.  In that moment the conviction of my heart had caused me to evaluate what I was praying for.  As I took inventory, I felt a strong urge to pray not for what I perceived as external needs, but what I felt were internal needs.  Matters of the heart, things that I needed to do better and be better in. Things I had let fester in my heart, and things that I had let God touch, but not totally heal or deliver.  I had to come to grips in those moments and others like them, that, to pray for monetary things, or aesthetic things is well within our privilege as a Christian and God is okay with that, BUT His main concern was, is and always will be my soul, just as it is yours.

The Bible says in Matthew 16:26 “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life [his blessed life in the kingdom of God]? Or what would a man give as an exchange for his [blessed] life [in the kingdom of God]?” I am often placed in a posture to reflect, on this scripture, because it causes me to ask some hard questions of myself.  Am I in a right place to receive the blessings of God and steward them well?  When God blesses my life with people am I stewarding them, well? Are people that are in my life in a place where they are not committing love abuse on me? Are the matters of my heart in order and are they in an acceptable place before God?  Have I allowed God to heal me, and change my thinking so I can handle what He may want to give me?  Am I stewarding what has already been given to me, in a manner that God is pleased with?  Is my thinking about myself and others right, or is my default negative? You see we are like anything that is motorized, if the engine or the internal specs are out of whack, the car on the outside can look just as beautiful and eloquent as a car can be, but it won’t run or it won’t run right. Have you ever seen a high end car, and it is blowing our black smoke as it goes down the highway, that is us when God blesses us with stuff and we have not taken the time to let Him deal with the inside of us.  If we neglect to do the internal corrections first all that we get will only make us worse, because what is already rooted in us will become more pronounced, and more prominent.

If a worm resides on the inside of an apple and it has begun to rot and eat the apple out, no matter how good it may look, eventual what is on the inside will make its way to the surface and show itself.  We have so much that we want God to do, and we go to Him, crying out asking Him to change our finances, our house, our job, fix our status (married or single), even pay someone back, but rarely do we ask Him to run a diagnostic on us. Rarely do we ask Him to perform necessary surgeries on us, to cut out what is inside that is causing us to be eaten from the inside out, or maybe causing us to rot or corrode.  One of the things I try hard to live by is first things first, there is an order to things, yes I want to be blessed and live a life of abundance, but I have come to know I want God more, and to be right in His eyes, so I will not compromise His standards or the level of integrity or obedience to obtain it.  So the question becomes as you are approaching God are you REALLY praying for what you need, and the changes that are needed, or are you petitioning God for things you want, but perceive as needs?

Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day (Wednesday 06/29/2011

Because Of Who I Am…

Psalm 138:1-8 Amplified Bible (AMP)

¹I WILL confess and praise You [O God] with my whole heart; before the gods will I sing praises to You. ²I will worship toward Your holy temple and praise Your name for Your loving-kindness and for Your truth and faithfulness; for You have exalted above all else Your name and Your word and You have magnified Your word above all Your name! ³In the day when I called, You answered me; and You strengthened me with strength (might and inflexibility to temptation) in my inner self. ⁴All the kings of the land shall give You credit and praise You, O Lord, for they have heard of the promises of Your mouth [which were fulfilled]. ⁵Yes, they shall sing of the ways of the Lord and joyfully celebrate His mighty acts, for great is the glory of the Lord. ⁶For though the Lord is high, yet has He respect to the lowly [bringing them into fellowship with Him]; but the proud and haughty He knows and recognizes [only] at a distance. ⁷Though I walk in the midst of trouble, You will revive me; You will stretch forth Your hand against the wrath of my enemies, and Your right hand will save me. ⁸The Lord will perfect that which concerns me; Your mercy and loving-kindness, O Lord, endure forever--forsake not the works of Your own hands.

            As I laid in bed last night, there was so much that was running through my mind, as I began to think of the all that seemed to need to get done and accomplished and all that was on my heart I began to pray, as I began it was first not praying about my situations I began to pray for others as they came into my heart.  As I lay there in the midst of  prayer and my prayer began to shift to my heart, I heard why do you praise me, pray to me, need me…At first my response was going to be because of who you are Lord, but then it hit me, it really is because of who I am.  It is because I have come to understand that I need God.  You see God has always been who He is, but I have not always been who I am.  When I was able to see to be in a place good or bad and still be in my right mind, have health and strength, to be in a place where I am finishing two Masters programs and I have raised two young adults through adversity that are drug free, alcohol free and don’t have any babies, and still possess their virginity. When I think of how God takes and uses the resources I do have to stretch to support and assist my parents and God has allowed me to sow into the lives of others, even on what people view as minimal.  You see my praise and worship is because of who God has made me, what He has kept me through and the lives that He has allowed me to touch. 

            If we look at whom we are, in spite of the adversities that we have encountered and the trials we have had to endure and the test that we had to take, why wouldn’t we realize that without God we are nothing and without God we can’t and won’t get to the level that He desires of us.  We don’t realize that in our status of brokenness that God can speak to us and get our attention in a way that when all is well, He would never obtain.  It is because of who we are that we should realize that we lift up praise and honor to God that He has not consumed us and allowed circumstances, our nasty attitudes, our disobedience, our times when we thought our talents and our methods got us where we were going. It is because of whom we are that worship should be perpetually on our lips, because God chose us to love and be in relationship with and He loves us enough to give us gifts, even when we are less than deserving of what He gives us and blesses us with.  If we could begin to be honest about who we are, and we understood the working of who we would be, without God, we would not neglect to offer ourselves to God, knowing that it is because of who we are that God has to be who He is to us. Look at where we could be if God’s hand had not been on us, where we would be, and what we would be doing, what value would we be? It is because we are the creation that we should understand what is due to the creator.

            Yes, it is true that God is God all by Himself; He is the Great I am. He is worthy all by Himself without us in the mix, but it is because of whom we are, that makes Him needed all the more and it makes Him more of a factor; it is because of who we are we should feel a yearning to give Him praise, and to worship Him.  We pray to Him because we understand that He is bigger, better and more “Sourceful” than we could ever be and when we could never get the job done or the mission accomplished He can.  You see it is in our weakness that He is made perfect.  It is in our weakness He is made strong. God is the abundance in our lack.  You see taking a long hard look at who we are and who we have become, and who we are becoming, should be enough to garner God a praise that would ignite the universe, and set the hearts a flame because we know if it had not been for the Lord on our side where would we be…

Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day (Tuesday 06/28/2011)

Mine, Mine Mine…

Song of Solomon 6:3 New King James Version (NKJV)

³ I am my beloved’s, And my beloved is mine. He feeds his flock among the lilies.

            When my children were younger they both went through a phase (as most children do), where they claimed everything as theirs.  They would lay claim to anything that they saw that tickled their fantasy.  It was funny as they grew a bit older, the mine was sometimes unspoken but still just as loud as the screams or forceful declarations that they once proclaimed when they were two and three years of age. As they would sometimes jockey for position to see who would get to sit next to me, or as they would try to get closer to me than their sibling and hold onto my purse strap handle as we walked into a store or event.  Even as a young adult, if one is in need of something and borrows from the other, I will occasionally hear “that is mine, I want that back.”  The cries of mine can be so strong and so loud; they are declarations and affirmations claiming possession of an item, a person or a position.

            I was talking with my two little sisters (both, adopted by love and choice), and we were talking about how Jesus has become fashionable, we claim God, we like to say He is ours, but yet we are live our life not in a posture that identifies that we are His.  For some of us, we say God is ours when we are hurt, embattled in a crisis, but when all is right as rain, we barely make time to say good morning to Him. For others of us when we want God to move in a specific way, whether it is to open up a door, or to pay someone back, for upsetting our apple cart then we become very verbal, with our “Mine.” But the question is why isn’t God ours all the time?  Why do we need something to motivate us into His presence, why aren’t we persistently and consistently there?  Why don’t we treat Him like we treat a new love interest, we are quick to exclaim, “That is my man,” or “that is my girl.”  We often seem more apt to place ownership on things than we do on God that is “my house, my car, my job, my clothes.”  But funny enough we forget that without God, we would have none of it.  God claims us as His, why is it so hard for us to do the same for Him and really mean it, really live it, really exemplify it?  This is probably because it would mean that we would not get our way all of the time.  Because it would mean that we would have to trust and rely upon someone other than ourselves. If we pulled at God and said mine, it would mean that we would have to live a certain type of life that requires of us, and convicts us into a place of obedience and submission.

            Most of us want to say “mine, mine, mine when it comes to God when it is convenient.  Many of us do not even realize that we are saying by the way that we live that we are not God’s, by our actions, our attitudes, the choices we make and the level of disrespect we show Him, by our active levels of disobedience in specific areas of our lives. You see God is God all the time, He changes not, why is it that we aren’t the same way.  Why aren’t we claiming Him all the time and changing not? Why does our ability to say God is ours tied up in our emotional state, who is our friend or not, what crisis we are in, or what we need or don’t need at that moment?  We should be holding on to Him daily as if our lives depended on it, screaming by our very actions, choices, words, living and obedience that He is “mine,” and we are not scared who knows it.  I read something recently in a book my Bishop had written and He said we can never have two heads, for then it is a monster…too many are claiming God as Head and trying to be in control and the head as well…and then we are wondering why, we have a mess on our hands and things are all out of wack and alignment.  If we say God is ours we should live like it and act like it, not just at our whims and when it is convenient, but all the time.  My Grandma James use to say on a regular basis, He is mine and I am His and I love Him so, and she lived so all who came in contact with her knew just that.  They knew that with all that she was her life screamed of God, “Mine, mine, mine!” Does yours?

           

Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day (Monday 06/27/2011)

Recognizing Who You Should Be Down With…

Luke 9:23-25 Amplified Bible (AMP)

²³And He said to all, If any person wills to come after Me, let him deny himself [disown himself, forget, lose sight of himself and his own interests, refuse and give up himself] and take up his cross daily and follow Me [cleave steadfastly to Me, conform wholly to My example in living and, if need be, in dying also]. ²⁴For whoever would preserve his life and save it will lose and destroy it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he will preserve and save it [from the penalty of eternal death]. ²⁵For what does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and ruins or forfeits (loses) himself?

            Today’s message in the music comes from Brandy’s song, “I wanna Be Down.  The first verse and the chorus says: “I would like to get to know if I could be…The kind of girl that you could be down for…Cause when I look at you I feel something tell me…That you're the kind of guy that I should make a move on…I wanna be down…With what you're going through…I wanna be down…I wanna be down with you…No matter the time…Of day or night it's true…I wanna be down.”  I recall in High school I was sort of the odd man out.  I was a little different than most of my peers, number one my mother was a teacher and she was the cheerleading advisory my junior/senior year.  I took my eleventh and twelfth grade together and I was pretty much know as a church girl, although I tried to run with those who were not in the Christian or church circles.  It seemed I was always trying to fit in.  It seemed that I was always trying to find someone to be down with.  Even as I grew older within the arena of the church it always seemed that the beat of my drums were always a bit different than those with whom I worshipped.  I had to learn that what I was looking for was not in any one person.  I discovered it was in me.  That it was neither a crime nor a sin to be unique and to be different, being a part of the “crowd,” especially the wrong crowd was over rated.

            Over the years I have had to learn that the importance of being a part of God’s kingdom, His plan and purpose was truly the focus that should be mine. You see I have learned that as the scriptures states the arms of flesh, meaning humans have a tendency to fail us or disappoint us, in some way. Even the most patient, Godly people still were born in sin and shaped in iniquity and are bound to have a moment, a day, or even a lifetime where they mess up and can hurt you to the core, but there is something about God; He is incapable of letting us down, because He knows the very desires of our hearts, He knows our thoughts and, the very number of our days and the condition of our heart, and its very meditation.  God knows what we have need of even when we don’t. He knows what is best for us and what we are capable of handling in our lives.  We can look to Him and know that no matter what He can handle us, our messes, our smallest situations and our most devastating events. But the key to it all is being able to recognize who He is, and laying down our own agenda for His, our tools of the trade for His.  We have a tendency to want what we want in the way that we want it, but in order to really be down with God we have to let go by submitting all of us to God, in a way that may for some of us seem like death.

            So who is it that you have been scoping out?  Whose team has become the apple of your eye? Can you see how much you really do need God in every area of your life?  Do you understand that with Him there is no problem too big or small for Him?  That there is nowhere that His loving arms cannot reach, or His touch cannot heal.  There is no situation that is too far gone for Him.  All we need to do is lay it down, our life that is in order for God to pick it up and make it what He desires and needs it to be.  You see we have a choice to be down with just about anything we want to, but choosing to be down with God means getting to the best of all things, and getting the best possible care in all situations.