Words Of Encouragement For Your Day (Monday 10/31/2011)

Are Heading In The Right Direction?

Hebrews 12:12-14 Amplified Bible (AMP)

¹²So then, brace up and reinvigorate and set right your slackened and weakened and drooping hands and strengthen your feeble and palsied and tottering knees, ¹³And cut through and make firm and plain and smooth, straight paths for your feet [yes, make them safe and upright and happy paths that go in the right direction], so that the lame and halting [limbs] may not be put out of joint, but rather may be cured. ¹⁴Strive to live in peace with everybody and pursue that consecration and holiness without which no one will [ever] see the Lord.

            In this season the direction in which we take is vital to the outcome in which we receive.  Our Bishop is teaching on faith, and I am now coming to understand the depth of living by faith and doing the work associated with what direction God is leading us.  My daughter is going to school in January for but she has a business now, she is bright, intelligent and ingenious, I like to say the girl always has something going on; she always has the next best idea, or is creating something new. I think she reveals a new talent almost daily.  But we often have to talk about you have to pray for direction, guidance and order to what God wants you to do first and how He wants you to do it.  In Diana Ross’ song “The Theme From Mahogany” the first verse says, Do you know where you're going to? Do you like the things that life is showing you? Where are you going to? Do you know...? Do you get…What you're hoping for…When you look behind you…There's no open door…What are you hoping for? Do you know...?

            Many of us feel like we are chasing our dreams but instead it is more like we are chasing our tail.  We have not the concentration, the faith, the discipline, to let God direct us, we are still trying to get er done all by ourselves, and that leaves us running in a hundred different directions trying to get things done with very little direction and whole lot of frustration and at times confusion, asking the question, where is God in all of this?  If we don’t like the direction our life is going in why are we still trying to go in that direction doing the same things the same way expecting to end up at a different destination?  For many years I did a lot of things that were taking me in directions that people thought were best for me, now finally at 47 I have gotten  to a place of totally letting Go and letting God, and it is taking me in some amazing places, and being blessed with amazing love, that I did not know existed.  I am getting my certification and eventually my license to counsel and then I will be going to obtain my Psy D.  But this was the direction that was breathed into me many years ago, before I even knew what a direction was, but I was so bust trying to run things and at times,letting people run me, I missed it.  It is so easy to want to be on a path, even the right path, but it is the means by which we get there and the means by which we find the path that we are supposed to be on that makes the difference.

            When we get into a mode were we are full steam ahead with no direction, on what to do and how to get there, or what God wants from us and how He wants for us to get there.  We have to learn that are strength and reliance has to be on God, but we must be willing to do the work, have the faith and we must be willing to change our mode of operation to get us where we need to be.  Many of us hate how it is all turning out, but we have to the power to turn it around, by letting go of our agenda and having faith in God that He will never lead us astray, and doing what is necessary to get to the place where God has called us to, the direction that we are strengthened and consecrated living in a place not just where we are blessed but a place where we are a blessing to others and at peace with God and ourselves!

Words Of Encouragement For Your Day (Friday 10/28/2011)

Don’t Expect If You Can’t Be Expected

Luke 6:37-38 Amplified Bible (AMP)

³⁷Judge not [neither pronouncing judgment nor subjecting to censure], and you will not be judged; do not condemn and pronounce guilty, and you will not be condemned and pronounced guilty; acquit and forgive and release (give up resentment, let it drop), and you will be acquitted and forgiven and released. ³⁸Give, and [gifts] will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will they pour into [the pouch formed by] the bosom [of your robe and used as a bag]. For with the measure you deal out [with the measure you use when you confer benefits on others], it will be measured back to you.

            This week has been a week where God was teaching me lessons; this week has been a culmination in some cases of the lessons of this year.  He was allowing me to see, people, situations circumstance and attitudes for what they have been all along, and what they have really been.  He was allowing me to see the fact that I can no longer sugar coat, things or enable people by looking at a particular incident and justifying a consistent behavior and bad decision making.  That I had made excuses for people and gave far too many people passes, while I stressed, strained and struggled, and then they were just able to live, do and move on with life with no consequence for their decision making and actions.  The expectation is I would get over it, be okay with it, or that I should far from complain about it.  For far too long God was showing me that I was allowing people to expect from me, without me being able to expect anything from them in return.  I have been expected to be and do while others have been allowed to escape expectation. I have been expected to have the back of others while I have gotten stabbed in the back; I have been in a place where I had to show up while others remained in a state of sleep.

            Funny, this is not just our behavior with one another, it is us with God.  We expect from Him, we require of Him, but He cannot not expect us, nor can He require of us.  We have fallen into a state of feeling like we are entitled to get just because we do the bare minimum of what God asks; we think that just because we may read a scripture, post a scripture, or give an offering or tithes that we have done enough to warrant God’s favor upon our lives, or we have placed ourselves in a position to be abundantly blessed. But what about the exceeding things that we should be doing to receive that exceedingly abundant blessing?  Great Blessings require great faith, and great persistence and commitment, it has little to do with us being deserving because when it comes right down to it none of us are really deserving.  We want God to heal our finances, but yet our spending habits have not gotten any better, nor have we disciplined ourselves to be a good steward.  We are asking for a better job, but we are there, but we are not there, or when we are there we are doing more of our own things than we are taking care of business.  We want God to bless us indeed, but when we have we won’t bless others or even do what is right by others. If we want something extraordinary we have to be willing to do something more than the ordinary.  We have to get up off of our expectations and get into a place of being expected to be more to God than just someone that gives Him a shout out or a drive by. More than someone that just asks and never contributes to the process or extends them in service to God.

            What if God decided that He expected us but He was going to be the one who could be expected? What if God decided that He would give us the bare minimum or nothing at all sitting back on His laurels’ as we do waiting for us to move on His behalf?  What if He got mad with us every time we were expected and didn’t move?  What if we started receiving the same non expectancy from God and others that God and others have come to see and experience in and with us?  Would we be okay with that?  Would we still think it was okay to expect without being expected? It is high time for many of us to wake out of sleep that we have been in, and stop making excuses for not doing something, anything to allow God and the people around you to know that you can be relied upon, and expected to do, what is the acceptable things that will identify us as reliable, responsible and without presumption!  It is alright to expect, but we should know that when we expect, we should be expected to do more than just complain and think we deserve we should be rescued or taken care of just because we are a part of God’s family!

Words Of Encouragement For Your Day (Thursday 10/27/2011)

Matthew 6:1-4

Amplified Bible (AMP)

Why Did You Do It Anyway?

Matthew 6:1-4 Amplified Bible (AMP)

 ¹TAKE CARE not to do your good deeds publicly or before men, in order to be seen by them; otherwise you will have no reward [reserved for and awaiting you] with and from your Father Who is in heaven. ²Thus, whenever you give to the poor, do not blow a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites in the synagogues and in the streets like to do, that they may be recognized and honored and praised by men. Truly I tell you, they have their reward in full already. ³But when you give to charity, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, ⁴So that your deeds of charity may be in secret; and your Father Who sees in secret will reward you openly.

            I have had people come into my life or I have had people who have been in my life that I have helped.  My mother told me something a long time ago which is “don’t give with the intent of getting back, give it because you are led to do it and that is within your heart to do.”  Our Bishop said the same thing a few weeks ago and it stirred up some thoughts within me. Recently, I have seen people being hurt, talked about, lied on and just down right treated poorly by people that claimed to be friends, family and brothers and sisters in Christ in some cases, over things that they had done for them. If a person was unable to reciprocate or give them back the same type of help or return to them what was loaned in a time or manner that they saw the berating and slander begins. I have even seen public assaults on characters and persons, and I have heard of private attacks and degrading communication.  The question that rose up in my spirit is why do we do for others?

            Many of us will do because we in that moment think it is the right thing to do, but what happens to that thought, leading or attitude on the day that person does not conform to our way of thinking or doing things?  Others of us do things because we feel a need to feel needed, but then when we need, and do not receive what we feel we are deserving of, we become offended and we allow negative thoughts and hurtful behaviors to manifest.  Others of us do things for all the wrong reason, we do it not because God has told us to, not even because it is in our heart to do, but because we have a need to feel superior, or that we have the capability that someone else lacks.  When we do things feeling this way, nothing good can come from it.  You have gotten your reward, because you made a name for yourself by saying you helped, this is when things can also turn ugly, because the right motivation is missing so it will cause bitterness, resentment, a need for control and to lash out and hurt, whether it is deserving or not.  I have watched people destroy other people’s self- esteem, reputation and break their hearts over things, and dollars and cents. It is a sad day when we use our ability to provide for someone in their time of need as a weapon of destruction or a bone of contention or weight we hold over their head.

            There is an even sadder fact and that is when we help not knowing the fullness of a person’s pain, experience, situation or circumstance and we judge them on the lies, stories and thoughts of ourselves and others that are just as clueless as we are.  The Bible reminds us that what we do to the least of these we do unto Him.  But it is better to bind a milestone around our neck and throw ourselves into the seas than to offend one of His little ones, meaning His children (His followers).  We are sometime so busy judging people by our standard and putting them down we never seek to find out what is really going on, nor do many of us really care because we are too caught up feeling good about us and thinking that our stuff doesn’t stink to care.  My mother and my grandmother instilled in us, this truth: “it is only by God’s grace that we do not walk in someone else’s shoes, and it is only by God’s mercy that we are not consumed.”  Before you loan another dime, before you do another good deed, before you go out of your way for someone else, ask yourself, really what am I doing this for, and what do I hope to gain?  You see all that we do should be as unto the Lord, and if we are doing it with any other intent or any other motivation remember that is all the reward and all of the thank you that you will get.  But more importantly if you can’t release it, without strings or thought for it, don’t do it, because it will be an act done it vain and it will bring no glory to God and only seek to frustrate you and those who you will hurt as a result of things not working out the way we want them to, and in the time we want it to! Remember to Let God and Let God, or Don’t Let God At All!

Words Of Encouragement For Your Day (Wednesday 10/26/2011)

Who’s Voice Is That Anyway?

John 10:25-27 Amplified Bible (AMP)

²⁵Jesus answered them, I have told you so, yet you do not believe Me [you do not trust Me and rely on Me]. The very works that I do by the power of My Father and in My Father's name bear witness concerning Me [they are My credentials and evidence in support of Me]. ²⁶But you do not believe and trust and rely on Me because you do not belong to My fold [you are no sheep of Mine]. ²⁷The sheep that are My own hear and are listening to My voice; and I know them, and they follow Me.

            I had some experiences earlier in my Christian Ministry life that if I had not had people that spoke truth into my life I would have fallen to being consumed by people.  Often we will find ourselves in the midst of situations where people come to us, saying and doing things in the name of the Lord, or as our Bishop says Prophelying that can hurt, derail, damage or lead us astray because we do not know God’s voice and know Him for Ourselves.  I have had people tell me “God was using them to purge things out of me,” and “that God wanted me to going a direction that God had never given me ANY clue that was in my future nor did it bear witness in my spirit.”  Thank God for a mother and Grandmother that raised me to know God for myself and a mentor in the person of Prophetess Melinda Richardson that taught me to seek God for everything, even when people in position came to me; she instilled in me that the word given through man should be a confirming word.  Her famous or should I say infamous question that she would pose is “Did you pray about it, or what did God say?” Our pastor Bishop Kim Brown, just said on Sunday, that the word He is giving on Sunday should confirm what is in us it should not be a surprise.

            We have two dogs in the house Sheba and Fuji; a week ago we had a friend of my son’s staying with us while he was on leave from the Military.  The dogs won’t bark at anyone that normally lives in the house.  The occupants they know are free to come and go without any incident, but when my son’s friend was here every time he came or went, they barked at him.  Sheba and Fuji know us, they know the sounds and the inflection of our voice, they know the sound of our walk, but a stranger they will not submit to, or tolerate just entering and leaving what they consider their sacred territory.  It should be the same with us.  We should know God’s voice we should know when He is speaking, it should bear witness in us and it should be a voice a tone and inflection that we recognize.  Often times we are so hungry for a word we run to and fro seeking a word or it is easy for others to walk up on us and sell us a bill of sale that is not God’s, theirs or ours.  Then we find ourselves trying to walkout things, live in things or fill shoes that we have no business trying to do because it is not ours to begin with nor is it from God.  When people are giving us their words an alarm should go off in us that reads “Danger, stranger, danger.”  But when they open their mouth and the word of God is flowing it will bear witness in us and there should be something that leaps in us as the baby leapt in Elizabeth when Mary entered the room and she heard her voice.  When God’s spirit is in us, and God speaks it will cause a leaping in us because that spirit within us is being charged, plugged into a power source.

            The importance of knowing God for ourselves is vital to our survival and to staying in the will of God and not in the decisions, ideals and or confusion of people.  We need to spend time in the presence of God to know Him and know His voice.  Just like my dogs ears are trained to know the sounds and voices of those that are a part of this family and those that abide in this house, our spirit should be trained and attuned to God and to follow after no other.  Spending time cultivating the greatest tool and connection we have which is with God, should be a priority!  Seek to know God in such a way that NO ONE can make you doubt what He has given you to do, or the vision He has planted in your heart.  Make God such a part of your life that you know the pattern of His foot print and the texture of His hand as yours is placed in His. Know Him and trust Him so that nothing can derail His purpose in your life.  As the old folks in the church used to say “You need to know Him for yourself.”  If you don’t you are subject to follow after more than just His voice!