Words Of Encouragement For Your Day ( Wednesday 10/31/2012)

Do You Really Love Me?

Proverbs 3:11-12 New Living Translation (NLT)

¹¹ My child, don’t reject the Lord’s discipline, and don’t be upset when he corrects you.¹² For the Lord corrects those he loves, just as a father corrects a child in whom he delights.

My young adults know that I love them, even when they were children they understood this fact.  They did not nor do they understand this because I give or gave them everything they want, or ask for, or blindly believed everything they told me. It is and was because I have learned that love envelopes many things, and some of those things are discipline, responsibility, and accountability.  I have learned to correct what is detrimental to them as people and to their walk and relationship with Christ.  I have challenged their thinking, chooses and behavior, but not without positive reinforcement and being present as a guide, mentor and example.  Love as it concerns being a parent is about setting a standards in and out of our home and ensuring that we are utilizing God’s word as the measuring stick.  My young people are far from perfect, but they have standards, morals, they treat people well; they are drug free baby free, alcohol free and they have respect and care for others and their right to be respected as a human being.  Generally, I tried to raise them in a manner so that they were not a teacher’s problem or the systems issue. I have come to understand that a child without boundaries and discipline is like a car with no brakes, it will not stop and it is bound to wreck and destroy many things in its path.

          As I thought about the joy that today will bring for children because of harvest fest and collecting candy, all of the fun and games, I also thought about how God allows us to learn lessons, and learn the joys and sorrows of life as His children. He teaches us about appreciation through allowing us to be abased and non-abased.  He teaches us about sacrifice because His son Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice and example.  He teaches us about love because He is the quintessential representation of love, but He also teaches us that love comes with responsibility and boundaries.  He teaches us right and wrong, through His words, His love and the discipline or correction that He applies to our lives or situation every time we step out of what is appropriate and in the constructs of His will.  So if God is our example for parenting, why are we so off base raising our children?  Why have we strayed so far away from following the pattern that He has set before us?  Too many parents are allowing the inmates to run the asylum.  We have taken to believing everything that comes out of our children’s mouth, we are letting them do anything and everything we have taken away the discipline and boundaries instead of understanding as it says in Proverbs 22:15, “A youngster’s heart is filled with foolishness, but physical discipline will drive it far away.”  Just as God holds us accountable we have to begin to do the same with our children.  God is our Father; it is only when we hit a place of maturity and obedience that He becomes friend as well.  We have too many parents trying to be friend, and not parent, playmate and not an authority figure.  We are not commanding respect from our children we are condoning disrespect in them and that is spilling over in their behavior at school, play, church and other environments that they enter.

          If God is our father and He disciplines us because He loves us, why are we trying to show love with things and lack or boundaries and responsibility.  I am not saying that we become so harden and detached from our children that discipline becomes all we know how to do, but just as God shows us, sacrifices for us, and leads us in love, he balances it with correction, rebuke, instruction and discipline that may produce consequences to our actions and disobedience.  If we think for one moment that our lack of disciplining our children does not affect the greater good, just look at history, read your bible, and then you will know how untrue that is.  God has given us a great responsibility, when He allows us to have children, just as He cares for us and sets standards, for us as a Father we should be doing the same.  Be the model and love your children to life, just as God does with us, through consequences and reward, through tenderness and toughness, through honesty and truth and facing who our children are and not denying who they are and who they will become without being disciplined in love! Step up, step in and be the parent God is calling you to be and the one that He is to you!

Words Of Encouragement For Your Day (Tuesday, 10/30/2012)

They Have No Fear

Jeremiah 5:21-25 Amplified Bible (AMP)

²¹ Hear now this, O foolish people without understanding or heart, who have eyes and see not, who have ears and hear not: ²² Do you not fear and reverence Me? says the Lord. Do you not tremble before Me? I placed the sand for the boundary of the sea, a perpetual barrier beyond which it cannot pass and by an everlasting ordinance beyond which it cannot go? And though the waves of the sea toss and shake themselves, yet they cannot prevail [against the feeble grains of sand which God has ordained by nature to be sufficient for His purpose]; though [the billows] roar, yet they cannot pass over that [barrier]. [Is not such a God to be reverently feared and worshiped?] ²³ But these people have hearts that draw back from God and wills that rebel against Him; they have revolted and quit His service and have gone away [into idolatry]. ²⁴ Nor do they say in their hearts, Let us now reverently fear and worship the Lord our God, Who gives rain, both the autumn and the spring rain in its season, Who reserves and keeps for us the appointed weeks of the harvest.²⁵ Your iniquities have turned these blessings away, and your sins have kept good [harvests] from you.

            As I was texting a dear friend and sister in Christ we were talking about the attitude that seems to have infiltrated the people of God and how we have witnessed a great falling away, and a great sense of compromise.  In my heart I heard “They have no fear.”  I remember when my daughter was younger, she was fearless.  You had not boundaries as it concerned trying new things and being a daredevil.  She would climb to the highest branch of a tree, she would swing the highest point, she did not fear that anything she tried had a consequence, or that she would suffer injury or loss.  She had no fear of danger and no comprehension that things she was doing could cause her any harm, because not once did she ever consider the consequences of her acrobatics.

I often hear of people being mistreated and dealt with as if their life, contributions of feelings do not matter.  Every time I hear these things it hurts my heart, because I understand that this is not God’s will. We have become just like my daughter we have no fear.  We have lost our reverential respect for God and perspective for what our disobedience or maltreatment for one another can produce.  We have lost focus on what we have been commissioned as Christians to do and how God has asked us to live as a representative of His light. I remember some month back, our Pastor, had a come to Jesus moment in the middle of service, no I am not referring to the normal altar call; it was a moment where he shared that God had revealed to him that many of us in that very room would not see heaven, because of our living, our choices and compromises.  It is because we have leaned on the fact that grace is so amazing and it is, but we have to remember that we still must fear God enough to obey His commands and follow His word and will. He asked us to love our neighbor as our selves, but for most of us we do not give anyone or many people a second thought, we allow, power, jealousy, envy, strife, anger, and our own unhappiness and inability to get a handle on our lives to impact how we treat others. We have placed the will of God to the side and chosen to appease the flesh and to live in the moment of our decisions, without thinking about God and His mandate upon our lives.

Yes God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power love and a sound mind, but we must understand that fear, and I am speaking of a healthy reverential fear of the Lord that helps us on our quest for wisdom and to make wise decisions.  Without fear of God we will do and say things without a thought of consequences.  We need to understand that it truly is God that is in control of our live and when we disregard His dominion, authority and rulership there is a price that is paid. When we treat people as he has asked us not to, there is a cycle that will manifest within our lives (sowing and reaping).  We should desire to employ good judgment over our behaviors and our words.  We need to keep the will of God and His character before us as we live our lives, but we need to place ourselves in a place of submission to God because we love and reverence Him as our Lord and King!  We should want to be right, do right and speak right in the eyes of God, and to the benefit and uplifting of His kingdom and betterment of mankind!

Words Of Encouragement For Your Day (Monday 10/29/2012)

When Storms Come

Psalm 57:1-3 Amplified Bible (AMP)

¹ Be merciful and gracious to me, O God, be merciful and gracious to me, for my soul takes refuge and finds shelter and confidence in You; yes, in the shadow of Your wings will I take refuge and be confident until calamities and destructive storms are passed. ² I will cry to God Most High, Who performs on my behalf and rewards me [Who brings to pass His purposes for me and surely completes them]! ³ He will send from heaven and save me from the slanders and reproaches of him who would trample me down or swallow me up, and He will put him to shame. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]! God will send forth His mercy and loving-kindness and His truth and faithfulness.

            As I sat at home today, I began to meditate on the storms.  I heard the winds and I saw the rain and heard its intensity increase and decrease.  I have watched as the waters have risen in the lakes around our home.  I heard so many reports about the flooding and high tide and the affects that this storm is having on the lives of people all around us. Then I began to think on why storms come.  Yes we understand that they come as a result of weather systems, and patterns.  We understand that they are composed of air masses that collide and move to cultivate different types of weather systems and patterns.  Weather systems form and they come for many reasons, but is this true of storms in our lives.

            Surprisingly, enough storms to come in our lives for different reasons.  Sometimes they come because of our own disobedience. Other times they come because we are being tested and tried.  A storm will also come because of who we have allowed to come into our lives and become a part of our lives.  But storms also come to purify, to cleanse and to wash away dirt (sin) and to shift us out of one season to another.  But just as I am sitting in my home, safe and protected, we too, have a place to go and be safe and protected.  A place that covers us and keeps the storm from damaging us or destroying us, and that place is under the wings of God. God can be our refuge, the one that keeps us and protects us from the potential of harm as the storm runs its course in our lives. Although the winds may become adverse and the rains may come in a manner that has the potential to drown us, God through the Holy Spirit can keep us, and can safeguard us.  Strangely enough though, most of us will run out into the storm instead of running into the shelter of God and letting His love and grace shelter us.  This happens usually for a few reasons; first we think God is punishing us, instead of us accepting responsibility for our actions when they have unleashed the storm in our lives.  Secondly, we are concerned because we understand that coming in out of the storm requires us to change positions and to follow the rules of God’s household and allow the Holy Spirit to teach us and bring the purpose of God into a place of fullness in our lives.  You see protection comes with directions that we must follow, it is not just a given, it requires us to be responsible. Thirdly we have become so affixed upon the storms dynamics, and what the storm has brought into our lives. 

            So when the storm comes, will we stand out in it, or run from God, or will we come into the presence of God and allow the Holy Spirit to minister to us and warm us up?  Will we follow the rules that will keep us safe and keep the storm from destroying us and causing damaging our lives and our walk with God?  But as with everything in our lives we have choices even when the storms come, to seek safety or stay uncovered out in the midst of the storm!

Words Of Encouragement For Your Day (Wednesday 10/24/2012)

Nevertheless

Luke 22:41-43 Amplified Bible (AMP)

⁴¹ And He withdrew from them about a stone’s throw and knelt down and prayed, ⁴² Saying, Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but [always] Yours be done. ⁴³ And there appeared to Him an angel from heaven, strengthening Him in spirit.

            When I was growing up, for many years in my adolescence and preteen years we lived in a multigenerational household. I thank God for being able to glean from my grandmother, mother and auntie; they all taught me an awful lot.  But there were many times when I felt like I was the low man on the totem pole, because I was the youngest for nine years, before my younger sister was born.  In those years I learned respect at a whole different level, because I had two and sometimes three matriarchs in the home at one time.  I often was conflicted, but even when I didn’t understand; I learned to adopt an attitude of nevertheless.  You had to because even if you did not know, you understood that the consequences of asking why, or just being disobedient would land you in a world of hurt and trouble.  So you took in a deep breath and thought something like nevertheless, like oh well or just went on and did what you were told, even when it seemed redundant, counterproductive what you had just done for someone else, or just plain did not make sense at all.  You adopted this attitude and this position because you came to understand respect for authority and a healthy fear of mom, grand mom and auntie.  You rather get it done, then not to and have to face not doing it their way, because sometimes no matter which way you went it was painful, but the pain of not doing it was much more severe than the boredom or redundancy of accomplishing it.

            As I listened to a sermon last night, I heard the pastor that was speaking say that we should always have a nevertheless.  Having a nevertheless as it concerns God simply means that we may not understand what is going on and why, and we may know that what we are going through is uncomfortable, sometimes even painful, but that we respect God for who He is and the authority figure that He should be in our lives and we are determined to live in obedience and submission to Him.  It also lets God know that we can be counted on to rely on His wisdom and not our own that we are truly in a place of trust and that we are not leaning on human logic, but on His will for our lives. When we can say nevertheless, it allows God to know that we understand that our way will bring consequences that often lead to our destruction or sets us up for failure, and that we would rather have His way and His promises manifested then our own.

            Do you have a nevertheless?  Can you honestly say that God is in control?  When it stops being about us and begins to be more and more about God, and obedience to Him, we stop rebelling and start saying nevertheless.  Remember that Jesus gave the greatest nevertheless of all times, when he was preparing to die on Calvary’s cross, for you and I. He understood the suffering, pain and the intensity of what the Father was asking Him to do, and yet He still said nevertheless, not my will but yours be done!