Avoid Being Shipwrecked

This is a new day and dynamic for all of us.  We as a world are experiencing something that very few of us if any have ever experienced before.  However, in all this chaos and confusion, God is still present. Truth be told, He never went anywhere, we did.  As a country, over time, we have distanced ourselves from God. We did so by taking Him out of our schools and by removing Him from pre-game preparations.  We did so by taking Him out of our personal decision making and out of our consideration of others who may not necessarily look, or act, like us. Probably most importantly, we did so when we put Him in our box.

At work, we are in the time of year where we must go through items and files that we no longer need and discard them.  We have come to realize that after the items have been discarded, we have a lot of empty folders and other reusable supplies that need to be put back in their proper storage place.  My supervisor did most of the work of going through file cabinets and throwing stuff away. I was given the task to take all the boxes of reusable supplies and put them back in the supply room.  It was a very simple task … I thought. I began to try and fit each box of supplies on shelves that were already filled with other items, realizing that the boxes of supplies would not fit. What do I do?  I have a lot of supplies that can’t be left to block the walkways of the supply room.

A voice said to me, “just take the stuff out of the box.”  I said, “huh, it’s a lot of stuff.” The voice then said, “it won’t take you that long.  It’s just a small inconvenience and it will make your task a hold lot easier and simpler.  What did I do? I took the stuff out of the box. I then found that what was so difficult to put into place, started to fit very nicely with room left over to spare.

God is telling each of us in this most desperate time, that if we can learn to take Him out of our box, He can be so much more available to us in our lives.  He can fit things into our lives that He never could have before from inside our box. Our box can be so bulky and rigid that there is no room for the flexibility of God’s amazing grace and power to be made active in our lives.  We tell God that He can only bless us, if He blesses us a certain way. He can only heal us if He heals us a certain way. He can only grow us if He grows us a certain way.

Paul wrote to his son in the ministry, Timothy, in 1 Timothy 1:18-19.  He told Timothy, “This command I entrust to you, Timothy, my son, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you fight the good fight, keeping faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith.”

This is a time where we as believers cannot afford to lose faith.  We must remember that God is bigger than any issue or pandemic that we could ever experience.  How the church responds, is how the world will respond. All eyes are on us. God has called each of us to be responsible, loving and caring towards one another.  He has called us to be faithful and not fearful. In Matthew 6:25-34, Jesus tells us not to worry and to trust that He will care for us. He tells us to pay close attention to the birds and the lilies.  He feeds one to fulfillment and clothes the other in beauty.

So, although it might be a little of an inconvenience to do so, take God out of your box.  Keep your faith in tact so that we are not like those who would suffer a shipwreck in regard to our faith.

Be blessed everyone and stay safe.  Genesis 31:49, … May the Lord watch between you and me while we are absent one from the other.

The Fear of The Lord

Psalm 111:10

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom. A good understanding have all those who do His commandments; His praise endures forever.

I was talking to my daughters on the way home from church the other day about what they had talked about in class that day. One of them mentioned fear. I then mentioned the first line of the Psalm 111:10. My two younger daughters fell in an uproar. They could not understand why we should fear God. They felt that the only one they should fear, spiritually, was Satan. I explained to them that Satan, like us, was created by God. Satan has to get God’s permission before he can do anything. I wanted them to understand that God was bigger and stronger than Satan could ever be. I don’t think I won them completely over to the idea of fearing God to gain wisdom but I do think I started them to thinking about it.

Like my daughters, we mature Christians struggle to understand the many dualities of God that make Him God. We get frustrated very quickly. To make ourselves feel more at ease about God, we minimize Him. We place Him in our spiritual box. It is important that we really start to think about who God really is. Remember that He is The Creator and everyone else, including Satan, is the creation. All Satan can do is to persuade us in one way or the other. He has no real power other than what we ascribe to him. God can completely destroy us. That is the true wisdom in fearing God; understanding who is King. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom. Do you fear Him?

God Bless You.

A Fall From Your High Horse Can Kill You

...Especially when it is God who knocks you off of it.

God can put you in a position of authority and can remove you just as quickly.

It is very important that when we are given the responsibility of authority over someone that we honor God in that responsibility and "rule well."  It is extremely important that we don't walk over those that God placed under us.  What did Jesus show his disciples about leadership?  He got down on the floor and washed the feet of those who were less than himself as an example of the importance of servitude.  To be a good leader, you have to be a good servant.

In my Bible study, I was reading II Chronicles 21.

It talked about King Jehoram succeeding his father, Jehoshaphat, on the throne of Judah.  The Bible says that once he was secure on this throne he had his brothers, who were better than him, killed.  He saw them as a threat to his throne instead of an asset.  He forgot who placed him on the throne.  It was God who put him there.  Because he dishonored God and his position, God struck his people, sons and wives and all his possessions.  He suffered a great sickness so that his bowels came out of his body.  His fall from his high horse was to his destruction.  When he died they did not bury him with the other kings. 

The Bible said that Jehoram was evil.

When men dishonor those that God intended for them to protect, God will deal with those evil men in His own time and way.

God said that vengeance was His, not ours.  I believe He said that because if left up to us to execute our own vengeance we would not give the appropriate level of vengeance (might not give enough or give too much) or we would seek vengeance when vengeance was not even called for.  God knows the heart of man, so He knows the intent of man, thus He knows when vengeance is necessary.

When God promotes you, treat it as a great honor and protect those beneath you while you sit on your throne of elevated responsibility that God has given to you.

God Bless You.

Get In The Game

Today I want to challenge you. I want to challenge you to Get In The Game. What game am I talking about? It’s the game of life. It is the pursuit to be all that God has created you to be. Seeking success not from man’s standard, but rather from God’s standard. I know it might sound like I am setting you up for failure, but I am not. I am just challenging you to be the best you that you could possibly be. Success God’s way is built solely on seeking God the creator and not the things He created.

Matthew 6:33, …seek ye first His Kingdom and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you.

God wants us to tell ourselves, "If I seek Him first, He’ll take care of the rest." This is your first step in seeking success. Without God, you will never have success. I don’t care how much money you have or how much stuff you have—it’s not success.

Message 1: Put God First

Now, this Game of life involves three types of people:

1) The Audience
• They show up solely to watch, and not to participate
• Some will cheer while others will criticize

2) The players on team that are not on the playing field
• They wear the uniform and are eligible to participate, but are not on the playing field

3) The players that are actually on the playing field
• They're playing the game
• They are having to make moment to moment decisions that could affect the outcome of the game
   which could be failure or success.
• These are your leaders, visionaries, decision makers
• These are people that see something needs to be done and they do it.

In this game of life there are no limits to how many players can be on the field at one time. You don’t have to wait for the coach to send you in the game. God is the Coach, and when He made you, He provided you with everything you will ever need to play this game.

For most of us, getting in the game means stepping outside of our comfort zone. Fear keeps us in our comfort zone. It’s the fear of the unknown. We see mountains and storms in our lives, but we don’t see how to overcome them.

There is a story in the Bible that talks about a prophet of God named Elisha.  The king of Aram was seeking Elisha because he had been delivering messages from God to people that the king of Aram wanted to harm. These messages were to warn people of the kings plans.  These messages were hendering the kings plans.  When the king found out where Elisha was, he sent his army to destroy him.  Elisha had a servant with him. When the servant saw the army surrounding them he was afraid.

Have you ever heard of the phrase Lions, Tigers and Bears—OH My!! Well this was a Troops, Horses and Chariots—OH My!! Moment.

The army was all around Elisha and his servant, but the prophet of God was not scared.  However he did say a simple prayer.  The prayer was not for his benefit, but for the benefit of his servant.

2 Kings 6:17 says….
Elisha prayed, “O Lord, open his eyes and let him see! The Lord opened his servant’s eyes, and when he looked up, he saw that the hillside around Elisha was filled with horses and chariots of fire (This was God’s army, which far out numbered the king’s army)

God's army had surrounded the kings army.  You could only see God's army through spiritual eyes.  Elisha knew this, which was why he prayed that God would open the "spiritual" eyes of his servant.

Message 2: God is bigger than any mountain or storm you could ever experience.

My point here is don’t be afraid to get in the game for fear of failure. Whatever the world might throw your way, remember that God has your back.  Does that mean that you won’t go through hard times?  No.  But what it does mean is that when you do go through the hard times, whatever they might be, God will go through them with you. He will go in the fiery furnace with you.  He will hold your hand and even carry you if He has to in order to get you through it.

Don’t let fear hold you back. It’s one of Satan’s favorite weapons that he uses against us.

Bruce Wilkerson, the famed author of the book entitled, "The Prayer of Jabez," also wrote a book called “The Dream Giver.”  In The Dream Giver, Bruce Wilkerson talks about an ordinary person who lives in a place that is familiar to him and safe.  The main character decides to leave the comfort of his familiar and safe place to pursue the dream that the Dream Giver (God) had placed in him. Along the way he runs into border bullies who try and keep him scared and keep him from leaving his comfort zone. Once he had overcome the hurdle of fear and left his comfort zone, he then found himself in a wilderness.  He discovered later this wilderness was a time in his life that God used to prepare him to be able to handle the dream that was growing inside of him.

King David had to go through his own wilderness period when he ran from King Saul.  David loved Saul, but Saul couldn't see David's love through the eyes of his jealousy.  God used this period of time to help David grow into his annointing.  He had already been annointed King, however he had not been allowed to step into his annointing.  He wasn't ready to handle the responsibility that his annointing called for.  God sent men to David for him to lead while he was in the wilderness.  Unknowingly, David was learning how to be a leader.  He was learning how to be the King that he had already been annointed to be.  He was living under the providence (the invisible hand) of God.

God won’t allow you to reach your purpose if you are not ready to handle it. But He will use the problems you go through in life to prepare you for it. However, you have to be willing to leave your comfort zone.  This means that you have to keep moving forward in spite of your fears.

Thinking back on Black History Month.  Can you imagine where this country might be today had Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. decided he just wanted to sit in the audience and watch the game or just stay on the sideline and never get into the game?

He was just an ordinary man who listened to God and did an extra ordinary thing.

I challenge you again to be a leader, an innovator, a visionary, and a purpose seeker.

Get In the Game…. There’s room for us all.