God Loves You...

I have been singing the song How He Loves Us (written by John Mark McMillan) since last week. It’s been constantly in my head and I’ve watched probably 20 different versions of it on YouTube- even a Spanish version! They even sang it in church on Sunday! I didn’t know why but today I understood.

This morning when I woke up for prayer, I was asking God’s forgiveness for making a stupid choice despite all of the opportunities for escape that He gave me. They say that hindsight is 20/20 and it’s true! You can always see what you should have done after the fact. I found myself really beating myself up. It was almost like I was condemning myself so God wouldn’t have to say anything. I was stuck in it for a long time. It took over my prayer and was taking away from where my focus should have been. Then the words of the song started playing in my head.

He is jealous for me,
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden,
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
And I realize just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.

And oh, how He loves us so,
Oh how He loves us,
How He loves us all

Yeah, He loves us,
Oh! How He loves us,
Oh! How He loves us,
Oh! How He loves.

We are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,
If grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking.
So Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss,
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest,
I don’t have time to maintain these regrets,
When I think about, the way…

He loves us,
Oh! How He loves us,
Oh! How He loves us,
Oh! How He loves.

And I realized why God had put this song in my spirit. He knows that guilt and condemnation are some of Satan’s most powerful weapons. He knows the end from the beginning so He knew that I was going to be in this place on this day and He prepared me. He told me that He loved me. God loves me so much! And He loves you and your husband and your friend and your mama. He loves us all. Even after we ignore Him and live our lives the way we want to. Even after we get mad because we don’t have what we think we should have. Even when we feel like we are nothing. He loves us!

I started to think about people who commit suicide or contemplate it. We often hear them say or read in their letter that they felt that no one loved them. That what they had done was so bad or what had happened to them was too hard to come back from. Even some of us who know God, have thought, even if just for a minute, that it would be easier if you just weren’t here anymore. That’s a trick of Satan!  God wants you to know that He loves you! 

Romans 8:1 & 2 in The Message Bible says “With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ's being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.” God loved us so much that He gave us Jesus who took condemnation with him to the cross and freed us of it.

When all this was coming into my spirit this morning, I told God that I hoped I could remember all this for Thursday but He said now! Somebody needed to hear today that God loves them. When you feel like you can’t go on, focus on God’s love. It’s an everlasting, unconditional love. There is nothing that you can’t come back from with His love. He doesn’t remind you of what you did wrong. He picks you up, brushes you off and wraps you in His arms. You don’t have to fix yourself or your situation first. Let Him do it! Just go to Him and let Him love on you.

I pray now that God’s love would surround each person reading this blog. That it would heal your heart and uplift your spirits. I pray that the evil voice of Satan would be silenced by the sound of God’s word and that the chains of old feelings of depression would forever be broken by the power of God’s love.

Amen.

Unshakeable Praise

Man! This has been a week for me! The devil has been so busy, using his tricks to attack and bother me in various situations and people. I found myself wondering at times if he was bothering anyone else or if my picture was the only one that came up in his system. It seemed that I was walking in constant spiritual warfare, fighting to stay on the right path and say the right things. Have you ever experienced anything like that? Like if you could just make it to Friday or Sunday or any day when the drama would be over with your sanity intact. Well that’s where I was this week. I cried out to the Lord for something to bring me back into focus. He sent an earthquake!

I have thought about this thing and listened to other people’s thoughts. I thought about the fact that this was a warning that God isn’t playing games with us and wants us to stop playing them with Him. But mostly I have thought about the sheer greatness of God. He can literally do anything! Just think about that for a minute. That earthquake was felt from Canada to Georgia! He can do anything, anytime, anywhere that He wants to.

What does that have to do with my crazy week? Well…as I began to really think about how big God is, I had to thank Him and then I started giving Him the praise and there was the revelation! The devil can throw whatever darts he wants to. He can blind the eyes of my friends and family from seeing the truth. He can even send sickness to me or those I love but he can’t take my worship unless I let him.

I choose to worship God! When Satan uses someone to try and throw me off course, I tell God thank you that no weapon formed against me shall prosper! When he would try and get me to cuss someone out or act like him, I tell Satan that greater is He that’s in me than he that’s in the world! I am more than a conqueror through Christ Jesus! We have to recognize Satan for who he is. He’s not your friend. He isn’t walking this earth for you to have fun. He is the master deceiver. He is a liar! But guess what he is even subject to God.  James 4:7 says, “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you!”  That means stand up to Satan and tell him to go!

This week I gave God the praise even when I didn’t feel like it. That’s reality! Sometimes we are tired or hurt or grieving or even broken but if you look beyond your present and give God the praise for what He’s going to do in the future, you are breaking the devil’s hold over you. We can’t stay in misery and tiredness and depression!  Decide in your heart that you are going to praise God through your situations because He is bigger than any circumstance! Believe in the God that has brought you this far. He is faithful and His will is perfect! That’s what I’m going to stand on!

So…if you are facing a storm or have been on Satan’s target list, purpose in your mind that you have the victory! Go in your secret place and just worship God. Your praise should outweigh your reality! Hebrews 12: 28 – 29 (The Message Bible) makes it plain and closes us out perfectly.  “Do you see what we've got? An unshakable kingdom! And do you see how thankful we must be? Not only thankful, but brimming with worship, deeply reverent before God. For God is not an indifferent bystander. He's actively cleaning house, torching all that needs to burn, and he won't quit until it's all cleansed. God himself is Fire!” What can Satan do with that? Nothing…

AMEN!

Check Yo Self!

Whenever I sit down to write this blog every week, my prayer is always to put into words what the Lord has placed in my heart. My intent is never to preach to those that read this because I don’t know everything nor am I anywhere close to perfect. I am striving for perfection just like each of you. I am so grateful to God because every single entry including this one has ministered to me before it even gets to anyone else. So when God kept dealing with me about repentance, I said Lord, please don’t make me tell these people too much! Then I got a little tickled!

So this morning as I was saying my prayers, I heard so clearly “Check yo self!” I looked around because I thought I was hearing that old school rap song. But I heard it again and it was just like that. It wasn’t proper, I didn’t hear “Check yourself!” It was serious and hard core and I said God, you aren’t playing if you want me to be grammatically incorrect! I have to admit that I got tickled again but then I started giving God the praise. First of all, because I serve a God that wants me to get it right. Satan would have us to stay in our mess, things that we keep to ourselves and therefore don’t acknowledge to God. But He already knows! So it’s time to come clean!

I heard 1 Corinthians 11:28 every 1^st Sunday of my life before taking communion, “But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup.” The next verse says if we drink or eat unworthily, we eat or drink damnation to ourselves. People didn’t take that scripture seriously. I know, because I didn’t take it seriously until I truly started seeking understanding of the Word of God. We are supposed to look at ourselves in truth and repent of any sin that is living in us, otherwise we are damning ourselves. The chapter goes on to say that that’s why so many of us are sick and dying because if we would judge ourselves then we should not be judged.  The Message Bible says, “If we get this straight now, we won’t have to be straightened out later. Better to be confronted by the Master now than to face a fiery confrontation later.” Isn’t that deep?! This is not just about communion but a way of life. Take a good, honest look at yourself and see what is not like God and ask Him to remove it.

Have you ever found yourself so focused on someone else’s sins that you couldn’t see your own? I truly thought that I knew all my issues and had acknowledged them before the Lord and asked his forgiveness but when I asked Him to reveal anything that I was missing. Lord, have mercy! He showed things to me that I hadn’t even considered but that were real things that I deal with. I wanted God to do so much for me but I hadn’t done what He told me to do yet. I hadn’t cleaned out my temple so that I would have room to receive.  

I know this isn’t the uplifting message that I usually write but God wants us to get it right. My pastor has been doing a series about the things that hinder our prayers – sin, fear, guilt, doubt, wrong motives, etc.  If you’re looking for something from God and you haven’t received the answer that you have been waiting for, maybe it’s because there is something blocking it. Could be something you consider to be small but take it seriously because there’s no big or little sin in the Word. Sin is sin!

But wait, here’s the uplifting part! 1 John 1:9 says that “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Isn’t that good news? Even better…He’s not like man! He won’t bring it up again. I pray that you will join me in self-examination this week so that we can be reflections of God’s glory and worship Him in spirit and in truth!

Amen!

Walking in Faith

God is awesome! I mean, He is really awesome! As I write this, I am reminded of all the testimonies that I have heard this week of God moving in a desperate situations.  It’s one thing to say that you know God will fix something for you but it is something totally different when you KNOW that He did it! That’s when you can testify to the world that you know God is real.

The scripture, “We walk by faith and not by sight” has been heavy on my spirit for the last few days. It has been relevant in most of the conversations that I have had with friends and family recently. This morning I woke up and couldn’t remember the context in which it was used in the Word so I looked it up.  It’s found in 2 Corinthians 5 and the whole chapter is about being confident in the resurrection and reconciled to God. It’s a great chapter and I encourage you to read it but it also truly makes our faith walk clear. We did not see Christ die on the cross or rise again on the 3^rd day, yet we believe it as the basis of everything we stand on as Christians. We walk by faith and not by sight…

So why is it hard for us to look at what seems to be an impossible situation and believe that God can fix it? Think about Lazarus, who had been dead for FOUR days! He was all the way dead, y’all! Buried in the tomb and past the 3 days that the Jews believe the soul hovers above the body. There was nothing Mary and Martha could see that would give them hope. But God! Jesus arrived knowing that Lazarus was dead and told Martha that Lazarus would rise again. You see He had already said that Lazarus’s sickness would not end in death but that it was for God’s glory that He might be glorified through it! Sometimes God allows us to stay in storms for longer than we think we should so that He can get the glory, because otherwise you might think you got out on your power! We walk by faith and not by sight…

Often times, Satan blocks our vision with fear! Fear is his number one weapon and if he can get you to look at your situation and have no hope, he has won. That’s why when our situation looks impossible, we have to dig that much deeper into our faith and walk in it! Believe that God wouldn’t lead you to something that He won’t bring you through. Fear is False Evidence Appearing Real! That’s why you can’t put any weight on what you see with your natural eyes. Satan has stacked the deck and created a whole host of things that say you will die and not live, that you will be in poverty forever, that you will never get out of jail, that you will never get that job you want, that your credit won’t allow you to have that house and it all sounds believable.  Satan is the great deceiver but we walk by faith and not by sight!

God is mighty! He knows the end from the beginning and has already worked it out. Even better than that, God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. He does not change! So if he raised Lazarus from the dead, caused the blind man to see, and gave the widow enough flour and oil to last through a severe famine, why wouldn’t he respond to your faith?  He will! This week when you look at the situations that you are facing in your life, don’t dwell in what seems impossible, open your Word and walk in faith, believing that God has already worked it out!

To God be the Glory…

Where is Your faith?

As I sought the Lord for what to write about this week, I kept hearing the word faith. I thought …well that’s a big word, Lord, I don’t know if I can do it justice in a blog entry. But God kept saying it and reminding me that there are lessons on faith in everyone’s life so let’s get personal! I mean, if anything is personal, it’s your faith.

Recently, I’ve been coming up against situations that seemed to require super faith! There have been circumstances in my life and the lives of some of my closest friends and family that to man seem impossible. Have you ever been there?  You know… that place where you know that only God can work it out. It’s in those times, where you have to call on your faith. Do you have any?

You see, faith is not a passive word. It requires action…you have to believe in what you can’t see. You have to speak what has not yet come to pass. You have to praise like you already have the victory.  James 2:17 reminds us that faith without action is dead.  This is not always easy but if you endure, the rewards are great!

And the awesome thing is that God doesn’t require a boatload of faith. Jesus said”… if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can say to a mountain, “Move from here to there” and it will move. Nothing is impossible for you.” Isn’t that good news? He said NOTHING is impossible for you! So why don’t we put our faith into action?

Is it more comfortable for us to try it our own way? Easier to just give up? We have to know and remember the God that we serve is able to do exceedingly, abundantly, above all that we can ask or think! You see, faith is Satan’s enemy. He is going to try all that he can to test your faith. He is going to send attacks and distractions to try and get you off course. The key is to recognize what is happening and call Satan the liar that he is!

Sometimes, though, the biggest test of our faith, is when God makes us wait. His time is not our time and his ways are not our ways. We can’t have deadline faith, where we give up when God doesn’t move by the time we think He should. We may have to face some trials and some setbacks. James 1:3 says “You know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance”. And as Job says, Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.”

But how do we get that kind of faith? There’s only one way that I know! Romans 10:17 says that Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. You have to get into your Bible and see for yourself what God has done. You cannot survive on your mama’s faith or your praying grandmamma! You have to know for yourself that God is able and NOTHING is impossible with Him!

So this week, I challenge you to have a faith checkup! Read Hebrews 11 (the faith chapter) and see what faith has done in the lives of God’s great warriors. Then look at your own life and see what God has done for you. Hebrews 11:6 says that “Without faith, it is impossible to please God.” That gives us even more motivation to build our faith. So put your faith to work and watch God!