No more excuses...

The Lord has had me parked at John 9:1-4 since 5:30 this morning when I got off a powerful call.

Walking down the street, Jesus saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked, “Rabbi, who sinned: this man or his parents, causing him to be born blind?”  Jesus said, “You’re asking the wrong question. You’re looking for someone to blame. There is no such cause-effect here. Look instead for what God can do. We need to be energetically at work for the One who sent me here, working while the sun shines. When night falls, the workday is over. For as long as I am in the world, there is plenty of light. I am the world’s Light.” (MSG)

The devotion leader talked about the verses and highlighted that you have to do the work that God has instructed you to do while you have time.  It truly blessed me and I kept replaying those verses.  It has taken me all morning to discover why I could not move away from it and why God had me to read it in the Message translation.  Verse 3 says, “Jesus said, “You’re asking the wrong question. You’re looking for someone to blame. There is no such cause-effect here. Look instead for what God can do.”  This is where God made me sit up! The man’s blindness was not about someone’s fault. It was about God’s glory being revealed through it.  Listen!  Some things have happened to you that have been hard - that transition, that divorce, that death, that foreclosure. They were crushing but what they were not meant to be the end of you. Stop looking at those things as where your life stopped and instead let them push you to a new beginning. Look at what God can do through you because of what you endured and overcame instead of the event itself. He does not make mess and He does not give mess. People are the ones that mess things up when they taint His instructions with flesh.  Jesus said just do what God sent you here to do! Take your eyes off the wrong things. It is simply time to stop asking the wrong questions about your life and get moving! Hear the Lord.

No more excuses. No more saying what you cannot do. No more holding on to dead things and places. No more allowing the enemy to rule what does not belong to him. No more repeating the traits and traditions of your parents because it’s what you know. No more using fear as your crutch and safe place. No more complaining about what you don’t have. No more whining about what someone else did or said. No more excuses. The Lord told me clearly today that until you stop owning the pain of your past, your today will continue to look like your yesterday. He said until you make the choice to tell the truth about your feelings and your issues, you will stay exactly where you are. He said it is time to move and He is tired of the excuses. He said that He does not give out instructions, gifts, or assignments just for the sake of doing it. He does it for the advancement of His Kingdom.

What right do you have to give more credit to the enemy’s schemes and plans than to His word? Before you start to deny it…Yes, you do! When you allow fear to keep you somewhere that you no longer belong, you are crediting the enemy. When you perpetuate the wrongs of your family, pastor, boss or whoever, when you know it’s not right, you are crediting the enemy. When you refuse to honor the visions, plans, and ideas that the Lord has given to you, you are crediting the enemy. When you blame others for what is wrong in your life instead of seeking deliverance, you are crediting the enemy. No more! It’s time out for all of that! You see, the Lord is not playing. He has GREAT things in store for you but until you look at what God can do rather than what the enemy has said you can’t do, you will continue to live an average life. You will continue to keep waiting for the promise rather than walking in the manifestation.

I have had to repent for making excuses this morning. I have had to repent for giving the enemy my time and attention. How about you? Are you ready to leave the excuses behind and walk into what God has for you? Wholeness, freedom, victory? Come on! Let’s do it! What God plans for, He always prepares for. Therefore, He has given you everything you need, the only thing you need to add is your faith. NO MORE EXCUSES!

Amen

Have you found the right thing?

The other morning, while in the shower, I heard the Lord say something critical. He said, “You’ve lost some things in your life, but you have found the right thing.” I have replayed those words repeatedly this week. He has kept it before me and reminded me at key times throughout this week. I have had to share it with others and I’ve had to hear it for myself. Just now as I was struggling through what I thought was supposed to be the post for today, He said it again. Therefore, I am going to stop struggling and be obedient.  That last sentence is a word all by itself but I digress.

Listen, you are going to lose some things in this life. People are going to disappoint you and your relationships will change. God is going to move you to a different place in Him and your church might change. You will make decisions that cause you to lose money or homes or jobs. You WILL lose some things! But today, God wants me to remind you that if you have Him, you have found the RIGHT thing. The Lord then dropped Proverbs 18:22 in my spirit. It reads, “He who finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favor from the Lord.” Ummmmmm…not quite where I thought we were going with this but it was not to the wedding scripture of the year! However, the Lord told me to look at it again. He re-translated it for me and it jumped off the page for me as “a person that finds a God ordained covenant finds a good thing and obtains favor.” Ohhhhhhh! That’s what marriage is, right? It is the first institution of God, it is holy, and it is personal. If you have committed yourself to the Lord with your heart and your spirit, and you tell Him that He is your Lord and Savior, you are essentially married to Him. You are in relationship. You are in covenant just like Christ with the church. Therefore, if you have found Him, you don’t need to worry with what you have lost. This scripture speaks to what you gain when you find what He has purposed for you.

Maybe I am being too deep so let me put it in Ebony terms. I do not care what man says about you or does to you; they do not define your next step unless you allow them to. If they leave you, turn their backs on you, disappoint you, it does not matter. They cannot give you what God already has stored up for you. In other words, stop worrying about what is no longer with you. Stop crying over WHO is no longer with you. Some things and some people were not meant to stay. They were placed in your life to teach you, grow you, and show you who you are. How you interacted with those people/experiences and how they affected you was all about getting you to your next place, either through pain or through joy. Your responsibility is to see that for what it is and go forward with God. Why? Because you have found what you need in Jesus. You have found the good thing!

Think about this! Many women really want a baby. They have prayed and waited, perhaps even tried to make it happen in various ways. However, a baby will not replace the stability and joy of Jesus Christ. That little person, no matter how cute, cannot give you wholeness. Nope, it’s only the Lord that does that. He can use the baby, the marriage, or the job for your benefit and His glory but it is Him and not the person or thing that does it. Find yourself in Him and the result will be favor. Stop looking for peace in people and find it in the One who gives it beyond all understanding. Stop searching for wisdom from man and find it in the One who gives it liberally and without reproach. Stop looking for love and fulfillment and find it in the One who gives it unconditionally. You may have lost some things in your life but I promise you that if you have found Him, you have the right thing!

Amen…

Rhema Classic: Shhhhh...God is speaking

Do you remember as a little child when you would be talking a mile a minute and your parents or your teacher would put their finger up to their mouth and say SHHHHHHHH? That was the way many of us learned the cue to be quiet.  Nobody has to explain what it means when someone says SHHHHHHHHH, right? It’s universal.  We live in a culture where everyone has to give their opinion. Everybody has to have a chance to talk. It seems now that we’ve taken that into our relationship with God. We want to tell him all about our situations and issues but whenever He wants to give us the answer, we can’t hear Him because we’re still talking. Well today, if you close your eyes and really listen, you can hear the Lord saying “SHHHHHHHHHHH…I’m speaking.”

It’s so interesting how often you hear people say that they need to hear from God or how long it’s taking to get an answer. But we fail to recognize that God hasn’t stopped speaking or answering, we’ve just stopped listening. Do you remember in Exodus 14 when the children of Israel were at the Red Sea and the Egyptians were quickly approaching? They began to cry out in fear and ask Moses why he led them out of Egypt to die. Sound familiar? You know when you got to that trial that you didn’t see coming and it caused you to chase after God but when the breakthrough didn’t come as expected you began to question God’s plan? They were ready to turn back but Moses told them to “stand by and see the salvation of the Lord…” He then said gave them the key in verse 14, “The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent.” (Ex. 14: 14 NASB) Right after he said that, the Lord began to speak and He told Moses exactly what to do and they were saved!  God couldn’t tell them what to do when they were talking and crying. Shhhhhhh…God is speaking

What about our friend Elijah? We find him in 1 Kings 19 in quite a mess after killing all of the false prophets of Baal and ticking Jezebel off.  She promised that she was going to kill him so he ran for his life into the wilderness. Like many of us may have done, he started talking and asked the Lord to take his life. He just couldn’t see a way out of his situation so he chose to focus on the end. But I am grateful for a God that knows what we will face and will send angels to minister to us in our low place. The angel of the Lord fed Elijah and he was able to travel for 40 days on that food until he reached a cave on Horeb, the mountain of God. The Lord came to him and asked why he was there. Elijah responded and The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” This is when it gets good, folks.  “Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.  After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.” (1 Kings 19: 11–13 NIV) Sometimes we get caught up in thinking we need a big grand sermon, a famous preacher, or thunder and lightning for God to be speaking to us. We keep talking and searching and we miss the fact that He is speaking to us in a whisper. Shhhhhh…God is speaking

Whenever I need a word from God, I have to put myself in a place of silence. A place where there is no distraction. Before I write Rhema, I pray and then lie quietly and just listen. If I don't, I will write out of my flesh or get caught up in the distractions of life. Listen! God is always speaking but we are missing it. We’re missing it as individuals, as families, and as the church.  He wants us to know His heart and hear what He is telling us but we seem to like the sound of our own voices more than His. Proverbs 10:8 says “the wise of heart will receive commands, but a babbling fool will be ruined.” It’s time to be quiet, saints, and listen because God is speaking.

May your hearts and ears be open to receive what the Lord is saying to you today…God bless!

AMEN…

It's not dead!

Today, the Lord said to me, “It’s not dead.” He told me to declare that over your life, over your vision, over your marriage, over your business, and over your faith. He told me to remind you that He gave it to you and He has purpose for it. He told me to speak life over you, your mind, and your spirit. He told me to stand flat-footed and tell you that, “It’s not dead.”

He showed me that some of you are struggling with some things that, in your mind, you did not ask for. When it came to you, you accepted it, you invested in it, you loved it but now that it looks like there is no life in it, you are questioning God about why He gave it to you. “I was perfectly fine being single, God.” “I was doing alright in the background.” “I was alright with the bible study, Lord.” “I was moving along with the little bit, God.” You sound similar to the Shunammite woman when she went to Elisha after her son died in her arms. “Was it I who asked for a son? I told you not to mislead me!” (2 Kings 4:28 VOICE) She wanted to know how to respond to the death of a promise that she did not ask for but had come to love. Have you been there?

Elisha responded to the woman by sending Gehazi to check the status of the boy by laying his staff on the boy’s face. Nothing happened. There was no response.  Some of you have people that have looked at your situation and declared it dead. They have diagnosed your marriage and said there is no coming back. They have looked at your finances and figured there is no way you can climb out of that hole. They have seen your vision and determined that you cannot possibly get it done. Let me give you some good news! The Lord has seen the lack of response and He is responding with power.  He is sending exactly what you need to inject life into what looks dead. He wants you to know that He has the power to invoke a response where others have had no success. It is not dead!

Look closely at what Elisha did. He decided that an in-person appearance was necessary. He showed up on the scene and he went to work.

“Elisha arrived at the house and saw the lifeless body of the boy lying on Elisha’s bed.  He went into the room, closed the door behind both of them, and prayed to the Eternal. Elisha approached the boy and lay down, placing his mouth on the boy’s mouth, his eyes on the boy’s eyes, and his hands on the boy’s hands. He covered the boy with his own body, and warmth returned to the boy’s body.  Elisha turned around and paced back and forth in the house, then he went back into the room and covered the boy’s body with his own body. The boy sneezed seven times, and then he opened his eyes.” (2Kings 4:32-35 VOICE)

Can I show you how the Lord walked me through Elisha's process?  Go with me! First, Elisha saw that there was no life left in the boy but he did not declare death over him. Instead, he closed off all distractions and he prayed. Stop speaking death over what God gave you! It can still live. He then laid down with the boy.  He didn’t take the “pray from a distance” approach. No, he got close and then he addressed his heart. Heart? Where do you see that, Ebony? It says he put his mouth on his mouth. Well, the Lord reminded me that out of the mouth, the heart speaks. The necessities of life flow through the mouth – eating, drinking, and breathing. Jesus said that life does not come from food alone but from “every word that comes from the mouth of God”. (Matt. 4:4)  If Elisha put life back into his mouth, he could go on. Come on! What is coming out of your mouth concerning your promise?

He then addressed his vision. I was reminded that Jesus said, “the eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light.” (Matt. 6:22)  If Elisha put life back into his eyes, he could go on.  He then addressed his hands. Folks, this was the impartation of power! Job said that “he who has clean hands, grows stronger and stronger.” The Lord even said in Isaiah that He has us written on His hands. If Elisha put life back into his hands, he could go on. Have you invited the Lord to put His hands on that gift? He then addressed His body as a whole. Why? Because your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. (1 Cor. 6:19)  Your body is your sacrifice and your tool for worship. (Rom. 12:1) If Elisha put life back into his body, he could go on.

Finally, Elisha paced the house before he went back to finish the work. In other words, he stepped back from the situation and took authority over the place where the lifeless thing was going to have to live.  Once he had done that, Elisha covered the boy's entire body. Why? I believe that in doing so, he sealed the work by covering it with all that God had put into him. The boy responded by sneezing 7 times. "Sneezing is your body's way of removing irritants from your nose or throat." (healthline.com) The boy was able to reject what death had tried to accomplish and claim the finished work.

Listen! I know this was super long but I need you to know this. When God has given you a promise, He will not let it die before it accomplishes its purpose. It is not up to you to make something happen, but it is up to you to make sure that you get that promise in the right position to live. The Shunammite woman didn't ask for her promise but once she got it, she watched over it and made sure it had what it needed to live. Don't give up...it's not dead.