Daily Devotional – 7/12/18 “Be an example!”

I shared this two years ago and it’s the same word needed today so let me see how I can re-put this. Re- meaning, once more, afresh or anew. Here goes … If you don’t have anything fitting to say, please hush and have a seat. There! No need to change it. If your dialogue doesn’t help, hush. If your speech doesn’t add significance to the silence, shush. If your two cents doesn’t had value, save it because we are in the midst of time that has need of some real and righteous examples of leadership. I’m sick of seeing the flashy cars and jewelry when most of our youth and young adults can barely read, write and sign their name. I am sick of the conferences where we shout for hours but our youth are still being slaughtered at the hands of other youth. I am fed up with the same stale revivals and banquets. Ma’am/sir, I am all for your child being fresh from head to toe but do they know Jesus? I have no problem with you buying your children the latest Jordan tennis shoes but can they balance a checkbook. Yes ma’am/sir, you can eat out every day of the week but can your child cook, if it came to it? Does your daughter know she’s favor and worthy of being a wife and mother instead of a side chick or baby momma? Does your son know he’s royalty and destined to be the head of a household instead of baby daddy or inmate of some correctional institute? Does your child know the importance of their signature, social security number and credit score? Have you instilled in your child the value of their name?

Let me make something plain here. I am not just fed up with what I see because I got two teenagers at our house, right now who’d choose to sleep in than attend worship and who’d rather try it for themselves than listen. So I stepped back because my grandma always told me, a bought lesson is better than a taught lesson. This means, I have allowed them to make mistakes, on their own. Yet, it doesn’t stop me nagging them neither does it stop me waking their butts up on Sunday morning. I get it, this generation looks lost but it does not mean they are. They can still be saved if we are willing to save them. This is why I keep talking even when it seems like they don’t listen. This is why I don’t portray who I am not. When I accepted my call to ministry, I vowed not to be dressed up and so holy that I couldn’t relate to others around me. I am who I am and I want my life to reflect that. I am not perfect and I don’t act like it because I recognize that my nieces, nephews, cousins and etc. are looking at me; even when they don’t say it. What am I saying? The bible shares in Titus 2:1-8, “You, however, must teach what is appropriate to sound doctrine. Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance. Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God. Similarly, encourage the young men to be self-controlled. In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us.” In other words, be an example that’s pleasing, a role model worth being modeled after and a mentor commendable of the title. We need it, more today than we did yesterday.