Daily Devotional – 5/22/15 “Close your mouth!”

Sometimes you need to close your mouth in order to hear a word from God. Whether it’s from God or even from the pastor, preacher or teacher; you need to close your mouth and listen. You got the nerve to say you aren’t learning anything when you’ve yet to listen to God’s instructions. You even got the mitigated audacity to blame the pastor when you ain’t heard a word of the message. When will you shut up and listen? Yes, I know you’ve been in church all of your life, you have a lot of scriptures memorized and you have a personal relationship with God but if you’re trying to finish the pastor’s sentences; you aren’t listening. If you are constantly talking to God, when can He speak to you? Sometimes you need to close your mouth and lie before God and allow Him to minister to your spirit. Sometimes you need to close your mouth and allow God to move through you. Sometimes you just need to shut up!

This is not only the case in your spiritual life but it may work in your personal life too. Please understand, I am not trying to tell you how to live but baby, you need to listen to somebody other than the sound of your own voice sometime. Don’t you know your spouse gets tired of you coming home and the first thing you do is start nagging? Don’t you know you need to listen before you allow your attitude to go from 0 to 60? Now, you want to go to counseling because you need a 3rd party to intervene in the middle of you all’s mess when all you need to do is step back and listen to each other. I get it, the kids are lying but have you stopped to think that maybe they don’t tell you everything because you only hear what you want to hear? Have you actually listened to what they are saying? Have you ever wondered why the invitations from friends have stopped coming in? Well maybe it’s because you’re the one doing all the talking. You know the one who knows everything about everything, the one who can talk about every subject, can’t anybody beat you at anything because you know everything and you never shut up – is that you? All I am saying is this … sometimes, we all need to close our mouth and listen. Proverbs 18:13 says, “Spouting off before listening to the facts is both shameful and foolish,” yet Proverbs 19:20 says, “Listen to advice and accept discipline, and at the end you will be counted among the wise.” Simply summing it up to say – You need to close your mouth and listen sometimes! You might just find an answer to the question you’ve been asking!

Daily Devotional – 5/21/15 “It’s your anointing … “

We, as children of God are … too anointed to keep allowing disappointment to steal our appointment. We are too blessed to keep allowing stress to put our feet in mess. We should be actively living and that starts by forgiving. We’ve been given a foot start in the race to not appreciate God’s grace. Even the battle we’re fighting, it’s already won; it was fixed when God sent His only Begotten Son! Yes, God is our all in all, a confident and a provider that doesn’t hold out so why do we doubt? We are too anointed! Please understand this; God’s anointing isn’t limited to those who are charged with His calling of preaching because anointed means to simply be chosen by God. Don’t you know that God uses ordinary folk for extraordinary things? Baby, if God can take a simply nobody like me who wasn’t fitting to live and surely wasn’t ready to die and anoint me; what makes you think He can’t use anybody else? My anointing isn’t based on my merit but it is based on God’s mercy. Chile, if my anointing was dependent upon me, it wouldn’t be nothing compared to the anointing I have by God’s grace! There isn’t anything like the anointing of God.

See, when you are anointed by man they can snatch their anointing away when they feel like it but when you are anointed by God Isaiah 61:1 says, “The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is upon me, for the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted and to proclaim that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed.” When you are anointed by man, you belong to them and they can do with you and to you what they want but when you are anointed by God, He will keep the covenant He made with Abraham and even with Israel when He told them as they wandered from here to there, He allowed no harm to come their way for He gives us the same covering today as in Psalm 105:15 that says, “Touch not my anointed ones, do my prophets no harm!” We are His anointed ones, each of us who are in His will! Baby, God’s anointing covers us even when we are in our mess. God’s anointing shields us when the enemy’s battle should have killed us. God’s anointing provides for us when folk talks about us. God’s anointing keeps our mind when everything seems to be going wrong. God’s anointing gives us peace when everywhere we look there is problems. God’s anointing has been given to each of us for 1 John 2:20 says, “But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge,” all you have to do is use it. Study God’s word for yourself and allow the anointing of God to flow from you. To be anointed by God is to be chosen by Him and we are His chosen people. Stop minimizing your anointing by tainting it with mess! It’s your anointing …

Daily Devotional – 5/20/15 “Faith place!”

You have to be in the faith place to prosper! Now, I know I could have said the right place but baby, you can be in your pit and come out prosperous dependent upon your faith. Yea, you can be trudging through your valley experience at this very moment but just like that you can come out prosperous, if you have faith. The scripture tells us in Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen;” which lets me know, even though I don’t see it; it doesn’t mean it’s not there. I mean, we don’t see air but we have faith that it’ll be there when we need it. We don’t see trust but we assume, with faith that it’s there. We don’t see our paycheck but we have faith that the deposit will go into the bank at the appointed time. And we don’t see our God but we know He’s there because our faith should be set on and in Him. This is why we have to be in the right place, faith wise, in order to prosper. Don’t you know the enemy will make you feel like you are losing at everything? Don’t you know the enemy will make it seem like you are always fighting a battle? Don’t you know the enemy’s job is to make you feel like giving up? It’s his job but if you set your faith up, if you step your faith up, if you get in the faith place; you cannot lose and even when you are losing, you’ll still win.

Listen beloved, I don’t know what you’re dealing with personally but get in your faith place. I don’t know what you are going through but get in your faith place. Baby, I don’t even know what’s getting ready to come your way but get in your faith place. Step up your faith game! Take it to the next level! Move it to the max and prepare yourself. Whatever it is you’re toiling with, face it with God and with faith that it cannot take you out. For David says in Psalm 5:12, “For you bless the righteous, O Lord; you cover him with favor as with a shield.” You are covered, if you’re righteous with God’s favor that protects you like a shield; now all you have to do is stand with the faith that whatever happens you will make it through. Sickness, depression, addiction, job loss, repossession, hurt, anger, bitterness, death of a loved one or whatever it is you’re facing, if you have to deal with someone who is going through it or even if it hasn’t gotten to your door yet … increase your faith, get into your faith place so that you can be prepared to come out prosperous, better, greater than you were! God didn’t make us to be quitters! Get in your faith place!

Daily Devotional – 5/19/15 “Trust God!”

Right now, at this very moment, somebody is calling somebody else to validate the validity of God’s blessing that just dropped in your life. Yea, somebody, somewhere is posting on social media that they can’t believe what God is doing in their life – why not? Isn’t He capable of doing miraculous things in a moment’s time? Somebody is still bewildered by the fact that the doctor can’t find the tumor he saw last month – why not? Isn’t God a healer? Somebody is still amazed that they made it through that storm last week – why? Isn’t God our protector? Somebody is still shocked at how they made it with the few dollars they had left over from their check until this payday – why? Isn’t God our provider? Why are you amazed at the things God can do when He has already told you what He will do if you seek Him, follow Him, trust in Him and do His will?

Oh but we will allow folk to talk us out of God’s blessing because we are quick to take them at their word than to take God at His. Instead of fasting and praying for God’s answer we’d rather turn to folk to hear what they have to say real fast. No baby, folk will talk you out of your blessing, dream and vision if they aren’t spiritually rooted in the right ground. That’s why the bible says, 1 John 4:1, “Dear friends, stop believing every spirit. Instead, test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” You’d better start checking folk out because if their walk doesn’t match your talk, there’s a problem with their reference. If they’ve never experienced the Holy Spirit for themself, they surely can’t tell me how it feels! This is why you have to be careful when folk say, “God told me to tell you,” because ma’am and sir; the bible says in John 8:47, “Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.” All I’m saying is – If you aren’t hearing from God, you may want to check your connection! You can’t get mad if there’s no response, especially if you haven’t checked in, in a while, because even your phone shuts off when there’s no interaction after a while. You need to reconnect to the Man and stop listening to everybody who has something to say. God doesn’t need our help but we surely need His. Trust Him and take Him at His word.

Daily Devotional – 5/18/15 “Freedom declaration!”

I’m an imperfect person yet I am handpicked for this assignment. I don’t claim to have all the answers but I have access to the teacher. I may not have all the scriptures memorized but I have a study guide. I sometimes do things I’m not supposed to, say things I shouldn’t but that’s only because I’m human. Yea; if you cut me, I’ll bleed red blood, if I hit my toe, I just might cuss, if I get hurt, I’ll hurt and if something happens, I just might cry – I am human, after all. Just because God has bestowed in me a gift of delivering His word, has ordained me in His sight and now I stand in a pulpit; it doesn’t mean my struggles are any easier, in fact they are sometimes harder. Yet, I’ve come to understand that as a Saint of God; you have to start with a strong foundation (that’s God), be rooted in fertile ground (that’s God’s word) and then be surrounded by good light (that’s other like-minded folk) in order to make it through this journey. It gets hard y’all but when you got others around you who don’t mind spraying water on you when they see you getting dry (that’s praying for you), needling the dirt around you when they see you being stagnant in your position (that’s encouragement) and sharing their light with you so that you can feel how good it feels to be loved (that’s the love of God) you find that you can handle this thang and you push on!

Baby, what’s the sense of having somebody around you who can’t help you? That’s like asking a mannequin for help. What’s the sense of going to worldly folk for Godly advice? That’s like going to a foot doctor for your heart problems. What’s the use of having someone around you who can’t encourage you every once in a while. You do know the enemy rejoices every time we give up, don’t you? That’s why today, on this Monday, the 18th day of May; I am declaring you to be FREE from whatever has you tangled up! But there is a catch – you have to believe it too. You have to have faith that you can be free from whatever circumstance you’re in, from whatever sickness that has you held hostage, from whatever addiction has your mind, from that hate that you’ve been carrying around all this time and even from the generational curses that is destroying your present and then be free! For the pastor/minister who is on the verge of giving up on his/her vision, don’t do it; that’s the trick of the enemy, hold on and fight because there are people counting on you (more than those counting you out)! For the person who just looked at their checking account and got discouraged, hold on; something big is about to happen. For the parent who is praying for their child to come home, hold on; it’s about to happen. Stop allowing baby mommas and daddies, alcoholism, drugs, jobs, men, women, children, depression, sicknesses or whatever it is to control your life, set yourself free! Surround yourself with folk who have your best interest, who want to see you free and who don’t mind praying for you when you are going through. I thank God for those of you who pray for me, who continually lift and encourage me. Declare your freedom on today and have faith enough to walk in it! I’m praying for you, you can do it!