Our Father which art in Heaven; holy is thy name as your will is done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Father, as I come petitioning your throne, I’ve got to first thank you. Thank you for the protection you provided for me, my family and my home from the dangers lurking outside. Father, even when I was too tired to kneel to say my prayers you gave me peaceful rest. With a new day’s dawn, you gave me breath in my body, sight in my eyes, movement in my arms and legs, thoughts in my mind and strength to get up. You allowed my family to rise and I didn’t have any bad news waiting to be delivered. Oh God! I looked up and still had a roof over my head, I had lights, warm water, a few morsels of food in the refrigerator and a few dollars for my son’s lunch. Oh God, thank you! I thank you because I had blessings too numerous to count when it could have been me.
Now Lord, I ask you to bless the person reading this. I don’t know the prayer they’ve been praying but you do. I don’t know the blessing they’ve been asking for but you do. I don’t even know the request they’ve been asking you to fill but you do. Father, I’ll simply ask for you to have your way in their life right now. Father, there is a pastor on the verge of giving up because of the stubbornness of the folk you’ve sent him to oversee, strengthen him to hold on to you so that he can hold out until you move. Some mother is at the end of her cliff and she is tired of crying but she still needs help; give her the courage to let go so that she falls into your grace where her help lies. God, I pray that you hide her in your mercy so that her devotion to you becomes devoted and she finds her way back to you and she never wants for anything again. For that father who is struggling to be the head of his home, give him the endurance to not give up but to press his way through. You made him the head for a reason, show him his purpose. God, we need you! We need you to lift up the bowed down head of those who feel like defeat has won, comfort those whose grief has settled into their spirit, heal those who sickness has taken over their bodies, make a way for those who can’t see their way right now, provide for those who can’t provide for themselves and protect those who can’t protect themselves. I know that you’re able to do it Lord, because I trust in your word that say you’ll never leave nor forsake us. Protect our children. Destroy the spirit of drugs, alcoholism, depression and suicide. Destroy the spirit of senseless killings. Restore minds, increase finances, open up doors and turn that no into yes for your people today. Oh God! This prayer I humbly submit to you on today. Amen
Daily Devotional – 12/3/14 “Start at home!”
You know, I find it perplexing; mind boggling actually how folk are so quick to jump on the bandwagon to help others build their house when their own is falling down. I mean, no offense to the tragedy in Ferguson, but we had over 15 killings over the Thanksgiving weekend here in Memphis alone and yet there hasn’t been one protestor out on the street calling for an end to that violence. We have folk who are over the youth ministry in their church and will do anything for those children and their own children are suffering AT HOME. We have an educational system that is failing our children yet all we are concerned about is who is posting what on social media. Why not start a petition to hold the educators accountable for the crap they are feeding our children, knowledge wise. Oh but we have something to say about the lunch menu. Why not protest the mere fact our children are being passed and cannot read. Do you not understand that we perish when there is a lack of knowledge? It isn’t a race thing, it’s a human thing! How can I teach my children if I don’t know and then how can they teach their children and their children’s children? It’ll be a never ending chain. It has to be broken.
Please get this beloved … I have no issue in helping you with your fight but are you willing to help me with mine? It’s alright to go to your neighbor’s home to help them every now and then but you have to make sure your house is straight too. It’s the same with the place you call your church home. You can’t support someone else church more than you support your own and expect God to be happy because of your effort. It’s about your devotion. Stop church hopping and find a church home (that’s in the church covenant). Look around, times have changed and we all need the Lord! There isn’t anything wrong with helping each other out, that’s the Christian thing to do but charity begins at home which means start with you first, then with your home, then your community and then reach out. That’s all I’m saying. You can’t clothe the needy if you’re naked and you can’t feed the hungry with your stomach growling.
Daily Devotional – 12/2/14 “Indecisive Saints!”
I wonder why we, as folk, find it so easy to sign a 2 year phone commitment with a cell phone company but we won’t commit to God. Yet we renew this contract with them year after year, when we upgrade our phone but we’ve yet to upgrade our worship. Isn’t it something how we are quick to sign that loan for a new car committing to paying once a month for the next 3 to 5 years on a loan yet we can’t even dedicate 4 Sunday mornings, 1 to 2 possible Sunday evenings and 4 Mondays (or whenever your bible study is) out of a month to serving God. We commit to the job but not to the one who gave us the talent. We commit to the man but not to the one who made the man. When will we stop being indecisive Saints? You know those whose faith wave like a flag in the morning wind. God doesn’t need those He has to wait until you get up in the morning to see whose side you’re on because He needs workers who are willing and able at all times. Aren’t you looking at the news? God needs folk who don’t mind going out into the streets to pray because our world is in trouble y’all.
Oh, you don’t know if you’re decisive or not? Well, let me tell you. If your faith is dependent on your mood, you are an indecisive Saint. If you attend worship by the weather, you are an indecisive Saint. If you’re devoted when it’s convenient, you are an indecisive Saint. If you praise based on who is looking, you are an indecisive Saint. If you go to worship for the mess, you are an indecisive Saint. And if you are the one keeping up the mess, you are an indecisive Saint. Baby you need to decide today whose side you’re on. What if you died at this very moment? Would you die in sin? Then what sense would it make to live in hell and then die and go to hell? Please understand, you do have a choice for the bible says in Joshua 24:15, “And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” You have a choice but you need to choose. Stop being indecisive! If you choose God, choose Him with your whole heart and be committed!
Daily Devotional – 12/1/14 “Spiritual cleansing!”
A new month and you’re still singing the same sad song. You’re still blaming God for the mess and the stress when baby, the hell you’re going through might just be because of whom you’ve surrounded yourself with. Yea, God sends test but it’s only to test our faith because He will never send anything that will cause us to be suicidal and depressed. Yes, God test us in all areas of our life but it’s only to see if we’ve been studying the lesson He’s been teaching. That sickness you’ve been toiling with, it has nothing to do with you but it’s about the work of God that is being manifested through you. Don’t you get it? Every time you get sick and then bounce back, someone is touched by your testimony. Every time you go in the hospital and come out, someone is helped by your healing. Every time you go down but get up, someone is moved by the miracle. It ain’t about you! The only reason you’re at a point of giving up now is because you’re listening to the enemy who has attached himself to you. He is a spirit you know? Or maybe it’s the person you’re confiding in that’s keeping your spirit down. This is why the bible says in 1 John 4:1 that you cannot believe every spirit that you have to test them by the spirit. Oh but get this, if your spirit ain’t right you’ll get what your spirit summons for. If you have a spirit of confusion, you’ll draw someone with a spirit of confusion. We need to get it together Saints! We need a spiritual cleansing. I’ve said it before, God isn’t pleased with the current conditions in which we live and worship in.
This is why you have to stop attaching to any and everybody because their spirit can sink its claws into you. You have to be mindful of the folk you’re around constantly! But you can’t do it if you aren’t right. This goes for home, work and worship. It’s time for us to tell the enemy to pack his bags and get the hell out. Get yourself together and then walk around your home and bless it with your mouth. (You have the power to cast him out.) Speak life over whatever seems dead in your life and see if God won’t restore it (if it’s for you). Anoint the doors because God says He will bless you coming and going. Pray over everyone in your household and see if God won’t move. Baby, I pray every day for God to use me mightily and every day the enemy amps up his attack to quiet me down but that’s alright because I have faith that God won’t ever leave me alone. And with the way my faith is set up, no matter how many times I draw from it; I’ll never go into the negative. Try your account and you’ll see that you have the same overdraft protection.
Daily Devotional – 11/26/14 – It’s not about black Friday!
Everybody is gearing up for Thanksgiving on tomorrow. The sad part about it is, it’s not even about the holiday anymore because black Friday has now made its way over into Thanksgiving Thursday and we are ok with that. We don’t spend time having dinner like we used too, giving thanks for all the things we are truly thankful for because we are too busy making list of things to go get. We’d rather sacrifice family time for an $8 deal that will be $10 next week and we’d rather stand in a long line to get pushed and shoved to get $3 off a pair of shoes rather than sit down at the dinner table to have a conversation with the children. Our world has it wrong. We get upset when we can’t get our children everything they ask for and most of the time they aren’t doing anything that we ask of them. We send them to school with high priced tennis shoes on yet all they do is walk over the teacher with their disrespectful attitude. You won’t take the time to buy groceries but you’ll go to Best Buy for a new TV. And then next month you’ll be crying again when it’s time to pay bills yet your TV will look good but no cable. Where are our priorities?
I just find it mind boggling that we will take off, use vacation time (for those of us who job don’t give us Friday off) to shop yet you’ll miss every Sunday for worship with the excuse, “I work on Sundays.” Yea, you’ll stand in the cold for a sale but let it rain or even there be a threat of rain and the church parking lot will be so empty. You’ll knock folk down to throw money away on something you probably don’t need but let the church raise an offering and there you go rolling your eyes. Yet the bible says in Matthew 6:19, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal?” I just … I wonder how much greater our lives would be if we would be as devoted to God as we are to Black Friday? I wonder how deeper our spiritual lives would be if our drive to praise would be like our drive to shop on Black Friday? I wonder! Do you? Please understand, I am not knocking Black Friday because I work part-time in retail but I wish they would leave it on Friday and stop interfering with Thanksgiving. There is nothing wrong with shopping, if you have the means to do it but I simply wish Christian folk would get back to putting God as top priority. If only we would serve God with the same passion we served some folk, imagine how much greater we’d be walking into our destiny! If only we served God with the same fire we serve some things, imagine the blessings you wouldn’t have room enough to receive! If only we could serve God the way we serve on Black Thursday/Friday … It’s not about the sales y’all, it’s about the Savior who saves.
