Daily Devotional – 10/3/14 “Your spiritual mug shot!”

I wonder how some of our mug shots would look if God arrested us for some of the mess we did. No, I’m not talking about this worldly crap we get ourselves into but I’m talking about the Christian stuff we do. Oh, you don’t. Well I wonder, sir pastor, how your mug shot would look if God sent folk in to arrest you for aggravated assault with a weapon (the bible) on Sunday morning when you stand there delivering His word from your flesh intentionally causing bodily harm to His people? I wonder how your mug shot would look, oh deacon, if you got arrested for disorderly conduct for not carrying yourself like you pray about on Sunday morning. I wonder, oh usher, how your mug shot would look if God charged you for being mean on your doorpost instead of helping like you should. What if God charged you, oh choir member, for simple assault, for the intentional harm you thought about doing to the other choir member who sung your “song.” Oh minister of music, what would you look like on your mug shot if God arrested you every time you got mad at pastor for service being long, the song not being song right or the musicians for not doing their part? Oh good pew member, what would your mug shot look like for the numerous charges you would have like loitering because you usually don’t work but you’re always there and inciting a riot because again you don’t work but you cause the most noise.

I just wonder. Please understand, I am in no way perfect because I too have faults that could get me a spiritual mug shot, I’ve failed more times than I can count and I’ve made my share of mistakes but I’m yet learning but get this when I accepted the calling of God, I accepted the calling of God with my whole heart! Will I make some mistakes, yes but I fear God and everything that comes along with Him and I dare not play with this thang. There is no way I will teach God’s word and play with it, I can’t. This is why James 3:1 says, “Dear brothers and sisters, not many of you should become teachers in the church, for we who teach will be judged more strictly.” Yes, I’ve been in the church all of my life but it wasn’t until recently that I stopped running from what God had for me. Am I a work in progress? Of course and I’d be lying if I said anything differently but while I’m being worked on pardon my dust. I’m still open for business, so just walk around the construction cones. But get this … When you learn better you do better. Don’t, as Christians, keep using the same old excuse; God knows my heart because baby, you’ve been using that excuse for the last 18 years; it ain’t fixed yet? At some point you should have learned something by now or at least your heart should be fixed. Let us all do better. We can, I know it! If we take it an hour at a time, it’ll eventually turn into a day which will then turn into a month and then before you know it, the old things you used to do you won’t even do it or them anymore. Then you won’t even need a spiritual mug shot! Ha! Won’t He do it?

Daily Devotional – 10/2/14 “Saving our children!”

How can we as adults expect children to act right when we don’t carry ourselves right half as much of the time? I mean, we expect them to be respectable citizens when 90% of the time we curse more than we breathe. You tell them to have respect for their elders but then you turn right around and disrespect your mother or father. You tell them to respect themselves and then you disrespect yourself by posting something foolish on social media. Aren’t they following you? How can you expect them to learn from anybody but you? You expect the young men to have role models in sports players when most of them are being blasted on ESPN for being abusive husbands and no one is taking the time to find out where the abusive tendencies are coming from. You want your young women to look up to the “Beyoncé” when she could care less about how your daughter is being raised. Why don’t you turn down some of these talk shows you’re listening too and turn the pages of the bible because baby when I tell you the struggle in these streets are getting real … it’s an understatement! We are in a war in the middle of our streets and we are losing our children and if we don’t do something about it NOW we won’t have a generation to pass the torch too.

It’s sad that grandma’s recipes can’t be passed down anymore because momma don’t have the patience to teach their daughters so she’ll just buy dinner so that means girls can’t even cook now. Daddy is no longer teaching his son how to cut the grass anymore because he doesn’t have the patience so he’d rather pay somebody. What in the hell is going on? Church services are getting scarce yet the clubs are packed and not just on the weekends because the weekdays are now full. We don’t even worship together anymore because excuses have taken the place of where God once resided. Y’all my heart is aching for the state of our children because our cemeteries and our jails are overcrowded with them and that’s a problem. Parents shouldn’t be burying children and pastors shouldn’t be eulogizing children they don’t know! We’ve got to get it together. Every moment there is something happening or someone dying; it could be you or me next or worse, one of our children, will you be ready? Will your affairs be in order? Will you have done everything that you would have needed to do? Would God be pleased with you? Will your ticket be stamped? These children need God, prayer, training, love, guidance, a safe place, someone they can count on, someone to talk too, arms to hug them and at the end of it all; God! For the bible says in Proverbs 22:6, “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” We are responsible for these children and it is our duty to see to them. We’ve got to take back our children and it starts with us. We can do this. I know we can. If grandma, granddaddy, momma, uncles, church folk and teachers did it for us then surely we can do it for them! It takes a village and we can do it! I am standing believing it so!

Daily Devotional – 10/1/14 “Staying power!”

It’s Wednesday, the middle of the week and you’ve made it to the beginning of a new month yet you’ve bought the same woes of last month with you. Yea, I know it was just yesterday but couldn’t you have left the mess back there? When you laid down last night couldn’t you have slept the hatred of yesterday away? When you woke up this morning couldn’t you have done so with a new attitude? Beloved, look around; you could be in the middle of a war zone, you could have to walk to get fresh water, you could have to go out in the fields to get food to eat, you could have to make the clothes you have on, you could have to borrow the shoes you have on your feet and you could be on the side of the road begging for change but you aren’t. Yes; I get it, I understand, I feel you! Things could be better, health could be healthier, children could better, finances could be fancier, car could use an upgrade, house could use a coat of paint, spouse well … but it is what it is! What now? Well, I’m glad you asked. Now you stay in your test without complaining but with praise. Yea, stay in your test because I’ve found that you can do one of two things. You can complain about your sufferings or you can praise your way through them! James 1:2-3 says, “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.” Oh but get this …James 1:4 picks up and says, “So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing!”

So what if you feel like God is testing you. So what if it feels like your patience is being tested. So what if it feels like the enemy is testing every area of your life. So what if it feels like everyone around you is getting on the one nerve you had already placed in reserve; this is just your endurance growing. Baby, didn’t you just read James 1:4 that says “So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing?” And if that isn’t enough (and it should be) then let me tell you this, endurance is just staying power. When it seems like the enemy has depleted your hope and you are sinking yet you haven’t drowned; that’s that staying power. When it feels like your joy is gone but you’re still smiling when you know you should be crying uncontrollable tears; that’s that staying power. When you should have been dead because man said that old feeble body of yours wouldn’t last another month but you’ve been here years; that’s that staying power. When you’ve been making it on minimum wage but your manager can’t make it on her salary; that’s that staying power. When the storm can knock out power to everybody else house but yours; that’s that staying power. It may not look like it now but this test, it’s for a purpose but you’ve got to be able to see it and you won’t if you aren’t looking through your spiritual eyes because natural eyes will miss it every time!

Daily Devotional – 9/30/14 “Your blessing … Is on the way!”

Does it feel like you are fighting but you can’t see your opponent? Does it feel like every time your battle is won, another whistle blows and it starts again? Does it seem like the enemy has your number on speed dial, your address memorized and your family picked out to pick on? Does it seem like you can’t get well for feeling sick? Or is it just me? Yes, I know God got me but sometimes I want to ask Him what He made me out of because at times my legs feel like jelly. Yes, I know these tears of mine are liquid prayers but God aren’t you tired of hearing from me yet? Oh but then God said that’s just that ole enemy trying to get you to step down before I set you up! God says, “Can’t you see his tricks because they haven’t changed; he just has new people doing them.” God asks, “Why are you running from him when I’ve already told you to resist him and he’ll flee? He has no power, you do.” God asks, “You of little faith, why are you doubting?”

{Excuse me while I make this thang personal.} Then I reach down in my spiritual bag of act right and I pull out Ephesians 6:11 that tells me to “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.” See, I’ve come to realize, that the enemy fights harder when he knows there is a new blessing about to be released and if we don’t recognize it before it’s too late, we will allow him to take us from it. Now, please get what I said. We will allow the enemy to take us from our blessing because he can’t take our blessing from us. Isn’t that something? I had to understand that it’s when we get to the edge of our breakthrough, our deliverance, our overcoming, our release, our recovery, our healing and our restoration that the enemy will show up to cause havoc, stress, chaos and confusion to make us throw in the towel, take that drink or swallow that pill to send us back into addiction, cuss him/her out to send us back into that dark place of anger, allow us to see that ex that caused us all that hell back then, to bring up all those old memories; but not today! Today the enemy will not win. I know you see the enemy over there waving to you trying to get you to look in his direction. Yea, he’s beckoning for you to come to him and he has what you want or even what you need but don’t go. He has you thinking about getting another check advance somewhere when you already got two you can’t pay off, don’t do it; that person in your inbox, don’t reply; call your spouse and make up. He has you contemplating suicide but it’s not the answer, call me; I may not have the right one but I’ll pray with you until I do. He told you God doesn’t love you, he’s lying, God loves you and He hasn’t forsaken or forgotten you but He has forgiven you. The enemy is slick and his tricks and games are the same, the players are just different; some are even your friends and family so be careful. For 1 Peter 4:12-13 (The Message Bible) says, “Friends, when life gets really difficult, don’t jump to the conclusion that God isn’t on the job. Instead, be glad that you are in the very thick of what Christ experienced. This is a spiritual refining process, with glory just around the corner.”

Daily Devotional – 9/29/14 “You are just the branch!”

Sitting, staring at the computer trying to figure out what to write about but my mind and body is tired because lately I’ve been having such vivid dreams and although it’s hard to put into words, I know it’s God speaking to me yet I’m still trying to figure out what all of this means on this spiritual journey. During one of those moments this morning, prayer was the word that was dropped into my spirit and I thought about sharing that as a devotional topic but as Christians, you know that you ought to pray; don’t you? You know that you should pray for yourself for 2 Chronicles 7:14 says, “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land, shouldn’t you?” Then I was challenged again on Facebook to share my favorite bible scripture and for those of you who know a little about me, then you know the one I’ve share above is my favorite but I thought I’d share another one that leapt out to me this morning from John 15:7, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” See, in John 15:1, Jesus says, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.” How does this go along with prayer? Easy because the scripture says ask whatever you wish and it will be done. And how do you ask …through prayer.

Jesus goes on to say in the next verses (This is me putting it another way); My Father, cuts off the branches of the vines that bears no fruits because they mean no good to the vine and are dead weight yet He prunes those who bear good fruit in order for them to continue to bear good fruit. Please understand what I mean here when I say bearing fruit, I mean sharing God’s word. Not just any word but God’s word that is actually digestible for other folk to be able to eat it and understand it. As Christian’s it is our duty to be able to share God’s word with other folk thus being able to bear good fruit and as Christians we are branches connected to the true vine, Jesus, who is connected to the gardener God which means we should all be bearing good fruit. If we aren’t then we may be doing it for the wrong vine. I’m simply stating the facts. If you call yourself a Christian, other Christians and folk who aren’t believers should be able to eat fruit from your branch, good fruit. They should be able to get a word, a scripture, a prayer or a word of encouragement from you every once in a while, that is edible. This is why Jesus says you’ve got to remain in me and as long as you do, I’ll remain in you because you can’t bear fruit without me when you are just the branch. Did you catch that? You are just the branch, Jesus is the vine and without the vine you are nothing! John 15:6 says, “If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.” You have what it takes to bear good fruit but you’ve got to be connected to the right vine. So when you do it for the vine, make sure you’re doing it for the right vine so that whatever you ask, it will be done. Connect to the true vine, pray and it will be done.

**Whoever you are that thinks God isn’t listening to you, He is but you’ve got to reconnect yourself to the vine in order to get the nutrients you need to bloom again. He hasn’t left you; He’s simply waiting on you.