Mon, Jun 30th - 8:57AM

Prayers of the Righteous!

Proverbs 15:29 (Whole Chapter)
The LORD is far from the wicked, but He heareth the prayer of the righteous.

James 5:16 (Whole Chapter)
Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

1 Peter 3:12 (Whole Chapter)
For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and His ears are open unto their prayers; but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil."

(www.bible.com)

As stated in these scriptures, God hears the prayers of the righteous.  It is important for us to repent daily for our sins.  God does not hear the prayers of the wicked.  Be careful to guard your heart against the Pharisee spirit, that you do not become full of yourself.  We all sin and fall short of the glory of God. 

We read our scriptures, pray, fast, go to church, prayer and bible study and for some of us, even more.  But as soon as we believe that because of all of this we are okay, we are not sinners...  Any time we look at someone in their sin and can think "look at them", as if we do nothing, as if we didn't look at someone with lustful eyes, as if we did not just snap at someone that asked us a question, as if we did not just get off the phone or have a conversation with any someone-gossiping and backbiting, as if we did not just hold sex from our spouse, as if we did not just have this unforgiveness come over us... SINFUL!  Anyone who thinks they do not sin are sinning.  We need to get it right!  Confess, repent, Pray!

God Bless!

Fri, Jun 20th - 8:35AM

No Compromise

The key word today is NO COMPROMISE!  Alot of times we fall into sins because we are willing to compromise what we know as truth.  Since the beginning of time mankind has compromised for the sake of self.  Eve compromised in the garden of eden.  Abram compromised when he thought the King would kill him if he knew that Sara was his wife.  How many times in your life have you compromised and loss?

God Bless!

Wed, Jun 18th - 4:10PM

Beattitudes

I find myself stuck on studying the Beatitudes in Matthew 5-6.  Everytime I try to move on in my reading I go back to the Beatitudes.  In the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus began with the Beatitudes.  Be meaning live or exist.  Attitude meaning manner, mind-set or way of thinking.  So in essence, the Beatitudes are the standard of living of a true disciple of Christ.  

The Beatitudes:

• Realize your need for God
• Be sorry for your sins
• Be humble
• Desire and yearn for fairness, honesty, integrity, righteousness-Justice

• Have a pure (uncontaminated or clean) heart
• Work for peace
• Live right (virtuous, blameless, righteous)

Christ says: Don’t get caught up in what people will say about you, they will lie about you, mock and persecute you because you follow Him.  In fact be happy about it because God will bless you.  Your reward awaits you in heaven.  Jesus also reminded the disciples that the ancient prophets were also persecuted.

Jesus stressed to the disciples and the people that a follow of Christ is “the salt of the earth” and the “light of the world”, which means that as a disciple of Christ you should make the difference.  In a world full of darkness we should be the light shining through.  If we call ourselves disciples of Christ, believers of the Gospels, Christians, or the Children of God then the world should be able to tell the difference between us and them and first and far most God should see the difference.

To give full understanding to what God wanted from the Law of Moses, Jesus broke the laws down even further.  Before He did this though, Jesus clearly states:  “I did not come to abolish the Law of Moses or the writing of the prophets.  No, I came to accomplish their purpose”.    In order to understand what Jesus meant by this statement you must go back to the Exodus and Deuteronomy and also the books of the Prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.  If you don’t read these you may try to separate the old from the New Testament.  In fact Jesus says himself that he came to “accomplish their purpose”.    Which means that all of the destruction the prophets spoke about in the Old Testament and the Ruler that would be sent for judgment and the Restoration of God’s people was true then, is true now, and will be true until the coming of second coming Jesus. 

God Bless!

Mon, Jun 9th - 2:54PM

A Leader is a Servant-Submit to God's Plan not your Will!

Matthew 3:13-17

Jesus understood the order of God’s plan.  He knew the plan God had for His life.  He knew He was the Son of God sent to do a great work for His Father but He also knew that He had to submit to the order of which the plan was/is laid out.  The scripture says in Isaiah 40:3, “This is a voice of one who calls out in the desert:  Prepare the way for the Lord.  Make the road straight for Him”.  Backing up a bit, John knew who Jesus was and the plan God had for Him yet He also had a submissive attitude.  John said, “ Why do you come to me to be baptized?  I need to be baptized by you”.  And Jesus said “Let it be this way for now.  We should do all things that are God’s will”.  According to Luke, Jesus and John knew each other even in their mother’s wombs (Spirit recognizes spirit). Jesus’ mother, Mary, and John’s mother, Elizabeth, were pregnant at the same time so this tells me that Jesus and John were the same age.  So, Jesus not only submitted to His relative and a man His own age but he also submitted to a man he knew was His servant.  There are times in God’s plan for our lives that He will call us to serve and times when He will call us to lead.  Jesus knew that though He was the One who John preached about there was a time and a season for His ministry to begin.  Jesus knew who He was The Father, The Son, and The Holy spirit.  He knew that He would heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons, and preach the Good News and save the people.  In this one gesture of submission Jesus shows us how to humble ourselves and to submit to God’s purpose and will for our lives.

You may be called to do great work for the Kingdom of God, you may be call to raise up a leader, you may be called to be a wife/husband of a future leader, you may be called to mentor a future leader, or even just touch someone’s life as a friend or co-worker, we all have a part to play in the building of the Kingdom of God.  This is God’s plan and no matter who we are, we are all servants of the Most High. 

****ATTENTION****

Women in the Cleveland, OH area

The next Virtuous Women meeting will be on Saturday June 28th at 5pm.  Our guest will be the Pampered Chef.  Anyone interested in attending please let me know.

God Bless! 

Wed, Jun 4th - 1:19PM

Holding On To The Past!

Romans 12:2 (Whole Chapter)
And do not [1 Pet 1:14] be conformed to [Matt 13:22; Gal 1:4; 1 John 2:15] this world, but be transformed by the [Eph 4:23; Titus 3:5] renewing of your mind, so that you may [Eph 5:10, 17; Col 1:9] prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

1 Peter 1:14 (Whole Chapter)
As [1 Pet 1:2] obedient children, do not [Rom 12:2; 1 Pet 4:2] be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your [Eph 4:18] ignorance.

The same way there are gray areas between the truth and a lie; there are gray areas between the world and Christianity.  Sounds strange doesn’t it? Why? Because, any part of the truth that is a lie may the whole thing a lie.  We create the gray areas:

Leaving out parts of the true – Lie by omission

Change a part of the truth – Turns the whole thing into a lie

But we entertain the idea that there are times to not tell the truth or we recreate the story to benefit us in some why, whether it’s to gain something or to make us look right for whatever wrong we’ve done. 

We treat Christianity the same way.  We want to pick and choose the part of Christianity that suites us.  We want to claim the title of being a Christian but we don’t want all of the responsibilities of being a Christian. 

“We have to praise God in church but this is issue…I don’t know if I get release this all the way to God, it’s pretty big”.

“I can be nice to my Christian brothers and sisters but that homeless person...my husband…my children…my co-workers…my neighbor”

“I can go to church on Sunday, but bible study…”

“I’ve been knowing ____along time I can’t just stop talking to them”.

We cut into the gray area all of the time.  But Jesus said:

Luke 11:23:

    ²³"He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me, scatters.

According to God you either bear good fruit or bad fruit.  There are no gray areas!

We cop out and say, “God knows my heart”.  That’s the problem He does!  If I am saying that I love God and God say’s:

1 Samuel 16

⁷ But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."

If am half stepping in my walk, would he not know why even if I won’t admit it to myself.

If I talk to my husband in a disrespectful manner and the reasoning behind it is some things that were done or said in our past.  Do I not think that God knows that I have not forgiven my husband deep down in my heart-even if I have told him that I forgave him?

If I see a homeless person and I walk further away or ignore them because I feel that they can get a job like me or they will blow it on whatever. Doesn’t God know my heart?

If I have sex with someone and I know that it is wrong but I chose not to exercise discipline or dying to the flesh, does He not know my heart?

There are some things we fall into, we are not perfect.  But, there are some things we walk right into knowing that we are wrong before we even do it.

Matthew 10

   ³²"Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. ³³But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven

There is no gray area to that!

What we say, what we do, and how we live are all representations of who we are.  Remember when we were children and our parents would say (when you would misbehave in school or outside; or when you would dress and it didn’t look good), “You represent this house and this family’s name.  When you look bad you or act bad you make this family look bad.” Or Act like you were raised right”.

In order to do that we have to give up our old way of thinking, our old lifestyles, our old hanging spots, and in a lot of cases our friends and sometimes even family members.

Through the death of Jesus Christ we have been reborn.  We are no longer bound by our sinful flesh and the temptations of this world.  We live in Christ and He lives in us.  Our old ways that we felt protected us, should be past away. 

I wake up turn on the TV to watch the news and once in a while a sermon before going to work.  While I am working I listen to the Christian radio station and then in the afternoon I turn the station to another station.  I leave work, go home and I may cook or sit and watch TV until it’s time to go to bed so that I can start all over again the next day.  I may have prayed throughout the day while I was driving to work and home or while I was working and watching TV.  Throughout this whole day I may have to clean, cook, and make sure the children are doing what they are supposed to be doing,  Do I take 5 minutes to just sit down and spend time with God? 5 minutes.  Do I pick up my bible and read a verse?  A verse.  Do I stop to worship and praise God? 5 minutes.  I don’t recall ever say awe man CSI is coming on; I don’t have time to watch it. 

We are so busy trying to hold on to the things we did, our daily activities, and everything that we know, so much so that we are not reaping the full benefits of being a child of God.  All of that is in the past.  Let’s life this life today!

Mark 8:36 (Whole Chapter)
What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?

Luke 9:25 (Whole Chapter)
What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?

God Bless!