Posts Tagged ‘encouragement’

For a Time Such As This

Posted: April 26, 2013 in Devotionals
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Written by Sister Rhonda…

The bible is full of stories of divine appointments, and not just happening through the big guys like Moses and Elijah and Paul. No, God can and does use ordinary people like me and you for extraordinary purposes. Look at when Jesus sent the two disciples to get the donkey for him to ride into Jerusalem. Can you imagine someone out of the blue coming up to you and asking for your car? Just like that? He told them to say that the Lord has need of it. Simple. This man handed them the reins to the donkey that would carry Jesus through the crowd, as they laid out palms and cried “Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord.” Go and do, or stay and give.

Divine appointments come in different ways, for different purposes. One of the things a divine appointment does is to right a wrong. Look at Esther. When Mordecai heard that all the jews were to be killed, he went to Esther for help. He asked her to go to the king to influence him. Esther didn’t do this right away. She considered the danger and sent word to Mordecai tht to appear unannounced before the king meant death. Mordecai answered that if she did nothing she would perish anyway along with her kinfolk. He said a line that moves me everytime I say it or hear it. “For such a time as this.

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Take heed therefore how ye hear.

Posted: January 27, 2013 in Devotionals, End Times, Shared Thoughts, Uncategorized, Wake Up!
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There was a time in my life as a believer where my walk was very far removed from the Lord. I had found myself more than entangled in several sins. I remembered one night being so overwhelmed and burdened to the point of utter despair, literally fearing that I could die in my sleep and would be forever lost. I cried out to what seemed to be heavens of brass, my prayer barely out of my lips only to be falling to the ground. All this after only a couple of years  after having been promoted through a local church fellowship to be a deacon, then elder-ship and then shortly before leaving the church I was made assistant pastor.

My last message I shared with the church before I left (to the surprise of many) was about Paul’s exhortation in Galatians to those who are spiritual to restore those who were overtaken by a fault. However, at the time I wasn’t preaching to the congregation, rather I was crying out against my fellow leadership. My emphasis wasn’t about restoring the one overtaken, but rather whether those who were leaders were “spiritual” enough to even discern when a brother was over taken. There I was discourage, oppressed by the adversary, walking with sin in my life and about to begin what was to be a dark journey that almost ended in my destruction . . . and they didn’t even know it.

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God’s Unconditional Love

Posted: October 25, 2012 in Devotionals, Shared Thoughts, Study!, Wake Up!
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I hear it all the time, how God loves us all unconditionally. Over the years of having conducted services at a mandatory rehab for people whose crimes were drug related, ministered at homeless shelters and having countless conversations with “believers” who readily admit they are not walking with God as they should, I frequently run into those who enthusiastically confess to me how they know, absolutely know, that God loves them unconditionally and that He accepts them just as they are.

This has led me into many discussions with people about what it means to “believe” and what exactly this “grace” is that these people are boasting about since they know they are saved because of it.  Sadly, many have no real understanding of what grace really is, they simply repeat what they were once told, “It is unmerited favor.” It is as if people are convinced that when God looks at them He has on some special “Jesus only” colored glasses because they think God only sees Jesus when He looks at them and not themselves for how they truly are.

Grace is truly an amazing gift of God given to the believer, but there are four things about grace we can readily know from scripture –

1. Grace is sufficient

2. Grace can be frustrated

3. Grace while working similarly in all God’s children, still has a uniqueness to it purpose as it is given to each of us

4. Grace can be received in vain.

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Let thy garments be always white; and let thy head lack no ointment.

Posted: March 8, 2011 in Devotionals, Shared Thoughts, Uncategorized, Wake Up!
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The other night I was busy working on some studies and took a break to check a few other things, email, read the latest news online and then decided to dropped by my Facebook page real quick. I really don’t use it too much; it is more of just a way to stay in casual touch with a few friends and my sons . . .  and also to shamelessly promote Gates of the City. While I was there I saw that one of my friends I met via my sons had a post that looked like a typical nonsensical YouTube link.

Now, I love this young friend and speak frequently with them, sometimes with private messages over personal things trying to encourage them. I am thankful the Lord has placed quite a fondness in my heart for this individual and therefore I usually pay attention to their status and posts. But this time the post seemed a bit odd for them, the title actually seemed to indicate mischief on the part of whoever made the link. However, since this was my young  friend, I figured I would click it to see why they posted it. All it did was change the page a bit as the picture of the link got a little bigger as YouTube links normally do, but that was it. Apparently it wasn’t a video, or if it was it certainly didn’t work. So I just clicked back, read down my FB page real quick and went back to working on other stuff.

Within minutes of going back to work I get a YIM from my friend Rhonda who shares this blog with telling me I may have a virus on my FB page. Naturally I am a bit surprise and ask her what she means, to which she asks me if I clicked “like” on a link called such and such. Now, upon re-reading the title with it removed from my other friend’s name next to it, it now appears a great deal more mischievous than before, provoking an embarrassment as now on my FB page  it reads that “William Males ‘likes’ this link.” I asked Rhonda why people create these things, what is the purpose, what are they gaining? She simply said something about it’s a type of cyber graffiti, just getting their handiwork across the web on as many “walls” as possible, because there is some sort of a ping back where they keep score I guess. I am so thankful God has given me such higher goals to press forward to.

However, being computer savvy enough to create a good impression of being capable, yet still ignorant to all the aspects web life and warfare, I asked how to eliminate this distasteful thing from my wall and name since it doesn’t respond to my feeble efforts to delete it. Rhonda patiently explained the process where I had to change the password in order to delete it. Well, it’s gone, but the whole experience really troubled me on a few levels.

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Dwelling in the Secret Place

Posted: February 27, 2011 in Coffee House, Devotionals, Prophecy, Shared Thoughts, Uncategorized, Wake Up!
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So often as believers we are content to dwell in the world with our belief system, thinking that it is sufficient. We know our scriptures, go to our church, busy ourselves with other things that we truly believe to benign, indulging in leisures and entertainments . . . all while the time we need to purchase necessary oil for our lamps and eye salve for true godly vision is quickly slipping away.

We must be found to be in Christ, not just a church. We must have true works of faith which bear witness to our love for God. We need to be godly, not just good. We must be holy as He is holy and not merely moral, for if we are not in Him then all our “good works” are worthless, reprobate, and actually witness against us because we knew the truth and did not truly live in Him.

Re 3:18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.

 

Live for the King

Fulfilling The Call To Holiness

Posted: January 16, 2011 in Coffee House, Devotionals, Shared Thoughts, Wake Up!
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The Bible tells us many truths we must embrace if we are to live a life of intimacy with our Redeemer Jesus Christ; that we are to “prefect holiness in the fear of God” and also “without holiness no man shall see God.”

Because these truths apply to everyone of us, the Apostle John tells us, “every man that hath this hope in God purifies himself, even as He is pure.”