God Runs Toward You

Brighten your day by envisioning God running toward you.
When his patriarchs trusted, God blessed. When Peter preached or Paul wrote or Thomas believed, God smiled. But he never ran.
That verb was reserved for the story of the prodigal son. “But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.” (Luke 15:20 NKJV)

God runs when he sees the son coming home from the pig trough. When the addict steps out of the alley. When the teen walks away from the party. When the ladder-climbing executive pushes back from the desk, the spiritist turns from idols, the materialist from stuff, the atheist from disbelief, and the elitist from self-promotion…

When prodigals trudge up the path, God can’t sit still. Heaven’s throne room echoes with the sound of slapping sandals and pounding feet, and angels watch in silence as God embraces his child.
You turn toward God, and he runs toward you.

"HaveHope"

Stop worrying about what you have THINK you have lost and focus on the promises that the tomorrows hold for your future. So many times in our own lives we tend to over analyze the past: Our failures, our “what ifs”, our un-forgiveness, lost relationships, bitterness and what others have done to us. What we need to do is embrace today and all the promises that today has and that each moment has. There is a saying live day by day but many times that can be just to much to ask for some of us so we must learn to live moment by moment. We can’t rely on others to help us achieve these goals but rather we have to look at ourselves and God and ask him to bless our steps. We want to be in the perfect will of God and not in the permissible will of God and he is trying to get each of his children to that perfect place and many times that requires him stepping into your life and removing things and people that don’t help lift you to a better place. It doesn’t mean that those people are bad people it just means that they aren’t meant for the long journey with you. I am the first to admit I hate change and I like to be in charge and I am sure probably everyone else does as well but here is the deal we all must recognize that were not in control of anything in the first place so we must be willing to surrender for the sake of our healthiness when it comes to our souls, minds, and physical state. We have to surrender and let go. We have to hold on to hope, prayer and Gods hand and in the end hope that he will deliver us to perfection. So today grab on to hope, stop over analyzing the past, the people in your past, the things and places in your past and embrace the promises of tomorrow. Remember there is a reason why you are at this place so learn the lesson so you don’t have to repeat it.

CHRIST DIED FOR US

Romans 3

The Message (MSG)

9-20So where does that put us? Do we Jews get a better break than the others? Not really. Basically, all of us, whether insiders or outsiders, start out in identical conditions, which is to say that we all start out as sinners. Scripture leaves no doubt about it:

There's nobody living right, not even one,

nobody who knows the score, nobody alert for God.

They've all taken the wrong turn;

they've all wandered down blind alleys.

No one's living right;

I can't find a single one.

Their throats are gaping graves,

their tongues slick as mudslides.

Every word they speak is tinged with poison.

They open their mouths and pollute the air.

They race for the honor of sinner-of-the-year,

litter the land with heartbreak and ruin,

Don't know the first thing about living with others.

They never give God the time of day.

This makes it clear, doesn't it, that whatever is written in these Scriptures is not what God says about others but to us to whom these Scriptures were addressed in the first place! And it's clear enough, isn't it, that we're sinners, every one of us, in the same sinking boat with everybody else? Our involvement with God's revelation doesn't put us right with God. What it does is force us to face our complicity in everyone else's sin.







I have been reading this excellent and challenging book called “Revolution of Character: Discovering Christ Patterns for Spiritual Transformation”- By Dallas Willard and I must confess to you that this is a hard read for anyone who truly wants a radical change in their life. It literally confronts you on every level: The heart, your mind, soul, spirit, will, and the physical. It takes you to places that you have forgotten about and throws your sin right in your face and says DEAL WITH IT! The main focus of the book is to address the human heart and how we are dangerously sinful and how we as people live self destructing spiritual lives that are in totally opposite of what Christ wants for us. Even when we think that there are areas of our lives that are “good” this book makes the argument that there are not and the only good in your life is that you have been covered by God’s grace and that you are experiencing and walking daily in the Grace of God through Jesus Christ.



The book talks about the term “Gehenna” often used in the New Testament for the place of the lost which may be thought of as a cosmic dump for irretrievably lost and useless souls. When we think about our sin and how we have offended God with out hearts, souls, wills, minds and bodies we must recognize that but for the grace of God and the new mercies of God on a daily experience we all would be in this place. This book takes your sin dumps it in your lap and leaves you there with it to examine, repent and think about the wickedness of your heart, but the good news that while you are feeling the weight of your sin, you can also feel the covering of the grace of God that clothes you and gives you hope during your period of repentance.



One of the most profound things about this book so far that I want to expand on is this quote “the surest source of destruction to men is to obey themselves”. When I think about my own life and the path that I have tried to carve out for myself and the failures personally, and in every area of my life my soul laments in agony over the fact that I have obeyed myself in so many ways. I have obeyed myself in my desires, my will, my heart and even with the people that I have chosen to accompany this path of life with me. I have taken Jesus as my Savior and forgot about him as my Lord. I have taken the benefits and walked in denial of my own pain, problems and purpose. I must confess that I have been hostile towards God.



Sin is something that we all try to deny. We call it a mistake and tell ourselves we will do better next time. We don’t take sin seriously because we don’t take our lives seriously and we don’t take our spiritual destination seriously. We have gotten caught up in a half hearted delusional form of Christianity that doesn’t call us to sacrifice anything. We try to gain but end up loosing in the end. When we look at what God has done for us and his love for us that “while we were yet sinners CHRIST DIED FOR US”, it should make us all grateful. Not the worldly grateful where I am grateful for a gift or grateful someone thought to call me today to see how I was doing; but the grateful where it calls you to abandon ALL of your plans, desires, and wants and do whatever Jesus tells you to do. I repent in dust and ashes and I ask that you all would pray for me as I continue reading this book. I don’t know what I am going to get out of this book. I confess that I started reading it in order to hope I would change externally some of my actions but now I realize it’s not the things I do on the outside that’s the problem but its my wicked, deceitful, hostile, in denial, egotistical heart. Lord Help Me.



Read This Book If Your Looking For More Than What You Have On The Inside...

Be Blessed

For My Good I Worship

2 Chronicles 31:20-21

Hezekiah did this throughout all Judah, and he did what was good, right, and faithful before the Lord his God. And every work that he began in the service of the house of God, in keeping with the law and the commandments to seek his God [inquiring of and yearning for Him], he did with all his heart, and he prospered.



In 2 Chronicles chapters 29-31 we see that Hezekiah’s’ greatest focus was on his worship to God and his personal response during his worship. In the first year of his reign, Hezekiah reopens the temple for worship which had been closed during the reign of his evil father. He immediately calls all the people to come to Jerusalem to celebrate the seven day celebration of Passover. This important religious festival had not been observed for many years. The joy is so great that the celebration is extended an additional seven days. The people respond by returning to their homes and destroying the idols and shrines that have polluted the land.



When we think about the depth of theology that is wrapped up in these chapters we learn so much about the weight of God’s jealously and how he wants all the glory for himself and how he is determined to get all of the glory for himself.

God directs everything in his sovereignty and for his own purpose and after years of not receiving the Glory because of Hezekiah’s evil father Ahaz God appoints him to the throne to become king over the great Assyrian empire. And immediately he reopens the temple for worship. This is not a surprise to God, this is not an accident, this is not luck but rather this is divinely planned out because God loves his people so much that he knows that the safest place for them spiritually is to be in his presence worshiping him because he knows its “for their own good” to worship him. And the other thing about this is that the joy is so great that the celebration is extended for another seven days of praise and worship to Emmanuel. We learn that: God is jealous for his worship, that worship is good, worship will bring joy, being in the presence of God will make you want to STAY there, but the most important thing that I think we take from this is: worship is for our good spiritually. These people started out with a small celebration but then it was extended for another seven days, so my question for myself is: how does worshiping God change me? These people where changed so much in the presence and adoration of God that they couldn’t leave, their souls needed to stay and bathe in the glory of God because they where thirsty for him. It wasn’t just some passive religious moment that they where going to out of obligation but rather it was what they NEEDED.



Today I repent because I need to desire worship like that, I need to stop worrying about my problems and the things that I feel like should be better and focus on my eternal worship of Jesus. Its not about the job, its about Jesus. Its not about the wife & kids, its about Jesus. Its not about being ‘happy’ its about Jesus because when I am in him worshiping then I will find joy because worshiping him is for my own good…..

Be Blessed

...Faithful Jesus...

"Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, '“The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him."
The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,
to the one who seeks him;
it is good to wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord."
Lamentations 3:22-26
Sitting today thinking about a lot of different things and waiting on God to make a career move for me and thinking about several different projects that I have been working on I stopped by one of my sister Hanna’s Facebook page and this verse from Lamentations was there and it made me start to think, wonder and meditate on the faithfulness of God, so I would like to share some thoughts with you today.
In 2 Chronicles 35:25 the prophet Jeremiah who said “uttered a lament for Josiah” is believed to have written the five poems of the book of lamentations. These poems are all expressions of deep grief over the fall of Jerusalem. Like a mourner giving a eulogy these laments are intended to express a loss and in this case the loss of a nation. The latter half of chapter 3 implies that the purpose behind Lamentations graphic depictions of sorrow and suffering were to produce hope in God whose compassion is “new every morning” (Vs. 23) & whose faithfulness is great even to a people who have been condemned for their own unfaithfulness.
When you and I reflect on our own sin and the trouble of being hostile towards God for continually making mistakes and treating others bad out of selfishness we ought to be lamenting over the death of Jesus daily because of what he had to do on the cross in order to rescue us from deaths final judgment. It should also make you appreciate how faithful God has been to you and how undeserving you are to be adopted into his family.
Granted there are a lot of things in life that suck: bad relationships, lack of financial stability, horrible parents, lack of job opportunities, loneliness, sadness, death, disease, poverty and this list goes on. But throughout all of those things God has been faithful to you because he has promised if you trust him then your reward will be eternity in heaven. If I could change a lot of things about my life I would past and future I would try to change things but here is the solid thing I can stand on. Because Jesus died for my sins and has been faithful in keeping me to himself I will see him one day for myself in heaven. With all the misery that life brings, heavens brings undeserved joy and I want it for myself. So how every your feeling today remember God is faithful and new is his compassions every morning.

...Can You Hear Me...

In thinking about the importance of fatherhood in the black community today and the importance of being a father and using your parenting skills on your children it has lead me to thinking and researching about the severity of the emotional and physical damage that takes place on a child and how as a culture we don’t appreciate the responsibility to be a parent.

At one point in American history millions of black men where stripped of their responsibility to raise their children when they where separated from their families during slavery. These men who valued their families and wanted to be apart of their children’s lives where taken away from their sons and daughters never to see them again. Their hearts where broken because they knew that their children would be forced into slavery and not only that but they wouldn’t have their father to guide them and help them deal with a difficult life.

We have a society that doesn’t punish fathers for being absent in their children’s life we tell them to pay child support and that’s enough. The value isn’t placed on raising your child and being present in their life rather it is if you pay your child support. I hope you can see the difference in that. And most of the time the little pay that is suggested by the court system is ignored.

We have become a society that has buried its morals and have bankrupted our children emotionally and spiritually because of our lack to be present and responsible to the children that we create. We sell them to the public school system rather than instructing them ourselves. We surround them with falsehoods that are sold as permanent when really the things they value should be eternal.

When appreciating where we have come from and the struggle of the people who came before us and what they endured I know they would be highly disgusted with our society and the lack of value we place on our roles as parents today. We murder our children through a legalized mass holocaust called abortion, we equate the value of time with our children to a check enforced on us by a judge, we allow a government ran politically machine to endocrine our children with philosophies that have hurt our society, we don’t value what black male slaves died for. They died to marry their wives and to have a family, they jumped over a boom in hopes to makes themselves feel special since the government didn’t recognize their love and now as black men when don’t think about marriage and respecting our women we thinking about not having a “Babies Mama”. These men fought for the family, they fought to just be allowed to be with their families and now we as a society have given up. If our child is having a problem we send them off to be taught how to behave from total strangers rather then parenting toward their individualism.

The men who came before us, the society of unfreed men who fought for freedom and for their children would be ashamed of us today. The graves are weeping for failed marriages, aborted children and fathers who don’t show up for their own. And to be honest with you the excuses have to stop. We can’t blame the children rather we must blame the lack of parenting. You don’t have to know everything to be a parent just show up and be present and give unconditional love and your best advice in the moment. Yes you will look back and say maybe I should have done things a little different but don’t look back and not be there.

For those who marched, for those who died and for those who wanted to be present but where separated from their families may we all as a society today hear your cries, see your blood and remember your pain that we may turn this tragedy into a victory.

What Is Your Jesus &?

In Jeremiah 16 we can summarize it up by saying this: God gave Jeremiah a difficult task that had to be accomplished for the glory of Christ. Jeremiah is told not to marry and have a family because of the terrible future that is in store for Judah. He is told not to mourn the deaths of friends. He is not to take part in any feasting. He is to spend his life speaking words of condemnation on the sins of the people. He is to let the people know that their generation will only see and experience death. It is not surprising that the people who hear these words shun Jeremiah and leave him isolated and alone.
In the simplest form we can see that God has commissioned him to an unspeakable task. God says to Jeremiah DON’T FALL IN LOVE and not only that but no sexual encounters with a woman for you all the days of your life and when you go through life your going preach a message of condemnation for the people sins and their going to isolate you so your not going to have any friends and the friends you do have don’t even mourn their deaths because of their sins.
Can you imagine what that must have felt like for Jeremiah? We get so caught up in worldly pleasures and wanting God to bless us with material positions when really what we need to do is to seek the Glory of God. Jeremiah was ok with the task that God had given him because his soul was satisfied in God alone. His feasting was in God, his relationship and intimacy was with God and he enjoyed himself in God. He was given a mission and a task to forsake all worldly pleasure and to preach what God had told him to. We as people need to “break up with our egos and love God more”. We should not desire the things that are suppose to make us “happy” but rather we should desire and seek after eternal Joy and that is only found in a relationship with God.
We must be determined to pick up our daily cross, abandon our own lives, and seek whatever God is calling us to do. This life can’t be about you and I but rather it must be about God and what he is calling us to do. My prayer for myself this next year is that I would get over my goals, ambitions and my own way of thinking physically, mentally and emotionally and that I would seek havens joys everyday and not my own.