Do we place God in a box?

There have been many posts on changing our way of thinking. I know I seem to keep coming back to that topic in some shape form or fashion, but it is important as for what a man thinketh in his heart so is he
(Proverbs 23:7). The mind plays a very important part in our faith walk. It is the thing that essentially can make or break us. What proof do we have of this? Paul talked constantly about wanting to do what was right but having his flesh draw him in a different direction....  

Why do I bring up the mind again? Why was there a need to reiterate the importance of the mind?

I brought up the mind again because I came across this thought today as I have a few times before.... Do we not only put people in a box, but do we put God in a box?

If you are anything like I am, you have probably thought about someone at sometime.. "You've changed". Now the only way a person can "change" at least from our perspective is if we have made it up in our minds that, that is who the person is and who they will stay. But is that really the case or is it that we don't allow for people to change? Do we find ourselves placing people in a box, placing labels on people and not allowing them to be able to get out of the box or have those labels removed? If we do it with our fellow man, how much more likely do we do it with God? Do we limit what God can do because we have never been able to let go of the God we encountered when we were younger? Do we limit what God can do because we have seen him move one way and just expect for him to always move that way? Do we?

My challenge to you, for some it will truly be a challenge, is for you to pull off all labels and open all boxes. We have to start allowing for people to grow and evolve as we change/grow and evolve. The same goes with God. As we walk and get deeper in our faith, we have to give God room to be God. We have to give God the freedom in our lives to BE Alpha and Omega. We can no longer just say the words. We have to be open to allowing the Infinite Being to BE the Infinite Being. We have to open our minds. So will you join me this year in allowing God to be.... GOD?

New Year's Resolutions

People make New Year resolutions as a way of verbalizing the changes that they want to make for the new year. Many people say they want to lose weight or spend more time with their families. They say so many things that many keep but a vast majority do not keep ...

I was thinking of this the other day. I was thinking that for many New Year's Resolutions is sort of like their walk with Christ. They start off saying that they want a change.. They want things to be different, yet many do the same things with their walk that they do with their Resolutions... They try to change the thing without making it a lifestyle change. They try to cut corners. This is why for many they cannot keep their Resolution past the first week in January. This is why for many they get frustrated in their walk with Christ and give up...

In order to keep up our walk with Christ, we have to make it apart of our life. We have to incorporate it in everything that we do. We cannot just say I want to change... and not change how we do things.

The scripture that comes to  mind initially is Ephesians 4:23: And be renewed in the spirit of your mind. There are many other places that talk about renewing your mind - changing your way of doing things. The entire Bible itself is based on changing the way we do things. It is a clear example of what to do when one way is not working. It was no longer working for the people not to have a Messiah. The people, however, would never be able to accept a Messiah if they could not change how they thought the Messiah should be and how the Messiah should come. Many did miss out because they couldn't let go of how things had been done, but for those who were able to let go.. They got to experience a peace that had not been experienced before. This allowed for them to be able to continue their walk with the same enthusiasm in which they started out their walk with. This is the thing that allows us to continue in our walk with Christ.

Many of us make New Year's Resolutions without incorporating it into our everyday life. Many of us cannot keep our Resolutions past the first week in January. My challenge to you is to whatever you decide to make as your New Year's Resolution that you make it apart of your life. I challenge you not to cut corners,  but to have it be an active part of your life. I challenge you to do the same thing in your walk with Christ. I challenge you to make Matthew 6:33 not just words you repeat, but that you actually Seek ye first the kingdom of God.... When you seek him first, you change how you do things........

Have a Happy New Year, and let's work to make 2014 a year in which we do not cut corners. Let's make it a year in which we work on changing our minds...

What is my Motivation?

During the Christmas season, we walk around being nice to people who any other time we may ignore. Why do we do it? What is our motivation?

It makes me wonder at times because it questions our motive. Are we doing it because of the season or because it is genuinely in our hearts.

I bring this up because it ties into why we choose to be Christians - is it for the fame, wealth and/or riches that we think we are going to get or is it out of genuine love and curiosity that we choose to be Christians?

The story of Abraham comes to mind. He is told by God to pack up, leave everything behind, and move to a new land. The covenant that God makes with Abraham is that if he does this, he will be the Father of many nations. This does make you think that his motivation for following God was to have a son and that was his only motivation. After Abraham gets his son, God then tells him to kill him. Abraham, while it pained him, was willing to kill his son - the son that God had promised to him...

I believe that God did this to see where Abraham's heart was. Abraham showed that his heart was with God, not just because he had promised him a son, but because he genuinely loved God... He showed this by being willing to "kill" that which he had been praying and praising God for.

Is that us? Do we follow God because we love him? Or is our motivation less than pure?

My challenge to you during this holiday season is to examine why you are a Christian. Take a look at why you have chosen to follow God. Take stock of what your motivation is...

Ask yourself:  What my Motivation?

Image is everything... or is it?

One of my favorite scriptures is 2 Samuel 6:20-21:

20: Then David returned to bless his household. And Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David, and said, How glorious was the king of Israel to day, who uncovered himself to day in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants, as one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself!

21: And David said unto Michal, It was before the Lord, which chose me before thy father, and before all his house, to appoint me ruler over the people of the Lord, over Israel: therefore will I play before the Lord.

This came to mind the other day sitting in Church. It was during praise and worship and the praise team was trying to get people to actively participate in praise and worship. At my church, this is not usually a problem, however, while people participate, you can still see that people hold back.... 

Why is that? Why is it so hard to completely lose ourselves in praise and worship? Why do we look around the Church to see what others are doing and/or wearing?   Why is it so hard to just spend that time with God, especially when that is what we are supposed to be doing anyway... For most of us, the hardest thing is to lose ourselves and to lose control... Maybe that's it. Maybe we are not loosing ourselves in praise and worship because we cannot give up control. Is it that to us image is everything? Is it that we put on this persona that we don't want people to deviate from when they think of us?  Maybe it IS the idea that people might think we are foolish as to why we cannot lose ourselves in praise and worship?  

I believe that we should take a page out of David's book. Yes, he praised so hard that he did dance himself out of his clothes. While I am not saying that you dance yourself out of your clothes, I am saying that you when questioned and ridiculed about why you praise and worship with the intensity that you do, that you do what David did he told his wife flat out that because of all of the things God has done for me, I will praise him. This is where we should be. We should get to a point where it does not matter who sees us, but what matters is what God has done for us. Praise and Worship is not for us, it is for God. It is our way of showing God that we recognize where our strength comes from. We should be willing to let go of ourselves and praise God with everything... I mean, when he moves for us, he uses everything in his disposal so why can't we praise him with the same abandonment as David... Or is image everything?

What can you handle?

We ask for deliverance... We ask to be blessed...We ask for God to show up on our behalf... Yet when we ask for this, we want things to happen instantly.. We want it to be a snap of the fingers and it is done...

How much do we appreciate things when we are handed them? How much do we appreciate things that haven't been worked for?

This is why I believe that there are situations in which we have to fight; Claw, tooth and nail in order to achieve things. While God may not "honor" works, he does put us thorough tests...

These tests ultimately put us through our paces. It shows to us whether or not we can handle the very thing in which we are asking God for.

We wouldn't be able to handle that which God is giving us without these trials...

I think of it this way -

Adam and Eve were given the garden of Eden... We see what happened there.....
David had to survive in the wilderness; Scrape and be resourceful before he became king. Yes, he did mess up, but he is recorded as being a great king.

God knew David could handle being hunted by Saul.. God knew that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego could handle being thrown in the fiery furnace. He knew that Daniel could handle being thrown in the Lion's den and he knew Paul could handle writing to the Corinthians, the Romans, the Galatians, the Hebrews as well as teaching Timothy...

There are many more examples throughout the bible in which people had to work for and go through tribulations that they thought they could not handle, yet God knew that they could not only handle it, but that they would ultimately give him the glory....

With this I say, revel in the tribulations. Learn what it is that you have to learn in your season.. You never know what God has in store for you.

Understand this God never gives us more than we can handle...

So my question to you is this... What can you handle?

Forgivness

I was watching a movie today, and the main characters had so many things going on..
The thing that stuck out was that one of the main characters could not forgive.

It started to make me wonder - How many of the blessings in life do we block by being unforgiving?

The Our Father has a portion in it that says "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us".

Why would Jesus feel the need to put a line like that in what is to be our example of how to pray...?

It goes to show you the power of forgiveness.

We block what God can do for us by not forgiving those who have wronged us....

We block God, because we want from God what we are not willing to do in return....

God cannot move for us when we do not met him halfway. We meet him halfway by doing the very thing we ask of him - forgiving others the way we want to be forgiven...

My question to you is what doors in your life do you think will open up when you forgive everyone who has ever hurt you.....

Cleaning out the camp

Last we spoke we talked about your camp: making sure that your camp is supposed to be your camp and purging it of people who aren't supposed to be there.. Speaking of people who aren't supposed there - How do you know they aren't supposed to be there?

Now we can get all deep and spiritual about this and say the Spirit will reveal to you whose supposed to be there and who is not... That's all well and good... We do get to a point where the Spirit guides us and directs us. But how do we distinguish between us (our carnal selves) and the Spirit?

Firstly, we have to make sure that we know God's voice. We know his voice by reading and understanding his word. 2Timothy 2:15 Says: Study to show thyself approved. Now if you've grown up in the Church like I have, you are very familiar with this verse but may not understand it. On the surface it's very simple: Study means to devote time to acquiring knowledge. So the verse on the surface means to devote time to acquiring the knowledge to show thyself approved. Approved? Approved for what.... Approved to be able to teach others about God... You can argue that no formal education is needed in order to do this. But I present this to you If no formal education is needed, why did the Apostles, leave everything behind and travel with Jesus before they embarked on their own journeys? This is because they did not know all that they needed to just as we do not know.

Secondly, we have to make sure we have our own understanding of God's word. Many of us have grown up in or around the Church in some shape form or fashion. Me, I went to Catholic School. But it wasn't until I got older that I came to the realization that what I knew of God's word, is what others taught me based on Their understanding, but I didn't know it for myself. Not knowing it for myself, left me open to all types of interpretations of it. Some of it good, some of it bad, and some of it indifferent. There was no way for me to know what was truth and what wasn't. There are still things in which I do not know, but I have gained a better understanding of the Word by reading it and praying on it...

Thirdly, we have to constantly stay in the word. Just like with everything else, we go through stages in order to grow. We start off as babes, then grow in maturity until we become "Adults". *Disclaimer.. Age does not always mean you are an adult* Just like having been saved for 5+,10+, 15+ years does not mean you are a mature believer. A mature believer has studied the word and have an understanding for themselves, yet they understand that there are always things that they can learn. A mature believer understands that they have to read the word daily and meditate on it day and night. A mature believer understands that the things that they absorb through their senses directly affects their way of thinking which directly affects who they allow to be in their camp.

Our camp changes as we mature. This is because we by nature associate ourselves with people who think like us, act like us.  If we are operating on another level, those who are no longer on the level with us, nor who are willing to be pulled up by us and along with us, will be weeded out. Some of them will leave, but most we will have to let go.... Being able to do this all comes from the renewal of our minds ( Staying in the word, understanding the word, and hearing God's voice.)