Finding our way through the wilderness

2 Corinthians 12:9-10

New International Version (NIV)

⁹ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ¹⁰ That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Day Eleven

Strength through Weakness

 We all have times in our lives when it seems that we cannot keep going on. You know those times when life just beats us down and we feel like we just can’t get back up. Those are the times that we feel weak, vulnerable, and ready to throw in the towel.

   It is during these times that we view life as an oppressor, forcing us to carry unjust burdens upon our slacking shoulders. We pray, hope, and wish for a moment of peace or a second of solace, however too many times we find neither and we are force to continue on weary and weak.

  The world defines weakness as a lack of strength or determination. The dictionary also defines weakness as a character flaw or a feature of somebody’s character regarded as unfavorable. With these definitions it is no wonder why we feel so defeated when we feel weak. However, what if we changed the definition of weakness and replaced it with the one for strength? The dictionary defines strength as emotional toughness, source of support, and as a resistance (the ability to withstand force, pressure, and stress). The dictionary also defines strength as a valuable or useful ability, asset, or quality. What if we took these definitions and applied them to weakness?

   By switching the definitions we take all the power away from the enemy. Again we know that enemy is powerless, but he is a great deceiver. So in our weakness the enemy deceives us into thinking that by being weak we are worthless. He destroys our mentality making us depressed, angry, and/or suicidal. However, when we define weakness as a valuable or useful ability, asset, or quality for a person to have then turned things around, we have taken a word meant to destroy and made it a word that empowers.

   Okay I can hear you saying, “It’s all good to change the word’s definition in our minds, but in reality being weak is still a bad thing.”

   I will agree with you by saying that it is a bad thing by the world’s terms, however we as Christians are not of the world but we are of the Word. And the Word tells us that our weakness is strength!

  In our scripture the Apostle Paul speaks of this very thing. He says that God says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness.” So God is telling us that it is okay to be weak because that is when I am powerful. Paul then goes on to tell us to boast about our weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest on us. We should be happy that we are weak because it is during our weakest moments that the power of Christ comes out of us helping us to carry through. We should know that, whether we believe it or not, without this power none of us would be able to make it, for the Word says that He is righteous to both the just and the unjust. So it is through His power that every one of us is able to endure.

   Look at the last sentence in this scripture. Paul says that for Christ’s sake, he delights in weakness, in insults, in hardships, persecutions, and difficulties. For when he is weak, he is strong. Think about how powerful that is, when we are weak not only is HE, God, strong but we also are strong because God’s power shines through us. This is what Isaiah 40:29 means when it says; He will give strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. The bible tells us that our weakness is our greatest strength.

   We are to rejoice next time when we are feeling weak, either physically or emotionally, because the power of God is about to shine through our lives. The enemy may throw all types of roadblocks in front of us during our journey. Nonetheless we will continue to praise God because we know that whenever we are weak, then we are Strong.

    Please continue to join us on our journey tomorrow. Until then God Bless,

                                           James Anthony Love

Finding our way through the wilderness

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Matthew 22:1-14

New International Version (NIV)

Matthew 22

The Parable of the Wedding Banquet

 ¹ Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: ² “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. ³ He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.

   ⁴ “Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’

   ⁵ “But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. ⁶ The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. ⁷ The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

   ⁸ “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. ⁹ So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ ¹⁰ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.

   ¹¹ “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. ¹² He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless.

   ¹³ “Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

   ¹⁴ “For many are invited, but few are chosen.”

Day Ten

Don’t ignore Your Invitation

Life can sometimes becoming so hectic and busy that we can lose sight of our ultimate goal. That is why God sometimes has to slow things down for us in order to turn our sights back towards him. Because without His help sometimes we can get so far off track that it would be impossible for us to make it back on our own. Thankfully as we walk through the wilderness He is always there to give us a little tug and push back in the right direction.

This being the tenth day of our journey, we want to turn our attention back to the goal that we pray will we obtain at the end of this journey. By April 8, 2012, Resurrection Sunday, we want to be able to say that we are walking closer with the Lord, living in accordance to His words, and we want to be either out or coming out of our spiritual wilderness ready to take on any of life’s challenges. With that being said our ultimate goal in life should be, not to ignore God’s invitation.

In our scripture Jesus has just enter Jerusalem as a king riding on a donkey while the people of Jerusalem screamed, “Hosanna, the Son of David! Blessed he that came in the name of the Lord! Hosanna, in the highest heaven!” Jesus knows that time will soon come for His death and then His sequential resurrection, so during this time His sermons to the people and to his disciples, were based even more so on the kingdom of heaven and how to get there.

As always Jesus spoke in parables, we learned earlier that He does this in support of our free will making us decipher the parables meaning in order to gain understanding. In this one He tells the story of a king who wants to have a wedding reception for his son.  He sends his workers to tell the people he wanted to invite about the reception, but those invited people refused to come. He sent more people out to inform the invited people that the food and drinks were already prepared and that they would not have to do anything but come. They still refused and even tormented and murdered the messengers. This angered the King and after he sought revenge on the people that murdered his workers, he sent more people out telling them since the invited guests did not want to come go out and invite every person you see, good and bad, so that his son’s reception would be filled. Still when the king was looking over the guest he saw someone without the proper attire, when the king as the man were is his suit and tie the man is speechless and then the king has him throw out. Jesus ends by saying that while many are invited few are chosen.

We know just by looking at the text that the king in this story is God. The son in the story is Jesus and the wedding reception is when the Kingdom comes, when Jesus comes back to earth for His bride, the church. The servants or messengers send out by the King are the prophets and preacher send out by God to tell the world that Jesus is coming back. The first guests are the non-believers, or people that heard the word and chooses to reject it. The second groups of guest are believers of God’s word and believers of His son Jesus Christ.   

With our goal being not to ignore our invitation we certainly do not want to be in the first group of guest. Hopefully everyone reading these words has already accept Jesus Christ has their Lord and Savior, (I will pause here to say that if you have not I pray that you will open your heart and let Him in while you still have time. See my email address below and you can email me if you have any question or need prayer.) So in order to make sure we don’t fall into the first group of guest we must receive the word and obey the word.

While we want to be the second group of guest that was invited to the reception we do not want to be like the man who showed up in the wrong attire. Even though this man received the word and did not turn down his invitation, he still was not ready to go when the workers came to gather the guest. What Jesus is telling us is that we must always be alert looking for His return. In Matthew 24: 42-44 Jesus tells us to always be on watch of his return. Just as if a homeowner know what time a thief would try and enter his house he would be alert and not let his house be broken into, in the same way we must be ready because the Son of Man will come in the hour that we least expect him.

So as we continue to make our way through the wilderness we must remember our ultimate goal, and that is not to ignore our invitation from God. We do so by living in the Word, studying the Word, and by abiding by the Word. We must always be alert and ready because God’s invitations can come at any time. We want to make sure we are ready when we receive them. So that we can hear Him say, “Well done my good and faithful servant”

Tomorrow is a day of rest and I encourage you to go and fellowship with like-minded believers. There is no greater joy than worshiping the Lord with others, the power of the Holy Spirit can be felt throughout the room. If you don’t have a church home let me suggest Greater Shiloh Baptist Church. They are located at 1108 N. E. 50^th St. Oklahoma City Oklahoma 73111. Pastor Orlando J. Black is their shepherd.

Please leave your comments or you can email me at jamesanthonylove@gmail.com.      Thank you all for reading and thank you all for your support!

Until Monday God Bless,

                                James Anthony Love

Finding our way through the wilderness

2 Corinthians 3:4-5

New International Version (NIV)

 4 Such confidence we have through Christ before God. 5 Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God.

Day Nine

Inadequacy

There comes a point in time, in all of our lives, that we feel inadequate. Some of us experience it more than others, but we all have had time when we feel inapt, unimportant, insignificant, and/or not good enough. These feeling can cause us to become depressed and make us undervalue our own self-worth.

These feelings stem from self-deprecation, which is sometimes caused by someone else’s, usually someone close to us, opinion of us.  Rather it is self-inflicted or caused by someone else; we need to know that none of these things are a true representative of who we are. We are made in the image of our God and He is the exact opposite of those things.

To conquer feeling of inadequacy we must first be able to differentiate between inadequacy and being humble. It may seem strange to connected the two, however many of us mistake feeling inadequate for being humble. This is easy to do because Jesus tells us to be humble. He says that the meek shall inherit the earth and that in heaven the first on earth shall be the last in heaven and the last on earth shall be the first in heaven. He always tells us that the greatest on earth shall be the least in heaven and the least shall be the greatest. So when we hear or read these things we think that it is okay to feel unimportant, that it is okay to feel insignificant, and that it is okay to feel inapt. For we think that we are being humble.

However, what Jesus was meant was that we should not take pride in OUR own abilities.  These words from Jesus were a warning for us not to be boastful and to stay humble to the Lord. They tell us to acknowledge the fact that we owe everything to the Lord. In our scripture above Paul tells us to have confidence through Christ before God and not to be competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes for God. He is saying that we are to be confident but not because of our abilities, but be confident of the Lord’s ability to work through us. Jesus wanted us to be humble but not feel inadequate.

As a Christian we cannot feel inadequate simply because the bible tells us that we are not. Philippians 4:13 says that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Romans chapter 8 tells us that we are more than conquerors and verse thirty-one says if God be for us than who can be against us? So we cannot be inadequate because He that resides inside of us.

So Remember next time we are feeling unimportant, know that God cares for us more than anything in else in this world. The next time that we are feeling insignificant, know that God knows all of our hopes and dreams and in time, His time, He will fulfill both. And the next time that we are feeling inapt or not good enough, know that we are not alone Christ is walking this journey with us and just as the verse said we can do anything because He gives us strength even when we are weak. With Jesus We are more than Conquerors

Please join us tomorrow as we continue our journey. Until then God Bless,

                            James Anthony Love

Finding our way through the wilderness

Psalm 37:8

New International Version (NIV)

 ⁸ Refrain from anger and turn from wrath;
   do not fret—it leads only to evil.

Day Eight

Anger Management

  Anger is one of our most uncontrollable emotions. Anger can make us do things, say things, and act in ways that we would not normally do when we are of sound mind. So this makes the emotion that we call anger one of the enemy’s most useful weapons.

  We all get angry from time to time. We’re only lying to ourselves if we say that we don’t. However, it is the way that we choose to display our anger that separates us, believers, from a nonbeliever. We must be mindful of whose image we are displaying to the world through our actions. We are representatives of Christ, the One who was passionate, caring, and forgiving. If we are to follow His Greatest Commandment, to witness and win over souls, we must be mindful of this before we speak, act, or even react.

  Controlling our anger is not only for the benefit of others, but for our own wellbeing as well. Our scripture above tells us to refrain for anger and turn from wrath do not fret- it leads only to evil. Ephesians 4:26-27 says, “In your anger do not sin": Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.” The enemy is always looking for anyway to break us down while at the same time cause distinction between us and our Lord.

  As example have you ever been so mad or angry at someone or something that you envision things that made you cringe just by thinking about them? This is the enemy planting seeds inside of our heads that could cause us to do things that we will later regret. Notice that we said cause and not make, because remember the enemy does not have the power to make us do anything. However he can planted the seed and deceives us into thinking it is the right idea, because we are blinded by a powerful emotion like anger. We must not let ourselves become consume with anger, malice, nor rage for as the scripture says these things only lead to evil.

  The bible also notes that is impossible to please God if we are controlled by anger. James 1:19-20 says, “My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.

  So what can we do to control our anger? First we must pray and ask for God’s help because we will not be able to control it on our own. Then, we must stay in the Word. Constantly reading and studying God’s word brings us closer to Him, which in turns brings us closer to His will and separates us from our own will. Finally just like any great athlete, doctor, actor, or anyone that excels at their craft, we must practice then practice and then practice some more. We can practice by replacing a bad emotion, such as anger, with a good emotion. A couple of good ones that we can use are patience, kindness, forgiveness, happiness, and love. Replace any of these with anger will retrain our mind to value the positive and diminish the negative.

  More times than not anger only causes us self-affliction, we either let it out causes ourselves embarrassment or we let it fester until it consumes us and we become a shell of our former selves. Either way no good can come from anger. It can only put a roadblock in our path delaying our journey to our ultimate goal.

Please join us tomorrow as we continue our journey. Until then God Bless,

                           James Anthony Love