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Something's About To Break!

Today I want to talk to talk about walls and horizons some of us meet up on our walls well before the horizon is visible. some meet the wall just as the horizon is yet visible to us in what seems like a breath away. But one thing seems to be consistent with the wall is that it will show up FOR SURE without question and will cripple without prejudice.

The Adversity

The Wall, that giant that prison, that inevitable evil, that issue, that car payment, that home being repossessed, that child addicted to meth, that group of young men that cant get out of their destructive mindset, that group of people struggling in the ghettos, that group of people shaken by an earthquake….the wall…that giant that presents itself just as your blessing is around the corner. I am certain by the time you’ve read the first line of this paragraph you will have identified your own giant, your own wall that represents the bane of your existence.

I am convinced that as someone once said hope begins in the dark, that small light that burns steadily and strong in the midst of your darkest hour. Hope & Faith still exists within your pain though troubles may stir about you, there is true relief beyond the horizon. Even though this great adversity, this great giant wants you to cower in the corner and fold your tents don’t you do it.

Time & Merit

If there’s anything I’ve learned its that each time a great adversity presents itself this is when God shows up and shows out. Remember, he is made perfect in our weakness but wants to see what we will do. Will we begin to give in? cower? curse him? or even completely give up? Essentially this adverse issues is simply a test and each test/adversity comes with one great question…who are you? Within this question lies multiple sub questions you have to answer about yourself. What is your name? What are you made of? Are you afraid? Are you ready to admit defeat? These are the types of questions that each type of adversity brings with it, but this is where people of great strength and character are birth. People of this stature are not simply born into it they are birth via the tests and adverse situations they have endured and mastered over the years. There are some of us who would look at someone we would consider strong and want what they have, but you can’t get what they have until you have been through what they have endured!

I submit to you that from the depths of adversity, one discovers ones merit. both spiritual and physical strength, its no secret that some things in life just don’t come without a price. So ask yourself what are you willing to do to reach a certain goal in your life or to overcome this great adversity that has presented itself.

PREPARATION

We have all heard of or have read the story of David. Here comes this child that stands in from of this giant, as others laugh and jeer but they did not know that God had prepared David for victory long before he faced the giant(Don’t be lazy Go read it to find out what he was tested with before he faced the giant..lol – - This story David and Goliath can be found in the Bible in First Samuel 17). Essentially God tested David with everything from a Lion to a Bear so by the time Goliath came around then there was no fear in David’s heart! This is what preparation does for you and it CANNOT be forfeited, no matter how many shortcuts you take there is nothing like true preparation to overcome adversity.

The Break!

Make no bones about it it wont be easy to over come this giant but by faith and persistence & preparation you will certainly get it done! If there’s one thing I hope you Grab from this week’s featured article is to all of us who have come up against the Giant know that Once you defeat your giant a kingdom awaits you just beyond the horizon. And I’m not just talking about your kingdom in heaven, but rather the blessings and the favor overflowing that God promises you is there behind every adverse situation, that light at the end of the tunnel does not ONLY signify some sort of divine end but rather the blessings “pressed down, shaken together flowing over”(Luke 6:38). Remember…

Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense; he will come and save you.(Isaiah 35:3,4)

don’t ever think that you are on your own, that’s what the enemy wants, the enemy is a master of systems and is waiting for you to start feeling sorry for yourself and start the “poor me” hating and crying session. Don’t you let the enemy win! You are made strong by the hand of God!

– Walt Walker

“I know that flowers fade and the grass withers, but the word of the Lord shall stand for ever”(T.D. Jakes)

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Today i want to talk about balance,  extremes and people who live to make sure everyone know they do everything and speak everything to extremes. Today We’ll attempt to take a look at Spiritual and Practical Extremes. Anything taken to extremes can be weighed heavily on the crazy side. Even truth taken to extremes can often result in the receiving party becoming disenfranchised from that truth even though it is absolute. Some of us cant pick the right T.V because we think God will slay us for making the wrong choice, or even pick the color of our house because we dont know if god is pleased with fuchsia or lavender walls!

There are those of use who take our religion and beliefs to great extremes leaving no room for practicality. Somehow walking around with an undeserved sense of self righteousness that we often have no idea about in the first place. These are the kind of people that think little of others and think how righteous they are as opposed to you or me. Instead of being humble and allowing God to exalt them they often stand before humility and boast about themselves and their exhaled presence. Forgetting that God reminds us to “Humble yourself up under the might hand of God that in due time he may exalt you”(1 Peter 5:5-14)

These are the kinds of people the word talks about and reminds us of for in Isaiah 64:9 it reminds us that our righteousness compared to his is but filthy rags but often some of us forget this small detail floating around the room in such self righteousness that we forget who god really is and what he says is true religion. Its not you and your extra-holy self rather its about God’s People, we are called to serve not to be exhaled and glorified by man.

And then there are some of us who who are so practical that we have no sense of the spiritual so when things happen in to us that have no explanation or something that our logic is unable to quantify we often lose control and go into depression or some introverted state of mind because everything that we know and have learned can’t seem to explain why this is happening to me or why this situation has without explanation. There are some of us who operate on such a carnal level that when problems arise where by which we have no logic to define said problem we often revert back to a mental state we haven’t seen since we were children because we had no spiritual grounding in the first place!

Take for example an extremely practical man goes to a doctor and gets a diagnosis that by all logic and practical reasoning he is going to meet his end decades before he should. This very practical man now is in quite the quandary as he has no spiritual reasoning and nothing to stand on for he is moved by what he sees and not by faith.

As you can see being either over spiritual or extremely practical often leaves us wanting. Please be advised God is not offended or by any means insulted because we have a brain and the ability to use it. We do not have to over spiritualize everything or Over Analize everything in a carnal nature because remember, its all about balance!

I believe on of the greatest prayers one can pray is to ask the Lord for the ability to be balanced.

7 “Two things I ask of you, O LORD; do not refuse me before I die:8 Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread.9 Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the LORD ?’ Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God.(Proverbs:30-7-9)

As you cna see from the verse above, among all that Solomon had all his riches that God blessed him with he was asking for Balance! He was already rich, had everything a man could ask for in life but it did not escape him that he needed balance in all this or it would be for naught.

Much Like Solomon no matter what blessings God bestows upon me I know I am no greate than what i believe and that I need to be balanced in every aspect of life. Can anyone else relate to this year for true balance in your own life?

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Have you ever gotten that feeling deep down inside that its time to move? not just out of your physical environment but also a practical and spiritual shift? Yea, we know the feeling. I recently read that when Abraham was 75 years old od told him to leave his home and set out and go, and the word says he “not knowing where he was going”(Heb 11:8).

Sometimes life brings a bit of uncertainty and adding in a shift from the familiar is often met with many challenges but many times change is good, you may have been very comfortable in that old and familiar place or situation but too often we allow ourselves to be held back by our complacency!

Its time to make a move be daring, dare to do something different and fulfill your destiny. To the human eye it may seem as there is no path but that’s the idea, blaze that path of your own and walk by faith and not by sight.

You rae no greater than what you believe

I woke up today & from a carnal & visceral standpoint it would seem my life came crumbling down. And by all means from a  worldly perspective it has.Its strange how sometime we can have such a bleak outlook life that it affects every area of our life from the smallest detail to the greatest.

I use to be a person who’s logic was absolute and undeniable I was so practical that even though I believed in God it I still had my doubts about everything. I was full if impatience and anger and bitterness, but something happened to me this morning and by every right based on my history I should have been angry, I should have lost my temper, I should have cursed. This is an event that normally would make way for me to exalt myself by making a scene, as this was the marquee of the old me.

But something happened, God made a change in me that I’ve prayed for for years for the first time in the face of real-life adversity, in the face of real life changing events he has given to me the heart and mind that I’ve longed for. He’s helped to-reduce myself in the situation and has made a table for me LITERALLY in the presence of my enemies and in the face of great adversity.

On Top of that He’s commanded a blessing so great that I can’t even begin to explain! So I needed to come to you today to serve Notice and give truth in testimony of what I have witnessed and what I have learned. Remember Whatever you’re praying for DON’T STOP INTERCEDING, NEVER Give up, for he has not forgotten you and he is Faithful! Be not moved by what you see. I’ve Learned that you are no greater than what you believe! (Mark 9:23)

“I die daily…”1 Corinthians 15:31

I was sitting down and was thinking about those words today and I thought it would be a great though to mention part of our devotional for this morning!

Those words were uttered by paul in a moment of clarity not just from paul but from the spirit which guided him to this place of discernment, in order that we today can pick a part what this means on our own life. This statement gives us insight on what we need to do each day. The apostle paul said this in order to illustrate that we are to die to the flesh each day. The flesh meaning the things of this world that can stick to your spiritual garment. The things in the world that leaves us feeling guilty and low in the depths of sin. For example, I use to have quite a problem with cursing a bit too frequently and without proper thought, and we all know what it feels like to do something that we did not intend to do, but due to the over emotionality of the situation we do not exercise proper judgment.

Its really easy to say, “you know what, I was angry and there is nothing wrong with being angry”..but do we really believe that? Is there truly nothing wrong with anger? Take for instance, you and your significant other are in an embroiled argument, one of you spews out something that you said “I didn’t mean it, it was just spoken out of anger”..Remember the key words here are “Spoken out of anger” And now remember the Word says “…Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks..” {Luke 6:45} So, think again, do we really want ourselves to believe that what we say in times of anger is what and who we really are?

I submit to you a fundamental truth that we all sometimes try to ignore (myself included), the above statement is exactly true; what we spew out of our mouths is that which is in our hearts, this is why it is necessary to die to these things such as this, and this is what paul is illustrating here with this prophetic statement. We need to die to the indulgences of the flesh such as overt anger, because if we fill ourselves with anger, hatred and any other sins of the flesh then this is the fruit that we will produce (fruits of anger), meaning this is what we will speak from our mouths, these corrupt things that we have purposely and inadvertently allowed to seep into our hearts. Guard against it!

So we encourage you today, and every day hence forth, to die to the desires, and corruption of the flesh, because it’s just not worth it, aren’t you tired of feeling guilty when you absolutely know the right course of action to take in a situation? I am, and this is why the Holy Spirit pushed me to write this today, because I am weary of my groaning and guilt. So today I implore you to make a conscious effort to avoid the sins of the flesh, and believe me they will arise, but the question remains, what will you do? I encourage you to pray and let’s fight the good fight, for we have the victory, it’s just a matter of speaking the right things into existence and not the bad! Let’s help each other be free of the drudgery which the flesh can inflict upon us, in order that we may be made strong in the spirit and made whole to stave off the fangs of this world.

How important is it to finish everything we start or everything we put our hands to? The bible says the “Lord is the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2). Is putting effort in to finishing what I start even worth it? What if I just don’t feel like finishing anymore? I’m glad you asked, these questions and more will be answered in this article.

False Consciousness
The first false consciousness we will tackle is the idea that if you start something and don’t finish it, you are just exhibiting tendencies of “a free spirited person”. Wrong, when we get our self in the habit of not finishing what we start as we grow older we find ourselves battling a spirit of inconsistency! This is what it leads to. Imagine if God just took a break when creating man, can you imagine if he made a face with no nose or lips, simply because he didn’t feel like it? Do you see what I mean? Don’t start things that you won’t finish. Get yourself in the habit of seeing everything that you do through to the end

In Philippians 1:6 it says that “he who has begun a good work in you will see it into completion”. What an incredible example of why we should always finish what we start, because if God almighty finishes what he starts why not us? A good example of the Lord finishing what he begun is the story of David, who was born with a mark of destiny about him. People on earth didn’t see it because he had older brothers who we strapping young men. So people thought that they would be great one day not knowing that God “searches the heart and examine the mind” and he has already ordained David to be kind. So the Lord prepared him, until he faced his Giant and defeated him. In the end David became king, because the Lord saw his work into completion! You see, sometimes the Lord has to bring the Giant against us before we can go forth and complete the work set before us. In order that we are ready for what is to come after the work is complete.

Christ Finished
Another great example of finishing is when Christ Jesus was born and God revealed his purpose to him. I think it’s pertinent to know that the bible says “He set his face” This is an example of looking to the end, and preparing to finish the work his heavenly father has placed before him. Starting to get the picture? How can we expect God to bless us when we do not finish what he has put before us to be done? That means; If you started on a college degree, Finish!
If you started training for tryout Finish! If you started cooking for your family, and things seem to be going wrong, just Finish.

Don’t Give Up!

When you, quit you Limit what God is doing for you
You see, when we don’t try to finish what God has given us to do then we tie almighty God’s hands behind his back! I know what your thinking, he’s God. Yes this is true, but be minded that God is not stopping what he is going to do for you because he cannot, rather he has halted production so to speak, and has told the angels to hold off on this blessing. We have to wait for he/she to exercise some FAITH! In order to activate my limitless power. Remember “Faith without works, is dead” – James 2:20. I submit to you that what we do in this life echoes in eternity, we must strive to do all the good we can to secure an eternity worth the wait.

Remember when Jesus had to carry the cross to Calvary? When he fell he got up, and headed straight to the finish line so to speak. Even though what awaited him there was not a hot shower and a cup of joe! How much does this illustration remind you of the trials in your life? Those times when you don’t feel like finishing your fight because you know the end result will not necessarily be beneficial to you? If our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ has laid down his life willing as the Good Sheppard and Finish what he said he would do, how dare we not follow his lead? Why would we not take up our cross and follow Jesus? And even at the end the Lord said “It is Finished” (John 19:30). Even in death The Lord recognized his inalienable path and his journey, knowing that he has to first complete the work his Father has laid before him, then, and then only would have been resurrected on the third day.

He lives

Boasting to a Finish
One thing that we are to be careful of is boasting at the finish line. Remember God is to be glorified, not you! If we remember to do it this way we will reap more blessings along the way. Better for others to recognize you than for you to stand atop a table and call for everyone’s attention. This act leads to overt pride, which we all know pride goes before the fall of everyman!

So the next time you’re faced with what seems to be insurmountable odds. Remember Jesus on that day; remember how he had the sins of the world on his shoulder represented by the cross. Say to your flesh “If my Lord can finish, so will I”. You see it’s not the spirit that is broken and weak, but the flesh! Sometimes we have to speak to our flesh put it o notice, let it know that it will do as you command, in the name of Jesus! There are times when we must shake off these remnants of inconsistency, discontent, break loose these tendencies of a lack of perseverance and an “I Quit” spirit. These things are beneath you, for you are fearfully and wonderfully made, you are the head and not the tail. Never give up, never give in to the cynical ways of this world which will allow you to lay waste your dreams. Get yourself into the habit of seeing everything that you do through to the end, no matter the road ahead. If it leads to disappointment, it was simply a life lesson. If it leads to success it’s a lesson you’ve mastered/learned well. No matter how others may criticize you or mock you for completing something that they may deem as “dead” keep your eyes affixed unto the hills from where your help comes. Remember he says “I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). So when others would see you efforts as hopeless, hold steadfast knowing that the Lord says; “I am with you always, even to the end of the world” (Matthew 28:20)

Today, we want to encourage you to keep the fire burning! No, we’re not here to give you a false sense of hope or a false sense of regality. Instead I’m here to say to you don’t let the fire inside you be extinguished with the worlds outside perspectives. Many of us would be lulled to sleep thinking that once we accept Christ the fire just stays a-blaze without proper maintenance, well contrary to popular “religious” belief I am here to tell you that it is not so! Modern day religion would have us believe that if we wake up every day and just go about our business the spiritual fire inside will keep itelf burning strong. This school of though can be attributed to the fact that in today’s world everyone is so use to this microwave philosophy which suggest that we can “set it and forget it”, we’ve become all about a quick fix, and funny enough when that “fix” breaks down, we expect it to fix it self autonomously. Take for example a physical parody to this; modern furnaces have completely slashed the work out of keeping warm in extremely cold climates, we can simply press a button and make ourselves warmer and actually set the temperature at which we desire this warmth to top off. Once we do this there is never a need to check and see if the fire is still burning, it will just turn itself off when it reaches the temperature you desired.

Now let’s roll the timeline back to days past when people would have to make sure there was enough wood around to keep the fire burning, some one had to the fire and monitor the fuel supplies. As an otherwise miscalculation in the amount of wood, would be certain death.

The same is true with our “SPIRITUAL FIRE “. If we think that we can simply ignore it and continue about our daily lives and it will somehow keep itself burning then we have made a mistake that would in effect cost us that which we have fought so hard to attain; which is the relationship and fellowship with the Lord.

Alarmed? You should be, because if you didn’t know accepting; Christ is the easy part, after this now comes the trials and the tests which will mold you into the rugged soldier of life that you need to be. Romans 12:11 tells us that we are to be “fervent in spirit”, which when analytically surmised basically means to keep the fire burning.

How do we do that? I’m glad you asked!

1: pray each day don’t let it slip even when you are so physically tired that you just want to lay down and shut down. Remember the “effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man, availeth much”.

2: Guard against the influxes of the enemy. Remember none is going to come into your house in a red suit and decorated with horns and a pitch fork. These challenges are presented to you in the form of a friend saying “lets go get hammered tonight” or someone you meet on the way home from work gives you a hard time. And the Achilles heel of every American !ROAD RAGE! These are just some of the things we should guard our hearts from.

3: Look out for those so called ”well wishers” who would in your face be perceived as wanting the best for you and in the meanwhile they are speaking negative things into your spirit and about you behind your back. So be carful the things that you see and hear, because you cannot undo them and you are responsible for them. What you do with the information good or bad is how we measure our strength in our walk with the lord.

So we encourage you today to check up one your spiritual fire, remember it is not on auto-pilot and there are shortcuts around this. The best way to make sure you have a real grip on this life is to make sure that we tend to the important aspects that govern our reality. Keeping a close watch on the items we listed above (numbers 1-3) and take care of this life that you are given. Remember, this is it, you’ve got one physical life to live and what we do with it echoes into eternity, where will you spend yours?