Know your Position!

The story of Joseph is so awesome. This morning God dealt with me about character advancement. In order for Joseph to get to the high place that God was placing him in, he had to learn a few things. He had to learn love, loyalty, faith, relationship, vision, and forgiveness. Joseph learned love from his brothers. Even though Joseph was a favorite, he experienced hate in his own house hold. I can just imagine the mean things that he heard his brothers say about him or the way that he felt when he was left out of things they were doing. Joseph had to learn how to love the ones that were closet to him in order to love other people. When you can love a family member that has hurt you, you can love anybody. Joseph needed that love so that he wouldn’t grow bitter in the 13 years that God had in him Egypt. He also needed that love in order to effectively serve the people that God was sending him to. I also believe that he compassion for people that were in a bad situation. Now, Joseph was a favorite and he was sent, but he was also in bondage. Joseph was not bitter in his bondage, but instead he was faithful and responsible. These were qualities that God was going to use in Joseph later on. Joseph was loyal in that he took his job seriously. He did not sleep with his master’s wife and endured being lied on with dignity. Joseph was not swayed by his emotions. In prison, Joseph was still a favorite. He was the head even in prison. Joseph knew who his God was. Through every level that God takes you through, you should never forget who he is. I believe that Joseph was a man who prayed. This is important because in order to be used effectively by God, you need to have a relationship with him. Joseph understood vision. God gave him visions (dreams) and the gift of being able to interpret dreams. The most important thing that Joseph was able to do was forgive. He did not rub his position in his brothers’ face when they needed him. You need to understand the levels of growth in God. Seek him on your position in life and ask him what he is trying to teach you. Be encouraged and full of faith!!!!

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Take Up Your Cross

God paved the way for my present and my future with the prayers that He placed into my heart many years ago. I didn’t know what new challenges I would have to overcome or what would be required of me as I uttered the sentiments of my heart into His ears. All I knew was that I wanted to serve Him. One my many heart’s desires was to not be a seat filler. I didn’t want to grow content with occupying a seat in the church and never getting out of it to go into all the world to do what God had ordained for me to do in the earth. At that time I didn’t know who God had called me to be and I didn’t understand that some of my prayers was an indication of it. Spoken from a transparent place, as life happened, the more God told me to get up the more I wanted to sit down. Tiredness and fear had gripped me on more occasions than I want to admit and I have had the audacity to whisper, “ get somebody else to do it”, on more than one occasion. I felt justified in what I...

Waiting for the Promise vs. Moving in Impatience

“Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, “Shall a child be born to a man who is one hundred years old? And shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child? ” And Abraham said to God, “Oh, that Ishmael might live before You!” Then God said: “No, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his descendants after him” ( Genesis 17: 17-19 NKJV). Isaac was desired, but Ismael was birthed out of impatience. If God told you that you were going to birth something beautiful, no matter what your season may look like, bank on the Lord’s promises. Your Ishmael does not have to be a man, your Ishmael can be an opportunity. Don’t walk into just any ole thing because you got tired of waiting on God. If God promised you something in 2016 and you didn’t see it in 2017, that does not mean that He forgot about what He promised you. Isaac had a set season and ...

Shrinking Is Not an Option

Today I realized that I was afraid of success. I’m afraid of being all that God has called me to be because I am afraid of the accountability that it will intel and I feel undeserving of all that He has for me. I feel like 2019 is a time to grow forward and to excel. It’s like we are knocking on the door of the promises of God after spending so long in a wilderness. The thing about being in a wilderness is that that place is meant to make you a warrior, not a weak-minded victim. You are supposed to learn how to fight and encourage yourself in the wilderness, but some of us have become content with the dryness of the land instead. Today, I wanted to shrink because so much seems possible for me right now. Things that I have been working for are right in face, but a part of me wants to just shrink because I am comfortable. I became comfortable with fighting and with the thoughts of giving of up. I became friends with being disappointed, but now God is wanting to call fo...

When Destiny is Calling Your Name

When destiny is calling your name, it could cost you your purpose if you do not respond. Purpose can sometimes pull you away from all that you are familiar with as it was in the case of both Abraham and Moses. Both of these men had to leave their familiar surroundings so that they could be made and developed into the leaders that God had called them to be. Sometimes your call will seem crazy to those that don’t know God. Stop placing such high esteem on the opinions of what other people have to say about you and walk in the things that God has told you to do. In God, you will accomplish more following Him then you ever will falling into line with the state of mind that people have assigned to you. Don’t look at your job, where you are in life right now, or the negative words that people have spoken over your life. Make up in your mind that you will look at the big master piece painting of GOD instead of the small perishing polaroid of man! ~ You fall when you lose focus. St...

Dad

Mom is one of the greatest gifts that God could have given to us. She’s passionate about us and she fiercely wraps us up in loving protection. She is our cheerleader and the one that understands. In the eyes of a child, mom has all the answers and she is the smartest lady in the world. No one can take the place of mom….. But what about dad? Dad is our strong and mighty tower. Noon is stronger than him and his love holds us together. Mom is important, but there is nothing like the love of a father. Isn’t it funny how we compare “being there” to the presence of a father? If you talk to most people about why they feel a certain away, they will start talking about the absence or presence of their father. We even compare the love of God to our dads. This can be a good or a bad things depending on the type of man that the dad in our lives is or was. The key word is the last sentence was man . Today I got the opportunity to talk to myself. No, not literally, but me in the form a young gi...

Mirror Mirror on the Wall

I think that we have all seen the movie Snow White , right? I’m not going to go into a summary of the whole movie, but there are a few parts that I would like to draw attention to. In the movie, the queen loved to look into this magic mirror and ask it “mirror, mirror on the wall who is the fairest one of them all?” and she was all good as long as the mirror said that it was her. She put this action into practice on multiple occasions, but a time came when the mirror told her that there was one fairer than her. The queen was not happy about this and wanted to take snow white out because she was more beautiful than her. Snow White was also a lot more accepting and nicer than the queen. My question for you today is, what does you spiritual mirror look like? When you look into that spiritual mirror, what do you see? What do you expect to see? and what would you do if the Holy Ghost told you that you were not the fairest, cleanest, most forgiving, most loving one anymore? It feels good ...

The Barrel of Meal Shall Not Waste, Neither Shall the Cruse of Oil Fail: RESET

This morning as I was thinking about the fact that God gives us a new start each year, the word reset came to mind. I tried to figure out why that word came to mind, and I began to look up its meaning. I have listed the meaning in the noun, verb, and adjective forms. Reset- set again differently, cause to enter the state representing the number 0, a plant that is planted again, to restore, a plant that has been recently transplanted, adjust again after a failure, set anew. Once I found the meaning of the word reset, I began to look for synonyms associated with it. Words like order, switch, replace, shift, changed, corrected, reformed, prepare, recondition, make ready, modify, do over, reappraise , and rework came up. At this point, I got a little excited and began to wonder how the Lord reset His people in the bible and what that word means concerning me. One of the first thoughts that crossed my mind pertained to the prophet Isaiah and the time that hot coal was placed over hi...

Need Prayer?

“But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail” (Luke 22:32a). For a time, I didn’t ask people for prayer . I became protective of ‘my stuff,’ and I backed away from needing people because I had me-the army of one. I felt alone, misunderstood; all the things that I wanted no one to know about because I got me . This mindset created offense and functional depression. I backed away so that no one would see it; no one knew me enough to recognize what it looked like. “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat” (Luke 22:32b). What does it look like when you are being sifted? The sifting starts early in life and can be a continuous pattern if the devil feels like his tactics are working against you. I asked a friend recently, “Why am I so emotional? Did God give me these emotions?” I tend to feel deeply because I am an intercessor, but the emotions have to be stewarded properly. You have to master them by submit...

A Call to Grow Up! Rejoice in the New!

Before I said yes to serving Jesus, one of my friends used to ask me “What will it take?”. He was saved and I was not. He taught me how to use my gifts for Christ, although I had no idea that that was what I was doing at time. I just knew that I could help in the area that I was helping in. I didn’t know that I was being trained in the area that God was going to use me in. At that time in my life, I had an idea of how I wanted God to come for me. I don’t like new things and I wanted Him to come in ways that I had seen Him in before. That particular view of God still trips me up in my personal walk with Him because I am used to how I have seen Him before. I don’t need new, I just need Him to do what I have already seen Him do in my life before. I was comfortable with the old, but now everything is changing. God wants to expand my view of Him, but each and every step of the way I am kicking. I am again at a place of “what will it take?” What will it take for God to grow me u...

This New Place of Faith: Perception

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland” ( Isaiah 43: 18-19 ). A lot of times I miss the former things. I miss the things that God has called me out from. Sure I had a horrible boyfriend and sure I was depressed beyond measure, but my misery was comfortable and familiar. This new place, this process, is hard and lonely. I feel misunderstood everywhere I go, but I am aware that God is doing a new thing. Leaving Egypt was painful, uncomfortable, and loud. The problems in our lives can be so loud that they threaten to drown out the voice of God, but this new thing, this new thing has a process attached to it because the Egypt in us has to die. It takes a process to be comfortable in misery and it takes a process to understand that loving misery is dysfunctional. In this new place of God, our eyes have to be fresh an...

JaNina B.

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