JaNina B.

Noone can get in the way of what God has ordained for your life. It does not matter what the world says. It does not matter what your situation may look like, the word of the Lord shall prevail for you. Everyone wants to be Rachel, but in longing for the life of someone else we miss our own blessings. Yes, Rachel was beautiful. Yes, she was chosen to be first by man, but Leah was chosen to be first by God. Leah failed to notice her own fruit because she was too busy looking at someone else’s tree. Don’t miss God in your life by watching how he is moving in someone else’s. Life is not about competition, but it is about the glory of God. In a way, Leah may have been in competition with her sister through her process of child bearing. Rachel was barren during the beginning of her marriage and Leah used this opportunity to gain her husband’s affection. Don’t we do that in life? We look at our completion and we both find and try to use to our advantage what we are better than them a...

Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak.   She said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed” (Matthew 9:20-21 NLT ). I have polycystic ovaries. One of the symptoms that I have suffered with is having my menstrual cycle stay on for 1 to 6 months at a time. I was miserable and tired. There is no peace with an issue like this.   I remember waking up and hoping that my cycle would be off, but it was still on. I could not imagine having this issue during the time that the woman with the issue of blood lived. We have doctors today that can prescribe a pill or use some other method to get a woman’s bleeding under control, but this woman suffered for 12 years. Did she have cramps? Was she anemic? Was she ever afraid that she would bleed to death? Did she have or want children? Maybe this woman just wanted to be free. She didn’t think about what she was missing, she just want...

When we focus on man instead of God we miss the attention that He lavishes on us. Leah was seemingly an underdog from the beginning of when we first meet her in the bible. She was the older sister, but yet this blessed man of God choose her little sister over her. She was involved in a plot set up by her father to be snuck into the bed of the man that thought he was marrying and sleeping with her sister on their weeding night. I’m sure Jacob was pissed when he got up that next morning after sleeping with his wife and finding out that it was not the one that he had worked 7 long years to marry; but what about Leah and her feelings? Did Jacob use harsh words toward her when he found out that she was not Rachel? Leah was a blessed woman although her husband favored her sister over her. She was blessed of the Lord to have seven beautiful biological babies. She so badly wanted her husband to love her and she began to attach an emotion to each additional life that God allowed her ...

“But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint” (Isaiah 40:31). Famous “waiters” in the bible include Sarah, Elizabeth, and Mary. These three woman had a promise from the Lord, but they had to be patient with themselves and with their God. In waiting, you have to be sure of who your God is. No matter who gets a promotion before you do or who gets married before you do, you have to know that God does not lie and cannot fail. The way that Sarah replied to God and the way that Mary replied to God concerning the promises that they received were totally different. Sarah laughed because she looked at her circumstance. How many of us laugh at the promises of God because of the view that we have of our circumstances. We forget that nothing is impossible for God and if we do decide to believe God we attempt to make his promises happen on our own watch. Sarah ga...

“What is man that you take thought of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” (Psalms 8:4 New American Standard). There are a lot of times when I am not mindful of God. I do what I want because it’s what I feel like doing at the moment. Even if that something is bad for me I pursue it, but even in the midst of that God still loves me. God has and still does love me through every mistake. He pursues me. He chases after me because He is the lover of my soul. God loves our soul. He enjoys when we take thought of Him and when we spend time with Him. God desires our time. Our busy lives cause us to miss out on valuable time that could be spent with our father. I’m one of those cases in which God has to instruct me Himself. He is teaching me love. I try to understand His love for me, but it’s hard. Who am I that the creator of the universe should take thought of me? He has placed so much on the inside of me that I cannot see, but I pray that He opens my eyes and yours to see ...

I did not realize the amount of unforgiveness that I had for a particular individual from my past until recently. I believe that the memory of the hurt that this person caused me came to my attention so that I could deal with it. I have to be free. I can’t carry old weights or old desires. The situation arouse in such a messy way, that I believe that it was caused to make me lose focus. It did. I cried like I did when that person was in my life. I did not forgive them. A part of me holds both unforgiveness and love. We have to look at the bigger picture of what God wants to do through us and where He wants to take us. The beauty of God is that He does not want for us to operate in hurt. He wants every area in our lives to be clean and fully devoted to him. God used Paul in such a mighty way, but he was a person that had hurt people. Paul witnessed a man murdered and approved of it. Paul desired to persecute the church. He was probably very scary and intimidating to Christians bec...

Sometimes we see and go through things so that we can give an account. Yes other accounts of the same situation may exist, but nobody can give an account like you. Your testimony will be different because you went through it. Some people may even receive it better from you because they know you personally. Perhaps Theophilus had heard the story about Elizabeth and Mary many times, but his faith might have increased when he heard it from Luke. Maybe Theophilus was in a place in his life where he needed the faith to believe God because each person discussed in this chapter came to a point where they had to take God at His word. In this chapter we see what happens when we trust God and we see what can happen if we question and or limit His promises to us. God loved Elizabeth and her husband so much that they were counted worthy to be mentioned in the bible! We all know what it’s like to want something so bad and not get it. Imagine how Elizabeth must have felt. She may have prayed d...

On the day that the Lord commanded Moses to send 12 spies into the Land of Canaan, I wonder if any of them grumbled about the opportunity and wondered within themselves “Why do I have to go ?” or “why is God sending me ?”. It’s the craziest thing, God wants to bless us, but we don’t wanna go through nothing. God wants to wow us by sending us on field trips to spy out our destiny, but we yet find a way to miss the abundance and instead come back with a bad report about what God has allowed us to see. You need to fix your vision. Your field trip to spy out destiny is not meant to discourage you, but it is meant to encourage you. When God shows you the land and the better our come that he wants to give you, look past the impossibilities and look to your God for which nothing is impossible. God can’t bless us effectively with an Egypt mentality. We would never be happy because we are still comparing the gifts of God to the scraps we received in that old place that God has delivered u...

A question that I once asked, that I am still asking, and that I have been asked is, “what is next after I say yes to God?” The truth is that every day has to continue to be yes. The thing that irritated me most about asking the above question was that people would always tell me to pray. I felt like I was dying and all they had to say to me was pray!!!!!   Looking back, that was the best answer that they could have given me because I was in fact dying. You will go through a phase where God has to burn up all your old ideals and introduce His way of thinking and living to you. I’m still going through this phase. Like a fine car, you have to continue to maintain the lessons and delivery that God wants to and is going to give you. You have to listen to the Holy Spirit. This can be hard because even as a born again believer, the world and its ways are still attractive. Every day I am challenged to change my response to life’s situations, my mind set, and the things I like becaus...

One of things that I ask God for in my prayer time is the ability to be able to hear Him. I want to hear God clearly when He speaks to me. I don’t want to drown out His voice which is easy for me to do because I have a tendency to be easily distracted. When God has shown us something, we cannot allow ourselves to get off task. We have to be able to listen to God and we have to be able to envision what He is saying to us. For the past few nights, the word see has been jumping out to me as I read my bible. Before God gave certain people instructions, He told them to see first. Sometimes the personal words that God has for me can be  hard to believe because they are things that I don’t see in myself. Life can sometimes have a way of making us not believe the things that God is saying to us, but we have to be able to see His promises mentally before we actually see them tangibly. Despite what may be going on around you, all you need to do is see . Sometimes you have to see what...

I pray against the dream crushers in your life. Don’t allow your dreams to die because you lack resources. I pray that God provides you with everything that you need according to His will. I pray for an increase in your faith. Don’t give up on your ideas, or business plans. Keep drawing or singing. Whatever God has placed on the inside of you to accomplish, protect it. Don’t abort your destiny because people don’t like it. Cover that thing that God has placed on the inside of you and give it back to Him. If God gave you the idea or the desire, He will make it come to pass. People came against Joseph’s dream. He was an unlikely candidate to be over his brothers because he was younger. David was also youngest of his siblings. Don’t allow age to hinder your destiny. God can use whoever He wants to. Who is anyone to tell you that you are too young or to old. Look at the lives of Sarah and Elizabeth. Society and Anatomy said that they were too old to bear children, but yet they conceive...

It is easy to condemn Moses. How could he, out of all people be insecure? I mean, He talked to God in a burning bush that was not consumed by fire! God even protected him in a snake and alligator infested river! Wouldn’t you trust God if He continuously showed up on your behalf? Wouldn’t your war cry be Jehovah Nissi? God was always with Moses. Moses was never allowed to be a normal Hebrew baby because he was called out to be used for the glory of the Lord. He wasn’t allowed to be murdered. He wasn’t even allowed to be a slave. What has God shielded you from because of your calling? What had God allowed you to endure because of your calling? Do you realize that what you’re going through is because of your calling? No, Moses may not have endured what his brothers and sisters endured, but that does not mean that his life was peaches and cream. He may have been in the palace, but that does not mean that people treated him like a prince. If you look at the life of Moses, no one was...

Growing up I heard the word of God in a general sense. God loves us. We all know that God loves us right? He hears our prayers, He is a divine being, and we should go to church every Sunday. These beliefs are pretty general. I remember sitting in church and not really being penetrated by the word. I respected God. I believed in God, but I would not allow Him to have full access to me. I saw the older people around me being what I have come to know as being “transformed”. I did not understand the word transformed because it had not happened to me. I did not know, or rather I did not pay attention to the presence of God in my life. I mean His true presence. I did not really understand the realness of God until I got saved for the first time at the age of 16. I used to feel this tugging of what I now know to be the Holy Spirit pulling on my heart during the alter call but I would never go. Well, one Sunday I went. I almost felt a holy push to get up. You need to know that God can ...

Who told you everything that you believe about yourself? Don’t you know how precious you are in the eye sight of God? He created you along with all the other wonders of the world and gave you dominion over it. He allowed you to name the name the animals and the plants of the earth. God cares about your thoughts and your emotions. He allowed you to have them right? You have to be mindful of the things that you allow into your space. The moment that Eve allowed the serpent to come into her space, he got into her ear. Be careful what you listen to. When the serpent had Eve’s ear he began to come against what she knew was true. Be careful about what you believe. We cannot allow anything that is not of God to rob us of who He is, what He has taught us, or who we are to Him. The serpent wanted to confuse Eve. The devil wants to confuse us and make us believe that we are equal to God. We try to play God when we don’t consult Him in any area of our lives. We think that we have things under...

Every time I see a woman after God’s own heart walking in her anointing, I am reminded that it’s not about the husband, the accolades, or the rewards. It is the journey that will make you. All you have to do is stay in His presence. It is the journey that will inspire people, not your stuff. My bishop posted a question in his devotional that asked “what do you want to be when you grow up?” That answer for me is that I want to be a woman that is found in God's presence, I want to be a woman walking in her God given assignment, and I want to be a woman after God’s own heart. I have to actually be reminded that life is not about stuff. I look at people and I measure myself and my success to them but God has a different journey for me. Life is about the journey. What have you learned? Are you teachable? Don’t you see the testimonies and the revelations that are being given to you at each phase of your process? Don’t miss it. Don’t miss the hand prints of God all over your life ...