JaNina B.

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...

Today as I was reading a devotional, the writer spoke of a time in her life when she had to use rocks to see the things that she could not see. She was a child and so badly wanted to take a peek into a territory that was not hers, but yet, she and her friends were curious about what this territory held. One day the writer and her friends discovered some rocks. The friends gathered the rocks and used them to help them reach their destination. As I reached the section of the devotional that talked about rocks, I thought about the fact that the still things have a purpose. The rocks in your life have a purpose. Those things that seem to be dead and unmovable come to life when God gives you an idea or when He gives it a command to move. Unmovable things have a destiny and a plan to move in its appointed time. “For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe ...

Many people want a baby. Babies are cute and huggable, but before the manifestation of the baby can come, there is a process that has to be completed. People make saying yes look easy. The journey that they have to take because of that yes is usually a little harder though.   It’s easy to look at cute pregnant women and want what they have. If they are married, we think in our minds that we want to get married too. We want the wedding, we want the attachments like the kids and the great house, but we don’t think about that cute woman’s responsibilities. When we look at people in the body of Christ, some of them look like they have it all together. They look free and their prayers are beautiful, but we never think about their process. We don’t consider the babies that they have lost along the way and we don’t consider the pain that they had to go through to birth the beautiful baby that we see them carrying around (purpose, freedom). The birthing process is not that pretty. ...

As I was reading a devotional today I saw the word crushed. I love this word! I also love the words broken and wrecked. To most people these words are destructive and may even evoke an emotion of pain, but to me, these words are beautiful. There is beauty in the crushing. There is beauty in brokenness. There is beauty in being wreaked. Yes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but what and who have you allowed to dictate what you consider to be beautiful? To be very honest, just because I stated that I love the before mentioned words, that does not mean that I love the process that comes with them. Life hurts. We have ups and we have downs, but what have you allowed your perspective to be in the midst of every painful experience that you have endured? I have had so many things attempt to take me out, but the beauty that I have found is that God always seems to hold me together. I have had my heart completely wreaked by people and by life over and over again, but the trials h...

  “But now, LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, and you are our potter. We are the work of your hands” (Isaiah 64:8 GWT). Do you remember playing with playdough as a child? It came in all kinds of colors and it had multiple variations of molds that you could choose from to make whatever object you could imagine. When you took the playdough out of the container, it came out in the shape of the container, but it was moldable. In order to change the shape of the playdough you had to tear it apart, put it back together, squash it down, and maybe even separate it in order to make exactly what you wanted. When you bought that playdough, you never intended for it to stay in the container, but you bought it with the intention of making something new out it. You may have even bought it with the intention to share it with other people. When Christ died on the cross, He bought us with the intention of making us into something new for His glory and He bought us with ...

“Around midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening” (Acts 16:25 NLT). Paul and Silas were some bad boys! Can you imagine doing the right thing and being locked up because of it? These men had a freedom that the people they encountered needed to see because they were not bound although others could visibly see the chains that had been placed on them. They did not misrepresent Christ because of their circumstances and they did not try to give up serving Him because of the predicament that they had found themselves in. ~~~~~ Stop being mad at God because things do not go the way that you expect them to. ~~~~~ “ And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). Paul and Silas knew who their God was and they knew that He was going to come through for them no matter what their situation looked like. They knew enough about God...

Whenever my feet hit the ocean, something magical happens. I start thinking about the Lord and I have no choice but to take notice of this massive life giving source of beauty that He has created. I just love water. It inspires me and it helps me to see the magnitude of God. This year, I learned how to float again. I first learned as a child, but somewhere along the way, I stopped going swimming and therefore forgot how to float. I also forgot how to trust God. My whole life has been about trusting God. I go through so many obstacles that require me to trust Him and I get upset every time because I expect Him to just take care of me. What good is that when it comes to getting to know Him on a personal level? Will you really work at your spiritual relationship and growth in the Lord if you are never required to really get on your face and seek Him concerning heaven? Yes, He is a parent, but He wants us to learn something on this journey of life also. He wants us to be emotionall...

You fight because you are royal, but this fight is not just against the world; you also have inner battles that you need to win also. The battle that one fights within themselves is one of the biggest battles that you will have to win in your life time. You already have an enemy against you (the devil is your enemy), why are you becoming your own worst enemy also? Learn to believe what God has already said about you. You have to know that you are good enough despite what your circumstances throw at you and you have to know that you are smart enough if the Lord saw fit to send you. King David was not trained on how to build and keep a kingdom. He was not even the first choice as king, but he was the holy choice. God will move people out their positions to make room for you if you are His choice. Be mindful concerning how you represent the Lord where you are right now in your life. You may be over looked. You may be under paid. You may even be unpopular, but the Lord will affirm yo...

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...

Destiny is a place that we all want to go right? We want to reach high heights without conquering or going through low lows and we tend to sabotage ourselves when we move out of position to quickly or not fast enough. When you decide to do what God has told you to do, you will be met with results that will blow your mind. It is not about getting everyone else’s opinion about what God has already spoken over you; you need to learn how to listen to the Holy Spirit and be content with His voice. There is nothing wrong seeking confirmation or spiritual guidance, but you need to know the difference between someone who agrees with you in the Lord and someone who is oppositional to voice of God in your life. We all seek God and we all want more of Him, but we don’t want to go through what it may take to reach Him. Sometimes it takes all night prayer and pushing back your plate in order to get more of God. You may even need to leave that boyfriend/ girlfriend alone and stop talking to ...

No matter what mental state you are in, where you are in life, or who you have around you, prayer will always be the heartbeat of your survival. You need to know how to pray during both the mountain top experiences and the valley experiences. If no one ever taught me anything, I learned how to express myself to God through prayer. Prayer isn’t always about asking God for things, but you can actually sit with Him and tell Him how you feel. There have been moments in my life where I felt like the Lord was the only one that I could talk to about what was going on in my life. You have to get into a place where you begin to communicate with God as you would with anyone else. There are times when I speak out loud to God because I know that He is around me. God’s presence is peace, it changes the atmosphere, and it will shift your entire mood. Once you’ve talked to the Father, you know that everything will be ok just because He is around you. I pray that for anyone that needs it. I p...

You cannot tell everybody your dreams because your dreams might be bigger than their expectation of you. You will do things for God that  man did not see coming. Learn to lean on the opinions of Jesus instead of allowing yourself to become esteemed by the opinions of man. Those folks do not know you or the potential that God has placed on the inside of you. Some of you even have family members that don’t know the real you. Think of yourself as a plan that God has up His sleeve. You are unexpected, but powerful through His grace. Nobody saw Joseph coming. His own brothers did not even know who he was to God. People don’t always treat you like the One who created you. That is why you have to learn to see yourself the way that God sees you and have no bitterness in your heart toward man. Forgive those people who talk about you and use you. Joseph had to forgive his brothers because God was going to use him to protect them. People have no idea that you may be the one that God is...

Jesus didn’t walk around trying to prove His anointing to people so why are you? So what if those people don’t believe that you are called and so what if they don’t accept the word that God has given you for their lives. That is their loss not your yours. Remember that your anointing is from the Lord and not to be used as a popularity card. Check your heart and motives before God. I had to be reminded that God sees our motives. We can get away with a lot when it comes to man, but nothing is hidden from God. God knows your heart. Lord put me in a place with you where nothing matters but the state of my heart before your eyes. Lord help me to see you and Lord help me to make you my confidence and not popularity. We should never want to be in a place where the fame of being anointed takes precedence over God. We never want to be in a place where God stops speaking to us. We never want to be Saul. That is a miserable place to be in. We should never want to be in the place of believ...

Count yourself as blessed when God releases a word to you concerning who you are to Him. Don’t be so discouraged about the issues of life that you dismiss God when He is trying to encourage you. There are people at this very moment who know who they are in God and to Him, but they are refusing to walk in it. They are denying their purpose and they have grown comfortable in a life style and in a mindset that God is calling them out of. How many people actually know that they are called to preach but they refuse to accept that call on their lives because of fear, their current lifestyle or because they flat out don’t want to do it. The thing that we neglect to understand when we deny the call that God places on our lives is that He has need of us and that there are other people who are attached to our call. God actually wants to use us to save and transform lives, but that begins with us submitting to Him and doing what He has asked us to do. Stop being so comfortable with sittin...