JaNina B.

Tonight, I thought about sex. I thought about the beauty of it and I thought about the reasons that God created it. Sex can be beautiful and pleasurable, but sex can also be very dangerous if you don’t know the truth behind it. As a young girl, no one sat down with me and talked to me about sex. I never got the “protect yourself” talk and I never got a real run down about what people will do just to have sex with you. I lost my virginity at the age of 14. I didn’t even really know the guy, but I thought that I would spend the rest of my life with him because that was the story that he sold me. I don’t blame him, and I don’t resent him for anything anymore, but I wish that I had been wiser and that I understood the value of what I was giving away.  In my 20s I learned that sex is not only physical, but it is spiritual also. I learned what soul ties were and I began to understand why it was so hard for me to break away from people after the “relationship” had ended.   I ha...

Give your self-permission to receive and walk in the grace that God gives you. King David had to allow himself to receive grace. He was not perfect, but he knew how to remorsefully repent and he knew how to position himself at the feet of the King. David messed up while walking in his purpose. He tried to hide his sin, but God saw it and confronted him on it. We have to know how to receive God when He confronts us with the good, the bad, and the ugly. We can choose to continue to sin or we can choose to submit to our Father and repent. God does not expect for us to be perfect, but He does expect for us to be submitted.   Saul lost his position with God before he lost his position with man. He cared about what people thought more than he cared about what God thought. Both King David and King Saul serve as an example of how we can choose to listen to God or ignore Him when He confronts us about our sin. There are so many people who are dying because they are hiding something. Th...

“For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God” (Exodus 34:15 KJV). As I was up late watching videos of people talking about the personal lives of celebrities, I thought about the fact that it is crazy to worship those people. I thought about the fact that we actually worship flesh and I thought about the fact that we will all die someday. There have been extremely talented individuals that have passed away and their talent went with them. These individuals were considered to be iconic and they were worshiped because of it. Theses celebrities had gifts that were not known to be used for the One that gave it to them. These people had beautiful things and they had gatherings where people called out their names and raised their hands in worship to them, but what about God? Isn’t God the giver of the gifts and isn’t God the one who allows people to live lavishly? What about the worship that belongs to Him? Are we as humans so selfish, t...

“The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men, Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ? Then they went out of the city, and came unto him” (John 4:28-30 KJV). I have been thinking about the woman that Jesus meant at the well in Samaria lately. I wonder if God had ever tugged on her heart before and I wonder if she shut Him down. I wonder if her reply to God’s promptings was that she was not good enough or that she needed to get her life together before she served Him. I wonder what stressful things were on her mind the day that she planned to go to the well and I wonder if that walk was her “me” time. The beautiful thing about the woman at the well is that she is like both you and me. I love that she was honest with Jesus and didn’t try to sugarcoat her life style. I love that she was receptive to Jesus and that she asked Him questions. I also love that she took what she had learned and was not a...

“ Once after a sacrificial meal at Shiloh, Hannah got up and went to pray. Eli the priest was sitting at his customary place beside the entrance of the Tabernacle. Hannah was in deep anguish, crying bitterly as she prayed to the L ord” (1 Samuel 1:9-10 NLT). Have you ever been in a place where you were sick and tired of being sick and tired? Hannah has. That was the very place that she was in when she cried out to the Lord on one of her yearly visits with her family to the temple. Hannah got to a place where cute prayers were no longer getting it for her. The cute cries were not getting her what she longed for and the glare of people no longer affected her. Hannah needed the Lord and she needed Him immediately. Hannah had a purpose in her that no one could bring forth but the Lord and she understood that. Many of us have a longing, but we are either afraid of it, we ignore it, or we attempt to accomplish it on our own. We don’t consider the Lord or think about the fact that perhap...

God taught David how to fight. He fought a lot of personal battles before he was strong enough to fight the battles that we know him for today. David had to know how to depend on God in private before he could publicly show us how to depend on Him. David had to fight other people’s opinion of him even up until the moment that he was anointed to be king. Nobody looked at little David and saw a king. When they looked at him, they saw the youngest of 8 sons. They saw a shepard and they might have even seen a punk. I wonder if David’s brothers even knew that he was about that life. Did they know that he had fought and won a battle against a lion? Did they know that he took on a bear? Did they know that he was a prophetic musician and poet who was getting closer to God while they were busy looking the part of a position that they would never fill? The mistake that some people make is that they are more concerned with looking the part then they are with having the heart to fulfill t...

I often call Hannah the gift that keeps on giving because there is so much that can be learned from this woman. She is a real woman that has struggled with faith and possibly depression. She is a woman that had to share her man because it was the social norm of her time and she is a woman that struggled with being unfulfilled. Hannah got what was supposed to be her prize. She had her husband’s affections, but that was not enough for her. She wanted something that only God could give her and that was a child. As women, some of us make the mistake of thinking that marriage will fix all of our problems. We think that a man is supposed to save us and we wear his last name as a badge of honor that is supposed to make us complete in some way. Hannah found out over time that her husband could not complete her and she realized that her inner most desires were not in his hand. Hannah became a wife, but she wanted to become a mom. she had what so many women pray for today. She had her “Boa...

King Saul had it made. I mean, he really had it made! He was king, he was fighting philistines, and he had the prophet Samuel advising him the whole step of the way; but one thing stopped King Saul. His flesh! Flesh will cause you to miss out on the things of God if you don’t kill it continuously. We never read about King Saul fasting or praying. He was a mighty man who had an army but he didn’t have Jesus for himself. The righteousness of others will only get you so far. Samuel could not save king Saul from God. Saul had to learn how to seek God for himself, but even in moments of desperation he could not. “Seek ye the LORD while He may be found, call ye upon him while he is near” (Isaiah 55:6 KJV). What are you going to do when it is time to seek God for yourself? What will your response be when grandma, mama, and Pastor Joe don’t answer the phone? You have to have your own relationship with God and you have to know how to be obedient.   King Saul was disobedient and ...

If you would, imagine that words can be cloth in armor, have a helmet on, and can carry a sword. Now, imagine that the words are powerful and can be gathered into an army. The words are strong on their own, but in a large number, they can either propel you into your next step or stop you in your tracks. With a battle field full of words with helmets on in mind, do you see the seriousness of this powerful tool that pushes us through life? Words are spoken to us and around us in our mother’s womb. The words help to shape us and to influence our thinking patterns. Now let me ask you a question, what are you allowing the words that have been spoken to you to do? Are you using the words to fight for you or are you allowing the words to war against you?” “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1 KJV). In the beginning was the word. The word was with God and the word was God (truth). Everything that God had to say about you from the...

Have you ever had a childhood item that you loved? That thing may be worn, dirty, and falling apart, but you hold on to it because of sentimental value such as the memories attached to it . That item could be anything. It could be cloths, a toy, or even a picture. In many of our lives the old sentimental thing that we hold on to is our sin. We attach unhealthy sentimental values it. Many of these sins originated in our childhood so we hold on to it and in most cases, hope that no one ever sees it. Not every sin is private, some people are wide open with their sins because it is socially acceptable to take part in such things, or they have stooped caring what other people think it. Like those childhood items, we may tuck our sins away and bring them out in secret. In some cases, we even form unions with people who are holding on to the same item (sin) that we are holding on to. The items (sins/ demons) have been with us so long, we don’t know how to function without it. Today, Go...

In 2010 I was lost. I did not know who I was or where I was going. I was sinking. I was not living a life of purpose, but I was merely existing. That all changed when God injected Himself into the mix. I cannot say that I was looking for Him, but I can say that He definitely took the opportunity to change my heart through love. God loved me during a time when I placed a man’s attention over seeking and falling in love with the attention that He was showing me. God had already placed so much in me that He saw fit to not allow what He had already started to be wasted. I was in a backslidden state, but yet God loved me enough to still use others to show me what He thought of me. When God begins a work in you, He is faithful to bring it to completion. I desired God, but I was not running after Him. God meant me in a dark and lonely place. He continued to shower me with His love and He allowed the roots that He had already planted in my life to go from a dormmate state to a growin...

Your hard moments, setbacks, short comings, and tough times is what builds the “ tada ” for God to be revealed in your life. 2016 set the stage for 2017. People are watching you and trying to figure out how you are going to make it another moment. God has set the stage and you are the one that He has chosen to show His power through so that others may believe. God never left you, He prepared you. How any times did you think that you would die, but God provided a way each and every time? So many people have questioned God about the promises that He made to them. They are questioning His timing and praying that His timing will align with theirs. God is going to do everything that He said He would do, but it will be in the season that He has appointed for His word to manifest. Don’t try to move ahead of God because you are likely to get results that He did not intend for you to have. In Genesis 16, Sarah had a call on her life to be the mother of nations, but she wanted the c...

“Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy” (James 1:2 NLT). Have you ever turned down a nice glass of lemonade? It tastes great doesn’t it, especially when someone that knows what they are doing is making it. No two people make lemonade exactly the same because our taste buds are so different. Some people like really sweet lemonade, but I personally prefer for my lemonade to be a little more tart. I want to taste the lemons! Some of us have spiritual taste buds that require us to taste the lemons of life. Everyone will not have a sweet journey, but the things that we go through will be enough for us to make a glass of lemonade to be shared with others. “There isn’t any temptation that you have experienced which is unusual for humans. God, who faithfully keeps his promises, will not allow you to be tempted beyond your power to resist. But when you are tempted, he will also give you the ability to endure the temptation...

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. ...