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EPISODE 340 VICTIM OR VICTOR?

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The title of today’s episode: VICTIM OR VICTOR

Are you a victim or are you victorious? Even if you have been a victim, you don’t have to stay a victim. The enemy wants nothing more than to destroy us. But we can have victory through our faith in Jesus. We can pray all we want but if we don’t have faith to believe God for what we are asking it is just noise going into the air. The word says faith without works is dead. Before some of you get excited. Works only will not accomplish anything either. It is like running on a treadmill; it expels energy but will not get you anywhere. But us working with God and believing for him to do what we have asked can accomplish great things.

It is time we look at the situations of life through our faith. We cannot see the Goliath’s of life, through our natural eyes. We have to always see our giants in comparison to our God. We cannot compare them to our own fleshly weakness.

It is easy to get nervous and anxious about situations in life. When we walk in our flesh, we can become anxious. But when we walk by faith, we are strong and bold. The strength comes from the Lord.

Phil 4:6 Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.

God doesn’t want us to be anxious about anything. The enemy loves to cause us to be anxious. Anxiety is one of his many tools. If we are anxious, we are not walking in faith. Our own emotions are in control of the situation. But when we pray, we can turn that anxiety over to Jesus and he will return to us the strength needed to walk by faith.

Phil 4:7 And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

God will take our anxiety and give us peace as long as we are willing to surrender it to him. But we cannot speak words out of our mouths about how anxious we are, or the enemy will have a stronghold.

Take some time and ask yourself if you are holding on to things that make you anxious. Maybe someone said something that made you feel inadequate. Maybe something happened to you that caused you to be afraid. It is not wrong to feel these feelings. We would not be human if we didn’t experience emotion. But it is what we choose to do with those emotions that makes us victims or victorious. If we walk by our flesh and pet those emotions and start feeling sorry for ourselves, we can end up in full-blown depression. But if we rise up against the emotions and ask God for help to overcome, we will be victorious.

How many times do we tell the stories of old: David and Goliath, the three Hebrew men in the fiery furnace, the parting of the Red Sea, and other miracles. Each situation came down to faith over fear.

Moses had faith that God would see him through, after he had a God encounter. No bush had ever burned like that before, but it took him experiencing the fire of God to increase his faith. He knew that God would not bring them halfway out of bondage. Moses trusted that God would do what he had promised.

But because of unbelief, those who were in bondage were never fully free. They were made to wander the desert for forty years. Only those born in the process got to see the promised land.

We are the same way, God finds us in bondage to sin. He starts the process of bringing us out. But our flesh will never get to the promised land. But only what is born in the process, our spirit man will ever cross over to the promised land. We will only cross over if we learn to walk by faith.

Faith is seeing with our spiritual eyes what we are asking God for, when in the flesh it has not shown up yet. But it is crucial to see it with our faith and know God will bring it to pass in the right season.

Many times, we ask God to open doors for us. We may be at the right door, but if we walk through too soon, we may not be ready for what we find behind the door. God, in his wisdom, knows just the right time to open the door.

Until the door opens, we have to have faith in the hallway. We have to continue to see with our spirit the things we have asked for that are behind the door. At just the right moment, God will take out his key and unlock that door. He will gently push it open, revealing what your belief and faith have built behind the door.

We have to know that God didn’t create us to be victims but to be victorious. Even when we have walked through seasons of being victims to the enemy. We will come out victorious, God is with us.

Be encouraged, keep walking by faith, do not be discouraged, God holds us in his arms. We are safe, forgiven, strengthened and empowered for what the new day will bring. We must remember that we always have the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Until next time,

BE BOLD, BE BRAVE AND KEEP YOUR GOD FOCUS

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EPISODE 222 INTENTIONAL CHRISTIAN – PT2

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WELCOME TO GOD FOCUS THIS MORNING

The title of today’s episode: INTENTIONAL CHRISTIAN PART 2

Yesterday, I started talking to you about being an Intentional Christian. Before I get into today’s video, I want to review what it means to be intentional.

Being an intentional Christian is all about just paying attention to the leading of the Holy Ghost that is within us. To ask God to help us hear His leading.

The word intentional means: to do something on purpose or to be deliberate.

Deliberate means to do something consciously.

We have to make a conscious decision to spend time with God. Deciding to daily surrender to his leading.

If we are intentional Christians, we will make an effort to always do the right thing. We will walk with a purpose and pay attention to the direction of our path. We will purposely do what is ask of us by God. Both in his written word and by the leading of the Holy Ghost.

One way to be intention is to acknowledge God and give him thanks.

COL 4:2 Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving;

Many think that Thanksgiving is only a one day of the year holiday that falls before Black Friday. But Thanksgiving is a state of the heart. It aligns with gratitude. To be in a place that God can use us we have to be humble. He cannot use those with a proud spirit. Many verses speak about how we are to be humble.

I CHR 16:8-12 Give thanks unto the Lord, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the people. 9 Sing unto him, sing psalms unto him, talk ye of all his wondrous works. 10 Glory ye in his holy name: let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord. 11 Seek the Lord and his strength, seek his face continually.

12 Remember his marvelous works that he hath done, his wonders, and the judgments of his mouth;

When we share what he has done for us. It is life and encouragement to others. This is why we are to testify about His wonderful works in our lives.

We need to have a grateful heart. There are a few simple things we can do to develop a grateful heart.

One is to pay attention and look for opportunities to show people you care about and appreciate what they did for you. Simply meaning it when you say thank you. But think about the words when you say them, show sincerity.

Example: Have you ever gone through a drive thru at a fast food restaurant? The cashier hands you the bag with your order inside and says, with a tone like they don’t care, they mumble, “thank you have a nice day.” You don’t feel like they meant it, but were being coerced to say it.

But you go through another time and the person is friendly and smiles. When they say the words, they are intentional and act like they mean it. It makes you want to go back to that restaurant.

We need to pay attention to our attitude when we say thank you and be intentional.

We need to talk to God outside of our prayer time. Remember yesterday, pray without ceasing. We need to be intentional to acknowledge God is with us.Make a habit, before your feet hit the floor each morning to focus and thank God for waking you up. Thank him for the blank slate ahead of you. Depending on your day this could also be a good way to get your mind set ready for your devotional time and prayer time.

Some people get all legalistic that you should read your bible and do your study at the beginning of the day. But not everyone is wired to do that and not everyone’s life is structured so that can happen. I think God understands if we don’t spend two hours in devotions every morning. As long as we start our day with gratitude and with prayer. But we need to find time in our day to be intentional about our study of the word and devotions.

You don’t have to be knelt down at an altar or on the floor to pray. It is good to have times that you are not distracted by anything else. But sometimes we just need to talk to God while we do routine tasks.

I used to drive an hour each way to work and back. That was my time to talk to the Lord and reflect on the things that I needed to do. I always, have worship music going, anytime I am in my car. I would sing and worship the Lord. Many prayers have been said behind the wheel of my car.

Sometimes, I have had to pull over when I was going through something that made me need to really dig down and pray hard. There is nothing wrong with pulling over in a safe place and focusing on prayer and worship. At one point in my faith walk, I considered that to be enough. It is like I checked off my prayer box for the day.

Our walk with God is not a check list. It is the way we live our lives. It should be intentional. Prayer time should be about lifting up others and asking God what he wants in our lives. This should come before any request we have of our own.

The second point under this category is at night, after your day is done. After you’ve said your prayers. Take a moment to just thank God for your day. If it was good then thank God for a good day. If it was a hard day or what we would consider bad, then Thank God for it also. (In everything give thanks) But we can thank him for helping us through it. We can be grateful that it was not worse. Then say I release the stress of this day to you Lord. I am thankful for a good night of rest ahead. Because he is better able to deal with it than we are capable.

I COR 15:57 But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Understanding we have victory through God, will give us the encouragement we need to face another day. We have victory. There are times when we may not feel very victorious. Even in those times we have victory because of the blood of Jesus. We often don’t see things clearly because of our emotions. We can’t see the big picture of how things are going to work out. We feel like we are defeated, but that is the enemy’s way of distracting us from the goodness of God.

God is faithful to pull us through anything we face in life. When bad news hits us like a semi-truck, we don’t feel victorious. We feel pain that has flattened us and taken the wind from our lungs. God is right there making sure we have air in our lungs to just keep breathing.

He already sees the way we will rise from our ashes and hurt. He sees us victorious. Even when we cannot imagine ever being in a place of victory. The same thing goes for anyone struggling with an addiction. God sees them on the other side of that struggle. He sees them victorious. But they cannot imagine a time that they will have victory.

Job is the perfect example of this, he had the victory. God knew that he would not let his circumstance dictate his victory. Satan tried everything. To everyone things looked like Job would never have victory again. But he held onto God through the process. He came out the other side victorious. Victory was always there; they just couldn’t see it for the circumstances. (We walk by faith and not by sight)

God’s love is unfailing. Being intentional means we walk in God’s love. We show the world His love. It takes practice to be intentional. The more we pay attention to the leading of the Spirit the more of a light we are to the world.

Walking in love means we do things out of our love for God and man. Even if we don’t want to, even when we don’t feel like it. Love is an action word, a verb. Love is not a flowery feeling with the birds always singing, while butterflies dance about. Sometimes love hurts. At times it means doing the right thing through our pain.

Love is being genuine to the truth of God’s word. Standing for the right thing even if it disappoints someone or hurts their feelings. Walking in love is truly the way to be intentional as Christians.

Walking in love is not about saying the right things only, but in how we act out or do the right things with honesty.

1 JOHN 3:18 My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.

People can go through the motions of showing love to someone, but it’s fake. If we are intentional and just love people it will go a long way to winning the lost to Christ.

Ask yourself what you need to do to be intentional about your faith walk. Then go out today and share your faith with someone.

Until next time,

BE BOLD, BE BRAVE AND KEEP YOUR GOD FOCUS

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EPISODE 214 NEVER ALONE

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WELCOME TO GOD FOCUS THIS MORNING

The title of today’s episode: NEVER ALONE

Today, I want to share with you are few thoughts about our hope. There is a basic difference between God’s children and those who walk in darkness. We always have God to lean on, we know he’s got our backs. There is nothing that we will face that he cannot see us through. We have this hope, that he will never leave us to deal with things on our own.

Those in the world have to prepare for every contingency. They have no one to rely on but themselves. If they fail, they are in big trouble.

When I was a child, I thought God could do anything. I had great faith. Then as I got older and God said no a few times, that belief was shaken for a while. Then I spent a year or two in a church that messed with my theology. The things I thought I knew about God was tainted by judgmental attitudes and man-made religion.

If you attend week after week and you feel worse on your way home than you did before you went, you probably need to pray about changing churches. Not every body of believers are walking as God’s body. But don’t go to the far extreme either, no place is perfect because it is made up of imperfect people. There has to be a balance.

But God has cleansed me from the damage done by religion. Every day, I grow closer to Him. I have learned that our faith walk is less about religion and denominations and more about our individual connections to the God of the universe; the one that shed his blood for us.

We are living in amazing times. I know that every past generation has felt like their generation will be the one to see the rapture of the church. But prophecy is aligning, and we are not far from everything being in place for that to happen. But first, a great harvest of souls.

God is waiting for us to yield fully to him. We have a lot of work to do in a short time. God will pour out His Spirit to help us. I get excited just thinking about it. But first, we have to walk through a few rough spots. God is pulling down evil and that will not happen quietly. We cannot allow ourselves to get caught up in the things of this life. We have to keep our eyes on Jesus.

Isaiah 45:2-3 I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron: 3 And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the Lord, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel.

God says he will go before us and make the crooked places straight. He said he would give us the treasures of darkness. He is going to give his children the spoils of the enemy. We will be able to take back everything the enemy has taken from us. Our peace, our health, our strength, our joy and our wealth. He will give us treasures of darkness. He is our restorer and the lifter of our heads.

Psalm 139:1-3 O lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. 2 Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. 3 Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.

There is nowhere that we can go to get away from God. There is peace in knowing that he is watching over us. He knows us and cares about what we care about.

John 14:16-17 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; 17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

When Jesus was getting ready to leave his disciples he told them he would send them a comforter, a companion, His Spirit. This Spirit called the Holy Ghost abides and lives within everyone that is born again. He will lead us and guide us into all truth, as long as we let him lead us.

There is great comfort in knowing we are not alone. We don’t have to face our troubles alone. God is always there, never failing, always working things out for our good. All we have to do is trust in him.

I hope you spend some time thinking about how much He loves you. I hope this has encouraged you to draw closer by praying and studying his word.

Until next time,

BE BOLD, BE BRAVE AND KEEP YOUR GOD FOCUS

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EPISODE 207 BIRTHRIGHT

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WELCOME TO GOD FOCUS THIS MORNING

The title of today’s episode: BIRTHRIGHT

Down through the ages, when the father would pass away, the firstborn son was in the position of being the head of the family. He would inherit most of the wealth of the family. He would be in charge of taking care of his widowed mother. Any unmarried sisters would have to have his permission to marry. It was his birthright. The sons who were born, second or after received property and other things, but didn’t have the authority as head of the family.

I was reading the story of Issac’s sons, Essau and Jacob. As I read the part of the story that said he sold his birthright for a bowl of beans. I thought about how crazy that was, he gave up long term wealth and security. He gave up being in a position of making a difference in the world for a moment of fulfilling his appetite.

As I pondered this, I started thinking about how we as children of God all have been given a birthright. All of us who are born again are on even ground. We are all going to inherit our father’s kingdom. Unless we give up our birthright and walk away from God.

Essau was hungry. That was an appetite of the flesh. He didn’t care what he had to give up, he just wanted that hunger satisfied. It is the same way with people today. Our flesh sometimes wants things that are sinful. The enemy has bombarded us for so long that sometimes in a moment of weakness, we yield to our flesh. In committing that sin, we are giving up our birthright, we are treating the cross like it is unimportant. Like Essau he was hungry for food again a few hours later. Giving up his birthright didn’t fix that hunger long term. Neither does giving into a sinful desire.

Essau couldn’t get his birthright back. We, however, can if we repent of our sins. Grace is not something to be treated like a get our of jail free card. In America we have heard the story of the cross so much that we have become desensitized to the horror that Christ suffered. If we truly love God, and are truly saved we will not want to walk in the flesh. We will not want to hurt Jesus by being nonchalant about sin. I am not saying that we are perfect, but we need to do all we can to walk fully aware of the enemy’s tactics. We do have power to resist the devil. The word says if we resist him, he has to flee. It all comes down to our willingness to walk like a child of God.

We cannot keep temptation from coming our way. We cannot keep the enemy from trying to find our weakness. But we can stay in the word and walk as close as possible to God. If we keep our mind on Jesus, the enemy has less of our attention to intrude upon.

Think about what Essau gave up, his grandfather Abraham was blessed and had great wealth. That wealth became Issac’s when Abraham was gone. Essau gave up land, cattle, sheep, servants and great wealth because he didn’t take seriously his position in life. He didn’t truly accept his place in the family.

I try to stay positive and encouraging. But this message has been heavy on me. I feel like someone is at that point of decision. Will you keep your place in the family, holding on to your birthright or are you going to give it up for a moment of sin. There may not be a chance to come back from it. Life can turn on a dime, we never know when our time is up. I would not be doing what God wants if I didn’t warn you to yield to God. Don’t give into the things of this world.

As I was studying this God said ask them where will they be when the music stops, will they have a seat at the table. I immediately thought of a game we played as children; musical chairs. There would be enough chairs for everyone in the group but one. When the music stopped the last one that didn’t get a seat was eliminated.

There are only enough seats at the marriage supper of the lamb for those who are saved. We don’t want to lose our seat at the table because we have willfully and blatantly committed sin without repentance. I don’t want anyone’s blood required at my hand. So, I have to give you a warning today. Don’t wait too late to yield your lives fully to Jesus. He is faithful to forgive us if we repent.

Many think to repent means to say, I am sorry for the sin I have committed. But it has to be a heart felt sorry, not just lip service. Repent also means we will turn away from that sin and not look back. Repentance comes from deep within, when you realize you have broken God’s laws and his heart. It should break our heart and we should truly be sorry.

I often say, saying the sinner’s prayer is like a bunch of words to most people. It doesn’t cause true change, it is a temporary band aid, but soon they are right back to their sinful life. Because the words do not sink in, they do not cause real change. The example I use is this, when I was in elementary school, we started the day with the pledge of allegiance. But until I was a lot older, I didn’t understand what those words even meant. I feel the same goes for most people that say the sinners prayer. I am sure that there are a few that are the exception. That it was a start for them to learn to become a follower of Jesus. But at some point they have truly cried out from their heart for God to make changes in them and save them from their sins.

It comes down to this, I have learned over the years that being a Christian is less about the Chirstian things and rituals and more about connecting on a personal level with the creator of the universe. The one true and living God that died on a cross for me and for you. I don’t want to see anyone sell their birthright. The one that Jesus paid a high price to obtain for us. Not for something fleeting, a momentary satisfaction of sin. Idon’t want to see anyone not have a chair at the supper table when Jesus calls us to the marriage supper.

I ask, where will you be when the music stops? Or will you be when the trumpet sounds? Where will you be when you take your last breath? Will you have a place at Jesus’s table?

Until next time,

BE BOLD, BE BRAVE AND KEEP YOUR GOD FOCUS

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