Encouraged by God's Word

Posts Tagged ‘be encouraged’

Hello Family,

Many people on this earth will never live up to their God given abilities because they let fear take control of their lives. Regardless of who you are or how successful or great you are, we all have fears that we have to face and deal with on a regular basis.

Currently I’ve been reading this real good book titled Conquer Fear! by Lisa Jimenez. In the book it covers some great insight on the different types of fears, what causes your fears and how to overcome them, which I believe is the best part of the book.

This is no traditional personal development book. It really gets to the core of your fears and why you have them. In the subtitle of the book I think it says it all: A unique blend of psychology and theology to change your beliefs-and thus your results. Most personal development books cover the psychology aspect but not too many deal with the theology aspect of our challenges when conquering fear.

The reason behind a lot of our self-destructive behaviors (procrastination, disorganization, rebelliousness/anger, busyness/lack of production & focus or perfectionism/over pleaser) is because of our fears. And the reason we have fears is because there is an absence of faith.

There I said it. Fear is the absence of faith.

This book states that how we handle our fears determines our level of faith.

Isaiah 41:13 says For I, the Lord your God, will hold your right hand, saying to you, “Fear not, I will help you.”

With our heavenly Father holding our right hand, there is NOTHING we have to fear. And if there is nothing to fear, we should have the faith to believe that He is going to work out everything for us.

I heard a clever acronym for fear and it is Forget Everything And Run! Isn’t that what we do when we face fear? We forget whose we are and we cower like a scared little child. We drop all knowledge of God and we don’t have faith that He will come through for us as he’s done in the past.

Know that God is always right beside you. Step out on faith in Him and not in your own abilities and don’t fear anything.

Be Encouraged and Have a Great Day!

P.S. Please share this with your  Facebook and Twitter friends. Also leave me a comment. I would love to hear from you.

Hello Family,

How many times have you found yourself running away from someone who you just can’t stand to be around? It could be that loud and obnoxious person who you can hear a mile away. Regardless of where you are, they never seem to use their inside voice. They are worse than little kids.

Or it could be the ignorant know-it-all. You know the one who thinks they know everything but in reality know nothing. They talk as if they’re the expert in all areas of life and the more they talk, the more ignorant they sound.

And then there is the liar. This person is a master fabricator of the truth. He can’t be relied on to tell the truth if it killed him. Even if the truth is exciting, he won’t tell it. He’ll put his spin on it.

And let’s not forget the gossiper. She likes to tell more news about people than TMZ does. She has the dirt on what’s going on before it is made known to the public. She always has her ear to the ground and when she hears something she puts it out there.

Now if you don’t find yourself running from any of these types of folks then there is a problem. Either you enjoy being around them or YOU ARE ONE  OF THEM.

All of these are wicked and we really should stay far away from them. Can you imagine God being associated with something that is wicked?

Proverbs 15:29 says The Lord is far from the wicked, but He hears

the prayer of the righteous.

God doesn’t dwell with wickedness and neither should we. As a matter of fact we should run as fast as we can from it when we see it. Because of God’s nature it is impossible for Him to reside with the wicked. And since we all strive to have God’s nature, we should at least feel uncomfortable when dealing with these wicked people.

Now the flip side of God being far from the wicked is that he hears the prayer of the righteous. He is there when we need Him only if we are living a righteous life. It is as simple as God helping those who help themselves. If you make every effort to live a righteous life and have prayer request, God will honor it.

Stay away from wicked people and be righteous so that God will hear your prayer.

Be Encouraged and Have a Great Weekend!

P.S. Please pass this on to your friends by sharing with everyone on Facebook and Twitter. Also leave me a comment. I would love to hear from you.

Hello Family,

As you all know earlier this week the eastern region of the country experienced an earthquake that registered a 5.9 on the Richter scale. Now to my west coast homies this may not seem like anything out of the ordinary but to those of us on the east coast who don’t deal with earthquakes on a regular basis, it was a major event.

When it first started I had to admit that I was a little confused as to what was going on. My coworker, in a frantic tone, starting saying “We’re having an earthquake” but it didn’t process for me at first because as I said, we’re not used to quakes in this area.

But after a few seconds of shaking and after it got more intense, I knew she was right so I did what any rational person would do. I grabbed all of my stuff in about 2.3 seconds and I headed out of the building because when the ceiling started to shake, all I could imagine was one of the florescent light fixtures falling on my bald head. I know I should have been getting under my desk but honestly that is the first thing to cross my mind.

After it was all over and we were allowed to come back in the building, I immediately got on the Internet for information. CNN, The Washington Post and other media outlets had updated their home pages with the latest news.

I also went on Facebook to see what people were talking about and many of the status updates were interesting and some were hilarious but this is where I found out the scope and magnitude of the quake. My initial thought was that it was a local thing but to find out it stretched up the down the eastern shore and as far west as Ohio was amazing. This earthquake covered a lot of geographical area.

Now out of all of the status updates my friends posted, there was one that was simple but very profound. My friend and former Hampton University classmate Kim Varner posted “Lord, you got our attention!”

For those who experienced the east coast earthquake or if you have ever had an earth shaking experience, you know the Lord got your attention?

Acts 22:10a says So I said, ‘What shall I do, Lord?’

Sometimes God gets our attention by disrupting our ordinary routines. I’m sure most folks were at work doing what they normally do at the time but when the quake hit, everyone stopped and paid close attention to what was happening.

The question is when the ground stopped shaking did you seek the Lord? Did you ask Him what should you do? Did you ask Him what was going on? Did you ask Him for forgiveness? Did you ask Him…?

Regardless of where you live; east coast, west coast, north or south, an earthquake is an attention grabber and when God is seeking your attention you would be wise to listen. Don’t be foolish to think that the earth shook just because of what was going on underneath the earth’s surface. I truly believe that God wanted to speak to His people in a mighty way and He had to use extreme measures to get us.

And if you don’t listen to what God is trying to say the first time, don’t be surprised if He sends some aftershocks your way to wake you up.

Be Encouraged and Have a Great Weekend!

P.S. Please share this with your  Facebook and Twitter friends. Also leave me a comment. I would love to hear from you.

Hello Family,

I have a friend who recently started a new job and when I last talked to him he said he really liked it. He told me about his new situation and I thought it was good for him because it was a fresh start and a new environment which is something he really needed.

This new job was in the same field as his last one and the position was almost identical but it was a lot different in many ways and that was a good thing. The reason that I say it was a good thing is because his last job was very stressful and full of drama EVERYDAY.

My friend worked for a supervisor who didn’t have any respect for him at all. His supervisor didn’t have any sense and he wasn’t a strong leader. He didn’t follow company policies and he let people with strong personalities walk all over him. He also wasn’t a trustworthy person. He manipulated people and even told an occasional lie to cover his tracks.

My friend’s supervisor even had a group of flunkies working for him who really had no authority over the other staff members but acted as if they did. And if the team didn’t fall in line with what the flunkies said, it became a problem and the supervisor would take it out on them.

My friend was even accused of stealing money from the company by his supervisor. There were some questions raised by the auditors and the accountant cleared my friend and said he did everything he was supposed to do in handling funds for an event. He turned in all receipts to account for all of the money spent. But when questioned by the auditors, my friend’s supervisor continued to steer them in the direction of my friend as if it was his fault.

Now even though my friend went through all of this foolishness with his old place of employment and even though he has a fresh start and is in a good situation, he continues to be drawn to the daily activities of his old job. He still wants to dish the dirt with his old employee friends.

I told him that he needed to cut ties with the old IMMEDIATELY. There was no reason at all for him to still be associated with his old job. It wasn’t good for him when he was there and he does not need to be concerned with what’s going on now that he’s gone.

How many times have God released you from a dirty situation and you went right back to it? You were waddling in the mud and God picked you up and cleaned you off but you went back and got dirty again.

 Ezekiel 36:25 says Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.

God wants to clean us up and deliver us from our foul situations.

He desperately wants to do this for us but we have to allow Him to work on our behalf. We can’t have Him clean us up and then we turn around and go right back into that same dirty mess.

Those dirty things that we longed for and worshiped are dead. They can’t and won’t do us any good. When we wise up and realize our potential, we can move forward in our lives.

My friend was so engrossed with his old job that I believe it became an idol for him. He could not live without letting it be a part of his life in one way or another. I told him that there is no need to keep in touch with his old colleagues. And there is no need to stop by every now and then to see how things are going. He knows how things are going. They are the same as before; a bunch of FOOLISHNESS.

Let God remove the filth and idols from your life and stop waddling in the mud. Let Him sprinkle clean water on you and cleanse you.

Be Encouraged and Have a Mud-Free Weekend!

P.S. Please pass this on to your friends by sharing with everyone on Facebook and Twitter. Also leave me a comment. I would love to hear from you.

Hello Family,

During this summer we had a lot of interesting things happen in our summer youth employment program with our young people and staff. Some of the things were funny and some were just plain crazy. Whenever something happened one of my staff members was quick to use the term “That’s just foolishness.” And day after day as more and more things happened; it became the norm for my whole staff to start using that term on a regular basis.

It didn’t matter who, what, when or why something was said or done, if it was crazy, absurd, simple or just dumb, we coined it foolishness.

Regularly the youth were doing and saying foolish things. Also the staff was doing and saying foolish things. All around us was foolishness.

Now throughout the summer there were some repeat offenders. Yes there were some people who received the foolishness tag on more then one occasion based on their performance or something that crawled out of their mouth. As a matter of fact, there were some groups of people who got those accolades. Oh yeah, it wasn’t just an individual thing.

There was some corporate foolishness going on at times.

Have you ever noticed that some people are more prone to do foolishness than others? There are some people that when they do something foolish, you’re not surprised. You just go with it because you know that’s who they are.

I wonder why it’s like that? Why do some live in a state of foolishness?

Proverbs 9:6 says Forsake foolishness and live, and go in the way of understanding.

One who is involved in foolishness is someone whose behavior is lacking in sense, judgment or discretion. It is an act of being absurd or ridiculous.

Have you been involved in foolishness lately?

The bible states we should forsake it which means to turn away from it entirely. Foolishness causes us to think there is no God (Ps 14:1), it defiles us (Mark 7:20-22), it causes us to despise wisdom and discipline (Prov. 1:7) and there are many more reasons but I think the most important one is it destroys us (Prov. 1:32).

Once we forsake foolishness we have an opportunity to “live and go in the way of understanding.” We’re not bound to death and destruction. Forsaking foolishness puts us in a position to gain knowledge and insight of the true and living God and all that this life and the after life has to offer.

So if you want to live a life that is on pace to reach your destiny, rid yourself of foolishness and live.

Be Encouraged and Have a Great Weekend!