WHY THIS IS YOUR DAY TO BE BLESSED

GOD is ready to reward your faithfulness.  What you've done when only He sees.  It's the kind word to the hurting heart, the smile to the stranger.  Those moments of prayer for the people who've done you wrong.

GOD sees and He has not forgotten.

But the enemy will tell you otherwise.  Sometimes friends and even family will be the naysayers.  But GOD is not slack concerning His promises.

To the faithful He will show Himself faithful.

DON'T GIVE UP ON YOUR DREAMS

When dreams seem so far away what do you do?  Do you stop believing their achievable?  When the man that GOD has for you seems like he’s never going to appear do you settle for someone you know isn’t good for you?

The answer is simple.

No!  

If the dream hasn’t come to pass you keep dreaming, keep reaching.

Right now I’m at one of those places in my own life, but I refuse to believe that this is the best GOD has for me.  I know that there’s greater because I feel it in my spirit, and I’m just crazy enough to believe that the dreams implanted in me will come to pass.

So grab hold of the hope inside of you and nurture it with your faith.  When this flower blooms it gives off the irresistible fragrance of inspiration.  Destiny is sure to come knocking.

FAITH SAYS THAT YOU SHALL LIVE & NOT DIE

Faith says all things are possible.  That regardless of the fiery darts thrown by the enemy you shall live and not die, that you are more than a conqueror.  Faith wins the war fought for the souls of men.  You are a fighter in the war for the souls of men.

You shall live and not die.

Witness the move of faith in your own life and taste the fruit of prosperity blossoming from the true vine. You are the sons and daughters of faith.  Faith that moves mountains, speaks life, and brings healing to the nations.

You shall live and not die. 

To live by faith and not by sight, to be still when everything in you wants to move; Trust when everything in you says not to.  Dream when everyone else is doubting, means to live when everyone else is dying.

You shall live and not die.

Because you are a child of faith!

BELIEVE WHAT GOD SAYS ABOUT YOU!

The love of God is so amazing, so life changing, that nothing can stand before it.  This love will see you through the midst of any situation imaginable.  Don’t believe it?  Well you’re reading the words of a man who has been held in the warm embrace of that love.  It was this love that taught me to be a man.   That taught me the strength in being broken before Him.  This love taught me the strength of humbling myself before others, gave me the strength to trust again.  To be healed from the scars of wounds inflicted in my past that dictated the path of my future.  The love of Christ gave me the ability to see my dreams in the midst of the strongest storms of doubt and to reach for them, to claim them, to grasp them and never let go.  The Love of God is so amazing.  Nothing can stand before it.

Trust me when I tell you that nothing in this world can break you when the Spirit of He who built the world lives within you. But doubt is the trick of the enemy.  His greatest tool is despair because when you have embraced despair you give up.  You stop dreaming, you stop reaching, you stop seeing the visions that GOD has placed in you.  The greatest threat is that you stop seeing yourself as God sees you.  And when you do this you began to see yourself like the world sees you.  This is disastrous for the believer.  Listen to the name: Believer.

If you don’t believe in what God says about you then you’ll believe what the enemy says about you.  There is no neutrality.  We see ourselves through the eyes of someone and the mental picture that you have of yourself shapes your thinking and orders your words.  When you don’t understand who you are, and whose you are, you’ll say anything.  Not realizing that you prophesy doubt, defeat, despair, lack, and weakness over your life.  But when you understand that you are a child of GOD, and that you frame your world by the words that you speak, you’ll begin to speak words of faith.  The words of wisdom, courage, belief, abundance, strength, power, destiny, purpose.

A believer believes what Christ says about them, The Living Word.  We are more than conquerors.  We are Ambassadors, Kings and Priest able to mount up on the wings of eagles because of His love.  We run and don’t get weary.  Walk and don’t faint.   And we know the plans He has for us, plans for good and not for disaster to give us a future and a hope. 

                      

HOW DO YOU GET MORE FAITH?

How do you get more faith?

Simple enough question.  At some time in our lives we’ve all desired it.  We usually admire those who exhibit great faith in the face of adversity.  It’s just something about them that screams out strength, resilience, victory!

But how do you get this strong, enduring, I shall live and not die faith?  Here’s a surprise.  Most people didn’t ask for it and woke up with it the next morning.  It was acquired and gained through the rigors of life.  

Every human being is given a measure of faith and this measure or amount can either become larger through the act of exercising this faith or begin to diminish through inactivity and discouragement.  But faith ultimately isn’t based upon what we can do.  Faith is based in the belief of what GOD can do for us despite the situation.  

This requires one of the greatest components of faith. Trust!  

Without trust in any relationship there can be no faith in the other person.  People don’t have faith in someone they don’t trust.   And people don’t trust someone they don’t know.

So great faith requires trust in GOD that He will never leave you nor forsake you.  This type of trust is only birthed through a closer relationship with Him.  Every time your faith is tested you look to GOD for the support, the strength and the promises of His word. After every test you then grow stronger in faith.  In knowing He will bring you through.

Faith that is exercised is faith that becomes strong.  It’s your ability to believe GOD’S love for you and GOD’S ability to keep you through anything.

Begin to strengthen your faith today by believing what He says about you.  This will require spending time with Him through His word and prayer, but I promise you won’t be disappointed by the return on your investment.  

A faith that screams strength, resilience and victory others will begin to admire.

YOU ARE GREATER THAN YOU KNOW

Imagine a million people competing for one prize and all of them are at the top of their game.  They’ve got speed, agility, intelligence, endurance and strength.  All of the skills needed to come out victorious.  The winner of such a contest would be praised even honored for their accomplishment.

What if I told you that you not only possess all of the skills mentioned above but you were that one out of a million who captured the ever elusive prize.  Would you believe me?

Most people don’t see themselves as a member of the best of the best circles, but you are.  If you weren’t how else would you be here?  You were one out of a million cells running the same race.  It took speed and agility to make it to the egg; endurance and strength to push your way inside, and intelligence along with the hand of GOD to become who you are today. 

You were chosen by GOD and endowed with everything you need to prosper.  You’ve never been ordinary.  Remember, you did the impossible

IN MY DARKEST HOUR GOD GAVE ME HOPE: THE POWER OF WORSHIP

Worship is the key that unlocks the door to the miracle of a relationship with the Father, something we must have if we are to live the abundant life.  Many ask the question, “How do you hear the voice of GOD?”   Some even say that GOD does not speak to man.  That isn’t bible.  Bible says that He will never leave us nor forsake us.  That He will teach us.  The Spirit that is within us is the same Spirit that moved over the waters in Genesis.  That same Spirit will lead and guide us into all truth.  That is the Spirit that speaks.  That guides, that leads that strengthens.

Worship is the way to hear the voice of the Lord.  Just as you spend time with the one you love and begin to know their likes and dislikes.   The sound of their voice when their agitated, uptight, happy, sad.  It all comes from those intimate moments.  Worship is our intimate moment with the Father, our time alone without asking for anything but to know him deeper.  To feel his presence and the joy that it brings.
 
We have the option to love the Lord.  The greatest choice we could ever make is to know the Father on a deeper level.  To experience Him and His glory on a greater level.  Worship takes us into the throne room of the King.  Where His love overpowers our sensibilities and brings us to tears and laughter all at the same time.  Worship is the key.  It is the lifter of the heaviest burden, our light within the darkest days.  It’s a love that fills every void in our soul while building us up in our belief in ourselves, in the dreams that He deposited within us.  It is the embrace that we all crave.  There is no greater compassion I have ever felt than the compassion within the Fathers embrace.   I felt this embrace for the first time in a prison cell in my early 20’s.
 
Sentenced to 15 years for carjacking, kidnapping and armed robbery I sat on the side of my bunk stressed out.  I was saved for a number of years.  Went to all the bible studies and read my bible consistently.  But that night I learned something no amount of reading could provide. 
 
It began with me mourning my situation.  I was 20 years old and this was my first offense, and for a ruthless crime.   Seven years with no visit from family.  Holiday’s when everyone else was getting ready for visit I had steeled my mind to see Christmas, thanksgiving, even my birthday as just another day.  It was the way I kept my sanity.  To see these special days as just regular days so I wouldn’t have to worry about my hopes being dashed when a letter didn’t come or my visitors didn’t show.  This was my mindset when the Lord began to speak to me.  He told me something I have never forgotten.  As I sat there I heard him ask, “When have you ever called and I have not been there. Every time you call I’m there.  You have never been alone.  It is me that causes people to send you money.  I’m the one who place the desire on their hearts.  I’m the one who provides them with the jobs.  I’m the one who touches the hearts of those around you to show you favor.  I have never left you.”

In my late 20s sitting in a level 3 prison the tears began to come.  They came and I let them come.  And as they fell I felt something I’d never felt before.  I felt His love.  It covered me.  Held me and told me that I was not alone.  That even in this situation He would empower me and that He’d always empowered me.
 
Everything changed after that day.  Not that things were always perfect because they weren’t.  But I learned how to worship.  I learned how to worship because I finally experienced the tangible love of the Father and I was able to see all the times, feel all the times that love was active in my life.  I worshipped because I was thankful for His mercy, for his grace and for his love. 
 
Worship is born out love.  From that moment I could truly love my Dad.  See it wasn’t until this moment that the GOD and Father of the Bible became personal to me.  More than just theology, more than just religious talk, more than just an idea.  That day taught me how to worship and allowed me to feel the arms of GOD.  Now I understood why worship was so powerful.  It escorts you into the throne room of the King, strengthens your relationship and gives you the power to endure all things.
 
Worship is a gift given by the Father to a people he redeemed.  Allowing us to once again walk with Him hand in hand.

WORSHIP & WHAT IT MEANS TO THE CHRISTIAN

                  I would just like to encourage you today and tell you that GOD desires your worship.  Hungers for your worship, and is pleased by your worship.  Worship can take you to a different plane of existence where you have access to the power and the presence of God.   It can take you into the throne room of the King.  Into his presence where there is fullness of joy.  Worship can empower you to stand in faith, walk in faith, to live in faith.  Worship will strengthen your faith.  It is the mind of Christ activated in the life of the believer.

                Jesus is the embodiment of worship. He reverenced the Father which led to his obedience to the Spirit of GOD dwelling within him.  He sat in the presence of GOD alone every chance He got enjoying intimate worship with the Father, sometimes all night.  To put on the mind of Christ is to put on the mind of worship.  And to put on the mind of worship is to experience the power of GOD.  

                Not all of us will jump, shout, or dance.  But when it is sincere, when it is real, it will escort you into the throne room of the king and change forever the way we see GOD the Father.  Before I really experienced worship, GOD as my Father, was only understood theoretically.  It was merely head knowledge.   I had no real true intimate relationship with the Father.  I read the Bible 3 to 4 hours a day, felt that I’d met my requirements, now I could go and do what I wanted to do, without God.  What I had yet to learn was how to take God with me wherever I went.  But I really didn’t want to because I had yet to know who he was for me.  Yeah, I knew who He was to David, to Enoch, to Elijah and to Paul.  But I had yet to develop an intimate relationship with Him.   I really did not reverence  the Father like Jesus did or stand in awe of Him as the Psalmist.  I had not walked with him daily as Enoch had or sat in silence as He spoke to me as He did with a young Samuel. 

                Worship is designed to do all of this.  Through intimate worship you begin to see the goodness of God over your life and develop an attitude of gratitude.  Through sincere worship you begin to listen in prayer as well as speak, learning the voice of the Holy Spirit as distinct from your own. Through worship, GOD the Father becomes someone personal, realer than mere words.  He becomes your Father.  The one who has been showing you favor your whole life. Whose gracious hand kept you from becoming a statistic, and whose vision for your life is the voice within you saying, “You are destined for greater.”

                The music of worship is sung from a heart that understands all that He is and all that we are not without Him.  Praise is to speak of His greatness, His goodness, His majesty, His love.  From a heart that has made worship a way of life.  To embrace worship as a state of mind is to embrace worship as way of life.  I write today daring you to worship, daring you to activate the power and the presence of God within you.  I promise  your life will never be the same again.

TELL THE ENEMY NO!

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Sometime it is incumbent upon us to take a stand, especially when it comes to receiving all that GOD has in store for us.

The blessings are already ours.  Every promise that you can find in the bible is already yours.  That includes spiritual, emotional, financial and psychological.  You contain the most powerful agent in the known world.  The Spirit of GOD!
Now it is time to do something about these aspects of our life that aren’t pleasing to us, those relationships and events that steal your joy, and sap your strength.  It’s time to say enough is enough!Jesus says that Satan’s mission is three fold.  That is, to steal, to kill and to destroy.

• To steal GOD’S blessings from you.
• To kill you, your hopes and your dreams.
• To destroy every opportunity GOD has provided.

If you let him!

I say tell the devil NO!  No! You will not take my peace.  NO!  You will not steal my blessings.  NO!  You will not stop me from stepping into my destiny and walking in my purpose.
The Holy Spirit inside of you is the same Holy Spirit that moved over the waters in Genesis.  It is the same Spirit that came upon the Old Testament Saints like Samuel, David, Sampson, Elijah and so many others.  He is the same Holy Spirit that descended upon Jesus in the form of a dove.  This is the Spirit living inside of you.

Enough is enough!

Speak life over yourself and your situation.  Get in agreement with GOD.  Jesus says, “Whom the Son set’s free is free indeed.”

That includes freedom in all aspects of your life.

Speak in faith and go through the day believing GOD is working in your behalf.  Whenever doubt arises tell the flesh, tell the enemy No!  Because you know without a shadow of a doubt that everything is going to work out in your favor.

You have the power to change the way you feel with your words.  Use them to change your world.