Morning Motivation to start you week
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"Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams." Many times we forget that there is a way to love others. Our default is to love how we desire to be loved and not learning how that person actually needs love. The same goes with God. He has laid out a way that He desires us to love him. In today's episode I want to dive into how he has called us to love Him. ... and…
“Give us this day our daily bread.” Sometimes a verse becomes so familiar… so woven into our Christian vocabulary… that we start to treat it like background noise. We know it. We’ve heard it. We could recite it in our sleep. But here’s the thing... nothing in Scripture is “filler.” Every word Christ spoke, every line the prophets penned, every letter Paul wrote to the early church, it all carries…
And Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid... Sometimes it may feel like storms and trials were crafted specifically to test and expose the weak areas of our walks with God? … and that’s because it is. James 1:2-4 reminds us…
“At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said: Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.” In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.” How do we handle life when everything seems to be collapsing around us? Failing…
“After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' assistant, 'Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the people of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses.... Be strong and…
“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that…
“...Yet now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. For this very night there stood before me an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I worship, and he said, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul; you must stand before Caesar. And behold, God has granted you all those who sail with you.’ So take heart, men, for I have faith in God that it will be…
"... and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey” We enter the story with God telling Moses about the land of Canaan… the land flowing with milk and honey… But as we continue through the story in their journey to the promised land, we see a common theme, “Moses, we are over…
“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” One thing I’ve learned is that imagination is a beautiful gift which can be very dangerous when not kept in check. When submitted to God, it can bring forth the most amazing and wonderful ideas… but when combined with our oftentimes controlling nature, it can create…
“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” So many times I’ve wondered why I…
“In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel. And they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem. “ What follows is one of the more well known stories of moral failure for David. A story that, at least for us, will always be burned into our memories when reading about the kingship of…
“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” I was watching a video the other day about how much money one should save for retirement to be considered “successful” and I found myself on edge just listening to the numbers. How do we NOT be anxious when anxiety is being normalized? And not just with our wants, but…
“...And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ And he divided his property between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living.” If we aren’t careful, we can look at this story and say … That’ll NEVER be me. I’ll never be…
"... So Elisha left him and went back. He took his yoke of oxen and slaughtered them. He burned the plowing equipment to cook the meat and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out to follow Elijah and became his servant.” As I was working out one morning, I was listening to one of my favorite gospel artists, Hezekiah Walker, and I came across a song called “99 and a Half”, and in this…
“The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith!’ He replied, ‘If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.’ “ Complicated Situations. When I said that, almost immediately something came to your mind. For some it’s a job. For others it might be a person… an entanglement or situationship… whatever…
“When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than…
"Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’ The sick man answered Him, ‘Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Rise, take…
“Now there were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate. They said to each other, 'Why stay here until we die? If we say, ‘We’ll go into the city’—the famine is there, and we will die. And if we stay here, we will die. So let’s go over to the camp of the Arameans and surrender. If they spare us, we live; if they kill us, then we die.' ” Transitions. Sometimes as we go through…
“A man’s gift will make room for him, And bring him before great men.” When reading this verse, what comes to mind? Does this verse excite you because of the opportunity to glorify God with your gift before great men… or do you feel this verse doesn’t apply to you because you feel that either: You don’t have gifts like that, or There is no way your gifts will bring you before great men. Many times…
In Psalm 46. the psalmist speaks of the world falling down around him. In verse 2… the mountains fall into the sea… the waters roar and foam so hard that the mountains quake. In verse 6, the nations are in an uproar and kingdoms fall. … and in the midst of all this, the command that God gives in verse 10 is… “Be still and know…” He says this because He knows that when things get hectic… the last…
How do I reconcile my faith and my race? One I was born into … the other I was “born again” into. Neither, in my mind, can I live without. Both drive every decision I make … but only one seems to drive every decision made towards me. The world doesn’t see me as a Christian first. They only see me as a black man. And that one filter drives all of their subsequent actions. So how do I reconcile the…
Plan B… or our "Backup Plan(s)". We know these very intimately. We are told that we are foolish if we don’t have one when it pertains to every area of our earthly lives. “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket” “Don’t put all your hopes in a person… People always let you down.” It’s no wonder that we find it hard in our spiritual lives to “put all our eggs in one basket”. In today's episode I want…
What are you focused on? In your battle with whatever sin that may entangle you, what is it that you set your eyes on? Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, “The pursuit of purity is not about the suppression of lust, but about the reorientation of one’s life to a larger goal.” Even if your entanglement isn't lust, in today's episode I want to take the time to examine why his sentiments of, "The…
What place are you operating from? Are you operating from a place of need? I need affirmation. I need validation. I need reassurance Or are you operating from a place of purpose because your needs are already met in Christ? No matter what context we find ourselves in (business, ministry, volunteering, etc), to allow ourselves to operate from our “place of need” can put us at odds with God. In…
Are you ready for your next steps? Many times we can become so focused on our “next season” and getting out of our current season that we rarely ask ourselves are we even ready for what’s next? What does Ready even look like? How do you know if you’re ready? In today's episode I want to walk through the journey of the children of Israel from Egypt to Canaan to see what we can learn about…
During this time of self-distancing, I have seen people struggle with mini-storms inside of the larger storm. Sometimes these mini-storms are a direct result of the larger storm, like depression from the loss of a job and the ability to provide for one's family or anxiety about the health of ourselves or a family member. Other times, those mini-storms are things that have always existed, but…
In order to make sense of this season, we often find ourselves trying to understand God. Trying to piece together, as best we can, a reason for it all. And if you aren’t, you’ve probably heard other people inject their “God reason” into the situation... using words like "judgement" or "end times" or a number of other rationalizations that help them cope with the stressful season that has descended…
I will walk in freedom BECAUSE I have sought out your rules. Usually when we think about freedom, the LAST thing that comes to our mind is the word “rules”. As a matter of fact, rules and restrictions are seen as the exact opposite of freedom. When we think of freedom, we think of a space without rules or the ability to do whatever we please without consequence. So why does David seem to beg to…
In Acts 13:22 God refers to David as, “a man after my own heart…” The same David that slept with another man’s wife, got her pregnant, then killed her husband to cover up his mess. How could God consider this man someone after His own heart? In today's episode we dive into how David reflected the heart of God even as his life was being sought after for death. How did David remain calm in the midst…
When we think of blocked paths, the first thing that probably comes to mind is frustration from not getting what we want. We handle these feelings and circumstances differently depending on how badly we want what’s being blocked. But what about those situations where it was God who placed the blocker there? In today's episode we look at one of the reasons why God may block our path, and how we, in…
In John 10:27, Jesus describes His followers as sheep by saying “My sheep know my voice…” With this verse many Christians get discouraged because they feel like they don’t hear God speak. Many would even go as far as to say that God does not speak to them at all. But often it’s not that He doesn’t speak, it’s just that we aren’t trained to listen. In today's episode we revisit the Prophet Elijah…
What if our war was with God? What if the enemy we fight so desperately against was not the Devil, but God Himself? So many times we blame the devil for our downfalls and temptations, but what if it was our own hearts that took us away and caused us to sin? In today's episode we look at the war we often find ourselves in with sin, and look at who we are really fighting against. Are we fighting of…
"How is it that you have NO faith" Wait Jesus... but it was a storm... a big storm. And our boat is so small. Isn't it normal to be a little concerned about our lives? Today we dive into the situation where an unbearable storm meets an unchanging God, and we find out if we believe more in the storm or in the words of the God who created the storm.
What if your blessing lied in your obedience? What if God has already laid the path and was just waiting on you to step on it? Would you move... Or would you resign yourself to death? Today we dive in what obedience looks like from a widow's perspective and what happened in Kings that would hinder her obedience and make her consider choosing death over obedience.
Restoration. A return of something to a former, original, normal, or unimpaired condition. When we think of being restored, we think of something that we lost being re-established. Today we dive in what restoration looks like from God's perspective and what happened in Joel to bring about the need for restoration in the first pace.