Take My Hand Inspirations: July 2017

Thursday 27 July 2017

13: Fault-Finding or Finding Forgiveness?

Take My Hand Inspirations

Fault-Finding or Finding Forgiveness?

Alice sat in her cushiony, comfy, cozy living room chair—fuming! Her rage was so fierce, no amount of gigantic quantities of ice-cold water could quench it. In fact, whenever Alice was provoked by the least little, tiny irritant, she became an all-consuming fire—a total out-of-body, out-of-her-mind experience. “It’s my temperament,” she’d excuse herself. “Is it my fault I have a choleric type of temperament? So don’t mess with me, and we’ll be fine,” she mused to her plethora of classmates and roommates that came into and bolted out of her estranged life; and now, bellowing at her newly wed husband, she refuses to accept that she has a problem which he jokingly, in his sanguine-sensitive way, pointed out.

Oh Alice: But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii; and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, ‘Pay me what you owe!’ So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you all.’ And he would not, but went and threw him into prison till he should pay the debt. (Matthew 18:28-30. Read the whole Parable of the Unforgivng Servant, Matthew 18:21-35).

She wants everyone else to understand why she behaves the way she does, but refuses to accept advice on how to change for the better. When we find fault in others, it clouds our own mind about what we look like in the sight of our family members, friends, classmates, co-workers, spouse, even strangers. We lock others up in the prison of our heart and won’t let them out until personal vengeance is complete. Still, at times, once we’ve got "revenge", we want to continually remind the offender about the trespass he or she made against us “adding salt to the wound.”

Who is in the prison of your heart right now? And why can’t you let them go by finding forgiveness?

To forgive can be one of the hardest tasks of obedience to the Lord for many of us who can so easily find fault in others rather than admitting our own shortcomings or weaknesses. Shifting the blame on others or on our “temperament” for the way we react in any situation is wrong, dear Christian brother and sister.

With dark hot crimson blood spewing from the lash-opened gashes on His neck, back, arms, legs and hands callously spiked to a wooden stake, and with dark cold memories re-flashing the near neck breaking slap on the cheek, the contemptuous spit onto His speechless face, the piercing needles of thorns harshly pressed on His humble head, stripped naked and mocked by those who whole-hardheartedly plotted against him unto crucifixion, Jesus gazed down at humanity hanging mid-air from that rugged cross and sighed His first words at that third hour, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34)

Forgive?!!! Them?!!! What!!! Why?!!!!!!!!

Jesus knew that the tiniest amount of bitterness hidden inside the heart can fester or grow into full blown vengeance; and that to remove the bitterness seed before it germinates, YOU MUST FORGIVE. . . . lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble and by this many become defiled. (Hebrews 12:15b). Jesus was positioned to return to His heavenly home; and He understood that bitterness would be a blockage to His impending and assured victory over death, hell, and the grave, Satan’s dominion.

The serpent has a varied arsenal of weapons in which to move the Christian off his or her heavenly course. Besides sex, lust for money, power and fame, and music, unforgiveness is also one of his most effective derailing tools against the born-again Christian. Unforgiveness is linked to the pain-filled memories of a person. Once the devil can tap into what hurts you, what gives you pain, he’s got you trapped in his sticky slippery web of debilitating emotional instability—in a volatile, often eternal life threatening concoction of anger, rage, fear, hatred and finally, landing you in his dungeon of despair and depression. The only way of escape is through finding forgiveness.

When you truly forgive, you release all the pain, hurt, trauma, drama and weariness associated with bitterness. These are the symptoms leading to a brokened heart. Do you not yet understand that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated? But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornication, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things that defile a man. (Matthew 15:17-20a).

To be defiled means that the beauty, importance and purity of a thing or of a person has been spoiled or made unclean, dirty. Jesus taught us in the Beatitudes, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. (Matthew 5:8). And that is why He was able to ask His Father to forgive you and me, while we were still sinners. Christ died for us to show us how much God, our Father, loves us.

To be unable to forgive is a sign of the internal fear you struggle with every waking moment of your life (See my blog entitled Fighting Fear—Part 1). You fear not being good enough in the eyes of those you care about, so you put up this wall of transferring your own insecurity onto the faults or whatever you can find “wrong” with the other person. This makes you feel superior as you loftily look down loathing the good qualities you clearly see in the people around you—qualities you obviously lack and so disguise your inferiority complex in a heap of insults, assaults, unscrupulous accusations and highly audible arguments. All for what?

DON’T YOU WANT TO BE FORGIVEN BY OUR HEAVENLY FATHER? For if you forgive men their trespasses [against you], your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses [against you], neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. (Matthew 6:14-15).

Do you honestly think you have never offended, hurt, insulted or trespassed against someone else damaging their feelings and trust in you? Then take the boulder (log, that great big blinding stick) out of your own eye, so that you can clearly see what you are doing to others when you don’t forgive.

There are stages to unforgiveness: Rooted in ill-feelings, unforgiveness festers into anger (often uncontrollable), leading on a course toward bitterness (having sharp negative emotions), which out of the mouth come slander and resentment (repeatedly reminding yourself about past offenses and talking about it to damage another’s name and reputation); which soon erupts as a vomiting volcano of hatred carried out by any terrifying act of vengeance to get even or to permanently punish the trespasser.

Can you enter into the Kingdom carrying all this bad baggage in your heart? And God won’t let you come near the gate! That is why Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them . . . .” He had to clean out His heart and purify it by finding forgiveness for His crucifiers. He had to be clean in order to enter into a clean environment, His holy heavenly home.

We can taste a touch of heaven in our hearts whenever we clean it out. To clean out your heart means to remove everything and everyone you have imprisoned in it since you were in Nursery school. In fact, those hostages you kept imprisoned in your heart for so long probably don't even know they are captured. They walk around free, happy and receiving the blessings of the Lord, while you sulk and swim in your cesspool of negative thoughts, words and actions. It was hard for me to forgive others at first, but I forced myself to do it even when they were wrong about they said or did or thought to and about me.

And to forgive is definitely to attempt to forget. When you make a conscious effort to forget about the past pain, and replace that pain with the truth about who you really are—a beautiful, holy and righteous child of God redeemed by the Blood of the Lamb, given mercy to start all over again—then forgiving others will come quite naturally over time. Take it from a melancholic choleric, finding forgiveness and acting on it has given me beauty for ashes, strength for fear, gladness for mourning, and peace for despair. . . .

Dear Heavenly Father, I pray for those who struggle with forgiving others. Open their hearts to feel your love for them as they take a step to forgive those who have hurt them. Please give them the grace to forgive over and over and over again; as you explained to Apostle Peter: Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times? Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.” (Matthew 18:21-22).

© 2017 by Take My Hand Inspirations, a division of PepParadise Society Ltd Publishers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

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Take My Hand Inspirations

Monday 17 July 2017

12: “BLOOD OF JESUS!”

Take My Hand Inspirations

“BLOOD OF JESUS!”

Mama Marissa clutched her baby in her arms as the taxi driver sped through midnight dust chasing toward the nearest hospital—in time, in time—before the venom reached her heart. . . . then it would be too late. “Blood of Jesus, blood of Jesus, Jesus!!!” was the only prayer Marissa shouted over and over again, holding her baby, both of them staring at each other like they’d never see each other again.

Quick as lightning before the thundered boomed, Mama Marissa sprinted to the first nurse she could find and finally finding her flaming voice: “My child’s been bitten three times by a snake! Help me please!”

The blood that gives me strength from day to day; it will never lose its power.

Mama Marissa knew deep down in her soul that her daughter’s blood was already given a transfusion, with the blood of Jesus. That viper’s venom was now rendered impotent, powerless.

For it reaches to the highest mountain; and it flows to the lowest valley . . . oh, yes.

After two injections and two “drips”, precious Jewel’s ‘oh, am I going to die?!’ desperate countenance softened into a silent smile in the joy that JESUS DID IT AGAIN! He saved young Jewel from death, again.

The blood that gives me strength from day to day; it will never lose its power.

In those split seconds of time between life and death, Mama Marissa recounted all the emergencies throughout her eighteen-year-old girl’s life. (No matter how old they are, your children are still your babies.) And, as helpless as she felt, she quietly reminded God: “Lord, you have brought us this far, not to leave us now! So, please, take your blood and put it into Jewel right now, and let us return home in victory—Jesus!”

“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.” (Genesis 3:15).

After the sun went down on Saturday evening, that sly serpent bruised Jewel’s heel not once, but thrice! But, on Sunday morning, Marissa and Jewel woke up to praises pumping their hearts, feet dancing and voices singing in the Spirit as they prepared to go to church with a testimony too big to hold inside for so long: I shall not die, but live, And declare the works of the Lord! (Psalm 118:17)

The serpent bitterly bruises our heels to force us to remember that he still exists; and that he is still cursed, creeping on his belly, due to his destructive work in the Garden of Eden by manipulating both Adam and Eve to sin against God. When he sees how you are going to be used by our Lord to increase His kingdom, that old snake in the grass will do anything to put a stop to it. Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time. (Rev. 12:12).

But do not fear. And He shall bruise your head, wicked dragon, making you powerless against me, my life, my spouse, my children, my family, my work, finances and health. THE BLOOD OF JESUS, every drop dripping down the rugged cross, was a bruise, a might blow, to Satan’s head. And, if you believe in the power of His blood, you will testisfy a million times how THE BLOOD OF JESUS cuts the head of that treacherous snake off and out of your life.

But, being an evil spirit, he’ll return to check on the temperature of your belief. Are you still on fire hot, or have you become callously cold? Better still, that old serpent loves the languishing lukewarm Christian because he doesn’t even know from which angle the devil will come. Satan thrives in the element of surprise. At least the cold Christian is left wide open for every kind of attack.

Therefore, you must claim it. You must boldly (with no shaking) invoke THE BLOOD OF JESUS over every situation and every precious person in your life, right now, so that you can keep on pressing on, working in and for Jehovah, the Most High God. You must plead THE BLOOD OF JESUS over your marriage (or your singleness), your children, your home, your food, your workplace, your Christian walk, your everything.

Dear Christians, our prayers today should also never lack, “Holy Ghost—Fire!” We shout, “Fire!” to scorch the dangers around and ahead of us. The Fire is more effective after the Blood has covered everything. Why? Think about what the Blood does:

1. It sanctifies—cleanses every dirty element in, on, around and through us (Hebrews 9:19-26; Rev. 1:5). What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus…

2. It heals—Jesus’ stripes oozing His tear-stained blood absorbed our griefs, sorrows, transgression and iniquities (Isaiah 53:4-5).

3. It covers and protects us from all hurt, harm and danger—nullifies, or makes powerless, the work of the serpent.

And they overcame him by the BLOOD OF THE LAMB and by the word of their testimony. (Revelation 12:11a)

It’s time we covered our everything in the THE BLOOD OF JESUS, Christian soldiers. This life is a battle. But we, in the Seed of the woman, have the weapons to overcome the seed of the serpent: The Whole Armor of God, the Fire of the Holy Spirit, the Righteousness and Holiness of our Lord and THE BLOOD OF JESUS.

Mama Marissa confidently walked out of that hospital happily holding the humbled hand of her eighteen-year-old daughter gallantly giving thanks and praise unto the Lord and to the hospital staff the Lord put in place for Jewel’s outward recovery. But we, who know our Lord and Saviour so very well, understand without a doubt that The blood that gives me strength from day to day; it will never lose its power.

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Take My Hand Inspirations

Saturday 8 July 2017

11: Getting Right With Me

Take My Hand Inspirations

Getting Right With Me

Before you can enter into any relationship, the question you must ask yourself is: “Am I alright with me? Do I love myself? Do I even like me?” The divorce statistics alone can help us to identify that there is a problem in the arena of human relationships. Added to these statistics are the laws that man has forced into existance permitting homosexual marriages which are blatantly against Biblical laws; and also force us to vividly see that there is a wide chasm of mis-understanding in how men and women are to relate to each other.

There are a plethora of experts and leaders, as well as political activists and pro-this and that advocates who are tackling humanity’s problem of relationship-building in their own “special” ways. But when you get right down to the root of the relationship matter, the final element, actually the only element is: “How do you feel about you?”

When you consciously reject who you were intentionally designed by our Creator God to be, there is a consequence that follows. Science stipulates: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Proverbially, the same is said: The stone you throw against the wall will surely come back to you. And our life’s manual, the Christian’s highest authority, resoundingly speaks the Word of God in Proverbs 23:7: For as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.

Living in a culture of blame-shifting, or scape-goating, has caused a backlash of denial that we, as individuals, have personal identity problems; and these problems have culminated in our not liking who we are, or comparing ourselves with other “better off” people, or living as people unworthy of anything good, bright, or excellent—settling for bad, dull, and mediocre. What?!!!!

Is it easier to put the blame on how much money you grew up with, or the colour of your skin, or the kind of education you got to determine your self-worth—than to look at yourself squarely in the mirror and admit, “I am the cause of my relationship problems”?

Dear Brilliant Brother and Superterrific Sister, you must make a conscious effort to, once and for all, tackle and destroy that lying spirit comfortably resting at the back of your brain as if it’s supposed to be accommodated, fed and cared for throughout your lifetime. It’s time to burn that spirit to ashes and move on to the healing we all struggle for every time we find ourselves in another broken relationship.

I do not call myself by any title when dealing with the concept of relationship-building. I can only share with you what is called experience; and Experience is the best teacher. You must stop chasing after other people’s dreams for your life and focus on what you want for your life, that intermal dream planted in you by Almighty God. Then and only then will you be able to notice how brilliant, special, talented and exciting you are.

It took me about 30 years to accept these realities inside of me; even though, throughout my life I could see the excellence flowing in me from my high academic marks in school despite the colour of my skin or gender to the leadership roles I was voted or appointed to carry out, to the high-level responsibilities given and entrusted to me; and to the multicultural world of frienships I have made by living in various countries around the globe. God did a wonderful work in me, but I couldn’t celebrate it because I couldn’t accept it. The key word here is to ACCEPT who you are with what God gave you.

WHY CAN’T YOU ACCEPT THE GREATNESS IN YOU? Are you afraid it will make somebody else feel bad and, therefore, he or she will reject you? Then that person isn’t meant to be in your life. Or if that person is a family member, understand that family members are put into your life to make you stronger and to allow you to give a greater testimony to the victory you’ve won over ancestral adversity. Here, I will refer you to my blog entitled: “What’s Wrong With You?”

Accepting who you are means destroying that lying spirit. Yes, the lying spirit exists. Read the account of the alliance of Kings Jehoshaphat and Ahab in 1 Kings 22:1-28. Then a spirit came forth and stood before the Lord, and said, ‘I will persuade him.’ The Lord said to him, ‘In what way?’ So he said, ‘I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. (1 Kings 22:21-22). King Ahab recognized that lying spirit in the mouth of his prophets, but still was persuaded to go out to war; even though he was told by the spirit of truth in the name of the Lord (1 Kings 22:16) that he would meet disaster.

Please do not allow yourself to be persuaded to think less of yourself. Of course, there is humility. There is also stupidity. The lying spirit doesn’t work alone; it, too, has a whole family whose members are called jealousy, pride, selfishness, hatred, dissension (those who like to knock people’s heads together causing mistrust and confusion while they watch as “innocent” doves). Their geneology can be found in Galatians 5:19-21.

The lying spirit can convince you that your skin colour makes your mind inferior; that your lack of money can never get you into the top schools; that your being a “girl” cannot allow you to be a great ‘anything’: doctor, lawyer, even ball player; that your being a “boy” makes you have to prove your manhood by having sex with as many “others” as you can. (Imagine the sexual identity crises from such a destructive lie!).

All these lies can persuade, convince, seem true? moving you to wrap your birthright in a nice multi-coloured package and willingly hand deliver it to Satan’s open hand. The devil doesn’t force you to do anything. He uses the lying spirit to make you willingly give what is precious in you away into his possession. O how weak without the Lord we are!

In Luke 10:19, the Lord has confirmed that I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Our Lord backs His Word in Isaiah 54:17: No weapon formed against you shall prosper, And every tongue which rises against you in judgment You shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord. And their righteousness is from Me.

The heritage of the servants of the Lord is called your birthright. And at your first birth, God put His greatness in you. At your re-birth (when you were born again), God added the righteousness of Jesus into you. Wow! YOU GOT A DOUBLE PORTION OF GREATNESS IN YOU! This is your power, your authority, your weapon that can destroy any power of the enemy, especially that lying spirit.

So now the choice is yours. Will you allow yourself to be controlled by the lies that you are (complete the negative statement yourself); and reject the gifts of God in you? Or will you accept the beauty, the intellect, the strength, the talent that’s inside of you, believing that Jesus in you makes you right with God and allows you to be alright with you; and put that lying spirit out of your house forever?

It is only when we crush and cancel that lying spirit and live as victorious Christians that we can enter into and enjoy long lasting God-centered relationships.

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ grant us His favour, His peace and His joy while we patiently wait and allow Him to mold us back into His original image. Amen.

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Take My Hand Inspirations