Praise the Lord.
This week is a small detour from Battle Scars but just as vital.
My love and compassion for the kids in our city go back many years. Having raised six here, we have come to be somewhat knowledgeable about the many obstacles that are in place awaiting them. Not all come from outside forces.
The Apostle Paul penned in Gal 4:16: “Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?” (NIV).
I hear so often people say “God still working on me,” or “I ain’t there yet,” or “I’m still a work in progress.” Really? Over 30 years old and you don’t get it. God stopped working on you a long time ago. Read Acts 7:51.
It’s time that we realize that we can’t tell God how, when or with whom to bless us. Your season of harvest might have already come and gone because of your unwillingness to heed God’s call or walk in obedience to His Word.
I have a statement for all those that refuse to change and adapt to new beginnings or new directions: Show me the fruit.
Show me the fruit and I will show you the faith. If you have factual evidences that says what you are doing is effectively producing positive, sustainable results then its working for your good and the good of the community. But, in the past years, if it’s been the same old status quo or gotten progressively worse, please explain to me how God is blessing it or is okay with your stiff-necked approach.
God is not a standstill or backward moving God. He’s progressively perpetually moving forward. He may tell us from time to time to be still because we can be our own stumbling blocks, but He is always moving forward. We have to be proactive and not always reactive in our thoughts and actions. Proactive involves strategic, creative and critical thinking. Reactive is off the cuff and can be very dangerous and destructive.
I have been programmed to be a solution seeker, not a problem solver. If you give life to a negative thought, idea or suggestion, you have essentially set yourself up for more work than was originally necessary to accomplishing the mission.
The Bible is very clear as to addressing our daily warfare with Satan, “neither give place to the devil,” “resist him and he will flee from you.” Simple, right? If that were the case, we wouldn’t be in the condition we are in today.
The church has been a major contributor to the constant decline in our communities. We are so focused on who is right or who is “preaching the truth,” and so many doctrinal issues and a desire to be entertained, that in the process Satan and his minions have crept in and implanted seeds of malice, greed, self-righteousness, selfish malcontent and a multiple of so many other deadly and destructive weeds that have sprouted up and choked all the holiness and goodness in us out of us.
I have the Holy Ghost and a desire to keep receiving wisdom and my Bible tells me if I lack it, all I have to do is ask and he will give it freely. (James 1:5) He has also bestowed upon me spiritual gifts and I have no intentions of having Him take them back.
I was raised Baptist, studied for 10 plus years the teachings of the Worldwide Church of God, first baptized while a member of the 2nd Street Church of Christ in Winter Haven, introduced to and listened to many cassette tapes by Minister Farrakhan while fighting in Desert Storm, followed Dr. Fred Price for 12 plus years weekly without fail and for the past 11 years, been holiness/apostolic. I know, tell me ‘bout it.
I see why our kids are so lost and confused.
Organizations have their own by-laws, standards and principles in conjunction to the one most important daily living manual, the Bible. It’s as though God didn’t foresee certain issues so they had to add these in for Him. But read Rev. 22: 18-19.
Real soul winning requires compassion and empathy not just passion and sympathy. Many leaders have forgotten that. They want to regulate, dictate, demand, command, condemn, manage, control.
Jesus led with love, but in the process, set standards and boundaries whereby in following them ensured positive desired results. No where in the Bible did Jesus give us the freedom to decide without outlining the consequences of those decisions. Sin has already been judged and NO the Bible DOESN’T say you can’t judge. Matt 7: 1-.
I preached this past Sunday from Luke 10: 30-37 comparing the spirits of the two men of God who looked at the same need, accessed it and then chose to act like it didn’t exist or felt it wasn’t important enough to get involved.
While the third and least likely of the three saw that exact same need, acted upon it and went above and beyond that was expected and ensured that if what he initially did wasn’t enough, he covered any unforeseeable needs that might occur in the far future.
When we get there, then we will start to see God’s power in motion.
Till next week,
God bless,
Bishop-Elect Robert L. Harrison, Jr., PhD
