Thoughts on my 30th Birthday

Jeremiah 29:11 (New International Version)

¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

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Today is an important milestone for me: I turn the big 3-0! My birthday is always an important time of the year for me because it gives me the chance to reflect on the year and my life up until this point.

One thing I can say is that life certainly is a journey. You can’t get stuck in the moment or get caught up in the trivial, temporary things that occur from day-to-day. If you are living, you are constantly moving and growing and you have to stay focused on the big picture of your journey. When you think you reached the top of one mountain, you find there is yet another peak to climb. When you think that you can’t go on, you find the strength to somehow continue. When you think your failure is monumental, you find that no amount of sin can every breach the walls of grace. When you think that it’s too late, that you missed your moment, you find that tomorrow presents eternal opportunities for you to live your destiny.

In my formative years, I spent most of my time attempting to figure life out. Although I’ve done well for the most part, I stumbled a lot and wasted time going in an unproductive direction. As I look back, I can see clearly now. My successes have taught me that greatness lives within me. My failures have given me a platform to learn and grow from. Through it all, I have found my center and foundation is God and God alone. I have no other agenda or desire but to please Him. That is my only purpose. After living for 30 years now, and trying to figure it all out, this is my conclusion. Life for me is really that simple now.

Finally, I am truly thankful for life. For the ups and downs, successes and mistakes. Life is nothing like I expected it to be. I always expected things to be perfect, for things to go according to plan. What I have discovered is that life is perfected not by our actions but by God’s grace. A successful life is not predicated on our achievement but by our confidence in the God who loves. This gives us peace in knowing that no matter what happens, what I do or what happens to me, if I trust in His grace, I still have a future and a hope. He thinks only good thoughts about me and about my future. Therefore, I am thankful for the past and I am eagerly pressing towards the future.

Be Blessed!

Don’t miss the Point, Pursuing the Person is the Purpose: Part 2

Life is not like a math formula, it is not always predictable. Although your destination is certain, the path you take is uncertain. But it is the uncertainty of the path that makes life adventurous and a journey worth taking. The security you have in the mist of this uncertainty is that you are following the direction of the Author and the Finisher. Because I know whatever God authors, He will also finish, I can be confident while on the journey that no matter what happens I am going to get to the end. He will never leave me nor forsake me. No matter what it looks like, I know in the end He will finish what He started. I am going to make it. He is going to get me to the place He promised. I may not understand everything right now, but I am just following the Author. It is this trust that kept Joseph through the dark times of uncertainty and it the same thing that will keep us.

Although we know God has a purpose for us, we are not made to simply chase a dream, a purpose, or a destination. We are made to chase a Person, and that person is God. This is not to say that we don’t take action that moves us towards our destiny. It does mean, however, that the exact action, the timing, and the outcome are all completely surrendered to the will and direction of the Author. When this is our mindset, our way becomes easier. We can lay aside the weight of having to know everything and having to understand how everything is going to work out. We can simply follow Him and follow our heart. We can simply obey His instructions not knowing exactly where this all is going to lead in the short term.

For those of you who are unsure of your purpose, its okay, that just adds to the adventure. So many of us are paralyzed in life, afraid to make a move, because we fear that we don’t know our purpose or the path to get there. Your purpose for now is to simply follow the leading of the Author. You may not know His purpose for you fully (none of us do actually), but you do know that He has a purpose for you and if you follow Him, He will reveal it to you and get you there. You know He has plans for you, not for evil but to prosper you and give you a future and hope (Jeremiah 29:11). When you live like this, you will end up in places in life that you could have never imagined. 

When your whole life and mindset is set on pursuing the Person of God and not just His purpose, your heart becomes pure. You begin to realize that it is not about you but it is all for His glory. You don’t have any hidden motives but you are motivated to simply follow and please Him. You don’t care if you don’t meet other people’s expectations of you. You are not ashamed of the valleys and low places that you find yourself in, nor do you fear them. If God tells you to go there, you just go. Even if you don’t get credit for doing something, if no one calls your name or gives you an award or says thanks, it won’t matter to you. You are simply following Him and not trying to fulfill a secret plan or a private agenda. You are free to go anywhere and do anything and say anything He says without understanding why or knowing what exactly the outcome is going to be. You are free to live without any false expectations of how things should be or how things should turn out. You will never know disappointment because things didn’t go according to your plan because you didn’t have a plan to disappoint. Your plan was to simply follow Him and surrender to His plan and where ever He takes you, you are satisfied.

When you make up your mind to spend your entire life chasing God, you will become different from most and people won’t understand you. You may not understand yourself sometimes. You will never conform to the norm or fit into the convention. The Author is always doing something new and defying the conventional and so will you as you follow Him. You will do the impossible, break all barriers, go beyond all expectations, defy all odds. Things will happen in your life that are unthinkable and impossible to figure out. All fear will be eliminated because if He authors it, He has to finish it and the responsibility for the outcome is not in your hands but in His. No matter how long it takes, you will wait on Him and He will renew your strength. This is a life a faith; this is a life of adventure. So let the adventure begin!

Beyond Morality: Part II

When you have become locked into the way of thinking that self perfection is the sole goal in life you actually program yourself never to reach a point where you can totally be free. It’s just like someone who has been stuck in prison all his life, on this constant quest to try to get free. All his thoughts about his whole life are what it would be like to be free. He put all his energy each in every day trying to brake out, to no avail. Year in and year out, trying to be free, trying to be free. He has been locked up for so long that all he knows is the prison, and the definition and purpose of his life is to get free. He has defined himself as a prisoner and his life is defined by his struggle to get free. If, one day, someone comes along and unlocks the cell, he wouldn’t really know what to do with himself. He is free now, no longer locked up, no longer bound by the bars. You know what that means? His whole reality will have to adjust. His priorities would have to change now. There is no need to try to find ways to be free any more. The cell has been unlocked and the chains have been broken. He is no longer a prisoner and there is no need to define himself by his struggle to get free.

You can take the man out of the prison, but how do you take the prison out of the man? Now, that is the hard question. This man’s mind has been too conditioned to his previous reality. Although you would think he would just burst out and be free, he is actually afraid, he is afraid of change. You see, the cost of freedom is change, it is the death of your old reality, old way of thinking, and old priority and meaning in life. Most men aren’t ready for that. We think we want to be free, but in reality we really don’t. We understand life as a prisoner. It makes sense to us and we are used to it. We know the rules, we know what to expect. We feel safe in a world that we can understand, no matter how miserable it actually is.

So this man shuts the cell door back. He asks to be locked back in and continue to work to be free. Freedom is too scary; it is too unfamiliar to him. At least he understands his cell, at least he knows what to expect.

This describes the life we live when moral perfection has become our goal. Christ actually came and set us free; he unlocked the prison door and set us free. But, in reality, we don’t want to be free. If we ever accepted that we were free from the power of sin and we are made worthy in God’s eyes, it would mean the whole purpose of our life would have to change. This is, in fact, why we go back to sin and struggling with sin. It is familiar to us. We are used to it. It has defined our reality for so long it is difficult to receive something else.

Freedom requires a new mindset, a new way of thinking, a new set of goals and priorities. For some men, this is hard to receive; the moral perfection you are trying to achieve has been achieved already in Christ. When we accept Jesus’ sacrifice for our sins as the sufficient payment for our guilt, we become one with Him. I know it is hard to accept, but when we accept Christ into our hearts as our Lord and savior, we receive His perfection as our own. Christ is the only perfect and completely moral man that has every lived. In fact, He is morality itself. Our faith in Him makes us one with Him, one with His righteousness and one with His perfection. In God’s eyes, you are already perfect and you are free to pursue your dreams in life, the dreams and desires God put in you.

I know what you are saying, “Well what about this sin in my life? What about the weaknesses I still feel?” Faith in Christ means that you believe He paid the price for your imperfection and He has given you His character and nature. The more you renew your mind to this reality, the more your perception about yourself will change and, only then, your actions will change. In short, if you believe and see yourself as a sinner, you will continue in sin. However, if you see yourself as dead to sin and alive in Christ, you will begin to walk as Christ does. Moral perfection only comes through a renewed mindset about your identity and nature as one with the Divine through His son, Christ. But you can not bypass your self perception of yourself.

Once you get that straight, you now can understand the true meaning and purpose of life and morality. Life has to have meaning and purpose in order to be successful. You have to have some sort of vision or dream that you are pursuing, something that is transcendent, that is bigger then yourself that you are striving for. The mark of the high calling that Paul talks about. It is this dream that is a higher and better goal then morality alone. In fact, when you believe that you are worthy, when you accept that you are free, and when you make the sole purpose of your life the pursuit of God’s purpose, you actually express something that is greater than simple moral perfection. As you manifest God’s purpose for your life, you are manifesting God’s holiness and perfection on the earth.

With this mindset, morality ceases to become the end goal, but it becomes the means to achieve that end. Have you ever admired an athlete that seems to be in perfect shape? He goes to the gym, works hard, and eats right, all to be in shape so he can perform at his best. Being in shape is not his main goal, however. His goal is to be a good ball player. However, being a good ball player requires you to be in shape. Working out and perfecting and disciplining your body because the means to assist him in being the best ball player he can be. In fact, even if he didn’t work out so much, he probably would be in better shape than the most of us because he spends a lot of time playing ball. If he just played ball all day long, he would still be in great shape, working out would just enhance him.

Let’s focus on playing the game. There is a time of preparation, developing your skills in private, working out and getting in shape. But nothing perfects you better than getting out there and playing the game. You are perfect and free in Christ if you put your faith in Him. You are worthy and you qualify to pursue your dream. As you get on the path of destiny, the imperfections that still exist will be taken care of as you continue to renew your mind to your new reality in Christ.

Don’t Choke!!!

“Matthew 13:22 (New International Version) The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful.”

I always love the end of the year. My birthday is December 24, and then Christmas and New Years follow. It all comes together around the same time and it’s a wonderful time for me to think and reflect on the year that was. It also is a time for me to reexamine my life, to think about where I am, my successes and failures, and what I need to work on.

I did an interesting thing on my birthday this year (besides going to Hooters..lol). I imagined myself at a big banquet being held in my honor. I was old, nearer the end of my life, maybe about to pass on the responsibility of my ministry and business to the next generation. Dang, I looked good for an old man! Still had my health and vigor! I got up and spoke about all the things that we had accomplished together and all the things that were left to complete. I literally gave this speech standing in front of the mirror in my dinner room. I pictured all my family and supporters there listening. It was a truly a surreal experience to me.

It is amazing how when we think about the end of our life and all we truly hope to do and accomplish before we die, how truly insignificant the things that we worry and think about on a daily basis really becomes. Thinking in this way helped me to determine what was really important and valuable in life. It also reminded me of who I really was and what I was called to do, something that we forget about when we allow the minor things in life to distract us.

Out of this experience, I pose this question: Why is it that what we really desire and want in life not reflected in our experience of life? And what happened to our dream and why are we not taking steps towards our destiny? Somehow, I believe we are living a life far beneath what we are destined for.

We all start of so well, with great dreams and desires. Then life hits us. I understand the pain that Joseph in the Bible must have felt, having a dream but the circumstances of life looks like that dream will never come to past, like you are on the wrong course.

I often picture myself in a canoe out on a lake trying to get to the shore. My eyes are fixed on my destination and I am pedaling with all my might and using all my energy. But for some reason, I am pedaling in the wrong direction! It doesn’t matter how hard I pedal, I am not reaching the shore. It’s painful because I really desire to get to shore but all my effort gets me no where.

I understand that all things happen in God’s timing. That there is a set time for all things to be made manifest and you can’t rush it. Destiny is never a moment too soon or a moment too late. If you are faithful to God where you find yourself and trust totally in Him, you will walk into destiny, it will not fail. Sometimes we forget it took Joseph 13 years before his dream actually came to past. During that time, it seemed like it would never happen.

At the same time, I can’t help but wonder if we are missing something. Have we delayed our course, have we taken a detour? Shouldn’t we be further along than where we are?

As I was meditating on this, a thought came to me out of Matthew 13:22. Here, Christ talks about people that have heard His message but seem to not have any fruit of it their lives. You know, the people that go to church every Sunday, heard the message, can quote all the scripture, can praise the loudest, but don’t have any real evidence to show for it in their lives. How could this be?

The answer is this; the word, the dream in their heart got CHOKED! They got caught up in the cares of this world and the dream on the inside of them got choked out. They heard the word but spent most of their time focused on things that weren’t really important. They got a dream in their hearts, but they were too worried about fitting into the world and the dream of God got delayed. They were inspired by God, but their minds were bombarded by random thoughts about nothing each day so that the inspiration slowly diminished. They had a clear vision, but they started chasing after their careers and what the world deems as successful and they lost sight of their destiny.

In this year, and for the rest of your life, make it a point to seek after nothing else but your destiny. There is nothing else that is more important. Instead of randomly thinking, begin to focus your thoughts on what God has said about you. Instead of worrying about things that don’t even matter and that you can’t change anyway, begin planning and implementing a strategy that will bring about God’s purpose. Instead wasting your time doing things that are not urgent and not important, invest your time into the things that will better prepare you for destiny. Instead of living life aimlessly, begin to live each day with a clear purpose in mind.

We think too dang much about things we do not have to think about and we choke out our destiny in the process. We think about what we gonna eat, how we gonna pay our bills, when we gonna find a mate, when we gonna (INCERT YOUR WORRY HERE!!!)

Where your thoughts are, is where your life will be focused. However, when we seek first our Kingdom destiny, all the other things in life we are concerned about will fall into place.

Truth be told, although God’s timing is always certain, many of us are on delay because we have allowed our dreams and destiny to be choked. Make it a point this year to not allow the cares of this world to choke out your destiny. Not another year! Future generations are depending upon you and me.

Why We Need Dreamers: Part II

Still dreaming?

To be a dreamer causes you to make contact with God because you are able to peer into the realm where God exists. To make the connection with God makes you righteous. It is not your capacity to do everything right that makes you righteous but capacity to see what God sees, that is true righteous, and it shall produce true holinesses over the course of time. People may remember a dreamer’s failures but it is their dream that will have an impact despite of their failures. Failures come because we can not totally exist in the perfect, we are still creatures of the flesh and are impacted by the imperfect world. But as a dreamer, the impact can not define you so it can never limit you. A dreamer is aware of his failures and short comings. However, a dreamer’s failures only drive him to dream more because the process of living a dream, being contacted to that which is perfect, will only cause the perfect to invade the soul of the dreamer and transfer the nature of the divine. The dreamer’s character can not stay the same once he is possessed by a dream.

When God revives a people, he ignites the dreamers. Dreamers spark a fire in a nation that has no choice but to spread. They are prophetic in nature in that they espouse what they see in eternity, they see a perfect world and are able to speak about it and personify it to others. Through the prophetic, dreamers are the architects of the future, crafting a new world in the mist of the old. They are able to cause a disturbance that shifts the forces of the material world and cause it to move perpetually towards perfection over the course of time.

The raising of the dry bones in a people starts with a dream, a prophetic word that comes to the hearts of a died people. It is not a word about what can or should be. It is a word that expresses God’s perfect reality. The more it is expressed and enters into the hearts of the people, the more they are able to come together as a body united around one vision.

Praying in tongues unites us with the eternal because it connects us to the spirit of God. Dreamers must be able to speak beyond their understanding and comprehension. They must stretch their limits in the natural and reach into the spiritual. You must see no one or no thing after the flesh but only in spirit; you see everything in its divine and perfect order. You speak this order until that which is imperfect is done away with.

When the perfect world collides with the imperfect world, it causes a transformation of what is into what is should have always been, and what always was, in the perfect realm. The perfect world dwells in the hearts of dreamers and it is THE GLORY or KINGDOM WITHIN. Once it is released in the atmosphere through prophesy, personification, and manifestation, it becomes GLORY WITHOUT. God’s will is for his glory to cover the earth both within the hearts of dreamers as well as in manifested works and dreams.

Dreamers are willing to die for what they believe (e.g. Jesus). They realize that the dream is more important then their life and it supersedes them as an individual. It is this understanding that drives them to perfect character. In order to get your dream out of you and into others, the dreamer must die at some level. This death is a death to self and selfish ambition. Once you find something you are willing to die for, you have discovered a reason for living. The death of the dreamer is the only way to get vision locked up within out of the belly of the dreamer.

The challenge today is to become a dreamer. Allow the word of God to dwell in you so much that it produces a picture of a better world. All dreams must be birthed out of the character and nature of God and must start with the seed of His word. God dreams are based in truth, bring together, make the imperfect world better, helps people, and operates in love. Began to meditate, envision, confess, and write the vision that God gives you. Begin to have the courage to follow your heart and act out on that vision. And finally, through allowing God to be God, cause the dream to manifest. It will surely come to past.

Why We Need Dreamers: Part I

Why we need dreamers?

Dreamers are people that are able to stand in the imperfect and yet still see, espouse, and personify the perfect. There are two parallel universes: the imperfect world that we exist in in our flesh, in our physical bodies, the world defined by our experiences and bound by the parameters of time and the perfect world where everything is based on truth, the way things ought to be. Although we exist in the imperfect world in the physical, the force and energy and breath of life does not come from this world. The force of life comes out of the perfect.

Dreamers are able to transcend the imperfect world and dream of something better. They see things not as they are but as they should be. They see in their mind’s eye a perfect world that lines up with all things that are true and lovely. God exists in the perfect, in the eternal, in the spiritual. Everything in the realm where God is is perfect, it is the way things should be. God Himself is perfect and is the source of all perfection. Wisdom, truth, love, hope, all come out of the perfect and the more in tuned we are to the perfect the more we will possess them. There is no time in the perfect world; therefore there is no distance between what is and what should be. Everything in the perfect realm is perfect right now.

Dreamers catch a vision of the world at its perfect state. They get a glimpse of that which is perfect and they become consumed by it. The glimpse comes as a flash of lightening, a short image of the perfect world that they can see with their minds eye. So much so that they are no longer motivated by what they see in the imperfect world. Their conversation can only focus on that which is perfect. They speak only what they see in their glimpse of perfection. This idea of what should be is what motivates them, driving their thoughts, emotions, and every decision. It is what wakes them up at night and in the early morning, driving them to pursue this great vision of perfection. They not only want to visionalize it in their heads, they desire to express it to others and to make it come into reality.

You can not dream, catch a glimpse of the perfect, and remain the same. Change occurs internally first and has external ramifications. As the saying goes, you can not travel within without traveling with out.

The vision of the perfect world is the source of life for all men. Dreamers possess this life by transcending the imperfect world in vision and passion and are, thus, able to transfer this life to others. Transfer of life comes by articulation of what they see in the eternal realm and by personifying and projecting this vision through their lives to others. Dreamers give us hope and push us out of the imperfect world into something more, into something transcendent.

By their shear will, dreamers cause a disturbance to the imperfect world. They make a sound with their words and with their life that shakes up the conundrum of the static and ordinary life, if you can call it that, of the imperfect world in which we exist. Dreamers have the power to will their dreams to past. The power of the dream to transcend the individual as well as extend through out the ages is based on the willingness of the dreamer to deeply embody and personify the dream and express it to others. By this, dreamers cause a great disturbance in the imperfect, like lightening. Even if they die, the power of their dream and the magnitude of the disturbance they have made in the imperfect world has a lasting and perpetual impact even after they are gone. Once lightening strikes through the dreamer, the thunder is the after effect that follows that shakes up the imperfect world.

People try to kill dreamers by destroying their spirit. Dreamers are perceived to be dangerous because they cause such a disturbance to the ordinary and the familiar. People who are stuck in the imperfect feel threatened by those who dream because they disturb the foundations of what they believe to be true. Instead of feeling threatened, you must embrace and get connected to the dreamers. They help us to get out of the rut of the natural world.

(TO BE CONTINUED)