The Exchange

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Believe, Believers, bible, Blessings, Change, Character, Christianity, church, Cuba, Obedience, President Obama

The Exchange 12.23.14

Mark 8:36-37 says, “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? For what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”
Earlier this month the President of the United States exchanged some Cuban prisoners for some American prisoners with the President of Cuba. This exchange came as a result of a reconciliation between Cuba and the United States. Some people that commentate on the President of the United States decisions, said this was a terrible exchange, they even went on to say, we got the short end of the stick. A couple weeks later my mom told me that she went and exchanged her old pair of shoes that were falling apart for a brand new pair of shoes, at a very small cost to her. In America we understand the idea of being able to make an exchange. If you get a Christmas gift you don’t like this week, you can exchange it for something else, with usually very little hassle.

Other countries do not understand exchange in the sense of being able to return something to a store for a similar product or a cash refund. While I was in Malaysia, they would not return anything, once you bought it, it was yours, there is no return, nor exchange policy in that country. As an American who is used to being able to make a mistake and have it corrected by the store, I had to learn to think clearly before I bought anything, for there was no making an exchange, once I handed that money over to the clerk.

As Christians, we have been taught that the greatest exchange the world has ever known is the exchange of Jesus’ life for our sins. Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” God gave His life in exchange for our sins, this is the greatest exchange that was made for us and we have been taught this from before we were saved. However, there is another exchange, that is very rarely talked about, but needs to be addressed, it is the worst exchange.

As Christians, who are recipients of the greatest exchange, we make some of the worst exchanges. We exchange the kingdom of God for our religious traditions; we exchange our family members for our ministries or jobs; we exchange our health for food that tastes good; we exchange God’s thoughts for our thoughts; we exchange trust for independence; we exchange the glory of God for the approval of men; we exchange the love of God for immorality. The list could go on and on, but the reality is, we make exchanges that are costing us the very life Jesus gave us.

During this Christmas holiday and New Year, I pray you would begin to think about what you are exchanging for life. People exchange death for life everyday, because they do not want to listen, learn, obey, change. It is not always comfortable nor convenient to live, that is why most people choose chocolate over chick peas; or religion over relationship. Jesus said, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is here!” Repent is a call to change the way you think, it is an invitation to exchange your ways for His ways.
My prayer is that we together, would stop exchanging death for life, so we could embrace the kingdom of God that is here. It takes changing the way you think and that can only happen, by spending time in the word of God and spending time with the God of the word. Merry Christmas my friends!

As In the Days of Noah…

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Blessings, flood, Noah, rain, rainbow, tithe

Matthew 24:38-39 “For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be.”

For my whole Christian life I have come to believe that God is going to bring destruction before the coming of the Son of Man on the earth, maybe you have been taught the same thing. As I studied the days of Noah as noted in Genesis 6-8, the Lord began to reveal a mystery to me, that I have never been taught nor saw before. Looking at the days of Noah, the corruption of man, the evil (selfish) intents of his heart, and God’s grief over ever creating man are the obvious days of Noah things. The building of the ark, the entering two by two most have known since childhood. The 40 days and nights of rain, the rainbow as a covenant promise that God would never do that again, is all so familiar to us. If it is not, please read the story.

What began my quest into the mystery of Noah was his name, which means rest. I then began to realize he was a transitional figure, he saw the end of one world and the beginning of another. These revelations peaked my interest even more in the story, for it sounds a lot like where we are today. So, what happened in the days of Noah? Looking through the rainbow, which is our covenant promise of never being destroyed again by a flood, I had a desire to see a deeper meaning. Here is what I learned.

Genesis 7:11 says, “In the 600th year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened.” That phrase floodgates of the sky is translated windows of heaven. Malachi 3:10 says, “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing for you until it overflows.” We are in the year 5775AD, this in the Hebrew calendar, is the year of the open window and the verse for this year is Malachi 3:10.

As I put all these puzzle pieces together, the Lord showed me that He is about to open the windows of heaven and flood the earth with blessings until they overflow. A friend of mine sent me a text about a month ago and said, I hear the abundance of rain! We are about to experience the rain of blessing as in the days of Noah!

Afflicted Arise and the Threshed Thresh

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Believe, Blessings, Christianity, Empowerment, Threshing floor; kingdom of God

For the past two or more weeks I have been stumped as to what to do with what I am hearing God say. One on hand I am hearing about a major transfer of wealth, blessings like we have only dreamt of and a billion soul harvest. Then on the other hand I am hearing of an inevitable looming judgment on the nations of the world, America being one of them. With these two seemingly opposing thoughts happening simultaneously in my heart, I was not sure what to write. So, I turned to my friend Prophet Ron McGatlin for counsel, I heard from my friend Prophetess Maureena Summers, and I studied the words they were sharing in scripture myself. And this is what I have learned.

Isaiah 21:10 says, Oh my threshed people, and my afflicted of the threshing floor! What I have heard from the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, I make known to you.”

The first thing I learned is that the threshing floor is where everyone will go, is already, or will come one day. For the threshing floor is a place of judgment and blessing, it is where the grain is separated from the stalk and where the chaff is blown away. So, we are on the threshing floor, awaiting our turn to be threshed. But, what you are doing on the threshing floor is what amazes me.

Micah 4:13 says, “Arise and thresh, daughter of Zion! Your horn I will make iron, your hoofs I will make bronze, That you may pulverize many peoples, That you may devote to the LORD their unjust gain And their wealth to the Lord of all the earth.”

Those who have been afflicted on the threshing floor in the last season (Isaiah 21:10) are to arise and thresh in this new season that is upon us (Micah 4:13). We are to pull the gold and grain out of the harvest that the Lord is bringing to the threshing floor. Those who have been threshed in affliction, now thresh those on the threshing floor. To present them to the Lord as gold and grain.

What afflicted us with bless them. While others threshed us harshly and we produced grain and gold, we get to bless others with our victories and authority. We get to pull the gold out of them with I Corinthians 13 love, even though our threshing floor experience was not that way. We that have been threshed, get to be the new wineskin, so the new wine will not spill out. What we wanted while we were being threshed, we get to be to those who are about to be threshed.

The harvest is coming to the threshing floor, so the afflicted arise and the threshed thresh, because LOVE WINS!

Dream House

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Abraham, arise, Believers, bible, Blessings, Christianity, church, dream, dream house

I was riding the stationary bike at the gym today rocking out to my Catherine Mullins music and the Lord said to me, I am looking for those who have built a dream house. As I inquired of the Lord as to what exactly He meant, He said that He cannot pour out His glory on people who do not have a dream house, built to hold the glory (honor, wealth).

For some people this house has been in the attic of their lives, because they never thought they would be able to do it. Others have been bruised by disappointment for so many years that they struggle to talk about their dream house. Some don’t believe or should I say have been taught that their dream is not important, so they are trying to help someone else fulfill their dream, but don’t know how to dream. And still others have been building their dream house for days, weeks, months or even years, knowing ONE DAY this dream will become a reality.

No matter where you are in the process, it is time to build a dream house. Now this dream house has to be about others, not about you. Barbie’s dream house is all about Barbie, excess clothes, shoes, stuff that she just likes to have around so people ooohhh and ahhhh at her. But the dream house God has called you to build is for others through you. I have a friend that her dream house is to create safe houses for abused women; I have another friend who just got a dream house from God about 2 weeks ago to start a rehab center and dormitory for those who want out of their addictions; finally on Tuesday, a friend came over to talk to me and she shared about a brand new dream house God gave her for a teen center.

God is putting dreams in the hearts of people right now. Write down your dream house idea for He is about to pour out glory, but if you don’t have a plan that is bigger than you getting a nicer car or bigger house for yourself, He is not going to give you His glory. Not because He does not want to bless you, He does, but He always blesses those who are going to be a blessing. We are the seed of Abraham, so we have to do what Abraham did.

Genesis 12:2 “”I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing”

Romans 4:3 “What does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

Build God’s dream house and watch Him pour out His glory on that house. And if you want to write it down and send it to me, I will pray for it to become a reality for you and my faith will partner with your faith for this dream house.

Called to Lead…Chose to Follow

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Blessings, Christianity, church, Kingdom, maturity, prosperity

I was watching a documentary called Broke the other day, the premise of it was about NFL players who made millions, but went broke or had to file bankruptcy and what they did was dig into the reality of how and why this happened. How could someone making millions of dollars one year be broke the next? Here is what they discovered, what the Lord spoke to me and what I learned after meditating on this.

In the mid 1990’s NFL players went from making tens of thousands of dollars to making millions to multi millions of dollars. It was such a drastic increase in pay, that no one was prepared for the problems it would bring to the players. At the same time in history, President Bill Clinton declared the country was at an Apex of financial prosperity, the housing market was booming and people were spending at unprecedented rates. Everything looked and sounded it of prosperity. In Silicon Valley the technology boom was born, Microsoft was growing, Google came on the scene, Apple was arising, money was pouring into our country, our lives, our businesses from every direction. Everything we touched as Americans was turning to gold, the keeping up with the Jones’ was alive and active and we as a nation looked and sounded prosperous.

There was just one problem, it hit us so fast and furious, that many were not prepared to handle the prosperity that was being poured out, others wanted to look prosperous, so they bought houses they could not afford and got into insurmountable debt. As a nation, as a people we did not have the infrastructure in place to handle the blessing (or what we thought was a blessing) that was being poured out on us. NFL players who had no financial training, but were making millions, spent all the money they made, The documentary said, many players were living from paycheck to paycheck and they were making hundreds of thousands of dollar each check. One guy said he got a black American Express card, that arrived in a silver briefcase and he spent $108,000 in one month on that card, when he got the bill, he was in shock and asked himself, what did I buy.

Millions of Americans during the prosperity of the 90’s and early 2000’s went into debt in order to keep up with the lifestyle that was being displayed in rap videos like Mo Money, Mo Power and Let It Rain, which spoke of money raining down. What we did not see coming was that as fast as that balloon of prosperity rose, it would pop at the same rate. In the late 2000’s the housing market crashed, Ponzi schemes were revealed, professional ball players were going bankrupt and people lost millions.  

While watching this documentary, the Lord spoke to me and said, “The Church has been called to lead, but they chose to follow.” After I heard the Lord say this, I immediately went to the internet to find out when the prosperity gospel began. Here is what Wikipedia says about when it began, “In the 1990s and 2000s, it was adopted by influential leaders in the Charismatic Movement and promoted by Christian missionaries throughout the world, sometimes leading to the establishment of mega-churches.” God knows everything, He knew exactly what I would come to discover, I was blown away. The Church has been called to lead the world, but we have chosen to follow it.

In the 90’s and 2000’s the Church began to preach the prosperity gospel, many people jumped on this bandwagon, for a variety of reasons, many of which they are not even aware. Churches began to make millions of dollars, making promises of prosperity if only the people gave. Many verses we quote today, became popular then, making promises to people about what God would do for them financially if only they “sowed a seed”. The message worked then, because everyone was trying to not miss out on this season of prosperity that was being poured out, I mean look at how the Pastor dresses, what the Pastor drives, where the Pastor lives and the people wanted a piece of the pie. The problem is, what we sowed then we are reaping now.

Due to the fact that many of the verses that were quoted, which convinced people they would prosper were taken out of context. Meaning,  the verses did not promise what we were being told they would, in context and so now people have given more than they could in order to get what they were being promised. However, since they did not “reap what they sowed”, we have a generation today who does not believe the word of God works, is trustworthy or even applies to them. Many Christians are spiritually bankrupt, they are broke or broken, because the Church did not lead, but chose to follow.

BUT GOD…

God has opened a new door of opportunity for the church to lead, yet again. We are being called to lead by throwing our whole selves into the presence of God, by trusting Him with our hearts, not our heads. He is revealing that perfect love casts out all fear; that He is a loving Father, who wants to bind up the broken hearted, set the captives free, and pour out blessings on us that will make us rich forever. He is revealing what real prosperity looks like, He is making us lovers of God and of people, He is establishing the infrastructure of our lives, our families, our communities, our countries, our churches. He is not mad at us for the mistakes we made in the past, for the kindness of God leads us to repentance and He has opened a door for a relationship with Him that is more intimate, more passionate, more powerful than anything money could buy. This is the day we live in, right now. All you have to do is believe again, trust again, love again, forgive again.

The Lord is maturing His sons and daughters, so they are lacking nothing, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. All you have to do is return the embrace, for His arms are stretched wide to us, yet again. The call to lead still remains, but it looks very different than before. This is not about one man, one woman, one ministry, it is about the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. It is about the restoration of the five fold ministry, the revalidation of truth, the renewing of our minds and the love of God being shed abroad in our hearts. We will lead as lovers and the world will follow. It is a great time to be alive!