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Flavor Me With You Aid, Father God!!
Flavor me with Your aid, Father God? Yeah, I said it, and I know it sound like that colored drink that you put sugar
in and enjoy seeing your refrigerators. I know. God designed to show you something true and faithful like captial T in true
and capital F in Faithful. God is in the building with a small entourage including the Prince of Peace Jesus Christ and the
Comfort Bringer Holy Spirit.
We need aid in all of our lives. Assistance to assist us in living. The number of people who walk down the street holding
their spiritual heads up are almost non-existent!!
Maybe that means nothing to you, maybe that means every-thing to you.
The number of teenage parents who had no family planning but had offspring by the meeting of pride and rebellion and
lust is staggering.
Might take your breath away, might not.
The drug addict refelcts the glimpse of you that her or she sees. The prostitute mirors the image of you and I that they
see. the sex offender looks into our eyes and our hearts and our lives and sees that okay to continue in their "addiction."
The pornographer asks for your help before they turn to pornography and have been met with greater pressure than what pornography
might have them potentially suffer with. The drug lord has made himself lord by suffering. The homeless, the AIDS?HIV caarier,
the STD carrier, the pimp, reflect the best and the worst in each of us. The drunk is who we are. The pill popper is who we
are. The coast to coast transporter is who we are and we seek to surgically remove from ourselves this potentially deadly
cancerour growth that has formed on the outsides of our skintones, but in our DNA is the genetic code to hide our sin, hide
our shame and let the showing part be cut off that the root might never be touched. When Lorena Bobbit took emotional and
physical matters into her own hands it caused shock around the world, but she too was calling out for aid. She wanted her
husband to truly love her. These words are here witten because we shuck a great deal of responsibility to the atmosphere,
to the fields, pour ourselves into tireless pursuits of happness, when our energies would be more profoundly rewarded as we
bring ourselves before God's merciful gaze.
I met a man one day and had a brief conversation with him and he shared with me that he was a man with a criminal past.
It followed him every day. He had shot someone I believe, they died and he never forgot. I pryato God that His emotional pain
is surrendered to the merciful washing of God's reviving love.
I shared a conversation with another gentleman one day and he was a fellow thatI had known from around the way. He was
easy going to those who respected him, those whom allowed him to be a person and respected him. This fellow also had dealings
with some others who decided that respect would not be given to him because they deserved respect and were not getting it.
In this conversation this day this young man informed me thathe was constantly on watch for enemies-whether police or whoever.
Told me that because he was so big if he got into an altercation with certain persons out of fear they would just live with
shooting him down. I praythat the peace of God which passes all understanding mold into his body and consume all of him until
trusting God is automatic. i pray that his emotional wounds heal and become new skin.
A young woman shared with me one day ina local business that hassince closed its doors that she was a homosexual. She
told me that she liked women. It scared me so badly that I simply smiled, kept reading my book and never came back. I have
wondered her welfare since that day, troubled that I had missed an opportunity in which to pass along some knowledge, some
wisdom to one who so needed an assurance that life could be worth living again. I pray for her right now and believe that
God is able to set the captives free, that God is able to make all grace abound towards her, that God is able to take the
ashes of her life and make beauty appear for her for his glory. Thank You God.
Scars, wounds, brusings, batterings from life, from individuals, form us into pictures of ourselves seen through broken
glass. Just can't make out where everything really goes. That's whatthis entire site is abut. That's what I believe this entire
ministry is about. It is about not ignoring the abrasions that lay on our spirits and souls and lives, but offering a Redeemer
ready to rescue and present alive. After all the rippings, after all the soreness, after all the graves, finally there is
one who says, Life shall be and not only life, but the fullness of life. To many of us that is a scary statement and philosophy
because what we are living we have come to think of as life and this life is a knife constantly slicing our several body parts
off. We are always being ripped, always being broken, always falling down, always crawling to never stand up.
Injured, battered, worn, diluted, polluted, influenced, captive, imprisoned, indecisioned and still scissored. Impotent,
negligent, decadent, ever spent, lowly relevant, thought heaven sent, aid.
GOd, You see us. Deep inside we are molten. Deep within we are of no substance and too magmatic to produce anything resembling
life. We look for people around us to know and relate to our pain. We look for people within us to take away our troubles
again. In our passions we arefull speed and full speed we come to see no gain. We hear that life is just a game. So win, lose
or draw, we call out to Your name.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
Like a fragrance after the rain.
Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.
I'm here captured calling Your name.
Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.
Make whole my battered frame.
Oh right now there are changes all around each of us that are terrible and tearing and ripping and God, our God, we have
not even expected to be looking at nothing like this before.
We wonder if crying out, no screaming, for You to show up right there in that burning place will give us any more strength.
Not just the strength to be all that we might be and not only the strength to hold it on in the road.
Naw, God, we need You to show up for real. We got these thangs that come and roll over us daily. When somebody start
talking about new days and all, we done heard all that before and so we shut our ears while we are around others who might
think we getting soft because we are listening to this new life and love one's neighbor talk.
You know God, all that mushy stuff that we can't show in the streets. In the streets is where we need You the most though,
God, because in the streets it is every one after their own thangs.
I done went and learned something terrible in them streets, God, I learned how to survive in them streets. Maybe it don't
look like much but I keeps a tool handy and I don't know if You know God, but I make it just terrific on my own.
We say these things and so many other things in the process we can't even see of becoming more like the very one we shun,
push away and often question. We search the reaches of our lives sometimes secretly like Nicodemus who came to Jesus swiftly
by night. We beg for our healings as we see the blind men doing by the side of the road and at the mention of the name of
Jesus Christ.
Can we know this man as HE who healed our diseases? (Psalm 103 verse 3 lays out the blueprint item which says God and
His Christ healed all our diseases) But hearing that saying do we regard it as just some slang talk or just some gibberish
or just some hopeful thinking in the middle of that mess called sickle cell?
Are the words written here and yes, in many volumes throughout all ages, merely words of positive thinking and of
placebo and of delirious accounts?
No, promises are not to high on our priority lists because we have been given promises all of our lives. Dads make promises
and some of us won't say a mumbling word about our dads to this day. Moms make endless promises and some of our relationships
with our mothers are so tense and tight and drawn together that the wires could pop at any moment. Brothers and sisters issue
us promises and we see how they live day by day and moment by moment.
God, give us the strength to make it through this present concern.
God what relief can there be towards these our lives besides this crying all the time, besides this drink that stinks,
besides this puff that passes, besides this hope that tears me away from all that is real to me/ I don't know You like I should
God. I don't ask You for things like I should God. I don't believe in You like I should God. I don'tlove You and speak about
You like I should God. I don't spend time with You like I should God. I don't reach for You like I should God. I don't hold
You tightly like I should God.
I don't ask You to wipe me down like I should God. I don't ask You to brush the dirt of my shoulders like I should God.
I don't hope in You coming through like I should God and here I am talking out loud into space and time and feeling like a
fool trying to get an answer from the wind that just blows all overthe place, but, God, if You are real I need to know so
I can stop feeling like a great big fool. I need to know that You can hook me up to where I am not strung out and panting
again for the next hit.
I need You to touch me and to be there for me, God, because I am worn from all these other travelers who come into
my doors. I let folks into the doors of my heart and next thing I know my heart is a trash heap from the party they had. I
let folks into my mind and the next thing I know my mind is a land fill of other people's debasing ideas and so many that
I lunged after to be part of the crowd. I have been burned, God, and I need a full time nurse to be ready to wrap and unwrap
my bandages on my soul because my soul just came out of a 5 alarm fire. God, I need an avenger because I got a knife pulled
towards my throat the other night by my loved one and now I just don't know what to do. God, I need a confidant because there
are some things boiling down inside me that are melting my inward parts. For the love of God, help me because I just got a
pistol pulled out on me the other day and my life flashed in front of my eyes and terror rides my back all night now.
Friends, our lives are battlegrounds much like Iraq and Afghanistan.
No, we don't wish to see the terrible amount of crippling done in our own bodies. And no, we don't want to admit that
we are indeed wounded because wounded ones are considered weakened ones and weakened ones are constantly targeted for extinction.
To be extinct means to no longer breathe and moreso, beyond no longer breathing extinction means the forgetting that we ever
existed.
God rallies for us even here and even now to be snatched from the jaws of extinction and to disappear into the safety
of His arms until we are again whole eough to see the daylight.
Right now many of us are hurting so deep and so wide that we don't want to be seen in this state of life.
"This can't be life, but all of our lives, all of our lives are serrated and blind. And God, when I'm given the stimuli
I refuse to be called Shy."{excerpted from Ishtar To Ishtar, "Dear God", by Israel-Shannon M. Saunders}
Those words were written in a lunging towards God on my part to understand the reasons that my life has so much hurt
and so much breaking in it, but right now it is also a place where I could only be in God's embrace sheltered until I got
the strength to see the daylight one more time.
We are made to see many things, but the most crucial thing that we picture will be the person, the figure of that Doctor
who always proclaims with enthusiasm that "We shall live and not die."( Psalm 118, verse 17)
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Psa 118:17 |
I shall not die, but live, and declare the works
of the LORD. |
God Almighty, keep these until they might meet You in form and figure and You give them strength once more. In Your Son
Jesus Christ's name we pray, Amen.
The things that we desire are not our own because we desire to use these things for selfish reasons. Yes, health and
healing goes in this category. What will you use your healing for? What will you say delivered you from turmoil after turmoil
and pain after apin? Will you give God any glory for your body being revived and made new? We are quick to quote tha GOd knows
our very hearts and that he shall right every wrong done towards us, but our prayers are how God responds to us. Yes,
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Ye ask 154 , and 2532 receive 2983 not 3756, because 1360 ye ask 154 amiss 2560, that 2443 ye may consume 1159 [it] upon 1722 your 5216 lusts 2237.
How can our freedom come without trial? How can our newness come without stretching? God's promises are Yea and Amen. To
whatever we need God answers Yes. In turn we must answer to His Yes our amen.
1 Peter chapter 2, verse 24 says that our sins were carried on the body of Jesus Crist on Calvary's tree (cross) and agrees
with the prophet Isaiah by saying that by the stripes that Jesus received we have been healed. Today is the day of liberation,
of newness, of victory, because Christ Jesus has wiped away the blot of transgression each one of us carried. It is for Christ
Jesus that we ech live and move and have our being. Honour the King of Glories for He has made you whole this day. Thank You
God for giving us the precious gift of Your Son. |
This is the Resurrection Day of our Lord Jesus Christ. Many enemies of our Lord and Savior want to deny that the cross
at Calvary becomes more than the defeating instrument of death. Many want to believe even now that there is surely nothing
valid in holding on to a belief or a desire that reckoning has come for a sickness as impenetrable as sin. I write these words
right now bcuase someone within these walls has faced and even now faces the determinations of death due to the overloading
presence of what has come to be magnified as impenetrable. We are those who have surely believed that sickness may pass but
the effects linger for lifetimes. We are surely those who have desired to have good healing words fall upon our lives and
upon the lives of those we attend to daily yet we have calloused souls and hearts unable to feel and surmise the soothing
calm of revival.
In the realm of sickle cell, in the realm of diabetes, in the realm of strokes, in the realm of impregnations, in the
realm of mental incapacities, there exists a haze that forbids our passage to believe wholeheartedly for truth and life to
return. In these and the several other illnesses that hamper living is the call to accept that loss is likely. In light of
these sayings, I ask the space to share a story.
It was a dismal day to walk anywhere. The atmosphere seemed to be both charged with excitement and waiting for disaster's
calming. Hearts were broken because the true gift had been taken away. Hearts were rejoicing because pest control ha been
called in. Along a road it happened. Two men walked and both were sorrowful.
A third man appears to walk with them, yet neither noticed this third person's presence because of the great grief they
held within themselves. THey continued speaking to one another to express this great heavy load they were now given to carry.
"He went away from us so soon," said one man to the other.
"Yeah, nothing good lasts always," replied his fellow traveler.
"But I can't get over how it just ends like that. It just doesn't seem real to have to accept that it is over," said
the first man.
They both lowered their heads to pity the happenings that had come to give them hope and left them wounded from bringing
them to believe their lives could be different.
Neither was still aware of the third man's presence. They began to talk about, the two travelers, about the ways they
were so sure the things they had experienced were true enough to believe in.
The tird man begna to speak along with them asking them their reason for sorrowing as they were.
"Man, where you been," scolded one fellow, "everybody knows that Jesus did nothing but raise up our hopes of being free
and then left us high and dry."
The other fellow chimed in, 'Yeah, got folks believing he was strong enoughto save us from our little paisley lives;
to believe that God loved us and such."
The conversation went on this way until these three came to a house and seeing the time of day, invited the third fellow
to retire with them for the night. This was likely the custom of that land. So the third fellow obliged their request and
they turned in to rest for the night.
The fellows sat down and were ready to eat and figured that this fellow, whoever he was, probably had come from so far
away that he might be needing to eat as well. So they offered him dinner.
SO they sat and remembered that they needed to bless the meal and offered the honor to the new friend at their table.
It was then that this new friend took the bread and broke it into pieces and blessed it. The lightning bolts hit the brains
of the men around the table and they knew that they were in the presence of the Master whom had promised them new life, wholeness
and peace.
And the Master whose name was Jesus Christ told them that all power was given to him on heaven and in earth for He had
accomplished the mission to take back the keys of death and hell and the grave from satan.
Our lives hold similar stopping points, conversations and hopelessnesses. We are often found despairing on the road to
a place we know but can't fully distinguish because of our sorrow, our grief and our preoccupation with the life around us.
Heavenly things escape our grasp because we have learned to concentrate on what we can clearly see.
Jesus Christ said that on the third day He would arise to life again from the dead. Today is the day, the day of
resurrection power being revealed. Today is the day, the day of reving power being seen. Today is the day, the day that dry
bones shall enliven and gather upon themselves flesh.
This is written from the stroke unit at UNC hospitals and this day of resurrection is alive here at this hour. These
bodies here shall live fully mobile and agile and worthwhile lives because the Lord Jesus Christ did not stay in that tomb
he was buried in. It may have been a very nice, expensive tomb. It may have held all the latest amenities designed for a comfortable
afterlife transition.
It may have been a better setup for the deceased than his or her earthly life could ever hope to reveal. Whatever the
case may be or however it may settle in you this hour, we must indeed know that this is the time that a savior decided to
show how much power beliveing in an unseen Father named God can be truly worth. I want to peek into the tomb right before
Jesus Christ said enough is enough. I can't stay laying down like this no longer.
It must have been kind of chilly in that tomb because the rock walls were all around. It may have been warm in there
because the tomb was not just any tomb. It may have been a newly dug and hollowed out tomb because we are told that this tomb
was one wherein never a man had laid. No man had been buried in this tomb. I imagine that Jesus Christ was laying down on
that cold slab of rock, wondering when the command was going to come for him to raise up out of there. I imagine that that
rock may even have cried out because of the praise leaping from the belly of that rock as the rock recognized that not merely
any ordinary man was situated upon it. NO, this was no ordinary, regular man. This was indeed the Son of the Living God. His
name is above all names.
He rose for you and for me. Why? He rose that we might believe when we can't see how it can possibly turn out good. He
rose because he knew that this life would continue to try to bury us all beneath the rbble of broken lives and ailing circumstances.
Jesus Christ rose because he knew that new life could not be proclaimed all over the land if he had stoppe his ascending right
here in that tomb.
Oh yes, He could have laid down and submitted to the shackles of death. Oh yes, Jesus could have gotten a strong dose
of selfishness or rebellion due to his circumstances. His father had forsaken Him on the cross when he has all the sins of
humanity clinging to Him. Jesus could have decided it is so stupid to trust in a God, much less a Father, who would turn his
back on me and leave me in a place where dead folks ain't even comfortable. Jesus didn't.
Jesus Christ arose from that grave, from that tomb, from them shrouds that tied him up to await the decaying of His body.
They wound HIm up in them torn bed linens, wrapped him so tightly that air could not escape from any pore or orifice.
They had to wrap him tightly so that no moth or rust could come in to destroy his body before the natural process of
decomposition took place. But here's the important part that we all need to hear. It could not hold him down. No way, no how.
Not even death was strong enoughto hold Jesus Christ down. Not even death who is truly mighty is strong enough to hold down
Jesus our Lord, our Champion, right now in this present hour. Jesus arose so that captives could know it is alright to walk
freely. Barabbas was a captive man, committed of the crimes he had done in his life, bound in a Roman jail, until Jesus Christ
stopped by and they shouted tothe Roman governor Pilate, Release to us Barrabas!
Today, a Savior for you and I lives mightily triumphant over death, hell and the grave. You and I are able because He
lives to face tomorrow. No matter what may come along to trample us underfoot, if we learn the name of the Savior who
died, was buried and rose again to new life for our full release from the captivity of sin (Romans 3:23 says the wages of
sin is death, butthe gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus.)
Because this Savior lives all fear is gone! I know that life is worth the living just because HE lives. Today, congregations
and nations, your Savior JEsus Christ lives.
What is the future ready to hold for us? What are the next days prepared to release for us?
Ever waited for that medicinal saviour to step in and just take all the pain away? Ever contemplated life apart from
this thing, this monster, this graciousness, that requires every breath?
Maybe you are tired of hearing the stories of how many times such and such had to be hospitalized last month alone.
Maybe you have become a little callous to the way that such and such's blood counts flow from east to west and north
to south unpredictably.
It could be that you feel that all your patience and enough of your nerve have been spent on caring for this child's
pains and my God in heaven the release has to be coming for me somewhere.
The Apostle Paul pens these musings about needing release in the second letter to the Corinthian church saying,
"For, when we were come into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest, but we were troubled on every side; without [were]
fightings, within [were] fears."
When we need release from the pressures of sickle cell, diabetes, hypertension, stress, it is like we are in a strange
country trying to find our way.
Paul speaks to us of Macedonia where he traveled for the gospel of Jesus Christ to be preached and it was a strange land.
Sickness, illness and bodily frustrations are often strange lands to any of us.
Our flesh, our bodies have no rest in illness, sickness or bodily stresses.
But if we can just reach out for the One who holds peace in His robe, the One who holds life in His tongue and ask Him
to spare us one more time. He certainly will oblige us.
Go in strength and peace.
Lord Jesus Christ, keep us in Your strength and in Your peace when our bodies need release. Amen.
| We often eat from where we can hurt the most... |
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July 13, 2006
Dear Readers,
The issues of sickle cell diesease and of diabetes have affected the life of my wife and mine very personally. We
know that there are others who experience life on the crux of these two diseases/ailments/demon guards, that pray and wish
and hope and cry out for the pain to be no more. We know that there are parents and siblings and communities that need to
be healed because they went through some things with the persons who were found bearing under these burdens. But hope is not
willing to leave you there stranded and broken. Know that this all is for a reason and a purpose and that all things, All
Things, work together for the good of those who love the Lord.
Now I know that many of you cannot even think about focusing on God when the rubber has to meet the road and there is
a panic attack in them and already working on you. But know that Jesus Christ shed HIs holy blood, (I like to call it a holy
blood transfusion or a holy bone marrow transplant), for all of us regardless of what has been declared upon us. Jesus Christ
is already sitting at the right hand of the Father God and awaiting your acceptance that He is all that you need in this life.
You have to know that Jesus Christ was broken in body (was hung on the cross bearing the extreme weight of every one of humanity's
sins upon his own body) and was poured out like a drink offering, poured out like a little bit is poured out for the homies
of his precious life giving blood just that we might find a reason any and every reason to go to the Father God and say, "You
know what God," or "God, did you see/hear/ feel that?". This is about a relationship that you must form with the one
Man who means more than life to you. Take courage for these trials are only a means of testing your strength.
No, I am not saying that this Sickle Cell, this Diabetes, this Leukemia or by whatever other cancer filled principality
or power wants to be known, shall always be upon your life or the life of those you love or know. I am saying that there is
a purpose that has God's name written on it, that this thing has come into your life. This is written that you despair and
fall depressed no longer under the weight of this affliction. There is power in the name of Jesus that will move some gigantic
things in your life right now. All of us are capable of using this power if we will just open our mouths. Call on Jesus Christ
to deal with the biggest issue that you have in your life right now. See if the Lord Jesus Christ, His Father God and the
person of the Holy Spirit won't jump right on it. For many of us the thing that is the biggest and most oppressing in
our lives is not the Sickle Cell or the Diabetes or the Cancer (by whatever name) but it is the abandonment, the loneliness,
the solitary confinement, the singleness. But you shall live and not die, my friend, for it is in singleness that God works
and can move mightily. Look to the Word of God. That's where your strength is to flow from. It is all there. Jesus is
Lord and today is the day of salvation. Oh, we are about to go into the prayer of salvation because we do not want you left
comfortless. Jesus Christ is the greatest comfort that ever there will be. Believe it right now. Recieve help now:
Jesus Christ, come into my life and show me the Way that you make all things new. I got some stuff with me Jesus and
I need someone to just take the time to let me know that they are willing to help me sort it out. I want to be made whole.
God knows I do and so I come to you Jesus right now and ask, no, I invite, You into my heart. Be my Lord, be my Savior,
my Rescuer. God, I need some provisions in my life and they can't be any weak provisions. Make me whole this very moment.
Heal me from all this disease. Strike my sin with a blow that releases me from the grasp of the devil who only comes to destroy
me. I love you Jesus Christ. I believe that God sent you to die for me, that you gave Your Holy blood for my own in that great
blood transfusion and that You did not deny me the life giving Bone Marrow Transplant that I needed for my life to go on.
I love you Jesus! I love You Jesus! Thank You for Your life bringing mine to this place. Thank You God! Holy, Holy, Holy,
Lord God ALLmighty. God in Three Persons Blessed Trinity. Thank You for healing me. Thank You for saving me, for delivering
me. God I thank You. Show me how to walk from this day forth in all that You are. Show me how to love You and to tell others
that You God are not just an idea, not just a theory. You are God Almighty. Striker down of Sickle Cell Disease. Striker down
of Diabetes 1 & 2. You are God alone and there is none other like You. Give me what I need everyday. Bring healing to
the others who know you not. Yes Lord! Hallelujah! Victory! In Jesus name!
Oh can you feel the power and the presence of God right where you are? Can you feel how close, this God who they told
you was so far past dead, is to you and to everything that you are? You have to get to the praising place to touch God's attention.
You have to get God's attention to touch God's heart, and oh, you've touched His heart friend, when you prayed and released
yourself to His will just then. God loves those who are willing to worship Him and not worry about what's around them. I know
that sounds so outdated and so overused, but God is always willing to come and see about someone who breaks themselves free
to take the time to worship Him. There is power, so much power in thanking God the Creator who has become even my and your
Father. There is so much that will burst out of our hearts when we say 'I know God that it was only You who did this'. Look
for the simple things that many seem to forget and just say 'thank You God'. No matter where it is or what it is or what it
looks like, just position yourself to say, thank you Jesus for this and such and such. I don't know what you see that needs
newness and healing but I know that Jesus Christ is the name that shall bring it to pass. This isn't just about sickle cell
or diabetes. No, this is about life. They use the term "improve the quality of life" and many of them have good intentions
that will bring you to the last drop of medical advancement, but you have to reach the place where all you have is Jesus Christ
and the words that He spoke echoing the words that God spoke saying that your healing is found in believing on the name of
Jesus Christ. So shall you be established. God has a great and wonderful plan for your life and my prayer, our ministry team's
prayer for you is that you continue to live and not die. Our prayer continues that you may become the one who God uses most
effectively for His great work in this earth. The journey is about life. Embrace the journey!!!
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