The Afterbirth!

Praise the Lord! I pray you all are enjoying Gods many blessings. I feel particularly blessed, I just spent a wonderful week with my wife, and on top of that we became Grand parents last Friday.Our Son became a father at 12:45am Friday morning his fiancee gave birth to a nine pound baby boy named Daniel Jr. PRAISE THE LIVING GOD!! BABY "DAN" IS BORN!!
                                                                                             

Now we are praying that they get married and raise him up in the way he should go. The night baby Dan was born my wife and I went to a Revival service at our church and we knew it was going to be a "hot" service because of all the stumbling blocks put in our way by the "enemy" as he tried to keep us from attending, but we were determined to get there as long as the elevators were working and they were. We arrived in time to catch Praise and Worship and by the time it was over you could feel the anointing coming down from heaven. The spirit of praise was in the building, people were actually entering in to Gods presence. That was something I had never seen before from the faithful at First Church. People were lifting up holy hands unto the Lord, they were crying out to God. You could see God breaking up the stony hearts and setting captives free.

This was something I had been praying for from the time I fist joined "First Church." That night I could see God beginning the birthing process for the change that is coming. Every one in that sanctuary except maybe one or two were born again Christians, having professed Christ as Lord and savior but they have not experienced the "after birth." Peter is a perfect example of what I mean. Peter was the one who said "Thou art the Christ the son of the Living God." (in Matthew 16:16) Peter knew who Jesus was and even said he would die for him, but just like today's believers he could not back up what his mouth was saying. When the going got tough he denied Christ three times. Jesus knew this would happen because Peter, though he could be considered born again he had not experienced the "afterbirth".Acts 1:8 states

⁸But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. 
This is what Jesus meant when he told peter "When you are converted, strengthen thy brethren "(Luke  22: 31+32)
This is the "Afterbirth" That is missing in so many christian lives, the reason for the lack of power in churches all over America. There is a power shortage at a large number of churches including the church I go to. If it weren't for the power that God charged our Pastor with there wouldn't be any power at all there. Acts 2:1+3 states

 ¹And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.

 ²And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.

 ³And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.
  They were with one accord according to Gods word, one accord with who? One accord with themselves and with the will of God! Some churches are in one accord with each other but not with God. They pursue their own agenda's and ignore the prompting of the Holy spirit. In Some all are seeking God but can't connect with each other because of all the jealousies and back bitings going on. We all need to get on one accord, one church, one faith and one baptism. We need get passed profession of Christ and tap into the power of God, only then will we see signs and wonders.

When a baby is born something follows that event, it's called the "afterbirth" or placenta and most people think it is something you throw away. But the placenta or afterbirth is used for many medicinal reasons.including certain creams and lotions. After our spiritual rebirth the spiritual afterbirth should not be thrown away but sought after and used to give us the spiritual power we need to make a difference in this world for Christ.
                                                            God bless you all, Brother Darrell, A Watchman 

The Weight

Praise the Lord! I pray that you all are enjoying God's blessing. I can't tell you how blessed I feel. Jeremiah said "It's like fire shut up in my bones!" It's not just that I like to write, it's that I have to write. God forbid that I don't write. There is a fire in my belly. John 2:13-17 states
¹³And the Jews' passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
¹⁴And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting:
¹⁵And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables;
¹⁶And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise.
¹⁷And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.

As a Watchman I have been blessed with the ability at times to see things the way Jesus See's things. The bible says that David was a man after God's own heart(1st Samuel 13:14) and that is what I'm striving for, to be a man after God's own heart. Sometimes I feel the heaviness when I see some of the things I have seen over the years going on in His house and the things I see His people getting involved in.

God has given me a burden and I am finally carrying that burden. The bible says "let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus."(Phil. 2:5) Though I have not yet gotten there, I am striving to reach that goal. With the mind of Christ I am able to see things the way He does and when I see what is going on in the body of Christ,His church, I can't help but be angry at times and disappointed. As a watchman I must point out what God instructs me to point out. I am mocked at times and called opinionated. "Who does he think he is?" they ask. I say I am nobody, just a man trying to be obedient to his calling. It hurts when your brother or sister in Christ question your calling and refuse to encourage or exhort you in what your doing as we are called to do in 1st. Timothy 4:13+14
¹³Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.
¹⁴Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.

The body of Christ is often guilty of two things, one is idolizing gifts and putting those with them on a pedestal or two: dismissing or downgrading the gifts of their brothers and sisters in Christ. I understand that there are many people in the body going around claiming certain gifts and titles that they don't have, testilying instead of testifying. That is why God has given us the spirit of discernment, those of us who are led by the spirit should be able to discern who is who and what is what.

After years of running from my calling, being afraid to say what I mean and mean what I say and enduring the chastening of God because of it, I have come to the conclusion that it is better to be obedient. I have stopped running and have planted my feet not on his word but in his word. I have immersed myself in Him and His word, I'm not concerned about pleasing man or even myself  anymore. I choose to stay under the burden that God has given me. No more stuttering when I speak or when I write, I will say what I mean and mean what I say and God will help me carry the weight.
                                        God bless you all, Brother Darrell, A Watchman

This Is The Final Call!!

Praise the Lord everybody! I pray you all are enjoying Gods blessing. I myself was blessed to make it to church this past Wednesday for the "Hour of Power" and it was truly a blessing. It feels good when you are obedient to God. There were no hindrances, no broken elevators or Access-A-Ride problems, God smoothed the way for me. That's what He can do for you when you are obedient.

I received an e-mail late last night asking me to write something for an up coming church consecration at my sister in laws church. The theme was "A final call to worship." As I began to meditate on the subject I became stuck on this one question, when is the final call to worship? or Is there a final call to worship? Is it when Jesus comes to rapture His Church?, is it when we die? or is it everyday of our lives? We never know when God is going to call us home so any time could be our final call, and praise and worship should never be far from our lips.
John 4:23 says
²³But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. 
To me this is the final call to worship, the call of Jesus saying True worshippers worship God in spirit and in truth. We should live every day as if it is our last, our last chance to serve God, our last chance to be obedient, and our last chance to worship him. The time for lip service is past.
Isaiah 29:13 states
The Lord says: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.(NIV)

We see it every Sunday in churches all over America, pews filled with people and most are just mimicking things they learned as children while being dragged to church week after week by their parents. They have the body language and church lingo down pat but their hearts are cold, the fire having burned out long ago or it was never ignited in the first place. The time has come for us to examine ourselves and get real, are we in the way? or ARE WE IN THE WAY? We should want to walk in the way, not be in the way.

The final call to worship has already been made, Worship in spirit and in truth, with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, not on the last day but everyday.
                                                 God bless you All, Brother Darrell, A Watchman

Touchdown Jesus! / Stop Kicking against the Pricks

Praise the Lord everybody! I pray everyone is enjoying God's blessing. I am truly blessed of God to have this privilege to convey what the spirit of the Lord has to say to the church. My wife has gone back to work and now it's just me and God and you all again. If you have been following my recent post you know I have been having trouble getting to church on Sundays and if it's not the elevator hindering me then it's the transportation problems with Access-A- Ride. What I'm about to say those of you who are not believers may have a hard time understanding but true believers should have no trouble understanding.

The church I attend has a Wednesday afternoon service called "The Hour of Power" and about six months ago or so I heard the spirit of the Lord say to me "I want you to stop going to or trying to go to Sunday service and start going to the Hour of power for I have plans for you there." And I have not been obedient, but in Acts 26:14 Jesus says to Saul on the road to Damascus
¹⁴And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the
pricks.
The spirit reminded me again of what God had asked me to do and then brought that scripture back to my remembrance. I thought back to how it seemed that there was a force trying to hinder my trying to go to church on Sundays. I know this is where true believers and a lot of others part company. You see it on TV. all the time. when ever a christian is being interviewed on secular TV about anything and they say "God spoke to me" or "I felt the Lord say to my spirit" The person conducting the interview jumps on them and says "what makes you so special that God would stop what He's doing to speak to you?" You see it all the time on "The View" TV show, every time one of the panel members who are Christian say they heard from God then one of the others,  who might even be a Christian also, looks at them like they are crazy and puts them down because of what they believe. What is worse is that  the Christian being interviewed lets them get away with it by not challenging them through God's word.
Matthew 10:29-31 states
²⁹Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.
³⁰But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
³¹Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.
God is interested in every aspect of all His creations, He has numbered the very hairs on our heads! He has taken time out to do this. Psalm 139:14 states
¹⁴I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.
We are fearfully and wonderfully made! By who? By God! He cares about every aspect of His creation. Look at the grief Tim Tebow gets every time he gets on one knee and prays after scoring a touchdown and then thanks God when being interviewed after game. People call into talk shows and rant "who does he think he is?" They don't get it, they say the same thing about players who score then point up into the sky thanking God after a touchdown or home run. It's not that God Has money on the game, but that he cares for his people on both sides and wants them to prosper and be healthy in all that they do. It is not about winning the game, it's about everybody playing their best and not getting hurt.

The time has come for Christian athletes to do more than just point to the sky or bow down after scoring touchdowns or doing positive things during games. They must be ready and able to give a clear account to reporters after games as to why they do what they do and why God is interested in what they are doing. Yes contrary to popular belief God is not so overwhelmed by the problems of this world that He can't be bothered about your Job situation, your marriage, your children or whether you should put your car in the shop to avoid an accident. God is Jehovah Jireh, the Lord our provider, how can he provide for our needs if He is not keeping tabs on our lives and taking time to listen to our prayers? How can He heal us if He is not aware we are sick? HE CARES ABOUT US!

The time has also come for me to stop kicking against the pricks and be obedient to God. I will be in Church this Wednesday and every Wednesday until God tells me something different. Keep me in prayer as I keep you in prayer.
                                                 God bless you all, Brother Darrell, A Watchman

God Blogers: This is why I blog

Praise the Lord! I pray everybody is being blessed by God real good. I am truly blessed by God. I spent the last week catching up with my wife after a long absence due to scheduling difficulties. It was a blessing, everything except the fact that we couldn't go to church Sunday because the elevators in my building were broken again. We decided to have our own little service at home and God was faithful as ever as He met us there and we know He abides in our praises. We were blessed and God even blessed us more the next day when our Pastor came and despite not having any elevator service walked up with his wife and administered communion to us. Hallelujah!

Lately I've been reading other christian blogs on different sites and it has caused me to wonder about my own blog. "Why do I blog?" I  asked myself. The answer for me is multifaceted, number one: God blessed me with the ability to write. Two: I believe God has called me to be a Watchman and to preach His word. Three: because of my disability my pulpit is not in the sanctuary but on the Internet. If you have read any of my past posts you have seen that God has given me a strong word. I repeat God has given me a strong word, I did not give them to myself. It is so easy to lose sight of what you are doing and why you are doing it in ministry. Being human we like to get feed back when we do something, Just being obedient and carrying out God's will should be enough but a lot of times it's not. We constantly seek man's approval and we want to know if  we are reaching the people and we want to be known for the people we are reaching. We check to see how many "Hits" our blogs get each day, We say God gave me the word yet we don't trust him to deliver His word to the people He wants to hear it. We come up with all kinds of schemes to boost our readership, even compromising the word God gave us.  Isaiah 55:11+12   says 
¹⁰For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:
¹¹So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.
God's word, if it truly is from Him, will accomplish His will whether your blog is "viral" or only has a handful of followers. Our job is to plant the seeds it is God who gives the increase.

 Some of the blogs I have read did not use any scripture to back up anything they wrote. I don't care how much since what you are writing seems to make, if your doctrine can not be backed by scripture than you are playing a dangerous game with God's people and yourself. My fear is that in my own zeal to do God's will is that I would equate success with the number of readers of my blog. Success is not measured in large numbers but in how obedient we are in writing  what He is telling us to write. We are not to write to taste like a cook cooks to taste. The blank page is my pulpit and it is my privilege  to send out God's word from that pulpit. 2nd Timothy 4:2-4 states
²Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine.
³For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
⁴And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

Just as not everyone is chosen to preach or teach from the pulpit of a church, not everyone is chosen to preach from this pulpit. Matthew 20:15+16 says
¹⁵Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good?
¹⁶So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.


People have asked me "Aren't you afraid you will offend someone with some of the things you write?" and I say " If God is in it why should I fear? and besides God told me that he did not give me a spirit of fear." 2nd Timothy 1:7
⁷For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

You have to be fearless in whatever ministry you do for God because our enemy the Devil is like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. I can not write to please man, I must write to please God.
I live at his pleasure and it is my pleasure to serve Him. This is why I blog.

                                                       God bless you all, Brother Darrell, A Watchman

Will There Be Faith?

Praise the Lord! I pray that everyone is enjoying God's blessing. I am truly blessed Just to be alive and doing what God wants me to do and that is writing this blog. Recently I have been spending a lot of time on a Christian website I stumbled on called "God's Faith Book" a sort of Facebook for Christians and I have been really enjoying the different activities and people on the site. Today I was reading a blog and this scripture was used. Luke 18:2-8  
²Saying, There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man:
³And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary.
⁴And he would not for a while: but afterward, he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man;
⁵Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.
⁶And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith.
⁷And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cries day and night unto him, though he bears long with them?
⁸I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?

Nevertheless, when the son of man comes, shall He find faith on the earth? That question began to roll around in my head and my spirit. This parable was just one of many Jesus spoke in that chapter. It's a shame that after all the healing, Resurrection's, demons cast out and other miracles Jesus still wondered if he would find faith when He came back for his Church. Jesus said it then in Matthew 17:16+17
¹⁶And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him.
¹⁷Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me.
And He is probably is saying the same thing today as he prepares to return.

Once God called His people "stiff-necked" I wonder what he is calling His people now, I wonder what He is calling me? Where do I stack up against the children of Israel? Not too long ago I posted a two-part series on faith, entitled "Where is your Faith?" It is no coincidence that I'm writing about Faith again. The Word says that "without faith, it is impossible to please Him."(Hebrews 11:6) Without faith, nothing happens. It is faith that moves God. How many times in the bible did Jesus say "your faith has healed you?" or "according to your faith be it unto you". Yet we often waiver in our faith, one day rock solid and the next as brittle as a dry leaf. We trust God for some things and not for others as if the situation matters to God. We Lean back and forth but Is there anything too hard for God?

Which way will you be leaning when Jesus comes? In Luke 17:5 the disciples asked 
⁵And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith. With all they saw and all they did while with Christ they still asked that their faith be increased. They all paid a price for their request, the only way to increase faith is to increase your trials, your tribulations and then stand still and see the salvation of God. Will Jesus find faith on earth when He returns? I pray so, but one thing I know, I will always strive to live as a man of true faith and trust in God no matter what the circumstance so that when He comes back he will at least find faith in me. Will He find faith in you?
                                               God bless you all, Brother Darrell, A Watchman
 P.S. If you want to read more about faith please read in the archive, "Where is your Faith? 1+2"