OBEDIENCE: A KEY TO THE KINGDOM!

Praise the Lord everybody!! Lift up your heads oh ye gates!! Be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of Glory shall come in!
I need you now more than ever Lord, come and quench this thirsting in my soul. As I am being purged of my impurities so that God can lift me up and use me in these last and evil days. No matter how much you think your living right, there is always something deep inside that God sees that He wants to expose and free you from, and if we let Him have his way in our lives He will purify us for His service.

Deuteronomy 24:1-7 states     And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the Lord thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth:

2 And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God.

3 Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field.

4 Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep.

5 Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store.

6 Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out.

7 The Lord shall cause thine enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before thy face: they shall come out against thee one way, and flee before thee seven ways.   

This scripture starts out saying if we would "hearken diligently" unto Gods voice and follow "all His commandments" that we will be blessed in all the ways written above. My desire is to be diligent in my quest to be fully obedient to God. This is no time for half measures, God is calling His soldiers up to the front lines and I am a soldier. An obedient soldier.

The more I search the scripture the more I realize how important holiness and obedience are to God, how important it is that His people separate themselves from the world. Paul said 2nd Corinthians 13:5  5 Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?

The time has come for us to examine ourselves, those of us who call ourselves "Christians" and men and woman of God, I know I am. Jesus said in Matthew 7: 21    1 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

There it is again, the importance of being obedient to God's will. There will be many who think they are getting into Heaven who are going to be greatly disappointed. Jesus said in verses 22+23  22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?

23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.   

I do not want to be one of the disappointed, so I examine myself every day and I seek His voice and guidance in all I do and when He speaks I not only listen but I do my best to be obedient. I wish I could say I was always obedient but I'm trying and God is not through with me yet.
        God Bless You All, Brother Darrell, Speaking Off The Wall

THERE'S BEING CHRISTIAN, AND THEN THERE'S HOLINESS: STEP UP YOUR "GAME"

Praise the Lord everybody!! because He alone is worthy to be praised!!He is Alpha and Omega, the author and finisher of our faith and I love Him. As much as I love him I know He loves me more. God has blessed me with many gifts and has invested a lot of time in me and He has seen, in my eyes, very little return on His investment up to this point. Yet He still loves me and cares for me. I am determined that for whatever time I have left, to put my gifts and my life to good use at whatever He asks me to do. Paul said in Romans 12: 1+ 2       I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

One of the key words in this scripture is "holy", holy, acceptable unto God. A lot of times we come to God in our "mess", unrepentant, and we expect Him to bless us and our mess(our sin).
Look around you and then look at yourself and then ask yourself, "how many truly holy living people do I know?" Uncompromising, Holy Ghost filled and living everything they know by faith people. The answer for me is very few, but According to everything I've read in the scriptures this is what God expects from His people.

 First Peter  1: 15+16 states 15 But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation;

16 Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.    

The dictionary says living holy means   Living or undertaken with highly moral or spiritual purpose; saintly: a holy person; a holy way of life. After contemplating on this a while, I began to realize that I had better step up my game if I want to make it in. My gifts mean nothing unless I use them in a holy way. there are well over 500 scriptures that mention the word holy the term Christian is only mentioned three times in the Bible. There are a lot of people going around claiming to be Christians but how many would dare to claim that they are holy men and woman of God? very few, yet it is obvious that this is what is required of us.

  1st Peter 2:9 states    9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light;

I'm not trying to burst anybodies bubble but there is being Christian and then there is Holiness, and it is we who have set the tone. With all our compromising and inability to stand up to temptation and our secret sins we have brought forth a sort of Gospel light where "it's all good" as long as we do it with love. Peter was not preaching "Gospel light" neither was Paul or any of the Apostles, just ask Ananias and Sapphira ( Acts Chapter 5).

When you are trying to live holy you will be talked about, called a legalest, a fanatic, a zealot and a religious nut, mostly because people prefer to pull you down rather than climb up to you, just ask Nehemiah. All I have to do is think of Hebrews 12:14    14 Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:

I want to see the Lord in the beauty of Holiness one day and if that means stepping up my "game" so to speak, then so be it.

    God Bless You All, Brother Darrell, Speaking Off The Wall

IT'S ME OH LORD: MY OWN STUMBLING BLOCK!!

Praise the Lord everybody!! Because He alone is worthy to be praised. I can't thank God enough for what He's doing in my life, how He's shown me another level of prayer, shown me another level of obedience, another way of seeing things and another way of doing things. The reason I say "He has shown me" is because all God can do is show us the way but it is up to us to follow His lead.
God has equipped me for the journey but it is I who must still walk the path.
In my last post I wrote about obeying God on another level and I must be obedient right now and write about what God Has been dealing with me about these last few days. I was sitting around thinking about my old football playing days in high school and college, how much I loved the game and how different my life would have been Had I not gotten injured in my senior year in High School. I kept going over it and over it in my mind until God began to remind me of what really happened.

He reminded me of how I walked away from my college football career because I was not willing to pay the physical price it took to continue. Of course He was right, I began to look back over my life, my life before Christ that is. Not long after I quit football my sister and I started writing songs together and producing demo records, before long we started our own production company, things were going pretty good until we ran into some financial problems concerning studio time. I walked away from the music business to go in to nursing school, telling myself that the extra income would help us meet our expenses until we had our first hit song. Needless to say I never went back to the music business and despite a successful nursing career I never reached my full potential in nursing because of drug addiction and then physical disability.

I began to feel sad about all the things I did not accomplish over my life, all the missed opportunities but God said not to look back at what I didn't accomplish but look forward to what I still can accomplish. These two scriptures were brought to mind, Philippians 3:13-14   13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. And,
1st Corinthians 9:24    24 Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. 

I have decided to not only finish this Christian race but to run a race worthy of winning a prize, verse 25 states  25 And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.

There are so many blessings that God had prepared for me that I blew because I pulled up lame as I came down the home stretch, too many to cover in this post. I am more determined now than ever to  not only to run but to endure to the end. Just as it says in God's word, 2nd Timothy 2:3,4         3 Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
4 No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. 

I had forgotten that we are all soldiers in God's army and I had to revisit one of my early blog post titled "I am a soldier"(check archives). Also it says in James 1:12    12 Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.
This world is full of temptation, one of those temptations for me according to my history is to give up when the pain or the task becomes to tough on my flesh. Then I think about Jesus, Paul writes in Hebrews 12:1+2         Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,

2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

If Jesus can endure the cross for our sins then why can't I endure a few trials, tribulations and temptations for His name sake. I am a soldier and I will endure until He comes or calls me home. No taking down, No turning back.

        God Bless You All, Brother Darrell, Speaking Off The Wall