Beware of unnecessary distractions as the Lord promotes. I have to remind myself as I have just recently released a book not to take my focus off of God’s assignment for me. Over-busy schedules, and unfounded judgments from others are two of the major things that Satan uses to distract us from what we are to focus on as God promotes us.

I learned from an older woman early on not to just take on every engagement offered to me, but to let a person know that I will get back to them and let them know after I have prayed and thought about it. Why? Because every engagement may not be conducive for what God is doing in that moment of my life. This does not mean that God will give me a yay and nay for every engagement. It just means that I will consider some things first.

For example, Is my schedule already flowing at a healthy pace where I have ample time to seek the Lord, remain faithful to my assignments, and still get enough rest to maintain who I am. If that is a no, then I know not to take on anymore engagements until the priority of my personal health and wholeness in Christ and my own personal life is secure.

God is not calling us to over do it, but to remain balanced in him as we go up higher. It is easy for people being promoted into their destinies to become overwhelmed seeking the favor of people instead of counting up the cost, and seeking to remain in tune with God’s specific assignment over their lives.

The more that we are promoted, the more responsibility that we have to give an account for, and it would be wise to count the cost in order to complete the assignment that God has given us. Sometimes, that will mean saying no to the agendas of others around us, and that is okay.

28 “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? 29 For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, 30 saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’

Another way that Satan distracts our focus from Christ is to place our focus on people in a manner where we feel as though we have to defend ourselves. The reality is that some people will always have something negative to say. Everything great will have opposition, we have to simply realize that and keep our focus set.

We have to be mature enough in those situations to continue to walk in love and be led by the Spirit. The below scriptures are helpful in situations where we may be tempted to defend ourselves:

A servant of the Lord must not quarrel but must be kind to everyone, be able to teach, and be patient with difficult people. 2 Timothy 2:24 (NLT)”

Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? 14 But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, 15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, 16 having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. 17 For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil. 1 Peter 3:8-17 (ESV)”

Recently, I watched the taping of the interview that Devon Franklin and his wife Meagan Good did with Toure’ Roberts for Valentine ’s Day. During the interview, there was a question and answer session. A woman skated around the issue of when Meagan Good had worn a dress to the Soul Train Awards show that revealed large parts of her breast.
Finally, the woman spoke with such condescending judgement and strife that even if what she was trying to say was right, it would not be well received. Her words went something like this: I was in the store and I saw a magazine cover where your breast were out, and I just think that what we say should match up with what we do, and therefore, “You are going to cover up next time right?”

The audience became upset and Devon quickly came to his wife’s defense saying, “That she is going to wear whatever she wants to wear.” Meagan was clearly hurt, and shed a few tears, but the conversation eventually moved on.

Three things:
There is a way to communicate our convictions in a non-condescending and a non-judgmental way. It should always be done in love.

We are at different levels of maturity and grace in God, which means where one person is in their convictions it may be totally different than another person’s and that person still deserves mutual grace, love, and respect even if we disagree.

Thirdly, we are not to take the place of the Holy-Spirit, who convicts men of sin and wrong doing. God doesn’t even force men to obey him. He places on our hearts his word and gives us a choice to obey or disobey. If God does not seek to control us then we ought not seek to control one another, but to submit those things to God in prayer that we are tempted to control another on.

The above can be a hard lesson which takes discipline, but it can be done.

See the video below:

Last week we talked about an older man in his 80s who struggled with self-hate for years growing up under segregation, and how he carried the ideas of self-hate even after integration began to take place. I asked an older woman who is 75 years old for her response to the older gentleman, and how the ideas of self-hate and racism affected her as a woman growing up.

She recalled the familiar poem that kids would chant about the skin tone that went something like if you are “light you are alright, brown stay around, and black get to the back.” She shared that for some time she did not notice a difference in color, but the older Afro-Americans did. According to my friend, the older adults had the ideal of inferiority ingrained into them. Once, her generation came up, she described that the way that she saw herself was contingent upon the support system that she had.

Her surrounding community was protective of how she saw herself. She told a brief story of how as a child she was coloring in a coloring book and decided to color a Black woman’s hair blonde. Her dad quickly corrected her sharing that blonde was not a natural hair color for an African-American woman, and that she needed to color the woman’s hair something different. He wanted to protect her from the idea that what was White or light was better, and what was darker or closer to Black was bad.

He did a good job along with her mother. The woman grew up to marry a man who was a Black militant brother similar to the Black Panthers of the 1960s and 1970s. She has told me a few stories about her hubby and his passion to promote his people. Clearly, she became surrounded by African-Americans who took pride in who they were and in their culture. She also mentioned a positive teacher of hers who would ingrain an attitude of unity among Afro-Americans instead of division regarding shade of skin tone. The teacher would say that Afro-Americans were a rainbow of beauty over and over again reminding the students to appreciate their worth.

Thankfully, all of these positive affects helped my older woman friend to see herself in a manner that was healthy for both her and others around her. One thing that I have learned in my dealings with some older Afro-Americans who still carry an inferiority complex due to their skin-tone is they may just need a little help from the younger generation to cause them to accept themselves.

I think it is interesting how the last two New Year’s blogs were prophetic in a sense of what God was doing in me within the new year. 2014’s New Year’s blog focused on me making some choices to be more deliberate on practicing the discipline of obeying God immediately when he shows me that a relationship is not for me. Also, discipline concerning various struggles that I had dealt with. It is amazing how during that year I was tested for the last time in those areas that I needed to apply discipline in and I passed those tests.

2015’s New Year’s blog focused on matters of the heart, and re-centering and refocusing my heart on the Lord for 2015. God did just that in 2015. He brought up various things that were in my heart that I did not even know were there. Some of it was just simply embarrassing. But God’s grace, mercy, and love got my heart where he wanted it to be.

2015 has been a year of positioning where God strategically placed me in position to receive the things that he has promised me for 2016. One of the main things that the Lord spoke over me in prayer at the beginning of 2015 was the word, “Stability”. God brought about stability to various things in my life such as perspectives, and fears that I had.

Last night, we had the Young Adult Encouragement Group at my house, and I shared with the attendees how each year I would go through something new that tested my faith and caused me to fear if I would be able to continue on. Especially at the beginning of 2015 there was one test, and trial after the next. I felt like my strength was on no go mode, but what the Lord showed me that he was doing was amazing.

He kept bringing the below scripture up in my spirit:

It is God who arms me with strength
and keeps my way secure.
He makes my feet like the feet of a deer;
he causes me to stand on the heights. Psalms 18:32-33

God was showing me that he was making my feet like dears feet. I would always read that in the Bible and ask myself what that meant. Well this year, God decided to show me what that meant. I happened to stumble upon a commentary as I was researching this scripture and it described how the feet of certain deers are designed specifically by God to be swift in escaping their enemies as well as escaping harm. What ministered to me most regarding the above scriptures is the pictures that I found that show deers on the heights of mountains that are just chillin unafraid of falling or any such thing.

They were not afraid because they had been specifically designed and trained by God to trust how he made them, and because it is the Lord who holds them up. What an amazing revelation to have as God takes us higher in this new year. That we do not have to fall from where God is taking us, and that God was thoughtful enough to take a whole year to prepare us through trial and tribulation to trust him more.

This was confirmed to me by one of the elders at my church who prophesied the same thing over me after God had dealt with me about this.

Finally, there is a scripture that keeps coming up in my personal prayer time for 2016 is the below scripture:

The blessing of the Lord makes rich and adds no sorrow with it. Proverbs 10:22

Therefore, I am continually declaring this over my life for this year. I have an expectation for this year that many of the prayers that I have prayed and things that I have been believing God for will come to pass and there will be no additional sorrow added with it. This has been the plan of the Lord for my life, and he is surely bringing it to pass. God’s got us. We just have to continue to trust and follow him. What is the Lord showing you for the New Year? Have you taken the time to get before him and seek his face?

                     Happy New Years 2016!

Right now, I am intoxicated with the author of a particular book. This book describes the ideal of intimacy so well. It is a book of discovery where the author consistently explains who he is, and he reminds the reader who she is letting her know how precious she is to him.

Some excerpts from the book:

But now, this is what the Lord says–
he who created you, Jacob,
he who formed you, Israel:
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name; you are mine. Isaiah 43:1

For I am the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior;
I give Egypt for your ransom,
Cush[a] and Seba in your stead.
Since you are precious and honored in my sight,
and because I love you,
I will give people in exchange for you,
nations in exchange for your life. Isaiah 43:3-4

The above scriptures remind me of when I was first getting to know the Lord as a teenager. When people would come up to me and pray for me in church they would always say, “God is saying that you are mine.” “I got you.” It was during this season, that I was beginning to learn who God was and what I meant to him.

As a young person and still today, I have had to go through many trials and tribulations that has caused me to learn God in a greater way. It is through the storms and trials of life that we see who God is. That is when God reveals his strength to us and often his will for us. If we read Isaiah over and over again, God is telling his people “I am God and there is no other.” “I am God and without me you can do nothing.” “I am God and there is none besides me.” In other words, God was making it very clear to his people that if they look to idols or anything else they could find no one as good as him. God is it! God is the top notch! It doesn’t get any better than him!

It is interesting though that despite God revealing these things to us, our human nature leans to idols, sin, and things that appeal to our senses. We want something to touch, to make us feel the security that only the Lord can give, yet God is patient and reveals himself to us again and again.

It is through this type of intimacy with God that he reveals who he is, and who we are, and finally how much we mean to him.

Many people don’t realize that God is more than commandments and rules. They limit their view of God to popular opinion. God is more than do this and don’t do that. He is actually the God who created romance.

One definition of romance is a feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love. Why not have a life-long relationship with the Lord that is full of the excitement of God revealing himself to us? We don’t have to wait until we are in love with a person to experience intimacy or closeness to someone, to experience the unraveling of getting to know someone special in a class of his own. We can experience that in our personal relationship with Jesus Christ. He provides everything that we could ever want in a relationship:

1. Security – The idea that we are completely covered and taken care of.
   
2. Trust – Trustworthiness, no worries with God.
   
3. Knowledge of ourselves – In Christ we learn who we are. God confirms to us who we are.
   
4. Commitment/Covenant – We are in covenant with Christ
   
5. Intimacy – A closeness unique to those involved.
   

The idea is not to discredit relationships, but to encourage intimacy with God over a desire for a relationship. It is this basis that will ground us as single believers for the appropriate relationship because Christ will have shown us through our relationship with him how we are to be treated.

We are the bride of Christ collectively as a whole. That includes both men and women. We have been pursued, sought after, and thoughtfully made to feel secure in Christ. In this God boasts and has the right to do so because the idols that we chase are not enough. Only Christ is.

The world requires a man to woo a woman with flowers and candy, but Christ requires a man to woo his wife with such love that he is willing to give his life for her as Christ, our example gave his life for us.

Let’s not get caught up in romanticizing about romance that doesn’t even meet God’s standard and get caught up in God himself the creator of true romance. Let’s allow God to address all of our insecurities as singles with his great love for us as he reminds us that we have been chosen by him specifically by name and we are loved.

God has a history of going to great lengths to make clear to man just how much he loves us. Lately, I’ve been meditating on the love of God as I’ve been feeling his love on me literally. I woke up the other morning and felt engulfed in the love of God and began to just read up on some scriptures that contain the word love. Here are a few things that I noted about the love of God.

God’s love is not contingent upon how good we are. The love of God is unconditional. He stays committed to us even despite our imperfections.

God first laid out his commitment to man by demonstrating his love for us in the fact that he gave up his life for us. Similar to marriage, those who know the word of God know that marriage is a direct depiction and demonstration of God’s love for man with God being so committed to us that he has tied himself to us for life through the covenant that we have with him because of the death and resurrection of his son. Unbreakable is the bond of love that God has for us. It will never allow him to give up on us.

He further demonstrates his commitment by asking one of his servants who was a prophet Hosea to marry a woman who would be unfaithful to him. This woman was a whore. God’s purpose in asking Hosea this was to demonstrate his love for us, man-kind, by this example which shows that even though the whorish woman was imperfect she was still worthy enough to become Hosea’s wife simply because of a decision that was made. God made a simple decision a long time ago to love us his people and that will never change.

Hosea 3:1 – Then said the Lord unto me, Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress, according to the love of the Lord toward the children of Israel, who look to other gods, and love flagons.KJV

Love endures all. It does not leave nor quit. That’s God’s love. He is love. He does not run when things get hard, but shows himself to be of the utmost present. His word says that he is a very present help in the time of trouble (Psalms 46:1).

God’s love is relentless toward us:

Man’s heart has a tendency to stray from the Lord in the pride of doing our own thing and leaning to our own understanding. If we read Psalms 107, it repeatedly talks about God’s unfailing love toward us in that when we turn away from him and get lifted up in pride how God allows us to go through changes to the point of us getting to our lowest wits end. At that point, the scripture says that we cry to the Lord and he hears us and delivers us out of all of our troubles. It of course is speaking about the children of Israel when they were in the wilderness, but that was an example for us and our experience with God on this earth.Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for mankind, for he breaks down gates of bronze and cuts through bars of iron (Psalms 107:15).

.God’s love moves him to respond to our needs:

Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. John 11:5 Later, in verse 35 it says that Jesus wept. Jesus had to allow the process of his beloved friend Lazarus to die and his family to grieve for a number of days in order for God to be glorified and for man to know that Jesus could raise from the dead, but this process hurt Jesus to the point where he wept for his beloved friends because he had to watch the pain of them going through even though it was for their good. That’s what a good father or mother does. They allow their children to go through various circumstances for their learning and their good. If Lazarus had not of died, how would we know that Jesus is the resurrection.

And God so loved the world that he was moved to give up his son on behalf of those in the world. That would be us.

God’s love corrects and confirms us as his own:

Raise your hand if you ever got a whipping and afterward your parent said come here and give me a hug you know I only whipped you because I love you. Yep, that’s how God is. He corrects and chastises those whom he loves. Those who he has made an investment in through the death and resurrection of his son. God’s correction in our lives is a sign that we belong to him. If God whips you just say to yourself I am his. Somebody loves you baby! 🙂

My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, Nor detest His correction; For whom the Lord loves He corrects, Just as a father the son in whom he delights. Proverbs 3:11-12

Have you been convinced yet that God loves you, and that God’s love is enough for you no matter where you are at in life. He will go through great lengths to reach you, to keep you, deliver you, and to confirm you again and again as his own because he loves you.

So many out there run from God’s love and run to and fro looking for love among things, people, and relationships when God wants us to yes, enjoy godly relationships and connections, but he doesn’t want us to forget about the most important love, and that love is his love.

I am so very thankful for how God has been overshadowing me in his love and presence for this season of my life. I kind of feel like it is an answer to my prayers. I believe that God is preparing my husband for me soon, and before he comes, God wants me to know that his love was enough for me. He wants me to remember how he kept me as a single, and spoke words of affirmation over me. He wants me to remember how I felt safe in his embrace so that when my blessing from the Lord comes I will not idolize him.

God will blow our minds if we let him. If  we come to him and run to him instead of the world and the world’s way of doing things, we will see the miraculous and experience God’s love in undeniable ways. I pray that readers will began to notice things that the Lord does to show his love for us and the fact that he thinks about us. God has had man-kind on his mind way before he even created us, and that is why his son was slain before the foundation of the world. God’s love is real, consistent, and true, and we can rest in it. Amen.

The Confident woman!

A woman should have some healthy pride about herself. A healthy pride is a

godly confidence that comes from a woman knowing who she is in Christ. She

knows that she is loved, covered, valuable, and has purpose. All of these

things the godly woman learns and grows into despite the difficulties of her

background. The confident woman finds a place of rest, and peace under the

shadow of the Almighty God. She is covered. She knows that God’s very

shadow is enough. Enough to ward off any person with wrong intentions

covering and protecting her with strong and careful discernment. Her beauty is

carefully crafted by the best, coupled with her spirit of gracefulness just

glorious. Her beauty is used for God’s glory as God brags that’s my daughter.

Yep, I made her. Isn’t she beautiful both inside and out, and her graceful and

kind spirit points others back to me. I’m proud of my creation and in her I am

well pleased. That’s why I got her covered on every side because she is

committed to me. It’s easy for me to show myself strong in her life and,

although certain times in her life gets shaky, she still keeps her trust in me

. She knows it is impossible for me to disappoint her, and so she rests in who

I am, my protection, acceptance, and confirmation. She rests in confidence

because she knows I’ve got her. The secret chamber of her love is reserved for

someone strong who mirrors her God’s love. She isn’t taking just any man’s

hand, but only the man, God her heavenly  father has approved. She has a

healthy pride

and godly confidence. If you are a woman with a healthy pride and godly

confidence, purchase a t-shirt . Click the picture to visit the

t-shirt website.

As single women of God, we go through a lot. We are consistently faced with the feelings of being alone and rejection in lieu of our desires to love and to be loved. If we are not careful, we can allow our feelings to rob us out of our inheritance in Christ through devaluing ourselves.

Many women devalue themselves because of being tired of this struggle and give in to the pressure of settling for whatever comes her way. She loses those qualities that make her stand out to the spouse that God has for her taking on the identity of someone else instead. This isn’t God’s will for his daughters, but he gives us the unique strength to maintain who we are while realizing our value and worth along the way.

One of our most virtuous and sought after qualities that we carry as women being made into godly wives is our trustworthiness. I love how the King James version puts it below:

The heart of her husband does safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. Proverbs 31:11

In other words, a man with a virtuously trust worthy wife knows that he can go to work, out of town or wherever he has to go and have the peace to know that his wife will be faithful to him. Men of God hold that at high value and high prize. Some men have been so worried about this that they try to control their wives. Even worse, in some cultures of Africa women’s private area would be sewn up when the husband went to work, and un-sewn when he came home.

The fear of mistrust toward a bride is completely non-existent for the wise man who has been graced to get a virtuous woman of God. He finds a place of safety and rest in a trustworthy wife. He doesn’t have to wonder whether he has chosen the right one who will be faithful to him. He already knows that because a virtuous woman remains faithful to God during her season of singleness allowing herself to be made by the hand of God into the virtuous woman that the Bible speaks about.

Being single in a lot of ways is a process of being made to handle the maturity that comes with the marriage relationship. Romans puts hardship in this way:

Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character, and character, hope. Romans 5:3-4

There is a purpose in our suffering, that produces perseverance which is the ability to stick things out through the hard times even when the situation doesn’t change. Perseverance becomes a natural part of our character, and thus we walk straight into what it is that we were hoping for all along. God has to get us ready for the things that he has promised us. If only all singles male and female could get that revelation.

Ladies, we have to start knowing who we are and knowing our worth, so that when the enemy comes to us with lies saying that we will always be alone or rejected because we don’t put out and aren’t willing to compromise, we can respond with who we know we are encouraging ourselves in the Lord saying I am beautiful and I am trustworthy, and these qualities make me unique to the man that God has set aside for me. Not only that, but it’s through maintaining our identity in Christ that we can truly be ourselves, and maintain our God-given dignity.

Contentment is the key to overcoming covetousness. Jealousy and covetousness go hand in hand. Jealousy causes a person to be discontent with what she has and covetousness causes her to want what her sister has.

I was reading the below scripture and it just stood out to me that contentment is the key to overcoming covetousness:

Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as you have; for he hath said, I will never leave you, nor forsake you. Hebrews 13:25

If we can become content where we are, we can overcome covetousness, which is a very strong desire for something that God has not said belongs to us. Usually, we began becoming covetous through comparing ourselves with what someone else has, but we have to be content with the path that God has given us to walk. Covetousness can lead to being possessive and controlling over something that the Lord has not given us. James says it best.

You lust and desire to have. You kill and covet yet you do not have because you ask not and when you do ask it is only to consume your lusts. You adulterous or idolatrous people (James 4:1-3).

We cannot make idols out of our desires seeking only to gratify them. We have to seek God sincerely even when it means denying ourselves and saying no to the things that we want. Let’s allow our focus to be on being content where we are. Where we know God has called us instead of acquiring what we think we want

To sum up what we have learned and gone over in this series on sisterhood, the key points have been:

• The importance of sisterhood
• Understanding rejection as a root to jealousy, competition, and spite that often separates women
• Self-love as a foundation to prevent such things starting with learning our worth and acceptance from God first
• Applying that love and worth toward ourselves and projecting that love onto others including our sisters
• Recognizing jealousy, and an inappropriate response to the emotion of jealousy versus humility that requires work.
• Loving our sisters through hard times such as when liking the same guy
• Contentment with ourselves appreciating the unique things about us that make us who we are

 All of these things applied will help us to stand together as women of strength, love and dignity representing our God and maximizing our fullest potential as women. I hope everyone enjoyed this Series on Sisterhood as much as I did.Enjoy the finale video below:

Everybody is talking about the Supreme Court decision to make marriage legal between those of the same sex in all states within the United States of America trying to get a reaction from people and see if it will garner more support or resistance. Simply put, there are just some things that are right and some things that are wrong no matter who signs off on it saying that it is okay. A common parallel in this country is the dishonoring of marriage in general.

Quick foundation for the biblical purpose for marriage: The Biblical purpose for marriage is found in Ephesians 5 where marriage is called a mystery that is to reflect the relationship between Jesus Christ and the church (Those of us who follow Christ).

The scriptures plainly say that a man is to love his wife as Christ loves the church and gave himself for it, and the woman is to respect and submit to her husband as the church is to submit to Christ. Ephesians 5:25-32

Non-Christians who are straight will not have this understanding nor seek to reflect this in their pursuit of marriage. Just like gay people will not understand nor seek to reflect this either with man and man and woman and woman.

Simply put man and woman together were made in God’s image. Genesis 5:1-2

Therefore, there is no need for debate, convincing, questioning or any such thing. It is plainly laid out in scripture and in nature. Homosexuality goes a bit further because it goes against the very course of nature. A person doesn’t have to be a theologian to know that there is something wrong with homosexual relationships.

Straight people or Christians dishonor marriage when we walk in our selfish lusts practicing fornication or seeking marriage only to satisfy our selfish lusts and not seeking to honor God with our covenant. Also, when we get married and trade in our spouses for the next hot thing because our wives or husbands just don’t do it for us anymore. Or the man who is married to a woman, but beats the daylights out of her or the woman married to a man, but emasculates her husband.

All of these things dishonor marriage which represents covenant and love. God represents covenant and love. The Bible says that God is love and greater love has no man than this than that a man would lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13).

Although, we separate ourselves from God with sin, God calls us his friends. The story is told in the Bible of the woman who was caught in the very act of her sin. She was dishonoring marriage through adultery. The scribes and pharisees bought the woman to Jesus to accuse her, and Jesus’ response goes like this:

He that is without sin, let him cast the first stone. The scripture says that everyone left one by one putting down their stones. It was only Jesus and the woman left together and Jesus asked the woman where are your accusers. She said they are all gone. He said neither do I accuse you either, go and sin no more.

Jesus’ response declared all men under sin and in need of forgiveness. No one had the power to accuse the other. We are all alike at the very mercy of God. The whole point of this blog post is that we all fall short. We all do things that are not right even if it’s just an inappropriate thought. Jesus revealed himself not to accuse the world, but for those that would believe in him and come to him, they would have life and that more abundantly.

There is nothing too hard, or too big for God not to be able to handle. I am currently reading in the book of Isaiah and the below scriptures stand out to me:

Come now, let us settle the matter, says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good things of the land; but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.” For the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. Isaiah 1:18-20

In this particular chapter of Isaiah, God was upset because his people kept offering him sacrifices. Similar to what we do in America by praising God with the Hallelujahs, Thank you Jesus’, and glory to Gods. God was saying he doesn’t want that. He has more than enough of that. What he wants is to settle the matters in our lives that we are looking past as if they are okay. God doesn’t want to hear a thank you Jesus and we are in bed with the same sex, or a married man slapping his wife around and praising the Lord as if it is okay. God is saying no bump all that. Let’s settle this not with the Supreme court, not with the preacher or the Christian brother or sister that we look to in order to justify our sins, but with God himself the one who made us.

He is the one who has the power to forgive sins and to cause us to sin no more when we come to him in a manner of being willing to be obedient. He makes up for the rest of what we lack. That’s what grace is and that’s what real love is. It’s Jesus Christ and we all need him. Amen!