Tag Archives: I Love You

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Humility Under Fire

Have you ever been under fire? There is a gun ship in the military that “brings the rain,” to those on the ground. This is what is happening in your life. You are attacked non stop until you look like Swiss Cheese. Even though its unwarranted, when it goes and comes through your life you’re left devastated, but it makes you reflect over your life. It makes you think about what you have done. Things happen in our life, and the first person we blame is God. “Lord why did you allow this to happen to me? Am I not Your child? Lord why me? I can think of quite a few people on my list who need this, but I don’t need this.” We come out and we have issues. But can you be humble? Can you be humble when someone is sticking you with a pitch fork, or talking about your mother?

The Word of God tells us about humility while under fire. Its hard to love someone when they’re choking your neck. Then you have to look at them an say “I love you in spite of yourself.” But humility, when you’re going through a process in your life of growth, can you be humble, submissive, genuinely honest with yourself and say ‘I understand I will be humble”? Humble and fire; you just can’t put those two together; they are like oil and water, they just don’t mix. Can you remove yourself out of the picture and be understanding to someone else and be humble? Most of the time we can’t because we’re looking at the way they are hurting us. You remember the old saying about sticks and stones? Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.

Hurting on the outside on your flesh is temporary, its for a moment for the physical pain. Take an aspirin or midol and the pain is over. But when you hurt me with words, they cut and leave scars you can’t see on the inside. These scars don’t heal. They don’t heal do they? No they don’t. When you cut on the inside, you leave a mark that only I can see. A lot of times people they leave a mark that only you know about. They say one thing, but do another and you say, “I thought you cared, I thought you loved me, I was under the impression. When you said it before it meant something else. Do you care about how I feel. No, because if you did, you would never have put that scare within me. So all of this time you lied?” Its amazing to me that people allow their lives to be controlled by a lie from youth to now and never got over it. Just because someone calls you something doesn’t make it so, you make it so because you begin to act as so. We look at our lives and say “I am not what so and so said I am.” Then we question ourselves and and ask “am I?”

We justify that scar within us. We do just what a clam does. What does it do when it gets a spec of sand within? It builds up a shield over it, a slimy shield that gets hard over and over until it rises up, so when they go over it, they won’ t feel the pain of a little grain, but now they have the pain of a pea. This is what we do on the inside, covering it up over and over, thinking that this will justify and make us worthy. You don’t need anyone to validate you. You, are you. Validation only brings accreditation to the person giving it. But if the accreditation isn’t good, neither is the validation. You say, I’ll drown myself in alcohol. I’ll takes drugs that will help me forget. It never helps you forget, it makes a bad situation worse. Now you have drug addiction added to the bunch. Every layer you’ve covered that scar tissue up with, you have to pay for it, and go over it.

Humility under fire, that moment when you thought you’d fight back and say, ok. So what is taking place in your life? God is watching every move you make and trial your take. He’s seeing you in that trial. When people go through grief recovery or anything like that, they have to talk it out or write it out and say if they have a problem with someone. Then what are you going to do with it? But I just gave you all my problems, now you have them. You’re wondering why you got on his nerve? Can you look at someone and say “I’m sorry for the way I treated you?” Nothing can come at you unless you allow it to come at you. Nothing can get on your nerves unless it gets on your nerves. Things only bother you because you allow them to. Some people set time bombs in your soul then leave because at a certain time it will explode. They’ve been gone for a whole week and your suffering and they aren’t even around. You’re sitting there struggling, getting mad with yourself for getting mad at them. People set things in your soul to distract you from your course. If I keep you lingering and wondering and wondering and lingering over things guess what? How many hours in a day? 24? So if I get you to spend 15 of your hours thinking about what I just did to you and i’m not in the picture, whose life am I wasting? They aren’t there, and you are struggling. Satan does it all the time to us and we love it. He gives us things to muddle over in our brain. One person comes through and says I don’t like you?  You’re struggling on that, at home, on your job, everywhere you go you’re struggling on that. Meanwhile your soul is getting beat up. Who’s beating up your soul? You are! That is a time bomb they set in your soul.

People have ways of doing things to you that you don’t want to see or know. People drop stuff in your life to destroy you to make you think less of yourself. They make you unsure of yourself, they don’t give you the opportunity or growth to grow. They stunt your growth at an early age. Parents do that with kids at an early age saying “you’ll never amount to nothing.” So your pursuit is to amount to make them wrong, but it hurts you to your core. We all know what nothing is right? If they say you’ll amount to nothing, then where is all the love they gave to you going? To nothing? You don’t wast love on nothing. “So who am I,” the little kid thinks? So the little kid grows up to be nothing. You know how many people are in prison because their parents put them in there? Some people spend all of their life trying to prove to their parents they were wrong about them being nothing. So what do they wind up doing? Theft, mugging, violence; and its all because of their parents. He gets his parents attention, and is now in prison, but the parents say I love my child, I love I love.

Can you still have humility under fire? Humble: to have less pride, or none at all. Low; down to the earth low. To be subdued. To be submissive.

Does that mean let people walk over you? No. Not wanting to have the last word out of everything. Not wanting to have the last word. What does that mean? Do you want to have the last word? Because if I give you the last word, you have to think about it. They got the last word. How often do you have the last word? Then the word comes, the one we don’t want to hear “you no good…” We brought that on ourselves, we chased it down. There is no humility in the person who wants the last word. You argue, you argue, you argue, you argue…arguing is someone trying to get the last word. Not just the last word, but the last hurting word. How many can be big enough to say “alright you can have the last word,” and then turn around and say I love you? It hurts the other person. Christ did it for me. So we can do it too. We bring a lot of undue fire in our walk with Christ because we want to get the last word. Do you try to have the last word with Christ? How many can just apologize to that person and say I still love you? We can’t do that, we have to bring out the big guns and fire, emptying the first magazine, then when all the clips are emptied, we bring out another set of guns!

Jonah – Lets go back to that wonderful hot summer when Jonah was sitting under a gourd tree. The Lord told him to go down to Nineveh and tell them to repent. But Jonah said, but Lord those people are evil and bad. God could have continued on with the conversation, but He let Jonah go on. How many are big enough to say “but” to God? You tell God, “but,” and He’s the one who made you! Everything that is He made. But then you tell Him no! This is the same God who put a big ball of fire in space, and have planets orbiting around it. When is the last time you put up a couple planets up in space, and you give Him a but? He is so humble and says “Have it your way.” Now when He has a purpose for you to do, then He will be after you. Like Jonah. Jonah just went and waited thinking the Lord would destroy the Ninevites. You have to be humble in your walk, even when people dislike you and treat you bad, look at them with an eye of love. That’s humble, and by you doing that you win their heart and soul back. One major thing we look for, we look for things to happen instantaneously. We say to the Lord, “You said that You would curse those I curse.” While the Lord is thinking, “why can’t you say something like bless them to help them see what you see?” Everyone is going through their own test to different degrees. You have to realize this, don’t judge another man’s test with yours. When you fail a test, you go through it again, and it becomes harder because you knew better. When you see someone go through their own walk and trail, don’t judge them. If you make fun of them, then you get home and wonder why you feel bad.

1 Peter 4:12-19

Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men’s matters. Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf. For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.

Don’t think it strange that you go through because if you’re trying to find out who God is, you’ll go through! If you know who God is, you’ll go through. You’ll always go through. You know what’s important about the test? Its not so much getting through the test that matters, but its your attitude during it. Are you complaining about the test, like the Children of Israel on their 40 year journey that could have been a 2 day journey? How soon we forget when we were in a situation how Christ delivered us from it. Being out of it we’re complaining. When you were in it you loved God going through your motions. When you got done with the test you say “Jesus? Jesus who, Jesus what?” As soon as we go back into another test what do we do? We cry out to Him. We don’t feel close to Him unless we’re going through something. When you were going through, you were all on the floor, you were foaming at the mouth seeking God. When you go through tests, you know you makes vows to the Lord, then when the test is over you go back to your old ways. Why because you have no humility. Going through a trial when you’re under fire, knowing that there is purpose in the trial for God to take a bad quality out of you.

The biggest thing we don’t know how to do is forgive other people. You have to forgive totally, not a surface forgive, forgive totally. Its a hard thing to walk in your own self righteousness. Do you have a heaven or hell to put people in? We need to look in the mirror and talk to ourselves. Healing starts. How can you be healed when you still have something inside against someone else? You ask “Lord restore me.” How can He when you don’t have enough love to restore your brother or sister? You are your brother’s keeper. Can you be the bigger person and say I apologize, I should have thought of you more than that, forgive me? Guess what? That bridge is repaired and that connection is repaired. If you are claiming the blame, the whom do they have left to blame? Now if they’re still arguing then they’re arguing with themselves.

While you’re walking through a trial, its your attitude during the trail. If you’re attitude is to get back at a person while you’re in a trial, you’ll repeat it. That could determine whether you go to heaven on hell. If you haven’t gotten salvation the right way, you have to get it right.

Matthew 18:3-4

And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

You may have to eat crow sometimes to be humble, eat it with a smile and with dignity. You can be humble with dignity.

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Weigh it Before You Say it Part 2

1 John 4:1-5

Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them.

Everyone who calls themselves a Christian is not always a Christian. Just because they wear the implements of the house doesn’t make them a part of the house. Just because someone comes into your house and sits in your chair doesn’t make them a part of your house. Just because someone comes into the Church, doesn’t make them a Christian. Just because a person says they love Jesus, but doesn’t show it, doesn’t mean they are a Christian. People always say I love the “Lord,” or “I Love God,” or “The Spirit of God.” They never mention the name Jesus. He is the One that died for you, not God, not His spirit.

No one can say that they love the Holy Ghost or Jesus when they don’t have a personal relationship. What is a personal relationship? You walk together, you eat together, you cry together, you pray together, when you wake up in the morning you say Jesus, when you get in the car and go somewhere you say “Lord watch over me.” You have to have a relationship with that individual before you can claim to be of that individual. It’s the same thing with Christ. You have to have a relationship with Him before you can call Him your Christ, Lord, friend, confidant, comforter…if you don’t have a relationship, you don’t have the right to call Him your Saviour. So when people go around saying I love Jesus, and their fruit is not good…then you know one thing, they don’t have a personal relationship with Him. If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, what is it? A duck. If a person says they’re a Child of God and does everything like the world, then are they a Christian? If you don’t have a relationship with Him, you shouldn’t call…you remember Peter? The Lord looked at Peter and said before the cock crowed twice, you’ll deny Me thrice. Peter walked with Him, prayed with Him, ate with Him, confided in Him, Peter had a relationship with Him and still denied Him. So if Peter had a relationship, and you don’t, who are you? If you forget everything else I say, remember this: you must have a relationship. No relationship, no Jesus. If you are a Child of the King, its how you handle yourself. People know you by your Father’s scent…His clothing…His heart. By your heart being the same as His, people will want to be around you, because they want His heart, but they sometimes go the back way to get His heart. They stand behind Jesus and say “I love You,” rather than face Him head on. This is how they claim they’re a Child of God. They are no different from others that want to be a part of something, but not connected to it. So what did Peter say when the girl kept saying she saw Him with Jesus? He denied Him. It’s important that we realize one thing, that we need to know to build a relationship. You can accept Him, but once you do, you must build a relationship so you can hear His voice. His sheep hear His voice, and a stranger they won’t follow. He wants us to realize that He only hears the voice of His children. If you hear a baby crying, do you go and find out about the child? No, you hope that the child’s parents do.

When you speak something out of your mouth, make sure there is some commitment behind it. Don’t say I’m going to do this, so help me God. You just swore and lied all at once. Before something comes out of your mouth weigh it. Make sure you can fulfill the agreement. Your tongue signs contracts all day long, but never fulfills them. We make a contract with Christ all the time saying “Yes, I will do what You want.” And when He tells us, we say “That will be kind of hard.” He says go and apologize to the person you hurt, and we say “that will be hard.” Why is it so hard? Because we’ve said everything under the sun about that individual, everything but their name. We do these things because we’re guilty. That is why before you say something out of your mouth, make sure you weigh it. A kind word turns away wrath. As Christians, our moto should be weigh it before you say it.

Colossians 4:5-6

Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time. Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.

Weigh it before you say it as pertains to making an agreement or contract or vow to the Lord.

Ecclesiastes 5: 1-7

Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil. Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few. For a dream cometh through the multitude of business; and a fool’s voice is known by multitude of words. 

This is an awesome saying. Keep your mouth when you get into the house of God, If you don’t have anything good to say don’t say anything at all. You talk nice to people, and entreat them with love.

Ecclesiastes 5:4

When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed. 

You have to realize one thing, people don’t pay their bills, that is why we have bill collectors. There is no overstretched pay with the Lord, He gives a heavenly discount. If you make a vow to the Lord, you’d better pay it. I’m going to wait to hear from you before I do this. You’d better wait to hear from Him. Most people make vows to the Lord and don’t fulfill them. Then pay up time comes up, and we try to get out of it.

Ecclesiastics 5:6-7

Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay. Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin; neither say thou before the angel, that it was an error: wherefore should God be angry at thy voice, and destroy the work of thine hands? For in the multitude of dreams and many words there are also divers vanities: but fear thou God.

Don’t let your mouth make a contract that your behind can’t pay. If you can’t do something, don’t agree to it. Don’t say something you can’t fulfill. Be very cautious with whatever comes out your mouth.