Victorious or Victim

We Christians often refer to ourselves as warriors for Christ or soldiers and that is true but there is a time for a soldier to fire and there are also times when a soldier should fall back!
When I was a child we used to sing a song in church "Victory, victory shall be mine! Victory, victory shall be mine! If I hold my peace and let the Lord fight my battles victory, victory shall be
mine!"  Isaiah 49:25-26 says For I will fight those who fight you and I will save your children I will feed your enemies with their own flesh. They will be drunk with rivers of their own blood. All the world will know that I, the Lord, am your Savior and Redeemer, the Mighty One of Israel." David even cried out, "Plead my cause, O LORD, with them that strive with me: fight against them that fight against me."in Psalm 35:1 and God delivered him.

The best way to misrepresent the Kingdom of the Most High is to get caught up in emotions and react to situations, circumstances and people instead we are to always be prepared to obey the Holy Spirit's leading and when we do so we find that the Holy Spirit is always proactionary never reactionary. Reactionary people predicate their response based on the actions of the person or situation, the power is then given to the other person or situation whereas proactionary people never base their response on what the other person does or the what situation is, the Holy Ghost never gives His power to the situation or the adversary but rather
bases His actions on the Word of God and wisdom. This keeps us from saying things that we later regret or flying into rages, getting into unnecessary altercations and thereby ruining our credibility
as well as hindering the work of love and patience that is in need of development in our lives.

II Corinthians 10:4 says, "For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God
to the pulling down of strong holds". This is why we need to put Luke 18:1 into practice,
And he spoke a parable to them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint; and Ephesians 6:12 reminds us that,"For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." When we fail to pray and crucify this flesh so that the Holy Spirit can have His way in us, even if we win the battle we could very well lose the war. Your battle is not so much against situations, circumstances or even other people. Your greatest and most important battle isn't even against flesh and blood, so lay aside your ego and surrender your pride at the feet of The Father and learn how to fall back and allow the Holy Spirit lead you into truth that will be the foundation of peace in your life. Yeah, you could give that nasty waitress a piece of your mind but why give her that kind of power? Let the word of your mouth and the meditation of your heart always be acceptable to Him who is your strength and your redeemer! And if people think that you're weak then they have just revealed their weakness and you need to be an example of righteousness to them regardless. You can either be victorious or a victim, it's up to you! The victorious are those who allow God to fight their battles instead of allowing pride to make them feel victimized and defensive. Remember, You are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. I John 4:4

Mocha Brown aka Koretta L. Allen is available for public speaking engagements especially pertaining to subjects of single parenthood, being single, women's empowerment through the word of God and much more. Mochababybrown@gmail.com. She can be heard each day on SoCal's own KPOZ Radio.

Practice Love, Practice Love, Practice Love: The Loveless, Apostate Church

I find some things about the church to be rather ironic and actually (dare I say it?) hypocritical. How can you in good conscience ever say that you are a Christian when love, your love for God and love for the things that He loves is not the motivation for everything that you do? It's nothing less than sheer lunacy! Now, make no mistake I am very well aware of the day and time in which we live. I have every reason to believe that we are living in the last days, like the tail end and it wouldn't surprise me one bit if Christ's return occurred in my lifetime. With that being said, Matthew 24:12 says, "Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold..."(NIV) so I truly understand the reason for the lack of love but I'm still irritated that it is such a major issue in of all places the Christian church.

A little over a year ago, I heard a message by Bishop George Bloomer regarding the things that would truly send one to hell. Basically he explains that the things that the Christian church often harps on of what will send a person to hell such as what a person wears and other legalistic, religious hang-ups may not lead to a thriving life in Christ but they will not cause you to enter into eternal damnation. But what he did say will definitely send a person to hell is how we treat other people i.e., how we love other people. The church has become so profoundly superficial in that all around the country preachers and pastors enter their platforms and pulpits and they fail to make reiterating and sharing the genuine love of the God that they claim to serve, a priority in what they preach. Bible teachers can expound in detail on the hermeneutical, exegesis of various scripture and yet they often fail in properly articulating to the church that the absence of love is the absence of God and if anything will send you to hell, the absence of God in anything you do no matter how well intentioned, will get you a one-way ticket there!

If you don't believe in hell then this post is not for you! If you are deluded into believing that your good works in and of themselves are what you need for you to spend eternity in the presence of the Lord. Believe it or not, people who have that unfortunate mentality are the very people who will stand before God in judgment and plead to Him about all of the good works that they've done and He will simply reply, "Depart from me you worker of iniquity, I don't know you!" (Matthew 7:23 paraphrased) Just thinking about being rejected like that hurts me to tears! Can you imagine going through the motions of feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, healing the sick, visiting the imprisoned, etc only to stand before the Father and be told that He doesn't even know you? The whole premise of Christianity is relationship with God. A loving, healthy, Father/child relationship with the Most High God! That was His reason for even creating humankind in the first place. Your motives for doing whatever you do no matter what it is, will be the deciding factor as to whether you will be blessed to spend eternity with God or eternity in hell. I know that it is not popular to talk about hell but it is a reality whether you acknowledge that it is or not. If you don't have love for God then don't bother doing all of these wonderful things for people. Some people are all too busy trying to redeem themselves in the eyes of people without realizing that the only thing that really matters is the redemption of God. You've already been redeemed in the eyes of the Father and once you accept and receive His love then what anyone else feels or thinks about you is irrelevant.

Okay enough about hell for now and back to the issue of the loveless, apostate church where love and compassion are faked in order to appear Christ-like and godly. Your church has missions overseas and across the country but there are people attending your church who are going home to empty cupboards, pantries and refrigerators. There are people sitting next to you that are hungry, homeless and without their basic needs met and the church is suppose to be there meeting the needs of the people but they preach and dance and shout to a good message that no one will remember all supposedly in the name of Jesus and those same hungry, homeless, needy people will leave the same way that they entered because it's all a show!!! I am realizing more and more that anytime that you can feed the hungry overseas but there are hungry people down the street from your church, that something is seriously wrong! Please don't misunderstand, I believe that we need to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and meet the needs of the poor and needy all over the world but what good does it do if we neglect to bless those in our own "backyard"?

I went off on this "practice love" trip after one of the prominent people that I have been following on Twitter tweeted about the need to practice love to everyone, everywhere and it blew my mind that this Buddhist has grasped as a mantra the whole concept of Christianity and what really ticked me off was the fact that if this Buddhist who is a generous philanthropist and charitable giver can grasp that concept then what's wrong with the church? Then he went on to say that he is trying to teach one of his children to practice love! That really bowled me over because I don't know too many Christians anymore who proactively teach their children to practice love, in fact some of the worst and rudest children are church kids. But a weak or even a new Christian may have seen this Buddhist tweet that and then after reviewing his acts of charity and philanthropy in comparison to the church be persuaded to believe that either Buddhist are more faithful in conveying true love than Christians or they adopt the erroneous concept of there being more than one way to heaven and thereby multiple ways outside of Christ to get to God. I know better so I wasn't shaken from that standpoint, but I am tripping on this mega-church, televangelist concept of Christianity that some times preaches love but you can't see the manifestation of that love in the local community. Before Jesus went back to glory He told the disciples that they (and we) would do greater works and this was more than likely because He was multiplying Himself through them and us so that we would be able to feed the hungry, heal the sick and meet the needs of the needy in a greater capacity because the effect of the Gospel has multiplied itself by the millions so there should be fewer people in need. Let me be clear, the church (not just mega-churches) has become a selfish, elitist social club of people who believe that they have it all figured out and that they have arrived and I am fully aware that Jesus told Judas when he became upset with Jesus over the woman who washed Jesus' feet with the expensive oil that we would always have poor people among us and yet this does not exonerate the church from it's responsibility to the poor and especially the poor who are living locally. This ignorant selfish, social club mentality has created a culture of celebrity within the church that exalts the people and their pulpit and in some cases, on-camera personas over the bare bones truth and expression of the Gospel which is LOVE! So people have been lulled into this obscene false sense of absolution because these preachers and pastors are successful fundraisers, so churchgoers believe that because they give tithes and offering that they needn't do much else because the ministry is reaching out to people on their behalf. Meanwhile they are sitting just a few pews a way from people who are hurting and are losing their homes, don't have food to eat or a place to sleep but it's okay to overlook them because it's obvious that they don't have enough faith to make them rich and prosperous so the church owes them nothing but a good God bless you and a half-hearted "Jesus loves You"! What a fallacy and just an outrageous lie! This is madness and once again, I am going to ask that the true Bride of Christ stand! Because the whore dressed in white who is calling herself the church does not accurately reflect the image of Christ but people are allowing her to call herself the Bride of Christ when they ought to know who she is by now!

I am hopeful because I have in recent months seen some ministries actually getting outside of the cliquish, four walls of their churches and into the communities to bless the people and serve God by serving the people that God has mandated us to love. Love is a mandate not a choice for the true Christian and that is love in word and in deed. Love will not allow you to look disdainfully upon a homeless family and not ask what you can do to help. Love will not allow you preach to people and not offer to meet their needs both physical and spiritual needs. Love for God, true love for God will not allow you to disobey the mandate to love everyone, everywhere! Christianity has been hijacked by a group of fraudulent people who have found it quite lucrative to preach and market themselves as Christians but they fail to stand the litmus test of what it truly means to love. I love the term "practice love" because sometimes loving everyone, everywhere does not come naturally or easily so it must come from the Holy Spirit within us and it has to be put into habitual practice so that it becomes apart of who we are and not just what we do! Just as God does not love, He is love; we must become love to a world that is hungry to see the love of God expressed through us.

I will repeat: The absence of love is the absence of God! God is love! Practice love! Practice love! Practice love!

Be abundantly blessed! Mediocrity hates greatness...be great and let the haters hate!

Mocha Brown aka Koretta L. Allen is available for public speaking engagements especially pertaining to subjects of single parenthood, being single, women's empowerment through the word of God and much more. Mochababybrown@gmail.com

Back In Effect

Wow...it's been practically more than a month. I have missed posting to The World of a Christian Single Mother. Get ready because we're about to go live! That's right Mocha Brown is taking this movement to the airwaves of internet radio. I'll post more details once all of the kinks have been worked out!

Anyway, Abba has had me reading, meditating and praying through the book of Isaiah and the books of Acts, Romans and Hebrews. I read two chapters of Isaiah in the morning and two chapters of Acts (done), Romans (just finished)and two chapters of Hebrews (starting tonight). I have learned over the past year just how important it is to pray scripture instead of just praying off the top of my head and out of whatever my flesh may feel at the time. Isaiah 55:11 says essentially that (paraphrasing), "the word of God will not return to Him void but will accomplish the very thing that He sent it out to accomplish." You can't go wrong when you pray the word of God! It's consistent, and the Father is bound by the honor of His name and has promised to fulfill His word time and time again. What more do you need? Sometimes when we pray we get too caught up in emotion and a lot of times because of how we "feel" we end up praying outside of God's will for our lives. Then we get frustrated with praying and then we stop praying altogether because we feel that our prayers aren't being answered. Isaiah 45:23 says, "I have sworn by Myself, The word has gone forth from My mouth in righteousness And will not turn back, That to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance." (NASB) We must first desire the Father's will for our lives realizing that He will not withhold ANY good thing from us and His plans for us, that they are for good and not evil. They are to bless us and give us hope and a future! (paraphrasing Jeremiah 23:11)

Why not get take the time to get to know God for yourself through His word? It's not enough to "know" the Word through someone else be it a pastor, evangelist, television ministry or even your mama, daddy, grandmama, or granddaddy. In fact it is downright dangerous and a threat to your relationship with God to entrust something so precious to someone else without knowing it yourself. It's like trying to know your child through a nanny or babysitter. It's all secondhand knowledge and the problem with secondhand knowledge is that it is always compromised and filtered through someone else's experience. A prime example is the church that I grew up in which was very legalistic and taught that women shouldn't wear make-up, pants, braid their hair or preach or teach in the pulpit. It wasn't until I read and studied the word of God for myself that I discovered that there were modern-day Pharisees lurking in the church who distorted the word of God in order to subjugate and impose a legalistic form of "works" salvation that was based on what you wore rather than the love of God. Unfortunately a lot of these churches still exist but thank God that my hunger and thirst for the word of God saved me from a stagnant life of legalistic "works" salvation, based on denomination and not on the love of God. Many people will be deceived in the last days because they do not know the word of God for themselves. David Koresh is said to have known the Bible from Genesis to Revelation verbatim. However if his followers had known the word for themselves and had been seeking God and not a man, they probably wouldn't have been deceived to the point of death. My grandfather used to tell the story of a little bird that used to sit in a tree and sing "laziness will kill ya'! Kill ya!" Apathy and willful illiteracy will cause many to be deceived by false prophets and teachers. The word of God empowers us and blesses us to have wisdom and authority and power through The Spirit of The Only True and Living God. We get an awesome insight into the greatness of God when we read the word of God and read it not with the intent to manipulate and cause others to fall but rather to gain access to an intimacy with God that we would not otherwise be able to attain through other means.

I will continue this topic in another post but my prayer for you is that you will realize just how precious and awesome having the word of God is in terms of your relationship with Him. We'll also get into how to arouse a love for the the Bible in your children and it's not by reading Disney-type, watered down bible stories that are meant to be palatable for them but some of them take the Word out of context and treat these awesome life-changing stories as if they were nothing more than mere fairy tales or fables. You need to KNOW the Word of God and your children need to KNOW the Word of God!

Be abundantly blessed!

Mediocrity hates greatness...so be great and let the haters hate!

The Church As A Social Club

By now you probably realize that I was raised in the church. That's right, my grandfather had at one time been a COGIC pastor and lived the rest of his days as an elder (more on him at another time) but I grew up in the church. I was saved at the age of 6 and filled with the Holy Spirit at the tender age of 9. I loved and still love the Lord with all of my heart. But I've been to a few too many churches that are starving and lacking in the power of love and the power of the Holy Spirit because they have reduced church to that of a glorified social club where people no longer come to be delivered, praise/worship and exalt Jesus as Savior and Lord...oh no! They come to see and be seen; to know, be known and be in the know! They get together with their cliques and some feign holiness where others are so bold that they don't even bother to put up too big of a front. They come to hook up with the opposite sex and sometimes the same sex. They come to catch up on the latest gossip among the circle of cliques in the church. They come so that they can have the appearance of holiness but it's really kind of funny because they have no power! More than just a social club they have become elitist social clubs where the motive is to gain notoriety and position. These are they that when the pastor calls a fast they are found mumbling and grumbling or if service goes off program or lasts a little longer than usual, they can be heard murmuring and complaining. These are they who are jockeying for positions in the church so that they can be in close contact with the pastor and be seen for the purpose of bragging rights and to seem important to others. These are they who pick and choose what is sin and what is not sin and unfortunately, these are they that the new age pastors and preachers have chosen to cater to by preaching to soothe their itching ears (II Timothy 4:3)instead of calling them to accountability because it has now become unpopular to talk about sin; it is unpopular to hold people accountable for their actions. So there we have the 21st century church, which I believe to be the modern day Laodicean church (Revelation 3:14-22). This is the lukewarm church that Christ declared He would spew (spit) out of His mouth because He would prefer that they would be either hot or cold. The church as a social club is a collection of lukewarm individuals who persistently resist the love, unity and holiness of the true church and body of Christ. They often possess a pharisee spirit in that most of them believe that they are already holy enough, in fact they are so holy in their own eyes that they can stand in open and obvious judgment of others and have no fear of the judgment that they will reap as a result of their self-righteousness. Most of them are blessed with material things so because they equate material success or the appearance of material success as being blessed they feel that this somehow qualifies them to look disdainfully upon others. If they are involved in ministry of any kind, it is simply to gain position and notoriety for themselves and you can tell by the way that they handle the people that they are "ministering" to because they often times have this very phony, apprehensive, stand-offish demeanor (much like handling a filthy rag, I call it nice-nasty) or they are mean, rude and inconsiderate of even the faintest form of Christian love and civility let alone basic customer service. They handle those that they are "ministering" to as if they were filthy and unworthy of their time. These are truly they who will look Jesus in the face on the day of judgment and proclaim, "Lord, I visited the sick, the imprisoned, fed the hungry and clothed the needy." But the Lord will have no knowledge of them because whatever they did, they did it to bring glory to themselves and not to God. They do these things for love and preoccupation with self and not a devotion and love for God. I Corinthians 13 is highly detailed in that it even goes so far as to say that (paraphrasing) even if I give my body to be burned but do not have love. It profits me nothing."

It is my personal opinion that these modern day pharisees don't even believe in God. Their actions and their motives are indicative of people who can't possibly truly believe God. If they believe that there is a God, He is not real to them so they handle the church and their erroneous representation of Christianity very lightly. They are in essence their own God! It's all about them and what they can get and you better believe if they are giving it's only because they believe that they are getting something out of it. They don't care about souls being saved, lives being changed and each time a new person who comes into the church, they act as if they are offended at the very thought of new people attending "their church". They shout and speak in tongues in the pews and out in the lobby and out in the parking lot their feet run swiftly to mischief. They speak in rebellion of the pastor while they gossip over the phone but they are quick to grin in his face as if he were the God who has a heaven or hell created for them.

I have purposed it in my heart and mind that I am going to "rattle the cages" of every modern day pharisee whose path I cross in the church. I am determined to praise and worship God as if I've lost my ever-loving mind. I am going to go all out for the cause of Christ and I am going to love them and pray for them even if they despise and speak evil against me. Yeah, they think that it's all about them well I'm glad that it's not all about me and I am not on any kind of campaign to be seen of men for only what I do for Christ will last. Keep in mind as you go about your way that the absence of love is the absence of God and if what you do is without love then you might as well not do it all. YOU are the temple of the Holy Ghost! These modern day pharisees go to church but I AM THE CHURCH!!! When the church is in you, it is impossible to disrespect the body of Christ by treating and relegating the church to a mere social club experience because the Holy Spirit in you provokes you to love and teaches you wisdom. Galatians 6:7 tells us not to be deceived because God is not mocked, whatever a man sows that's what he will also reap.

Be abundantly blessed!

Mediocrity hates greatness...so be great let the hater hate!

Why You Shouldn't Live Life Through the Rearview Mirror

I was driving down the freeway doing the speed limit (I do that to stay out of trouble - I hate being pulled over by the cops!) and this car was tailgating the heck out of me! I got upset and started to accelerate when I heard The Spirit saying "Don't allow the car in back of you dictate how you drive. You're in front maintain your stance and don't react." That was one of the greatest revelations I have ever had!

Sometimes out of pride and insecurity, we behave on a purely emotional and reactionary level and that's why we end up in a great deal of the messes that we end up having to endure. Stop allowing your pride, insecurity and the yelling at you from outsiders dictate to you how you live your life. Even your family and friends can't always tell you what's best for you b/c a lot of times they don't even know what's best for themselves! You should be seeking God's will for your life and if you don't know God's will for your life then how would you expect anyone else to know? You have to put in time w/Jesus and seek Him through prayer, reading the inspired Word of God and if necessary, fasting. Sometimes you have to be willing to do something you've never done in order to have something you've never had.

The rear view mirror is only important to use to look behind you when you are backing out of someplace or when you are switching lanes it is not necessary to watch the driver behind to the extent that you allow them to dictate the way you drive especially when you are obeying traffic laws. It's the same in God's kingdom, outsiders to your life can't always provide the helpful prospective that you may need. You are lost so you ask this one and that one and no one has the answers. Then you're looking back and your fear of what's behind you is greater than the possibly bright future that you have ahead of you. But if you keep looking through the rear view mirror and taking to heart the misguided opinions of others you could very well end up off in a ditch, in an accident that could seriously hurt you or someone else or you could end up violating the law of God b/c you gave priority to what was behind instead of paying attention to the road ahead. "I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead." Philippians 3:13.


Be blessed!!!

Mediocrity hates greatness...be great and let the haters hate!

I'm Learning to Decrease...Less Is More!

I do not have a lot to say today which probably not a bad thing since I have a tendency to be long-winded and I know that all too well! But as I go along this way I am learning to abandon Mocha's ways for God's ways and surrender all that I am to Him because He can do more with me than I can. I have a tendency despite my best intentions, to jack things up royally! It's not easy and this has been a nearly 30 year process and it wasn't until I accepted accountability for my actions and stopped playing the role of a helpless victim that I began to see clearly that I was the obstacle in my way. All too often we want to blame others external to us for our failures and shortcomings; our trials and disappointments but all too often we are the reason why we are not blessed.

The Father did not create us to be victims, He would cease to be God! What would He have to gain by purposely denying us blessing? Because we choose our will over His will over and over again, He is still graceful and merciful to us but we can't experience the fullness of this life as it was meant to be if we don't allow Him to take His rightful place as King and Lord over our thoughts, our ways and our actions. We are only here in this world occupying these earthsuits for a short time, why not decrease so that He can increase and show Himself strong in our lives! It's a win-win-win situation! We become blessed, we are able to better bless others and it blesses God to bless us and have us bless others! It brings Him glory and praise! It is the ultimate in worship and all it takes is the acknowledgment that you unlike God, are falliable whereas God is infalliable and that in His infallibility can make things right in you. All too often people pray to be humbled and they pray for humility but The Word of God says for us to "humble ourselves". That basically means that He has already equipped you with what you need to get out of yourself, transcend pride and humbly embrace Him! HE IS LOVE! Now allow His love for you to change you and show you just how awesome and great He created you to be!
Be abundantly, overwhelmingly blessed!

Mediocrity hates greatness...so be great and let the haters hate!

Isaiah 54:17

God is Faithful & You Can Certainly Trust Him...

But that's not the question! The question is are YOU faithful to God and can He trust YOU to trust Him? Can He trust you to be faithful after He answers your prayers and blesses you? Can He trust you to cling to Him with the understanding that He is the True and Living God who delivers you and who will supply all of your needs according to His riches in glory through Christ Jesus? People are always talking about trusting God, even me! But God has never done anything for you not to trust Him. Can you be trusted to do as you have been mandated which is to love your neighbor as you love yourself? And to do to others what you would have them do to you? God is faithful and He is bound by the honor of His name. The name that is above all names! But what about you? Is there any honor in you?

Often times, and it is quite ironic, we jack things up on our own or we defy God by the choices we make and then when all hell breaks loose we want to blame God! How silly is that? You mess things up but somehow God is to blame? Yes, He is omnipotent, omniscient, and all of that but what are you? Who are you? Whose are you? To whom do you belong? The beautiful thing about God is that He graciously gave us the will to choose, so if your choices are out of sync for His plan and purpose for your life then that is a "you" issue, simply meaning, you are the problem not Him! God will allow it to work for your good if you let Him otherwise you'll be stuck in life's inertia and thereby sentenced to a life of mediocrity. Who wants that? The Lord said in Revelation that He will spew the lukewarm out of His mouth and mediocrity is nothing more than being lukewarm! Mediocre people are also miserable people. I knew that I didn't want to spend the rest of my life as a miserable, mediocre person so I made a conscious decision about 6 years ago that some changes had to be made. My life had become a train wreck! But I knew that the mess I was in was a mess that I created and I had to get my life right especially since at that time I had my daughter. Certain events in life will help you to progress and grow if you allow them. Becoming a parent inspired me to get my act together because I didn't want to mess up my children's lives. As it is being homeless for two years with them in tow was difficult enough to watch them live through. But I was the the reason we were homeless, I depended too much on other people and not enough on God. If I had put my trust in God instead of putting my trust in people I am certain that homelessness and poverty would've never become a reality for me and my children.

Stop questioning God and check yourself out. The whole purpose of life is praise and progression. You were created to be a vessel of praise and worship unto God, in EVERYTHING you do and in all that you are! Secondly, if your life is not a journey of progression but rather you have gotten in one place and camped out there then you are not progressing and you are either stagnant or regressing. You are here in this world to become a better person than you were yesterday, last week, last month, last year. If you can genuinely, in your self evaluation say that your life has not changed and that you are the same as you were five years ago and you're still making the same mistakes that you were making five years ago, it's a problem somewhere and the problem is not God! What are you doing with the gifts, talents, abilities and resources that God has given you? Where are you in your relationship with Him? God did not create you to be a victim so if anyone external to you is the reason why your life isn't where it should be, you need to grow up and accept responsibility for what you're doing to contribute to the problem.

Finally when we stand before God one day to be accountable for the deeds that we have done in our bodies, He's not trying to hear how your mama neglected you; your daddy abandoned you; you were poor; you didn't have the advantages that someone else had. He's just going to simply say "Depart from me. I don't know you!" Because no matter what you are or have been going through The Word clearly states that NOTHING can separate us from the love of God! So if you separate yourself from the love of God based on the bad choices that you made that seemed good at the time but didn't work out or because you wanted what you wanted and God didn't bless what you wanted (because He knows what you can handle and probably had some far better thing in store for you), now you're angry and disappointed but You didn't have the strength, fortitude and courage to trust and wait on God; you don't have the right on any level to get mad at God. I know that from experience! I wasn't suppose to be a single mother but because I went my own way, I am raising two beautiful children who deserve a father, as a single mother. God didn't do that, I did! When I became homeless, I couldn't blame God. I knew that my train wreck of a life could only be made right, by giving up and relinquishing everything that I am to Him and trusting Him to work things out! But it shouldn't have taken such a mess for me to get my act together. I knew better but I was too comfortable in the state of misery that I was in. The Lord even revealed to me just before it happened that I would have to stop just allowing life to happen to me but I allowed fear and complacency to send me rock bottom. But when I woke up in a homeless shelter with my two babies; out in the rain with my two babies; hanging out in the park with my two babies because we were homeless and could not go back to the shelter until the evening, I somehow acquired the supernatural faith to believe and know that God had better things for me and my babies. My situation was self-engineered but I knew that God would use it to put me where I should have been all along in my relationship with Him.

I know that we live in a pass-the-buck society. No one is to blame for anything. No one is responsible for anything anymore. It's always the devil, society's, the media's, the church's, our mother's, our father's, or God's fault and we have become such a cowardly society of victims that it is just all too convenient to lay the blame at the feet of anyone and everyone else but us! What a shame! You have been given power, authority and dominion in the earth and over your flesh through the Holy Spirit. We have access to the mind and Spirit of the Most High, True and Living God, there aren't anymore excuses. So now what are you going to do with what you just read? I am praying that you will allow Christ to work out in you whatever He needs to so that you will be the person of excellence and greatness that He has created you to be. Be blessed and know that this Word is as much for me as it is for you!

Mediocrity hates greatness...so be great and let the haters hate!

Is He In You?

I am just recently getting my life back on track! I come from a very conservative, Pentacostal background and I love the foundation of the denomination that I grew up in but I'm so glad that I got into The Word for myself from a young child. I received the gift of the Holy Spirit when I was 9 years old. I'll never forget it, there was a revival at church and I had gotten saved when I was 6 yrs old so I heard the evangelist explain the difference between just being saved and receiving the Holy Ghost. He preached out of the book of Revelation that night and as is the case most times when a kid hears someone preach from the book of Revelation, it has a tendency to scare you a little but I was more fascinated than scared and that fascination is what moved me to crave The Word of God. I began reading Revelation and from that I sincerely began to hunger to know more so I started reading the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, 3 chapters a night before I would go to bed and after I would say my prayers. I loved The Word and was so enamored with The Lord that I would even sleep with my bible under my pillow! But as I grew older and increased in wisdom through revelation of the Holy Spirit, I began to see where a lot of the things that my church's denomination taught that were nothing more than religious musings and opinions that were based on a legalistic concept of salvation. So you had girls who were wearing no make up (b/c it was a "sin"- considered vain and Jezebelesque), long dresses and skirts down to their ankles (b/c that was a "sin" - it was a misinterpretation of a the Levitical scripture which discourages women wearing attire pertaining to a man) and going to functions such as basketball games, or movie theatres b/c that was "sitting in the seat of the scornful" but they were committing fornication, adultery, gluttony, gossiping, backbiting, lying, stealing and some of their attitudes were just downright NASTY! As I got older and learned The Word through enlightenment of the Holy Spirit for myself, by the time I was 16, 17 years old, I knew enough of The Word for myself to begin asking questions and if the responses I was provided did not line up with The Word of God that I knew for myself then I knew that the response was a carnal, legalistic opinion and not anything that legitimately had anything to do with a person's salvation.

Well, at the age of 18, after receiving several prophecies and having dreams and visions of going into ministry...I ran! Yes, I ran, was still trying to live saved but I wanted no part of the ministry because I really didn't feel worthy. But when I finally gave up, after years of teaching Bible study and decided to accept the calling on my life, the denomination that I grew up in just wasn't where I knew that I could grow because they were so wrapped up in their pharisaic concept of the church and holiness that they would not let go of man-made tradition to embrace true freedom in Christ especially where it concerned women in the ministry. Everything about God was angry and judgmental because looking back, these people were angry and judgmental! It was so ironic because instead of being made in the image of God these church people tried to re-make God in their image. I know that's deep but this denomination (as is the case with a lot of churches with their religious concept who are under the "pentacostal" banner) left the bondage of the world to be held by the bondage of religion! I left that denomination to start attending a non-denominational church, that church was on the other end of the spectrum in that it seemed to lack structure. The pastor taught The Word concisely and practically and yet it lacked such structure that the atmosphere was more of that of a country club than that of a church body seeking to do the work of The Kingdom. I believe that there were some sincerely saved individuals at both of these churches however where they resembled each other was in their focal point. The focus was some place other than The Word of God and having a true relationship w/God as Lord, friend and father, they were simply gathering places with little to no power. They were the congregations where people would go to see and be seen, to be known and be in the know! In 2001, I got fed up with church, church people, and even who I had become in the church in allowing the attitudes of church people to influence me, I left the church! I got tired of being offended by church people who could treat others like garbage and then turn around and speak in tongues, prophesy, preach, teach and shout all over the church! But they had no love and no power and neither did I! I was struggling with depression and for years I was suicidal. I wanted to know God in fullness but because I would not let go of some unhealthy things in my life, I couldn't grow. So I thought that the best thing that I could do was leave! I told my story in the first posting as to what happened during that span of approximately 5-6 years but to sum it up I had two kids out of wedlock by two different men. After the birth of my son, I ran to God. I realized that if I didn't attempt to re-establish a relationship with God that I would end up either physically dead before my time or spiritually dead. Shortly after that I went on a journey of homelessness and poverty that I had only heard about but never experienced and never thought that I would experience in my own life especially with my children. But I had to come to grips with several things at this time the first and most important was that God was not the one who offended me and that just because people had offended me and hurt me that was no reason to abandon God and everything I had known from a child to be true in His Word. So I began to pray more, read my Bible more, fast for the first time in years, and finally go to church. By this time I was living in Southern California and I had been blessed with an awesome, powerful church family but no sooner than I attempted to put down roots there that God compelled me to return to central Ohio to help my mom who was having her own struggles. The experience of returning to central Ohio after being so satisfied with where I was in Southern California: my career was about to take off there, I was on the verge of getting the apartment that I wanted and most importantly to me, I loved my church. But now I see that the challenge was to see if I was more in love w/God than my church enough to obey Him and return to a place where my life had been a total wreck not to mention there were a lot of people in Ohio who had hurt and lied on me and I wasn't thrilled about confronting or dealing with any of that. But I was obedient and returned to central Ohio and I drifted for a little while because I fell back into the anger and questioning God about having to return to a place that had promised myself that I would never return to. I wasn't going to church consistently. I joined one church but the pastor was within years of my age and I needed someone who was a little more seasoned in life and the ministry. The church that I am now preparing to join (I have to attend the membership class), I never would've imagined that I would end up at this church. This church is the largest church in central Ohio and quite possibly all of Ohio but after interning their for television production, I saw why this church was so influential and prolific. People are always ragging on so-called mega churches but if they are teaching and preaching the truth of the gospel, functioning and contributing positively to the community and you are spiritually mature enough to deal with not having your pastor at your disposal because you understand your access to Christ in you, then I don't see or understand what the problem is, but that's for another post.

I had to let you know about that aspect of my journey because I had to realize that it didn't matter what other people did or what they do to me. It's not about me, I am the temple of the Holy Spirit and because of that I can overcome ANY offense! Yes, there are modern day pharisees in the church who are busy wagging their index fingers at people and condemning people to hell but God hasn't condemned me to hell! So who cares what they think! I am so glad to know that because of Jesus, the Father, my Abba has found me worthy of inhabiting and it's because of that fact that I dare not ever again in life abandon God and forfeit my birthright as a child of God because of what someone did or what someone said. The pharisees called Jesus, the Son of the true and living God, who came to die for their sins "The prince of demons" they accused Him of casting out demons because He was in league with them! What a horrible, blasphemous thing to say but that's how a pharisee, religious demon operates. It deludes people who don't even have skeletons in their closets, but they have rotting corpses (stinking, secret things that they feel condemned and miserable about) in their closets, to feeling self righteous because they can do all of the outward things like speak in tongues, shout/dance, preach, teach, give offering, tithes and they can even work around the church and in various ministries but they fail to understand all of that done without the love of God is meaningless! When you are critical, judgmental, and accusatory of other people, you defy everything that God is...love! He doesn't accept our sin but unlike people God does not associate us with our sins and shortcomings, instead once we repent, He associates us with His Son, Jesus! This helps me because I'm not perfect, I have done more than my share of judging and criticizing people but when I see how people have judged and still judge; criticized and still criticize me not to mention how Christ was treated on my behalf then I understand that it is more important for me to love, forgive and pray for those who offend me than it is to do what this flesh finds easy and convenient and yet so destructive to me spiritually.

We are the arrow that points people in the direction of Christ. Your praise, your service and everything you do is in vain and will die with you if God is not your reality. Is He in you? Because if He is, love is in you, peace is in you, joy is in you, wisdom and temperance is in you! Your flesh will act up and attempt to stage a mutiny against the Holy Spirit but as soon as you relinquish your right as captain of your own ship and allow the Spirit of God to direct you; love, peace, joy, wisdom and temperance become habitual. It is then that no one and nothing external to you including your own flesh will become of such an offense to you that you abandon the One who loves you more than anyone else ever could and you will find yourself gladly going out of your way to love and demonstrate the love of God b/c of the love of God is in you! Be blessed, abundantly blessed!

Mediocrity hates greatness, so be great and let the haters hate!

Modern Day Pharisees...Who Pretend to be Christians

After training to go into ministry from the age of 18 to the age of 30, I got totally burnt out on church and practically anything to do with the church. I couldn't figure out why I could go to work and share the same space with individuals, most of whom were by no means or stretch of the imagination Christians but who would treat me with dignity and respect after 8 hours a day and sometimes longer with overtime. But I could go to church and these people who could dance and shout around the church, speak in tongues, even preach could not find it within themselves (by the way they were claiming that Christ was in them) to be remotely civil or respectful let alone loving and compassionate! When I read through the gospels and I read about Christ and his behavior towards others, the only people Christ ever went off on or got upset with were the disciples because of their hard hearts and the Pharisees and other teachers of religious law because of their legalism or loveless religion.

I made a horrible mistake by leaving the church and through my offense and hurt I decided that I would pretty much live life on my own terms. My exact words were "I am a grown-a*% woman! I don't have to go to church anymore and be treated like crap!" Please understand that I had grown up in the church nearly all of my life. I had given my life to the Lord at the age of six after my parents' divorce and after being violently sexually abused by my grandparents' foster son. I received the gift of the Holy Spirit when I was 9 years old at an old fashioned tent revival. I was hungry for God and began chasing Him because of the hurt that I felt and I knew that Jesus was the only one who could make things right in me. I began reading my Bible on a daily basis, I began praying and later on I began fasting as well. People I didn't even know would come up to me and tell me how they could see God using me and blessing me. Several people told me that they could see God's anointing on my life. I didn't know exactly what all of that meant but it was exciting to think that God would see any use for me because I felt so damaged and alone even at the age of 9. Also understand that because my mother was a divorcee (this was in the '70's) and my grandfather was a church elder, she herself was considered the black sheep of her family and to other church folk. I was insistent that I would make God the center of my life but because I didn't know what that entailed and because my mother and the people around me were themselves trying to impress other people, I was never given a clear concept of making God the center of my life and instead fell into the trap of making religion the center without quite realizing what I had done. I thought that I was just fine but I wasn't and my choices in the future would reveal just how jacked up I truly was. With that being said, after I had left the church I decided that I wanted a family. It was the one thing that I had wanted my whole life since my parents separated when I was 3. Low and behold, I met this great looking guy. He seemed to be everything that I had been looking for in a man. He was intelligent, articulate, and he was a professional. He was a lot like me in that he was a nerd. He loved opera, I love opera. He loved movies, I love movies. We hit it off really well and I thought that he was the one but because I had chosen to live life on my own terms, I jumped the gun, jumped into bed after years of celibacy, and got pregnant with my daughter. I felt a lot of guilt and shame because although I was 30 years old because of my background everyone became even more critical of my life. Keep in mind that most of these people were the same folk who had their mouths all over my life when I was in church, teaching bible study and singing in the choir!

Note: If you are living your life to please people, you will never be happy because they will never be pleased!

I would sometimes break down and cry, rub my belly and apologize to my daughter for bringing her into the world the way that I did. God blessed me to give birth to a beautiful, healthy baby girl who has been my inspiration to do so many positive things with my life since then. Well, after still squinting my eyes at the church and feeling even more isolated than ever as a single parent. I left the church again and around this time my daughter's father and I broke up because of some very serious deal-breaker activity in his life. I was hurt and feeling abandoned from every side: family, friends, etc. You name it, my name appeared to be Mud. It was then that I met my son's father and I knew that I wasn't ready for a relationship because I was still hung up on my daughter's father but I engaged in a sexual relationship with him despite my better judgment and that resulted in my becoming pregnant with my son. What I did was not wise by any means. It was selfish, irresponsible and just down right foolish! But I find it funny that a lot of the bible-thumping, hell-fire and brimstone, Christians who are so into being pro-life are the main individuals who are wagging their judgmental index fingers and giving the "nice-nasty" look of pity to single mothers such as myself.

Abortion grazed my mind in both cases because after realizing the depth of the "single mother" stigma I didn't want to be judged anymore but I ultimately knew that abortion was a decision that I couldn't live with knowing what I knew about abortion and the after effects of abortion on the mental, psychological and emotional health of the women who get them. Sure, I could've done it and there would be no outward evidence of my disobedience to God but if no one else knew, God and I would know what I did and I didn't want to further distance myself from God and I had already been battling suicide since I was a teenager (an abortion would've probably sent me over the edge). But now I have two beautiful healthy children, my daughter is 6 and my son is 3 and I love them and I see them as a wonderful revelation of God's grace in my life. Instead of allowing me to destroy myself through my rebellion, He gave me two great kids who have inspired me to be a better person and to serve God more diligently and faithfully than ever before.

The Pharisees and other teachers of religious law were judgmental, legalistic, carnal beings who said that they believed God and even taught the Word of God but when His Son came to earth to redeem them from sin they didn't recognize Him because they were too full of themselves. Most so-called Christians (they are actually just church folk, if Jesus was anywhere in them they wouldn't be so critical and judgmental of others) are no better than the Pharisees that Jesus chastised on a frequent basis in scripture because they failed to express who God truly was: a God who is a loving father, full of love, compassion and grace! He disciplines us as is necessary but He is by no means is some mean, ruthless, critical God who is looking from His throne disdainfully at us instead He sent Jesus because He loves us! Most so-called Christians filling the pews today have no love, no compassion and yet they would have the world believe that they represent Christ. Do they really? The Jesus Christ of the bible had compassion on people and despite their obvious sin, He still loved them. He is said to have hung out with the "worse kind of sinners" and when the Pharisees and teachers of religious law saw Him fellowshiping with the tax collectors, prostitutes, etc. they asked the disciples why would he consort with such scum. Jesus replies in Matthew 9:13 (NLT) "I have come to call not those who think they are righteous but those who know they are sinners." Matthew 15:7-9 (NLT) Jesus said, "You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote, 'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God." I make no excuses for myself. Fornication is a sin indeed but church folk who are so contemptuously looking down their noses at me and women like me must first repent of the sin of condemnation and being judgmental in their own lives. Many of these church folk "pin flowers" on themselves for saving babies from abortion and yet the mothers who are responsible for not aborting their children are being treated like social pariah because the sin they have committed is so obvious! These ignorant hypocrites fail to understand that it is individuals like them that compel a young woman to consider abortion in the first place because they do not want to live with the stigma of being a single mother who became a single mother because of the sin of fornication. If I were still a weaker Christian I would allow these modern day Pharisees to run me away from the church, I might've even allowed their silly scowls and raised eyebrows to make me feel as if my only option was an abortion and therefore forfeit my blessings and intimate relationship with God. No way! I have been through too much & no one, I don't care who they are is going to keep me from being blessed and having a healthy relationship with my Redeemer or being proud and appreciating the gorgeous children that He blessed me to bring into the world! Although they are definitely counterproductive to Body of Christ, these Pharisees serve a dual purpose: they remind me that I need to be compassionate and loving towards others who have obviously at some point been out of sync with the will of God or who might not look like I do or talk like I do or act like I do. (For ALL have sinned and have come short of the glory of God!). They show me who I don't want to be like but they also compel me to show up every time the church doors are open "with bells" on! Either they'll begin to behave like real Christians and pray for me and my children and (not some holier than thou, self-righteous, religious prayer either!) or they'll fall away into the sea of their own sin. May the presence of me and my two children praising and worshipping God as a family, convict and compel them to know God in a greater way.


Mediocrity hates greatness...be great and let the haters hate!