You give me peace……

Hi friends!

What a week its been! I came out of our annual church

conference! It was amazing!! It started on Wednesday and

finished yesterday. It has also been a busy week. It’s always

busy for everyone at this time. There is so much work to do.

So last week in my busyness I was asked a question that has

haunted me till now. This is what was asked,

 

“Why do you get stressed so easily?”

 

I was running around like a headless chicken prior to the

question being asked. After he left I couldn’t shake the

question. I tried to defend myself to myself and even

justify myself but he was right, I do get stressed easily.

Shucks!!

I want to be that person who stays calm when everything

is falling. I just want to be calm!

That got me thinking about peace……Can I be at peace when

everything is

going wrong? Can I be at peace when the mountains shake?

That is when God gave me a scripture that helped me that

I hope will help you!

 

Peace I leave with you; My [own] peace I now give you and

bequeath to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. 

Do not let your hearts be troubled, neither

let them be afraid. [Stop allowing yourselves to be agitated

and disturbed; and do not permit yourselves to be fearful

and intimidated and cowardly and unsettled.]

John 14:27

 

I was thinking about the peace the world gives versus the peace

Jesus gives. The peace the world gives focuses on the external.

No war means peace, living in harmony, avoiding confrontation is

seen as keeping the peace.

Then there is meditation, clear your minds they tell us.

So as you can see, the world’s peace is very different.

The main thing to keep in mind about the peace the world

offers is that it doesn’t have Jesus as it’s source and a peace

without Jesus at it’s core is not peace at all!

Without Jesus you will never have peace!

 

The peace that Jesus offers is inward focused. When everything

is collapsing around us, the peace Jesus gives us keeps us steady.

When it looks like the enemy is going to win His peace gives us

hope that things will turn around.

The peace Jesus gives us is dependant on Him!

When we know He is in control, we have peace!

 

So I was challenged to stop stressing so much. The word is

very clear, we must not allow our hearts to be troubled,

we must stop allowing ourselves to be agitated and disturbed,

We must not permit ourselves to be fearful, intimidated

and cowardly in the face of danger, pressure, and so on…..

It’s a decsion to be at peace!

 

This is not just about me having peace at work but this post

is about having peace in hard times. It’s about having peace

when there is so much fear in the world. When my friend asked

me that question I realized later on that, God wants me to walk

in peace, period! Being agitated, stressed and anxious is not from

Him. As I end I would like to share one more story with you from

the word.

 

“And when Gideon perceived that He was the Angel of the Lord,

Gideon said, Alas, O Lord God! For now I have seen the Angel

of the Lord face to face!

The Lord said to him, peace be to you, do not fear;

you shall not die.

Then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and called it,

The Lord is Peace.

To this day it still stands in Ophrah, which belongs to the

Abiezrites.

Judges 6:22-24

 

Gideon’s fear was real. He thought he would die because he

saw the face of God but God told him not to fear. I think

something more happened when those words were spoken.

I think Gideon saw or felt something, something that had

to be told to the generations to come! What ever he saw or felt

compelled him to build an altar and name it, The Lord is Peace

(Jehovah Shalom)!!!

I want to walk in that peace everyday, the peace Jesus gives!!

 

Whatever trouble you are going through remember,

to not let your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid,

stop allowing yourselves to be agitated and disturbed, and do

not permit yourselves to be fearful and intimidated, cowardly

and unsettled!

He is our Peace! Things may be falling apart around us but

we are at peace because He is with us holding us up!

Amen….

 

Rolain

 

 

 

 

 

 

What it means to put your hope in the Lord…..

Hi all….!

It feels like it’s been ages since my last post. I have been

incredibly busy but it goes much deeper than that. The

drive to write left. I am serious. I woke up one day and

nothing! Conpletely nothing! It wasn’t because of a lack of

ideas….

The stuff I had didn’t feel relevant so I trashed it.

Maybe I was just being lazy, I don’t know.

Anyway I am back and ready…..(anyone else feel the same?)

 

There is a scripture that spoke to me this past weekend,

 

[What, what would have become of me] had I not believed

that I would see the Lord’s goodness in the land of the living!

 

Wait and hope for and expect the Lord;

be brave and of good courage and let your heart be stout and

enduring.

Yes, wait for and hope for and expect the Lord.

Psalm 27:13, 14

 

As we go through life we need to believe. We need to believe

things will change, we need to believe the winters will end, we

need to believe God will deliver us from our fiery storms!

Without a belief in God’s goodness, our lives will be miserable.

 

It’s not wrong to believe in the goodness of the Lord. It’s

not wrong to believe God will breakthrough for you. It’s

not wrong to believe in God period!

So if it’s not wrong, believe!

No matter how dark things are, believe.

No matter how impossible a situation seems, believe.

No matter the years you have spent waiting on God,

believe!

He will come through for you!

 

“Wait and hope for and expect the Lord”

 

I love these words. Wait, hope for and expect the Lord!

 

Wait on the Lord. It’s because He loves you that He makes

you wait.

Hope for the Lord. Put your hope in Him! Like I heard

someone once say, be a prisoner of hope. Never stop

hoping! The Lord is faithful and He sees your hope in

Him.

Expect the Lord to move on your behalf.

Expect the Lord to answer your prayers.

Be expectant!

 

As I have spoken on those three amazing words we must not

ignore the next part of that verse,

 

“be brave and of good courage and let your heart be stout

and enduring.”

 

It’s not easy to wait, hope for, and expect the Lord.

It’s a battle to wait

It’s hard to keep hoping

It’s a fight to be expectant

 

The word says as you do those things (wait, hope for, expect),

your heart must be stout and enduring, you must have courage and

be brave.

Waiting on the Lord, putting your hope in the Lord, being

expectant will stretch you to the limit. Even when you feel

like giving up hope, keep hoping, be expectant, wait!

Don’t let the darkness around you quench your faith.

As I close remember to wait on the Lord, put your hope

in the Lord and expect the Lord!

God bless you….

 

Rolain

 

photo credit: google images

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Was he really a “dead dog”???

 

“So David said to him, “Do not fear, for I will surely show

you kindness for Jonathan’s sake, and will restore to you

all the land of Saul your grandfather; and you shall eat

at my table continually.”

2 Samuel 9:7

 

David was speaking to Mephibosheth in the passage I just

shared.

Mephibosheth didn’t have an easy childhood.

He lost his father in battle and to top it off he was lame.

His nurse fell on him as she fled.

 

“Jonathan, Saul’s son, had a son who was lame in his feet.

He was five years old when the news about Saul and Jonathan

came from Jezreel; and his nurse took him up and fled.

And it happened, as she made haste to flee, that he fell and

became lame. His name was Mephibosheth. “

2 Samuel 4:4

 

It must of been hard for him growing up. He didn’t ask

to be lame. His loving father was killed in combat.

His family wasn’t the most popular at the time. The

house of Saul was looked upon with disdain.

How hard it must of been?

 

Did he have bitterness in his heart? Did he have anger?

There seemed like there was no hope for him. He would

die in shame but then in the blink of an eye, his life changed!

 

– All the land his grandfather possessed was restored

to him! Not some of the land but ALL!!!

– He would eat at the king’s table all the days of his life!

 

“Then he bowed himself, and said, “What is your servant,

that you should look upon a dead dog as I?”

2 Samuel 9:8

 

This is a story about David fulfilling a promise he made

to Jonathan but there is more. We are being given a picture

of how God deals with us His children!

Mephibosheth didn’t do anything to deserve the unusual

favor of the king and yet he got it. He thought he was a

nobody. Actually he thought of himself as a dead dog but

that was not true. His life turned around in a way

no one could ever imagine!

 

We need to understand that God can do the same thing

for us. We may think our lives are going nowhere but that’s

not true. We may think we don’t deserve the blessings of

God but He blesses us anyway!

 

No one could of ever imagined how Mephibosheth’s life

would of turned out. No one had a clue what was about to

happen! And that is true for you.

No one has a clue what is about to happen in your life.

Believe in God…..

He has something amazing in store for you beyond anything

you can ever imagine!

No matter how hard things are God is moving in your life.

Your story is not about to end. It’s only just beginning!

Trust Him always…..

 

As I end I would like to wish all the mother’s a Happy

Mother’s Day.

I hope you enjoy this Mother’s Day video that was made

by our children in the Children’s Ministry!

 

 

 

Rolain

 

photo credit: google images

 

 

 

 

Why my understanding of God’s greatness is compromised…..

“Then Elisha said, “hear the word of the Lord. Thus says

the Lord: Tomorrow about this time a seah of fine flour

shall be sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a

shekel, at the gate of Samaria.

So an officer on whose hand the king leaned answered

the man of God and said, “Look, if the Lord would make

windows in heaven, could this thing be?

And he said, “In fact, you shall see it with your eyes, but

you shall not eat of it.”

2 Kings 7:1, 2

 

Elisha spoke these words when Samaria was under seige by

Benhadad of Syria. There was no sign of rescue on the

horizon. They were trapped. But the man of God had a

word from the Lord. In the most impossible of

circumstances the Lord told them they would be set free!

 

We know God is the God who does big things but do we know

what that looks like in our lives?

It’s okay if we don’t see how that unravels in our lives. For too

long we have tried to envision what big looks like but it’s

impossible. We have calculated and made assumptions but we

have come up short.

 

Like Isaiah rightly states,

 

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways

My ways, says the Lord.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways

higher than your ways,

and My thoughts than your thoughts. “

Isaiah 55: 8, 9

 

I have come to an understanding that I will never comprehend

what “big” and “great” really are but it’s okay. God has called

me to trust Him. I must understand we are not on the same

playing field. The things He does are so much greater than I

can ever imagine but that is why He is God!

That is why I worship Him and praise Him.

 

My goal in this post is to make you understand that

you will never get to a place where you understand what

“big” or “great things” mean. We hinder our progress when

we try to quantify what “big” is. We try and reason it out

in our minds which is a mistake. God is big and that’s that!

 

Let me explain where all this came from. I am trusting

God to go to Israel this year but things haven’t really

worked out for me financially. My back is against the

wall so to speak. I tried thinking about how I would

raise the money I needed but nothing came to mind. How

on earth could God make it possible for me to go but that’s where

I have made the mistake. I believe I am supposed to go

to Israel but my job is not to figure out the how.

My job is to trust. As I trust in the Lord He will come through

for me. If there is something I need to be doing He will reveal that.

But my job is never to figure out the “how”.

It’s to have faith and step out!

 

 

Yes, I don’t have the money but God will make a way.

In fact there are so many places I want to travel to and so

many things I want to do that are beyond what I am getting

paid but my paycheck is not my source, God is! He

will make a way if I trust Him. I can’t rely on my own

understanding. I can’t rely on my definition of what “big”

is…….. I don’t know what the true

defintion of “big” is, so I need to stop pretending I know.

My definition is limiting what God can do because my

understanding is incomplete and will always be…..!

 

The officer didn’t partake of God’s deliverance because

he didn’t think God was big enough. His understanding of God

hindered him from experiencing God’s power!

My understanding of “big” has been compromised by so many

things. One of those things is flesh. I am human, I am not perfect!

The world is constantly trying to get me to stop trusting in God.

It wants me to trust in other things besides God. I am being

conditioned to see first before believing. Aren’t we all?

I am conditioned to trust in my own strength. I am my own

answer I am taught but is that true? Is that what God says?

The government want me to put my trust in them. The world

has rejected God totally! And that’s the fight I find myself in. Do I

go against the norm and trust God?

In sickness, do I trust for healing? yes

When I have fallen, do I believe God will pick me up? yes

When the world writes me off as a nobody do I trust God

to do something great with my life? yes

I need to stop relying on my own understanding.

 

 

“You shall eat, not one day, nor five days, nor ten days, nor

twenty days, but for a whole month, until it comes out of your

nostrils and becomes loathsome to you, because you despised

the Lord who is among you, and have wept before Him, saying,

“Why did we ever come out of Egypt?

And Moses said, The people whom I am among are six hundred

thousand men on foot; yet You have said, I will give them meat,

that they may eat for a whole month.

Shall flocks and herds be slaughtered for them, to provide enough

for them? Or shall all the fish of the sea be gathered together for

them, to provide enough for them?

And the Lord said to Moses, “Has the Lord’s arm been shortened?

Now you shall see whether what I say will happen to you or not.”

Numbers 11:19-23

 

Moses struggled to grasp how big God was and is. Moses had

seen God do some pretty incredible things. One would think he

would know how big God was. But according to the scripture I just

shared even his perception of “big” was still small. He couldn’t

comprehend the great things God could do and God understood.

He didn’t stike Moses down because he didn’t believe. He told

him to watch and see!

 

So to conclude, what am I saying?

 

We must understand that God is big but also understand we

don’t know what that really means and that’s okay.

We must be content in the fact that God is big!

So if you are trusting God for something big, outrageous, and

out of this world don’t give up because that thing is small to God!

He has bigger things in store for you and you don’t have to

exhaust yourself trying to comprehend how!!!.

Don’t let your paycheck determine what you can have.

You don’t have to let the economy determine how big you can

dream because the God we serve is crazy big!!!

 

And finally I would like to ask for your help. I want to go to

Israel so any kind of donations would help. If you feel comeplled

to give something towards my trip please email me and I will tell

you how to go about it. I believe God

will make a way for me to go as I step out in faith. He is really

really really big!

 

Here is my email,

rolain.errol377@gmail.com

 

Don’t let anyone or anything tell you what you can or can’t

have. God created the heavens and the earth and He is your

Father. He wants to bless you. Pursue what God has put in your

heart wholeheartedly! Trust Him to provide what you need.

He has great things in store for you. Amen!!   🙂

 

Rolain

 

photo credit: google images