The war I didn’t see coming…….

“Whom have I in heaven but You?

And besides You, I desire nothing on earth.”

Psalm 73:25

 

“My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; When 

shall I come and appear before God?”

Psalm 42:2

 

These scriptures paint a picture of my love for God. I really

need more of Him everyday. I am nothing without Him.

Where could I go and what could I do without Him???

He really is the love of my life!

 

But I am in a war right now and the results of the war will have

a huge impact on my relationship with God.

The fight caught me unawares. For some time I supplied the

enemy with the arsenal he needed to have an edge on me.

Can you imagine that?!!!

I was totally blindsided by the enemy.

 

You see, the war I am engaged in is not happening on a plain

that is easily recognizable.

The war I am engaged in is happening right at my doorstep, as a

matter of fact it’s happening closer than that. This war of epic

proportions is happening right in my home!

 

How could I miss it? How did I not recognize the enemy’s tactic?

A face to face confrontation wouldn’t have done the trick. I would

have quickly dismissed him. Instead he came slyly into my

home through television, social media, and so on. I used to spend

so much time with Yeshua in the past. When I would get home

I would make sure I spent my time in prayer, and word.

Yes I would do other things but they were not the “main” things.

Spending time with God was on the top of the list.

 

But one day that pattern changed.

I would get home and put on the television.

If there was nothing to watch I would go online.

There was even a time I would forgo church functions to watch

sport!

The war is real friends.

 

When God by His grace opened my eyes to what I was doing

I realized I had to cut things out of my life. The first thing to go was

the television. I had to look to God for help. I couldn’t do it alone.

But that didn’t go without a fight!

What the heck!!

 

I am slowly gaining the ground I lost in the beginning. The fight

has been brutal but I will keep fighting because my relationship

with God depends on it. He is the love of my life.

He is the One I desire above all else and I am not alone in this.

He is right by my side helping me!

I want to fall deeper in love with Him and nothing must stand in

the way of that.

 

Friends, as hard as that was to write the goal is to help you see

how far the enemy is willing to take the battle. Your battle will

be different from mine but you must know that the enemy will

take the battle to your home!

if you are single this post is for you especially, the time you have

now is so important. It is in this time you get deeper with God.

Don’t make the mistake I made by allowing distractions to take

away the precious time I had kept aside for God.

And if you are strong in this area then please pray for me.

I need all the help I can get!

Bless you!

 

Rolain

 

 

Your life and your words……

THOUGHT OF THE DAY

“Establishing and strengthening the souls and hearts  of the disciples,

urging and warning and encouraging them to stand firm in the faith,

and [telling them] that it is through many hardships and tribulations

we must enter the kingdom of God.”

Acts 14: 22

 

Paul strengthened, urged, warned and encouraged the saints.

What’s important is how he did it. He didn’t try

to sugar coat the truth. He was honest with them, transparent.

He made sure what he taught was what he was living out.

He didn’t say, life was a bed of roses. He didn’t try to hide what life was

really about.

When Paul said “it is through many hardships and tribulations

we must enter the kingdom of God” you better believe he was talking

from a place of experience.

Before Paul spoke to the saints about hardships and tribulations look

at what happened to him prior to that talk.

 

“Then some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the

crowd over. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city,

thinking he was dead.

But after that the disciples had gathered around him he got up

and went back into the city. The next day he and Barnabas left

for Derbe “

Acts 14: 19

 

It was directly after being stoned that Paul strengthened, urged, encouraged

and warned the saints!

He was real about what was going on.

 

Are you being real with the people around you?

Are you being transparent about what’s happening in your life

or are you sugar coating it?

Are you living out the advise you are giving out to others?

 

Bless you friends

 

Rolain

 

 

Guest post – A voice crying through the darkness.

Good morning, afternoon and evening to everyone! Hope

you all had a great week. This is my second guest post. I

think you will enjoy what Matthew has to share. Please

visit his blog at, mbm1992.wordpress.com, because he has

a unique word from God, a word that will set a lot of people

free…..I really

believe that!

And since this is my second guest post I guess I should

open an invitation to anyone who would like to be a

guest on my blog. Feel free to email me if you want to

be a ……(I am looking for the right word….hmmm,)

Feel free to email me if you want to be a “guest-poster”!

Aha….that’s it, guest-poster!  🙂

My email is,    rolain.errol377@gmail.com

If you want to drop me an email to say hi, feel free to do so as

well…..!      😉

Sorry for going on a tangent there……without wasting anymore

of your time let me leave you to read what God has put on

Matthew’s heart…..

 

——————————————————————

We currently live in a country where transparency is shunned. The mass outlet of humanity exists within the confines of our masked communities. There’s nothing real in our society anymore. Trust is constantly hanging by the noose of betrayal. Truth is buried underneath a cemetery of lies. What’s honestly real anymore?

Look, I’m only twenty-two years old and I’m already fed up with the society we live in. I’ve been raised in a pastor’s home my entire life, darkened the door of a church every chance I could, and am now studying to be a pastor. For the past four years I have struggled heavily with bouts of depression and anxiety attacks. Would you like to know how often the church has been prepared to help me cope with such things? Not very often. Would you also like to know why I think that is?

It’s because no one wants to be real anymore.

I’m probably making some serious accusations here but am I wrong? Am I really that unjustified? No one knows how to deal with someone else’s problems. We live in an incredibly selfish society that promotes the needs of self over the needs of others.

Seven months ago I started a blog. At the time I hadn’t really grasped an idea of where I wanted to go I just knew that I wanted to write. As my struggle with depression intensified I realized that my suffering was opening a door to helping other people. It was at this time that “Confessions” was born. It’s a simple premise. I write with every ounce of honesty I have regardless of what needs to be said. All that I am trying to do is provide a shelter for the hurting to come and find hope. I’m confessing what’s inside so many of our heads. This world needs a change and the only way I see that happening is by being the change that I want to see.

If you happen upon my site you will find a community of people discussing some of the tougher topics in life. What does it mean to trust God when life is hopeless? What does it mean for the world to be more aware of Mental Health? Did you know that 40,000 people die from suicide each year? Did you know that 350,000,000 people worldwide suffer from depression? Ladies and gentleman, what we are experiencing is a silent epidemic. I fully believe that hope in God is the cure.

I’m fed up with the mental mandate in our society but that doesn’t mean I’m only going to whine about it. My life is committed to speaking for the voiceless. My heart is for giving hope to the hopeless. I am blessed to have been able to experience some sort of control over my depression but others hurt more than I can imagine. I won’t just stand by and let them hurt; I won’t stand by and let you hurt.

My heart is for you because Christ is for you. My heart is for you because this world is not. For as long as I am blessed with the chance to write my heart I will stand for those who don’t have the power to stand. While the world wants to hide behind a façade I’ll be screaming my Confessions – Matthew

Rolain

image credit:

They truly missed it……….

Then they brought Jesus from Caiaphas into the Praetorium (judgement hall, governor’s palace). And it was early. They themselves did not enter the Praetorium, that they might not be defiled (become ceremonially unclean), but might be fit to eat the Passover [supper].
John 18: 28

I was reading this verse when it occurred to me how far off the mark the pharisees were. They did not enter the Praetorium because they didn’t want to defile themselves!! If they defiled themselves they would not be able to partake of the Passover meal. Are you serious???!!!!  Didn’t they know the Passover was a shadow of Christ? They had the Messiah with them, the sacrificial Passover lamb but they didn’t realize it!!!!

That got me thinking about the Pharisees. How did they get so blind? We can learn a lot from them for sure. The one thing that came to mind was law and tradition. To the pharisees everything was about law and tradition. You had to do this and do that. Wash your hands in this way, pray this way, you have to, you have to……
And because of that attitude their hearts became hardened. Grace was not part of their vocabulary.
We need to be careful. Are we living by law or by grace?

Now a great crowd of the Jews heard that He was in Bethany, and they came there, not only because of Jesus but that they also might see Lazarus, whom He had raised from the dead.
So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death also,  John 12:9, 10

The Pharisees were out of control and they were supposed to be spiritual leaders!!!
Another attitude that contributed to their crazy behavior was the fact that they thought works was enough! They relied on their own strength to get them to heaven. They thought by doing, they could obtain salvation. They prayed, tithed, went to church, memorized scripture, fasted, all because they thought it would impress God…..How wrong they were. Our works in the sight of God, are like filthy rags! Works are not enough.

Something else to notice about is this, to the pharisees everything was about what you could see. They focused all their attention on the external instead of what was on the inside. They measured themselves and other people on outward appearances!!! They ignored the heart. They never searched their own hearts. They never realized their hearts and become hardened. What a shame.

All these things blinded them. They blinded them and hardened their hearts. Let us be careful how we walk. Ask God for wisdom. Let us not be like the Pharisees who missed God. We can easily be misguided just like the them. Let us be aware of the enemies devices…….

Rolain

Are you being real or fake?

What a week it has been for me. It has been one of learning and discipline. God has been dealing with my heart concerning sin. The crazy thing about this whole matter is, I am the one who started it. I let myself indulge in sin only to find that it had turned into a monster!
I also found out that I had exalted it above GOD. I had made it an idol.
The next craziest thing is, I never told anyone about what I was going through and because of that I was being fake. People would ask me how I was doing and I would say great! But that was a lie. That is what hiding sin can do.

I have now seen that the way forward is to expose sin. It needs to become a habit. As hard as it may be we need to expose the sin we have tried so hard to hide. Hiding it away will only make it worse. It will lead us to a life of duplicity. We become decieved without even knowing it.

Do you have someone who you can be real with? Do you have someone who knows the real you? It will help if you are to live a life of continually exposing sin.

The scripture that has really ministered to me in this season is in Ephesians 4:25 – Therefore, rejecting all falsity and being done now with it, let everyone express truth with his neighbor, for we are all parts of one body and members one of another. (Amplified)

We need to see that we are all part of one body. If one part is hurting, the body fails to function properly. If you are not being real because of sin, the “body” is not functioning at its full capacity. You are needed to complete the “body”. And that is why we cannot keep on being fake. We need to be at a place where we can share our weaknesses because we all part of one body.
The word says that we need to reject falsity. Make a decision to be real. Make a decision to expose sin continuously. Be real with yourself and other people.

Ephesians 5:13 shows us the advantage of being real:
But when anything is exposed and reproved by the light, it is made visible and clear; and where everything is visible and clear there is light.

Let us make a decision today to be real. You are not alone in this. We are all part of one body. Your part in this story is critical. Reject falsity at all costs. Take a risk and be real. It takes courage to be real.
So let us do this. Amen

Rolain.P