God's Grace and Mercy

Gracious: showing kindness, full of compassion, to bestow God blessing upon us
Merciful: full of compassion, favor, tender mercy, pity

As you may know, names speak of nature. By "nature," I mean one's own character or type. "Merciful" and "Gracious" always work together to bestow God's nature and blessings upon us. Friends, that's just who God is; He's not some mean God who sits on the throne just waiting to beat us over the head when we do something wrong. No, the God we serve was merciful before sin; He is merciful during sin; and He will still be merciful after sin. He is the same today, yesterday, and forever.

Exodus 34:5-7 tells us, "And the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation."

The Lord stood by Moses and proclaimed the names of the Lord. He wanted Moses (and He wants us) to learn and get familiar with His names or His nature, so that when we are in the midst of our storm, we can just call on the name. When we need God's mercy, we must call on His merciful name - in Hebrew, that's Jehovah Khaw-oom. When you do, His mercy is going to show up and keep those things back that I so rightly deserve. When we need grace, we should call on His gracious name - Jehovah Khan-noon - and He will show up and graciously give us what we don’t deserve. If you are not familiar with His Hebrew names, just call on "mercy" and "grace," God knows His names (even if we don't). However, we must call on His name with believing-faith and He will show-up and show-out on our behalf!

Let me share with you a testimony of my own: my formal pastor went to the doctor with his daughter, who wanted to have a specific procedure done that day. The nurse at the doctor's office said, "no, we can't do that procedure today; you'll have to wait another month." He and his daughter left, but while they were on the elevator he asked his daughter if she really wanted to have the procedure done that day. Of course she said yes. Guess what they did next? They called on the merciful - Jehovah Khaw-oom - and the gracious - Jehovah Khan-noon - names of God. When the elevator reached to first floor, he told his daughter, "let's go back up." So, they did just that - they went back to the doctor's office and told them again what she wanted to have done. You better believe that the second time the nurse said, "Can you come back this afternoon? We will do it today." That's what I mean about "believing faith." God's names are powerful; all we have to do is use them. They are full of compassion and tender mercy!

With all that said, let the Church say Amen… and AMEN!

Coming Under Authority

 Authority: The power to determine, or command

The top brass from the Army, Navy and Marine Corps were arguing about who had the bravest troops. They decided to settle the dispute using an enlisted man from each branch.
The army general called a private over and ordered him to climb to the top of the base flagpole, then let go with both hands and salute. The private quickly complied.
Next, the admiral ordered a sailor to climb the pole, polish the brass knob at the top, salute smartly and jump off. The sailor did as he was told and landed on the concrete below.
Finally, the marine was told to do exactly the same as the army and navy men but in full battle gear, pack filled with brick and loaded weapon carried high. He took one look at the major general and said: "You're out of your mind, sir."
The marine commander turned to the others and said: "Now that's guts!"

The thing about authority is that it exists to keep us in line as well as to keep law and order. For example, when we come to a stop sign, the mission of that stop sign is to save our life, but if no one stops, it would be total chaos. However, if everyone stops appropriately and looks both ways before going forward, then we would avoid accidents and the mission of that stop sign gets accomplish. Authority is here to help us. Unfortunately, we don’t always like coming under certain types of authority. Even Jesus humbles himself and came under authority, so why don't we think that we should have to??

Hebrew 13:17 tells us, "Obey them that have rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you." We will never be in authority if we can’t come under authority.

Let’s take a look at the words of encouragement to Joshua; the Lord said, be strong and of a good courage. Verse 5 in Chapter 1 of that book reads; "There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee." Joshua became a great leader, simply because he learned how to come under authority. And you know what? Joshua made it into the promise land!

The Lord wants us to come under the authority of our leader as that leader must come under the authority of the Lord. We too will be blessed and the Lord will be with us as He was with Joshua.

With all that said, let the church say Amen... and AMEN!

Stay Encouraged!

Encourage: to inspire with courage, spirit, or hope

We are seeing trouble everywhere, All you have to do is read a newspaper, turn on the tv or scroll through social media. Within the first minute or two, you will be overwhelmed with news of all the things that are happening in the world. Friends, I'm here to tell you that it's enough to blow your mind! But more importantly, I’m here to remind you that no matter what it looks like, God has it all in control. God allowed these things to happen and He's the only one who can fix it. Our aim should always be to please Him in every facet of our life. As believers, it’s vital that we never give up on God and that we don't ever stop believing that He's right there in the midst of whatever’s going on. He's everywhere acting as our help, our sustainer, and our salvation - basically, He’s really everything that we need to survive.

The Word tells us, "So we do not look at what we can see right now, the troubles all around us, but we look forward to the joys in heaven which we have not yet seen, the troubles will soon be over, but the joys to come will last forever" (2 Corinthians 4:18, TLB). With that in mind, let’s continue to run on for the Lord. Like we talked about just a couple of weeks ago, He's coming like a thief in the night. We don't know the time or the day, but we do know that we must be ready.

Remember, my friends,our heavenly payday is coming after a while, so our aim should be to please the Lord always in everything we do and in everything that we say. After all, we serve an awesome God! A God that died for us, so that we could have everlasting life. Until that day, let’s commit to living in victory and not defeat; to living in prayer and not in worry; and to keep fighting the good fight and not giving up. My friends, keep living, keep loving, and keep looking forward to the joys in heaven!

With all that said, let the church say amen... and Amen!