Now is the Time

What is Faith... it sounds like a noun but acts like a verb. Faith is an action word. I love what the scripture says about faith according to Hebrews 12, "now faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen". 

That alone lets you know that Faith is a right now word, present word, and it will work for whatever you need right now. 

Now is the time, right now. So whatever you're going to do for God, family or even country for that matter, needs to be done right now with a sense of urgency.

Remember the old sage who said, don't put off for tomorrow what you could do today". How many life long dreams and goal been put off by that old familiar friend called procrastination? 

With all his wisdom Solomon said there is no praise in the grave, we need to get in a hurry and be about our Father's business. Faith is right now!

This is the place, what place? The place that you're in right now is the exact place that God has you in because He's the one that prepared it from the beginning of the foundation of the world. 

Jesus said, I will never leave you or forsake you, I am with you always." It's true that God has a time for everything, but we have to wait so that our time becomes synchronized with God's never ending, eternal time table. When we learn how to trust in the Lord and wait on his timing those things that we so easily fret about in life disappear and no longer trouble us.

We are Gods' people and God needs YOU.  Whenever God got ready to do anything, he always looked for a man or woman who would hear his voice and obey him. All throughout scripture and even more so today, God is looking for somebody who will say yes to His will. 

You may think the Lord can't use you because your life is so messed up, but I say for every reason or excuse you give or reason you think God can't use you, those are the very reasons that He will. God wants to take all the broken pieces of your life and mend them back together with His extraordinary love and all he wants from you is Faith. Now Faith!

Is Your Agape Sloppy?

I heard a profound message this week about love. It went on to ask, how do you know if someone is born-again or has really accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Saviour? Because, as the old church mothers used to say, everybody talking about heaven ain't going. The answer to the question is love. But what is love? Everyone has their own definition of what it is and or what it's not for that matter.

However, there are three categories of love; Eros, Pheleo and Agape. Which one are you familar with? Eros or erotica comes from the sensual, fleshy unrenewed soul and manifest as lust. You can't build a marriage of even a friendship on this one.

Pheleo as in Phildelphia means brotherly love. But the Agape which is the love God has for us is not conditional or dependent of any quality that make you loveable. It's God's love, the love we read about in the book of Corinthians in the Bible. 

John 13:34 says, "a new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another."

The only real way to know of tell is someone is truly born-again or a disciple of Christ is by the love we have one to another, and that includes your enemies. Jesus laid his life down for his friends and the very ones who persecuted him; which were his enemies. We mjust do the same?

John 13:35 declares that by this shall men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another.

You can't hate your neighbor who you see everyday and claim to love Jesus whom you've never seen. That's called sloppy agape. Jesus told the church in Ephesus in the book of Revelations, I have this against you, you have left your first love. You don't fall in or out of love, we simply leave it or walk away.

You need to repent and do your first works over. When the fervent love is gone from any relationship (especially a spouse) you know it because the relationship is strained and stiff and we do what we have to just to get by.

God's love is perfect. If your agape is sloppy here are a few things you can do to fix it:

1.  Take time to listen to yourself, I mean really listen to your self-talk. You can gauge where you are by what you think and how you talk to yourself.

2.  Watch your tone. You can say the right thing, but use the wrong tone.

3.  What Spirit are you speaking in? Having the right spirit and the right tone will change your talk.

Is it God's love or yours? If you lose it because you don't like something then it's not God's it's yours. Agape love should work at home in practical ways with your family and children.