Call Him

Now, if you find yourself wondering about your nature, there is good news.  Jesus hung around people who had compromised natures and all of them ended up being powerhouses for Him.  If God changes you, he will deliver you from yourself and help you walk that road of regrets.  It is not pretty, but you won't have to go at it alone.  If Judas had just turned and said he needed help, Jesus would have helped him.  History would have been changed.  He may have made heaven where the precious metals are used for street pavement and the only homes mentioned are mansions.  If you are reading this and you aren't in a good place with God. 

Call him.......

Call Me
http://youtu.be/1sVfYvwv4To

Regrets

So after the deed was done, Judas was sorry.  I hate the word "sorry".  It means that I have done something that I can't repair and it is the only thing left I can say.  "Sorry" did not change history in the case of Judas.  The enemy sits back and watches us make a complete fool of ourselves.  He lets us loose everything understanding the tearful road we will have to take to repair the damage.  I hope the damage can be repaired.  Once Jesus is in the hands of the authorities and  death is certain, Judas comes to give the money back and recant.  It does not work and he hangs himself.  No one told me at the beginning of salvation that repentance does not cancel the law of reaping and sowing.  You can end up saved as blazes and broke from addictions, homeless from evictions and "certifiably crazy" from the stuff you smoked.  The road back to right is a long road.  It is made even longer by regret.

Cry me a river
http://youtu.be/N6y5pJv91xo

Since we know you are a whore, we will haggle over the price

The biggest flaw in Judas was that he could be bought.  For a small fee, Judas would sell you down the river.  How do you put a price tag on the Son Of God.  Jesus was worth thirty pieces of silver.  I wonder if I have sold him for less than that.  We trade God in for the silliest of things.  Things like, relationships, houses, cars, jobs, and sex.  Some despots will denounce Christ for a cold meat sandwich on a hungry day.  Are we better than Judas or are we just better at hiding it.  God knows that you have Him on the auction block.  Well, God can't be bought or sold as Judas found out.  In the end, he took the money and tried to give it back, seeing it really wasn't what he thought it would be.  But that was too late.....

Money
http://youtu.be/CiSdGIcPhZ0

Constrain yourself

Judas was a man unbridled passion.  Seems like he entertained stuff he should have been fighting off.  What happened to the days when even your evil days had boundaries.  I really began to see his nature when a woman comes to Christ to offer a precious ointment.  Judas complains that the oil should have been sold and the money given to the poor.  He had some nerve to question a gift that was not even his all because he was a thief.  Jesus called him a thief.  Where was Judas' constraint.  Someone should have told him to get some business and get some sense.  We need to get a hold of ourselves sometimes and stop this "buck wild" christian living that leaves you "saying" you are saved yet "looking" like a your not.  Instead of appearing and acting saved, we look like pimps and hoochies with sagging pants and tramp stamps.

Stuff like that
http://youtu.be/NCHRGSx4apg

Change

One day, I preached a sermon on Judas.  Judas was one of the most intriguing figures in the Bible simply because he was more than just a traitor.  He was a thief, a liar, he was greedy, he was a traitor and he was over entitled.  Yet, as all of these things were him, he was called, he was loved by God, he was trusted to carry the money and he saw Jesus Christ in action everyday with an unchanged nature.  Do you think that is far from us?  I think not.  As a matter of fact, we sit in churches all the time with unrepentant hearts and lifestyles that reflect our own passions.  This week I want to take a strong look at Judas and hopefully, by the end of the week.  I will be a better person.  If Judas can miss the mark with Jesus sleeping in the same tent, we must change and I mean change.  It is too late in the day for playing "chicken" with God.  It's been a long time coming, but I know that a change will, must, has to come.

  Sam Cooke was not a perfect man.  He wrote this song after feeling the sting of racism and losing his son.  He still had hope that change would save him.

A Change is gonna come
http://youtu.be/gbO2_077ixs

People who amuse themselves with you

He places you on the edge of a cliff he never intended to jump.

He waits at home for you as you I.V., and stomach pump

Nothing wrong with a little fun

As long as you’re the one

And now your staring out the window in a funk

He needs to be amused so he gets you drunk

You come to your senses to loot and plunder

And finds he has left for someone younger

You count your mistakes one by one

An inheritless, broken, prodigal son

You are not a toy so don't be played with.

Crutches

She fakes as if her life is diabolic

And hates to see you smile, and romp and frolic

She grabs you from behind by sleight of hand

She is only satisfied when supply meets demand

And you aid and you pray and you pay exchanged

To wake in the morning prearranged

To start back off at where you thought to end

She drives you crazy, your helpless fair timed friend

You try to run but she has you in clutches

You have become her slave, her muse

Her crutches.

The greatest freedom people can achieve, is to be free from the burden of people, so you can achieve.

Predators

They watch like lizards perched on rocks

Not theirs

An opportunity to entitle themselves

Fills their prayers

It does not matter the heart they break

The soul they mame

The goods they take

The lie they tell

The mind they ache

Their smile is fake

Righteousness is an illusion

A vision of loveliness leading

To the conclusion

That while you feel disgusted

All is well

Your just a fool because you trusted.

God protect you from predators

Friends who cause your babe to leap

She left with her Bible tucked beneath her arm

My heart a in piece

My hopes dashed upon the stones

My dream decease

What she thought was life was poison

My minds toxicity

Says I am drunk with rage while she displays

False humility

I fall to my knees, He sends

Elizabeth.  My babe kicks

I am made alive, my heart mends

Just  as Hope predicts

My fields are watered, my grain sways

My flowers bloom

My heart is expectant,

My child leaps in my womb

Verlisha Taylor

Leeks and Onions, seriously

In the Bible, the children of Israel spent some time in the wilderness.  When they got tired of going around in circles, they began to complain.  In their complaining, they talked of Egypt and all of the leeks and onions that they had there.  I was amazed at how they forgot the bricks with no straw or the whipped until dead that they experienced.  I am amazed how they forgot the frogs, the locust and the blood.  They forgot a Pharoe who did not know Joseph and I am amazed how they forgot the mass killing of their babies.  Seriously, how could you forget that and simply remember leeks and onions.  There is nothing glamorous about the life of sin and degradation.  I wouldn't go back if you paid me GOOD money.  I remember the poverty, the hopelessness, the suicidal notions and the lack of safety.  Even if things get a bit rough, and even if I had to go all alone, I won't leave God.  Jesus is the best thing that ever happened to me.

Just thought this was funny

One time three very bad people felt guilty for the different crimes they committed and went to a church to ask god forgiveness. There, they found a priest.

So all three of them went to the priest. The first crook said "Oh, Father! I have killed an innocent man and now I am feeling very guilty! Please ask god to forgive me!" The priest murmured a blessing and told the crook "God has forgiven you my son, and now go and drink the water from the well of purity". The Father pointed toward a fountain with sparkling water. The first crook went and drank the water. "The water tastes weird" he said and went away.

The second crook came to the priest and said "Oh, Father! I have stolen allot of money from many people and now I am feeling very guilty! Please ask god to forgive me!" The priest murmured a blessing and said "God has forgiven you my son, and now go and drink the water from the well of purity". So the second crook went and drank the sparkling water in the fountain. "This water tastes funny", he said and went away.

Now only the third crook remained. "What is it that you did wrong, my son?" the priest asked. With an uneasy look the last crook said, “I peed in the well".

---

Taking his name in vain can be costly

A preacher trained his horse to go when he said, "Praise the Lord," and to stop when he said, "Amen". The preacher mounted the horse, said, "Praise the Lord" and went for a ride.

When he wanted to stop for lunch, he said, "Amen".

He took off again, saying, "Praise the Lord".

The horse started going toward the edge of the cliff. The preacher got excited and said, "Whoa!". Then he remembered and said, "Amen", so the horse stopped at the edge. The preacher was so relieved that he looked up to heaven and said, "Praise the Lord!"

---

Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.
C. S. Lewis

I have left a lot of things behind.  I find it useless to go back through the tulips looking for lost things.  Unless it is necessary to life, I am leaving it and waiting for the best that is yet to come.  Wandering around in circles, looking for what you will gain again anyway is a waste of time and I really hate to waste time.

Just a nugget

God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.
C. S. Lewis

Enough said.

Quotes from C.S. Lewis

Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.
C. S. Lewis

I am a lifelong learner and I believe in learning for your entire existence.  One thing that has saved me many a day is learning from other people’s mistakes.  I don’t have to fall in the same pit or live the same lie or get beat by the same man.  I can watch where you knocked yourself out with the brick wall and be alright with walking around it.

Questioning God

Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable.
C. S. Lewis

I am a professional at questioning God.  I lifted my little crooked finger toward heaven and acted like a complete fool.  When the day was over, God was still on the throne and he was absolutely silent about my request.  It was wasted time. 

Don’t waste time.

Where are you aiming

Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.
C. S. Lewis

I have always known that I was going to have a great deal of influence in my life.  I could sense it as a child.  That is not boastful, it is just the truth.  When I became a Christian at the age of twelve, my goal was not to be influential.  I was twelve.  I wanted to blend in with my peers, I wanted to be cool and I wanted everyone to like me.  Well, in Christendom, that never happened.  My manner of dress set me apart, my peers ran from the church to the club,  and even adults did not like me.  I learned to be cool with myself.  I grew up in a society that only rewarded failures, so bright stars were told to shine less so that others could be comfortable.  My Bishop was not like that so I cleaved to him and his wife.    Now that I am well past twelve, I am the coolest person I know, I blend in with my peers and the people who are close to me, like me.  I guess aiming toward heaven was better than aiming toward earth.

Thoughts from C. S. Lewis

A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.
C. S. Lewis

When I have been angry at God, I have sat in church refusing to worship him as if that means he will take his ball and go home.  I face the wall and refuse to even sing.  I am not a big stander, but when I am angry, I won’t even sway.  It was petty and useless because at the end of the day, I was still mad and God was still God.

Too much attention

I think there comes a time when one can lose their touch with humanity.  You can be all alone on an island created by you in which you feel the whole earth revolves around you.  Being out and about in the world gives you the sense that the earth is moaning and not just you.  You see that problems aren’t just on your front doorstep, but they have been mailed to a myriad of people.  Not only can you see problems, but you can see solutions.  When I talk to people who are just like me, I find someone older and wiser.  I found someone who has already been where I have just arrived and it makes life sweeter.  You can’t afford to lose touch with the race to which you belong.  I am not talking about that superficial thing we call color, but the essence of our very beings that I call……………human.

From another's Perspective

Sometimes, I struggle with seeing things from another person’s perspective.  It all becomes perfunctory if I see it as relating to myself.  In that sense, I was always taking things personally.  In my life, there was a friend who stopped speaking to me.  Whenever she saw me, she rolled her eyes and acted like I did not exist.  I wanted to be liked and I did not want strife at that time.  One day, I realized how pathetic her life was.  I realized that her treatment of me was really a function of how she lived and if it wasn’t going to be me, it would have been someone else in our collegiate world.  One day, I saw her on the bus and life had rode her hard and hung her up wet.  I could see that she wanted to say something, but my stop came and that interaction would be over.  I have not seen her for almost twenty years.  I learned something from her.  Sometimes, you have to grow a thick skin and not take people personally.

What God has for me is for me

In living a life without regrets, we are often faced with the consequences of our own decisions.  Most of which were made years and years ago, when we were small and a bit confused.  Now, that we are old enough to realize that some of those decisions weren’t the best, we reach for a scripture to say that we can still lay claim on what we so despised when life was simple.  I find that regrets usually creep up when you find yourself in the company of a person who has what you despised and in yourself, you think “Why can’t I have what she has”.  We even create doctrines based on that.  We say things like, “What he has done for others, he will do for you”.  I have never believed that whole heartedly because God does not have to provide for you the exact same way that he provides for someone else.  My case in point is the Red sea.  That sea was divided for the Israelites to cross over.  Pharoe pompously thought to enter into the provisional grace that was only meant for Israelites.  Because the grace was not there, the waters closed up over their heads and they drowned.  You have to embrace what God has for you and that may be different than what God has for someone else.  It may not be the same, but it comes from the same God and that should be your focus.  Your template is God, not someone else’s blessings.

Moses and his Storm

Numbers 20:10 He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, "Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?" Here we know that God told Moses to speak to the rock and it would produce water for them.  Moses has been caught up in a storm and has lost focus.  At the beginning of his time leading the people, he was interfacing with a pharoe who thought he was God and God had to show his might.  Now, Moses is in the wilderness after he has risked life and limb to save the Israelites and they are rebelling on every hand.  Moses is getting upset and he is also getting out of focus.  Instead of being focused on what he was supposed to be, he became focused on the failings of the people.  Somehow, he confused God with himself.  It was not him bringing the water from the rock, it was God doing the miracle through him.  He was simply a servant.  He failed to honor the God he worked for in front of the people.  He had by default replaced God and had become a god himself.  That landed him in the grave and the task of leading the people to the wilderness into the hands of Joshua.  In the midst of a storm, he made the wrong decision and that decision was costly.

Need to Breathe

Los Angelos was my father's nemesis.  He had asthma and the air in LA was a death sentence.  The basic essential of clean air is up for grabs in LA.  People are trying to make things better, but it's not country fresh yet.  My father did the next best thing.  He went no where near Los Angelos.  He stayed away from the city and moved to the Bay area, where he could breathe.  Fresh air was essential.  Breathing in God is similar.  The move of the Holy Spirit is like the wind circulating in the air.  It keeps you from fainting.  It keeps you from dying and it keeps you able to live.  Never go to places where you can't breathe.  If the spirit is not there, you don't be there.