📜Romans 3:16 📜
Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.

🔹️In my opinion from my experience, a growing issue in our churches lie in the issue with slothfulness in zeal. Another way to see it is being apathetic, lethargic, passive and callous regarding the things of God.

Apathy has been played out in our:
❗Discipline in Prayer
❗Versatility in Worship through Song
❗Consistency in Giving and Serving
❗Study and Preparation to minister God's Word

⁉️What is the cause⁉️
I'm sure there are a number of factors and all are different based on context and condition.
However, I'm sure we all can agree God deserves and desires greater zeal from our lives.

So what do you do when you fight with being slothful in your zeal?

✍🏽Suggestion✍🏽:⤵️

1️⃣. Make small changes to create new habits.
- Your habits are either feeding on or feeding you for a passionate service to God. If you're struggling with motivation maybe it's time to develop new habits to reignite that 💥fire💥.

2️⃣. Acknowledge your achievements.

- 🥇trophies and successful accomplishments🏆 are not designed to feed your ego, their designed to fuel your passion, to pursue your burdens and convictions. What else can I render to God that transcends what I've accomplished in life/ministry up to this point?

3️⃣. Revisit a ctaft you used to love.

- Have you been guilty filling a void that has become so tedious its more like work then something that brings you fulfillment? Void filling is the quickest way to burn out and lazy labor. It's time to recalibrate and reset on where you should be directing your efforts towards.

4️⃣. Swap 🧠negative thoughts for positive ones🧠.

- The reason why some people are pessimistic is because they pick up a set of 🧐lenses🧐 and see the world through them which draws them to respond negatively. The prison is that they justify their paradigm by calling themselves a realist.
❗BUT REALIST WHO FUNCTIONS WITH NO SPACE FOR FAITH IS A PRISONER AND SLAVE TO THE PAST❗

- Optimists see through 🧐lenses🧐 that provide the space of possibility. They find excitement and thrill in the space of possibility.
- Swap your perspective with a different set of 🧐lenses🧐. Find optimism in what you have yet to see disregarding the idea that you think you've seen it all already.

5️⃣. Step out of your comfort zone.
- You've occupied that space because it brought you comfort, confidence and courage. But now it is fueling your COMPLACENCY. If you want to get freed from the prison you've created then you have to be willing to step out of your comfort zone.

- Try something new, walk afraid but walk in faith. Truth is, God is already waiting for you on the other side of it.

6️⃣. Change your 🌅scenery🌅.
- Your environment has the power to ❄freeze❄ you in place SUCKING the life from what fuels your passion and 💥fire💥. Take a break from the monotony of where you serve or lead and engage with other cultures of people to ignite and trigger new found excitement.
Changing your scenery, can change your outlook.

7️⃣. Identify the root cause of your apathy
- What brought you here? What caused it?
This is not the time to scapegoat why you struggle with apathy. This is the time to use discernment and take ownership.
⚠️You allowed yourself to get lazy with God.
⚠️You allowed yourself to get slothful in zeal.
⚠️You allowed yourself to get lethargic in your ministry and service.

- While boredom is a common emotion it doesn't have to lead to a compromise in your ministry and service. 🔹️Identify the root
🔹️address the problem
🔹️create a strategy to deal with it if it comes back again i.e(sabbath, vacation, break, a moment to selah)

The Future needs Fervent Leaders.
Serve the Lord with joy and excitement.
#PrayingForFutureLeaders
#BreakTheSpiritofApathy
#ShareIfYouAgree ​

A.C.T.S Prayer Model

Adoration
Confession
Thanksgiving
Supplication

• (26:55 - 28:20)  Question to Consider is your relationship with God well rounded? 
• (31:18 - 33:30) There is a difference between Communing with God and Communicating with the Lord. You can Commune without Communication but you cannot Communicate without Communion. A healthy relationship with the Lord should require Communication and Communion. 

What is Adoration? (34:50 - 35:50)

• (35:52  -  36:53) The Act of Paying honor. To regard with the utmost, love, honor.
• (36:54 - 44:37) Relational Equity -> The Idea of Adoration -> Acts(expression) of adoration.

 

• (44:45 - 46:30) Expressing your worth-ship.

Worship is not a language word but an action word. Language is attached to the
Action to maximize the worth of your meaning.
​

• (47:47 - 48:50) The Act of adoration is the engagement of expressing high Esteem towards something or someone who you believe deserves it.

 

• (49:00 - 1:03:15) Descriptors for giving Adoration to God. 

1. The Act of Paying Honor.
2. Expressions of Admiration
3. Confessions of Devotion
4. Labor of High Esteem & Exaltation​

💥PENTECOST SUNDAY💥:

IT'S NOT ABOUT ME OR YOU. IT'S ABOUT WHAT JESUS ORIGINALLY CALLED AND COMMISSIONED US TO DO.

📜Acts 2:5,6📜
Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken.

Should be our Pentecost themed scriptures not Acts JUST 📜2:1-4📜.
For years we've emphasized our focus on the idea how Pentecost is the miraculous event where we celebrate and commemorate the impartation and empowerment of the Holy Spirit. By which group of believers received power from on high which resulted in a revival in a small upper room leading those devout men speaking in other tongues as the Spirit gave utterance.

But I would suggest that our focus should not be on what we received on Pentecost but instead WHAT WAS THE 💥POWER💥 FOR?
The Lord did not pour out His Spirit on that glorious day for PERSONAL BENEFIT, for SELF EXALTATION for PERSONAL GLORY. He poured out His Spirit so that His followers could and would be enabled to be effective and powerful witnesses to cultures and generations about God's power to save, deliver and set captives free.

So please take into consideration as we celebrate a defining moment that shifted the dynamics of how the Church fulfilled the Great Commission, it is our responsibility as BELIEVERS, FOLLOWERS and MEMBERS of the Body of Jesus Christ to heed to the conviction, "LORD, WHAT AM I CALLED TO USE YOUR POWER FOR?" 🤔
- How can I use your power to share the good news?
- How can I use your power to teach others about the call of God on their lives.
- How can I use your power to bring healing to the sick and life to the dead man or woman.

I implore you brothers and sisters do not allow your shout and dance to end without acknowledging and accepting the conviction of being a witness to this generation of men and women who need to hear us speaking praises to God in a way they can understand.

💥PENTECOST💥 IS NOT ABOUT ME OR YOU. IT'S ABOUT THE LORD RESOURCING US WITH THE ABILITY TO BE EVEN MORE EFFECTIVE IN ADDRESSING THE PROBLEMS OF THE WORLD WITH THE DIVINE SOLUTION AVAILBLE WITH AND THROUGH JESUS CHRIST.

LET US CELEBRATE SOBERLY, INTELLIGENTLY AND CONSCIOUS OF WHY POWER WAS GIVEN.

#PentecostSunday
#ShareIfYouCare
#GrowingTogether
#Discipleship #TheChurch

In my opinion survival is only natural for the desperate. In order to survive any form of persecution, opposition, situation or circumstance something has to shift in your mind to lead you to a state of desperation. Desperation grants you access to a reserve of motivation.
What if your motivation lies in the hands of your desperation? 
How desperate are you for change?
How desperate are you for something different?
How desperate are you to survive this?

Joshua chapter 1 found himself in a very unfavorable situation. His mentor, father figure and leader Moses had died and he was next in line to take on the responsibility to continue the legacy Moses started. (No pressure, lol)
Joshua possibly unsure of himself, unsure of his future, unsure if the people would follow him like Moses had to make a decision to move forward or coward backward.

You every single day are left with the same decision, will you move forward from here or will you fall backward from here?

Joshua 1:9 the Lord responds to Joshua, "...Be strong and of good courage. Do not be afraid, neither be dismayed: for the Lord you God is with you wherever you go."

What encouragement does the Lord give to you and I through Joshua?

1. Be strong and of good courage. 
- It is to suggest the Lord supplies you and I with strength and courageousness even during seasons of great loss and chaos. Joshua is not in the best of places, but the Lord charges Joshua as He charges you and I to be strong. Be strengthened in the Lord's might. Produce strength in your weakness provided from the grace of God. 
You have access to divine strength and courage in your most challenging moments in life.

2. Do not be afraid, neither be dismayed.
- It's understandable to fight with fear and dismay when navigating through a season of uncertainty and discouragement. But the Lord not only grants you and I strength in our weakness but he also gives us reason to be confident while fighting with fear. 

3. The Lord God will be with you where ever you go.
- There is no where you can go where the Lord cannot see you nor can reach you. What greater reason to find strength and encouragement then in the confidence of knowing God will be with us wherever we go. He will never leave us nor forsake us. 

This moment of strength does not require God withdrawing you from loss or fear. But God can over ride any moment in your life with the confidence brought on by His un wavering commitment to be with us. 

Be encouraged and do not be dismayed, the Lord God Almighty is with you wherever you go. 

3 observations concerning the Cross:

1. Jesus was placed on a Cross by a people who wanted to remove him from his ability to change a culture. However the Cross has transcended generations and has become the image representing not just a crucified man but an image that grants hope to the hopeless, strength to the weak and grace to those who feel lossed because of His resurrection.

What has been assigned and designed to help you Change a Culture?

2. The Cross was created with God made material. Wood which derives from a tree. But it was manipulated by man to crucify Jesus. While man meant for the cross to kill Jesus it became an image to remind a generation of people of a solution to address the sin condition the world suffered from.

- The difference between a tool and a weapon is not in its look, but how it is used. The value it has is determined by the perspective you adopt. The pandemic like Jesus' death is a weapon that has killed thousands. But the pandemic simultaneously has been a tool to help birth innovation, compassion, desperation and illumination for many.  What is a weapon for some is a tool for others.

How can you shift your perspective from being able to see weapons in one hand can be a tool in another hand?

3. The Cross was used to help change a culture, the Cross originally was a weapon for one group has become tool for another. Lastly, the Cross required a submitted life in order for it to have the power to save lives.

What tool was assigned to you to change a culture but requires you to submit your life to?
- It's one thing to use a hammer for a job, it's another thing to use a hammer because your occupation as a mechanic requires your expertise in using that tool.

At the end of the day may these observations regarding the tool of crucifixion lead you to consider what God is using to help you shift a culture.
#TheCross

​- The value of being a Christian is found in the truth that our peace is not conditioned by what we are in control of. But our peace is found in the truth that because of Jesus Christ we have access to the God who is always in control.

• Regardless of what is occurring in our nation or in our world try to find peace knowing not only is God always in control but also nothing side swipes God.
- He is Omniscient= All knowing
Omnipotent= All Powerful
Omnipresent= Everywhere at every time.

• There are moments in life where God may allow challenges to occur in your life not out of consequence but so that your faith can revisit past experiences that were God investments made for your future.

• Your life experiences may very well have you in a place where God needs to reminds you:
1. Who God is.
- Who is God to you?

2. What God can do.
- Are you still convinced what is impossible with man is possible with God?

3. What God has in store for you and to do through you.
- What is happening may not be for your destruction but for your reconstruction.

• Some levels of favor is experienced not because we deserve it, but often times God is defending His name sake.
- He is faithful, He is merciful, He is wonderful. God defends His name with the level of favor we experience undeserved.

• As a Christian be careful in getting sucked into the vacuum of emotional compromise.

• One of the greatest epidemics of Christianity today is that we are more aware of Christian culture then we are on world wide events that help us see the prophetic timeline of God's will in motion.

• Don't allow your spirit to suffer in the hands of ignorance because you disregard the need to be sensitive and aware of the times you are living in.

• Be careful in being deceived by the growing rhetoric that prayer is not enough. Just because you did not see or receive exactly what you were praying for does not mean you should take matters into your own hands. It means you must remain steadfast in faith that God sees, God knows, and God will respond if He hasn't already.

• Focus is essential for a purpose driven Christian.

• Ps. 27:4 Focus helps you funnel your desires to direct your attention on what matters the most.
• Matt. 6:33 Focus helps you eliminate factors assigned to choke your purpose.
• Prov. 4:25 Focus helps you accomplish your goals, aspirations and desires in the allotted time projected or sooner.

• A Lack of Focus:
1. Leads to Distraction
2. An open door for Deception
3. Suffering from the weight of Devastation.
4. Creating a reality leading to Destruction.

• Never allow your inconsistency from focus make you think you cannot get refocused.
• Praise God the Holy Spirit comes with an auto focus functionality. If you call on Him He can readjust your vision to help you see what you need to see in order to restore your focus.