Where Is God Now Ministries

In 1 Chronicles we see that David is made king after Saul’s death. We get a description of the valiant men of David’s army and the companies that came before David (1 Chronicles 11 10-47). In the transfer of power, if you will, the Ark of the Covenant must be transferred as well. There is no doubt that David had a love for God. Skillfully, God had been preparing him for many years to take the throne, but not before his time, which is also a lesson for us. We never want to get ahead of God’s plan s for our life.

In the transferring of the Ark of the Covenant we see in 1 Chronicles 13:7, they are using a new cart to transport it. Uzza and Ahio are the drivers of the cart. David is enthusiastic and wanting to do things the “right” way. So, sometimes when we become so enthusiastic in what we are doing we occasionally forget procedures and protocols. Subsequently, when the Ark was about to tumble over, Uzza reached out and touched the Ark, which was forbidden by God. God had given Moses instructions long ago on how the Ark was to be handled. This angered God and He smote Uzza; he died before God (1 Chronicles 13:10). In turn, David was afraid of God and did not know how to handle the Ark (1 Chronicles 13:12).

David became perplexed and did not know what to do. After, this event, David went up against the Philistines and God showed favor upon him (1 Chronicles 14:10). God gave David more instructions and showed favor on how to defeat the enemy in battle. After receiving these instructions from God, David realized his mistake with transferring the Ark. Then, David gave new instructions for the Levites to carry the Ark as was instructed by God with Moses (1 Chronicles 15: 1-15). This is significant because once again, we see the importance of doing things the way God has instructed.

David got a do over in transferring the Ark. They had a huge celebration with singer and instruments of music. It was a joyful, festive celebration. It is a lesson for us that when we go before God and acknowledge our wrong doing, asked for forgiveness, and repent, the Lord will redeem us! Praise God! … We get do overs, too! Love & Blessings!

Have you been able to see the lessons or the things God wanted you to know during this COVID pandemic? With a world-wide pandemic, it certainly gave us ALL a moment to pause. COVID slowed our pace of life for most of us. In a sense, it gave us a time of rest from the normal. In the Bible we see that Jesus took time to get away from the normal, the crowds, to spend time with our Father, God. I believe sometimes we forget that the same God of the Bible is the same God we are serving today! God wants us to spend time with Him. Satan does not want us to embrace that in our spirits. Again, he tries to kill, steal, and destroy the things of God in our lives.

Fortunately, God has given us a day of rest. He gave us seven days in a week and out of those seven we should be taking at least one day of rest. Are you taking one day of rest? We actually should be communing with our Heavenly Father throughout the day, for the Bible says we should be praising and worshiping God from sunrise to sunset (Psalms 113: 3-5). Satan does not want you to know that either because doing this is one of the things that build our faith. So what does this look like? It can be playing worship music, singing, talking to God, meditating on things of good report, asking God for his help, etc. It is a life that shows its dependence on God!

I believe one of the reasons for COVID was to draw us closer to our God. Yes, God is calling us and He wants us closer to Him. We can never be too close. This world, Satan’s kingdom, will swallow you up if you let it. COVID also should have allowed us to assess and reassess what is going on in our individual lives. COVID exposed many things that are going on in our lives, if we are honest. It showed us what needs to remain, and what needs to go. It showed us what needs to be fixed and what needs to be readjusted.

In the Bible, we see how God used plagues, war, and famine to call his people back to him. They kept turning away and turning away from him. He used these events to get their attention and most of them made the adjustments in their lives to put God first place in their lives. What has God shown you through COVID, this plague that has visited us? Love & Blessings!

Which are YOU…  A fan of Jesus or a follower of Jesus?

Are you a fan of Jesus or a follower of Jesus? This is a poignant and relevant question. Why? Jesus had many admirers. Today, he has millions of admirers.  He is known well and respected by others. Many people can tell you about the miracles he performed on the earth. Many can tell you how he suffered on the cross. Many can tell you how he was resurrected. Many can prophesy in his name. Many can heal the sick in his name. Many give lip service to Jesus. Matthew 7:21-23 NKJV reads “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew You; depart from me, You who practice lawlessness!’ Is this an example of fans of Jesus? What would make Jesus say such a thing to these religious folks? Could it be they never gave their hearts to Jesus?

Who would a follower of Jesus be? Well, I believe Jesus gave a clue in Matthew 7:21-23. Jesus says those who do the will of my Father in heaven will enter into heaven. So, a follower is someone who does the will of Father God in heaven. God is not looking for perfection. That is why he sent His son, Jesus. He is looking for a heart that loves Him and His son and who is obedient to the Holy Spirit. Here lies one of the mysteries of God because only he can judge our hearts. However, a follower of Jesus goes beyond knowing everything about him, a follower is a reflection in his life of Jesus Christ and manifesting the Fruit of the Spirit. We can only do this when we choose to walk in the Spirit. Additionally, he is not practicing lawlessness. And when we do mess up we are Godly sorry and God knows it. No need to beat ourselves up about it. We confess and repent and move forward. Satan is the accuser and will tell us who we are not in Christ. God’s love for us and what Jesus did for us on the cross. That should empower us to do better and be the follower, not the fan of Jesus, we should be. Love & Blessings!

When Satan tries to convince you your peace, contentment, joy, etc., you have from living your life to honor God is bad or wrong, tell him he is a liar and keep it moving in Jesus’ name! Many times this will come in the form of people because that is who Satan likes to use most often. We see this in Matthew 16:23 and Mark 8:33 when Jesus tells Peter get thee behind me Satan when Peter tries to correct Jesus about His mission upon the Earth. Now, I don’t recommend calling people “Satan”, however, I believe Jesus is teaching us many lessons in these passages. Number one, sometime people in your inner circle will sometimes not understand your mission. Number two, sometimes you have to distance yourself from these people. I call it, “Love them from a distance.” If you happen to live with the person this is happening, know that God will give you the grace to deal with the situation until he decides to move or change things.

Additionally, Satan tried to convince Jesus all he had to offer him was much better than what God had to offer. That is LOL funny, but a lot of times we do not see this in the natural.  In, Matthew 4:1-11, we see that the Holy Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness to be tested. Remember, when we are being tested it is to build our character and to prove our faith before God. So, Satan literally tries to lure Jesus in with the sins and enticements of this world we live in consisting of power, influence, and attack his identity and ego. Satan does the same to us, too, right?

Finally, in the end Jesus told Satan man does not live by bread alone but by every word of God. Jesus continually quoted scripture to the devil! He used the word of God to put Satan in his place… What an example for us! When Satan tries to convince us, and he will, that our choices for God have been in vain or fruitless, recognize it is from Satan and then feed back to him the word of God. Folks, this is the importance of US knowing the word of God for ourselves. It is one of the weapons we have to fight Satan when he comes prancing around in our lives. Unfortunately, Adam and Eve, did not have scripture to defend themselves, but they did have God’s direct instructions to them to stay away from the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:15) and today God tells us to stay away from the sins of this world.

God has sent us out as His modern-day disciples. Christians are modern day disciples or Christ followers.  As we go out and people do not receive what you are saying or doing, Jesus told the disciples to kick the dust off of your shoes and keep it moving (Matthew 10:14). In other words, we do not have to debate people about the word of God. Satan will use these people to disrespect you and try to lure you into conflict and strife with them. That is not our mission though. Our mission is to spread the word of God through the Fruit of the Spirit. Once you have said it and once you have done it, it is the Holy Spirit’s job to penetrate people’s hearts. Satan will try to discourage you when people do not receive what you have to say or do.  Remember, Satan is a liar! Do and say God’s word and let the Holy Spirit do the rest! Obey God and leave the consequences to Him. God will honor your love and obedience to Him. Love & Blessings! 

Many times, we wonder why God is not moving in the way we expect. We forget time and time again God’s thoughts and ways are not like ours. When we do this, we become frustrated. I have learned when I hit those dry or wilderness seasons to ask God, “What do you want me to know or learn?”

In 1 King:18, we see God had Elijah waiting for 3 years after he witnessed God perform the miracles in Zarephath. In those three years God was preparing Elijah to confront the most wicked king ever in Israel, Ahab. He was EVIL.                       

We see in verse 17, Ahab and Elijah finally meet. Ahab had the Israelites worshiping Baalim. Elijah wanted to settle the issue of who was the true and living God. So, he asked the Israelites that question. No one answered.

So, the challenge Elijah offers becomes to cut up two bullocks and lay it on wood with no fire. They were to call on the name of their gods. Elijah was to call on his God. The God who answers by fire will be the one and only true God.

The people took him up on the challenge. They called on their gods from morning to noon. Nothing happened. It is now Elijah’s turn. He becomes so bold that he builds an alter to surround the bullock pieces and builds a trench to soak the alter in water. It was now evening and Elijah prayed to his God. God consumed EVERYTHING that was on the alter including the water! The people fell on their faces and acknowledged the Lord God Almighty!

Often times, God wants to prepare us in our seasons of waiting. Even in our times in the wilderness, God wants to prepare us for His use, if we allow Him. After Elijah saw the miracles God performed in Zarephath, he knew what God was capable of doing. He became the willing vessel to confront the most evil and wicked king ever during that time in Israel. Are you willing to let God prepare you to do BOLD things for Him? Love & Blessings!   

1 King 11:14 talks about God sending adversaries in Salomon’s life. Why? This is the man we discussed two blogs ago who prayed and asked God for wisdom and God gave it to him. However, we discussed in May 7’s blog (found at www.whereisgodnow.org) how Solomon started repeating the sins of his father, David. So just like David, God became angry with Solomon because he started doing things God asked him not to do. He disobeyed God and married women he was forbidden to marry which caused him to seek other gods.

Although, Jesus came to save us from our sins, it does not exempt us of the consequences that come with our sin. It does not mean that God will turn a blind eye to what we are doing. I believe if he sent adversaries to David and Solomon, he can do the same to us. Satan loves to confuse the issue and have us to believe it is okay to do the things the way that the world does it. After all, God did promise us an abundant, victorious life, right? No, no, sin is sin in God’s eyes and he will do the sorting and examining of our hearts, but do not let Satan fool you to think you will not have consequences to endure.

1 Kings 11 describes the three adversaries that God sent Solomon and how He would rend the kingdom away from Him. What a fall! This is the reminder of why we have to renew or hearts and minds through Christ Jesus every day. Our adversary, Satan, is seeking whomever he can devour and will use any and every tactic to draw us away from our God and have us turn our hearts against Him… Be strong in the Lord! Love & Blessings!