Haha... get ready folks... 😆😆😆🙌🏾🙌🏾we...will... #BOW !!! #BringingOurWorship #3 #comeonecomeall #2018 #November25th #TomiFavored #Amazingartists #GreatWorship #Godglorified #Houston #SAVETHEDATE #itoldyouearly #dontplay #youknowhowwedoit #yallknowhowwedothis #allaboutJesus #Loading #beready #fromglorytoglory 🙌🏾🎶🎤🎧🎼🎹🎸🎷🥁💻🎵🔊💕😁#TomiFavoredMusic #thanksgivingweekend #Sundaynight #Concert #Worship #theword #Excellentmusic #wemaygobarefootagain #haha !!!
0 Comments
Dear Pastor, may I please have your attention? Kindly teach the flock. You are called to shepherd and feed them. Don't entertain them. Stop flattering them. Teach them sir. Please. They don't need a coach. They need a spiritual parent. One who grooms them not merely for the purpose of a championship event or a job, but for life and eternity. They will listen. Don't underestimate their capability for comprehension. There is a fascinating characteristic about truth: it sets free. So every bondage of ignorance, superficiality, or lackadaisical attitudes they've previously developed will be broken when the truth is introduced to them. They don't need a motivational speech. They don't need another palliative sermon. They don't need your advice. They need doctrine. They need truth. They need undiluted Jesus. They need the Word...All of it. Like a proper regimen of an antibiotic to cure what ails and has infected their spirits and souls. They need to understand systematic theology. Your pulpit should be a seminary. Not everyone can afford the time or money to go to one for a certificate in order to know God. And you can't leave them to secular seminaries like San Francisco where they're taught "Beyoncé and the Hebrew bible" rather than Jesus Christ and Him crucified. They already come to you weekly... Teach them proper theology on the character of God. Angels, Christology, Ecclesiology, the study of the church, Eschatology, the study of the end times. Teach them pneumatology, the study of the Holy Spirit, instruct them on Hamartiology, the study of sin, and then Soteriology, the study of salvation and how Jesus Christ has revolutionized all of creation by His sacrifice. Go even a step further and teach them Israelology so their misunderstandings about the covenants between God and Israel, and Jesus and the Church are clarified, and the false doctrine of replacement theology can be dispelled along with all the new-age lies accompanying it in modern-day ecumenism. This is your job description sir. This is the reason your wives stay home and raise the children when you travel to go "minister" the word. This is why God relieved you from your day job in some instances to carry out this vital work of the kingdom. God availed you of your 9-5, 7-7, or 11-7 gigs so you can bring people into the kingdom of God, not dance around serious issues with motivational speeches devoid of the power of the understanding of God's word. The volume of the book is written of Jesus! That's what He told us! So please stop the unending topical oration week after week with weak eisegesis and get back to verse by verse exegesis of scripture by help of the Holy Spirit and real research. I understand this is difficult. This would actually require significant study on your part because you couldn't teach what you didn't know. I realize this will probably weed out a large percentage of many of you currently in pulpits proclaiming opinion rather than fact. It would disqualify an innumerable number of actors in collars who have mastered the art of performing and free-styling on stage but don't know the script or Scriptwriter and couldn't enunciate the purpose of the show aside from their own bloated egos. I can sympathize with the fact that this may cost you your job and popularity, or even the semi-large congregation you've superficially accumulated if they finally sense that you yourself have been compromising the tenets of doctrine. But this is why you are called, chosen and commissioned to stand before people of all classes, occupations, and backgrounds. If you are not accomplishing that task, you have become ineffectual and an unfaithful steward of the position afforded you by God. An offense for which you will most certainly give account to the Master and King of all the Heavens and Earth when He returns requiring fruit of your work and talents given. Please forgive me, I do not presume to be intelligent, or superior in knowledge or commitment to God than you in any way, shape or form. I have no regard for myself as an important person as I write these words. I am nothing. Consider these words I speak and the message I bring simply coming from a vessel. I'm neither the originator nor the instigator. I am merely an instrument being used because of my currently unique way of expressing myself. God is simply utilizing the gift of writing He has placed in me to speak to you. Better yet, think of me as Balaam's ass in Numbers 22:23. I'm just a smelly donkey if you will. You don't have to ask who the heck I think I am for this audacity. I don't think much of myself. I choose to offend you if need be because my at-best, base discernment, sees by His will, the mighty angel of the Lord with His sword drawn in His hand. I simply desire NOT to be slain along with you. You, like Balaam, are aware of what the Lord's will is. But because you want emotional profit and wish to curry favor with those sheep you are called to shepherd, you wish you proceed with your own agenda. Nevertheless, a proverbial donkey like me has had her mouth opened to speak to you in a way you can understand. Hopefully to redirect your ways since your priorities have become somewhat blurred. If your anger is kindled and you happen to smite me with your staff...(your words, reprimands, or even pastoral influence) I don't mind. Like in Numbers 22:30, I would simply say: "...Am not I thine ass, upon which thou hast ridden ever since I was thine unto this day? was I ever wont to do so unto thee?" Am I not Tomi Favored, the same one who will gladly serve on your platforms when you call, and be a blessing to your people regardless of an honorarium? Do I not give my time, money, talents, energy and passion into serving in your congregations with as much honor as possible? Surely, I have been serving faithfully until now and wouldn't be so foolish as to malign my leaders or disrespect the calling on your lives. I must however speak against the errors as my mouth has been opened to do: The Bride of Christ is being prodded to wake up and prepare for her soon-coming King. You therefore, shepherds beneath the Great shepherd, are being reminded, recommissioned and reinvigorated if you so choose, to do that work for which you were initially called. First because the Lord so desires it, and then because at the Bema seat, you will be scored on how well you did what was instructed. How well will you do sir? The stupefying of Millennials by opinion.
(I'm really trying to stop guys but I can't.) My generation has become dull. Like blunt knives incapable of cutting through anything, my generation now lacks critical thinking skills and the desire to research beyond the propaganda we're fed. To my generation, truth is relative and even the laws of nature should be subject to interpretation and perspective. We're foolishly intelligent. Stupidly genius. We no longer have anchors. The ancient lines have been crossed. Right is wrong, wrong is right, up can be down, down can be up all because someone somewhere, competent or incompetent, happens to think so. And because they are a member of a society laden with privileges and opportunities, their entitlement mindsets have become bloated to the point of thinking foundational standards should succumb to their will. To my generation, now, whatever can be modified in life should be modified to accord itself with their mindset rather than them building discipline and structure around life. Liberty has given way to lasciviousness, and sanctity to insanity. Irresponsible miscreants now overwhelm the legislative branch of government with a litany of litigious circumstances against standards that they feel no longer cater to their preferences. And since even the law is now an inadequate punching bag to be dissed, they have turned their deluded attention to the highest standard there can ever be: God Himself; and His Word. Once upon a time, taking the Lord's name in vain was a practice hidden and fearful. Now it is the conversational script of pg-13 movies since we now teach the upcoming generation to blaspheme their Creator as entertainment. Once upon a time, being genetically created a certain gender meant something. It meant you were purposed to function with certain varieties of hormones, have certain preferences, and have unique and sometimes exclusively innate capabilities. But not so today. Today, my generation says purpose is ignoble, genetic codes should be hacked and rewritten, and life in its original form is not only inadequate in comparison to some unknown superhumanness, but is also disposable. Hence abortion becoming cheap. With our trends, soon, euthanasia of the elderly will be the next "thing" since they need too much. We now determine the value of life based on popular opinion... think about that! But I digress... When did opinion overtake truth? When did what people think become the explanation of reality? When did 1 plus 1 become 9 if I decide to think so? The horror in all this is that this theme now pervades the very house of God with those identifying as children of God!! They question Him. Rather than God being a father we trust in and depend upon for guidance and direction, we have turned "Him" into everything from a "her" to a magic entity "it" yet un-hacked; but for whom there must be some formula with which to extract benefits. Now we shout 7 Hallelujahs, clap for 14 seconds, fast for 21 hours, and then sow seeds of anywhere from $40 or $4,000 in one manipulated sitting because the people of Israel were in the wilderness 40 days and that's how much we should invest to get our manufactured and coercible God to do what we want Him to do, and get our "breakthrough." But what we need is to breakout of the mindsets we've acquired. Now it's nothing to say "my blessing will be bigger than yours" to our neighbors during service because we really think our ability to shout until our voices crack is what moves God to work in our favor because He's so gullible and fickle a personage, modifying life and timelines at a whim... My generation now reads its own interpretations into what God has said rather than what God has said into our own circumstances. Our opinion is now paramount and we have moved God off the throne to the position of a genie; the pastors are our witch doctors, our gifts of giving are briberies for ungodly gain, and our worship is nothing but obeisance to an unknown entity we presume to be moderately intelligent and benevolent, but who is shallow enough to function according to our formulas. Is this how it should be? Seriously? I feel like an annoying voice lately with my questioning but something on the inside of me says I have to say these things. Things are worsening and it's not funny. Truth is NOT relative! God is NOT mocked! Life is NOT cheap or manufactured! And death is NOT optional folks! The identity of King Jesus is NOT up for debate, God's commands are NOT mere suggestions, and eternal punishment is NOT a joke guys! Judgement is NOT avoidable, time is NOT going backwards, existence is NOT a figment of imagination, and malevolent dimensional beings averse to your good are NOT fictitious! Your opinion does NOT matter when it comes to truth. It is truth that sets you free when you know it, not you setting yourself free from it to live something else. Whatever else you find is by default a LIE. One very soon to be unraveled. The nearly insignificant speck of you in this vast expanse of time, life and reality is not capable of kicking against the goad! You would lose. Fighter jet vs bird in flight...who wins? You know who. And that is our story. Make all the noise you want, speak all the perverse words you wish that inflate your ego and pump up your adrenaline...you still have no explanation for how that very consciousness you use to defy your Source came to be. And you are still unaware of what comes after when that life you live lackadaisically is snuffed out like a vapor from this place. Your relevance, oh little worm of a human that you are in comparison to the infinite God is by virtue of His mercy. Were He to choose not to place any value upon your life, your very existence would be forgotten. And it wouldn't matter whether or not you "thought so." Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord. Only then can you be lifted up. Your opinion means squat. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Nothing. Truth is truth and is no respecter of persons. Call yourself "god" all you want from now until tomorrow, it won't change the fact that you still have to perform base actions such as pooping and peeing, or that if you don't eat for the next month, that big mouth of yours won't be able to say much. It is God who tells you who He is. It is God who made you and before whom you must give an account of your life. It is God in whose image you are made. Dear Millennial Generation, become aware of your fallibilities and acknowledge God's sovereignty. Perhaps then and only then can we slow down or reverse the stupefying of ourselves by our own hyperventilated and faulty opinions. Opinions which still can't definitively explain the origin of life and the ability to have an opinion. His presence is Heaven. Yes Christian, heaven. His Presence. You start to long for heaven when earth becomes so dissatisfactory. You become desperate for Jesus because His presence is Heaven. You discover your need for him more when everyone on earth becomes grossly inadequate at meeting those needs you try to act like you don't have. Not just the need for money, connection, or even popularity. But those needs for true understanding... the kind not even your husband can give because after scoring your name onto his last name and procreating progeny through you, the flowers no longer come as much. The "I love yous" get said robotically and just because it's been rehearsed in anticipation of getting you to accomplish yet another task on his behalf. The bathroom doesn't get cleaned if you don't do it and your company is mainly necessitated only when his sexual desires begin thirsting. He's not evil...he's just human. His love is not agape. It may be Phileo and Eros at best, but agape and altruistic, nah...not always. You're seeking fulfillment. The kind your woman can't give you because try as she might, she ends up critiquing your fallibilities. Her attempts at being a helpmeet often make her overbearing, and the chasm of her own emotional needs often drown the strength and security you try to provide and make you feel inadequate despite your sincere attempts at being the answer to all the problems your family faces. She loves you, yes. But she's a lot of ups and downs in a body. A hot body for a bit, 😂 which then maybe isn't even so hot anymore and talks a lot more than you want. She also, is inadequate. You need Jesus. You need Him more than ever. Only He can fill that insatiable hunger you feel. Only the infinite God of all eternity who created all things including time and you can save you from your thirsting. Marriage won't do it. Children can't do it. (It's not even their job to.) Sex is nothing. You find out it's fleeting. A chiseled and fit body won't do it. Fat finds a way to come back over the years, 😂 Alcohol and drugs are incapable. Money and power are temporary and fickle. Until your whole life revolves around Jesus, everything good in your life will ultimately show up to be the skeletons they are...mere grains of wheat to an emaciated spirit seeking nourishment. Where Jesus alone is the bread of life. You need God, bro. You need Jesus, sis. I didn't say you need church. Be a part of a ministry and don't forsake the gathering of believers. But don't expect them to cure your spiritual ailments cos if you depend on them and not the Jesus of the Bible they are supposed to be worshipping, they'll only add to your schedule, obtain a portion of your earnings for some good purpose, and engage you in relationships which encourage you only on Sundays when you are face to face but not in the secret place. That quiet place where your loneliness really creeps in. You need Jesus. Success won't do it. Awards won't do it. Divorce won't do it. No matter what you obtain or get rid of, if you don't find and surrender to that personal, vulnerable and ultimate relationship with the King of glory, you will never find everlasting joy. Let that sink in. This may be much for some folks but I just can't cut it...
God Dear Church, Please recover our lost youth. They are intelligent. They are vibrant. They are revolutionary in their gifts, and you have let them go into the hands of the world. When God would have reawakened His presently sleeping church to the reality of the supernatural with their curiosities into it from transhumanism to Egyptian Titans, you progressively shunned them into the hands of Harry Potter, Vampire Diaries, Splice and Dr. Strange. So now they are indeed strange. Strange but powerful. Now they can conjure up success in the secular industry having tapped into the "secret" Oprah Winfrey's Christless new age-ism promoted. All while your superficial Christianity does 10 prayer conferences throughout the year with negligible numbers of church members even rising above their current salaries. You want youth in your church so you work on great church lighting, feed them pizza for a day, treat the 18 year olds like 10 year olds with cheesy music, and encourage them to read the King James bibles they don't understand without exegesis as long as they don't ask the tough questions about Genesis 6 because there's no time for that... While the world and their friends in Wicca encourage them to fast, give blood sacrifices, sit in circles and conjure up demons that will tell them their futures through ouija boards in dark fire-lit rooms where their cell phones and selfie's don't even matter because they've encountered real power. Malevolent, but real. You don't lack youth because the youth are disinterested in God and the supernatural. You lack youth because even they have become disgusted with the constant milk you feed them through anointing oil bottles and grape juice cups supposedly signifying the blood of Christ but with you denying its power and openly discussing the fraud you will play on your taxes as you back-bite the deacons. You lack youth because they may be juvenile and immature but their spiritually illiterate sincerity would rather follow the evil truth than the seemingly Godly lies you tell. You lack youth because even their inexperience trumps your years of jaded and ineffectual prayers and religiosity when they compare it to the ever-awaiting cults, psychics and psychotropic drugs which give them tangible, albeit, sinister experiences. You lack youth because you are not real. You haven't been real about your sins. You haven't been real about your doubts. You haven't been real about your failures. You haven't been real about your struggles. You haven't been real about God's holiness and glory because you constantly fall short of it and didn't properly educate yourself on the extent of salvation by Christ's finished work to realize you shouldn't be kept from evangelizing. You haven't found the Jesus of the Bible who when those who find Him find Him, can't leave Him ever again. The youth found out your inadequacies on their own and you lost your credibility with them. They discovered your secrets on their own and now you are a lie to be unraveled and exposed, rather than an example to be learned from. Good or bad. The youth are aware that in life, we don't have all the answers; that sometimes you have to sacrifice desires for what is truth, and that sometimes, true power lies behind dying to self. This is why they will do the craziest things in the name of experimentation and deprive themselves OF themselves just to become a small member of the collective large group of "crazies" just to fit in to something real. Something real you are supposed to have had in Jesus but neither valued nor taught. You have shielded them from the truth of God's word. Especially the parts you yourself don't understand and can't explain when they inquire... You should be searching and seeking God's face to give the right answers; ...or the more humbling alternative: admit for once that you don't know it all! While you don't talk about the rapture (Harpazo) as taught in the word, new age and the world makes movies teaching them someday aliens will show up and many will be raptured away but it's a good thing for them to be left behind. While you don't talk to them about demon possession, they continue having imaginary friends, voices speaking to them and want to know more about witchcraft. While you don't mention fallen angels and the nefarious agenda of nephilim chronicled in the Bible , the world teaches them to long for day when the ubermensch (superman) shows up with superhuman abilities or they themselves can use Crispr Cas9 genome engineering to modify their genetic codes to become something inhuman. Wake up Church!! Your daughters have run to girls to become their men for strength because the men called their fathers have only touched them in slaps and reprimands and not hugs and fatherly affection except when his ego is stroked by their occasional successes. Your sons have run to other boys to justify and even cater to their unhinged sexual desires because they have not been taught that behind the pastor's tie is a man also dealing with sexual temptations but who takes it to God in daily prayerful submission. All they see is the the leadership's scandalous reveals via the media and the church's quiet coverups subliminally educating them not to change but simply to become better at covering up their own indiscretions. As long as they don't get caught, it's fine. So beneath their crazy hairstyles, perpetual earbuds, tweets and snapchats are inquisitive spirits seeking the real God who understands their failures and is relevant to all of life from history and anthropology to politics and science. You lack youth because you want to be "hip" as you "hop" on the stage feeling "fresh" with what can only be defined as "theatrics"; lacking the meat of God's word those young ones need to keep them busy chewing on... so as not to go out into the world feeding on satanism and ungodly indoctrination. Wake up Church! Wake up Church!! You are losing the next generation. Your empty pews and increasing age gaps in the doctrinally-sound christian population should trigger your alarms! Soon you will be obsolete. In the increasingly post-christian world you have allowed by negligently stroking evolution's propaganda when it showed up in their school homework will soon "naturally select" you out of the process of their lives because to them you have become weak and useless. Why be vexed when they lack respect for you, have no manners and sleep around like rabbits when you never sat them down and taught them their lives had purpose from God; purposes superseding your own desires to just create doctors and lawyers in your family line? Why wonder at their addiction to social media and trending celebrities who keep them engaged with constant posts and streams when you don't consistently engage their open minds in critical conversations about controversial topics from biblical perspectives and think they will stay in the presence of God just because you invited a semi-popular selling artist, blasted their pictures on flyers and made those people even bigger than Christ's cross? You have a generation of young people whose spiritual growth is observably stunted and they suffer from biblical kwashiorkor. What will we do Church? How do we fix this mess we've created? I have good news and bad news: The bad news is that for some of those children whose spiritual limbs have become malformed into maturity, they will stay that way and become the unattractive anomalies in your religious resumé. And if they will change, God will lovingly have to break those fused plates of their twisted limbs and painfully restructure over time what you failed to nurture into proper growth in their infancy. It will hurt them to change later in life. And It will hurt you to see them go through that. They will have to struggle to be released from the chains with which Satan has their minds bound. The good news however, is that God won't lose. In spite of your own malpractice, the King of glory will make Himself known. If he has to bypass your pews, He will. He will find them in their dreams. He will speak to them through a remnant of radicals who don't care about ties and suits. Those who will rap their way past the lies and poetically prophesy powerful pieces of God's word into their open minds. God won't lose. He will transform the tattooed tyrants of trashed streets into unhinged disciples unable to be hindered by fear of incarceration since they've already lived there. God won't lose. The intensity of those youth will contrast your lackadaisical attitude towards God. Their quest for depths of God will overwhelm your superficiality. Wake up Church. God wants to do this with you. He always has a remnant in generations. I'm barely past 30 and I've already learned some major lessons about life... Knowing Jesus Christ has been the grace that gets me past each day and keeps me going but if you're younger than I am, allow me to share some things I've experienced with you. I DON'T know it all...by any means, but maybe I can help someone. 1. Your parents weren't perfect...but they weren't entirely wrong. 2. Marriage does not fulfill you. It can be a blessing if you marry the right person who loves God, loves you, works hard, is faithful, and is committed to your joy. It can also become your worst nightmare if any of those factors start failing. 3. Money is important. Especially as a woman. Save early. Not so you can splurge and be wasteful, but so you can be financially secure, have less high blood pressure, have to talk to creditors less, and have to depend less on anyone else for your basic needs. Btw if you live in America, start a "ROTH IRA" as soon as possible. You'll thank yourself later in life. 4. Enjoy your singleness... you won't realize the level of free joy and liberty you are enjoying until you're no longer in it. Enjoy living alone. Enjoy silence. Enjoy your own schedule. 5. Place value on your gifts, talents, time and intellect at an early age. That way no one sells it cheaply for you or takes it cheaply when you're older; whether in the name of friendship, faith, or even love. 6. Only You as a human being, can ever really have your best interests at heart (after God) because only you live in your head and know where the shoe hurts. Others may try to understand you, but they can only try. 7. Do not, under any circumstances, think that your help comes from man. As good as a human being can be, they are never fully altruistic and their motives still stem from an inherent sin nature driven by the desire for gain. For themselves. Even help comes with its price. P.S. the government is not your sugar daddy. 8. None of the disappointments listed above should stop you from wanting to help people, be a giver, serve, love, desire marriage, or run from intimacy. Just know what you will encounter and prepare as adequately as possible for it to lessen the pain enough to really enjoy the blessed parts of it all. 9. Life is hard but you are strong. With God, nothing is impossible and this too shall pass. 10. As you go on this road, you WILL lose people. Someone, at some point, that you care for, will go. You can't ever really prepare for it. It just happens. But you will learn to live afterward. I promise. 11. Everything you think you know now, will someday be superseded in time by what you will know in the future. Because you are ever-learning. Maintain your Godly principles and faith in Jesus Christ, but be aware that you will learn, grow, and sometimes have your world rocked and restructured by your growth. 12. You will be hurt. By people you didn't expect. By those you love the most. But you'll be alright. Don't let it change you. Please. 13. Be faithful. For God's sake! For your sake, be faithful. At work, at school, and especially in relationships! What's the point of tying someone up into your life in marriage for instance, having the same last names, and then being unfaithful? At the very least, have the sense not to commit them to you if you're not ready to commit yourself to them. 14. Have children after you get married. At some point. If you can't have them biologically, adopt! They will change your life for the better. You will gain a better understanding of God's love when you have children... it's pretty amazing. If you have them biologically, please watch the process of delivery. This too will change your life, 😂 15. Spend time with your family. I can't justify this enough... let's just say it's like telling you to save money. You won't understand the importance of doing it until you don't have the privilege anymore. 16. Learn how to forgive quickly. Why? Not because you aren't justified...probably not because you don't deserve revenge even... but because you will be offended faster than you can process the offenses or create acceptable rationales as to why they occurred. So it's easier to just let them go and move on with your life. 17. I promise!!! You don't need as much cable and regular tv programming or even movies as you need to read books and watch documentaries. (Btw buy REAL hard-copy books... virtual ones will change info and can be taken down. But hard copy books will have more value and can't be erased.) Study. Watch videos on YouTube on different topics if possible. It'll be better than watching seasons of tv shows making money for others and adding very little to your intellect. Believe me, as unbelievable as it sounds now, learning history, knowing biographies, and understanding science, technology and government will make your life more valuable. 18. A cute person without character or integrity will devastate your life. But a person with integrity and character still needs to work on their looks. Girls, a man with money is a really really good idea. But if you only have a choice between money and love, choose love. It'll seem to suck at first without money, but money will come with hard work. Love can't be bought. 19. You are never too old to learn a skill or a new activity. The older you get, the harder it will become and the more time and brainpower it will require...but it is not impossible and you can do it. Enrich your life. 20. Read your bible all your life. You will NEVER know it enough till the day you die. Its supernatural nature being the Word of God keeps it opening up deeper dimensions of knowledge you cannot anticipate. Do not let anyone tell you it isn't valuable, that it is flawed, or that it is simply another piece of literature. It is the single most important book you will ever read. It is relevant to everything from sex and family, to nanotechnology and transhumanism. God tells you the future from the past and not knowing this book will leave you constantly not understanding your world or yourself and the gift of hope and eternal life you should have in the midst of all the things I listed before this. 21. You are different from everyone else. You have a unique purpose to fulfill in this world. Even in a room of a thousand people doing the exact same thing you are doing, there is a dimension you bring to it that no one else can. God intended this. God knows you in the midst of billions and you are not a mistake. You did not evolve by mistake from primordial goo and apes. You are intelligently intended, purposefully designed, and eternally loved by your creator. All your mistakes have been anticipated and paid for. There are a plethora of amazing musicians and singers in the gospel music industry right now. Like A LOT. Seriously. A LOT. And I mean good, good ones. Based on that understanding, I'd like to make a note of a few points dear family. (A). To the pastors and shepherds: do NOT think this gives you the right to disrespect, misuse, offend, oppress or belittle the several you have access to. The fact that they are gifted, willing, available, "low-costing" to have in your ministry, or even when perhaps itinerant, does not make them worth-less and to be taken advantage of. Furthermore, if we assessed the ratio of rising musical worshippers and rising rightly-dividing pastors, they outnumber you guys...that should tell you something about the dispensation we are in in terms of heralding the King of glory and the value God places on what He has placed in them for Himself...at this time. They are to be your fellow bondservants in the kingdom. Utilize them...don't use them. There is a difference. Value them and teach them to value not only you but every other servant in the house of God. If you fail to do this, you will create the generation we see of pastor-seeking false worshippers who clamor for your attention simply in order to harness your influence for their benefit. They seek to climb the ranks with your favor as success is now their goal rather than service. You will create a group of highly gifted and efficient manipulators who will ultimately draw away your sheep from under you and who eventually bastardize your name after getting the most you will give. They will eye-service you but not really love you as a shepherd because you have been a slave driver and not a shepherd. They will become incredibly adept at using you the same way you use them and will gladly burn their bridges on the way out. Don't let this happen. God will not be pleased seeing his children, however different in positions, unable to function properly together in accomplishing the purpose for which he created your separate offices. (B). To the musical worshippers: the fact that there are many of you does not mean that your individual gift is irrelevant or relegated to obscurity or is of no value. On the contrary, you must realize that you are one of many who the King of glory has deliberately and particularly gifted, positioned, and prepared for Himself and His purposes in this specific time. You are neither unimportant nor unidentified. The One who put you where you are has not lost sight of you. You are an irreplaceable piece of God's purpose in the grand scheme of things if you simply adhere to His ways and focus on what you've been called to do. Stop worrying about the fact that you are not the whole song. You aren't meant to be. You are one voice. In the midst of a large choir. God wants that. Just sing your melody. God will harmonize you with others when he needs to; as you are part of His arrangement. Remember that He sought you out...a true worshiper. In the words of a dear friend of mine, Toyosi, "rain is a bunch of sprinkles." You are a sprinkle. You matter. In regards to the shepherds above you, they are like parents. Honor them. I didn't say worship them, or manipulate them just to get what you want. I said honor them. Honor God IN them. Respect the hierarchy God has instituted in the earthly function of His body and be of value. If and when they offend you, learn to express yourself TO THEM respectfully rather than back-bite and develop hatred for them. Do this for the purpose of healing not venting. They are fallible the same way you are as humans regardless of their position. Ultimately, God is their source the same way He is yours so you are not to seek their good graces in falsehood but Jesus alone as both your King. Christ is the master who will require the results of your respective stewardship. (C). To the congregants/audience: Please do NOT glorify these worshippers. Their role is to lead you to become fellow worshippers. They are not superstars. They are not supposed to be seen as bigger, better, more important, than other servants in the house of God. You do NOT worship the ground they walk on but the God they herald. They are, we are, all workers valuable to God. Rather than idolize them and glorify their flesh in attempts to draw close to them like celebrities, simply value their ministry (like others), support them when you are able to, and ensure that they are leading you to Jesus and not themselves. When they stand on those platforms, they are servants. Remember this: You WILL be attracted to their gifts. You will be attracted to their looks. The way they carry themselves. Their charisma. Their ability to move a crowd and draw people to them. Your mistake, however, will be to remain attracted to them instead of allowing those attractive qualities God has placed in them to lead you to their God and master who placed those qualities in them for the purpose of drawing you to Himself THROUGH them not TO them. If you glorify them rather than GOD in them, you will discover their inadequacies, their frustrations, their weaknesses, their fallibilities and it will either hurt or disgust you. They are vessels. Remember that. I pray this speaks to our hearts, minds and spirits in Jesus name. Amen. The praise and worship...is not the gospel. The announcements...are not the gospel. The tithes & offerings...no, not the gospel. Even the hugs & welcomes...not the gospel. And as much as we appreciate the networking, the social interactions, the compatibilities and wonder of being moral, good, effective, active, hardworking religious people...none of that is the gospel. It can be displayed by those who've encountered the gospel but is absolutely not a definitive indicator of it. There are extremely skilled psychopathic murderers out there with an astounding grasp of socially interactive effectiveness. It doesn't mean they're saved. So what is the gospel? 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 That... ☝🏾that my friend, is the gospel. The preaching portion of the church service is the longest time period where the gospel message has the most opportunity to be dispelled & explained when people gather at church. Preachers who preach everything but the message of the gospel clearly and succinctly will be guilty of a particular kind of evil called "packaging". Packaging, many say, will appeal to this or that demographic of people. Sadly, we forget there isn't that much time to be dealing with so much packaging when the gospel weapon is what souls are supposed to use in defending their eternal destinies from the lakes of hell fire. If a man loves a woman, for example, and buys her the most expensive jewel with which she can adorn herself as a show of his true affection, he does not hide it under piles and piles of rubble requiring incalculable amounts of time to work through to obtain; especially not when she stands before him eagerly awaiting the professing of his love. To do that would not be considered considerate. Rather, it will be thought to be insensitive and a cruel joke. Many professing men and women of God have actually become that way... They are those who rather than dispelling the truth of the Word of God which sets free, prefer to dose the spiritually unschooled with fluff and false flattery that are empty shots at the devil. Empty shots which take so very long to even unravel. And if there was indeed a true shot of the gospel in that fluff somewhere, surely those attempting to usefully wield it before the enemy of their souls will have been devoured before they got to it. The Bible tells us to proactively PREACH the gospel that men may hear and be saved. That same Bible tells us to (if I may say) "passively" SHOW our good works that men may see and glorify our Father in heaven. ... I hate to say today though, those tides have turned. More often than not, we now actively preach our good works and only passively preach the gospel; while expecting the same results. Results which clearly prove elusive since the recipe for their production has been inverted by malpracticing practitioners. So we see people being saved to the false gospel of good works while merely temporarily praising our Father in Heaven for the passive concept of salvation without the prodding to reach for and obtain it from our heavenly Father who also wants to be their father. So... when was the gospel last preached in your hearing? Are you sure you heard the gospel, or just a social call to action for some self-fulfilling gratification? |
Archives
November 2019
Categories
|