One of the most powerful lessons that has been translated from the pulpit to the front porch is that we must die to the things of the flesh in order to live as Christians. And while that is not always an immediate transformation, it provides a model for the dichotomy of Christian living. And it is found in this conflicting idea; that in order to live a life of purpose, you must first die to the ways of the world.

And the challenge for many of us is not with the death of a thing, but it is in the mysterious act of living afterwards. We have all had some experience with death; whether from the intimacy of its embrace of loved ones or the recognition that it waited patiently for us like an unwelcome visitor with no place to go.

We recognize, however, that we have experienced the emotional death of relationships that promised so much and friendships that summoned our trust with ease. And after they ended, we were left with the pain of here’s another one that didn’t love us and we readjusted our masks with a heavy sigh.

Many of us have shouted, prayed, cried and danced our way through spiritual death as deliverance revealed that which had quietly offered promise underneath. It left us with a transparency that not only allowed us to see what we had survived, but even greater it offered the reflection of who God said we could be.

As I am dealing with my grandmother’s death, my soul cries out from the uncertainty of how to live without her. And many of us are in that place of ambiguity that seeks clarity on how to live again without the familiar issues or behaviors that accompanied us until we met Christ.

Yet the resurrection indicates that after the death of certain behaviors and ideas, it is followed by living in fulfillment of one’s purpose. If we can allow our hunger for the things of the world to die, then surely God will sustain us in every way. We can be confident in the knowledge that the essence of this dichotomy is not simply that we must die to live, but that all that we are belonged to God all along.

And since Jesus died and lived to tell about it, perhaps our story can also tell of how we rose again from our circumstances and challenges and lived a renewed life. Each day we get the chance through Christ to rewrite and create our own story and as my grandmother would often say, “You just make it a story to tell!”

Scripture For The Day: “For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.” – Romans 5:17v NKJV

Finish for a Change
Dr. Jamal Bryant

Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there.(Genesis 11:31 NIV)

It is much easier to start something than to finish it. There is an old adage that says, ‘it is not how you start but how you finish.’ The great philosopher Manuel Diotte said, “Wining isn’t always finishing first. Sometimes wining is just finishing.” Success in dealing with the secular and the sacred is not contingent on the start of a thing but rather on the end of a thing.

How great of a man would Noah have been if God had given him the directive to build the ark and Noah built the ark half way? How great in Biblical record would any ink be wasted on the life of Nehemiah if he had heard about the walls in his hometown that were damaged, started the walls and then heard miserable comforters who beckoned him to come down, prompting him to stop the job half way?

Imagine then the God that we serve sent his beloved son Jesus to save humanity. But would we really have followed Jesus or worshiped Him if all He was able to leave was a testament of his goodness; feeding 5000, blind man able to see, deaf man able to hear, and a crippled man able to walk? Would He really be worthy of worship? It was not until Jesus was on the cross with his arms stretched out, blood trickling down his eyes down to his chest that he was able to declare so that men would see as a role model, ‘it is finished.’

There is something that beckons us to greatness that God does not want men or women to just start good ideas, or to embark on great projects and not finish them. You could have been talking about 2 to 4 different careers but will you not finish something? You have probably failed to finish school, doing one semester and leaving three more semesters undone. Will you finish anything? As a new convert, one is usually in church shouting, praising and rolling around but after they get blessed, they sit in church like God owes them something. Endeavor to finish something.

God told Terah to shift his entire family. The place that Abraham and his family were living in was not were they were to die. Where you are right now may not be where you are supposed to be forever or die. The anointing the Lord is releasing on you is not for individual advancement nor is it for personal gain, but it is to shift your entire family. God promised to take Terah out of Ur of the Chaldeans.

Ur translates means, the place of fire. God is shifting you from an area in your life where you may have been under attack, and persecution. God took him from Ur to a place called Canaan- the place of promise. Unborn generations were able to walk on this promise. Whenever God gives a promise, it is not a seasonal promise, but a generational promise. Get ready for a shift because when God gets you into a wealthy place, you will not be ‘hood rich’ – where you have a nice car but don’t have a house, dress good but your children look a mess. You will be wealthy.

On their way from Ur the place of fire and persecution to Canaan the place of promise, something happened. Halfway to their destination they got to a place called Haran. Archaeological facts state that, Haran is one of the wealthiest regions in the east. In 1832, they uncovered the tombs of 18 kings all of which were shrouded in 14 karat gold robes and gold headdress. Their wealth was so pronounced that the workers of their court were burred alive with them.