DAILY DEVOTIONAL: THEY WERE SENT TO IRRITATE YOU

Sometimes the person that gets up under your skin is your beauty agent.  Nobody can irritate you like they can irritate you but have you noticed that you always grow from their irritation?
 
Every time they irritate you, you get better.  They are on assignment and most of the time they don’t even know it.  They are your sandpaper to smooth off your rough edges.  They don’t go along with everything you say, they don’t agree with your every opinion, they challenge what they don’t understand and they don’t care if you don’t like it.
 
Come on, you know when you have to cut somebody off you will.  You have, and you don’t have a problem doing it again except when it comes to them, you can’t.  You cannot get rid of them because you need them.  We all need somebody who challenges us to think better, the care better, to grow better but that person, despite their benefit to us, will feel like an irritant until we appreciate their purpose.  
 
Put This In Your Spirit: A pearl is beautiful when you see it in the store but did you know that a pearl gets its beauty from irritation?  Natural Pearls form when an irritant works its way into an oyster, mussel, or clam. As a defense mechanism, they release a fluid to coat the irritant. Layer upon layer of this coating, called ‘nacre’, is deposited until a beautiful pearl is formed.
 
If you are blessed enough, your irritant is also your mate.  If you get this, you might understand why the person you love to life is the same person who can irritate you the most.  You don’t know you love somebody to the moon and back until you have to love them even when you don’t like them. If you have a healthy irritant for a mate, thank God for them and let them do their work — irritation comes when irritation is necessary.
 
Your healthy irritant, whether they are your soul mate or your ride or die, is God’s gift to you.  You know they’re a healthy irritant because you know they don’t tell you anything wrong, they don’t tell your business, they don’t go along with your mess and they hold you accountable.  They don’t make you feel small, they lift you up, and you know they always want what’s best for you.
 
Put This In Your Spirit: The bible says, “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:11).  In other words, no pain, no gain.
 
Everybody does not have the will or the tolerance to handle their irritant.  But trust this, for every person you know who does not have a healthy irritant in their life to do the Lords disciplining, you know they go through more repeated cycles of hell than most.  Your irritant is your divine beauty agent sent to help you to think, shine and to be your best.
 
We glow better when we know better.  Thank God for your irritant!
 
Share and be blessed.
 
 
 
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DAILY DEVOTIONAL: LET THEM!

Too often we let someone’s idle or inappropriate threats control our life — especially loved one’s.  Fear of them leaving, fear of them not talking to us, or fear of them period gives them power that no man or woman should ever have.
 
We put our faith under unnecessary stress and pressure when we try to accommodate indecent proposals.  A friend to your weakness is an enemy to your greatness.
 
Let them!  Let them do what they threaten to do.  This might seem harsh or insensitive but the truth is, people who want to stay in your life by threatening to make your life unstable, don’t deserve to be in your life.  Let them go, let their mouth cash that check. A threatening spirit is after control and tolerance gives it power.
 
 
Put This In Your Spirit: The bible said, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline” (1 Timothy 1:7). When fear controls us, it reduces us to slaves of the person threatening us — and they become our god. Can you imagine a bully being a god? No, they need to get right or be removed from your life. God said, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3).
 
Remember, the bible says, “…Not of fear but of power, love and self-discipline.”  We have to examine ourselves, our emotions and our truth when we tolerate an emotional bully (2 Corinthians 13:5).  When an emotional bully is tolerated, you’re giving up your power, love and self-discipline or control.  Nobody is worth that and the only time that somebody is believed to be worth that is when we have lost our self-worth.
 
Tell somebody, even if you have to cry, go with out, sacrifice or give up what you thought you needed, take your power and self-respect back. Your soul is unable to serve God and you cannot respect you from the prison of fear.  Let them do what they say they’re going to do.  Maybe God is calling you into a deeper level of faith by letting them go.  Maybe God is making a way for your escape by letting them do what they say (1 Corinthians 10:13). Tolerating the intolerable is not because we love them, it’s because we don’t love ourselves.
 
Sometimes you have to let people do what they threaten to do so that you and they can find out that God did not attach a single one of His promises to them  And if they leave, don’t call anymore, don’t help again or don’t speak to you again ever in life, that makes them a non-factor in God’s plans for your life.  God does not put anything we need for our destiny in our history or give us a bully for a blessing.
 
Love hard, give from the heart and always demand respect for your anointed abundance (Matthew 7:6).  It is not unloving to let someone do what they threaten to do. It’s unloving to let someone write negative checks with their mouth without consequences (Proverbs 13:20).  Give people notice — God did not give you the spirit of fear.  
 
Love you and people will either love you back the right way or leave you for the right reasons.
 
 
Share and be blessed.
 
 
 
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DON’T BE AFRAID TO DISAPPOINT

 

We have to learn to be OK with not wasting valuable time, precious energy trying to be liked, fit in or go along to get along.  Some think it’s love or faith that keeps us holding on to what’s killing us but that’s a lie.  It’s fear of letting go — we’ve all been there with loved one’s, relationships, friends and people who knew us back when.
 
Put This In Your Spirit: This is your life and you’re trying to fulfill God’s divine plans for your peace, joy, potential and destiny. Everybody who wants to be a part of your life is not eligible to be a part of your plans. The bible says, “Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so?” (Amos 3:3).  If they don’t agree with the plans that God has for your life, don’t be afraid to disappoint!
 
Some might say, “Well, that seems shallow.”  Well, the alternative is to treat your life like it doesn’t matter.  You are not being fair or true to you by cooperating with what destroys you (Proverbs 14:7).  Walk alone if you have to but don’t hold on to what’s killing you — The only people who will have a problem with your boundaries for joy, peace and power are the people who are not meant to walk with you.
 
Don’t be afraid to disappoint! Nobody knows better than you what it takes to be you.  Nobody is responsible for your peace, guarding your heart and keeping your life drama free but you.  Before every plane takes off, the pilot has to make sure that the plane is not overweight.  Every life, like every plane, can only carry so much weight — don’t let the weight of wrong people, wrong decisions, history relationships cause your life to stay stuck on the ground (Hebrews 12:1).
 
Put This In Your Spirit: The top 5 people that we spend 80% of our personal time with, influence our conversation, our direction and our elevation.  You know better than anybody that intruders throw your prayer life off, they interrupt thoughts, they distract you from your fight and they keep you majoring in minor things.  When we’re afraid to disappoint the right people, we let the wrong people have power over our lives.  
 
If they cannot handle the requirements of you, that’s OK.  If they cannot handle your boundaries, that’s OK.  If they cannot appreciate your need to be healthy, stable and positive, that’s OK. If they cannot handle the fact that you need to keep them in your prayers but put them out of your life, that’s OK.  If they cannot handle you letting go of people that are killing you, keeping you stuck, holding you back, that’s OK.  This is not their life, it’s yours and you get to make up the healthy rules that keep you from losing your mind (Micah 2:10).
 
Every tree is a seed that refused to be held down.  No amount of dirt, no amount of darkness, no amount difficulty kept that seed from becoming who it was created to be.  When you refuse to allow anything or anybody to keep you from becoming who God created you to be, you are walking in agreement with God’s plans for you: “Walk with the wise and become wise, for a companion of fools suffers harm” (Proverbs 13:20, Matthew 7:6).
 
God desires to bless us but we have to protect our inheritance from wrong people and wrong decisions.  Doing right by you, positions you to be blessed. Esau was the firstborn son to Isaac and Rebekah, but he made a bad choice that forfeited his inheritance (Genesis 25:29-34).  Don’t be afraid to disappoint when your inheritance is on the line!
 
Share and be blessed.
 
 
 
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THE DEVIL IS PUSHING YOU INTO YOUR DESTINY

The enemy is on assignment to push you into your destiny.  They had to do what they did.  They had to reject you.  That door had to be closed.  You had to almost walk out.  You had to go through what you went through. 
 
You’re going to have to get comfortable being uncomfortable in order for God to keep moving you to the love, the plan, the vision, the goal that He showed you.  When you’re doing overtime in a season, the devil will show up to push you out of your history and into your destiny.
 
You remember Joseph in the bible. God showed him in a dream that he would be ruler over his brothers and his father. His dream got him hated by his brothers who threw him into a pit. His brothers then sold him into slavery and he wound up at Potiphar’s house in Egypt — running things (Genesis 37:18-36).
 
Put This In Your Spirit: Sometimes we get comfortable simply because we’re doing better than we were.  Or because they are better than the last.  But God is saying, “The longer you stay comfortable where you’re not supposed to be, the more uncomfortable it will become.  Staying comfortable where you are is keeping you from the dream that I gave you.”  The dream God gave Jospeh was not going to be fulfilled at Potiphar’s house.
 
Joseph got comfortable in a temporary place, in a place that was meant for him to pass through not to stay put. The spirit of complacency can cause us to become content in a relationship, a fear, a feeling, a decision or on a level that takes us off of God’s path and causes us to do overtime in a season.
 
Put This In Your Spirit: The bible says, “For it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose” (Philippians 2:13). You cannot stay where God’s purpose cannot be fulfilled. Your destiny belongs to God — His plans for your life were written in His book before you were born: “Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be” (Psalm 139:16).
 
Just as soon as Joseph got comfortable, Potiphar’s wife started making passes at him and when Joseph resisted, she accused him of rape.  Potiphar threw Joseph in the pen but what Potiphar didn’t know was that his actions pushed Joseph into his destiny. You weren’t supposed to get promoted there, they weren’t supposed to like you there, you weren’t supposed to do business with them, you weren’t supposed to be comfortable with a mediocre relationship — resist the temptation to get depressed about what pushed you out.
 
It might look like all hell is breaking lose, it might look like things aren’t working out, it might look like a breakdown but God is breaking you out of that place, that stronghold, that dry place, that comfortable place to position you for your high place.  When God is positioning you for what’s coming next, your resistance to what you could do, to what they want you to do, to what might be tempting to do is going to set it off (2 Corinthians 4:17).
 
You’re going to encounter some situations, some people and some setbacks along your journey that will make you feel like, “Not again!,” but remember that God uses opposition to move us into position.  When a layover causes us to put our dreams on layaway, God has to push us in order to bless us (Isaiah 43:19).
 
Joseph went from the pit to Potiphar’s house, from Potiphar’s house to the pen, and from the pen to the palace — get comfortable being uncomfortable for your destiny.  The prophecy written in God’s book for your business, your ministry, your love life, your purpose that He showed you in a dream will keep pushing you out of your history until you fulfill your destiny.
 
Share and be blessed.
 
 
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RELATIONSHIP DEVOTIONAL: THE GOD IN GOODBYE

 

Nothing draws us closer to God like the hurt that comes from relationship. Love exposes the soul to human extremes, pleasures, and hurts that only love can.
 
If you’ve loved and lost — to win, had to sacrifice a relationship for your greatness, or had to surrender your will to God’s will and let someone go, you’ve had to walk in a closeness with God that does not compare to most other situations.
 
Don’t get me wrong, we don’t start out with the plan or the intent to be hurt just so that we can get closer to God.  No, emotional heart attacks push us into God’s Emergency Room — bleeding, bruised and broken.
 
One of the divine lessons that love will continue to teach us, until we learn it, is that we are not love.  Repeat, we are not love.  God is love (1 John 4:8).  When we’re loving on purpose with whom God planned for us, God is loving through us for them. The bible says it this way, “For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).
 
If, then, God is love and it is His love that is working in us and through us for His pleasure, who we emotionally pick as a mate or to date does not mean that they are a divine match. We would have to say that we were using or know the mind of God in order to convince ourselves that we know, in advance, if someone is meant for us. We don’t have that ability (Romans 11:34. 1 Corinthians 2:11).  We can only use proof, evidence based on behavior that agrees with our Savior (Luke 6:43-45).  Emotions alone are not qualified, and can be too contaminated, to be relied on as the only proof of a divine match.
 
We’re not our own, we belong to God and the supernatural blueprint for our life is not subject to our emotions — it can’t be. We have to pause when we think about the hurt that comes from who walks out or who we have to remove from our life.  Think about it: If someone who is not meant for us leaves our life, a surrendered will would pray for them and wish them well — knowing that God has put a love period where we had a love question mark.  If we cannot genuinely pray for a season and wish them well, we have not surrendered our emotions to God’s will for our life.
 
Put This In Your Spirit: If you aren’t for them, then that means they aren’t for you either. Two wrongs don’t make a God right. God’s plans for your life, and theirs, were created before you were born (Psalm 139:13, Jeremiah 1:5, Ephesians 2:10).   We either are on plan or we’re off track with everybody we meet. Whenever God steps in, it’s to keep our lives on track with His plans: “For I know what I have planned for you,’ says the LORD. ‘I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you a future filled with hope” (Jeremiah 29:11).
 
Emotions that override God’s divine plan, warnings and signs, are disobedient emotions (2 Corinthians 10:5), that are influenced by seductive evil spirits — Our emotional condition will determine the influence familiar spirits can or will have over us.  Jesus came so that we might have life and life more abundantly — only demonic forces are at war with God’s plans for our life (John 10:10).
 
Consider This: Trees shed leaves when it’s time to change seasons — for self-preservation. In other words, even the tree will shed leaves in order to save its life. But know this, when the tree sheds a leaf, not one leaf that falls to the ground kills the tree.
 
Walking in divine truth leads emotions.  It’s a position worked-for, hard-fought for that usually requires retraining our emotions to acknowledge, submit and abide in the will of God.  This is not hardly natural, in fact it is impossible without an intimate relationship with Jesus (John 15:5).
 
Fighting back thoughts and emotions that come from the enemy takes work.  In fact, without abiding in an intimate relationship with Jesus, the work will wear us out (James 4:7) — Especially when the emotions we’re trying to fight are emotions that want what we don’t need. 
 
You don’t have to fake it.  Unless you have an iron brain, it takes a minute to submit to God’s will — every new test requires a new level of submission.  But what we have to remember, consider for our own sake, is this: Emotions that can tell God what to do or tell you to do anything that harms you or your destiny, are influenced by the enemy – no matter how good they feel (2 Corinthians 10:3-4).
 
Break up with fear and emotions that tell you to harm yourself.  Break it off!  Cry if you have to, crawl if you have to and even if you stumble on your way out, submit to God’s will for your life.  When we’re not walking in our divine truth, every season will look like a lifetime and if we’re not careful, long and wrong seasons can become unhealthy soul ties.  
 
When we won’t or can’t do what God’s love requires us to do — learn from the past and step aside, the Holy Spirit will protect us in our weakness by interceding on our behalf (Romans 8:26) —  even when we don’t want to be protected.  When someone is not for us, right for us or not ready for us, God steps in.  It might look like a breakup but if God stepped in, it’s a divine shakeup.  God lets wrong things fall apart so that He can make right things fall together.
 
Put This In Your Spirit: Haven’t you noticed that when you lie to yourself about how you’re being treated by someone, the truth drives you crazy?  No matter what we tell ourselves to try to make wrong right, the truth won’t allow us to be at peace with emotions that break our heart.
 
When people leave your life or have to be removed, it is confirmation that their season is over — not your life.  When you love you with the love of Christ, you don’t ever have to be with somebody to be somebody — happy, healthy and powerful.  The evidence of our surrender to God’s will is in how we respond, react and ultimately recover from a God intervention.   
 
When you know what you bring to the table, you’re not afraid to eat alone.
 
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DAILY DEVOTIONAL: A TIME TO KILL

It might feel like pain but this is your season of separation.  Every tree is a seed that refused to stay the same, refused to stay under ground and refused to give up.
 
God is moving you out of what was into to what will be.  Old things are passing away, and behold, all things are becoming like new!  When it’s time to kill, God is saying, “Kill what’s killing your hope, kill what’s killing your potential, kill what’s killing your focus, kill what’s killing your fearless faith.
 
When it’s time to kill, God will use His fire to reveal the impurities, the familiar spirits that have crept in and have taken you out of position to win.  
 
God says, “See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction” (Isaiah 48:10).  The enemy is not attacking you, God is purifying you beloved. Did you know that when God is purifying us, He holds us in His hands and uses just enough heat to separate us from our impurities but not enough heat to hurt us?  
 

Put This In Your Spirit: “A woman called up a silversmith and made an appointment to watch him at work. She didn’t mention anything about the reason for her interest in silver beyond her curiosity about the process of refining silver.

As she watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest so as to burn away all the impurities. The woman thought about God holding us in our hot spots.

 

Then she asked the silversmith if it was true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time the silver was being refined. The man answered that yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire. If the silver was left even a moment too long in the flames, it would be destroyed.

The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silversmith, How do you know when the silver is fully refined? He smiled at her and answered, “Oh, that’s easy–when I see my image in it.”

 
Are you seeing what God is revealing?  Do you see the impurities, the familiar spirits, the strongholds, the forces that have been holding you back?  Can you feel the separation from wrong people, from emotional ties, from fears, from doubts, from caring about what people think about you? What is the Holy Spirit telling you needs to be sacrificed?  What needs to be surrendered and who needs to be shook in order for God to get the glory for your story? 
 
As God reveals it, release it. They were a season, not a lifetime. You can keep them in your prayers but you can no longer keep them in your life.  You’re going to have to unfriend and unfollow some people in real life.  Talent got you this far but it’s going to take sacrifice and humility to get you to the next level.  What mama did, what happened in childhood, what daddy didn’t do is over — you’re being separated from that so you can take your adulthood back.
 
Put This In Your Spirit: To make a God transition in any area of life, you have to get comfortable being uncomfortable.  Remember, if God’s fire reveals it, you were comfortable with what you were supposed to be uncomfortable with.
 
You’re coming out of this.  This is the breakout before your breakthrough.  Suddenly, when God is finished, doors that you couldn’t open are going to be opened to you.  Struggles and storms are going to cease.  Your famine is going to turn into favor.  Your faithfulness in this season is going to cause prayers to be answered, fights to be won and faith seeds to produce a supernatural harvest.
 
This is your time.  Kill it.  Celebrate your victory in advance! You’re about to be lighter, you’re about to lose to win, you’re about to go from stressed to blessed.
 
Share and be blessed.
 
 
  
 
 
 
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Relationship Devotional: The Danger Of Talking To Everybody About Your Relationship

It’s tempting to just bear your soul with folks when you’re dealing with relationship troubles or decisions.  We all need somebody to talk to and when we’re in an emotionally stressful or difficult situation, we, both women and men, tend to reach out to people we know.
 
The problem is, everybody we know is not always somebody we should reach out to about our relationship.  God works through wise counselors — neutral, objective people to help guide us in the right path.  The opposite is true when we put our business in the wrong hands.  Putting your relationship business in the wrong hands is like giving your alarm code to a thief.  
 
Put This In Your Spirit: Proverbs 10:14 says, “The wise don’t tell everything they know, but the foolish talk too much and are ruined.” When you’re struggling or going through it in a relationship, there are three people that you should never put in your business: 1) A gossip, 2) A wounded person and, 3) Somebody who is happy if you lose. 
 
Likewise, you cannot put people in your relationship business who will hold on to what you should and will let go of.  You will be surprised at the number of relationships that struggle because an outside influence is holding on to something that the couple has moved on from years ago. If you’re talking to somebody who will hold a permanent grudge, dislike or negative attitude towards your mate, you’re talking to the wrong person.
 
When we’re hurt, we tend to gravitate, emotionally, towards whoever will make us feel good about whatever we want to feel good about. If we want to feel justified about our wrong, we tend to talk to somebody who will go along with us — even when we’re wrong.  These are poisonous conversations.
 
It is not abnormal or crazy to want to hear what feels good when we’re not feeling good.  The problem is, when you expose your relationship to poisonous people, you will poison your relationship.  Keep doing it and you will destroy your relationship.
 
Put This In Your Spirit: When we talk to wrong people about our relationship, before long, talking can turn into an unhealthy partnership with them against our relationship. Confiding in wrong people tends to create wrong, unhealthy emotional alliances that are never healthy for your relationship — it is very dangerous. Proverbs 13:20 says, “Walk with the wise and become wise, for a companion of fools suffers harm.”
 
Does this mean that we shouldn’t talk to anybody?  No.  Talking is not the problem, who we’re talking to and the objective for talking can be the problem.  Are you talking to the right person for an objective, healthy purpose? Or the wrong person to agree with half the story? Let’s say you’re dating a great person but they have a flaw that you’re trying to decide if it is or should be a deal breaker.  Or let’s say you and your spouse are going through a difficult time.  The last person you need to talk to is somebody who is emotionally hurt, unsupportive of your relationship, unhappy in their relationship, happy to see you single, negative or, somebody who does not believe in the power of God.
 
It’s not always easy to separate the good one’s from the bad one’s.  At the very least, eliminate talking to someone who is obviously poisonous.  Another tip is to always state your objective up front when you’re talking about your relationship with someone — “I want to fix my marriage,” or, “I am trying to look objectively at my behavior/decision,” or, “I need an objective/balanced opinion,” or, “This is not about bashing my relationship or my mate or me leaving,” etc.  If you’re talking to the opposite sex, eliminate anybody who is not a friend/supporter of the relationship or who has a romantic interest (spoken or unspoken).  The devil uses open doors — put a lock on obvious foolery.
 
Whoever you choose to share your relationship business with, just remember that you don’t want to lose a good relationship over bad advice, or turn a temporary problem into a worse or permanent problem.  And you don’t want to make a decision based on somebody else’s hurt or ignorance. Word to the wise: Don’t give someone the ability to speak death over your love life when you’re trying to save it.
 
Seek God’s wisdom — don’t just read the bible but search the scripture for God’s wisdom about the problem you’re having.  It makes no sense for us to read the bible without purpose when we’re needing a answer about a specific issue.  No matter what you’re dealing with, the bible has a wisdom principle that will guide you to right thinking, right people and right answers.  If you don’t believe it, leave a comment below for a topic/issue you’re dealing with for a wisdom scripture(s) that will address it specifically.
 
Trust God for your destiny love decisions.  Always make the love of your life the first and the last conversation about your destiny together.  Relationships are hard enough, don’t add gasoline to the fire.
 
Share and be blessed.
 
 
  
 
 
 
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RELATIONSHIP DEVOTIONAL: ALONE AND LONELY ARE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS

Being alone can sometimes feel lonely but single is not a death sentence.  Yes, we all love companionship and yes we enjoy good company.  We’re human and, we were created to love someone who loves us intimately and uniquely.
 
But alone is who we’re with and lonely is being miserable with who we’re with. Lonely has to be with somebody to be somebody. But people don’t cure our loneliness, loneliness is an inside job. 
 
No, we don’t have to be satisfied being alone but content, yes (Philippians 4:11-12).  Why?  Contentment or Joy is a fought-for, struggled-for fruit of the spirit that the fruit of self-control relies on (Galatians 5:22-23).  Anybody who has ever hooked up with somebody while they were lonely will tell you that, 1) A spirit of loneliness makes you feel out of control, and 2) A spirit of loneliness robs us of our joy, and causes our heart to leak with low self-esteem, low self-love, distrust and obsession. 
 
All of us have gone to the grocery store hungry.  When we shop with hunger, starvation, we don’t make wise decisions, we make desperate decisions — something quick, something easy and something right now.  When we shop hungry, we almost always buy something that we don’t need.
 
Loneliness that causes unhealthy emotional hunger is no different. Unhealthy emotional hunger tends to use temporary emotions to make long-term decisions — in the heat of the moment.  If you’ve gotten into a relationship because you were lonely, hungry, chances are the relationship didn’t last long — if you knew you were only looking for a snack, that might have worked for you.
 
But if you were looking for a lifetime relationship, you probably found out that as soon as the hunger was satisfied, emotions filled up, the attraction wore off.  After you sobered up, you might have even experienced Hunger After Shock — that feeling of, “Did or why did I choose that?”  A relationship initiated out of hunger is usually intense in the beginning — that’s why it can be confusing, but it’s always mild in the middle and it melts down after a short period of time.
 
Loving on purpose takes soul work.  When our soul is right, healed, healthy and content, we are ready for our soul match.  Remember a soul mate can be an unhealthy match but a soul match is that person who God planned for our best self.  Our soul match compliments our willingness to be by ourselves if being with someone else means being miserable. 
 
In other words, we tend to mate with someone who matches our soul condition.  Loneliness is not a condition that you want to attract or mate with.  A lifetime love is somebody who we choose to do life with, not somebody we have to put up with for the rest of our life. How we choose to be alone is up to the individual but however we choose to be alone, we should enjoy it to the fullest — Date, learn, grow.
 
When you know what you bring to the table, you don’t mind eating alone.
 
We have to check our heart before we check into a relationship. God will guide us into the path that He planned for us when our heart is ready, willing and able. We don’t and won’t always get it right but before you get emotionally caught up, pray this simple prayer: “Lord, create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10) — and listen with honest ears. One thing is for sure, we cannot recognize a swine when we’re out of our emotional mind (Matthew 7:6).
 
Share and be blessed.
 
  
 
 
 
Have you downloaded your copy of the thought provoking, uncut and life changing eBook, “Where Are All The Good Men At?” No matter what your relationship status is, you owe your destiny to read this powerful, short eBook by Pastor Patrick.
 
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“The eBook by Pastor Patrick,”Where Are All The Good Men At?,” takes the gloves off as Pastor Patrick keeps it real and tells you what your heart needs to know to take the weight off your wait and to keep your emotions in check while God prepares your Mr. Right.” LWAtlanta
 
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DON’T LET THE DEVIL TURN YOUR PROMISE INTO A FIGHT

You’re in that cycle of fighting that makes no sense.  We’ve all been there — those times in life where no matter how hard we swing, no matter how hard we pray, no matter what we do, it seems like nothing changes.
 
Sometimes, we can fight so long and so hard that we get punch drunk — Punch Drunk is a term derived from boxing where a boxer gets hit by the opponent so many times that they become disorientated — similar to being drunk. That’s how it can feel when we’re taking too many punches for our promise.
 
Put This In Your Spirit: When we feel like we’re losing control, we’re not fighting for the promise, we’re struggling with the Holy Spirit to grow the fruit of Self-Control.  When we start to lose it, the Holy Spirit is saying, “Your victory is in the fruit, not in the fight” (Galatians 5:23).
 
Remember, the enemy is not fighting folks who are sitting on the sidelines.  You wouldn’t be Punch Drunk if you weren’t at least in the ring going toe to toe for your promise.  You came to win and the devil came to stop you.  You refuse to lose and the devil refuses to give up.  If you didn’t have a blessing waiting on the other side, if this was not a promise, the devil wouldn’t be fighting you so hard.
 
Haven’t you noticed the more we try to control the fight for a promise, the more we tend to lean to our own understanding or walk by sight instead of by faith?
 
Watch This…
 
A friend has a daughter who did not get along with her step-mother.  They could not make it through a day without a blow up.  His daughter felt like her step-mother was taking her daddy away and the step-mother felt like her step-daughter, who was fine in the beginning, started to view her like the enemy.
 
He tried everything he knew how to referee the situation but the more he tried it his way, the more out of control it became.  Sometimes we forget that in order to prosper God’s way we have to use God’s way.  So one day he decided to have another family meeting.  Only this time, he was bringing God to the table.  The conversation started off like it always did — finger pointing.  Then suddenly, he just busted out with, “God showed me that I am losing both of you because I’m fighting for you and not with you.”
 
Everybody got quiet.  He went on to say, “The enemy had me choosing sides and defending positions, which was creating division.  He then says, “God showed me that a house divided cannot stand.  I’ve been trying to balance my love 50/50 but the balance God wants is 100/100.  when I fight for one of you, I’m fighting against the other — I have to fight for wisdom to give you both the love that you need without taking away from the other.  I have to fight right in order to win right.” 
 
In other words, sometimes we’re fighting for the right thing the wrong way.  When we start to feel punch drunk, like we’re losing control in a fight for our promise, God is saying, “You will lose control when you take Me out of the fight” (John 15:5).
 
Put This In Your Spirit: When we’re fighting the right fight the wrong way, we will experience Moses Moments. Remember when Moses got punch drunk in the wilderness? He said to God, “Where can I get meat for all these people? They keep wailing to me, ‘Give us meat to eat!” I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me. If this is how you are going to treat me, please go ahead and kill me—if I have found favor in your eyes—and do not let me face my own ruin.” (Numbers 11:13-15).
 
What Moses forgot, and what we forget too when we’re overwhelmed, is that the battle is not ours, it’s the Lords (2 Chronicles 2:15). This is easy to say and harder to do but when we’re swinging for our promise we have to remember that it is a promise and not a fight.  When we turn our promise into a fight, we lose it.  Haven’t you noticed that the majority of the blows we take when we’re fighting the right fight the wrong way come from beating ourselves up over what we cannot do?
 
God is saying to us, like He said to Moses, “Get your mind right.  I don’t need what you have to win what I’ve already won.”  Moses felt that if God was going to leave him to do this on his own, it would be better that He take him home to Heaven — Take me now!  Haven’t you felt that way? Haven’t you felt like just throwing up your hands and saying forget it? That’s when we know the enemy has caused us to lose control — our fruit (Galatians 5:22-23).  The enemy knows that if he can get us to lose control, forget God, he can cause us to lose sight of the promise.
 
You know you’re fighting the right fight but now you have to know that the right fight is for what God promised.  When we start to lose it, we have to stop.  Just stop, and recognize what’s happening.  When we run out of self, it’s time to run to God for help.  Just like God did for Moses, when we tell God we need help, He will provide what we need (Numbers 11:16-17). 
 
God guaranteed our victory (1 Corinthians 15:7), favor would surround us like a shield (Psalm 5:12), and that He would provide what we need for the process (Philippians 4:19).  
 
If you’re at the end of your rope, emotionally beat down and drunk from the punches, writer Fred Fries says these 3 things will help us to sober up: Remember, Rest and Rely.  Remember that we don’t fight for promises, we fight to keep the tricks of the enemy from causing us to doubt God.  Take a spiritual timeout, sit and talk with God about His promise.  Rely on God for the wisdom, the resources and the way that you need to claim the victory. Pray, listen, walk.
 
Jesus already hung, bled and died for your victory, your fight is fixed.  Don’t let the devil turn your promise into a fight.
 
 
Share and be blessed.
 
 
 
 
Join us at the HILL every Sunday for a life changing word for powerful living!
 
 

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Daily Devotional: No Matter What, You Can Win

Hello devil! That’s what Christ said to Judas when he showed up to betray him. Jesus knew His purpose, His destiny and that made even his attackers his friends (Matthew 26:50).
 
There is no way we can be in a, “Hello Friend,” state of mind without being in a relationship with Jesus. I don’t mean a relationship of convenience — when it serves us or when we need a tow. A relationship of convenience does not create trust, it creates a giver and a taker — with only one doing the taking. We want so much more from Jesus.
 
Jesus said, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). Jesus was rolling with God and his swagger came from his knowing that if God said it, you could take it to the bank. Is that the relationship you want with Jesus?  The kind of power that cannot be shook, the kind of peace that tells storms to hush, the kind of confidence that you can look at your Judas and say, “Hello Friend, do what you came to do?”
 
I figured out that the relationship that most of us want with Jesus is based on what we want for ourselves, what we want out of life and whether or not we want to live life with little assurance or a lot of assurance. Whether or not we want to have a little power or a lot of power. This is all personal but that’s why relationship with Jesus is personal.
 
Put This In Your Spirit: “Remain in Me, and I will remain in you. Just as no branch can bear fruit by itself unless it remains in the vine, neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me” (John 15:4).
 
The fruit that Christ is talking about is the fruit of the spirit, “…love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22). What in the heck does fruit have to do with how we act, react or respond to life?
 
Fruit are the Holy Spirit’s personality, qualities and power. Not just the fruit but the fact that without being plugged into Jesus, we cannot bear fruit. In case anybody thought being plugged into Jesus was just about bearing fruit, it’s not. It’s really not ya’ll.
 
Did you know that we cannot even resist the devil without abiding in Jesus — we don’t have the power or authority to rebuke the devil. The bible actually says, “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). The devil does not obey us, the devil obeys God. The devil will not flee from us unless we’re plugged in — “Submitted to God.” But wait, there’s more.
 
We don’t even have the ability to expect to receive an answer from God for a need or a want without being connected. The bible actually said, “If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, you shall ask whatever you wish, and to you it will come to pass” (John 15:7). I don’t want to sound preachy but it sounds like God is saying, “If you’re not into Jesus, you’re going to be into some problems.” We cannot bear fruit, we cannot resist the enemy and we cannot even ask God for anything with honest expectation unless we’re abiding in or connected to the vine: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:16).
 
Can you imagine being disconnected, lightly attached or having a shallow relationship with Jesus and relying on the full power of the fruit? Our ability to stay in peace even while we’re in pieces comes from the fruit of self-control. Without self-control we’re emotionally driven — without brakes. We cannot have self-control without Joy – trust in God that no matter what, you win. Without joy it is impossible to have peace. Jesus is saying, “If you want all of me, that’s great, I want all of you too.”
 
Let’s say you didn’t have a relationship or history with someone and they were supposed to pick you up after work. When you get off, they’re not there. Because you don’t know them, would confidence in them showing up be high or low? Maybe you’re just trusting like that and it wouldn’t bother you. Would your confidence go up or down as time passed — not knowing what’s going on? After even an hour and no call, would you bet your life on them coming or would you start making other plans? Doesn’t your lack of experience/intimate knowledge of them influence your thoughts — negatively? Could you honestly be confident that somebody will show up who you don’t know well enough to testify about their character?
 
When we don’t have a real, worked-for relationship with Jesus, we do the same thing. Emotions will make other plans whenever conflict happens. Jesus is saying — “If you want confidence in me, you have to know me, trust me, go through some stuff with me and see that I am not a man that I should lie (Numbers 23:19)
 
Can you imagine the difference in our response to life’s encounters, struggles, mess, drama, trials and tests with a fought-for, struggled-for relationship with Jesus? Maybe you can see why we go to pieces when life temporarily goes against us. If a door closed, a bad relationship ended, a delay occurred, a lack occurred, a test occurred, a hurt occurred, a rejection occurred or a loss occurred, would it break you if you knew for sure that because of your relationship with Jesus, “God’s going to work it together for your good?” (Romans 8:28)?
 
If we really want stability, power and control in an unstable world, we’re really saying we want a deep relationship with Jesus. If we want to heal, control our anger, rely on confidence for strength, get past the past or whatever we cannot do on our own, we’re really saying, I want a deeper relationship with Jesus.
 
We talk a lot about, “Connecting with Jesus, being in the vine and abiding,” but without practical steps, without repeatable steps, without steps to practice, it’s like telling somebody to go fly like the birds — without instructions. No matter how long we’ve been in a relationship with Jesus, flying like the birds or walking on water is not easy – every new level comes with new flying lessons for new challenges. Nobody will become a flying expert, just more confident about flying.
 
Whether you are an experienced flyer or a beginner, there are three things that you can consider doing everyday to develop, cultivate and stay woke in your relationship with Jesus:
 
  • Commit at least 5 scriptures to your memory that you will meditate on and repeat daily — it’s best if you do this as early as you can before your day starts — but your time is the right time if your mind is clear. These are meditation scriptures, that means that they are reciprocal — promises tell us why God loves us, obedience or faithfulness tells us how we love God.  They can change, they can be added to but these scriptures represent your worship, your daily meditation and devotion. If we can go to the gym and do whatever else we want to do every day, we can set aside 15-20 minutes to seriously focus on why we love Jesus.
 
  • Self-correct or stay woke. Just like meditating on and worshiping Jesus takes practice, so does negativity, discouragement, doubt, fear and unhappiness. You have to work at being unhappy by meditating on and agreeing with thoughts and beliefs that completely contradict your truth. In other words, be your own mouth police. Correct and replace negative words. Don’t just say, “My bad Jesus,” practice replacing every negative with a positive — negative words, negative thoughts and negative behavior. Fix it, apologize for it, replace it — practice speed, the faster you fix it the more you begin to be conscious of it.
 
  • Continuously work on God’s plans for your life — including serving and fellowship with the body. No matter what anybody says, every church is not for everybody but everybody who desires to abide in Jesus, will attend a powerhouse church that ministers to the whole person for whole victory. Followers of Jesus are not built to walk, sharpen, build up and serve alone. Develop goals, life plans, fun and new discoveries, and relationship goals that grow you, stretch you beyond your comfort zone and support a positive life.
 
A full life, loving relationship, serving God, positive attitude and a destiny mindset makes it difficult for the enemy to break us down or keep us down at will. The enemy should have to fight for your attention.  Our ability to say, “Hello devil,” and know that no matter what we win, is based on what our worship with Jesus looks like. Desire a “Hello spirit,” that Jesus swagger, it will change your perspective, your mindset and your expectations for every area and aspect of your life.
 
Share and be blessed.
 
 
 
San Leandro, CA
 
Got Fruit? Is a powerful, practical short free eBook that will change the way you look at fruit.  You owe it to your destiny to become your own fruit inspector.
 
 
 

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