The Great X-Cape Ii: God's Amazing Love

By Angel Brown

John 15:13

Greater love hath no man than this; that a man lay down his life for his friends.

The Great X-Cape II (Gods Amazing Love) takes spiritual concepts from my first book, The Great X-Cape, expounds on those spiritual concepts in more detail, and is a continuation of my first book. Through the storms, through the valleys, and through the fire, God has been a constant source of motivation, inspiration, and comfort, and He has been my bridge over troubled water as I continue to make my great escape each day by faith. He is God on the mountain and He is still God even if we are facing the darkest valley that we could have ever imagined. There is a hiding place in God that we can enter into where our troubles can no longer find us as we find our faith in God and place our complete confidence in Him. God has turned my greatest tragedies into my greatest victories, my impossibilities into possibilities, and has become, to me, the greatest Superhero that I have ever known. When we surrender our self-made invisible cape to God, we will find that nothing is impossible with Him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 7, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456761677

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© 2011 Angel Brown. All Rights Reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 05/27/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4567-6167-7 (ebk)

ISBN: 978-1-4567-6168-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4567-6169-1 (sc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011908536

Printed in the United States of America

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Dedication

ABOUT THE BOOK

About the Author

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Dedication

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I have chosen to dedicate The Great X-Cape II (God’s Amazing Love) to my Pastor, Gary Velie of Macon, Georgia’s Macon Gospel Tabernacle Church. When I first met my pastor, Gary Velie and his family in 1990, I didn’t always agree with the words that he preached to me, and many times, I felt as if he was singling me out and targeting me for a personal attack of some kind. Many of the words that he spoke to me didn’t make much sense to me at that time, but I can honestly say that every time that I have taken his advice, God has always blessed me abundantly. God chooses men, appoints them, and spiritually equips them to take our hand and the Hand of Jesus Christ and put them together, which ultimately leads us into a real relationship with God. The spiritual teachings that I have received while sitting under my pastor, Gary Velie, are priceless, and I would not trade my pastor for any other pastor in the entire universe. My pastor preaches a message that might sound strange at times, but it is this priceless message that He received from God and preaches to everyone that will listen that has allowed me to make my Great X-Cape. Any time that we have faith and confidence in what we can do in the strength of ourselves, a powerful and spiritual message of deliverance through death to ourselves will sound strange. When we still want to glory in the accomplishments and in the greatness of who we think we are, we will always run from the crosses in our lives because we don’t want to die the death that we must die in order for us to truly make our Great X-Cape. When I found myself in the most impossible situation in my life in 2009, I picked up the pieces of the powerful message of deliverance that my Pastor had preached to me through the years, took his words off of the shelf where I had put them, dusted them off, and placed them inside of my heart. God began to open my eyes and let me see that making this Great X-Cape was still for me. I thank God that there was a man of God who was obedient to God and continued to preach the powerful message of deliverance that God had given him regardless of how many people may have walked away. God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask or even think according to the power that works in us. The power that works in us is the power of having faith in God and not in ourselves. In order to get to the Promised Land, we must go through the wilderness. In order to find a hiding place in God where our troubles can no longer find us, we must go to the Valley of Achor because that is where we will find the door of Hope. I can finally say that everything that I have faced, regardless of how tragic it seemed at the time, has been worth it all, and I thank God that He loved me enough to bring me to the Valley of Achor where I finally found the door of Hope: Christ Jesus living in me day by day by faith. I sincerely thank my Pastor, Gary Velie, for being obedient to God and for being the first partaker in making this Great X-Cape that has set an example for us all to follow. There is therefore, NOW, no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8: 1). I no longer live my life with faith in myself, but I understand now that I am what I am only by the grace of God. Today, I am forgetting the things that are behind and reaching forward to the things that are ahead and pressing forward towards the mark of the high calling of God, which is in Christ Jesus. My heart’s desire today is to be a blessing and a testimony to anyone seeking to find peace and rest wherein the weary rest. The message of deliverance that my pastor, Gary Velie, so obediently preached, has truly changed my life. I have found a hiding place in God where my troubles can no longer find me, and each day, I am making my Great X-Cape by the grace of God. This Great X-Cape is for anyone and everyone who will believe that God is who he says that He is and that He rewards those who diligently seek Him.

ABOUT THE BOOK

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John 15:13

Greater love hath no man than this; that a man lay down his life for his friends.

The Great X-Cape II (God’s Amazing Love) takes spiritual concepts from my first book, The Great X-Cape, expounds on those spiritual concepts in more detail, and is a continuation of my first book. Through the storms, through the valleys, and through the fire, God has been a constant source of motivation, inspiration, and comfort to me, and He has been my bridge over troubled water as I continue to make my great escape. The spiritual transition that we make from having faith and confidence in what we can do in the strength of ourselves to entering into a spiritual place of rest as we place our total confidence in the only real Superhero who never fails, is truly the greatest escape that we can ever make. This book was written to encourage, motivate, and inspire all individuals to trust God no matter what they may be facing. God used the worst situation in my life to cause me to find a deeper, and more intimate relationship with Him, and through it all, I have found my God-ordained calling in life as a writer of Christian and Inspirational literature, as well as my calling as a songwriter, singer, and Gospel recording artist. My debut Gospel album titled, I Need You, Lord is now available for digital download and as ringtones on Reverbnation and will be available in other stores in the near future. God has turned my greatest tragedies into my greatest victories, my impossibilities into possibilities, and has become, to me, the greatest Superhero that I have ever known. When we surrender our self-made invisible cape to God, we will find that nothing is impossible with Him. Throughout my life, I have fallen down many times, but falling on the Rock, Christ Jesus, has been my greatest fall and my greatest x-cape. God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask or even think in spite of our circumstances and even in spite of ourselves according to the power that works in us. The power that works in us is the power that takes place in our lives when we learn to trust God in every situation that we face. I can testify that Nothing is impossible with God. God is a tender-hearted, merciful, and loving Father who only wants the best for His children. The best that we can ever have is Jesus Christ.

About the Author

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Angel Brown

Angel Brown was born Catherine Frances Hernandez on July 23, 1966 in Brooklyn New York, and was the second child born to Benigno Tito Hernandez and Linda W.H. Henderson. Angel Brown moved to Tuskegee, Alabama after her parents divorced and attended Lewis Adams Elementary School and Tuskegee Institute High School while residing in Tuskegee, Alabama, and is also the granddaughter of Dr. George Robert Watts. Angel Brown has four children: James, age 26, Erica, age 24, Jarretta, age 21, and Andrew, age 20, and two precious grandbabies (the children of James): Jasmine Galloway, age 5 and Jaylen Galloway, age 4. In 1995, Angel Brown married her childhood sweetheart and friend, William Brown of Tuskegee, Alabama. Shortly after, Angel Brown and her family moved to Macon, Georgia and became a part of the Macon Gospel Tabernacle Church in Macon, Georgia. Angel Brown homeschooled her four children for ten years, and is currently a senior at the University of Alabama (Roll Tide!) majoring in Human Environmental Sciences with a concentration in consumer sciences. Angel Brown has been employed in several professions including tax preparation, management, intake counselor for FEMA, technical support representative with Hewlett Packard, life insurance agent with Mutual Savings Life, and has held licenses in thirteen states in property casualty insurance through Geico. Angel Brown writes poetry and songs, sings, plays the piano, is the CEO of Angel Christian Publishing, LLC, the Executive Coordinator for GGTG Ministries, the CEO of GGTG Productions (an indie record label), an author, and recently released her first debut Gospel album titled, I Need You, Lord. Cathy Hernandez-Brown chose the pen name Angel Brown because a special person in her life gave her the nickname and also helped inspire her to write her first book, The Great X-Cape. Angel Brown currently resides in Tuskegee, Alabama with her husband of 15 years, William K. Brown.

Chapter One

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No Greater Love

John 3:16

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Love comes in many shapes, sizes, and forms. Love hurts and sometimes love feels good. But what is love anyway? We search for love in many places, and many times we search for love in all of the wrong places. Many times, we may even question whether or not real love actually exists, especially when we may even struggle sometimes to love ourselves unconditionally. Love that has conditions is not real love. Real love is unconditional and never changes with circumstances or situations. Before we can surrender our lives to God completely, we must first come to the knowledge, realization, and the understanding of God’s unconditional love for us. If we have not learned to love ourselves unconditionally, we may struggle with understanding and accepting God’s steadfast, unconditional love. There are many things that can hinder our understanding and acceptance of God’s unconditional love. If we have experienced a painful, neglectful, or abusive childhood, these experiences can hinder our ability to accept, believe, or understand the love that God has for us. Individuals who have experienced an abusive or neglectful childhood may rationalize in their minds that if their parents did not love them, then how could God love them? Sometimes, when individuals experience traumatic events, it can be easy to question God’s love. If you have never questioned God’s unconditional love for you, I have many times. There were times in my life when I questioned how God could love me and still allow certain things to happen in my life. With so many painful situations and circumstances that take place in this world, it is not difficult to comprehend how one could question God’s love for mankind. It is a good thing to have questions. Questions motivate us to seek answers, but we should always seek answers from the One who has the answers- God.

Psalm 1:1

"Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.

Many times, I thought that if I loved someone with all of my heart that they would automatically love me back. I found out from experience that the measure of love that I have for someone else is not always an accurate indicator of their love for me. Many times, we have our own perceptions of love, and we have our own ideas regarding the individuals in our lives that we feel should love us. Mothers should love their children. Husbands should love their wives. Children should love their parents, and pastors should love the members of their congregation. We usually do strive to love the people in our lives whom we are taught that we are supposed to love, but do we really love them according to the measure, capacity, and by the standards by which God loves us or desires us to love? Our love has conditions, but God’s love is unconditional and without limits. As we seek for the answers to the questions that we have, and we seek those answers from the One who has the answers, we will find that God’s love for us is beyond our human capacity of comprehension. Only when we allow Christ to love others through us, will we truly find the answers to all of the questions that we have ever had, and we will come to the realization of God’s divine, unconditional love for us all. We will no longer question His love for us regardless of situations and circumstances that take place in our lives. We will come to the realization that all things work together for good to them that love God and are called according to His purpose as we finally come to the realization of his unconditional love for us. Only when we walk in a man’s shoes can we truly understand their motives and their reasoning for the things that they do. Only when we walk in the shoes of Christ as we allow Christ in us to love others through us will we truly come to the understanding of who Christ is. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then we shall also appear with Him in glory. (Colossians 3: 4). When Christ becomes our life, He will appear in us, and we shall then appear with Him in glory as we begin to walk in His shoes and allow Him to love others through us. When others begin to persecute us and say all manner of evil against us, we will then count it a blessing to forgive them, just as Christ said to His Father, Forgive them, Lord, for they know not what they do.

Romans 8: 28

For we know that all things work together for good to them that love God and are called according to His purpose.

The desire to love and to be loved is a constant motivating force within our lives, and it is the motivating force that drives many of our ambitions. Many times, we do not find what we are looking for as we search for love in all of the wrong places. If we have searched for a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, and every time it rains, we go to the end of the rainbow, yet we never find the gold that we are searching for, that may be an accurate indicator that we may need to search someplace else. If every time we lose a tooth, we place it under our pillow, yet we never find the money to replace it under our pillow the next morning, but we continue to find the same tooth, that may be an accurate indicator that the tooth fairy does not exist. When we were young, we were taught to stop, look, and listen before we crossed the street, although I almost got hit by an eighteen wheeler once because of the amount of time that it took for me to stop, look, and listen! Let’s stop what we are doing. Let’s look to God, and let’s listen to what the Spirit of God is saying to us today and let’s begin to do things God’s way. I promise that you will not be at risk of getting run over by an eighteen wheeler as you take the time to stop, look, and listen!

Real love knows no sacrifice, and no greater love has any man known than this: that a man lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:13). When we lay down our lives, we abandon our own ambitions, desires, motivations, and goals, and the purpose and the direction of our life takes an unselfish route. We count another’s life as more important than ours, and our actions are motivated by that unselfish love, and by that unselfish love alone. When Jesus accepted His Father’s mission to die on a cross at Calvary to become a living sacrifice for the sins of mankind, He made a conscious choice that was motivated by love, and by love alone. His will was His