Above the Horizons

By Rodney Neu

In the act of writing this book I have found many consistencies in our lives that are relevant to Gods word. I owe my life to God. What words we speak then that will become of ourselves. Of we expect mental breakdown, loss of our dreams; then that shall it be. We must wake up with an agenda. Have a course of action when arising from the bed. If you speak words that delay your success then that becomes a day of loss. How many of those can you handle? As long as your mind fulfills the capacity of not changing, staying in the same situation, not building a foundation, you will find yourself on the course of destruction. Let me tell you this right now you are more than what you think about yourself, you are more than what your relationships are, you are more than that house payment, you are more than what that car makes you think you are, in fact think of those times your life should have been over but you are still here.


Keep getting up again and again till you get it right. You will have indications that will bring you to a greater purpose. Refuse to let the challenges of life bring you down. Never let the mastery of failure discourage your right to speak, to live and to bring existence to your honor so that others can learn. Be challenged for the right reasons.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jul 31, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504921923

Rodney Neu

I am a chaplain in the Army reserves. I have a twenty one year old son. I have moved to Texas where I am waiting to be reunited with the love of my life five years, Ednita Brown-Neu. My father passed and my mom is doing ministry who is alive and well. I want you to take a journey with me in diving into crisis issues that will benefit you in the long run. Trust God and recognize that your weaknesses can be overcome.

Book preview

Above the

HORIZONS

Rodney Neu

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AuthorHouse™

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Bloomington, IN 47403

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2015 Rodney Neu. 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.

Published by AuthorHouse 09/17/2015

ISBN: 978-1-5049-2193-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-2192-3 (e)

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

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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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.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.

Contents

Bio for book

Assert your lower position

The struggle within

Strive for it!

Horizons Revealed

Caught in your inconsistencies

Running with will power

The Struggle Within

Strive for it!

A Fathers Passion

Maturation process

Rivers of discontentment

Don’t let the good times fool you

Series of light in your dark places

You know the cost of what you ask

Price of symbols

Things that last

Faith in the eyes of your perception

Faith evolved into your equilibrium

Flying toward the Horizons

Horizons Revealed

Fight for your life

Conquer your Triumphs

Running with will power

Conclusion

This book is dedicated, with love, to my mom, Glorya Wilson Neu, who taught me to be diligent and have humbleness towards others, and to my dear friend Lisa, who taught me that anything is possible. To my father who passed when I was sixteen but motivated the person inside to persevere through pain and struggle. To my brother and sister who taught me that nothing comes easy, you have to work through trials.

Bio for book

In the act of writing this book I have found many consistencies in our lives that are relevant to God’s word. I owe my life to God. What words we speak then that will become of ourselves. Of we expect mental breakdown, loss of our dreams; then that shall it be. We must wake up with an agenda. Have a course of action when arising from the bed. If you speak words that delay your success then that becomes a day of loss. How many of those can you handle? As long as your mind fulfills the capacity of not changing, staying in the same situation, not building a foundation, you will find yourself on the course of destruction. Let me tell you this right now you are more than what you think about yourself, you are more than what your relationships are, you are more than that house payment, you are more than what that car makes you think you are, in fact think of those times your life should have been over but you are still here.

Keep getting up again and again till you get it right. You will have indications that will bring you to a greater purpose. Refuse to let the challenges of life bring you down. Never let the mastery of failure discourage your right to speak, to live and to bring existence to your honor so that others can learn. Be challenged for the right reasons.

Assert your lower position

Don’t tell me where we are going if you don’t have a plan. We may have to modify the plan but don’t come if you don’t have a strategy. Don’t keep giving me hope if you aren’t coming. I believe there is a great dearth in this country that evolves around leadership. Not only a national, political, but also on a spiritual level. In the church, in the family, in the home, you need leadership. Some of you need to sharpen your leadership skills. I would like to be a pastor of a room full of leaders. Leading in the perspective areas I remember I had you make a circle of all the people you have had influence teaching on destiny steps. Teaching on what is your responsibility versus not your responsibility. A lot of us are putting energy into other people’s domain, territory, region, stuff. I want you to get a strategy for what am I going to move what I’m responsible for. A lot of us have our mouths in areas that we are not responsible for. You never have to give an account for another persons stewardship, but you will have to give an account for the things that God has committed into your hands. Stop trying to tell other people what they need to do in there situation. Then follow along for we will be inspired to follow your example. When the presence of God comes in the room that is the time to bring whatever you need up under the anointing. Get that healing, that restoration, or that renewal right there. It’s not he time to look around and check out the lights. It’s the time to open up your spirit. Put your heart in the spirit and allow God to do the things that man can’t do. Your angry at people for not doing things that people can’t do. People can’t heal you, preachers can’t heal, husbands can’t heal, wives can’t heal, mothers and fathers can’t heal you. We can love you but we can’t heal you. Stop being angry with people over things that they don’t have to give. Some people expect too much from you. I’m not God I teach about him, I talk about him, but I’m not him. John said, I’m not that light I’m sent to bear witness of that light. I don’t want you to worship me I’m a struggler just like you, I’m trying to get through this world just like you are. I’m preaching, laying hands, and giving testimony all at the same time trying to get across this river. Don’t let anybody fool you for not everyone has all the answers. When the spirit of the Lord comes into this place that’s the moment that no one has touched, no one has authenticated, no one has breathed on, healed, ministered to. Don’t get me wrong I believe in counseling, marriages, and wonderful ideas about the human mind. Having said that there are some limitations for what counseling can do. If you want the ultimate restoration there are some things you have to drag before this alter and lay it down prostrate saying here I am! When the devil gets after me I take everything I can get to make me better. If I’m sick I take medicine and pray. I speak in tongues on the way to doctor. I believe that spiritual warfare is to use whatever is in your hand. God used the jawbone of an ass. He didn’t whip the philistines without Sampson grabbing what was in his hand. You have to use everything that is available to you and pray. Do it all!

I want to talk to you this morning, adjusting your expectations to the cataclysmic moments like we had. Spiritual bonds fall. We have moments around the alter where people give there lives to Christ. I want you to understand that faith is not an experience it is a journey. All of you who are trying to finish everything by this weekend I hate to bring you this bad news. This is a journey, it’s a process, and I know that you think that you know everything now. Out of the abundance you speak but sometimes if you would hold your peace. Realizing the way you see it today may not be the way you see it five years from now. You will have damaged everybody with wrong information for you thought it was an experience and it was a journey. The elderly would say when I was growing up, Lord I wouldn’t take nothing for my journey right now! I don’t know what they were saying I hadn’t lived long enough to take a journey of what life is. What a winding road it is? Through these few forty three years I’ve lived. I have had holy moments you know is moments where you get holy. You’re quoting scriptures in the blood of Jesus, I’ve had horrible moments. Those trying times where I was so human that I said up here I had digressed back to down here. I didn’t stay on the mountain, I didn’t stay in the valley. Life is a journey. Take this journey. In the process of being on this winding road with twist and turns, laughter and pain, heartaches and humblings, if you take God by the hand he will teach you formality in the mountains. Other things we best learned in the valley. A test is not given to destroy you. It is given so the student can study harder to be better in your weakness. The teacher doesn’t give you the test for they don’t like you. They teach you according to your deficiencies then you will learn how to prepare yourself. When automobiles are made at the GM motor plant in Detroit or wherever they are made it is a process. They test them before they send them out, a certain amount of weight and pressure, a certain amount of combustion, they test the horsepower, the resiliency, and he tenacity. Every now and then they have to do a recall. Something slipped by the test, when something slips by the test people get killed in driving something that hasn’t been tested. What you are going through right now maybe painful or tough but it’s only a test. To show you areas in your life that are vulnerable or deficient. There are areas in your life God will do a recall and tweet that right there. He will pull you in and do a twist and a turn it might be humiliating, it might be un expecting people may laugh and talk about you but God is not testing you to kill you.

He is doing some adjustments in your life so the second half can be the best half. I’m on this journey. I was reading in Job 42:1-7 Job answered the Lord. My eyes see you. I was running my mouth and I didn’t know what I was talking about. I lived my life on the basis of hear say information. Somewhere along the journey I had an encounter with him and now I see. It is easy to speculate on how something ought to be done when you haven’t done it. It is easy to advise on others in a way to operate until you are in the same set of circumstances and you get a chance to do it yourself. Job said, I heard about it, I uttered a lot of stuff and other things I didn’t know what I was talking about, but now I see. As I continue the journey my eye sees a better outcome. I abhor myself, repent and bury myself in ashes. I was wrong, I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was. You learn things along the journey. It is interesting that Job in the middle of his life, everything I did before I was under speculation but now I see. Now this wouldn’t be powerful if you didn’t know before that God said, Job was a righteous man, have you considered my servant Job? He commends him and offers him up on this life test. He gives commendation to Job that lived his life on hearsay information. Had accomplished a lot that God was impressed. Now Job is looking at God in not really knowing him like I know you now. I like to hear Christians say I’ve known the Lord for thirty years. Really! You know him? You know all about him? You don’t even know me! You can live with somebody ten years and not know them. You have searched God out! The truth of the matter is we progressively. In the Greek agnostic it is progressive knowledge. We follow onto to know. Paul says, we feel after only to touch him. We haven’t mastered it, but we are on a journey from speculation to revelation. Job gets a different picture of God when his cattle are dead and his house burned down with his children burned up in it. When his marriage falls apart. His wife abhorred his breathe! You thought yours was the only one that talk nasty. I abhor your breathe. I don’t even want to be near you. Job was righteous and an upright man with a bad marriage. Job was righteous and depressed cursed the day he was born. Job was a righteous man and here in the struggle I was told my name, my children, my relationship, my riches, had gone sour. Didn’t start but went sour. Took a turn lost all his equity, lost his marriage, lost his children all my possessions lost everything. At one point a job realized, the Lord knows the way that I take. The Lord knows your journey, the way that I take, how many turns and twists that I will have to make, the Lord knows how many hills and rocks. The Lord knows the way that I take. I know when he has tried me and this current hell is over I shall come forth as gold. Job was the oldest book in the Bible and yet Job says, I’m not out when he has tried me I shall come forth. Paul got in the New Testament and said, I count myself not to been apprehended. This one thing I do know forgetting these things which are behind me. Somewhere between Job and Paul God has got you on an unwinding path being on a journey. It’s not a sprint, it’s not going to happen this weekend your not going to be finished with it at twenty. Your not going to be done with it when you have your children this is a lifelong journey. Paul when he takes his last breathe, I finished my course, I kept the faith, now lay it on me a crown of righteousness. You mean you didn’t get your crown while you were preaching, no I wasn’t finished yet. You mean you were raising people from the dead and you got no crown. You can’t get your reward until you complete your course. Here we are you and I on a journey it is the things that God does for you on the journey that makes you who you are.

Let me take you to Acts. I saw a man running and I was wondering where he was going, he was running down the winding road hollering and yelling. I caught up with him in Acts 8:30 his name was Phillip. He was running to him and heard him read the prophet Isaiah. Phillip is chasing a eunuch from Ethiopia who is riding in a chariot. God says to Phillip, run him down, catch up with him. You know you have to run fast to catch a chariot. God says, your job should you decide to take it is to chase down a chariot. For the eunuch is on his way back home. I want something to happen in the turn and the twist and catch him. Phillip runs down the chariot and when he catches the eunuch. The Ethiopian is reading out of Isaiah. Phillip asks, do you understand what you are reading? He said, how can I except some man shall guide me. I want to stop there. He realizes he has the book, I got the heart, but I still need someone to give me the hook up. I want to point that out to all you independent people that think you don’t need anybody to teach you anything. That you can get off in your closet, take your bible, and have your own brand of religion. You think you are being spiritual but you only got weird. The eunuch said how can I understand saved some man. Never get in a place where nobody can tell you nothing. He desired Phillip that he should come up. He said, come sit with me. The place of scripture that he read in scripture was this. He was reading Isaiah, as sheep to the slaughter and like a lamb that was done for his shearers for not that he opened his mouth in his humiliation and his judgment was taken away and whosoever declare his generation for his life was taken away from the ends of the earth. The eunuch looked up at Phillip and said tell me something, who is this prophet talking about? Is it of himself or some other man. Then Phillip opened his mouth reading from the scripture and preached into him JESUS. He gave him revelation on the journey. The eunuch is an Ethiopian. Not as Ethiopia as we see it today. This is the northeastern part of Africa. A huge region in that territory that is defined as Ethiopia. This man is a servant the bible says to an African queen named Candace. This Candace is not really a name for it is a succession and a dynasty of African queens who ruled in Ethiopia. They were warring women, they were women who fought, who reigned and ruled. They were not in a sense of being women that were Barbie dolls sitting beside a king. These are women with authority and power. When I started studying one of the queens of Candace encountered Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great in his acquisition of territory was wanting to take the queen Candace territory until she rode out to meet him on an elephant with all her warriors wrapped around her. History struggles between two notions. One being Alexander the Great turned away and the other is that they negotiated. Most scholars agree that he decided not to fight. This big strong African queen who had ruled the most part of Africa and fought off anything that got in her way. All the women fighting with her on elephants ready to fight. When you steady it out the African queens had eunuchs who served under them. This particular eunuch in the text was in charge of the treasury for he queen. He is the right hand man with power. Why is the eunuch coming to Jerusalem? He has been to Jerusalem to worship. He is on his way back to Gaza then to Ethiopia and he has had a worship experience who has brought by being a descendant of Sheba. You will remember the Queen of Sheba had come out of Africa to meet with Solomon for she had heard of Solomon’s God. She was unhappy with the gods in the region to test Solomon to see if his God was as good as they said he was. The bible said, that she began to batter him with questions, but when she saw his answers were so profound. His wisdom was so integrity, his riches were royal and his success and the order of his house. The bible says she ran out of breath. She was in awe. History says, a romance ensued between Sheba and Solomon. A romance that she had to struggle to go back to her own country for she had found a male counterpart that was as intellectually as bright as she was. That was as wealthy as she was, she was torn between staying with him and going back to rule her own people. She decided to go back home and tore down the idols of her people and started worshipping the Jehovah God. These are the descendants of the Queen of Sheba. You see it makes sense that this Ethiopian would be coming to Jerusalem. He is continuing to practice the religion that his ancestry back to Ethiopia. Some scholars seem to think that the arc of the covenant is hidden somewhere in Ethiopia. This particular eunuch must have been so good at what he did that she trusted him to run the treasury. There was no doubt as a reward to give him the privilege to make the rare pilgrimage to go to Jerusalem to have a worship experience. He has gone to Jerusalem to worship God in a revelation that he had been spoken to he is on the chariot on his way back when all of a sudden a runner overtakes him. The runner is Phillip says God wants to do a recall and update you. There has been an update in your theological understanding who God is. I bring this up to say to you. You have not seen all there is to see about God. Every now and then God will send someone in your life to run you down to give you a deeper understanding. Do you understand that God is got somebody chasing your chariot? They may catch with you at church, they may catch up with you at the water cooler, they may be right there with the window rolled down stopped at a red light, at work, at the grocery store, but in the middle of your journey you are going to go from knowing God by the hearing of the ear, seeing him. What you have here is this eunuch who has had the great experience who has sustained pilgrimage to worship in Jerusalem. You have to understand to get to worship in Jerusalem. To get to go you have to be wealthy, afford to go, he has gone at the queen quiesce to go to Jerusalem of the God that was introduced to them by there ancestors. This is amazing occurrence. I remember being in Afghanistan and Iraq close enough to Jerusalem I was introduced to a Palestinian man who was a descendant of Abraham. They are descendants of the Queen of Sheba that the rabbinical society that would go over to test if they were Jews. They were black Jews and they found them to be true Jews practicing Judaism as it was taught in the days of Solomon. Look it up they flew them out of Ethiopia that they called Eagles wings and brought them to a contemporary to educate them for they found them to be legitimately Jews. Practicing the faith as it was revealed through Solomon. In between of what I’m telling you which is in our lifetime and what I told you back there which is in Queen of Sheba lifetime. We have the eunuch about to run back home who has been to Jerusalem. The city of peace. He got to go from Ethiopia to Jerusalem was amazing. He is worshipping in alignment with what he has heard in the hearing of the ear.

He is going back home reading Esisas to represent all the people that could not go from back home. He is going home to give deeper revelation. He has been to church, he has had an experience in church. The real breakthrough happens on the journey. Your real breakthrough happens on the journey. It’s not about what happens in here that makes you a believer, it’s what you are doing out there. If your faith doesn’t make it outside of this church you don’t have no faith at all! All you see is to dress up and be all spiritual in here and raise your hands, bow, and be slain in the spirit. Phillip is chasing you down, catching your chariot on the road so he can update you on a hearsay relationship with God to a personal experience with God. He may catch up with your chariot at the hospital where your faith is being tested by a problem in your life. It is easy to shout a word in defense in the church, but Phillip is chasing your chariot down to the place of your pain. He catches the eunuch at the place of his uncertainty. All of us have a place of uncertainty. He doesn’t catch him in the synagogue but he catches him trying to figure it out. Somewhere along the journey you are going to come to a place of uncertainty where you are at a crossroads in trying to figure it out. Some people are too egotistical to invite anybody to ride with you on your chariot. You would rather try to be your own physician and teach yourself then to allow Phillip to get in your chariot and admit that there are something’s about life you cannot understand by yourself. Can I save somebody, I’m stuck here, I can’t seem to compartmentalize the risk of my own safety, I’ve done all I can do by myself! Come on let’s ride! I will remain stuck at this spot until I humble myself enough to bring somebody on this journey with me. Hop along man! Do you understand how strong that is? Most of us in particular men we internalize our issues. Whatever it is we don’t want to admit to anybody that we have of uncertainty for it threatens our masculinity that you can run the treasury but you can’t figure this out. You can figure out how to work outside of the home, but you figure how to be a father inside. You can go fight battles all day but when you get to the inner morsels you can’t handle an argument with your wife. Success in one area can cause you to be arrogant in another area and just because you are good at this doesn’t mean you are good at that! Some of us are so hell bent on being a teacher that we have lost the benefit of being a student. Look at this eunuch who says, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life stuck on the side of the road. Phillip catches a ride and steps into his uncertainty. Until you can bring people into the place of your uncertainty you will be stuck in your own pragmatic thinking and your journey. Until you can lower your pride and your ego enough to communicate your deficiencies, how can I? I have gone through my inventory there is nothing in my intellectual capacity that can figure this out with professional assistance. I can’t get past this, I’m stuck right here on my journey, if my journey is more important to me than my pride. I will compromise my pride rather than being stuck at a place that I should be able to ride over. I’m going to humble myself, I don’t know you Phillip but come on and catch a ride. I prophesy to someone this morning God is going to send somebody in your life and you have to open up your chariot to let them in. Some of you are riding, sisters some of you are riding in closed chariots. You closed your chariot to protect your heart and even when God sends somebody to help you they can’t get into your chariot for you have child locks on the door. Your heart, your emotions, your thoughts, and your passions are so locked up that nothing bad gets in but nothing good gets in either. You think you are living but you are simply existing. The truth of the matter is behind all your clustered stuff you are stuck! The question is not will God send Phillip the question is will you let him in? I know you well enough to know that you have mistaken my Phillip analogy for Boaz. He is your heart concerning sexual pleasures. But people shouldn’t be able to fall in love with you in order to help you. It means your little window is so small that say they come into this kind of package you don’t recognize help when God sends it. There you are stuck in the guide of protecting yourself. You have locked out your Phillip experience. It happens not in the synagogue experience but on the journey. Phillip runs and catches the chariot. God has a commitment that you will not leave here like you came. The Lord told me to tell you that you will not leave here like you came. I’m not talking to you that have your chariot padlocked. You will go home just like you came. To all of you that will unlock the door God wants to give you an experience this morning. Let us take a few seconds and unlock some doors. Work it till you get it opened. You have been closed along time.

We love to unlock the door to our successes, we love to show people what we are good at, as long as you need what I’m good at then come on in. If you have a need where I’m not good then that is where my walls go up. We never understand that it is your uncertainty that is the attraction. It is your uncertainty that made Phillip run in the first place. There you are busy trying to protect the attraction for you think that you need to be invincible. JESUS said, they that are not sick don’t need a physician. The more you try to impress people, the more you hide your uncertainty, the more you out that big phony fraudulent face on to disguise your uncertainty the less your blessings will be. When you humble yourself and say how can I? I don’t have time to exhaust the profound derivative of what I just said. It is the common mistake that people made throughout the bible that they were always more than they are. It is the mistake that the children of Israel made when God sent down the law. He didn’t send down the law so they could keep the law. He sent the law so they would admit that they couldn’t keep the law. That’s why he planned he tabernacle at the time he presented the law. They saw the law and said, this we will do. Arrogance will always destroy opportunity. It is the common mistake we been making for years. I’m shocked that we have not learned the blessing of uncertainty. The mistake of obliteration or saying I can’t. Show me that is the portal of revelation. That is the nectar of human experience. That is the attraction that draws the rabbi. To sit with the student to unfold the mystery it is when you say, I have count not myself to have been apprehended. It is when you become vulnerable and say, I’m not there yet. I don’t know how, teach me, but you disguise your reality with arrogance and lose the opportunity for revelation. You are stuck on the journey for you are more concerned about your pride than you are your productivity. That’s the kind of word you let that stick on there forehead. The ministry the Lord gave me has taken along time to come into it fully. To scrape past church and religion, not worry about your expectations to talk to you on the level that I’m talking now. It has taken along journey to get here I understand that I’m a required appetite. I’m ok with that. I’m not looking for the masses I’m looking for he that has an ear let him hear. What the spirit is saying to the church is if I’m too much for you it’s okay if you leave. I have too much invested to lower who I am to attain you. I’m okay with that now. You can leave me now I’m not going to compromise who I am just to get you to stay. I know that everybody can’t think up here but somebody has an appetite to understand. It is absolutely amazing how many people hide the best part of themselves and miss the power when it comes when you are uncertain. You can’t have faith until you are uncertain. You see faith is the substance of the thing you hope for if you already got it all together then faith would never run you down. Faith is something that says how can I therefore being justified by faith. God says, when you stop justifying yourself, faith will justify you. It will run down your chariot and hop a ride. When Phillip got on board of the chariot he opened up the missing part. Cars wreck over a missing part. You wouldn’t have bought it if it didn’t look good. You wouldn’t have bought it if it didn’t smell new, the interior, the exterior, the luxury of the radio, navigation system, the parking brake systems, and the rims on the tires. It broke over the little things, it had a carburetor, an engine, an exhaust pipe, a excellent capacitor all that stuff. The thing that makes them do a recall are the little things. You see the eunuch was missing a little thing. What he was in his body he was in his understanding. He was a man but he was missing the little things. What is going on in his body is going on in his life. He can’t quite make the connection. When God talks to us in giving us the key to the kingdom. The kingdom is big and the key is small. That’s why you come to church. It’s not for the big things, it’s for the small things. A key is a small thing but if you don’t have it then you can’t start the car. A spark plug is a little thing but if you don’t have it the engine will not run. You can make it if you had the little things. Phillip said, you are good on your way back. God is going to give you the little things so you can’t be impotent in your own understanding. They ride down the road as Phillip was expounding the word to him they came to some water. The eunuch said, here is water. You see what has happened to him. As he rode with Phillip he has now realized that JESUS is the messiah, I’m not going to go home without everything that God has planned for me. I don’t understand why people come to church late, leave church early, I’m not being impractical. Why would you make the trip if you weren’t going to get everything that you could get. It’s like going to the football game, missing the game and eating the food. God is into giving you the little things that he is chasing this guy down after the service. Don’t miss this over and over again, don’t miss this! You have your bible, you have your heart, but Phillip gave him a little thing with small revelation. Took what he had given to him with little uncertainty and gave him revelation. Now I have come to a place in my journey where we ran into water. Faith needs some work to occupy in your life. Faith can’t work through thought. Faith has to take action to be legitimate as long as it remains philosophical it’s just an ideology. When you take it and put into action, faith will work if you work it! You can dance, you can shout, you can come to church, but when you get an opportunity you should say, here is water. Phillip says to the eunuch, if you shall believe with all your heart then I will baptize you. The bible says straight way. Straight way is a word of many areas of synergy in your life. They went down into the water. You can come here till your shoes run out of leather, but if you don’t work this on your journey. If you don’t get the twist or turn and work what I’m being taught. The reason some of you can come once a month is that you haven’t run out of gas for you haven’t run the car. You don’t have an appetite for you don’t exercise. If you are exercising your faith on the journey, I don’t care how tired you are it will make you get up out of the bed and straight way work your thing. Now here comes the work. He went down into the water. The thing about baptizing somebody you can’t baptize somebody that will not bend. In order to baptize somebody it needs some bending. If they bend they have to able to trust you. The baptizee is not in control. A lot of people don’t want to be in a situation where they are not in control. You will never experience the glory of God until you are willing to lose your control. Trusting that if God got you into it, if he took me down God will bring me out of it! If he let me go through it, if he let this happen to me, he that began a good work in you shall perform until the day of JESUS Christ. I may go down but watch this! God says, you will never know me in the power of my resurrection until you know me in the power of my suffering. If I take you down and you trust me on the downside just cast all your cares, all your pain, all your burdens on me. If I took you down I’m able to bring you up! You are coming out of the fire, the water, he has began a good work in you! The bible said, when the eunuch came out of it, Phillip disappeared. What you need right now you won’t always need. You know you won’t need it anymore when Phillip disappears. I got everything I need to finish my journey. You are on a journey take your time, steady yourself, open up your chariot, humble yourself, open up your heart. Father God we stand before you now every person we are all somewhere on the journey, being tested, transition from hearing to seeing we are on a journey. It’s hard to be open when you are scared. It’s hard to be vulnerable when you are uncertain it takes faith to go out and under. I can’t go up till I’m ready to go under in the lower valleys. This is a journey something’s you can’t do by yourself. I pray God that the word will sink deep, not another experience let this be an intervention. Wherever the chariot is let Phillip overtake it now! Wherever there is faith run Phillip run! I stop every chariot, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, slow down and be glorified in this place. Let this message go deep that somebody gets a key that unlocks the door. Have your way in the connection. Strength for the journey, let us run and not grow weary, walk on the asphalt of the edges. Do not faint this is only a test. Assert yourself in the position and be willing to lower your walk so others can see what it cost.

The struggle within

I want to talk with you about the struggle to be relevant. I love to tell you it’s magic but it’s not, love to tell you that it is easy, I love to tell you that everybody like’s it but they don’t. I love to tell you that you can anoint yourself with oil and it would happen but it’s not true. It is a struggle everyday. People that don’t struggle get left. I know you are looking for a place where there is none. People that don’t struggle get left behind. People who don’t struggle for relevance take opportunities for granted. Without ever being conscious about it they will get left. Standing still is getting left behind. You don’t have to backslide to be backward. Stop being progressive and the rest of the world will pass you by. Without progressing you are digressing all the time. This Sunday morning we want to talk with you what it is like to struggle in relevance. Can you please turn to your bibles to 1 Samuel 3: 7-11. This is amazing for Samuel is in the house of the Lord and he is serving the Lord. The bible is saying that he doesn’t know the Lord that he serves. The assumption is if you are in the service and especially if you have a position in the service then he assumption is then you know the Lord. It is one thing to serve him and it is another thing to know him. Neither was the Lord revealed. Let’s you know that the word of the Lord comes from revelation. A personal encounter that Samuel had not yet had. The Lord called Samuel again. This is the third time… My momma told me if I call you one time and you don’t show up. God rest your soul for the rest of you is going to belong to me! I’m not going to call you twice boy. If I tell you to get up! We have lost something’s now the parents are begging the child to get up! You are crying begging saying, please get up and let’s go to church, I can’t do nothing if you don’t go! You know what give them to me! But God in his grace has called Samuel the third time and he arose going to Eli saying here am I for I have disclosed the hearing of your voice. Eli perceived that the Lord had called the child. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, go lie down and it shall be. If he should call you then say speak Lord for thy servant hears. Samuel went and laid down in his place. This time, I know I blew it before but this time I’m ready. The Lord came and called as in other times, Samuel, Samuel! Then Samuel answered, Lord speak for thy servant hears. The Lord said to Samuel, Behold I will do a thing in Israel at which the ears of everyone that hears it shall tingle. In other words behold I’m going to do a thing in Israel. Making you relevant I’m going to use you in a mighty way that everybody that hears about it there ears will tingle. I’m going to take you from being irrelevant to the next step, out of date, into a place of relevance and I will do it this time.

Holy Spirit use these moments that I have with your people to speak words of life, to encourage, to empower us to strengthen us. The struggle for relevance is impossible without you. Have your way Lord. In Jesus name Amen. Paul uses a quote I want to use, all life demands struggle. A lot of people don’t know that they think that life comes with privileges, not problems. Promises not pain, but Paul says, all life demands struggle those that have things given to them become lazy, selfish, and insensitive to the real values of life. The very striving that we so constantly try to avoid is the major building block in the person we are today. I do not ascribe to this watered down theology that suggest if you just name it and claim it then it’s yours. That if you quote seven scriptures, seven times, for seven days then it is going to happen. I’m old school I believe that the struggle is part of the process. People who get things without the struggle don’t appreciate them. It is the diligence and the fight to be relevant that creates the backdrop that when you get there then you appreciate what God has done. Light loses its relevance without darkness. Pain and struggling are part of the process. The promise is not powerful if it is not painted on the canvas of a problem. Jesus said, they that are not sick do not need a physician. You must understand that the perfect spotting bed for relevance is tragedy, adversity, and conflict. I want you to see it for when I create it in the back of my mind to think about Samuel and his circumstances I think about his role in which God called him for in which he came. He did not come from perfect circumstances, he did not come from a perfect church, he did not come from a thriving ministry. In fact I believe what builds driving ministries is those that come from hard work. I hear people all the time complaining, I can’t grow in this church, I can’t survive over here. I grew in an environment of frustration. I only grew up with two different pastors in my life. One was exited or excommunicated for he committed adultery, had an affair not only damaging his marriage, but also his relationship with his children. The other was through the teaching of values but never gave attention to the personal that had the talent only focusing on the inner circle. Have you ever been delayed over those that had control of your success only to throw you under the bus and leave you stranded. That is what I have struggled with. The two men that taught me neither one of them were really great teachers. It is what they were not that made me want to study. Conversely I find that when you give people a lot of word easily you make them lazy. They soon do not appreciate the level of work they are exposed to for it becomes common. I want you to understand that when God uses you in a mighty way your circumstances are usually the opposite of your destiny. No one is going to talk to me.

He gives you power for you are surrounded by weakness. He gives you the hunger for greatness for you come from an environment of mediocrity. If you want to see something great come up then watch somebody come up from nothing. The hardest thing in the world is to greatness from people that are surrounded by greatness. Rich people give everything to there children except for what made them rich. It is the struggle that gave you the tenacity to fight the fight to get up on your feet. Hardworking people usually give there children everything they didn’t have and what you are giving them is crippling them from being like you. What made you a hard worker is hard times, when you move away the hard times then they become presumptuous, mediocre, they start complaining and whining about nothing. Making up things to be upset about that you didn’t have time to notice in your house for you had to fight for something to eat, you had to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and you didn’t have time to have your feelings hurt. Samuel is surrounded by everything that he would not be. The leadership is old and out of touch, the word of the Lord was scarce in that day, there was no open vision, his spiritual father was waning in his authority. Disconnected and disenfranchised in his ability. His peers Eli’s sons were filled with lust and debauchery. They were con artist and scams in the house of God. Israel for the most part had lost its relevance, integrity, and it’s power. Surrounded by priests without prophets we have worship without word, we have emotions without direction, much like the era we live in today it’s not hard to get people to worship God. It’s hard to get them to work for God. It’s not hard to get them to come to church, it’s hard to get them to go out and live your life outside of the Christian church. Much like today that was a form of godliness denying the power thereof. It is in the conflict of his circumstances that God calls him. You would think that he comes from a strong religious background displayed with a strong priest. A vibrant, a functioning, an announced priest, not denounced. Eli was not that at all. He was a stumbler, a man with no value, a man caught up in a normal invocation that what they did in the house stayed in the house. But the word of Lord had become scarce. He did come from godly parents; his mother was a praying woman but his mother had to struggle as well. She had to struggle to bring him into the world. She had to struggle to birth him into the environment that he was now in. She struggled to bring him in the place for you think your mother struggled you wouldn’t struggle. He had inherited her struggle. We are looking at a generational struggle. Mom, now the son has to struggle. Don’t think that if your parents struggled then you don’t have to. Life will make sure that every generation has its own kind of struggle. It is not the same struggle but it is a technicality. You have to fight the struggle that God wants you to be. Touch your neighbor and let them know it’s a struggle. It’s not going to come easy. It was a struggle to bring him into the world. It wasn’t handed to Hanna. She had to go into the temple of God and wail, cry, and beseech the promises of God. At the end of her struggle she positioned him into a place to have his own. Somebody fought to be in the place that you are fighting for right now. You are standing on the backs of somebody else’s struggle to move where you are right now. You have a responsibility since those before you struggled to bring you where you are it doesn’t mean you have entitlement it means you have a responsibility to not let them fight for nothing. Anybody in here feel like you fought to hard to get here and you can’t lose the battle in the second half of your life in the next generation you have to roll up your sleeves, let’s fight for nothing is in vain. She birthed him in an environment through a struggle and put him in his own kind of struggle. I have to confess to you as a pastor I weary with counseling. I don’t like to do it. If you don’t put a road block on the highway, police guards, and attack dogs I don’t do it anymore. For people today they need counseling in areas that weary me. They think that normal is a spiritual attack. They think that they are under spiritual warfare for they have to go to work. They think that they are under spiritual attack for there emotions aren’t feeling right. I’m tired of putting a lot of energy into helping people fight normal. They don’t seem to understand that to whom much is given, much is required. There good on the giving, but they are weak on the required. They want to take what is giving, but they don’t want to reciprocate on the required. What they are crying about we were dancing trying to get to. I’ve run out of words being a pastor who started in a building in a hole in the wall, no help, no support, no money, was the minister of a destitute church with no musicians, to have to select a few to pray and serve as ushers. I was happy to have an opportunity. I struggle today with those that have buildings, have choirs, have instruments, and they have help. Then they come to me saying they can hardly make it, nobody is helping me. Nobody is supposed to help you. There are something’s you learn in the fight that will make you stand in the blessings. Nobody is supposed to help you. One thing we must be clear about is if we are to be relevant you have to be prepared to struggle. The struggle is done in a unique way. Samuel had a struggle nonetheless to break the gravitational pull of his environment was a struggle. An environment that was carnal, underestimating the relevance of God, such arrogance, and irresponsible is a struggle. Substandard, self consumed, and yet God took the liberty to listen to him. Greatness has to break the gravity of its environment. Greatness has to break the gravity of its environment. Gravity is what is pulling you back into the same sphere all the time. He was in an environment where not only he did not know he Lord. The people around him were indifferent to the Lord and he thought it was okay. Wrong looks right whenever everybody around you is doing what you are doing. It looks pretty good. In that environment it looks okay. How could you serve the Lord and know him? I was about like the rest of them. When the call of God comes the decision must be made: will I break the struggle of what is normal to what God is calling me to? This call is an individual call and in order to say yes there is a struggle. Samuel he hears the call, but doesn’t understand. The call is pulling him by going to that which is familiar. I know that something is missing in my life but I can’t figure out what is missing? I keep trying to satisfy a spiritual itch with a natural solution. It’s a spiritual call but I keep going to Eli. The bible says, every time God called Samuel he turned to Eli and said did you call me? God was calling him but he was trying to seek a solution with less than a call. I’m wondering if you have been looking for all the right things in all the wrong places? I’m wondering if the reason your relationships are not working out is because you are asking the relationship to resolve when God is pulling you this way. You will never get a spiritual answer from a natural place. Maybe you should forgive them for they never had what you were looking for in the first place. He keeps going to Eli to resolve with a spiritual need. Some of you have gone to everybody but God to resolve the conflict with life. You find it easier to wrestle with flesh than to seek God. You keep being disappointed for you are seeking God answers from man places. God keeps calling you but you have a habit of going here for the solution and find it easier to wrestle with Eli rather than saying yes to God. This morning somebody in this place is going to say yes to the Lord like you have never said yes to the Lord before. Say yes to your will, to your way, to your motives, to your word, purpose, timing, I am tired of going to people that are as crazy as I am. I am tired of asking people to heal me for they are broken themselves. My soul says yes. I want you to understand that it is always a struggle, without a struggle there could be no victory. Without a struggle there is no sense of appreciation. I can tell as well when you have fought to get where you are, you don’t let nobody take away when you have earned and paid your dues, and suffered, cried and labored, made mistakes and had to get back up again, having to brush the dirt off your knees and you finally get something. When that devil comes in to kill, steal and destroy you say wait a minute, you are messing with the wrong person this time. I struggled to hard, too long, too many years to let you take away what God has given me. I want the strugglers to make some noise. That’s why I’m not going to let troubled times get to me, that’s why I don’t care if you like me or not, that’s why you can’t roll your eyes at me and then go home, that’s why I will serve with my feelings hurt, with my back aching, with my temperature up, I struggled to get this. Thou he slay me yet shall I come forth. Broke out of gravitational pulls, I broke out of stuff that was holding me down, I broke out of social constructs that was holding me back, I broke out of clicks and clubs, I was lied on to get this, I was downsized, I was ostracized, I was alienated, they was talking about me but I broke out of the gravitational pull to take orbit into my destiny. I’m not supposed to be preaching but somebody is going to break it. There has been a gravitational pull and a struggle to break free from mediocrity. A struggle to find his purpose, to find himself to know who he was. Am I who I am around? Am I where I started? I think I may not be like them, even though I am around them. I’m struggling to find out for I may be in it, but I’m not of it. I’m struggling to find out. Why are you calling me? It’s the struggle to find your purpose, to break free from what held you back, it’s a real struggle got it wrong, but I’m struggling. I went to the wrong place for solutions, I went to the wrong school yet I’m struggling, I went down the wrong highway I need directions. Laugh at me all you want to for I’m struggling. People will laugh at you in your struggle. Maybe I haven’t succeeded but I would rather be struggling than to do what you do.

People who settle will laugh at your struggle but I would rather struggle than to settle. I might not ever get there but I refuse to sit here. I’m struggling not to be like what I see. I’m struggling not to die where I started. I’m struggling to break the strong hold that wants to pull me back to where I came from the devil is a lie! You better struggle! I’m going to struggle till I get it right, till I figure it out, till I get on my feet, till I get a second wind, till I get my strength back, I’m going to struggle till I get my fight back. I didn’t come to church to shout, I came to church to struggle. To tell the devil the fight is on I got to keep going! I’m struggling not to settle. The devil wants me to settle but the devil is lying. I’m struggling for mediocrity, not when almighty is calling me I will struggle. If I don’t get free, if I die let me die in the struggle, I will not settle I will be in the struggle. You may not like me, you may not treat me right, but you have to respect me. At least I didn’t settle I’m struggling. When I get out of the bed this morning I was straining. It was a struggle to get up and get out. You been struggling all your life, you may not be there yet, but praise God that you are still in the struggle. Look at your neighbor and say whatever it takes. Day school, night school what ever it takes, working on weekends, fasting and praying, crying myself to sleep, laying hands on my own head whatever it takes. I don’t know why but I feel something is going to happen. There is a struggle to be relevant.

The second thing about