Take Your Time

It has been a while since I published to this blog and I apologize to my readers and subscribers for that. I will be posting a lot more now. Sometimes God has to work on us and I have been allowing God to do that. I recently published a women's devotional entitled "The Women's Restoration Devotional" and as I was talking with one my sisters in Christ that is currently reading the devotional; I asked her how the devotional was going and her response was "to be honest I am still on day one because God is dealing with me, there are some issues that I never faced before". That small conversation and her response blessed me tremendously. It also humbled me and God sent me the message "take your time". How many times do we rush into things or even THROUGH things. How much calmer would we be and our lives be if we took our time?

If we would take the time out to let God heal us, deliver us, finish the good work within us, how peaceful would our lives be? In this world we are constantly on the move and rushing to get where we need to be but spiritually, rushing will hinder us. We feel like we have to get this and that done but what happens after it is done? It is important that we get understanding from everything that we do or every situation that we experience, there is a lesson to be learned. Many times we rush through something without having really learned from it and then we are presented with a similar situation later on down the line.

I too, have read many devotionals and I am currently reading one now but I started thinking to myself how much more would I have learned if I would have taken my time not only reading those devotionals but studying them as well? How much more would I have learned if I would have let them sink in my spirit. How much peace would I have now if I would just take my time? I thank God for the conversation with my sister in Christ that day because I needed that and she does not know how much of a blessing her words were to me that day. So my message to you today is TAKE YOUR TIME! Let's learn to be on Gods timing and not our own.

I would encourage you to check out the devotional that God placed on my heart to write. Some of the stories are my own personal stories and some are just stories that we can all relate too. It is a 14 day devotional along with a 14 day prayer guide. The Kindle Version can be purchased at Amazon as well as the paperback. The paperback version can also be purchased on CreateSpace. If you do decide to purchase it, I pray that it is a blessing to you and even if you do not decide to purchase it, I pray nothing but peace, joy, love, and many blessings to you all.

God Bless,
Nicole Lofton
Founder of F.A.C.E. I.T. (Faith Advocates through Christ Excelling Individually & Together)

Think Before You Speak

What was the last thing that you said to someone? Was it positive or negative? What if you woke up one day and someone was missing from your life, lets say they were called home to the Lord, how would that affect you? Would your actions speak louder than your words or your words speak louder than your actions? Usually when someone loses someone, the first thing that comes to mind is what they last said or did to him or her.

Think about this, was the last thing you said hurtful or uplifting? How did you treat that person? Although we can receive forgiveness from God, it would hurt us more if we knew that someone left this earth and the last thing you did or say to him or her was hurtful. 

Let us please think before we speak or act there is a time and place for everything and even if you are upset don't let your emotions cause your reactions instead let your spirit cause your reactions. Sometimes we choose to nitpick or bicker over something that we don't like about a person when really it is not even that serious.

Ephesians 4:29 "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen".

Using Your God Given Gifts could change your life!

This blog will piggy back off the blog from yesterday of course it is inspired from God and yet again the X FACTOR. I am honestly drawn to this show because like I said, I do not watch regular television like that BUT because I have a passion for talent and seeing people use their gifts, I watch this show from a spiritual standpoint.

There is a contestant on the X FACTOR named Chris Renee and a lot of people are wondering why and how he is still on the show. I guess to some people he doesnt sound better than most contestants so he should have been off the show. Chris Renee has a huge fan base and a lot of support but I honestly believe that the main reason that is his still on the show is because of GOD.

I believe that Chris Renee was divinely placed on the X FACTOR. You see Chris Renee has a story as does everyone but its differently from the other contestants on the show due to the fact that he was addicted to drugs before he got on the show and he has since then turned his life around. He made a commitment to himself and to the X FACTOR that if they put Him through, that he would stay clean. Now its not easy staying clean but I'm telling you this is GOD. You can see a complete change in him, how happy he is, how humble he is, how much better he looks.

Now, he doesn't have the best voice on the show BUT he has unique style that I LOVE. He sings and raps but his style is unique and He doesn't try to be someone that He is not. He was never worried about what people though about him trying to sing and/or rap, He knew that he had a passion for it and He is doing it! It doesn't matter if you are the best, you are what called you to be, you are perfect in the way that GOD made you. FEARFULLY AND WONDERFULLY MADE.

Following the passion that GOD has given him, has helped him turn in his life around. He will definitely had a great testimony that will be used for Gods glory. You have a talent, a gift, etc that could help you release things that are holding you back, then in return your gift can help others! GOD;s gifts are ALWAYS the gifts that keep on giving, its like a cycle!!! Remember GOD tells us that our gifts will make room for us and usher us into the presence of great men. Be inspired and encouraged!  USE YOUR GIFT TO GIVE GOD GLORY! God Bless you all.

Chris Renee

Follow Your Passions! Let God show you who you are!

I haven't wrote a blog in a while but I have a passion for helping and encouraging people to follow their dreams and goals and to utilize their talents. I believe that one of the hardest things for us as humans to do is to follow after our passions, dreams and goals. Sometimes we think we are not good enough or somethings we feel like we do not have the resources to do what we want, maybe even we feel like we cannot make any money doing it so we will just do it as a hobby. I want to encourage someone today, to seek God and allow him to work on you and reveal your purpose. God gave us passions, dreams and gifts to be used for His glory. Think of how much better our life would be if we chose to live it on PURPOSE, if we were fulfilling what God called us to do. Your gifts will be used to help others, encourage them, inspire them, maybe even bring them closer to God. God can use you through your gift to draw someone closer to Him.

Please do not be afraid, don't think that you cannot do it. For example let's take someone who has been wanting to sing since they were little and maybe they are 30 now but they feel as if they cannot sing. Let me tell you that we all have similar gifts but NONE will be used the same. You may not sound like Beyonce, Mariah Carey, etc but you sound how God wants you to, just the sound of your voice to certain lyrics may move someone, we have to have faith.

This blog is inspired by the show X FACTOR, NOW usually I rarely watch regular television but I honestly LOVE this show. I LOVE to see people carrying out their dreams. There is one person in particular that God really worked through,  The week before last there was a contestant by the name of Melanie Amaro, she sung a song and she dedicated her song to God because she said everyone in her life had failed her except God. Now I am sure everyone else probably Thanks God too but she was the ONLY one to dedicate her song to him and by the end of the song she had caught the holy ghost and God moved through her she began to speak with her native accent.

Now some may say what is so special about that? I will definitely tell you what I felt was special, Ms. Amaro had been holding back her accent because people use to tease her because they could not understand her so for years she held it back but God moved so mightily through her that she had released everything and was about to speak with her accent comfortably again. Not only was she comfortable but she felt better and this week she said that she sang better and the audience and the judges agreed. While watching her, I could see a change in her, she was smiling and she was comfortable and confident and God spoke to me and said WHEN YOU LET ME WORK ON YOU, HEAL YOU AND DELIVER YOU, YOU CAN RELEASE ALL THAT HURT AND PAIN AND BE USED EFFECTIVELY! How many times do we hold back? Its time to release, it is time to LET GO!

God could work so mightily in us if we just let go. God gave you those gifts for a reason, seek Him, don't let them go unused. ALWAYS REMEMBER THAT GOD CAN AND WILL USE ANYONE WHO IS WILLING!

Here is the video of Melanie Amaro

ARE YOU A DEBT COLLECTOR?

Tonight I'd like to pose this question to you, are you a debt collector? This is something that hit my spirit and the revelation that GOD gave behind it is so powerful. When we think about bill/debt collectors, we think of those people that constantly bombard us and annoy us when calls about bills that are past due. At times it seems that they do not even care about our feelings or what we are going through. They just want their money. IIsn' that frustrating at times? Especially when you have a situation where you ccan' take care of the bill?

We as humans become bill collectors when we keep track of everytime someone has done us wrong, everytime someone didn't do what they said they would or everytime someone didnt come through for us in general. Of course we must have discernment when dealing with others because not everyone has our best interest at heart BUT GOD does  andand t us that it is BETTER to give than to recieve and HE also tells that when we do give we must not give to others with the intent to recieve something in return, instead we are too give freely. Think about that. When we hold on to he past or hold on to the wrongs that others did to us we make an hostile environment for ourselves. With this hostile enviroment we becom angry, we become reluctant to do or others and we become reluctant to trust others and sometimes we become reluctant to trust GOD.

It is important that we get to a place in our hearts, mind and life where we are debt FORGIVERS AND FREERS. GOD tells us in HIS word that no matter how many times a person wrongs us we must forgive them. HE also tells us that we who are spiritual should seek to restore those wo have fallen. We must remember that there were times when fell short and didn't come come through for someone. We need forgivesness and if we dont forgive others, GOD wont forgive us. Lets pray and ask GOD to search our hearts and minds and remove anything that is not pleasing to HIM. Let us remember that HIS ways and thoughts are not like ours. Lets ask GOD to help us trust HIM and help u to not lean on our own understanding but yet give us peace that SURPASSES all understanding. I HOPE THAT THIS BLESSES YOU ALL AS IT BLESSED ME. God bless you all.

BREAKING THROUGH THE BARRIERS/THE WALLS OF JERICHO

Have you ever felt like you had an obstacle in your way that you just could not get passed or push through. Has someone ever told you that you could not or would not do something? Has someone ever told you that you would never amount to anything or that you would not succeed? Have you ever told yourself these things? Sometimes we have walls built up around us(I like to call them barriers) that either we have put up for ourselves or that others have put for us. When we have these walls built up it is difficult not only for us to realize our worth or potential in life but it is also hard for others to get through to us, communicate with us or sometimes to even be around us. Do you know what your purpose is? Do you know your worth? DO you know WHO you are and WHOSE you are? How do we discover these things? No one else can tell us we can only come to this discovery by seeking God.

At times when we are dealing with some many things that become hard to face, it becomes hard to know that God loves us, it becomes hard to see that we have a purpose to fulfill. It becomes hard to feel that we can succeed. Majority of the time when we feel God tugging on us, when we know that He is calling us to do greater things for Him, we get scared and that is natural but lets talk about this a little more. Lets go back to the days when we were children and/or teenagers. We went out with our peers and we may have tried new things and we may have even did somethings that we knew we were not suppose to do. At the time that we were doing those things, we may have felt SCARED right? but it did not scare us to the point where we chose NOT to do those things/ DO you see where I am going with this? Those things did not scare us enough to so say no for many reasons probably because we were curious, we were anxious, we wanted to be spontaneous, and most importantly we were with our peers. If they could do it, we know that we could right? What happens when God starts tugging on us and we feel that change the natural or normal feeling is SCARED right? but the difference here is we get scared to the point where we DO NOT want to do it. Why is that?

There a times when we lack trust in God for various reasons, for some it is hard to trust and believe in someone that we cannot see. How can we know for sure that everything will be okay, how do we know for sure that He wants us to do what He says for us to do, how do we know that He will supply our needs? We always hear people saying God has a plan for us, God has us covered and there is no need to worry and we want to believe it but when that times come we get scared/nervous and follow our on plan, we run to a place or a person(sense of security) to hear what they have to say, and then we begin to worry. We have to learn to TRUST God and we have to learn to BELIEVE in ourselves. A lot of times we have low self-esteem or insecurities that tell us that we cannot do certain things, we began to feel inferior or intimidated by others. We ask the famous question of how do we know if we are qualified to do what God has called us to do? Let me remind you that God qualifies the called, if He calls you, he has qualified you. God already knew what we were going to do before we were born. He is the author and finisher of our faith, He has a plan and He made us FEARFULLY AND WONDERFULLY.

Once we began to develop a relationship with God and allow Him to work on us we will realize that we never had a reason to feel like we couldn't do anything that He called us to do. We will realize that He gave us many gifts to use for His glory. We will realize how special we are to Him and How much He loves us. We will realize that God has the final say so not man and that if we please God, He said that even our ENEMIES WOULD BE AT PEACE WITH US. So today I ask some questions, what is standing in your way? Who is standing in your way? Are YOU standing in your way? How do you get not only out of your way but of God's way? What wall do you need to tear down? What barrier do you need to break through? Where does your security lie? We have to learn to put ALL our trust in God, man did not make us so they will NEVER fully understand us or what God has for us.

I am here to tell you today that God says that it is time to tear down the walls of Jericho. DO you know about the walls of Jericho? Because the people had faith the walls of Jericho were destroyed! Only one family was saved from Jericho that was Rahab and her family because she had faith and she helped the spies and God promised her that He would save her. Jericho was a walled city that stood in the way of the Hebrews making it to the promise land. Joshua showed He had faith to carry out the plan that God had for him and when called told Him about the walls of Jericho, He did not question it but instead he had faith. What are your walls of Jericho, do you have faith? DO you believe? Let go and let God! Lets break through some barriers today.

I would like to leave you with these two scriptures

Hebrews 11:1 "Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen.

Hebrews 11:30-31 "By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the army had marched around them for seven days. By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient^".

I pray that this has blessed you as much as it blessed me while writing it. God Bless you all.

GOD'S KINGDOM

A lot of people have been wondering what is going on in God’s kingdom or what has happened to God’s kingdom. I personally do not think anything has happened except misunderstanding and misplacement's. One big thing that is not realized and understood is that we the people are all apart of Gods kingdom and He has given us all gifts that are to be used to advance the kingdom but we must also work together to do so.  If we do not work together, it won’t be right and there will always be strife and discord among Gods children. There is a disconnection in the kingdom of God. We have some people that turn away from God because of His own children. We have a misunderstanding of what church really is. The Church is us (the people), the church building, is a PLACE of worship. The church building is where we go to fellowship with one another in love and praise, thank and worship God. The church building is where we go for encouragement and sometimes even healing. The church building is the place that we are supposed to know for sure that Gods presence will be there because He tells us that when two or more gather together in His name, then whatever they ask for and agree on, it will be done.

  

If you think about the two words “church building” it makes sense because if the people are the church then the church building is the peoples building right? If we know that in the Bible they built temples/churches/places of worship in order to fellowship and spend time with God then we know that building belongs to the people of God.  Now who are the people of God? If someone is not saved should we not allow them in the church building? If God saved you, can’t He save someone else to? Too many times we as people become so judgmental to the point where we turn people away from God. Imagine that, How damaging is that to Gods kingdom if our actions can turn people away from God? God says that we should do everything with love. He also says that we who are spiritual should seek to restore those who have fallen. It is sad that some people do not want to go to church or even get a relationship with God because of the people in the building. None of us are perfect and if you have overcame something then why not share it with someone who hasn’t overcome yet? Share with them how God brought you out of a situation? Instead of looking down on them because now that you are out of the situation, you feel as if they should know how to get out of the situation as well. Sometimes we forget that we once needed help, that we once did not know God, that we once were struggling with something and that we once needed guidance, love and support.

Another misconception in the kingdom of God is that “kingdom works” only happens in the church. That is absolutely not true because every day of our lives we should be doing “kingdom works”. When you share your testimony, when you give to the poor, when you help someone in any kind of way, when you tell someone about God, all of that is Kingdom work. God said that whatever you do for one of your brothers and sisters in Christ, you have done for HIM. He didn’t say only if you do it while you’re in the church he said WHATEVER  you do meaning whatever you do to help or encourage them, you have done for Him. Everything that we do is on display because not only is God watching but a lot of other people are watching too and they should because God tells us to try the spirit by the spirit. It is all about the fruit in our works, our character, do our actions match our words and vice versa. Our live is a ministry. Some people look up to us and we do not even know that is why we must realize that our life is a gift that God gave us, a ministry that He has placed in each and every one of us to minister and be a blessing to someone. It is common for us to say well we are not trying to be a role model but guess what? The REAL role models do not have to try. Being a role model is not something that you can try because people are going to genuinely look up to you anyway. Jesus did not TRY to be a role model in fact many REJECTED Him but there were also those who couldn’t help but look up to Him even after they REJECTED him. Think about that because God said that He will make our enemies our footstools, why would he even bother to do that? I personally do not think it was just because they did wrong to us but it could be possibly so they could see our ministry, so they can respect us in spite of. We all know the saying “you don’t have to like me but you are going to respect me”, right? That is the perfect example. Most times when people see that you are walking the walk and talking the talk they have no choice but to respect you.

When we start to appreciate life more we will start to appreciate ourselves more. Treat life like the gift it is, realize that you do not have to be woken up every day but God woke up you because He loves you and has a plan for you. You have a purpose to fulfill. Most times we spend so much on our 9-5 job that we FORGET that there is in fact WORK to do in Gods Kingdom(as I said it does not only happen in church, it should happen both in and out of church). The joy of the Lord is our strength. Living for God is definitely not always easy but it is worth it and you will have more laughter than cries and most of your cries will be tears of joy after the storm, it is all about how you look at things. Know that God has called you to or for something and He is waiting on your answer but don’t jump ahead let Him work on you. As I meantioned earlier, there are a lot of misplacements, false prophets, etc. and we have to be careful. Always seek God, it is good to seek spiritual counsel but before who you seek it from not everybody is there to help you, again try to spirit by the spirit.

Let us get back to the REAL meaning of church, let us come together and allow God to use to advance His kingdom. Remember that it is a privilege to be used by God because He will advance His kingdom with or without us but would it be nice if we fully submitted to Him and allow Him to use us? Wouldn’t it be nice to know that you encouraged someone to get to know God, that you helped someone who may have not had anything? Let’s think about our actions and words, and the question “what would Jesus do” really applies here. Let’s give ourselves a self-check. God Bless you all.