Love’s Journey Lasts Beyond a Lifetime

16 Tuesday Feb 2016

Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Poetry

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agape, beyond lifetime, eternal Love, everlasting, forgiveness, glorifies, Jesus, kindness, life sentences, love, loving, mercy, no greater Love, personifies, resentful, selfish, selfless, service, Son, substitutionary atonement, throw-away world

Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or anguish or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: Because of You we are being put to death all day long; we are counted as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than victorious through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that not even death or life, angels or rulers, things present or things to come, hostile powers, height or depth, or any other created thing will have the power to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord! ~ Romans 8:35-39, HCSB

Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good. His love is eternal. Give thanks to the God of gods. His love is eternal. Give thanks to the Lord of lords. His love is eternal. He alone does great wonders. His love is eternal. ~ Psalm 136:1-4, HCSB

Indifference is the path of least resistance
Fools enjoy walking,
Kicking against His Will as they go,
Never wanting to show
Their bewitched bodies and souls
Were in the middle of loving others before
They scarcely knew they had begun.

Fools they are for
Choosing easier course to follow,
Opposing faithful obedience
To Him who knows
Spirits, bodies, and souls
For He’s their Creator,
Whose purposeful designs
Revealed in wonders and signs
Owning many unalterable truths:
They are loved with everlasting Love
Son personifies, glorifies with
Substitutionary atonement—
No greater Love than His
For IT dishonors no one,
Is not self-seeking, nor easily angered;
His Love keeps no record
Of humans’ wrongs;
Application lasts as long
As earthly existences,
Morphing into life sentences
Served in His infinity zone,
Once fools lay down their own
Plans in exchange for His—
Power and authority to:
Bear all things,
Believe all things,
Hope all things,
Endure all things;
Prove love for Him
Who first Loved them
With love, kindness, forgiveness, mercy, service
Bared to all mankind.

Selfishness and resentment typify throw-away world’s
Corrupt spirits—hearts unclothed,
Naked without Jesus’ Love;
In receipt of His Agápe,
Now prepared to pour out theirs
Effortlessly, and accept love
Confessed by others, unconditionally,
Eternally demonstrating
No indifferences, no denials, no desertions.

Let God

13 Saturday Feb 2016

Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Poetry

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"darkness", divorce, grace, hard times, joy, let go and let God, lethal force, perfected peace, prisoner of hope, seamless cope, setbacks, Shalom, Son’s purchase, spark, strength, submissive, unexpired lease, unwanted divorce, whole, wholeness, wrecking ball

May God himself, the God who makes everything holy and whole, make you holy and whole, put you together—spirit, soul, and body—and keep you fit for the coming of our Master, Jesus Christ. The One who called you is completely dependable. If he said it, he’ll do it! ~ 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24, MSG

Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life. ~ Philippians 4:6-7, MSG

Letting go to let God
Make me whole—
Most annoying role
For abandoned soul
With bullet-like creases—
Worse than disease is,
Or wrecking-ball blow,
Is unwanted divorce;
Intensely lethal force.

Letting go to let God
Meant to be simple—
No puzzle, no riddle
No surprise, no wrinkle
In being prisoner of hope—
Rippleless seamless cope
Designed to be nimble;
Keeping in perfect peace,
Hope’s unexpired lease.

Letting go to let God
Set me free totally—
Makes Spirit’s lead poetry,
Profoundly and soberly
Unmerited Grace’s surplus—
Willed after Son’s purchase,
Most freely yet potently
Flared welcomed spark
Lit after world went dark.

President Obama’s Tenure Has Been More “Christian” Than His Critics Will Ever Admit

05 Friday Feb 2016

Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Reblogged

≈ 1 Comment

john pavlovitz

12419379_10154376315984989_5877223265055859141_o-2 This week President Obama gave a passionate, vulnerable, teary eyed press conference to announce new guidelines for gun ownership. It provided some of the rawest, most authentic expressions of compassion and grief ever shared by a sitting American President.

It was also another example of a man’s religion speaking loudly without needing to be referenced at all.

You see, faith isn’t real faith until it’s walked out and most people know this. Without a life attached to it all theology is just theory. It’s so often (for both politicians and pew sitters alike) merely flowery language and religious window dressing designed for maximum curb appeal from a distance. But unless and until it shows up in the every day of a person—well it’s worth little more than zero.

Even before Barack Obama took office the attacks on his spiritual beliefs by his detractors were fierce and incessant, calling him a closeted Muslim whose religious convictions were more about the demise…

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I AM BLACK HISTORY

03 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Reblogged

≈ 3 Comments

O. W. Prince Ministries

This is exactly how I feel. Jews don’t have a month. Native Americans don’t have a month. Are we so inept at appreciating ourselves, loving ourselves and educating ourselves about ourselves and our history, our self-worth, our own suffering and Holocaust in America that we need to be pacified with a month?

Wake-up people.

Some things don’t make you better. They make you dependent. And they diminish you while appearing to celebrate and empower you.

I don’t know about you. But I am living BLACK HISTORY everyday. I experience BLACK HISTORY everyday. My parents and their parents and their foreparents, as far Black as our generation may have existed here in America, are BLACK HISTORY.

A month doesn’t honor the immeasurable human sacrifices, injustices, inhumanities and sufferings that is uniquely BLACK HISTORY.

I am BLACK HISTORY everyday.

Tell your story. represent your own family’s experiences, achievements, progress, fame, sufferings and…

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Be a Visible Light

01 Monday Feb 2016

Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Devotional

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beacon lights, believers, bright, disbelievers, drifters, God's Light, Gospel's Light, Guide, inner lights, Jesus Christ, lighthouses, lost souls, nonbelievers, physical life, physical light, saving Power, Shekinah Glory Light, Son's Light, spiritual life, spiritual light, spiritually unenlightened souls, sun, The Light, true Light, unbelievers, visible, wayward souls

Corrupt minds need to see the Savior’s Light. In order for believers in Christ to be able to lead sin-sick souls to His Light, their lights cannot be hidden.

We are meant to be lighthouses aligning the shores of the sea of life—shining our lights in such a way that we become beacon lights that guide the world’s unsaved masses to the true Light. We are meant to contribute to the way in which these drifters are drawn nearer to that true Light. In a nutshell, our shining lights are their hope—often their only hope or their last hope. Be that as it may; our shining lights confirm the importance of the Light’s saving Power—confirms that any lost wayfarer can be rescued.

Just like our physical light (sun) is necessary for physical life, our spiritual light (our portion of the Son’s Light) is necessary for spiritual life. This truth is why believers are called to be visible lights that point spiritually unenlightened souls to the true Light of the world—Jesus Christ. In addition to leading others to the Lord, believers’ visible spiritual lights are to shine so that their lights help to restrain the moral corruption that is in this sinful world.

Let us be the visible spiritual lights God intends for us to be. Neither our inner lights nor the Gospel’s Light will benefit others, if we cover up or hide our lights and the Gospel’s Light. Let us let the good works we do for Christ and for mankind be the lights that shine in this world for the Glory of God. Let us also share the Gospel’s Light with as many people as we can, whenever the opportunity presents itself.

How brightly is your light shining in this world? Does your light glorify God by the way your good works influence lost and wayward souls to seek Christ—the true Light? Shalom.

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” ~ Mt 5:14-16

Keep it real…Live it out…Watch it work!

~ a devotion from Keeping It Real: Daily Renewing the Mind, p. 48