Led By Love

The last months and most recently the last few weeks have been pretty challenging for us all.

I heard one pastor say that this has been the toughest season he's ever led through from leading through this COVID 19, the political insanity, the news insanity, to the most recent events of the death of George Floyd, the protests, and the racial injustice

It seems like there’s division everywhere and honestly as a pastor that's trying to keep a church in unity it’s a bit overwhelming at times.

It would be easy to fall into the temptation to push away from the table, get off social media, and not engage in the topics at hand.

I don’t know about you but I’ve wanted to push away and live life as if everything is ok. But the truth is everything is not ok.

I don't know if you can relate to that but there's been such a bombarding of information.

There has been a bombarding of division and conflict that and truthfully, it has just been difficult for me to stay focused.

Should I engage in this topic, should I stay away from it. I want to relate but I don’t know how to relate.

Is it the right thing to stand up and speak, or sit down and be silent? So then I find that even within myself I have division.

So I have been trying to process all of this and I decided, to answer it all with LOVE.

Now with that said, the way to answer division is with love.

Y’all would be surprised at the division that we have just sitting in this room over topics like COVID 19, face masks, politics which we won’t discuss, and even the topical of racial discrimination.?

Wonder what would happen if we all took some truth serum in this room? I bet we would be shocked to hear the differences of opinions sitting in this room.

With that said, I am challenged with pastoring you and it is my job to keep us together in unity!

I am thankful we have been able to come back together and this is our second service together after 11 weeks apart.

But it is interesting as we begin to come back together, we have all had different opinions on what coming back together should look like.

What guidelines we should be using, what guidelines we should not be using? Should we take temperatures at the door, what about face masks, the list could go on and on.

But if we aren’t careful even division can happen just over something as simple as getting back in the building.

In all of this, in the spiritual sense I know I am called to preach and to pastor, but in the flesh sense, my flesh tells me that is all I am called to do, just pastor and preach to the few God has given you and don’t get in the middle of all of the other mess.

Don’t worry about COVID 19, don’t worry about racial injustice. You aren’t a big-time preacher or pastor. Fox or CNN are not going to cover footage from your church. You don’t have a national stage. Don’t worry about any of that. Nobody is going to care about what you have to say. Just push away, you don’t need the tension, you don’t have to fight someone else’s battle.

Then it hit me no I don't have a national stage but I do have a stage. I have a stage that I preach from the week after week that is live-streamed. I talk on a live stream Monday through Friday, I have a stage in my home when I have to answer the question about why an African American man died by the hands of someone who was supposed to be protecting life.

No, I may have a national stage but I understand I do have a place that God has called me to. I am called to speak into the lives of the people who have God has seen fit to play in my path to pastor.

With all that said, It is my desire to do that with faithfulness and I always want to share what God gives me with my whole heart.

I only want to be faithful to who God's called me to be and preach and teach only what God gives me to preach and teach!

So I have asked God what to do during this uncertain and painful season and he pointed me to this story that I started sharing yesterday morning.

Before I start, I have told you the past two Wednesday nights, that the most important thing for us as Christians is to live a Victorious Life. We need to Confess, Control, and Conquer! Last Wednesday night I told you we needed to be Battle Ready. We need to be battle-ready because Satan wants to divert us, divide us, and deceive us.