Evangelist Carolyn Malaika Foster-Brooks
The Ministry of S.A.R.A.H.
(Serenity*Atonement*Restoration & Healing)
Lyons, Georgia
Prayer- Dear Father in Heaven- We woke up this morning thanking You once more for your goodness. Whatever problems we faced yesterday are a part of our past and we can’t change that. Tomorrow is our future, but we also have no control over tomorrow, all we can do is pray for an opportunity to live one more day. Lord what we have is our present moment to live for You and to be the best we can possibly be.
God we pray that those who are reading this come to the realization as we have and that they are thanking You and praising You too!
Father God, there is nothing impossible for You and we have enough faith to believe that the sick can be healed, prejudice attitudes can be changed, mean people can be touched and given a spirit of kindness, the lame can walk, the blind can see and the dumb can talk! Most of all God, we believe deep down in our soul that Your Holy Word can be heard and felt throughout the land!
Bless everybody. Teach us the meaning of agape love and then show us how to apply it in our daily lives. Continue to mold and shape us for Your good works!
In the name of Jesus, we pray.......Amen.
Scripture: Our main scripture will be coming from Ephesians 3:14 through 19.
Text:
Jesus used parables in his evangelizing to help his listeners understand the true nature of God, the Father. And out of the 38 recorded parables of Jesus, 13 of them in some way related to "soul" food!
Throughout the bible you will read different accounts of parables that will make you think and also realize that the messages are for us today. The bible clearly tells us that there is nothing new under the sun!
In praying to God for a message of encouragement, He led me into the surrounding community to take a spiritual look at the neighborhoods. I asked God what was he trying to show me? How many of you know that God will talk back to you when you ask Him questions??
Sure the answers sounds like your own voice in your inner thoughts! Some people say that it’s your conscious talking to you and they are right! God has that connection with our spirit that will keep us on track....but unsaved people will ignore their conscious and follow their own ways instead of God’s. Aren’t you glad that God talks to you and that He guides you!
The Lord answered me and said that He wanted His people to know about being "rooted"!
No, I’m not talking about Black Magic and occult religions (that’s a sermon for another time......)
I am speaking of Ephesians 3:14-19. The NIV version says:(14) for that reason I kneel before the Father, (15) from whom His whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name, (16) I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you in your inner being. (17) so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and etablished in love, (18) may have power, together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, (19) and to know this love that surpasses knowledge-that you may be filled to measure of all the fullness of God.
Topic: For those of you who might need a text topic, I want to tell you about THE PARABLE OF WOMAN NICKNAMED Y.A.M.! that God has divinely inspired me to write. And yes, I am still talking about being rooted.
THERE WAS A LITTLE GIRL WHO LOVED HER FATHER VERY MUCH AND HE LOVED HER TOO! They lived where there was a beautiful garden and the father never failed to spend time with his child and often allowed her to work in the fields with him.
As they toiled in the dirt and in the hot sun, she asked her father what was soul food? The father told her that soul food is fondly described as food made with feeling and with care. That soul food evolved from the rich heritage of African customs. The father went on to tell his child that the Africans were forced to leave the moterland and were removed from their healthful roots. On ships coming to America, slaves were fed a paste made of boiled beans and lard, rice and sweet potatoes. And because they had little meat, they ate peanuts. But the father told his child that through it all, even though they had nothing, the strong survived and God never left them alone.
So you see, the father said, they had strong roots and were very much like the yam which today are called sweet potatoes. Strong people have roots that are grounded in the Lord and He lifts them up out of dirt to save them. His Word is food for the soul!
Then the father told his child, you know what? I have nicknamed your sister Peaches and your brother, Pumpkin- today I will nickname you YAM!
As the parable goes, YAM was not a very pretty girl to look at and her nickname was a reflection of how she looked...She was rugged and not very shapely! But deep down inside she was a very sweet person!
As Yam grew up away from the garden and the fields, she ventured into a world that presented many problems for her. She tried to fit in with the crowd and did all that she was big and bad enough to do. She made a lot of decisions in her life that were against the teachings of her father. It worried her family and often when the women got together at their prayer meetings, they would remember this lost one along with the other children who’d gone astray.
Yam suffered terribly while she was in the world and was used and abused. At a point in her life she was so low, she couldn’t see above ground!
But her father knew that he’d taught her the way, yet he loved her enough to let her go and let God deal with her. He knew that the prayers of the righteous prevailteh over much and that by God’s grace and mercy she could be changed.
Finally, after getting to a point in her life where she had nowhere else to turn and no other choice except to live her life with God in control-she changed! Yam realized that the worlds way was not His plan for her life. As a matter-of-fact, she became saved and Holy Ghost Filled, not ashamed to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ! Testifying to other women and to men about how good God had been to her!
Back home, those same women who were praying for her when she was going through trials and tribulations, invited her to come and preach at a meeting they were having, and she accepted the invitation. People from her hometown were amazed at the transformation that had taken place.
You see she was still not very pretty. She was still not vey shapley. She was still plain and she was still a little rugged. But most of all, the sweetness that was deep down inside of her, now showed up as a sweet Spirit!
Well an old friend came to her after her sermon and said, "Girl, I know where you’ve been and I heard you were in the world, deep in sin. And I know who your people are, so I know your roots.....but I am simply amazed at what God has done in your life! When women get together and pray, things can surely happen can’t they??
"YOU ARE MARVELOUS!"
She was very humble and thanked her old friend for the compliments, giving all praises to God. But her father was standing nearby and had overheard the entire conversation! He went over to his child and whispered in her ear, "Daughter, I always knew that one day you would come back to the things I’d taught you and that you would make me proud to call you my own. I never stopped loving you, even when you were in the world. That’s why I nicknamed you Y.A.M. instead of sweet potatoe when you were a little girl, because YOU ARE MARVELOUS!!
Amen?
......and that is what our Father in Heaven says about you and you and you....You Are Marvelous
!
No matter what you have done or what you are going through, God has an agape kind of love for us. And when we are overly critical of ourselves for not living up to His standards, we can find consolation and self esteem in Psalms 139 and thank God for His involvement in our lives and for His unending care for us. ( Psalms 139:14) we can say to God thank you for making me so wonderfully complete! Your workmanship is marvelous-and how well I know it!
Yes, you are marvelous my sisters and brothers!
And through Jesus Christ our brother who died on the cross for our sins, we have become joint heirs and can continue His work for in John 14:12 Jesus said, The truth is, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works because I am going to be with the Father. (13) you can ask for anything in my name and I will do it because the work of the Son brings glory to the Father (14) Yes, ask anything in my name and I will do it!
(Eph. 1:3-4) Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In Christ, God has given us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly world. That is in Christ, he chose us before the world was made so that we would be His holy people- people without blame before Him!
I leave you now with the hope that I have shared something with you that has revived your faith in yourself and has given you hope for a better tomorrow. I hope that no matter how you may have fallen in the muck and the mowry clay, no matter how many times God has had to reach way down to pick you up, you realize that you are His child and you are a YAM in his sight! YOU ARE MARVELOUS!!!
Ending Prayer: I want to leave you with Paul’s Prayer for Spiritual Empowerment from Ephesians 3:14-21.
When I think of the true wisdom and scope of God’s plan, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from His glorious, unlimited resources He will give you mighty inner strength through His Holy Spirit. And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home into our hearts as you trust him.
MAY YOUR ROOTS GO DOWN DEEP INTO THE SOIL OF GOD’S MARVELOUS LOVE.
And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love really is. May you experience the love of Christ; though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God.
Now glory be to God! By His migty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope. May He be given glory in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever through endless ages.
Amen!
