I WAS WRONG

CONFESSION:

Revelation 4:11 in the King James Version says, “For thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.” This verse has offended me on several occasions because to me it seems kind of selfish to create all things just FOR HIS PLEASURE. We humans are down here struggling with life because God wanted all this FOR HIS PLEASURE. If you look at the condition of the world, I don’t see how He’s getting any pleasure out of it because I can barely watch the news without shaking my head, and He sees more than we do.

This morning I was scrolling through my Facebook feed and saw it again... "for his pleasure". Then I went and looked up the verse in the New King James Version and got a completely different revelation. It says, "You created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created." OMG, not for His selfish pleasure, but by His sovereign will they were created. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made (John 1:3 NKJV). It was wrong of me to accuse God of being selfish.

The prophet Isaiah says God created the heavens and formed the earth. He made it... formed it... and established it to be inhabited. He did not create it in vain. He made man in His image and likeness. He gave life... and breath... and spirit to the people on the earth, and determined the pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings (Acts 17:26). In Him we live and move and have our being. God told the prophet Jeremiah that before He formed him in his mother's womb, He knew him... and sanctified him... and ordained him to be a prophet to the nations. In God's book, all our lives were recorded and every moment laid out before we had lived a single day (Ps 139:16).

When Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, God ordained Himself to come down and suffer the cross to redeem us from the curse. By no means is this a selfish God. He endured the cross despising the shame and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God (Heb 12:2).

Forgive me Lord for being offended. I was wrong.

Genesis 1:31 (NKJV) Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

And He rested on the seventh.

To God be the glory.
Dee Richardson, Voice of the Dove

SISTER, YOU MISSED IT

About 15 years ago, I delivered what I thought was a very moving sermon one Sunday morning. After church, one of the ministers came up to me and said, "Sister, you missed it." His statement was intended to let me know that I had failed to preach the truth. I was stunned... and completely baffled. As I preached, I felt the move of God upon me to speak. How did I speak untruths in the process, and not know it? I believe the Holy Spirit would’ve nudged me and gotten me back on track if that were the case.

I went home from church that day, and sat down at my study table and prayed, "Lord, please show me where I missed it." I began the study of the text once again starting at the very first verse, and in the second go-around, the Lord gave me the exact same revelation that He had given me the first time.

I slammed my Bible shut and said, “He’ll get it later.” Neither he nor I, ever brought it up again.

The apostle Paul’s prayer to God for the Ephesian church was that God would give them the ability to see with their spiritual eyes the true riches of God, and that they would be filled with wisdom, knowledge and understanding.

In this age, we may not see everything with perfect clarity. Again, the apostle Paul said, “Now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known” (1 Cor. 13:12). We may not agree on everything concerning the Bible. For some, enlightenment will come later as they receive the faith to believe and receive the truths of God. Even so, we still have the ability to dwell together in unity even while we disagree.

When we build our house on the foundation of the Rock, it will stand. The Holy Spirit is our teacher and revealer. He uncovers truth when we really want to know the truth, and when we’re ready to handle it. He will make it known to us and cause us to see, just as Paul prayed in the first chapter of Ephesians.

There have been times when I asked God hard questions and He said that I was not ready to know the truth about what I asked. Then as years passed, He revealed it to me as I was mature enough to receive it. A newborn baby cannot consume a steak when he is first born but as he grows and develops, in time he will have the capacity to digest a steak.

There is no need to agonize over who is right, and who is wrong. In time, the Holy Spirit will work that out. Just keep growing.

James 1:5-6 (NKJV) If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.

1 John 2:20-21 (NKJV) You have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things. I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth.

Go in peace.

To God be the glory.

Dee Richardson, Voice of the Dove

DON'T MISS THE TURN

FORK IN THE ROAD

Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite were Job's three friends that tried to console him in his times of trouble. But they only served to make his pain greater. They all agreed that Job's troubles must be his own fault and the result of some evil he had committed. The enemy was attacking Job, he was not reaping what he sowed. The consolation of Job's friends turned to condemnation instead of comfort because they had not spoken of God what was right.

The Lord told them to offer up sacrifices because He was angry with them, and go to Job and let him pray over them.

Job 42:10 KJV And the LORD turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before.

When Job prayed for his friends, the Lord turned his situation around and blessed him so tremendously that the latter days of his life were better than the beginning.

He turned it!

To God be the glory.

Dee Richardson, Voice of the Dove

On One Accord With God

💚💙💛CLARITY IS💛💙💚clearness or lucidity as to perception or understanding; freedom from indistinctness, ambiguity and confusion; the state or quality of being clear and transparent to the eye; the clearness of pure water.

Heavenly Father, I pray You will come against the spirit of confusion and uncertainty. Bind every work of the enemy to keep us from seeing and walking in Your way.

Let the Holy Spirit guide us into all truth and declare the whole counsel of God, with a clear understanding. Close every door that would give confusion and delusion any activity in our lives.

Bless our eyes that they may see and our ears that they may hear. Lead us into our destinies with the mind of Christ. Help us discern the lies of the enemy that we may walk according to the Spirit in full knowledge of the truth. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.

Mark 4:24-25 (NLT) Pay close attention to what you hear. The closer you listen, the more understanding you will be given-and you will receive even more. To those who listen to My teaching, more understanding will be given. But for those who are not listening, even what little understanding they have will be taken away from them.

Ephesians 1:18 (NLT) I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope He has given to those He called - His holy people who are His rich and glorious inheritance.

To God be the glory.

About My Father's Business

Jesus In The Temple

When Jesus was 12 years old, He and His family went to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of the Passover. When they had finished everyone headed back to Nazareth. Jesus’s parents thought He was with some of their relatives or acquaintances. When they completed a day's journey, they looked for Jesus but couldn’t find Him, so Joseph and Mary headed back to Jerusalem. They sought for Him three days, when they finally found Him in the Temple Court engaging with the teachers and religious leaders.

Mary asked Jesus why He had done that to them, and He said, “Why were you looking for Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” But they didn’t understand what He meant.

Even at age 12, Jesus was aware that He was God’s Son, and there was a calling on His life. The depth of His wisdom astounded the teachers and religious leaders. He was strong in spirit and the grace of God was upon Him. He mistakenly assumed it was time to go into full-time ministry, so He stayed behind in Jerusalem to pursue the call of God on His life. But it wasn’t God’s time.

Jesus went home with His parents and was subject to them. He even learned Joseph’s trade of carpentry, and increased even more in wisdom, and stature, with the favor of God on Him.

We hear nothing else of Jesus from that time until He turned 30 years old. He was led by Holy Spirit to meet His forerunner John the Baptist and be baptized by him, and thus began His full-time ministry.

People had been telling me for years that God had a calling on my life. I tried this, that, and other things only to have them fall flat every time. God is orchestrating our calling and He has it well in hand. He does not need us running out ahead of Him. It is easy to get off track and misunderstand God’s timing, but we must stay focused on God’s leading while we seek to fulfill His will for our lives.

Psalm 37:23-24 (NLT) The LORD directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives. Though they stumble, they will never fall, for the LORD holds them by the hand.

Ephesians 2:10 (NKJV) For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

To God be the glory.

Dee Richardson, Voice of the Dove

Blessed Assurance - Jesus Is Mine

Jesus was greatly misunderstood as He ministered to the people. He told the people that you must eat My flesh and drink My blood and at the last day I'll raise you up. They did not know He was speaking in a spiritual sense. They thought He was speaking of cannibalism, and He did not make the correction.

Many of His disciples turned and walked away and did not follow Him anymore. Jesus asked the 12 disciples, "Do you also want to go away? Peter answered Him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." This did not mitigate their confusion but they knew in their hearts that they did not want to walk away. Jesus spoke figuratively and it confused even His closest disciples. But they did not walk away from Him.

Apostle John wrote, much later, that they went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have no doubt continued with us. When false believers walked away they revealed that they did not belong to the Christian community. They were never true believers in the first place.

Jesus said to His disciples, "You did not choose Me, but I chose and appointed you." He also prayed over  the twelve saying, "Those whom You gave Me I have kept, and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled." So even though the disciples were very confused at times, they were being spiritually kept and could not turn their backs on the Lord.

I also experienced this when I up and decided to break up with the Lord because we could not see eye to eye. I got down on my knees to pray my good-bye prayer, and when I had said all I wanted to say, I got up to walk away and collapsed back down on my knees in a heap of wailing as never before seen. I could not do it, in the same way that Jesus's disciples were being kept, I couldn't walk away from Eternal Life.

As Christians, we are indwelt with the Holy Spirit. This impartation is called anointing. It joins us to the Anointed One and we share in His anointing.

There are those falsely professing Christ that don't share in His anointing. Of these people in the last day Jesus will say to them, "I never knew you. Depart from Me."

But of those who ate of His flesh and drank of His blood, they will have everlasting life, just as He said. We are kept by the power of His anointing. Jesus said, "My sheep hear My voice and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father's hand."

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine 

O what a foretaste of glory divine 

Heir of salvation, purchase of God 

Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood 

Perfect submission, all is at rest 

I in my Savior am happy and blessed 

Watching and waiting, looking above 

Filled with His goodness, lost in His love 

This is my story, this is my song 

Praising my Savior all the day long 

This is my story, this is my song 

Praising my Savior all the day long 

Blessed Assurance by Third Day