Tag Archives: Family

Opening the Gift of the Present

Posted by D.L.Fuller on

The GIft

Today as I ate my lunch, I decided to do a little research regarding, “How to increase focus and concentration” and I found some nuggets to add to my treasure chest. In my search, I found that what resonated with me more was actually some information on what to focus and concentrate on more so than how to increase focus and concentration.

These days I find it increasingly rare to have someone’s undivided attention. Once upon a time it was considered rude to engage someone without stopping what you were doing to make eye contact. When someone looks directly at you it is a sign that you have their attention. These days you are often forced to share someone’s attention with personal electronics like mobile phones, laptops, and other multimedia devices. There are times when multi-tasking is the best way to be productive and then there are times when giving less than your undivided attention results in time thwarted. Sometimes when you are not fully engaged in something that is occurring, you miss cues and subtleties that give important information causing that time to be less fruitful.

We have been given life by a GOD that is detailed to an infinitesimal degree. He packs so much into every moment we live. The secret to abundant life is learning to be fully aware in every moment we are blessed to live, in order to be mindful of the present goodness. Be sure the things you focus on are worthy of your time, and if anything is worthy of your time, you should make sure you get everything you can out of it. Prudence is one of the truest markers of maturity and enlightenment.

Enjoy these exerts from an article I read from a website called “The Art of Manliness” :

“Modernity has given us a lot of comforts and conveniences, but it has also unleashed a torrent of stimuli competing for our attention. To live a truly flourishing life amidst this cacophony of distractions, mastering your attention is key. At the end of your life, who you’ve become, what you’ve learned and accomplished, and who’s there at the end with you will be the sum total of what you chose to pay attention to each year, day, and hour of your life. Will a series of cat videos flash before your eyes? Or will you look back on the deep conversations you had with your family and friends, the books that changed your life, and the little details you discovered in all the places you visited?”

“Practice attentive listening. Focus isn’t just useful for intellectual endeavors. It’s also an essential interpersonal skill. The ability to be present with a loved one or friend builds your rapport, intimacy, and trust with them. At the same time, making an effort to focus all your energy on someone else strengthens your concentration muscles overall. It’s win-win. So next the time you’re talking with your main squeeze, put away your phone and listen as attentively as possible.”

Practice mindfulness:

“Mindfulness is simply focusing completely on what you’re doing, slowing down, and observing all of the physical and emotional sensations you are experiencing in that moment.”

All the life you have is happening right now, everything beyond this present moment is a matter of faith.

 

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Correcting Sons, Correcting Fathers

Posted by D.L.Fuller on

correction

A prerequisite to becoming a good father is learning to be a good son. I am specifically talking about being a son to a father. There is purpose and design to a husband and wife conceiving and raising children that many have irreverently dismissed. The dismissing of purpose is always a precursor to abuse. Due to various circumstances, many fathers in our society were never sons to fathers themselves. Having never walked the path of a son to a father, there will be some inherent challenges in the relationship. Challenges in the area of disciplining tend to be the most impacted. If disciplining and correcting the son becomes ineffective, then the son doesn’t become mature and the flaws persist. This scenario has created a cycle of parenting that has produced generations of immature men. However there is a fix and the cycle can be broken. Yeshua gives us the opportunity to becomes sons to the Heavenly Father. The scripture reads in  John 1:12, ” But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of GOD, even to them that believe on His name”. What is this power that He gives… it is the power to obey. As the first-born son of GOD, Yeshua walked in perfect obedience and so abides in the love of GOD the Father. This same power Yeshua exercised over the pride of life, as an obedient son, is made available to us through His cross that we may also abide in the Father’s love and reach maturity.

Again, the challenge comes when we have to be corrected or chastised for our own good. When chastised do we buck up and rebel, or do we submit like a good son? The traits of a good son is that of being humble, teachable, faithful, and receptive to correction. This comes from trusting the Father and an eagerness to please the Father. We must be convinced of the Father’s love for us and then render Him our trust. Our faith and trust will justify all that He ask. The thing that makes disobedience sinister is not the failing, it is the self-justification and reasoning that foils the attempt from the beginning; the mindset that considers the command too hard and unreasonable in the first place, due to the pride of selfishness. It is all the abominable reasoning that is the result of pride exalting personal opinion to personal truth. Personal truth equals personal reality which essentially makes a person the deity in their own world. This is why the scripture says in 1 Samuel 15:23, “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king.” The disobedient son conjures up something of his own, instead of trusting and submitting to divine authority. Yeshua, of whom GOD said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him ” (Matthew 17:5) operated from “not my will Father but yours be done”.

The good son accepts correction because he realizes if he failed it is on his own part and it is the just response of a loving Father. The good son realizes that if he is punished for disobedience, it is because he didn’t humble himself when he should have. Hebrews 12:6-8 reads, “ For the Lord corrects and disciplines everyone whom He loves, and He punishes, even scourges, every son whom He accepts and welcomes to His heart and cherishes. You must submit to and endure [correction] for discipline; God is dealing with you as with sons. For what son is there whom his father does not [thus] train and correct and discipline? Now if you are exempt from correction and left without discipline in which all [of God’s children] share, then you are illegitimate offspring and not true sons [at all].”

When men resist correction from divine authority, it demonstrates that they are not being matured in the son-ship offered by Yeshua. On a deeper level it shows that they have not yet given control of their lives over to GOD. We must consider the gospel of Yeshua the Savior until there is nothing in us that contends with the call to the cross. Through this process we will find the approval we seek as sons from GOD the Father and the anointing to serve as Father’s ourselves.

 

Love Prevails Over Leviathan

Posted by D.L.Fuller on

Bossmonster_Leviathan1

When he raises himself up, the mighty are afraid;
Because of his crashings they are beside themselves.
Though the sword reaches him, it cannot avail;
Nor does spear, dart, or javelin.
He regards iron as straw,
And bronze as rotten wood.
The arrow cannot make him flee;
Slingstones become like stubble to him.
Darts are regarded as straw;
He laughs at the threat of javelins.
His undersides are like sharp potsherds;
He spreads pointed marks in the mire.
He makes the deep boil like a pot;
He makes the sea like a pot of ointment.
He leaves a shining wake behind him;
One would think the deep had white hair.
On earth there is nothing like him,
Which is made without fear.

(Job 41:25-33)

As you read the description of this creature, you get the picture of a monster that is indestructible to man and indeed it is. The creature is Leviathan and there are more descriptions of him in Job 41, like his sharp teeth and impenetrable scales. Leviathan’s rule over man would be absolute without divine intervention. In the book of Job, Leviathan is called the king of all the children of pride. Leviathan rules like the pharaoh that contended with God to keep the Hebrews enslaved. Just as Yahweh sent Moses to deliver the Hebrew slaves from the tyranny of pharaoh, so has He sent Yeshua to deliver all of man from the tyranny of Leviathan. The Hebrew slaves, under the tyranny of pharaoh, were not free to worship God according to His will and had to be delivered. A person dominated by a spirit of pride and selfishness, under the rule Leviathan, also needs to be delivered in order to do God’s will.

Leviathan’s domination is evident in what is known as the first law of nature; Self-preservation. The focus on self is the signature of egotistical pride. Compare being ruled by the first law of carnal nature, to the two greatest laws in Yahweh’s kingdom, which also reflects His nature;

  1. Love the lord your God with all of your heart, mind and strength.

  2. Love your neighbor as yourself.

The only mention of self is in reference to how one cares for another. The nature of God’s kingdom is Love, versus the nature of those ruled by Leviathan, which is selfishness. You will be ruled by selfishness of pride until you are set free by Yeshua the Savior.

In order to be part of the body of Christ, you have to see and care for others as your self, you must have the ability to Love. You can never truly be unified with anyone else without Love. Marriage, families, and communities, fall apart without Love. This is why the Salvation of Christ begins with putting SELF on the cross; renouncing the law of self-preservation through entrusting the preserving of your life to Yeshua. Surrendering your life, by taking up the cross, makes way for divine Love to be birthed into your life. As Love delivers us from the oppressive phobias of selfishness, we are free to experience life as never before. He whom the son makes free, is free indeed!

Once you start to experience true freedom, you realize your were not free to even enjoy free things until you were freed your self. It’s true, only free people can really enjoy free things. People in bondage to selfishness through pride turn free things into more bondage. You see this manifested through hording, gluttony, and greed. Sometimes you can’t even give a selfish person a free gift, because they are to concerned about the hidden cost that the phobias of selfishness are projecting. This is why the free gift of Salvation through Christ is often left on the table, that is until we become broken and there is no more confidence in self. They that seek their life will lose it, and they that lose their life will find it. Through embracing the Cross of Christ you find true love, true freedom, and true Life.

(The image of Leviathan was found at BuddyJiang’s Portfolio: http://hokiboshi.net/portfolio/leviathan/)

A Time For The Ordinary

Posted by D.L.Fuller on

black leaders

I help lead a non-profit called National Builders Guild aka NBG. One of the missions of the organization is mentoring and training young black men to be leaders in their community from a base of high ethics.  As part of my responsibilities, I interview candidates that aspire to join and check their character references. A few weeks back, I was given a list of references for a young man by the name of Elijah Shuler. He was 22 years old and had done some time in prison but had been recently released and was looking to make a change. While in process of checking his references, he came up missing. His mother said he left for work one evening and after a couple of days he had not returned home and there had been no communication. She contacted the authorities, hoping that they would assist her in finding her son.
After week two, and hearing no word from the authorities, friends and family began to pass out flyers in the surrounding neighborhood. A lead came in from the flyers on an abandoned car that fit the description of the one Elijah drove. The mother and a close friend of the family went to the site to check it out. Upon confirming that it was Elijah’s car, they notified the police. In the meantime, the mother and friend inquired with the residents near where the car was found as to how long it had been there. The car had been there for two weeks. Near the house where the car was parked, there was an extremely foul order coming from the woods. The friend helping Elijah’s mother asked the home owner if he could go investigate the smell. An hour had passed since the initial call for police and no authorities had arrived on the scene. As you have probably assumed, the foul odor was Elijah’s decaying body that had been dumped in the woods. Considering his pass and the company he used to keep, it is suspected that his past caught up to him in a horrible way. All this reeks of yet another scene of a black on black crime. Upon finding the body of Elijah Shuler, the residents began calling the police themselves. By accounts of people present, it took an additional two hours before the authorities finally arrived.
Black lives first have to matter to black people. There needs to be more gathering at the dinner table than gathering at the court house. There needs to be more rallying in the living room than in the streets. The black race does not need another “Great one” to lead them. Instead, the ordinary black man needs to love himself.  He needs to love himself in the black people around him. He needs to love his sister, cherish his wife and daughter, and honor his mother. He needs to love his brother, reverence his father, and raise his sons. He needs to focus his energy on casting down the enemies within, the self-hate, the low self-esteem, the ignorance and the false identity given to him from his oppressors. He needs to embrace the wisdom and counsel left by the “Great ones” that have already passed through. He needs to return to the universal laws of the Creator and become identified again with his divine roots as an offspring of God the Father through Yeshua the Messiah. Then the enemy outside will be of no consequence, then and only then will he be Free At Last.

Shining Light on Homosexuality

Posted by D.L.Fuller on

The holy scriptures teach us that the Creator is love. This means that true love is spiritual. True love, being spiritual, is greater than physical things. In other words, true love is not confined to the physical world nor is it defined by the physical world. Actually, the Creator made the physical world to reflect his nature and image. This means that there is a lot to be learned from nature in its pure form. Satan knows this and works to pervert and obscure the order of nature to facilitate the lies and confusions he spreads.

We are commanded to love everyone but we are not commanded to have physical relations with everyone. You can love someone without having physical relations or sex with them. You can enjoy some ones company and feel a strong connection with them and care for them deeply but that does not necessarily make sex with that individual meaningful and virtuous. Purpose is what gives things true meaning. Fulfilling purpose is what makes things virtuous. Love one for another sets a standard of consideration for the other which is the basis for sustainable relationships across the social spectrum: husband to wife, parents to children, sibling to sibling, neighbor to neighbor, and even stranger to stranger; applicable across all ages and genders. People try to justify homosexuality based on the need for freedom to love whom they will. As a spokesperson for the Church and the Kingdom of God, I can say that loving anyone and everyone is not only an encouraged privilege but it is also a requirement.

The problem is that today’s society tries to make sexuality a mandate for love. It is not. The purpose of love can be fulfilled between a man and another man without sexual involvement; the same goes for two women. Sexual relations between to people of the same gender serve no purpose in creation.  In fact, it is destructive. It is destructive because it encourages a behavior that diminishes life instead of producing and sustaining life. Homosexuality attempts to destroy the purpose for gender in creation. The Creator gave us gender differences to facilitate the perpetuation of family. Family reflects the true Glory of God.

The Creator, in order to show His foreknowledge and intentional design often shows us the end from the beginning. This is so we can know that there is purpose and design to creation. From the very first man, Yahweh showed the path of Salvation. Adam had to lie down and be put to sleep that a bride might come forth. He would then be raised again and united with his bride, Eve. Their union is what gave life to all future generations. This union between man and woman symbolized Christ giving His life for His bride, the Church; then from that union life spreads to all man. The creator gives us physical models so that we can understand spiritual things. Homosexuality is an attack on the gospel of salvation by attempting to destroy the physical model put in place by the Creator that leads to an understanding of truth. The scripture is plain when it states that marriage is a mystery that really is about Christ and the Church.  Ephesians 5:25-32,

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

The war Satan started against Yahweh in heaven is continuing in the earth because Satan has been cast down into the earth. Satan’s objective is to kill, steal, and destroy life through deception and lies; hiding the truth. Gender is being systematically destroyed by the powers of darkness to destroy mankind because mankind was formed in the image of God. Genesis 1:26-28,

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

Satan’s main weapon of warfare is spreading lies in order to hide the path to truth and life. Yeshua the Messiah came proclaiming the way of salvation; He declared, “I am, the way, the truth, and the life.

Grasp the truth of the big picture. Homosexuality is just another attack on divine order in a continuing effort to hide the path to Yahweh; the giver of life. Let the knowledge of truth strengthen you, through sobering your mind that you might rule over your flesh and bring your members into divine order, unto the perpetuation of life.

Embracing the Path

Posted by D.L.Fuller on

rugged

Jesus taught that we enter the Kingdom of God through much tribulation, so the portal to the kingdom of God is suffering and hardship. Upon hearing this, the fleshly nature goes right into survival mode and starts searching for ways to disqualify the statement. However, someone with a great deal more knowledge, wisdom,…Hold on,correction…He that IS knowledge, wisdom, and understanding has designed it this way. If you have ever seen a butterfly struggle to get out of a cocoon, or a hatchling struggle from a shell, or a plant pushing through earth to reach the light, then you have a reference for what it takes for godliness to come out of the flesh. You have a reference for the birth process of the spiritual person you were created to be, getting delivered from the bondage of the rebellious, prideful, and selfish orientation of carnal life. To the human, there are times when God seems inhumane, but the scale of humanity is insufficient to begin to weigh the body of God’s work for the eternity of man.
You will never understand the things of the spirit as long as you hold life in the flesh more dear. Paths that require suffering in the flesh will always seem unreasonable to the carnal mind. In the journey of life, trusting God will require you to accept somethings beyond your reasoning, which makes perfect sense because man does not understand half of what God has created in the physical, so to approach the spiritual is going to take faith. After you learn to value spiritual things higher than physical things, like the Apostles Paul you will count all things but loss for the more excellent things of the spirit. We can become the enemy of salvation by disqualifying suffering as a path to deliverance.
Mark chapter 8:31-38
31 And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 He spoke this word openly. Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. 33 But when He had turned around and looked at His disciples, He rebuked Peter, saying, “Get behind Me, Satan! For you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”34 When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. 35 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? 37 Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? 38 For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”
1 Corinthians 2:14
But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
To walk with Jesus, we have to crucify the flesh, which is to mortify carnal reasoning and to stand against the dominance of sensual compulsion. So the next time you or someone else is going through a rough place in life, stop and prayerfully consider it; maybe that rough place is putting a finish on you as sandpaper does, maybe that pressurized situation is correcting your form, maybe that fiery trial is purifying your heart, maybe you are in the hands of a great potter and you are being made into a masterpiece  and he is using all of these circumstances as his tools. Look for instruction, counsel, and truth in every circumstance in life and when they are to hard find, ask God to reveal his hand at work. I hope you are able to find peace in just knowing his hand is at work, whether you can see it or not, this again takes faith.

Only God Is Good

Posted by D.L.Fuller on

Crown in the sky

The truth that only God is good does not disqualify the goodness we could have inside as some purport. The truth that God is good defines the source of all goodness. We don’t have to be bread in order to share bread with someone who is hungry, we just need to have bread. We don’t have to be water to share water with someone who thirst, we just need to have water. We don’t have to be God to share goodness with another soul, we just need to have God in us.

There are many situation we encounter in life that calls for the goodness of God, however what is often applied in those situations is a counterfeit of good. This counterfeit is what we have been oriented through our senses to believe is good. There is a humanitarian spirit in the world that has an intent to do good but instead of looking to God it draws from an imagination  based in human feeling. In application, humanitarian efforts feel good but afterwards we find the power of the spirit unto life was not imparted. You can give someone bread and water so that there stomach is full but there soul can still be famished in what it needs  because life is of the spirit. Our flesh does need bread and water to be nourished but our souls needs the goodness that comes from the spirit of God to be nourished.

I have found in my own life when I have faced the depravity of man, there are times when my mind conjures a solution that would feel good to all but in the end would only serve as a sedative and not address the underlying need for the spirit of life that comes from God through His goodness. There are times when people need to feel the pain of a bad decision so that they will learn to change their thinking however when they are simply bailed out by the humanitarian spirit the learning is aborted. Often times the goodness of God does not appeal to the senses therefore it is not attractive and that is where faith is needed. We have to trust in the goodness of God even when we can’t sense the good. We have to learn to walk in the spirit by abasing the carnal and worldly instincts.

The mandates of Love for human behavior exceeds the rudimentary acts of being humane.  Loving involves complying with universal spiritual laws which is a lot different from just doing what you feel or just fulfilling basic human needs. It has somehow been forgotten that we are sojourners here in these bodies of flesh and that we are spiritual in origin. God is the source of all life, so if we are going to have life in order to minister life to others then God has to be our source. As good can be the enemy of the best, so is the good imagined by man often opposed to the goodness of God. The good ordained of God through His Word is best.

In Book of Matthew Chapter 19, there is an account of a man running up to Jesus calling him “Good Master” and inquiring what good he could do to inherit eternal life. Jesus replied, “Why do you call me good, for there is none good but one, that is God.”  Jesus instructed the man to keep the commandments to inherit eternal life. The man stated that he had kept the commandments from his youth and wanted to know if there was more he should do. Jesus replied, if you will be perfect (spiritually mature) go and sell all that you have and give the money to the poor and then come follow me. The scriptures tell us the man went away grieved because he had many possessions.  The man failed to see the “good” in what the “Good master” had advised. It is evident that the man had some preconceived notions about “good” that got checked.  We need to humble ourselves in order to source our solutions from the spirit of God which is one with His word. You can always check your “good” by how it lines up with Holy scripture inspired by the spirit of God.  

Here is 2 Timothy 3:16-18,

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

God is love, so everything He does is an expression of love but God’s love is not always received or acknowledged by man. Man is often like a rebellious child despising the standards, guidance, and correction handed down by their parents. If we truly want to be good and virtuous to benefit those we have affection and concern for then we have to lay our intent in the hands of God and except His love and guidance.