As I opened the pages of the book of Joshua in the Old Testament, I encountered a story that captivated my heart and challenged my understanding of faith. It introduced me to Rahab, a woman whose life defied societal expectations and whose journey of redemption resonates deeply with believers across generations.

As I delved deeper into Rahab's story, I discovered themes of redemption, courage, and the inclusive nature of God's love. Her journey inspires me to trust in God's promises and step boldly into His purposes, knowing that He is faithful to fulfill His plans for my life. Rahab's story serves as a beacon of hope and encouragement, reminding me that no matter my past mistakes or present challenges, God can transform my life and use me for His glory.

Entourage is a word that I think everyone is familiar with.  It is usually associated with famous people and movie stars.  An entourage is a group of people who travel with and work for an important or famous person. It comes from the French word entourer, meaning “to surround,” and "the people who surround someone.  You know that group of people — friends, assistants, bodyguards — that are always surrounding you everywhere you go? That's your entourage!

Some celebrities have gone under financially, from supporting an overwhelming group of friends and family, their personal entourage.  It is said, in a many of songs, when the money runs out the entourage runs out too.  I suppose some have faithful friends and family who do not necessarily hang out with you for your money or what you can do for them.

There is an entourage that is much better suited for the Christian. That entourage has four parts, Goodness, and Mercy.  Psalm 23:6, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life”; also God’s rod and staff, Psalm 23:4, Your rod, and staff they comfort me.” What an entourage!  Always surrounding you and me.  Let’s go deeper.

“Anyone you forgive, I also forgive…” 2 Corinthians 2:10 NIV How many of us can take that position?  How many times have you gotten upset with someone because how they treated someone else? We have all fallen into that trap, as non-Christians and as Christians. How easy it is to take offense on behalf of another. It is said, children will get mad with each other and later on they are friends again. Oh, but how difficult that is for adults.

Adults can hold on to anger and refuse to forgive as a punishment toward those who have done them wrong. Years can go by and unforgiveness becomes a stronghold. The Dictionary defines a stronghold as a place that has been fortified so as to protect it against attack. Also, a place where a particular cause or belief is strongly defended or upheld. That sounds like what happens when we hold on to anger, thinking we are protecting ourselves from being hurt again by that person. Refusing to forgive gives us the false idea that we have the right to be angry, we have the right to keep them out of our lives, thus we strongly defend ourselves. I fell into that trap, and found out years later that I had built a stronghold and had to be delivered.

It is amazing to me how words and ideas drop into your spirit. Just everyday words all of a sudden barrage your mind. This week the word escape took me on a journey. While pondering the word escape several thoughts began to occupy my mind. The first thought is found in Luke 2:36, that speaks of escaping the things that will come upon the earth. But there is another escape that took over my thinking. I call it the great escape.

I heard a powerful message about Moses and the children of Israel. I will attempt to share my understanding of it. In Exodus chapter three, God appeared to Moses and told him to go to the Elders of Israel and tell them that the God of their fathers has heard their cry and has seen what has been done to them in Egypt; and He promises to bring them up out of their misery into a land flowing with milk and honey. (Exodus 3:1-17) Moses was the man God used to deliver them.

The message I heard was about how God prepares the man before He can be a blessing to you. In other words, God hears your cry for help, but the one who will help is being prepared so God can use him to help you, to be the answer to your prayer.

The topic came up about always doing what others want you to do. You know how it is, brother needs help with money, sister needs help, parents need help and don’t forget about your longtime friend who is depending on your help through a crisis.

It is difficult to say no, especially to family. It does not matter if it is an important thing or a little thing how we handle the requests for help affects us in the long run.

In the natural, we tend to help one another, regardless. We feel an obligation to help those in need. We feel an obligation to be supportive. But what happens when your feelings of obligation, and your friends and family’s feelings of obligation conflict with your relationship with God. It comes down to walking in the spirit or walking in the flesh. How can we tell a family member that God does not want me to help you? How can you say to someone that I am not your savior, I am not your deliverer? How do you tell them to ask God for help, not you? As we used to say, that is a hard saying, who can hear?

“So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. Luke 11:9 NIV

This is a very well-known passage of scripture, since you can always hear people quoting it. I often find myself reminding others to ask, “you have not because you ask not.” We are good at reminding people in the area of asking, but when was the last time you told someone to seek? It does not roll off the tongue as quickly, at least not for some of us. Let’s not forget about knocking and the door will open to you. What door? How do I knock?

I received a text message the other day from Bishop R.E. Smith Sr, The Word of Outreach Christian Center pastor, in Little Rock, Arkansas. It said, “Ask for the principal things, seek the first thing and knock on the doors you intend to enter.”  Obviously, it caught my attention, and he had scripture references. I responded to him saying, you might see this in my next blog.

I was working in my storage unit the other day. Cleaning it out and just getting rid of stuff that has been there for 5 years. I need that storage fee to go back into my pocket. Anyway, I was cleaning out boxes full of paper which meant I had to go through everything to be sure I was not getting rid of important papers. After going through two big boxes of paper, I decided I wanted to get to the clothes. Going through the clothes would be quick and easy since everything is going to Salvation Army or Goodwill anyway.

So, I spotted a section I wanted to work on, against the back wall. I could not reach those boxes because some clear boxes were blocking me, they were full of office stuff and nic nacs. I wanted to get past those boxes and get to what I wanted to work on. There was no room to move the other boxes. So I was upset but I moved on to another area of the storage unit.

You are wondering where I am going with this. Well, I was trying to reach ahead before dealing with what was right in front of me. When trying to deal with things to come without dealing with the present things, we perceive them as obstacles. I thought, Lord isn’t that the truth. The things in front of us need our immediate attention, and if dealt with properly they will provide a foundation for what is to come.

It always amazes me where ideas come from for my blogging.  I was listening to a preacher quote 1 Peter 5:7, the words he spoke were not the King James version, which is the version I cut my teeth on.  1 Peter 5:7 KJV says, “Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.”  Most people quote this scripture wrong and in turn gives it a totally different meaning.

One definition of CARE states, the provision of what is necessary for the health, welfare, maintenance, and protection of someone or something, i.e.  the care of the elderly.  So, when I cast my care on him (the Lord) I am saying here I am Lord, you know what I have need of even before I ask, thank you for taking care of me.  The second part of the scripture says, for he cares for you.  Cares in this portion of scripture is a verb.  And we know Verbs are action words.  Here it means to look after and provide for the needs of.  Other similar terms are to take care of and tend.  So, we can safely say that God cares for us, He is actively involved in the lives of his children, actively involved in making sure we all have our needs met.

I was recently talking with a friend about aging, she thinks I would be ok since I have two children who would take care of me when I am older.  The thing that is causing me to write this blog is her statement about herself.  She does not have children and does not think her nieces and nephews would have time for her.  So, she says, I will have to “rent me somebody”.  We laughed.

But if you think about it, there are many people in nursing homes and assisted living facilities because there is no family member to care for them.  That is a sad commentary on the state of the elderly.  Being a baby boomer, it is said we are living longer than any other generation. When we are young, never do we give thoughts to what it will be like when we are older.  We never consider that someone will need to take care of us if we should live long.

“Honor widows who are truly widows. But if a widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show godliness to their own household and to make some return to their parents, for this is pleasing in the sight of God.”  1 Timothy 5:3-4 ESV.  Wow, a widow is truly a widow if she is all alone and has no children or relatives to care for her.

Change is hard for most of us. Especially when it comes to how we see others and how we envision our own lives. Let us look at four areas that tend to keep us boxed in.

The Box of Past Things:  Matthew 13:55

This scripture lets us see how the people could not get past the fact that Jesus was the son of a carpenter, and that his mother, as well as his siblings, was one of them. It was hard for the people to accept the ministry of Jesus. They wanted to keep him in the box of the natural man by not accepting the spiritual man he had become. His teachings and miracles were too much for them to reconcile. Therefore, they kept him in a box.

The box of past things can be of your own doing or the doing of others. How is your past affecting your present and your future? The past is over, and the right now is the important thing. You are what God says you are and not what your past dictates. Break out of the box of past things and move on to the new life that God has given to you. Others will put you in a box, but the box we put ourselves in can be the hardest to break out of.

The Box of Present Things:  Matthew 13:22

Just when you think you have broken out of the box of past things, you find yourself hemmed in by your present life. The scripture tells us how the cares of life and the deceitfulness of riches are thorns in our life. When we hear the Word of God, the thorns choke the word and keep us from growing and being fruitful Christians.

What exactly does it mean to live out of the box? You have heard the term, “think outside of the box,” well the phrases are related and in order to live outside of the box, you first must think outside of the box. Thinking outside of the box means no limitations; no longer controlled by rules or traditions. Being creative, approaching life in unusual ways can lead to living outside of the normal. Who wants to be normal anyway?

Remember the Centurion in Matthew 8:5-9? He went to Jesus for help. The centurion, thinking outside of the box, told Jesus to just speak the word and his servant would be healed. Jesus marveled at the centurion’s demonstration of faith and healed the servant.  What would you have done? Lord come lay your hand on my servant, Lord if you don’t come and do it yourself my servant will die. In short, we want first class on the spot service.  Wow!

A ruler came to Jesus, in Matthew 9:18-19, asking him to lay hand on his daughter and raise her from the dead.  Now if that’s not “out of the box” I don’t know what is.  The ruler figured his daughter had died while he was on his journey, so instead of asking for healing he asked for resurrection. That is powerful.

Have you ever gotten tired of doing the same things over and over? Have you ever asked for help and the advice you received seemed stupid, or silly at best?

2 Kings chapter five tells us of, Naaman, the commander of the Kings army with leprosy. A young girl told Naaman about the prophet Elisha who could heal him. Can you imagine what Naaman thought when he was told to go dip in the Jordan River? Naaman said, “I am the commander of the Kings army, how dare he send me to that river. I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy.”

Did you catch that? He wanted the man of God to do all the work. And so, it is with some of today’s Christians. We want God to do the work, and we take no responsibility for our growth, for our healing, for our lives in general. Naaman was angry, all the while saying what the prophet could have done. Isn’t that just like us? When we don’t like the advice given to us, we then think of better ones, or so we think. It took Naaman’s servants to convince him to follow the advice of the prophet. They said, “if he had told you to do some great thing would you have done it?” Naaman, humbled himself and followed the prophet’s advice to the letter and received his healing.

Looking back over my life, this statement dropped into my spirit, “Something to live for.”  Boy, it took me back to my late twenties when life had absolutely no meaning for me. My teen years were spent wondering what was beyond the heavens. There must be more to life than what I was experiencing.

Once I had my own child, once I experienced marriage, life’s meaning still eluded me. Once I started working, having another child, and moved away from my hometown, things got worse. Searching for meaning anywhere and everywhere became my life. Work, drugs, sex, alcohol, and relationships left me empty, life was not worth living. So, I went about life aimlessly and miserable, looking in all the wrong places.

Purpose is such a hot topic in the church these days.  However, we never think of purpose in negative terms. We are trying to find out what God wants us to do.  We never think we could fall into the category with the one who found his purpose was to betray.  I am speaking of Judas Iscariot.

Unfortunately, Judas had the characteristics that allowed him to be chosen to betray a friend, a teacher, the savior of the world.  Jesus knows who we are, he knows if we will receive him or not. He knows the heart.  The key thought for me is that Jesus chose Judas as one of the twelve, knowing that Judas was the one to fulfill scripture.  “Even my own familiar friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted up his heel against me,” Psalm 41:9.  Judas was in a position of trust as the treasurer of the group, but Jesus knew one day he would be betrayed by Judas.  It is so important to know the people that surround you in ministry. “Know those who labor among you,” 1 Thessalonians 5:12.

This week I have been meditating on a quote by Derek Prince, “The Provision is in the Promise.”  What does that mean?  Prince says, “Everything we need is contained in the promises of God.” 

An example of this principle is found in 2 Peter 1:2-4. “Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.  His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.  Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.”

When talking about dreams, I think about Joseph and the dream that got him thrown into a pit, (Genesis 37:5). In the past, I missed the point where Joseph had a second dream, Genesis 37:9, about the same thing.    Joseph’s dreams were so powerful that his family could not accept the content of the dream because it seemed to show them in an unfavorable situation.  So, his brothers plotted against him and thus Joseph’s journey began.  We often hear the message “From the Pit to the Palace” describing Joseph journey.  I would like for us to take a second look at the life of Joseph after he was thrown in the pit.

There is a commercial that speaks of living life off the grid, living life away from the city.  The theme song for the commercial is “Make the world go away”, an old country classic.  Another line in the song says, “and take it off my shoulders, say the things you used to say, and make the world go away.”  Jesus said he has overcome the world; He did not make it go away.

I have enjoyed the commercial the few times I saw it, but the other day it got me thinking about what the bible says about the world.  Several scriptures came to mind.  Romans 12:2, tells us, “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of the mind.”  1 John 2:15 says, “Do not love the world or the things in the world.”  Both of these scriptures are commands, not suggestions.  While they are commands from God, we have the choice to obey or not to obey.