THE GOD MAN CYCLE

DERRICK BUILD ME AN ARK( THE GOD MAN CYCLE sermon story4)

And the Lord spoke to me & said: “In six months I’m going to make it rain until the whole earth is covered with water & all the evil people are destroyed. But I want to save a few good people, and two of every kind of living thing on the planet. I am ordering you to build Me an Ark.”
And in a flash of lightning he delivered the specifications for the Ark.
“OK,” i answered, trembling in fear and fumbling with the blueprints.
“Six months, and it starts to rain, “thundered the Lord. “You’d better have my Ark completed, or learn how to swim for a very long time.”
And six months passed. The skies began to cloud up and rain began to fall. The Lord saw that i was sitting in his front yard, weeping. And there was no Ark.
“Derrick,” shouted the Lord, “where is my Ark?” A lighting bolt crashed to the ground next to me.
“Lord, please forgive me!” i begged. “I did my best. But there were big problems.
First I had to get a building permit for the Ark construction project, and your plans didn’t meet code. So I had to hire an engineer to redraw the plans.
Then I got into a big fight over whether or not the Ark needed a fire sprinkler system.
My neighbors objected, claiming I was violating zoning by building the Ark in my front yard, so I had to get a variance from the city planning commission.
Then I had a big problem getting enough wood for the Ark because there was a ban on cutting trees to save owls. I had to convince U.S.Fish and Wildlife that I needed wood to save the owls. But they wouldn’t let me catch any owls. So no owls.
Then the carpenters formed a union and went out on strike. I had to negotiate a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board before anyone would pick up a saw or hammer. Now we have 16 carpenters going on the boat and still no owls.
Then I started gathering up animals, and got sued by animal rights group. They objected to me taking only two of each kind.
Just when I got the suit dismissed, EPA notified me that I couldn’t complete the Ark without filing an environmental impact statement on your proposed flood. They didn’t take kindly to the idea that they had no jurisdiction over the conduct of a Supreme Being.
Then the Army Corps of Engineers wanted a map of the proposed new flood plain. I sent them a globe.
Right now I’m still trying to resolve a complaint from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over how many Croatians I’m supposed to hire, the IRS has seized all my assets claiming I’m trying to avoid paying taxes by leaving the country, and I just got a notice from the state about owing some kind of use tax.
I really don’t think I can finish your Ark for at least another five years,” i wailed.
The sky began to clear. The sun began to shine. A rainbow arched across the sky.
i looked up and smiled. “You mean you’re not going to destroy the earth?” i asked, hopefully.
the Lord looked down on me sadly and disappointed but said nothing.
*('Right from Genesis the story of Adam and Eve, man found himself making excuses for disobeying God. Then came the great prophets ,like Jonah and Jeremiah running away from Gods calling , hiding their faces from the all seeing God thinking their excuses could shield them from the light that comes from God. In our modern times we find this mostly in our churches; our tithing , our fasting and our daily scripture study. THE LORD LOOKS DOWN ON US ,SAD AND DISAPPOINTED.
Study these GENESIS 3,JEREMIAH 1)

 by Kwabena Owesome (www.facebook.com/I.AM.DERRY)

THE POWER OF VISION

VISION

                    Vision is the foresight with insight based on hindsight

               Nothing worthwhile has ever been achieved without the force of vision.  The greatest gift ever given to man is not the gift of sight but the gift of vision.  Sight is the function of the eyes but vision is the function of the heart. Sight is necessary for the present but vision is crucial for the future. When you are able to see a preferred and a possible future, you have in essence captured a vision. When you see God’s intimate plans for your future, you have ultimately seen your vision

                 If you are ever going to achieve much in 2014, then you have to be able to visualize the end of 2014 in your mind just as you have desired and decided. The principle of vision states that, “whatever you see, you can be”, and “whatever you can visualize, you can actualize”. In a world where the sight of economies, governments, and society at large is utterly discouraging, disheartening and depressing; one must have the capacity to see beyond the present if he wishes to have the faith to believe in the future. There is always more to what the eyes could see, we need our hearts to see God’s perfect picture.

                 Vision protects us against the present predicaments of this transient world in which we live; it’s our only hope against the storms of today. Vision is a source of inspiration in the face of present frustrations. If the picture of the divine future we saw, is not what we see in the present, then what we see in the present is temporal.

Thomas Edison envisaged a world with lights though he himself lived in the dark. It was his vision of a brighter world that inspired him to invent the light bulb, though he was seeing candles with his eyes yet he could see light bulb with his heart. Vision is everything. Graham Bell is no different, he was deaf in one ear but he invented the telephone. With vision, his present predicament never became a permanent impediment to achieving his dreams. To succeed, you must see beyond present realities, you must see future eventualities.

                 Possess vision and you become untouchable and unstoppable by the challenges of life.  The old sage of Israel, King Solomon said that due to the lack of vision, people’s lives are destroyed. He was saying in essence, when a people cannot envision a better tomorrow, they abuse and misuse today.  Without the image and the knowledge of a preferred future; today will lose its essence, time its purpose, activity will lack meaning and energy will have no direction.

                Today matters! Capture the picture of that divine future! See that book launch! See yourself receiving that award! See yourself at that matriculation or better still at that graduation. See yourself becoming whatever you were created to become. See the end of this year and then begin it! Have no bifurcated thinking I said; see it and then begin it. Because if you want to seize it, you MUST see it!

EXCUSES

EXCUSES

“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to success is more important than any other thing”.

 Abraham Lincoln.

Imagine you are engaged to be married. The wedding is just weeks away. All the preparations have been made, everything has been bought, and all the invitations have gone out. Your anticipation and excitement are at a fever pitch. And then all of a sudden your fiancée dies. What would you do? That’s an experience that makes a person want to quit or give up in life.

This actually is a true story; a man was engaged to be married to a very lovely young woman. All the wedding preparations were in place, and everything was in order; they were simply waiting for the wedding day to arrive. Then in a matter of days, the fiancée suddenly took sick and died. The grieving groom went through severe depression. He even considered suicide, he felt ashamed. How was he going to face his friends and family? How could he emerge from such tragedy?

He almost didn’t. His emotional depression became so severe that he was placed in an insane asylum where he received treatment. After few weeks, he began to come around and after two months was released, having come back from the brink. He buried his sweetheart and went on with his life. Eventually he married and raised a family. This man is ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

But he never left the valley of misfortunes, he had four sons; Robert, Edward, Willie and Thomas. His second son Edward died as a result of tuberculosis. At the age 12, Willie the third son also passed away. At the age of 18, the last born Thomas died of a heart failure.

He has been consistently ranked both by scholars and the public as the greatest president of America.  Abraham Lincoln led America through its greatest constitutional, military and moral crisis, the American Civil War. He preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the national government and modernized the economy. He was a great lawyer, and the only president of America with a patent.

His life has cancelled every excuse you may have for not pursuing your dreams. He was born in a poor family, never had any formal education, he was neither extremely handsome nor had any extraordinary physical features. His mother died at the age of 9 and grew up with a step mother.  He was broken-hearted, and many times in his life he was all alone and all by himself. Politically, he failed a lot of times; professionally, he lost a lot of legal cases. But he rose to become all he could ever become.

No excuse is a good excuse enough to give up! Please get up! Sit up! Achieve that dream today!