1 Peter 13-16 says: 13 Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. 14 As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. 15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16 for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”[a].  This particular portion of verse 14 speaks to me because ignorance, by definition is the lack of knowledge, the condition of being uneducated, or uninformed. If we never admit our ignorance as it relates to a particular thing, how can we ever gain knowledge about that thing? How can we 'be holy'? 
            In today’s society, we make ignorance out to be a horrible thing or something that is attributed to youth and immaturity. It is neither! Failure to admit your ignorance is an INTEGRITY issue that affects young and old alike.  FAILURE TO ADMIT IGNORANCE IS A HORRIBLE THING.  You can never receive help on issues that you never admit that you need help on.  And I can guarantee you, from personal experience, that those issues will resurface again and again and eventually, if left unchecked, will sabotage even the greatest of things.
          When I was 27, I got married to a wonderful woman. I had holistic knowledge of Christ’s rules for life and marriage; however, there were some specific things that I didn’t know. There were some deep internal and elemental questions that as a man, I needed answered; I needed them answered so that I could be honest with myself about those areas.  Why am I getting married? Are they sound reasons? What things do you need in order to have a lasting marriage? Do I have those things? Do ‘we’ have those things? Is love just a commitment or should there be something more? What is the difference between being ‘in love’ and love? Do I need both? Do I realize that if I am not careful here that I could possibly cause great hurt and harm to not just myself but to one that I am vowing to protect?
          Instead of asking those questions, I let PRIDE cause me to hide my ignorance. I went to pre-marital counseling classes, and I discussed the things that didn’t embarrass me, the superficial things, and I smiled and pretended that everything was great. But the knowledge I received only helped me to the degree that I was wiling to open up to receive it.  Several years after we were married, my wife and I even taught Marriage Counseling classes, but the same pride and hidden ignorance resurfaced.  Instead of allowing the knowledge I was teaching to truly address my hidden issues, I focused on how I could present it so that it could help others. “I didn’t need help,” I foolishly told myself.  The areas that I did not expose my ignorance in were the ones that eventually led to the demise of my marriage.
         At the ripe old age of thirty-six, after a major mistake that changed my life and the lives of many that I care deeply about, I have allowed God to reveal to me my lack of COMPLETE Integrity.  Through this act, He is teaching me to admit my ignorance.  I am learning that there is no such thing as partial integrity.  I  am learning that TRUE INTEGRITY can only be created when there are no secrets within me; I am being reminded that TRUE INTEGRITY only exists when the person that I am in  my inner most private life and the person that I am in my my public life are no different. 
          With those things, I am learning that with God, FAILURE is never FINAL. I am learning that mistakes are often the first step to the manifestation of miracles if we allow them to be, and that mistakes should be turned into messages and shared so that others don’t make the same mistakes.  I am learning the essences of John 12:47, when Jesus says: 47 “If anyone hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge that person. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.
          To all those who read this and knew me on a personal level, I offer my sincerest apologies for allowing my PRIDE and PERSONAL Ignorance to create an action that hurt so many of you that I care  for dearly. It was never that I didn’t truly love and respect you; I simply wasn’t at a place with myself that I was ready to seek the truth on some deeper issues in my own character. I take full responsibility. I often feel that I let you down, that I myself down, and I let God down.  I only hope that you can find it in your hearts to not condemn me but forgive me instead.  If not, I love you still.  I KNOW that Christ has and will forgive me.  
           For those of you who do not know me on a personal level, I pray that my example will cause you to take a second look at the hidden ‘ignorances’ in your life, that God gives you the courage to let go of foolish PIRDE and ask the deep personal questions you need answers to. I pray that this happens before those hidden issues create some disastrous occasion in your life.  I pray that you realize the miracle of this moment that God has given you to become more of what he wants you to be. 
          Take this opportunity to take the advice of Proverbs 4:23 
Keep diligent watch (take inventory) of your own heart, for out of it flow the issues of life.
          BLESSINGS!

     All of your life has prepared you for this moment; God is already prepared the moments and is preparing you for the moments to come, so why don’t you just have a COME APART PARTY, RIGHT NOW! Allow me to explain: The best things in life are highly creative; however, the most terrifying part of embracing creativity is that it is UNPREDICTIABLE.  You don’t know what is going to happen, right? Yet the spirit of adventure, the spirit of discovery, and the spirit of creativity are all things that you want in your life.  These are the keys that will unlock new territories, new possibilities, new discoveries, new destinies, new opportunities, new joys, new revelations…

The only thing that is stopping you is your FEAR of the unknown! Well if you haven’t heard already, FEAR is only:

         F – False

         E – Evidence

         A – appearing

         R – real

     Look at it this way, the only thing you really stand to really loose is FEAR! If your life, your journey is largely God’s responsibility, and we know it is, then NOTHING else will be lost! Allow this devotion, my communication with you begin to create an environment in your life that is that is TRULY fulfilling for you; an environment that will create an atmosphere that will get God’s attention, allow Him to see just how serious you are about your blessings, and cause Him to begin working it out just for you! 

John 8:3 – …The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women…”
          While we don’t physically stone people to death in our modern world anymore (THANK GOD), we do cast an invisible stone that is perhaps more deadly than any jagged stone thrown with the most brute force.  This stone is condemnation.  So many times we witness men and women fall, as the Bible tells us that we will in Proverbs 24:16, but instead of having the personal integrity to love our neighbor through the down, we smile, we give lip service, and right there in that moment in our hearts we decide that this is no longer a person whom we can associate with or respect.  Perhaps we don’t cut him completely out of our circle; we just treat them ‘different’ than we use to.  And while this stone varies in the facets it takes on according to personality/character, its effects are COLOSSAL. 
         I have to believe that if a person truly is seeking to be righteous (having a connection/relationship w/ God), whatever is causing or has caused her/him to fall is weighing on their conscious heavier than it is on my own. And if this belief is wrong, I know for a fact that this fall DID NOT catch God by surprise.  He saw it coming, purposed it in his plan for that person, and knows how to handle it.  Thus it becomes my job not to condemn, but to forgive, to perhaps console, to counsel, to offer a loving attempt to reconnect the person who fell with the God that can restore the ‘fall’.  I know from personal experience that there are not many things worse than to be shunned, looked at differently, or treated differently due to an error that I made by the people who should lovingly point me back to God. 
         One way to check for condemnation within ourselves is if we cannot separate the fall from the fallen. If we cannot do this, then we too have fallen.  We are commanded to love the sinner and abhor the sin. The righteous falls seven times but rises back up again. The wicked remains fallen in mischief. Proverbs 24:17 goes on to warn us to not even be glad when our enemy stumbles… Let he who is without sin cast the first invisible stone. “…neither do I condemn you, Jesus said.  Go and sin no more.”   Are we the accusers or the encouragers? Do we see the separation, or are we throwing the sinner out with the sin? Are we casting invisible stones with our looks, our actions our motives, or casting light on the part of the scripture that says ‘but he rises back up again’? “Where are your accusers,” Jesus asked.  Today, I choose to drop my rocks and ENCOURAGE!
       Go ahead, you cast the first stone…

     “My eye, my eye,” the foreman screamed incessantly as he frantically ran through the steel mill toward the nurse on duty.  While grinding a rather large piece of metal, a small chip flew up into his eye.  “What’s wrong,” the nurse asked as she observed  the hysterical Cyclops of a man who stammered into her office. “A piece of metal flew into my eye!” “It doesn’t belong in my eye!” “Get it out,” he shouted. “Or else I’m gonna own this company tomorrow!” After carefully examining the man’s eye, the nurse said, “Sir whatever it was that was in your eye is gone. I have searched your eye thoroughly and there is no trace of it in there.” “ITS IN THERE; I CAN FEEL IT,” the man shouted.  The nurse jumped at the close of the man’s angry remark, not in fear but enlightenment instead.  “I know what it is,” she said.  “Sir, the piece of metal is no longer in your eye. The problem is your eye has a MEMORY…” 
     I heard this story several years ago in a perfect parallel to a great point, and just as the power of its positive and poignant message has remained in my head all these years, negative MEMORIES if allowed to, can carry the same persistent poignance. If you are honest, you can look back on your journey through life and upon your walk with Christ, and see that you’ve certainly made mistakes, mishaps, and done some down right maniac-minded things.  While you can laugh about and some of those things,  you  can never completely forget them.  Now, you know that the moment you confessed your sins, you were forgiven and they were cast away; however, the reason you can't forget is because your conscious still has a memory.  
     Perhaps your current problems, situations, strongholds, circumstances, etc. are not really problems, situations, strongholds, or circumstances at all; perhaps they are simply memories of what once was.  Nagging memories from a sin nature that, like their father, are AS a roaring lions seeking to devour and destroy your present with mere ghosts from your past.  BUT, your Father in heaven says that if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away and behold ALL things are MADE NEW.  
     You are a PRODUCT of your past, but you become a PRISONER of it when you allow shadows to steal your peace.  Today, if you wish to remain a PRODUCT and not a PRISONER, do some introspective inventory, put the spot light on your shadows, and take the advice of Paul in 2 Corinthians 10:5…cast down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; a memory is a thought, a shadow, a ghost.  
     Recognize them, Remove them through prayer, Receive Christ’s power, His peace, Revive, Refresh, Restore, Replenish, and Re-Up in is presence and in His word, and lets keep it moving so that our Faith can continue to outlive our failures…BLESSINGS!!!!!

...They say adversity introduces a man to himself…Lord, I pray for that introduction every day, every minute of every second I tend to loose myself in a world that you’ve blessed me to inspire…

They say to never judge a man until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes…I’ve learned the hard way that along life’s journey, we acquire pebbles in each of our shoes that are uncomfortable for us, and for those that dare tread our path but for a step, these stones can easily become the rock that we stand poised and ready to stone a person’s character to death with…I pray that as the chief cornerstone you are always quick to show me the boulder in my own life, so that I don’t condemn a good man for the gravel in his…after all, we are not what we do…diamonds were once black rocks…

They say never to judge a man by the look of his skin, but by the content of his character…I pray that you continue to reveal my true character to me, so that I can be content in what that content really entails…perhaps they should change the first part to “never judge a man by the look of his Sin”…

They, they, they…They say a lot; I wonder at times how much of what they say is what is meant; I wonder why it is so easy to allow what they say, because there is so much of it, to drown out the meaning in Your voice…I pray that I not only hear your voice, but I take the time to hear the meaning in it; for in that meaning, is the explanation of the reason why I am allowed to live each and every minute…

They say that adversity introduces a man to himself…well if a cross, three nails, and an excruciatingly painful death wasn’t enough adversity, then I don’t know what is.  But thank God that it was; it was enough adversity, for through it, you introduced the world’s slave, your son, to the world’s savior, your son…You introduced the truth of that which was there purposely, quietly, and secretly, hidden all along, to the reason and revelation of its purpose…

I pray that as the chief cornerstone you are always quick to show me the boulder in my own life, so that I don’t condemn a good man for the gravel in his…after all, we are not what we do…diamonds were once black rocks…Amen! 

The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.” Abram definitely had PURPOSE and here we see the SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS that God provided that would walk him into his NEW SEASON.  Now, if you read yesterday’s ‘Daily Inspiration,’ you may be thinking, “Okay, so where are the EXPERIENCES? I’m so glad you asked that question.  If we continue reading the story we come to a place that reads: So Abram left Egypt and traveled north into the Negev, along with his wife and Lot and all that they owned. Do you see the issue here? Hint, hint: opportunities often come in the form of opposition.

The man of God followed God’s instructions, for the most part.  God told Abram to leave his relatives and here we see relatives tagging along.  This was a major mistake on Abram’s behalf, a mistake that proved disastrous in the unfolding of the life of a man who became the father of our Faith.  Now, let alone the fact that God said it, why else would it be a mistake to allow Lot to tag along? Two reasons: 1) Lot was a product of his culture and 2) Lot didn’t hear the call of God.  Lot’s thinking was conditioned by his surroundings and because he did not know God’s call, you can imagine that leaving a comfortable place for a place that you don’t know would soon begin to be questioned by the mind of a man that did not have a divine instruction.  Questions and phrases like, “Are we there yet,” “How much longer,” “This is stupid,” “We should’ve stayed where we were,” along with many others of that nature come to mind.  As the result of a later ‘quarrel’, which we certainly saw coming, Abram and Lot parted ways.  But not without some trouble and setback.  If you read on in the story, you know that allowing his wife to tag along caused Abram some difficulty too. 

Because Abram did not follow the SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS to the letter, God allowed EXPERIENCE to teach Him a great lesson, and it is this: Don’t take no turkey to the banquet.  If God is calling you to get away from your kindred, peeps, homies, cuzzos, bros, ya girls, or whoever, its because He knows that you need to in order to fulfill His call on your life.  He may be calling you to get away from some of your own thoughts and habits.  Whatever the case may be, take a lesson from Abram, who became Abraham because his FAITH eventually outweighed his FAILURES.  The next time you hear God calling you to the dinner table of DIVINE PURPOSE, drop all turkeys, turkey necks, turkey drumsticks, turkey sandwiches, and run.  Trust me, you will be glad you did. For me, it would have been Bologna; I’m just saying! 

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new, forgetting what is behind and pressing on toward the mark, being not conformed to the ways of the world but being transformed by the renewing of your mind, etc. Recognize these instructional and timeless truths? Sure you do.  Each of them were inspired by a man who changed the entire structure of the time passage known as life, and was penned by men who followed hard after Him.  Jesus as well as the disciples had a specialized internal Purpose and therefore were given specific instructions to carry out that purpose.  Both their Purpose and Pursuit of it was hammered out by the EXPERIENCES of Life.  The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly all served as rites of passage that made these men New each time they EXPERIENCED another facet of their journey. 

            When we understand that each of us has a SPECIALIZED PURPOSE and SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS, we have to begin to see our daily EXPERIENCES as opportunities to become ‘New’.  In order to do this, we have to change the way we perceive things.  Sometimes your best opportunities come in the form of opposition. My definition of luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. 

            Perhaps you have begun to allow your daily experiences to become harmful, negative, or cynical.  They were never intended to be that; they were intended to SHARPEN You.  As you PREPARE for today, I encourage you to ask God to change your PERCEPTION of your EXPERIENCES.  It is essential in order to be made ‘New.’ Hey, it worked for Jesus, it worked for the Disciples, it worked for Abraham, it worked for every Man and Woman that God used, and it can work for you, but you’ve got to work it! BLESSINGS and Congratulations in ADVANCE on becoming 'NEW' today! 

      On the baseball filed at school, little Johnny and Carlos ran smack dab into each other in hot pursuit of the fly ball hit between center and left field.  At the sight of blood dripping, little Johnny began to cry hysterically. The lens from Carlos' glasses shattered during the collision leaving a gash on Johnny's forehead.  A knot the size of the baseball that lay dormant a few  feet from both adolescent boys immediately sprang up in the middle of Carlos' temple.  After rubbing the knot, and attempting to calm his friend, Carlos threw the ball back into the in field.  By now the boys coach had made his way out to where the boys were.  Little Johnny was in the dough out being taken care of.  "Are you alright Carlos," coach asked.  "It hurts, it hurts," he said rubbing the knot.  "But I'm tough." The young boy was making a profound statement from two realities. 
     As Christians, often our moment-to- moment lives are a simultaneous statement of two realities. Those realities being, 1) Who we are currently (Human), and 2) Who God has Called & Chosen us to be according to His PURPOSE for our lives.  At times in our humanness we are going to fail, but if we keep "Moving Forward," our FAITH in God will long out live our Failures.

#Hebrews11

…up at six to walk my friend, – Thank You…

…time with You before the world begins – Thank You…

…the silence and stillness of it all beautifully serve to create the atmosphere, 
for Your Presence to ride upon this morning’s mercy & grace and to faithfully meet me here, – Thank You…

…here in this place, where ever this place may be,
to seek your face, feel your embrace as it sets my spirit free, – Thank You…

…here before the hustle and bustle of church, work, parenting, drama, whatever the case may be, is a chance to seek your face, feel your embrace as it sets my spirit free, 
– Thank You…

…nothing superficial here in this reunion with You thus far; 
simply all of me, desperately, taking in and trying to respond to ALL that Your are, --  Thank You…
     
…You are my best kept universal secret; being with You does the proverbial “trick”; my worship draws me near to you as you whisper to me what to do 
before I am ever tempted with the chance to become ‘society sick’, – Thank You…

…as I embellish here in this embrace, I laugh, I cry, I chant over and over Your many names; I worship You as if there were no tomorrow, and yet tomorrow I will do the same…– Thank You!