Devotional – Page 7 – Pastor Leo Colon's Blog

Day Six: Why Are You Hungry?

Beloved, Grace and Peace be multiplied to you, through the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ. Day SIX and we are one our way. You are doing great. Hang in there. God is going to do exactly what he said. Beloved, today’s Guest blogger is no stranger to us. She is my wife, my best friend and Co-Pastor at In His Presences Family worship Center. Thank Pastor Dorothy for your submission to our journey.

Pastor Leo Colon

Grace and Peace be unto you from God our Father and from The Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you Pastor Leo for the opportunity to share on your blog site today! I am truly honored.
Well, Saints it is day 6 and you are still here!!!! Yes you made it! So, why are you hungry? Now that is a dumb question considering you are on a 21 day journey of one bowl of soup, (large) 😉 any time after 12 noon, (for some of us that means 12:01), and all the water and hot tea we can drink, please pass the honey!!!. But it is more than that. Love has brought us to the table, or shall I say, pushed us away.
Love, a 4 letter word with more than 40,000 causes and effects. Love and the lack there of has made so many good and bad things happen to us. Jesus said to his disciples, in John 68:6 “Will you leave too?” And of course Peter answered, “Where are we going to go? It is you who have the Words of eternal life.” Peter and the disciples had fallen in Love. They had packed up their careers, and became disciples of Jesus Christ. Even at the risk of losing everything, going on a path never walked before, no guaranteed salary and benefits to start other than the assurance of His presence, each day they Loved Jesus more and more. There is nothing more rewarding than loving someone and finding out through being with them, that they have exceeded all of your expectations. The true nexus of this love is Jesus and His Love for them. His Love caused Him, to leave His thrown, strong enough to be separated from his father and be humiliated by his creation, for what? Love. John 3:16 says “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son…” Jesus said “prepare me a body” and God did just that. Jesus the God of the Universe is in love with you. You have taken this Journey and made it thus far for one reason, Love. You love Jesus and you know he loves you. You want more of Him, to be close to Him, to please Him, to be like Him, to understand Him and his desires for you, to fellowship with Him, to hear from Him and He hear you. You have made a decision to be hungry to sacrifice your time to lay aside your tasks, burdens and favorites for a chance to gain more ground with your Lord your Love, Jesus, who Loved us, you!
So, embrace your hunger, your sacrifices, your early morning rises and cold journey to the church, denying your habitual shows for the quest of a glimpse of His Presence in your situation, the feel of His love on your heart, the continual insatiable thirst for more of Him. Love, which is why you are Hungry.
Jeremiah 29:13 (BBE) And you will be searching for me and I will be there, when you have gone after me with all your heart.

Pastor Dorothy Colon

Remember; take one day at a time. Drink all the water you can. Pray, and make a prayer list. Pray with understanding and with a purpose. Just do today, do not think of the entire journey. You can do this. Also, start to plan now and make plans to bring someone to church with you. If you are not a member of a church currently or are seeking a place God wants you to call home, allow me to invite you to In His Presence Family Worship Center. It’s a good church and a good place to call home. Be my special guest. We would love to meet you. We are at 1673 Dean Street, Brooklyn, NY. Our Sunday services start at 8 AM and our midweek prayer and bible study is on Wednesday at 7 PM. Go to our website, http://www.ihpfwc.org. Invite someone to come with you, why? God wants his house filled. He told us that. (Luke 14:23)

Live on Purpose and not By Mistake,
Yours Because I am His,
Leo Colon
pastor@ihpfwc.org
http://www.ihpfwc.org

January 9, 2016

Day Five: It’s Coming Sooner than You Think.

Beloved, Grace and Peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ. You are on Day number FIVE (5). This is amazing! You’re going into territory you have never seen before. Celebrate this moment, you have, with the help of God, reached a milestone. I want to encourage you today from the Word of God. Let’s finish taking a look at the verse we have been examining.

KJV
Rom. 13:11 ¶ And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.

We have learned a few thing from the Apostle Paul:

You understand seasons, “Knowing the Time”
We are to “awake out of sleep” in other words Wake UP

Today, the word of the LORD to you is, “your deliverance IS coming”! And its coming sooner than you think. Paul in his continuation of the pragmatic portion of this epistle, wants us to be aware of something. Our Salvation is nearer then when we first believed. A few points are inherent to this text. First of all, you did not begin believing God for nothing. You believed that he is God and that every good thing will come from him. Secondly, Salvation is not ambiguous. It is coming. This word is exciting when you understand that the word Salvation in the greek is also the word for Deliverance. Beloved, Your deliverance is a fact. It is a forgone conclusion. God promised it and there is no ambiguity in the matter. Question, do you have a promise from God? I believe that he will do just what he said. What is it you need deliverance from? Well, whatever it is, no this, it will come. Why?

KJV
Num. 23:19 God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?

Here is what excites me. My deliverance, my salvation is going to happen, sooner than I think. As you go through this day, I need you to remind yourself of something, “your deliverance, is going to happen sooner than you think”. I need you to think about it. You believed that God was going to deliver you but when will he do it? You have reasoned in your mind that you would wait on God. You determined to hang in there. Well I have good news for you. The date you thought of for your deliverance……… Think Sooner! This fast is not for naught. God said every moment of this fast means your deliverance is getting closer. Do you believe it? Then stop getting used to your situation! When your change comes, promise me, you will embrace it. Yes that different thing, that different person, that different look. Do not be the reason your blessing has no one to change. Don’t avoid it because you weren’t expecting it. Embrace it. It is coming sooner that you think. Another thing, let your blessing change you. Stop fighting what God is doing in you. God wants to deliver you from the old you. Are you so comfortable with the old you that you reason your blessing away. Do you know, that miracles are missed every day because we try to reason God out of his amazing work. Hang in there. It, Your Blessing, Your Deliverance, Your Salvation is coming sooner than you think.

Remember; take one day at a time. Drink all the water you can. Pray, and make a prayer list. Pray with understanding and with a purpose. Just do today, do not think of the entire journey. You can do this. Also, start to plan now and make plans to bring someone to church with you. If you are not a member of a church currently or are seeking a place God wants you to call home, allow me to invite you to In His Presence Family Worship Center. It’s a good church and a good place to call home. Be my special guest. We would love to meet you. We are at 1673 Dean Street, Brooklyn, NY. Our Sunday services start at 8 AM and our midweek prayer and bible study is on Wednesday at 7 PM. Go to our website, http://www.ihpfwc.org. Invite someone to come with you, why? God wants his house filled. He told us that. (Luke 14:23)

Live on Purpose and not By Mistake,
Yours Because I am His,
Leo Colon
pastor@ihpfwc.org
http://www.ihpfwc.org

January 7, 2016

Day One: Every One that Asketh, Receiveth.

Beloved, Grace and Peace be multiplied to you, through the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ. Today, January 5th, 2014, we embark on our fast. This is a time when we begin our year acknowledging that God is our source and to him do we ascribe credit not only for success in the year to come but thank him for mercy for the year we have just come through. Today we begin to seek direction, ask our questions and try to understand his will for us for this year. Take the time to thank God. Honestly, we have a lot to thank God for. Be honest, you have some achievements that can only be God and he deserves your praise. LORD, Thank You! Now for a strategy for this fast and this year. Jesus gives us a paradigm that is tested, tried and true. Let’s look at the scriptures.

Matt. 7:7 ¶ Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
Matt. 7:8 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

Christ tells us to ask, then tells us why we should. Simple. During this fast, we should ask him for what he wants from us but also what we are praying for. Jesus tells us to ask. When we ask we should expect the next clause to be as true as the instruction. If we Ask, then we should expect, “and it shall be given you”. That alone should dictate our actions and expectation. But I want to leave you with this reassuring word. Jesus gives us something in this passage. He gives us the assurance that this has work before. But not only has it worked before, but it has worked CATEGORICALLY! He says in verse 8: For EVERY ONE that asketh receiveth. It is unwise, not logical and unreasonable to assume that all of Holy Writ is true except when it comes to you and this passage. Here is what you should begin to believe. I will receive what I ask God for. Undoubtedly, there are levels we have not dealt with, such as, every things we do as believers should be commensurate with our values, our faith. So no Christian should be asking God for something un-Christian like. We ought not to ask for things God says are not right, we should be as Paul says “imitators of God”. With that said, you have some needs you would like to deal with. Here is your word for the day. Ask God, because every one that asketh, receiveth.

What would you ask for, if you knew that what you asked for, you would receive?

Remember, take one day at a time. Drink all the water you can. Pray, and make a list. Pray with understanding and with a purpose. Just do today, do not think of the entire journey. You can do this. Also, I know your first Sunday of the year was awesome and that your worship was rewarding. With that being said, start to plan now and make plans to bring someone to church with you. God wants his house filled. He told us that. (Luke 14:23)

Yours Because I am His,
Leo Colon
pastor@ihpfwc.org
www.ihpfwc.org

January 5, 2015

Ferguson: We Need to Pay Attention

Grace and peace be unto you. Today, I wanted to speak to you for a moment concerning the Mike Brown incident in Ferguson Missouri and what we should glean from this moment. A few days have passed since the announcement that no charges would be filed by the Ferguson County district attorney as a result of the determinations made by the grand jury. Nothing about the incident can be applauded by any righteous person. Although, there are some obvious observations that have been made that are important and should be made.

Firstly, Mike Brown may have been a felon by any tangential observer. He had just committed what is called a strong arm robbery (maybe). I say that because the video is not, as of yet, conclusive. Which means, he should be in jail and not dead. Secondly, by the admission of the police department, the robbery was not the reason for the stop. Thirdly and maybe most significantly, the reason for the uproar is because there is no equal treatment here. Just this year, you had a litany of examples where police have waited out felons with guns, so not to hurt these white men (with Guns), yet Mike Brown is gunned down in broad day light, with no gun. There is a different metric, seemingly that police use when the suspect is black. We understand this.

Beloved, I have a problem and I must admit, we are to blame for some of this. I contend that we are not paying attention. When you live in a town, such as Ferguson, with 67% African American, 29.3% White, .5% Asian, .4% Native American and .4% other races, (Wikipedia, 2010 Census), there should not be an almost exclusively white city government, a nearly exclusively white police department or a white District Attorney.

Is it possible to have white qualified officers and people in that city government? Of course, and there should be. My contention is, we ought not be so disengaged that we allow this to be the way our cities are run. What we need to do is form and follow a plan that would ensure that this never happen again. By this I do not mean, that we never have another white police officer kill another unarmed black suspect, that would be wonderful, but what I do mean is that we should never see it done and have city government give its approbation for this. We should never have a district attorney do his level best to avoid an indictment as oppose to letting the chips fall where they may. We need to pay attention to our cities and care who we elect. We need to make a big deal about voting in every election.

Another thing, we need for those brothers and sisters in Ferguson to join the police academy. We are able to police our own community and do it well. We need those brothers and sisters who are fed up with the treatment of African Americans in that county to do what is neccesary. Sometimes, we behave as if it is way more important to criticized, and loot, than to solve. We are not paying attention. If we pay attention, we will elect responsible people to city goverment, have way more people of good conscious in our police force and make a point of knowing that the people we elect are qualified to hold office. Pay Attention!

Yours Because I am His,
Leo Colon
pastor@ihpfwc.org
http://www.ihpfwc.org

December 2, 2014

Don’t Operate In Fear

This blog is really one of the takeaways from the message at In His Presence Family Worship Center on Sunday. Let’s consider the text, just for a few moments:

Matt. 14:26 When the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost!” they said, and cried out in fear.

One of the issues we found in our study of this text is that when Jesus walked on water toward these disciples, they were in the midst of a terrible ordeal, and their fear was actually legitimate. Remember, at least five of these original twelve disciples were fishermen. Meaning these were professionals with a boat, yet the simple instruction, “go to the other side of the lake” was a major problem. Now I did go into detail in the message and the podcast is posted (www.ihpfwc.org), so I won’t rehearse it here, but the real issue is that these men were frightened. They were scared for their lives, and it is in this construct that they saw Jesus.

What have we seen through fear, that was meant to deliver us, and caused us to run away from it. We often will fear, the very thing that can help us get where we’re going. Anytime we try to receive instruction from anyone, including God, we tend to get the message wrong because we look at it, hear it, from the position of fear. What should help us, we flee from because we operate in fear. Now, I do not want to leave any of you with the impression that we will never have reason to fear anything. Life is real and so are many of the problems, but don’t operate in fear. Fear should be a momentary emotion that you never make a decision from. Never commit to anything, while operating in fear. If you are in fear, stop, then listen. We should not even listen to our loved ones in fear. Jesus who is the very fabric of deliverance looked like a ghost, because they operated in fear. Before, Jesus gave them hope, he gave them instruction and the instruction was, “fear not”.

What could you do this week, if fear was not the focal point of your actions. What promotion could be yours, if you did not fear? What milestone could you achieve if you did not fear?
Determine, I will not operate in fear! Watch this week change for the better because you did not operate in fear. Take on the challenge of this week in boldness.

Yours Because I am His,
Leo Colon
pastor@ihpfwc.org
http://www.ihpfwc.org

November 24, 2014

Love God with Sincerity.

A while ago, in one of my devotions, I came across a truth that inspired me. The scripture reference is Eph 6:24.   Eph. 6:24 Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen.   Grace be with all them that love our LORD Jesus Christ in sincerity.

The word sincere was the focus of the authors of my devotions attention. He wrote this:

“A Roman artist named Titus was commissioned to carve a statue of the emperor. He did a good job, and at the unveiling everyone was amazed at the striking resemblance of the statue to the living emperor. Every feature was carved to perfection.
All went well as the statue was displayed in public until the summer sun began to bear down. Then suddenly the nose fell off. When the statue was inspected it was discovered that although the rest of it was carved out of marble, the nose was made of wax.
So Titus was banished from Rome in disgrace, and a law was passed decreeing that from then on all statues of the emperor were to be made without wax.
The Latin words for “without wax” are sine cera. From those words we have derived the English word sincere.”

”  Excerpt From: William L. Banks. “Daily Manna.” CLC Publications. iBooks.  This material may be protected by copyright.

A few observations:

The Apostle Paul is pronouncing Grace, (may God give you all the things you don’t deserve) but only to those who love Jesus in sincerity. Meaning you love Christ without wax. What that means is that my love for Christ needs to be that which can withstand heat. The heat of everyday life. The heat of depression, the heat of peer pressure, the heat of discouragement. I cannot be the kind of believer that only loves God when the weather is such that comfort is the assumed, but my love for God needs to go through some things and discover that my love is made from marble. There is no wax there.   I don’t want my love to fall off when trials come, when it gets hot, when trouble comes. I want to my love to withstand extremes. When its hot, it’s standing, when its cold it’s standing. If you don’t like it, it’s standing. My love for Christ needs to be one that is sincere. “Sine Cera”with out wax. How is your love for Christ?

Yours Because I am His,
Leo Colon
pastor@ihpfwc.org
http://www.ihpfwc.org.

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November 12, 2014

Oil for the Light

Today’s devotional, my Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening Devotional, was so powerful I just had to just copy and paste in it’s entirety. I pray that you are blessed by this. I promise you, I will be preaching one day soon, but sometimes, some things don’t need commentary. I was blessed. I hope you will be to.

August 28 (Morning)

“Oil for the light.” —Exodus 25:6

My soul, how much thou needest this, for thy lamp will not long continue to burn without it. Thy snuff will smoke and become an offence if light be gone, and gone it will be if oil be absent. Thou hast no oil well springing up in thy human nature, and therefore thou must go to them that sell and buy for thyself, or like the foolish virgins, thou wilt have to cry, “My lamp is gone out.” Even the consecrated lamps could not give light without oil; though they shone in the tabernacle they needed to be fed, though no rough winds blew upon them they required to be trimmed, and thy need is equally as great. Under the most happy circumstances thou canst not give light for another hour unless fresh oil of grace be given thee.
It was not every oil that might be used in the Lord’s service; neither the petroleum which exudes so plentifully from the earth, nor the produce of fishes, nor that extracted from nuts would be accepted; one oil only was selected, and that the best olive oil. Pretended grace from natural goodness, fancied grace from priestly hands, or imaginary grace from outward ceremonies will never serve the true saint of God; he knows that the Lord would not be pleased with rivers of such oil. He goes to the olive-press of Gethsemane, and draws his supplies from Him who was crushed therein. The oil of gospel grace is pure and free from lees and dregs, and hence the light which is fed thereon is clear and bright. Our churches are the Saviour’s golden candelabra, and if they are to be lights in this dark world, they must have much holy oil. Let us pray for ourselves, our ministers, and our churches, that they may never lack oil for the light. Truth, holiness, joy, knowledge, love, these are all beams of the sacred light, but we cannot give them forth unless in private we receive oil from God the Holy Ghost.

C. H. Spurgeon.

Yours Because I am His,
Leo Colon
pastor@ihpfwc.org
http://www.ihpfwc.org.

August 28, 2014

What would your last words be?

2 Samuel 23 Authorized (King James) Version (AKJV)
23 Now these be the last words of David.

David the son of Jesse said,
and the man who was raised up on high,
the anointed of the God of Jacob,
and the sweet psalmist of Israel, said,
2 The Spirit of the Lord spake by me,
and his word was in my tongue.
3 The God of Israel said,
the Rock of Israel spake to me,
He that ruleth over men must be just,
ruling in the fear of God.
4 And he shall be as the light of the morning,
when the sun riseth,
even a morning without clouds;
as the tender grass springing out of the earth
by clear shining after rain.

These were the last words of a King. My devotion today reminded me that David’s life as recorded in Holy Writ, was one of controversy and peppered with as many lows as high points. One might say he has lived a hard life, yet his triumph comes from the fact that his last words were to speak well of God. It is amazing to me, how many opportunities life gives us to be cynical, yet this King who has seen war and peace, life and death, love and betrayal can still speak of God in the superlative.

Have I made enough of an effort to remain positive? About God, Life, family, whatever the case. Have I made a point of seeing God through every situation so much so that my speech reflects the faithfulness and magnificence of God? Yes I have seen disappointment, but God is still good. Yes I have blown it sometimes but God is merciful. I have even pondered the meaning of life, what does it all mean, but Our God is a Wonder. Christ is amazing in his ability to rescue me from me. Honestly, I can’t tell how many times I thought I was done for, and if I was, I would have to admit that it was my own stupidity, my own doing.

Eph 2:4

But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us.

I want my last words to be a Hymn of Praise to our God. I want the last I say to be our God is Awesome and we could never deserve such a love.

Thank you Jesus for everything you have done, known and unknown. I will always be indebted to you for the love you have shown.

Your Servant, Your son.

Leo

August 20, 2014

Get Understanding. Get Clarity.

Beloved, Grace and Peace be unto you from God our Father and from the LORD Jesus Christ. Thank you for taking the time to visit our blog site.

Today I would like to revisit the blog posted a while ago. Proverbs 18 is a timely and relevant passage. Beloved, God demands that we be wise. He takes the time in the Old and New Testaments to encourage; some would say admonishes us to be wise. He also discourages foolishness. Let’s take a simple look at part of the text:

NRSV

Prov. 18:1 The one who lives alone is self-indulgent, showing contempt for all who have sound judgment.

Prov. 18:2 A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing personal opinion.

A person, who does not have to deal with people, may not be used to compromise. This text suggests that such a person is prone to self-indulgence. One of the meanings of indulgence is “to become involve with”. So the idea of self-indulgence suggests that the person who lives by themselves can become to involve with him or herself. Now we should not read into this text that paying attention to your self is in and of itself wrong. When we center right and wrong around the idea ‘what do I want,’ and refuse to consider the impact of our actions on others then our separation from others has taking its toll. The reason an idea sounds good is because we want to do a thing. When you live alone, there is no one externally available to offer an opposing idea. When this becomes the norm, sound judgment is just negativity. Sound judgment would offer a reason that does not begin and end under the rubric: what do I want, and because of that, I have a good reason to dismiss it. Now beloved, this is not scripture that speaks against anyone living alone. This text should not lead us to start a doctrine that says living alone is a sin. It should encourage us to always seek sound judgment, and not only your own counsel.

Prov. 18:2 A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing personal opinion.

We should constantly seek understanding. Get clarity in every part of your day. Know why you are doing a thing, and assess the virtue of a thing. What this journey into pragmatism has taught me is that I can use this approach in every part of my life. So many times, especially lately, since I am making a renewed effort to seek wisdom, I look back at some setbacks, both in my recent and distance past, and found that taking the time understand an issue better could have helped me avoid some mistakes. Beloved, mistakes cost. A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but you are no fool. Get clarity; plan your day, live on purpose. Suppose you took the time to plan your day. Set a goal. What would be a wise thing to accomplish? Set objectives that will help you achieve your goals. Because you set a goal, now you can determine whether today was a successful day. What does today mean to you? How can wisdom help make today a better today? Try it; write down what needs to get done. I need to schedule 5 meetings today. Write for my book today. I need to workout today. Then go after it. Do it on purpose and not by mistake.

Yours Because I am His,

Leo Colon

www.ihpfwc.org

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