Serani Concert a Disappointment at the NORVA
Review by Cree – WIT Staff Writer

Saturday May 7th in a Lion Heart promotion, the Skip to Ma Lu Tour came to theNORVA and then to Tri-Som for an after party.
With the embarrassingly small turn out, the “tour” should have just stopped by the miniscule capacity venue Tri-Som and then it possibly could’ve been considered a packed house.

This is also questionable.
Serani, who in 2008 landed a contract to record for JVC Entertainment performed his singles ” She loves me” and “No Games” following a less than exciting performance by Bugle and Ding Dong. Clearly this “tour” wasn’t quite ready for such a large venue as the NORVA unless accompanied by a larger act. After all, who said Serani was deserving of headlining a tour…does anyone know anything other than “its its its serani playing games…”
I did appreciate having the bar to myself and plenty of dancing room, and I have never seen the entire upstairs empty. I did enjoy the deejays opening music and his mothers day tribute of Beres Hammond and I did enjoy the company that was with me. I otherwise was bored and unimpressed which was unfortunate. So my apologies to you Vicky Hype (who was poised on stage the entire time with and a cake that was never cut) for a less than exciting Birthday Party in this conflicting themed show. I don’t think we ever sang “Happy Birthday” to you, possibly because most of the four hours there was spent buying time in hopes of a larger crowd which at one time Walker acknowledged.  I did walk out with a few teenagers who stated they enjoyed themselves but were confused over the nature of the show. Was it a concert? a birthday party? a mothers day tribute? No one seemed really certain but most were glad it was over and many exited prior to its demise.
Lion Heart, we love you but ask us at WESTINDIANTIMES and we will either help you promote or give you better advice on timing and showplace.

Better Luck next time!
One Love
CREE~

Members of the local church community have dismissed the prophecy put forward by an American religious group from Pennsylvania that Judgement Day is only 10 days away, and the Lord will return on May 21 followed by total destruction of the world by fire five months later on October 21.

“May 21, 2011 is the equivalent date to the date when God shut the door on Noah’s Ark, through this and much other Biblical information, we find that May 21 will be the day when God takes up into heaven his elect people. May 21 will be Judgment Day! This is the day God shuts the door of salvation on the world,” is an excerpt taken from the group’s website.

The group, eBible Fellowship, has been proclaiming God’s return worldwide on its website, ebiblefellowship.comand through advertisements including billboards, one of which can be found on Hagley Park Road in St Andrew.

At the same time, the website’s picture gallery displays that at least eight billboards have been posted islandwide all carrying the same message, Judgement Day – May 21, 2011, supported by selective verses taken from the Bible. The website states that according to their bibical calculations, the world as we know it will come to an end on the said date followed by worldwide destruction as the apocalypse will be upon us.

day of judgement

According to the group, “We know that the year 2011 is the 7,000th year from the flood. We also know that God will destroy this world in that year.” The group further explains that May 21 will be the Day of Judgement as it was on that date in 1988 AD that the church age came to an end.

“It so happens that the church age began on the day of Pentecost (May 22) in the year 33 AD. Then 1955, years later, the church age came to its conclusion on May 21, which was the day before Pentecost in 1988,” the group illustrates on their website. Additionally, the group adds that “the Bible teaches that the end of the church age would occur simultaneously with the beginning of the great tribulation.” They reason that on May 21, 1988, God finished using the churches and congregations of the world.

The Spirit of God left all churches and Satan, the man of sin, entered into the churches to rule at that point in time, the group claims.

The Bible, the group states, teaches us that this awful period of judgment upon the churches would last for 23 years. A full 23 years (8400 days exactly) would be from May 21, 1988 until May 21, 2011.

But despite the justifications given by the group to pinpoint Judgement Day, some local church members are not convinced.

Bishop Rowan Edwards, president of the Jamaica Full Gospel Assembly of Churches, emphasised that he was aware of the claim but described the prediction as untrue.

“It’s utter madness I tell you,” he explained to THE STAR.

“It’s a facade … The God that I serve sent his only begotten son and he says that no man knows the time nor the hour of his coming … the coming of the Lord is sure but nobody knows when,” he added.

Similarly, Reverend Jim Parkes of the Christ Church, in Vineyard Town maintained that he was not persuaded by the claim.

“I would be quite reluctant to accept any date given by anyone because that would not be consistent with Jesus’ words,” he told THE STAR.

Obedience to the Lord
As you will see repeated over and over in many of our articles, the absolute #1 key in being able to find exactly what your true divine destiny is going to be in the Lord is to be willing come into a full and complete surrender of your entire life with Him.
Once you are willing to commit to making a full and complete surrender of your body, your soul, your spirit and your entire life into the hands of God the Father, then God will take immediate control of your life and He will then start to lead you and your life into the specific direction that He will want it to go in.
He will perfectly lead you into what your true calling is going to be in Him. He will lead you to the person that He will want you to marry if it is His perfect will that you get married in this life. He will supernaturally open up doors for you so that you can advance from one level of service to the next level of service.
And not only will God be perfectly guiding you every step of the way as you advance up your own personal ladder of success in Him, but He will also be divinely protecting you along the way so that you can make it into each of these levels of service in one piece. And as long as you are willing to stay in this full surrender with Him, He will take you all the way to your own personal finish line, which will be the end of your life, so that you can fully complete all of your divine assignments and missions for Him in this life.
All of this is fully explained to you in our article “The Full Surrender” in the Bible Basics section of our site. In that article, we give you all of the appropriate verses from Scripture that will show you that this is what God is really wanting from each one of us and exactly how to enter into this full surrender with the Lord if you have never done this before.
The Bible tells us that God will actually guide our steps in this life through the Holy Spirit. It is now the job of each Christian to be fully led by the Holy Spirit in this life. What this means is that we are no longer in control of our life. God will now be the Captain of our ship and the Commander-in-Chief in our lives. God will now be the One to run the entire show of our lives.
We are no longer even our own, as Jesus Himself has now bought us back at the price of His death on the cross. We now belong to God and Jesus and no one else in this life – including ourselves.
However, as perfect and rosy as this scenario appears to be, there is just one small little problem with all of this. This one small little problem is our flesh and our ego. Our flesh will not want to take orders from anyone, including the God Himself. Our flesh and ego will still want to try and run our own lives, decide what jobs and vocations we will strive after in this life, decide who we will marry, and choose who our friends will be in this life.
We want to be in total and complete control of our lives, and we want to sink or swim all on our own efforts so that we can have all of the glory and fame for ourselves if all of our efforts turn out to be successful.
Though we know God is all-powerful and all-perfect and that He knows much better than we do what we should really be doing with our lives, there still seems to be something inside of most of us that still wants to try and do all of this on our own, operating out of our own strength, wisdom and intelligence.
As I stated in my article on the full surrender, you will end up laboring in vain if you try and build the house of your life operating all on your own efforts and wisdom. The Bible tells us that the Lord has to be the One to build the house of our lives. Anything that we build, earn, achieve or accomplish operating out of own flesh in this life will in no way be as highly rewarded once we enter into heaven as the works that are done operating in God’s perfect will and plan for our lives.
What this means is that each and every Christian has to make one, big, whopper personal decision in this life – and that one decision is who is going to run your life from here on in – you or God?
This is an all-or-nothing decision. Either you are going to let God have full, complete and total control of every aspect of your life or you are not. You cannot straddle the fence post with either yourself or the Lord on this decision. If you do, you will end up paralyzing yourself and you will never accomplish anything of any real worth in this lifetime.
If you decide that you do want to make this full and complete surrender with the Lord and let Him guide your steps in this life into His perfect plan and destiny for your life – you will now have to make one more big decision. You will now have to make sure that you will be willing to be perfectly obedient to the Lord with whatever He will be asking you to do for Him in this life.
It is one thing to be able to start out making this full surrender with the Lord – but it is going to be quite another thing to be able to stay in perfect obedience to the Lord as you proceed along in your life’s journey with Him. There will come times when God will tell you to do one thing and you will want to do another thing. At times, it may literally become a battle of wills – your will against God’s will over certain issues or certain situations that will occur in your life.
Bottom line – you will simply have to make an all-or-nothing decision that you will be perfectly obedient to the Lord to your last dying breath. Once you enter into this full-surrendered walk with the Lord, you will always have to agree to do things His way.
It’s either God’s way or the highway. There are no middle grounds or neutral areas in this part of our walk with the Lord. Jesus is the Shepherd, we are the sheep. He leads, we follow. It is the job of the sheep to always follow and obey the Shepherd.
Though God will sometimes be willing to consider your personal arguments and contentions over certain issues or matters in your life – what you will have to really ground on is that God will always be knowing what is going to be best for each situation that you will be personally encountering in this life. As a result, you are going to have to be willing to accept whatever God’s final decisions are going to be on certain issues in your life.
And this is where it can get really tough and trying. Though you know God will always know what is going to be best for each major decision that you will have to make in this life – your flesh will still try to act up and try to get its own way, especially if it is something that you are really wanting.
I simply cannot stress enough the importance that you fully realize that your personal obedience to the Lord in this life will be the major, deciding factor as to whether or not you fully accomplish all of your divine destiny for Him.
You will never complete and fulfill your divine destiny, receive the blessings that God would have had in store for you in this life, find your true soul mate, and find what you were really created to be in this life unless you are willing to perfectly obey all of God’s specific instructions and directions on how to actually get you there.
If God is going to be willing to enter you into His perfect plan and destiny for your life, be willing to perfectly guide you every step of the way so that you can reach and fulfill that divine destiny, and be willing to anoint you with His power, grace and ability so that you can be very good and very successful at whatever He will be calling you to do for Him – but you are not going to be willing to obey all of His specific commands, directions, and instructions on how to actually get there – then you will never make it out of the dugout, much less ever make it to the top of your own personal mountain in the Lord.
In other words, you will spend your whole life in the dugout watching all of God’s perfect plan and destiny for your life pass you by and once it passes you by, it will be gone for all of eternity. You will never get another chance to get it all back again. You will never be able to turn back the hands of time and try and start all over again once your divine destiny in the Lord has fully passed you by in this life.
You only have one shot, one window, and one opportunity to fulfill your divine destiny in the Lord. And the only two things that will enable you to fulfill your true divine destiny in the Lord is you being willing to enter into this full surrender with Him – and then you being willing to be perfectly obedient to the Lord with whatever instructions, commands, or directions that He will be giving you along the way through His Holy Spirit.
It really is that simple, but yet so many Christians completely miss out on what their true callings and divine destinies would have been in this life – all because they did not want to be perfectly obedient to the Lord with what He was calling and asking them to do for Him in this life.
Two of the most glaring examples of this obedience factor coming into major play in the Bible has to be the story of Abraham and Moses.
God first tested Abraham’s obedience. He asked Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac on an altar. God obviously had no real intentions on having Abraham literally kill his son. All God wanted to see was if Abraham would really obey His specific command. And once Abraham showed God that he would perfectly obey this order and would be willing to go all the way through with it – God commanded him to stop and then pronounced one of the most incredible blessings and rewards that would ever befall anyone in the Old Testament.
He told Abraham that from his seed all the nations of the world would be blessed and that from his bloodline His Son Jesus would be born into this world. Abraham thus started the generational blood line that would eventually lead up to Jesus being born into this world through the virgin Mary. And all of this incredible domino action started as a result of Abraham being perfectly obedient to the Lord on that one special order. Abraham was thus highly rewarded because of his perfect obedience to God the Father.
However Moses managed to do just the opposite. Per our two articles that we have on Moses in the Bible Stories section of our site, Moses was not allowed to go into the Promised Land because he directly disobeyed a specific command given to him by the Lord. What happened in this incident is that God told Moses to speak out to a rock in the presence of the Israelites and that the rock would then bring forth water for the people and their animals.
However, for some strange reason, Moses strikes the rock twice with his rod instead of just speaking out to the rock as God had specifically told him to do. He was thus in direct violation of a direct command by the Lord. The Bible really does not say why Moses did this. He obviously should have known better.
Though Moses ended being one of the greatest men in all of the Bible with everything that He had accomplished in the Lord, his story ends on a rather sad and tragic note – all because he did not perfectly obey God the Father on this one specific command.
These two men’s dramatic stories in the Lord should be a major lesson to each and everyone of us on the extreme importance that we get it through our sometimes thick skulls that we have to walk this walk in perfect obedience to the Lord. If we do not, the results could end up being very sad, if not possibly tragic and fatal.
THE SCRIPTURE VERSES

Here are 9 powerful verses from the Bible all having the word “obey” or some form of that word in each one of them. As you will see in reading each one of these powerful verses, God is not mincing any words.
You can tell by the tone and the straight forward language being used by the Lord that He is letting all of us know, loud and clear, that He is the One who has to call all of the shots in our lives – and it is up to each and everyone one of us to perfectly obey Him every step of the way as we journey through this life.
Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said: “We ought to obey God rather than men.” (Acts 5:29)

“… I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live, that you may love the Lord your God, that you may OBEY HIS VOICE, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days …” (Deuteronomy 30:19)

“If they obey and serve Him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures.” (Job 36:11)

“And the word of God spread, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith.” (Acts 6:7)

“You ran well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?” (Galatians 5:7)

“And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him …” ( Hebrews 5:9 )

“But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered.” (Romans 6:17)

“Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart …” (1 Peter 1:22)

“Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He also has rejected you from being king.” Then Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.” (1 Samuel 15:22-24)
The first verse has a major key phrase that should be memorized by all Christians. Peter says that we should “obey God rather than men.”
This powerful command really has major relevance in this day and age, especially with our young children who are constantly having to battle the temptation to follow after other people who are not living their life the way God would like them to live it.
Every minute of every day someone is getting burned, hurt or possibly killed as a result of following after the wrong people or the wrong crowd. What they are doing is “obeying” and “following” after other people in this life rather than obeying and following directly after the Lord
The second verse above is one of the strongest verses in all of the Bible on how God has the big picture all set up. Either we choose to fully “obey” God’s voice and follow directly after Him and all of His ways for our life and receive His “life” and “blessings” for our life – or we can choose to follow other people or the ways of this corrupt world and then end up bringing down “death” and “cursing” upon us and our families.
Again, there are no middle grounds or neutral areas with the way this verse is being specifically worded.
Also notice that these verses are telling us that in addition to obeying the Lord direct, that we have to obey His “truth” and His “doctrine” – which means that we have to obey all of the direct words and truth of the Bible, since all of the Bible comes to us direct from God the Father through the Holy Spirit and is thus perfectly inspired, infallible, and inerrant.
The last verse is talking about King Saul and how he got into major trouble with the Lord because he was not being obedient to the Lord with some of the decisions he made in his life. Notice that Saul actually tells Samuel that he directly transgressed and sinned against the Lord as result of obeying the people’s voice instead of directly obeying God’s voice. He apparently obeyed the people rather than God because he “feared the people.”
How many Christians are following after the wrong people or the wrong crowd in this life because they are fearing what other people may think about them if they do not do what everyone else is doing?
The fear of man seduces and entraps many people, including many Christians, and as a result, many lives are totally ruined if not cut completely short with an early death as a result of the consequences of following after the wrong people in this life. Christians, as well as unbelievers, are sheep being led right into some of these slaughterhouses because they are following after the wrong shepherds in this life.
Bottom line – the Lord is our Shepherd and we as His sheep are to follow directly after Him in this life – not the world or any of the other people in this world.
The last verse really sums up the extreme importance of being perfectly obedient to the Lord to the best of our abilities when God is telling us that “rebellion” is as the sin of “witchcraft” and “stubbornness” is the same thing as “iniquity” and “idolatry.”
In other words, every time you directly disobey the Lord, you are committing a direct sin against Him, you are committing idolatry before Him since you are placing your wants and your desires over Him and what He wants to do with your life, and you are no better off than a witch or a warlock if you seek to follow after your own way or the ways of this world rather than the Lord Himself and His ways for your life.
These extremely harsh and strong words being spoken by the Lord through the prophet Samuel to King Saul really apply to each and everyone of us if we try and buck the Lord and directly disobey Him like Saul managed to do so many times.
Again, there can only be one true captain of your ship, one true commander-in-chief, and one true shepherd in your life. You can either choose to make yourself the captain of your ship, some of the other people in your life, or God Almighty Himself.
All of the above verses are as clear as day as to who should be the Captain of your ship and the Shepherd of your soul – and that one Person is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and His heavenly Father, who will then lead us in this life through His Holy Spirit.
SPECIFIC AREAS OF OBEDIENCE WITH THE LORD

As I said at the top of this article, even though this appears at first glance to be a very easy principle to abide by with the Lord, there are times that it will really be tough to do, especially with our flesh and spirits constantly warring against one another.
Here are several specific areas that you could find yourself engaging in a major tug of war on with the Lord.
1. Your Divine Call in the Lord

Either one of two things will happen in this first area. Either you will be in full and complete agreement with the Lord with what He will be calling you to do for Him in this life, or you will have initial problems with the call, and you will then start to try and wrestle with the Lord over the specific call.
Here are several examples of where you could possibly find yourself in a major wrestling match with the Lord:
a) Perhaps God has given you an incredible singing voice. Your initial desire is to want to become a famous pop singing star. However, in God’s perfect plan and destiny for your life, your singing talent is only going to be secondary to what His main purpose is going to be for you. He may be calling you to be a pastor of a large church and your singing talent will only be used as secondary gift next to your primary gift of being a great pastor to a large church.
What this means is that you will have to be willing to give up a major career in Hollywood in order to step into God’s true calling on your life. And for some, this will be very hard to do because the flesh will want all of the glory and fame of becoming that famous pop singing star.
b) Perhaps God is calling you to be a stay-at-home home for the first 20 years of your marriage – but then you are also given an incredible opportunity to work yourself up in the higher levels of management at the company you used to work for.

The temptation of all of that extra money, power and possible fame will be very tempting. But God’s perfect will for the first 20 years of your marriage is that you be the best stay-at-home mom that you can be for your children.
As tempting as this golden opportunity may at first appear to you, you will have to rely on God’s final decision on this and if He tells you that He wants you to be a stay-at-home with your children, then you will have to go with His final decision on the matter.
Remember – you will be rewarded up in heaven for the works that you will do directly for God operating under His perfect will for your life – not for the works that you will choose to do for yourself operating out of your own will for your life.
c) For some others, God may call them to become doctors, attorneys, missionaries, evangelists, policeman, or business executives. But they may want to be something else entirely different. They may want to become musicians, politicians or high school or college teachers.
Bottom line – God has a specific plan for your life and a specific direction that He will want to take your life in. Once you find out exactly what God wants to do with your life and the direction that He will want to take it in – you can either choose to come into full agreement with His perfect plan for your life, or you can choose to walk out on Him and make your own decisions as to what jobs and vocations you will be seeking after in this life.
As all of the above Scripture verses are telling us, we have to obey God in this life rather than ourselves or the other people in our lives. And the very first order of business with the Lord is that we perfectly obey the call and the direction that He will want to take our lives in. If we do, then we will be led on the path of our true, divine destiny in Him and will thus be highly rewarded once we enter into heaven after we have completed and fulfilled that divine destiny for Him.
2. Who You Will Marry in This Life

The next major order of business after making sure that you will perfectly obey the call that God will want to place on your life – is to make sure that you let God choose who you will be marrying in this life if it is in His perfect will that you get married in this life.
I literally cannot even begin to count the number of Christian men and women I have met in my life who have never asked God who they should be marrying in this life. As a result, many of them have either gone through multiple divorces or they are now living in lifeless, dead, and miserable marriages.
Many people, when they are still dating at a young age, may fall madly in love with their current steady boyfriend or girlfriend. They think this person has to be their true soul mate. But then when they go to God to ask His opinion as to whether or not they should be marrying this person – and then God comes back and tells them that they have the wrong person – they end up in major wrestling matches with the Lord because they do not want to wait any longer and they are so sure that they have found the right person.
Not fully realizing that God can perfectly see into their futures and that He can see who is going to change for the better and who is going to change for the worse over time, they decide to make their own decision and completely ignore what God is trying to tell them to do.
They then end up marrying that wrong person and further on down the road they end up going through very painful, messy and traumatic divorces, not to mention the possibility of becoming the victims of verbal, physical or sexual abuse from someone who may have become completely psychotic over the years.
Only God knows who would be best suited for you. Only God knows who will change for the better or who will change for the worse over the years of your marriage. Only God knows who will stay true, loyal and faithful to you. And only God knows where this person is located and exactly how to lead you to meet this person. And the only way to be able to get God to match you up with the man or woman of your dreams is to perfectly obey Him every step of the way as He leads you on your journey to eventually meet this person at the prescribed time that He has it set up to occur and manifest in your life.
But if you disobey God and marry someone that He does not want you to marry, then you will never meet the true soul mate of His choice for your life and you will either end up living in a second or third best marriage if even that, or you will end up going through multiple partners trying to find that right person for you.
Obey God every step of the way in your personal walk with Him, and He will then eventually lead you to the mate of His choice for your life if it is in His perfect will that you get married in this life.
This means that if God tells you to stay away from a certain person or to sever the dating relationship that you may already have with someone, then you have to do exactly what He is telling you to do – no matter how good looking or how pretty that person may appear to you, and no matter how much you are in love with that person.
Bottom line – Father always knows best! Let God be the One to make these big decisions for your life.
3. Choosing Who Your Friends Will Be in This Life

Another major area where you can really get into some major wrestling matches with the Lord is in the area of choosing who your personal friends are going to be in this life. Per the article we have titled “Choose Your Friends Carefully” in the Bible Basics section of our site – this is one major area that you really have to be led by the Lord on as you could get yourself into serious trouble if you choose to hang out and associate with the wrong type of people or the wrong crowd.
In this article, I give you all of the appropriate verses from Scripture showing us that we have to choose our friends very carefully in this life and that if we do not, bad and negative type friends can corrupt us and completely sever our personal walk and divine destiny that we will have with the Lord.
Many Christians never enter on the road of their divine destiny in the Lord because they could never give up some of their negative friends. As a result, their negative friends keep them bound up in their lower way of living in this life and they never break free from the chains of their dysfunctional, destructive influence.
If God is telling you that He wants some of your negative friends pruned out of your life – then you will have to go with His orders or you could possibly end up keeping yourself in the dugout for the rest of your earthly life, never accomplishing God’s perfect will and plan for your life.
Due to the very important influences that friends will have in our lives, we have to let God run this part of our life and let Him make the calls and the decisions as to who will become our good, personal friends in this life. Again, God knows much better than we do who we should be hooking up with in this life and who we should be staying away from since His knowledge and wisdom on all matters is absolutely perfect and ours is not.
4. Giving Up Different Vices and Addictions

Once you enter into a true, full surrender with the Lord where He is now going to fully guide you into your divine destiny for Him, one of the first things He is going to do is to make an attempt to clean up any bad vices and addictions you may have in your life.
We all have certain weaknesses and character flaws in our personalities due to the sin nature that we have all been born into this world with, but there are certain things that there will be no slack on with the Lord. Two specific things that He will definitely come after are the abuse of alcohol and any type of drug use – including pot!
Once you step out into God’s perfect plan and destiny for your life, you cannot give demons any kind of legal right to be able to start coming after you. And two of the biggest legal rights you can give demons is the abuse of alcohol and doing any type of drugs. Drugs especially are major door openers to the dark side since they directly affect your mind and mental abilities.
The mind is the battlefield between God and the devil – and anything that you do to your mind to weaken its ability to properly function will cause demons to come after you. I have met numerous Christians who tried to make a full surrender with the Lord, but they were not willing to give up their pot smoking. In each one of these cases God came after them with a very heavy hand and He made it known very quickly and in no uncertain terms that they would not even get out of the dugout unless they were willing to totally and completely give up their pot smoking.
Some people think that since pot is the lesser evil of all of the bad drugs that are out there, that maybe God will cut them some slack on it. But I can tell you from first-hand experience as a result of working with newborns that there is no slack with the Lord on this issue and if you continue to try and buck Him on this issue, then sooner or later He will come after you with a very heavy hand. He will only give you a certain amount of time to see the errors of your way on this issue, and if you are not willing to give it up, then you will be benched in His dugout – or should I say the doghouse!
The same thing goes for the abuse of alcohol. I believe that there is some slack with those who can drink in proper moderation and do not abuse alcohol, but once you step past that slack line and start to abuse it, you will enter into major two-by-four territory with the Lord. If you cannot control your use of alcohol, then sooner or later the alcohol will start to control you and when it does, you will not be able to properly function in your call with the Lord. That is why God will try and nip this abuse very early on in your walk with Him once you enter into this full surrender with Him.
What this means is that you will have to make a decision on the areas that God will want to get properly cleaned up. You can either choose to obey the Lord and work with the power of the Holy Spirit to break these bad vices and addictions off of you – or you can choose to directly disobey the Lord and keep doing things your way.
If you choose to keep disobeying the Lord on these kinds of issues, then you will get benched and your divine walk with Him will get completely shut down until you can agree to see and do things His way. There will be no negotiating or trying to compromise your way out of some of these heavier sin areas with the Lord. Many Christians never enter into their true, divine destines with the Lord, much less ever fully fulfill them, because they would not be obedient to the Lord with some of the areas that He was wanting to get cleaned up.
If you are really serious about entering into a true, full surrender with the Lord so that He can guide you into His perfect plan and destiny for your life – be very sensitive to the Holy Spirit with anything that He will want to bring up that will need to be taken out of your life. Obey the Lord in this area of your sanctification with Him, and He will then cut you free to fly into His perfect plan for your life. Choose to disobey and ignore God’s direct orders – and you will stay stuck and grounded right where you are at until you can agree to do things His way.
5. Being Willing to Forgive Others Who Have Wronged You

Another area in your sanctification with the Lord that He will make a very strong attempt to get cleaned up to some type of reasonable degree is in the area of being willing to fully forgive all of the people in your past who have hurt or trespassed against you in some way.
With all of the dysfunctional abuse that has gone on and keeps going on in many marriages and families throughout the world, many people have been seriously hurt and wounded, and in many cases, quite severely. Physical and sexual abuse is rampant across this world and the victims are left with trying to get their lives back in order once they have broken free from their abusers, if they ever do.
Once God has broken you free from any abusive situation you may have been caught in, one of the first things He is going to ask you to do is to try and fully forgive all of the people who have ever abused you, no matter how bad or how severe that abuse may have been.
In the Psychological Issues section of our site, we have an article titled “How to Handle Negative Feelings When Wronged By Someone Else.” In this article we give you some insight into how to deal with this kind of problem and all of the Scripture verses to back it up.
Bottom line – God will ask you, sooner or later, to make an attempt to forgive all of those who have ever hurt and trespassed against you. The reason for this is contained in the following verse:
“AND WHENEVER YOU STAND PRAYING, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that you Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.” (Mark 11:25)
Notice two very important things in this verse. First, God will not forgive you of your sins unless you are first willing to forgive all of those who have trespassed against you. Second, God may not even be willing to hear any of your prayers until you are willing to do so since this verse is specifically starting out with the words “And whenever you stand praying.”
If you cannot get any of your personal sins properly forgiven with the Lord or get any of your personal prayers answered with Him, then you will never make it out the dugout since your prayer life is the lifeblood of your engine with the Lord. This is why the Lord will make a very strong attempt to have you fully forgive all of the people who have ever wronged you in this life.
Obey the Lord on this issue, and through the power of the Holy Spirit operating on the inside of you, He will give you the supernatural power and ability to be able to forgive all of these people – no matter how bad they may have hurt you – whether it be from verbal, physical or any type of sexual abuse.
6. Waiting For God’s Timing

Another major area where you can really get yourself into trouble with the Lord is in the area of properly waiting on God’s timing to bring something your way.
One of the first rules of a true, surrendered walk with the Lord is that not only will God be guiding your steps in this life – but He will also be guiding them according to the timetable that He has set up to make these chess moves in your life.
For instance, if God has it set up that He will want you to marry in this life – then not only will God lead you to the person that He will want you to marry, but He will lead you to this person at the exact prescribed time that He has it set up to occur on His timetable – not your personal timetable! And not only does God have the exact date and time set up for you to meet this person, but He also has the rest of your earthly divine destiny set up on this same timetable.
In other words, everything that will be occurring and manifesting in your walk and life with the Lord will be manifesting at the exact time that God has it set up to manifest – not one minute sooner and not one minute later!
What this means is that you are going to have to be willing to fully obey the Lord on these timing issues and not try to buck Him or get ahead of the game and try to force things to happen before they are ready to happen on His set timetable. If you ever get out of and off of God’s timetable to any serious degree, you could seriously jeopardize the rest of your divine destiny with Him.
Marrying the wrong person because you got impatient and could not wait for God’s timing to bring you His choice for your life could cause you to lose valuable years on the mountain you are attempting to climb for Him as a result of having to deal with either living in a bad marriage, or having to deal with a messy, painful and expensive divorce.
Taking the next new wrong job because you could not wait for God to promote you into the next new job that He has set up for you to take could cause you to get completely knocked off the course that He has set up for you to follow.
In the very fast-paced world in which we now live in, your flesh will really try to act up and try to force things to happen before they are ready to happen with the Lord. This is where you are going to have to really exert self-control and override any frustrations or impatience you may be experiencing.
What I have found from personal experience with the Lord is that He has a much slower time frame to work things out than we do. And unless you learn how to adjust to the slower way that God has in working things out and making things happen in your life, you could easily get yourself knocked right out of your call in Him if you try to do something before it has been set up to properly occur in your life.
Some of the chess moves God will be making in your life will be coming through on very short windows of opportunity. What this means is that you have to wait for that window to open up before you attempt to go through it – but once it does, you also have to make sure that you barrel though that window when it does open, as it will not stay open forever.
Your life is thus like a chessboard to the Lord. This is why you have to be guided by the Holy Spirit as to not only what moves to make on that chessboard, but exactly when to make those chess moves. Since only God’s knowledge is absolutely perfect on all matters, then only God Himself will know exactly what chess moves you will have to make and exactly when those chess moves will have to be made.
Try to make any of these chess moves yourself without consulting God first, especially on the bigger actions and decisions, and you could either end up having valuable years lost in building the house of your life in the Lord, or the house you are attempting to build could come completely crashing down on you – all as a result of not being willing to be fully guided by the Holy Spirit as to exactly what chess moves to make and exactly when to make those chess moves.
Life is a battlefield – and God as your Commander-in-Chief is the only One who can safely guide you through all of the land mines that are out there, and safely guide you to the finish line of your life with all of your divine assignments and tasks fully completed for Him.
7. Obeying All of God’s Ways and Commandments

In the Bible are listed all the ways and commandments of our Lord. God lays out exactly what we can and cannot do in this life. It is then up to each and everyone of us as to whether or not we will choose to obey all of God’s ways and commandments for our lives.
When God says we are to obey all 10 of His commandments, that we are not to engage with anything having to do with the occult or homosexuality, and that we are not to take vengeance on our enemies, then it is up to us to obey all of these specific commands and not tempt our hand or our fate with the Lord with what He is wanting to do with our lives.
How many anointed vessels have lost their calls, their anointings, and possibly their lives as a result of directly disobeying the Lord in some of these forbidden areas? These ways and commandments of our Lord are all for our own good and for our own protection. But yet so many of His own have completely lost all of their calls in Him and have failed to fulfill all of their divine destinies because they had treaded into some of these dangerous and forbidden areas.
This is why it is so vital and so important that each Christian spend as much time as they can in studying and reading from the Word so they will know exactly where their boundary lines are set at with the Lord and exactly what they can and cannot do in this life. The Bible tells us that God’s people will perish for having lack of knowledge, and that knowledge can only be received by reading directly from the Bible. There is no other book that will give us this direct knowledge.
The Bible says that the wages of sin will always be some kind of death – and unless you are willing to fully obey the Lord by staying out of and away from some of these forbidden areas, you could have your walk or possibly your life cut completely short as a result of the consequences that could occur from entering into some of these different sin areas.
Bottom line – God expects all of us to obey and keep all of His commandments as best we can. And when we do find ourselves falling short – we have the power of the Holy Spirit Himself literally residing on the inside of us to help us combat and overcome any temptation to fall into some of these sin areas, or to help pull us out of any of these sin areas if we have already fallen into it.
CONCLUSION

All of the above areas are just some of the areas that you could find yourself having a hard time in being able to fully obey the Lord. There obviously are many others, but the point to get is that you simply have to make a choice as to whether or not you will fully obey all of the Lord’s directives for your life.
There can only be one Boss, one Shepherd, one Commander-in-Chief in your life – and that one Person has to be God the Father. Jesus has already told us that you cannot serve two masters in this life. There can only be one Master in your life and that Master has to be your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Choose to fully surrender your entire life over to the Lord, be willing to be guided by His Holy Spirit on a daily basis as to what chess moves to make and exactly when to make those chess moves – and then make sure that you are willing to fully obey every order, every directive, and every piece of advice and counsel that you will receive from the Lord.
If you do, then you will enter into your true, divine destiny in the Lord, fully complete and fulfill that divine destiny, and then be appropriately and highly rewarded by the Lord once you enter into heaven – as He will be specifically rewarding you up in heaven according to the good and fruitful works that you did for Him while living down here on this earth.
Do and accomplish all of that – and you will then carry an eternal satisfaction, an eternal sense of fulfillment, and an eternal sense of peace into the next life that you did not waste or squander your one and only chance to become all that God was asking you to become in Him – and to accomplish all that He was asking you to accomplish for Him in this life.
In other words, you will be able to leave and depart from this life with absolutely no regrets. And that in itself will be your ultimate and highest reward.

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