Last night, I had the honor of speaking at my church home Shiloh Apostolic Church for evening service on Brotherhood Sunday. I didn’t get to record the audio or video, but I felt like it’d be cool to post a portion of the message and what I wrote in preparing for the message. I hope you enjoy it or find something you can use from it. As I’ve said before, I might be a rapper, but I’m more than just that.  So after the break, you’ll find the text transcript of my message entitled “Do You Believe” as well as the song where I got the inspiration partly from. PEACE!

Do You Believe?

In the past, id lived a life of sin. Like so many, I followed the things the world presented to me as if they were my purpose and my point of being. I’d lost sight of living right. I mean living right as in doing what’s right. At a young age, we’re all taught what is right and wrong. We know that stealing is wrong. We know that hurting other people is wrong. We learn that cheating is wrong. Somewhere along the way, I just started ignoring all those things. Or maybe, I just flipped everything around.

I was actively doing what was wrong. I was stealing. I was hurting others, fighting, embarrassing others. I was cheating in every sense a person could think of. I had found ways to do wrong and feel like it was the right thing to do. In no uncertain terms, I was the heathen that the Bible sternly warns us about.

Now, that is about as close to giving the Devil any glory that I will get. And for the duration, know that whatever power the enemy THOUGHT he had…the power of my God is infinitely greater. DO YOU BELIEVE?

In Ezekiel, God presents the fact that the people will be removed from the sin and iniquity that has consumed their being. As he says “Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.” Someone might say that sounds like baptism. Yes that’s what it is. And God says “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.” And I distinctly remember the writer in Hebrews warning the church not to harden their hearts as in the day of provocation. Finally God says unto them “And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.” And I’m reminded of what Paul wrote to the Ephesians saying “And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” Now my question is to you, Do YOU BELIEVE?

The power of God is undefined, infinite, without measure, without match. We serve an awesome God. What kind of power could take that which is ruined, destroyed, filthy, unclean, sinful, unrighteous and make something of majesty, of righteousness and clean and glorified existence?

“And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become fenced, and are inhabited.”

Many of us have found ourselves to be the desolate and ruined cities. We had allowed ourselves to become the waste, the unusable, the trash to be thrown out on Mondays and Thursdays. BUT GOD. Could take that which is called waste, desolate, unclean and make it a sight to behold. IN HIS Glory. No man, by his own power, No person by his own words, No child by his own thought, could make the worthless into valuable. To some that might be confusing, but to answer, I ask the question, Do You Believe?

By faith in Him and through Him, can we begin to approach righteousness. By BELIEVING in his Word, can we begin to grow stronger and closer to righteousness. I don’t know about you but if I BELIEVE in something that I have faith in, my works show themselves to be true to that faith and that belief. So I ask you, DO YOU BELIEVE?

James said “Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.” So if we believe and we have faith we must do as we have been shown to do by the Word of God. These blessings are not given to us just because we thought we needed it, or because my clothes are nice or my car is clean or my wife is pretty. It is through being obedient to the Word, submitting ourselves to the Word of God and diligently seeking His approval and acceptance that we are blessed. Do You Believe?

And not only has he brought us out from where we once wallowed, destined for damnation. Well I don’t know about anyone else, but he brought me from a long way. From where I should have been dead more than once, where I should no longer be breathing, no longer free, no longer happy, no longer able to love. From a slave to the world, an instrument of unrighteousness, to a servant of the Lord, an instrument of righteousness.  Who else could bring you out from amongst the heathens and darkness, and have you shine brightly upon those very same people, to show them the light. He said “Then the heathen that are left round about you shall know that I the LORD build the ruined places, and plant that that was desolate: I the LORD have spoken it, and I will do it.” Do You Believe?