A NEW BEGINNING
A NEW BEGINNING
Sunday, October 6, 2019, the Year of Our Lord
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
In preparation for the upcoming conference, A NEW BEGINNING – Allowing God To Revamp You, it is my custom to prepare and be focused on “the call” of the conference. I read Dr. Gloria Holden Scott’s book by the same name.
In the book, she shares the times the LORD “called her out,” the cost, the faith walk, and the reward of obedience.
Each one of us who have answered “the call” knows the sound of the Lord’s voice and the cost of taking nothing with us.
As we follow wholly after the LORD, there will be many times; we will hear that “call.”
I will be quoting excerpts from Dr. Gloria Holden Scott’s book as noted by (G.H.S.)
“A ‘New beginning” can be fun, scary, or somewhere in between. Some new beginnings are voluntary, or a new phase of life, like when we start our dream job, get married to relocate to the other side of the world. Other types of new beginnings are harder, because we have no control over them. It’s hard because someone or something else has initiated the change. The bottom has completely dropped out unexpectedly, and we are scrambling to a face a world that has changed overnight. You may be experiencing a tremendous void, a loss of disappointment in your life.” (G.H.S.)
The journey of life will continually bring change. We can either grow into blessing walking with the LORD through the change; or we can miss the blessing and choose our own way.
Job 28:7There is a path which no fowl knows, and which the vulture's eye has not seen:
Psa. 16:11You will show me the path of life: in your presence is fullness of joy; at your right hand there are pleasures for evermore.
When the Lord brings changes to our lives, it is because he knows the end from the beginning. When He called me to Pastor, He knew He was preparing a ministry for me in Katy, TX. I obeyed the “call” not considering where I would be in life as I approach 80.
In order to receive “A New Beginning,” we will have to leave behind the baggage of the past. All the negative feelings, toxic relationships, unforgiveness, failures, successes, disappointments, hopes and dreams will have to be left in the realm of life called “the past.”
Pro 2:9Then you shall understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yes, every good path.
Pro 4:18But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shines more and more unto the perfect day.
The Lord has chosen a glorious path for our life; but we cannot take the pain of the past into the present to walk into the light of the perfect day. We cannot rehearse the pain of past sorrows over and over as “our testimony.” Our Testimony is always the glorious path of the LORD that leads us unto the perfect day.
Psa. 119:35Make me to go in the path of your commandments; for therein do I delight.
Psa. 119:105 Your word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
As a pastor, it seems I continually preach and teach to encourage people to follow the path of life the LORD has chosen for them. The flesh more often than not chooses the path of their fleshly desires. There is the perfect will of God which will lead us on the “good path.” There is the permissive will of God that will allow us to go down the path of our choice as long as we do not sin against the LORD. In his permissive will, we miss His perfect will which leads us to the “perfect day.” Then there is the path of rebellion which knows the will of God and the way of God; but chooses their own will.
Each one of us knows the pain when we took a detour from the “good path,” and His grace brought us back into His path. However, the detour cost us and our loved ones a lot of pain.
“Listen to Job’s prayer of agony in his loss and disappointments:
Job 3:23Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden,
And whom God has hedged in?For my sighing comes before I eat,
And my groanings pour out like water. For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me, and what I dreaded has happened to me. I am not at ease, nor am I quiet; I have no rest, for trouble comes.”
Job did not realize at the time that God had thoughts of peace toward him an expected end, a New Beginning. Job’s thinking and attitude had to change. Job was second-guessing God.” (G.H.S.)
Is there any among us today who have second-guessed God? Is there any here today who took situations in your own hands to bring about the end that you want to happen because God was not moving within your set time schedule?
Proverbs 19:21: Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the LORD’S purposes that prevail.
“The old (our way) and the new (God’s way) is contradictory to one another and cannot coincide. We can’t decide to do it our way or keep what we want and still start fresh with a New Beginning.
If you have gotten tired of waiting for the manifestation of your promise, just as He did not forget His promise to Abram and Sarai, He will not forget His promises to you… God said ‘I have a New Beginning for you.’ God has not forgotten you.” (G.H.S.)
Isa. 43:16Thus says the LORD, who makes a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters; Which brings forth the chariot and horse, the army and the power; they shall lie down together, they shall not rise. They are extinct, they are quenched as tow. Do not remember the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.
“The grace of God has enabled me to walk the waters of life with Him and step out of the shadows of the past and accept each new beginning. Each time God chartered a new beginning for me, it required me to trust Him and His ability to grace me to work with Him in order to further His purposes in the Kingdom of God.” (G.H.S.)
Psa. 62: 1-2: I wait quietly before God, for my victory comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will never be shaken.
Moses was 80 years old when God gave him his commission to return to Egypt and deliver the Israelites out of bondage. God used 40 years to train Moses in the desert on how to lead and protect the sheep. Now he is ready for the reason he was born. It is a day of a New Beginning. Moses gave the LORD five excuses for why he was not the man for the job. Numbers 12:3: Moses was very meek, more than all men who were on the face of the earth.
For mankind on the earth today, meekness is a rare virtue.
“We are taught to be aggressive because we seem to think that without being aggressive, nothing will get done. That is why most people experience brokenness and weakness before they have a breakthrough and victory in any situation. Waiting on the Lord causes us to become humble and broken in His sight…There is a great move of God coming upon the earth, and it has already started. Christians must begin the lost grace of patiently waiting upon the Lord. If anyone were aware of how quickly God will move n one’s life, he or she would give Him ample time to prepare the good things that He desires to pour out into our lives.
An amazing thing happens when we wait upon the Lord. As believers meditate upon His Word and allow the Spirit of God to bring forth truth from their spirits into their understanding spiritually, they start to light up the spiritual atmosphere surrounding them. The atmosphere of Heaven is all around believers, and every Christian must have a spirit that is white hot with the Word of God and with Holy Ghost fire. Soon, everything the Lord has promised to every believer will come forth. It is time for every Christian to move and inherit the land the Lord has provided.” (Kevin L. Zadai – The Agenda of Angels)
Ps. 37:34: Wait on the Lord, and keep his way, and He shall exalt you to inherit the land.
If Christians choose to walk on the path with the Lord, they must choose to follow Him completely and obey Him when he calls. Christians must be truthful with God and with themselves. They must also be truthful with our fellow man in the coming days. God will give us the grace to be truthful.
Psa 84:11For the LORD God is a sun and shield;
The LORD will give grace and glory;
No goodthing will He withhold
From those who walk uprightly. (NKJV)
Psa. 84:11: For the Lord God is brighter than the brilliance of a sunrise! Wrapping himself around me like a shield, he is so generous with his gifts of grace and glory. Those who walk along his paths with integrity will never lack one thing they need, for he provides it all!
“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end. It is amazing how we hold-on to the ending of a thing, even when we know it was not good for us or that God is requiring us to let go and move on.
Sometimes it is fear of the unknown that keeps us bound to the old. Other times it is fear of losing relationships by displeasing someone. I am glad that doesn’t have a hold on me. I can just walk around or sit doing the sermon and someone thinks up some reason to be offended with me. Jus’ sayin’ I am not offended with anyone that I know about.
“We have to always be ready to drop the old and take nothing with us. Is the devil telling you its too late? Is he telling you you’re too old? Moses was commissioned by God, at the age of 80. It only takes a second for God to do what He wants to do and use who he wants to use. Each one of us as long as we have breathe should live with an expectation of the New Beginning God has for us.
Do not doubt Satan tries to mess with me daily. I have noticed I am not as patient and long suffering as I once was with foolishness, foolish speaking, foolish doing, and foolish acting out. I could be hard on myself for this. However, it may be the times require the correction of words of wisdom to bring our culture back into God’s order.
I still have the grace of taking nothing personal. I am still able to deal with foolishness clinically.
You may be weary in your journey and have conveniently parked in a comfort zone and you are resting---(it is tempting). God understand that, but that which we have desired from the LORD is upon us. A move of God has begun. As is always the case, the people in past moves of God fight the present move of God. Just as we are watching Satan fighting over our government, the government of Israel and all the governments of all the nations, he will fight the REAL CHURCH and will use all of his tactics to destroy a Move of God.
There are some of us old timers who have been trained under the Lord of the Angel Armies. We know the devils, we know the traps, and we know the tricks of the devil. Some of the younger ministers may fall into the traps and tricks. As we stay on the path of the Lord, we will come through victorious.
Psa 142:3When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then you knew my path. In the way wherein I walked have they secretly laid a snare for me.
“When God calls us, it is Brand New. To get us to accept the call, God will show us the end of a thing. He will not devastate us by showing us the persecution, deception, rejection. Set-backs, financial challenges, family struggles and close friends turning their backs and walking away from us.” (G.H.S.)
We must continually fight the good fight of faith, ever pressing onward and upward.
Christians must learn how to take what is in Heaven and implement it upon the earth. Believers need to learn how to do this without hesitation. The Spirit desires for every Christian to act as God would have him or her to act, without ever thinking about it. We should so have the mind of Christ that we respond naturally in every situation from the realm of the Spirit and not the realm of our flesh. When God speaks, I pray there will be no hesitation on my part. I pray I will know the will of God because I know God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
Carolyn Sissom, Pastor
Eastgate Ministries Church
Scripture from K.J.V. unless indicated.
I entered into the labors of Dr. Gloria Holden Scott, New Beginning – Take Nothing With You (as noted)--- in preparation for the upcoming conference by the same name. The Agenda of Angels by Kevin L. Zadai (as noted.) Comments and conclusions are my own and not meant to reflect the views of those who I entered into their labors.