Keys To Everyday Life by Douglas Stutts - HTML preview

“TO BE HONEST”

I was in the house one day looking over some notes and I had my cup of coffee, a knock came on the door, at first I was skeptical about answering because of all the crazy people here in Houston... I looked out the peep hole and I see a Jehovah witness. So I tip toe back to the couch to pretend I wasn't home. Don’t condemn me, you would do the same!

As I began to think about it, it came to me, We do this to God all the time, we hear God knocking and all he wants us to do is open the door and invite him in
(Revelation 3:20)”Behold, I STAND AT THE DOOR, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me."

When we go through something in life and have a falling out with God we think that he is mad at us and holding huge hammer over us just waiting to slam us. That isn’t the case at all, he is there wishing you would come to him with open arms.

There are times we just need to speak to him that is what he wants. I have seen the behind the scenes of a great minister who had a falling out and for twelve or thirteen years. When it was all said and done he found himself on his knees before the throne weeping and pleading and today he is back into ministry full time and licensed.

So you see when we fall he is always there to catch you. The bible says that we have an advocate with the father, I thank God for grace, I know, most of us if asked, never sin and are little angels. I’m here to tell you without grace and mercy I would be lost and undone. Before I really knew God loved me I was about sixteen years old, I would go and party all night then come home and make a pot of coffee, turn the television on and watch TBN, I thank God for that network.

I would watch it in my drunk and blurred vision until I sobered up enough to back the preacher if he or she was really getting into it, I thought about sending a seed, but quickly forgot about it and got my coffee! I said that to say this, if God wouldn’t have intervened I honestly don’t know where I would be. But we can’t ride grace like a magic carpet (Romans 6:1” what shall we say then?

. We need to learn that God is there in our high times and low times. Many times we let our pride step in and take rein in our lives and lose sight of God just as peter did when he started out to Jesus and began to sink, he lost faith and began to look at what he had instead of where he was going. When we get so tied up with our important life and shut out Jesus then at that moment we lost an opportunity to be blessed. At the moment when you are on a verge of a break through and you are up to your eyes in stuff, God steps in and everything changes, while our lives are on the mountain, at that moment DO NOT think that you’re so high that God can’t take you down.

You better praise him for your break through. He deserves the glory and the honor, He is God.

I can say, one of the oddest creatures that God made is man. We as humans always want a move of God and yet we don’t want to work and do what it takes to get that move of God. We want healing and words of wisdom and knowledge but we do not want to fast and pray for it. As you know the flesh goes against everything God stands for (Romans 8:7) when we kill flesh we’ll see how God changes things as you will read in the next chapter( How can you say you love God when your heart lies) .When you are faced with issues of life, fight the fight and know that God is in control.

Do not be deceived, I knew this very close friend of mine who also was in ministry, but he faced certain problems is the area of women. Most men go through this and if you didn’t God bless you! As he went through life he would preach and the power of God would fall, he always kept God number one. One day he came to me and said “I need to talk, I said, what up man? As we sat in on the couch he poured out everything to me about how he was in love and wanted to marry this girl.

At the same time he was talking to another girl, both girls were in ministry but he really loved the other girl and wanted to marry her but he didn’t want to hurt the other one. My advice was for him to pray and ask God to take the one that God wants and keep her in his life, take the other girl out of his life. He went on to marry one; the one God wanted him to.

So you see the man of God faced something and when he seen what he needed to do he did it and God blessed. There are people every day facing stuff just like my friend and just like you may be facing but just know that God is our strength and there for us to help us and to console us, he makes the way and brakes all foundries he moves
mountains and shakes foundations.

I can see where we as humans fall when troubles come our way, but to stand for Jesus is a big task. When we as man and women of God walk into a secular job we face people who aren’t saved and know absolutely nothing about Jesus or his love for them, because of our self- righteous ways we have shut the secular out. I was in revival in small town in Texas, when I ran into my great uncle who had informed me that I was going to hell! As I smiled and said “please explain I’m listening, he went on to ask if I watch television I answer “yes sir, he said “I see you have your watch on and ring and necklace on, I said “yes sir I do” I said “but you still haven’t said why I’m going to hell for” he went on to say that because of those things, they were keeping me from heaven.

I just smiled and just once explained to him that Christ looks at the heart (Romans 10:9); before I walked away I shook his hand and told him I loved him and I’m praying for them. So you see, if I had not been a saved man of God I would have said “this Jesus stuff isn’t for me” that’s why it is so important not to condemn but to just witness to people. We aren’t Gods and we can’t judge as my uncle did me, he judged me by my ring and necklace.

We have to be a light unto the world that cannot be put out or shut off (Matt 5:14) if you don’t carry the light then who will? When was talking to Isaiah in Isaiah 6:1 God said “whom shall I send, who will go for us? And when Isaiah said “Here am I; send me” at that moment everything changed he was called out to carry the word, God cleansed his lips and set him on his way. You see all it takes is that one willing vessel to go and carry the word. If you don’t remember anything else about this book remember this “God does not call the qualified he qualifies the called and chosen ones and he has already went ahead and predestined your future for what HE wants for your life(Romans 8:30)

when I look back I can see how my whole life God has been preparing me for my future, I know that I’ve always been called by God yet I ran for many years and said “there is no way that I put my family through what I went through, from the holes in the floors to not having food in the house, having to beg or borrow just to make it by.

But little did I know at the time that I was just being made into a man of God. I would set in the dark and wander why our electric was cut off as I watched the fire dance in the old gas stove by the hall way door knowing my father was a minister I felt as though we had missed it. I can recall when I was 9 years old I would set with my cousins and read the word to them and try to explain (Psalms 23) to them. As a young kid God was using me to witness to them. See every situation happens for a reason; rather it’s good or bad. Always allow God the time to show you what it is you need to know about where you are. Understand that God will not take you someplace and just drop you off and leave you “you are not just baggage.”

The other day I was talking to my sister who also is in minister about the passing of one Gods of Generals, with a heavy heart I asked her “who will carry the torch when we lose the last of the real Generals?

The end times General is here now, yet just getting started or perhaps in ministry, all it takes is a willing vessel and a chosen vessel.

When you start in with message to the church you had better brought the mail so to speak. A true man or woman of is hard to find especially in today’s times, we are so tied up in what we are doing that we go and preach get a check and leave not caring anything about the souls of the people that are dyeing and going to HELL! What has gotten into these preachers that are in it for the money? Lives are in the balance weighing heaven or hell and all you can think about is your pocket books.

When it is all said and done and the last of the old Generals are gone we will be ready. Understand, the adversary will try and stand in the way but we have to keep driving ourselves forward and keeping in the race so that we as this generation of generals can stand in gap and fast and pray and grow a passion for the people as you’ll read in chapter 7.

We have a hunger in our nation for an outpouring of the spirit of God but we can’t find the ones who will carry the Gospel (Matt 9:37). Some of you have been called, you feel the calling on your life but you still haven’t submitted just yet, but you better take into consideration (Romans 11:29) the call is without repentance. But when you step into your call you better be ready, prayed up and read up, above all don’t get fed up and quit.