“I BOW TO YOU! I BOW TO YOU! I BOW TO YOU!”
That’s me to my brother, Kevin, a short while ago! He has lovingly and wisely guided my life for the past few years. I talk to Him, and it’s like I’m talking to God Himself. He has become engrained in my soul and in so many crucial decisions I make. Even yesterday, after everyone told me how I’m gaining so much weight, I responded with what Kevin told me one day, “Neeks, you’re well taken care of! You don’t need to check for (worry about!) anyone.” I tell you guys that between God and my hubby, I’m very spoilt. God is forever telling me that He takes care of me exceedingly well! And like Kevin reminds me, “Neeks, you have a gorgeous life; enjoy it!”
The most important piece of advice Kevin has given, though, in an awful moment, he said, “Neeks, the only thing I can tell you now is to get close to God. Make God your TOP priority!” I would say that THIS HAS BEEN THE BEST ADVICE EVER GIVEN TO ANY HUMAN IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND!!! Your girl here has ran with that! Even with everything I’m tackling right now, my husband said last night, “Nikki, you’re lucky! God is with you!” Best believe it, baby! God makes me feel like His favorite girl in the entire world!
Like I had a challenging situation that I needed to deal with today, and in my late night appointment with God, He said to me, ‘WATCH TO SEE WHAT I WILL DO!’ Fast forward to today, God had the perfect person to sit next to my husband to help advise us. I was blown away by this person’s in-depth knowledge and how he wisely counseled us, AND by God’s deep love to have him there at that precise time as I had some other people waiting to hear our decision.
So, I don’t want to feel this loved by myself! Start making God your top priority! I wake up every day to appointments with Him, and I’m extremely in love with this message from my other messenger from God, Ceri, that has also changed my life. Now I keep saying like a broken record to myself, ‘Nik, keep forgiving! Nik, keep forgiving, Nik, keep forgiving!’ I do this because I’m being obedient to God, and in the final analysis, everything is between God and us, not between us and anyone else. Being OBEDIENT TO GOD IS WHAT HAS GUIDED MY LIFE ON THIS VERY GORGEOUS PATH! Wink! Wink! Here’s what Ceri had to say:
“… You got to be kind. It reverts back to what they said Paul said in this verse. He says to make allowance for everyone for each other’s faults and forgive anyone who offends you. When you make allowance for something, you prepare yourself that people will fail you. Ain’t nobody perfect. And even when people mess up, you must give them that Grace.
Remember now, we cannot keep asking God for grace and mercy when we don’t extend His hand to each other. Whatever it is that God gives us, he provides us with the opportunity to reflect that onto our fellow man. Hence, he told us he made us in his own image. What He’s given to us, we have the opportunity to give to other people. Every day we see the love that God has given us. From the moment we woke up and have our eyes open, we now have the opportunity and the ability to Grace others with what God has been so gracious with us. God helped us to wake up to see another day. He shows us love continuously. He is telling us once we wake up, ‘Hey, that’s what I did for you, now go out there and do for others.’ And forgiveness is one of those things.
Remember, it’s something that I always used to preach in here from when I first started preaching in this room. Forgiveness is something that God gave to you. He gave that to you. Forgiveness is for us. Nobody cares if you forgive them or not. Trust me on this one. Nobody cares. The only person to be affected by you not forgiving somebody is you. You’re going to walk around with a spiteful heart. You will walk around with hate in your eyes. You will be having sleepless nights because there’s something this person did to you that has you upset. You think they care? They don’t care because they can continuously run into the same problems over and over. They can keep running into people who either forgive them or who don’t. You think that like they are going to stop at you? Nah. It just doesn’t work that way.
The forgiveness is for us. The forgiveness is for us to just say, ‘Hey, you know I forgive you. You don’t do it because we want God to forgive us. That isn’t just the reason. You have to honestly search deep down inside you and realize that whatever this is, I am bigger than this. I’m not gonna let this consume me. This isn’t a part of me. This isn’t me. This isn’t what I’m going to focus on. I need to focus on the word of God. I need to focus on loving other people. I need to devote my energy to something more important than what it is that this person did to me. And that’s just what it is. So today, let’s remember to go out there with exactly what God asked us to do in these particular verses when He asks us to clothe ourselves today with mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God our Father.”