ARE YOU READY......

Hurricane Felicia to Tropical Storm Felicia to Tropical Depression Felicia to OK where is this storm anyway??? BUT everyone prepared for the worst because of all of the alerts and information issued by various agencies/entities. We knew because of the National Weather Service, the NOAA, the Hurricane Hunters in their C-140's....we knew what was coming. Everyone raced to City Mill, Home Depot, Loewes, Ace Hardware to get the supplies they needed to 'survive' this storm that is headed out way.

RAPTURE - SALVATION - LIVING FOR TODAY; Worst case scenario, downgraded to the next level, to where we are today. Prepare for the worst but always BE READY!

Are YOU ready for the RAPTURE? 'Keep watch because you do not know on what day the Lord will come' Mat: 24:42

It is human nature and we are all guilty of this at one time or another at some time in our life. We have a life-changing event in our life, someone close to us passes away, we lose our job, we get divorced....the list goes on; the common denominator is that it is a LIFE CHANGING event where we have to sit back evaluate and move forward. For many of us, it is at this time that we have a GOD MOMENT, and we realize that we should be focused on God and not on so much on what is in front of us. So we hear of the Rapture, and either renew or begin our walk with GOD, embrace our SALVATION, and then.............nothing. We lose interest, the pastor's message is not as impactful, our care group gets boring, serving in the ministry becomes mundane and boring....and we revert to just 'living for today'.

We have to constantly be ready for the end times and not let our guard down. We should be telling all of our ohana, our neighbors, our friends, our coworkers, everyone.....that the RAPTURE is coming, but we have the best line of defense for them...SALVATION!!!

I know, we get more worried about a Hurricane that would last for 12 hours at the very most; and yet when it comes to making a decision of where you will live for ETERNITY....it is not as important.

Father God, in the mighty name of Jesus, I ask that you touch upon all of the believers, all of the workers that are here on this Earth, that the end is near and that we need to be PREPARED and we need to PREPARE all of those around us. Let us have the confidence you have placed in us to speak BOLDLY and let all those that we know hear the name of Jesus Christ and that SALVATION is theirs if they so choose. In your precious and matchless name, I thank you for all that You have done, all that You are doing, and all that You will do. AMEN

Rotten Roots Produce Rotten Fruits

John 1:1 ¹In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

I want to thank all of you for waking up in the right mind, the right spirit, and finding the right road to get here today. Like someone once said, get right, get straight or get left.

Today I wanted to focus on something that we have all dealt with at one time or another in our lives, some of us have proclaimed victory, and yet I find myself constantly struggling with this; 'Rotten Roots Produce Rotten Fruits'.

Hebrews 12:14-15 NIV,

¹⁴Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. ¹⁵See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.

I want us to focus on something that we all deal with, and that is bitterness. Honestly, can anyone say that they have NEVER been bitter? I didn’t think so; how many of us are honest enough, BOLD ENOUGH, to say that they probably have some bitterness in them? I can, why lie….all of us, and I mean each and every one of us have something to be bitter about.

We have a lot of things to be bitter about, the bitterness of rejection, the bitterness of depression, the bitterness of low self esteem, the bitterness of chemical dependencies, the bitterness of alcoholism, and the bitterness of abuse. You can even go back to when we were all kids…..how about the bitterness of not getting chosen to be on a team, how about the bitterness of jealousy, maybe growing up you didn’t have things that your friends had. Or how about being bitter about your job because you didn’t get the promotion or didn’t get the raise you deserved? How about your spouse…are you bitter because she only nags (in your eyes)? Do you know what the definition of nagging is….being right at the wrong time. Are you bitter towards your kids because they don’t listen, or have they not grown up like you wanted them, or are you bitter because you feel they’re not realizing their full potential..the list goes on and on and on. So many things to be bitter about, it’s like having our personal pity party.

Let’s look at the 2^nd half of the verse, ‘…and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.

That root or that seed of bitterness will taint everything you do...everything. Let’s look at it another way, how many of you ever had to pull weeds when you were growing up, like small kid time. You know, when you went to grandma’s house, or if you had to help your parents….funny, kids don’t do that anymore, shoot, everyone is so busy, we have a yardman do that now. But for those of you who can remember pulling weeds, did anyone have to pull out ‘nut’ weeds? Do you know how that weed got it’s name? If you didn’t pull it out by it’s root, it’d drive you nuts. But the best, and I mean the best, way to solve that problem was to ‘pull’ it out. Slowly and gently, if you just yanked it, you’d take the top off, but the root, the ‘nut root’, would still be there and create even more stress.

If you didn’t get the root, it would literally grow up to cause trouble and defile many. If you are not careful, that weed has the potential of ruining your entire lawn, the whole yard…from that one little nut weed. Why is that, because it will grow up to cause trouble…..You had to get the root, the very root of that weed if you even hoped to have a fighting chance. The root was about 2-3 times longer than the weed itself, talk about frustrating. It would drive me nuts, literally, the nut weed would drive me nuts…

Just like how some of us are holding on to that root of bitterness inside of us. When we had the chance to remove that bitter root years ago, we avoided it, it was too hard to do, we’d get to it later, or how about this…..it’ll go away. Yeah right……….

Nothing we do will ever reach the full splendor of God if we keep just a speck of bitterness in our inner core, our relationships with our wife, with our kids, with our coworkers, our ministry,....WE will never fully realize the blessings of God because of that seed, or that root of bitterness has the potential of preventing us from receiving the full blessings from God. Let all of us pray every day for repentence and for the removal of all roots of bitterness in our hearts, so that we may fully realize the blessings of God and continue to live in His favor.