Author: Allen Forte

Ok, time for a message.  You always have a reason to hold your head up.  Philippians 4:13 says “ I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me”.  We have to be careful that we do not listen for God and to God through the filters of our lives.  I mean, some of us are naturally negative people – we are wired to see what is missing or what is wrong or what someone is doing to us.  Then some of us are naturally positive people – we see what we have and we see the good and we see what someone means to us.  One person sees the glass of water and says it’s almost empty and I’m not full yet; the other sees the glass of water and says it’s almost empty but I’m almost full.  God wants us to see our lives through His lens and not our own.  Some of us hear the Words in Philippians and we say – I heard what God says but unless He works a miracle I cannot change this circumstance; I cannot make myself well; I cannot heal my child.  Then others of us actually hear the Word this way – “I alone may not be able to change my circumstance; I may not be able to make myself well; I may not be able to heal my child but I can do this.  I can do all that I will do through Christ, who strengthens me”.  When we live and when we do all things through Him, we have reason to believe He will change the things we cannot change ourselves.  The believer’s belief is the reason he can be positive and hopeful no matter the circumstances he may face.  Do all your things through Christ and you will discover how to live high when others are low; when others run from their most painful circumstances looking for joy, you will change your circumstances by your joy cause He will strengthen you so that you can change yourself.  Nothing can take this joy from you – nothing.  Don’t always be so quick to change your circumstance so you can be happy.  Let Him change your attitude and change your heart so that you can be happy and have a joyful heart right where you are.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you

Ok, it’s time for a message.   What brings you joy.  1 John 2:15-16 says “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the Love of the Father is not in him.  For all that is in the world – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life – is not of the Father, but of the world.  I have three warnings today – don’t let what you see around you determine the path you take in life – be careful what want to look at; don’t let your natural inclinations  drive you to indulge yourself in the good things the world is willing to give you – control your desires; and don’t set yourself and the things you have above those who have less – choke out your pride.  The lust of the eyes will lead us away; the lust of the flesh will make us stray; and the  pride of life will make us pay.  If seeing it makes you want it – run from it; if the appetite for it makes you hungry for it  – starve yourself from it and if it makes you feel good to stand above it – humble yourself and lift it above yourself.  The one thing we can all want that is good for us and of value to us is the Love of the Father.  Having God’s love in our lives is what enables us to live not by our lusts for life but by the joys of life we have and can share with others.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

Ok, it’s time for a message.   A different office but the same call to Be.  Titus 1:7 says “For a bishop must be blameless, as a steward of God, not self-willed, not quick tempered.. but hospitable , a lover of what is good”.  Not everyone is called to operate from the office of a bishop.  But this doesn’t mean we don’t have what it takes to be like the person of a bishop.  Since man is involved in selecting bishops for office, the Lord tries to give us something to see in them, that helps us make the best choices in who holds the offices of church leaders.  We have to learn then to get past looking simply at what a man does as the basis of who a man is.  Now being blameless does not mean never doing anything wrong or we’d never have a preacher or bishop or even a Sunday school teacher.  Being blameless means we resolve to live before God as true and honestly in heart as possible, learning of Him and learning from Him as He makes us stewards of Him.  And God knows we cannot truly be learners of Him until we have been made to be not self-willed.  Now better English might say until we learn not to be self-willed.  But God is not just after what we learn to do.  He is after making us be who we should be so that what we do is natural for who we are.  He knows the first thing that has to go is the sense of being self-willed because this will keep us from listening first to Him and it will keep us from listening to others.  So we must not be self-willed but rather God and others-willed.  When we have learned to be what makes us to not be self-willed, We can be calm when others are angered; we can forgive when others condemn; we can give when others seek to get; we can be lovers of others when others are loving themselves; we can be dependent on God when others can depend only on themselves.  God doesn’t need us all in the office of a bishop.  He has something greater for us and He asks the bishop to be the same thing that He is asking of us. We all are to be blameless in heart before God so that others, when they see the mistakes we make, do not judge us forever by the things we do wrong.  As a believer – someone who is living out the transformation of person and heart the Lord is presently working into them, you will find it difficult to escape the blame of man if you are still self-willed as a person.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you

Ok, it’s time for a message.  Win the battle to trip you up.  Ephesians 6:10 says “Finally, my brothers, be strong in the Lord and in the Power of His might”.  Finally, means that after all that is said and done – is in fact said and done – do this one last thing to secure things for you.  The devil wants to kill who you are; he wants to steal what God has given you and he wants to destroy what you believe so you don’t do what you should do.  He is not ready for you to die now, for that is a loss to him; he simply want to trip you up daily – over and over again – for that is victory for him.  He wants you to question who you are because you do a lot for God, but nothing seems change for you.  He is tricking you to believe that as a believer things should go your way more than they do not.  Don’t listen to the ways of the devil but listen to and learn to live by the ways of God.  We are not fighting to get our way; we are not fighting to have what is right for us; we are not fighting against other people and even what they do; we are fighting to stay in the way of God; to live His way so that we are not tripped up by something that satan uses against us.  The battle is not for those you pray for; it’s not for those you love; it’s not for the sick or the hurting.  The battle is for you.  The battle is to cause you to slip and fall and to hurt; to become sick; to be unloving; to live like you are a defeated believer.  Put on God’s armor and you will be ready to win the battle that is for you; then you will have success against the things that come against you.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you

Ok, time for a message.  The main ingredient.  1 Corinthians 16:14 says – “Let all you do be done with love. “  Should anyone really examine what we do, will they find that it was put together with the best things or with something made to look like it is good.  Your foundation is the main component in building a house; but what is the main component in building that foundation?  Good work is key to our successes, but what is the key component in the good work we want to do?  Blood type O is said to be a universal donor and type AB blood is a universal recipient.  If you have O type blood, you can give blood safely to anyone and if you have AB type blood you can safely receive any type blood from anyone.  Good work is not good work because of the outcomes it delivers, good work is good work because of what it has in it.  A good marriage is not good because it last a long time; a long lasting marriage is good because of what it has in it.  Love is a universally accepted foundation and is a key ingredient to anything good that we can do.  Love  can be given to anyone by anyone,  so it is a universal donor.  Love can be received by anyone so we can all be universal recipients of Love.  God made the world and all that is in it with Love as the universal ingredient.  Love made it all good.  When we learn to do all things with Love as our main ingredient, we make all that we do to become good.  If you are going to do anything at all, choose the best quality materials available to do it and then give it your best effort but then fashion it all together with Love.  If you are going to receive anything at all, receive it with Love and you will make it all good.  Love changes the things around you to good things when nothing else you can do will do it.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you 

Ok, it’s time for a message.   “He is Risen – But where is He”.  Luke 24:6 says “He is not here, but is risen”!  Today is Easter, the day we acknowledge Christ rising from death and the grave.  He is not in a tomb any longer.  He is not a dead man walking about; He is alive but where is He now?  Everybody back at that time wondered where He was.  The believers wondered about the victory they thought they had but was now lost; and the unbelievers wondered about the victory they had but was seemingly lost.  Today, many of us who want to believe are looking for Him and many of us who want to remain nonbelievers are trying to keep Him from being found.  Well to find Him, you must stop looking for a dead Man; you have to stop looking for a body.  Dead men don’t live.  The Living lives among the living.  He lives so that you can trade in your life of simple existence for life  eternal.  When you do this, He can be found living right in your heart.  If to us Easter is how we acknowledge what Christ means to us; to Him, Easter is His way of reminding us we can have life today and we can have it in abundance.  He rose to find a place in your Heart to Live.  You ought to be the evidence to the non believer that He is risen and alive!  Stop looking  for Him as if you are a non believer.  Believe, and let Him find you and  He will rise up to life in your heart.  Then you will have an eternal victory.  Let Him have that Joy with you.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you

Ok, time for a message.  Psalm 91:1 says “he who dwells in the Secret Place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty”.  Hide so you can be found.  Most of us I’m sure is under some type shelter in place order as we try to protect ourselves from the COVID-19 virus.  We are trying to hide from something so we can protect ourselves from something.  The question is where are we hiding and is that place going to really protect us?  Here in Psalm 91, God is inviting us to play a game of hide to be found.  When we learn to live our lives by hiding out in plain sight in the Secret Place of the Most High God, We will live under the glory of His great shadow and it is there we will find safety and security and food and shelter and all that we need to protect us from all that we cannot protect ourselves from.  When we hide in His Secret Place, others see His Shadow around us and are cautioned that we live under the protection of something greater than ourselves.  My 3 year old granddaughter loves to play hide and seek.  When my boys close their eyes and count to 10, my little baby runs to me and hides behind my legs as I sit in my chair.  Of course she is in plain sight of anyone who has eyes but she doesn’t know it.  She is in her secret place and it casts a shadow big enough to hide her or protect her.  We will make it through the threat of being found by COVID-19, when we dwell in plain sight under the mighty shadow of God Most High.    Take every precaution you can take yourself to protect yourself and then go and dwell in the Secret Place because in the end, if you are found you want to be found with Someone Who can save you and protect you and feed you and heal you and do all that you can’t do yourself.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you

Ok, it’s time for a message.  Win the battle to trip you up.  Ephesians 6:10 says “Finally, my brothers, be strong in the Lord and in the Power of His might”.  Finally, means that after all that is said and done – is in fact said and done – do this one last thing to secure things for you.  The devil wants to kill who you are; he wants to steal what God has given you and he wants to destroy what you believe so you don’t do what you should do.  He is not ready for you to die now, for that is a loss to him; he simply want to trip you up daily – over and over again – for that is victory for him.  He wants you to question who you are because you do a lot for God, but nothing seems change for you.  He is tricking you to believe that as a believer things should go your way more than they do not.  Don’t listen to the ways of the devil but listen to and learn to live by the ways of God.  We are not fighting to get our way; we are not fighting to have what is right for us; we are not fighting against other people and even what they do; we are fighting to stay in the way of God; to live His way so that we are not tripped up by something that satan uses against us.  The battle is not for those you pray for; it’s not for those you love; it’s not for the sick or the hurting.  The battle is for you.  The battle is to cause you to slip and fall and to hurt; to become sick; to be unloving; to live like you are a defeated believer.  Put on God’s armor and you will be ready to win the battle that is for you; then you will have success against the things that come against you.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you

Hard things don’t need to make you a harder person.  Matthew 11:28-29 Jesus says “Come to Me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls”.  An eagle can fly higher than any bird of the air.  It loves to fly when there is wind because it can use the wind to fly even higher and faster.  The eagle doesn’t struggle against the wind, the eagle uses the wind for its good.  Sometimes we are burdened by a thing because we haven’t learned to use that thing for our good.  All the challenges that come our way are not necessarily meant to be challenges against us but for us – to help make us better.   If your work is difficult now, stay there and learn how to use the difficult part to work better; if your children are a challenge now, stay close to them and learn how to be a better parent, if your marriage is difficult right now – for all that is within you – stay committed and learn how to be the best spouse you can be.  If being a faithful believer is a challenge right now, stay with it – go to Jesus  – put His yoke on your neck- watch Him and see how He Works; see how He is a parent; see how He is a great spouse – even if His spouse. – you and me – are not our best – your circumstances want to teach you how to struggle and to become hard but Jesus wants you to let Him use your circumstances to teach you how to live right where you are, as the best that you can be, as soft as cotton but as sure as the purest gold.  Do this and you will find rest for your life.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you

Ok, time for a message.  Job 1:8 is an account of God’s feelings towards Job.  God speaks to satan saying “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man; one who fears God and shuns evil”.  God is bragging about the man Job is.  Job feared God and shunned evil.  Fear in this sense is Love so deep that it hurts when you fail.  And to shun evil is to intentionally stay away from saying, doing or living in any way that the devil would live.  Evil is simple:  it’s doing anything at all that the devil would also do.  So let’s live like we want to earn the Lords confidence in us – let’s fear Him so strongly that the fear becomes love for Him and others.  And let’s be intentional about staying away from doing, saying or living in any way that the d(evil) would live.  Fear God enough to Love Him with all that you are and love Him enough to wake intentionally in ways that evil cannot be found.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you