Author: Allen Forte

The Lord’s insight. The Lord puts His name on the people who favor Him.

Matthew 5:3-12: “Blessed are the poor in spirit; those who mourn; the meek; those who hunger and thirst for righteousness; the merciful and pure in heart; the peacemakers.”

Numbers 6:24-27:

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying “Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, this is the way you shall bless the children of Israel.  Say to them:

The Lord bless you and keep you;

The Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you;

The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

So, they shall put My name on the children of Israel, and I will bless them.”

God gave the priests the power and authority to bless the people with this prayer.  He gave them the authority to put God on the hook to put His name on the people.  This was to say to all the other people at that time, the children of Israel belonged to God and He was their God.

So, in doing this, the priests were not asking the Lord to bless the people.  They are telling the people to be reminded that the Lord blesses them.  He keeps them as His own.  He smiles down upon them from heaven and gives them all peace. This was their blessing.

The Lord God chose to distinguish His people by showing the world that He favored them over any other people.  He was saying they are Mine and I am theirs and this is how you know that.  I will favor them in all things. They will carry My name on their lives.

The Lord loves all people, but He chooses to favor those who favor Him.  This is the key to this blessing.  God favors those who favor Him.  He puts His name on those who find their names in Him.  He puts His claim on those who claim Him. He lifts up those who lifts up His name.  He honors those who honor Him.

Years later, Jesus taught the people about blessing and favor and being children of the Lord. He tells us in Matthew 5:3-12 the things we can do ourselves to show that we favor Him over anyone and anything else. How do we show that we favor Him? Well, it’s when we choose to put His name on ourselves.

And how do we put His name on ourselves? Well, it’s when we keep ourselves poor in spirit; when we mourn; when we are meek; when we hunger and thirst for righteousness; when we are merciful; when we are pure in heart; and when we are peacemakers.

You see, if we had to describe Jesus to someone else, aside from Him being the Son of God and our Savior, we could say He is God, but He is poor in spirit; He is a caring Lord Who mourns for the people to have the things of God; He is God, but He is meek and lowly in heart; He is God, still He hungers and thirsts for righteousness; He is God, but He is merciful and gracious; and He is God but He is pure in heart and He is a peacemaker.

Today, it is common for many people to reject our earthly parents and choose a path we believe in for ourselves.  Many of us will often say we want to be nothing like our parents. We will say we know better than our parents because we have access to more.  We have our parents’ last names, but we can often deny that we belong to them or they belong to us.

We should not treat our earthly parents this way and we must not treat the Lord like we would treat our earthly parents. If Jesus is all these things, wouldn’t it make sense that we would be this way too if we are His and He is ours. We should want His name to be on us, and we should want our names with Him. This is the blessing of all blessings.  To have the Lord’s first name as our own.  To have the Lord’s last name as our own.  And to have the Lord’s reflection on us as a reflection of Him saying we are His.  Do you have His name showing on you visibly so others can see it without you saying a word?  The Lord bless and keep you. The Lord be happy with you.  The Lord puts His name on you.

Live a Delivered Life.

When Things Do Not Go My Way

The Lord’s insight. Believers are called to Be and to give, not to get and to have.

1 Peter 3:17: “For it is better, if it is the will of God, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.”

Luke 22:42: “Father if it is Your will, take this cup from Me; nevertheless, not My will, but Yours be done.”

It was a real surprise to me the day I realized my belief and faith in Christ changed my mind on what I had always thought was right for me. I learned that there would be many times where I would be expected to give when before I had wanted to get or to have.

Look at 1 Peter 3 again. Perhaps it is saying to us that there will be consequences that come our way whether we do good or whether we do evil. One way or another, we will suffer good or evil outcomes from our actions if they are good or evil. But in the world, believers should not always or only expect good outcomes to be the result of good actions.

In the world, we will get good outcomes from good actions, and we will get bad outcomes from good actions.  We will also get bad outcomes from evil actions, and we will get good outcomes from evil actions.  The world does not care about good for good or evil for evil.  And the world does not care if things go the way you want them to go.

If you are the type of person who wants to have things to go your way, you better be the type of person who wants the Lord to be the provider of the things that happen to you.

I have learned that being a believer does not mean that I can now have all that is rightfully mine.  It does not mean that all things will go the way I want things to go.  It does not mean I get to have something from the world that I couldn’t otherwise have.

Listen, in the world you can never rightfully have anything anyway. Why would you want the world to be forced to give you what it does not want to give?  The value of a forced apology is nothing compared to the sincere regret of the person who apologizes before you and who seeks your forgiveness before the Lord.

When you live like everything must go your way for you to be happy, you will likely never be happy. And if we say it is not about being happy but about having what is right for us, all we can ever have is the thing that someone else does not want us to have.

Remember we are called to Be and to Give more than we are called to get or to have.  Our disposition should be this. “Lord, if it is Your will, make my friend return what he stole from me; nevertheless, that is what I want, but if You want something different, that is what I want more than anything.”

In this way, you allow yourself to Be merciful, to Be grateful, to Be forgiving and to Be giving of what you do not rightfully have to give. And in this way the world sees mercy, and grace and forgiveness and selflessness in ways that these things will be produced in more of us.

So, how is this better for you?  Because the Lord blesses the people who are merciful, who are grateful, who are forgiving, who are willing to suffer for doing good for the good of those in the world who know no good.  For Christ suffered for the Just and for the Unjust. And we were all unjust before being made Just through Him.

Live a Delivered Life.

The Lord’s insight. We find rest in Him when we stop living in ourselves.

Hebrews 4:1:  Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it.”

Matthew 11:29: “Come unto Me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Long before Jesus came, God made a promise to the people that in following Him, they would find rest for themselves. The Israelites were in Egypt over 400 years or so.  Most of those years they were in bondage to the Egyptians.  Life was hard for them.  They knew nothing but work, work and more work.

There was no rest for them.  There was no rest for their souls.  When they did get a moment to sleep and eat, I imagine they spent that time praying to God for relief. Perhaps for rest.

Hebrews 4 recounts the promise of rest God made to those who were obedient to Him.  It was an eternal promise that was fulfilled by Jesus when He came.  Matthew 11:29 notes that Jesus Himself invites the people who are burdened with life to come to Him and He would give them rest.

Life is great but living is sometimes very difficult.  Like the Israelites, today many of us may feel like we are in bondage in some ways.  We may not have all the basic necessities of life.  We may be sick in some way. If you are like me, you may have a nagging shoulder ache that just won’t go away.

Most of us have to learn to live with some difficult things that come our way in life. So, we must remember, just as God made sabbath a day of physical rest for the people long ago.  He gave us Jesus so that we could have rest today from living in a difficult world.

But the rest He provides us is more than relief from what challenges us.  God is Spirit so He first gives us rest from living our own lives so that we can find rest to live the life with Christ that He wants us to live. Many of us are exhausted because we will not stop living for ourselves and start living with Jesus.

When you travel along an interstate highway, you will usually find a place we call a rest stop.  There you can pull off the road and find things needed to refresh yourself.  After you are rested however, you get back on the road and start doing what you were doing before you stop.

The rest God promises is different from the rest you get when you pause what you are doing so you can catch your breath. The Lord brings His rest stop to you.  He doesn’t give you rest so you can keep on doing what you did before.  He gives you rest from living the way you lived so you can find the rest to live the way He wants you to live.

So, take Him up on His promise.  Get on the interstate highway that leads directly to His heart.  It isn’t a long highway.  You won’t have to drive far.  Leave all your stuff behind you.  You won’t need anything old when you take on His yoke.

He will not ask you to pause your life, He will ask you to live with Him a new life.  The new life that He asks you to live is new each day so there is no chance for you to become lazy or to feel like you are in bondage to the same thing’s day after day. There is no chance you will become weary at the things you do. He has everything you need to live a busy restful life in Him.

So let today start the day that you learn to stop living in yourself and start living in Him.  You will find His rest when you do this. There may be no rest for the weary, but in Him there is rest that keeps you from becoming weary.

Live a Delivered Life.

The Lord’s insight. As a nation, we celebrate our Independence; as believers we should celebrate our Dependence.

Acts 17:24-26: “God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands.  Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath and all things.  And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth.”

Today, July 4^th, 2026, is our Independence Day. It’s a day we set aside each year to remember and to honor our birth as a nation and our independence from the rule of any other nation. It’s our Independence Day. We formally embarked upon becoming the United States of America.

In declaring our Independence from the rule of any other nation of peoples, our founding fathers had the sense to make sure we declared our dependence on the God of all creation. Our Independence from the rule of other men led to our Dependence on the Lord God of all.

Today, we struggle with our Dependence as in many ways we now want Independence from God so that we can have full Dependence on ourselves. We ought to consider what this means to us.  A nation that declares its Independence from God is destined to fall in its Dependence on itself.

So, as we look to our futures, let’s take a fresh look at Independence Day and remind ourselves to be grateful for the men who fought to free us from the rule of other men. But we should also remind ourselves to be cautious as our founding fathers declared two things, Independence, so we could have Dependence.

They sought independence from men and the ways of men so we could find Dependence on God and on the ways of God. So, with Independence Day, let’s celebrate all that it means to us as a nation. And at the same time, let’s find time to acknowledge our Dependence Day on the Life of Christ and what that means to us.

Independence from men and Dependence on God.

Live a Delivered Life.

The Lord’s insight. A strong believer learns to permit what is not always understood rather than trying to force what they want others to understand.

John 3:15: “But Jesus answered and said to him permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”

John 19:11 “You could have no power at all against Me unless it had been given you from above.”

If the Lord asked you to accept some wrong rather than avenge some wrong against you, would you do it?  This is exactly what Paul asks the people of Corinth.  He says to them, “why would you go before the unrighteous to settle things between the righteous?”

He said it is utter failure that believers go to law against one another.  He asks, “why do you not accept wrong?  Why do you not rather allow yourselves to be cheated?”  (1 Corinthians 6:1-9). He is not saying that we should be glad when we are wronged.  That would be foolish. Rather he wants us to permit ourselves to refrain from hitting back when we are hit.

John was baptizing the people in the Jordan river when Jesus came to be baptized.  John thought Jesus should be baptizing him instead.  But Jesus responded by telling John to allow this to happen because it fulfilled the scripture.

This made me realize how I have often resisted something that ultimately could have made me better.

In John 19, Pilate tells Jesus that he has the power to crucify Him or to set Him free.  Jesus responds by telling Pilate he would have no power over Him unless it were given to Pilate from above – that is God. Jesus permitted Pilate to order His death.

We often resist the power or authority of man so we can force man to do right by us. And we live in a world today where most everyone seeks retribution or revenge for the things that happen to us.  Many of us have become advocates for things we believe are right more than we should be committed to the things God wants us to be.

The Lord doesn’t want us to allow ourselves to be wronged so that He can show Himself to be strong.  But we should realize that sometimes the things that we permit to happen to us act as the power needed to cause others to change their ways towards us. Many of us read scripture and see information about what we can do; then some allow the scripture to read them, and they find the transformation that awaits them.

As believers we must remember that the more we fight for what we believe is right for us, the less the Lord fights for us. What things we force usually happen through our own strength; but the things we permit often cause to happen the things we cannot force. The Lord doesn’t need you to be caught in a sin to show the blessing of obedience. This is what glorifies the Lord and what develops our faith.

The Lord doesn’t want you to be slapped, but when it happens, permit yourself not to respond in anger.

The Lord doesn’t want you to be cheated, but when it does happen, permit yourself to respond in grace.

The Lord doesn’t want you to be the tail, but when it happens, permit yourself to lead from the rear.

You have two choices in your life as a believer in how you live before others.  There are things you must learn to permit, and you must keep yourself from trying to force things to happen because you want what is fair and right.

Both Jesus and John permitted the thing that glorified God. When you fight for yourself, you get glory for yourself. But the glory you get is the glory of man more than it is of God. In many ways, with the Lord, it is the act to permit some things to happen that is what glorifies the Lord more than the fact that we correct a wrong done against us.

You should wonder if you are serving the Lord when you have an attitude of retribution more than an attitude of permission. When you learn to permit the work of the Lord to thrive in your life, your attitude of permitting His Lordship is a glorifying act in itself.

The feeling that you will avenge and correct all the wrongs you see is a scary attitude to have. To get what you want you will have to get man to give you what man does not want to give you.  When you force man to do right by you, you lose more than you gain.

When you choose to permit the Lord to work against the evil that comes your way you will gain more than you will gain by simply giving evil what it deserves. If you must have an attitude, let it be that you ask the Lord to help you learn to permit His work in your life to be so.

Live a Delivered Life.

The Lord’s insight.  To learn to be a father you must learn to be a son.

2 Samuel 7:14” “I will be his Father, and he shall be My son.”

2 Corinthians 6:18: “I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters.  Says the Lord Almighty.”

Today is the day in 2026 that we acknowledge and honor the fathers we have among us.  We include those fathers who were; those who are; and those who will be.  It is fitting to have a day like today because there is probably nothing more important to man than being a believer and being a father.

I have often said, there are some important things we must be that we don’t have a “how to” book written plainly for that.  Being a father is one of those things.  God did not overlook this.  That’s because He made Himself the example all men need on how to be a father.

In 2 Samual 7:14, God is speaking to Samuel about King David and his son Solomon.  God is telling Samuel to tell David that God Himself would be a father to Solomon and that Solomon would be a son to God.

And like that, in 2 Corinthians 6:18 God is talking to His people when He says, “I will be your Father, and you shall be my sons and daughters.” If you are going to be a father to anyone you must first learn how to be a son to your father.

You may not think you have a good example of an earthly father that would make you want to learn how to be a son to him.  But you have a Heavenly Father Who still requires you to be a son.  So lets make Father’s Day 2026 the day we focus on learning how to be sons so that we can learn how to be the fathers we ought to be.

Here are some things God expects from us as His sons. These are things we should give to God the Father and to our earthly fathers.

Respect: Sons respect their fathers no matter what the father does or does not do.

Reflect: Sons reflect the best things about their fathers no matter how great or small those things may be.

Responsible: Sons remain responsible toward their father no matter if they are home or on their own.

Reject: Sons reject their sense of self so that they demonstrate the father’s sense of selflessness.

Repeat: Sons learn from and repeat the things they learn from their fathers so that the father’s training is seen in the sons’ behaviors.

As much as people today want to break from their parents and be their own persons, fathers are never permitted to break away from being sons to their fathers and they are never permitted to stop being fathers to their sons.

God says He will be our father.  This is a commitment to us that will never end.  He will teach each of us how to love and how to deny the self and seek what is best for our sons and daughters.  He will teach us how to be teachable so that we can teach our own.  He will show us how to love so that we learn how to show love to our own.

All that the Father wants from us as fathers is revealed to us in the things He wants from us as sons. If you don’t care about the type of father you are, you are probably not the son you ought to be towards your father.  If you want to be a better father to your children, learn to be a better son to your father.

Scripture tells the father’s children they must honor their parents.  You fathers must be the type of fathers your sons and daughters will find it easy and desiring to give you their honor. Don’t make it difficult for your sons and daughters to be blessed by the Father by honoring you.

God is this way with us; He expects us to be this way with our own.

Have a great Father’s Day today.  And be a greater, better father in all the days to come for you.

Live a Delivered Life.

He Opens Your Understanding

The Lord’s insight. The Word can tell you a lot about you if you allow it to open your understanding.

Acts 8:30: “So Philip ran to him and heard him reading the prophet Isiah, and said, do you understand what you are reading?”

Luke 24:45: “And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures.”

I had a pastor once who always ended his sermons by asking this question “so what is the holy spirit saying to you?” The pastor was saying don’ tell me what you heard about the Word, tell me you understand about what the Word is saying about you.”

His question was very appropriate because we live in a time where even as believers, we tend to talk more than we listen.  And we tend to speak more about what we hear than by what Holy Spirit is saying to us.  But I took his question a bit further.  I asked myself, “what is the Holy Spirit saying about me.”

We will search the world to find something to share about what we believe about the Word. But will we stop searching the world to understand what the Word says about us.

In the book of Acts, a Eunuch from Ethiopia was traveling as he came across Philip.  The Eunuch was reading scripture.  When Philip asked him if he understood what he was reading he responded, “how can I unless someone guides me?” The Eunuch had the sense to know that his understanding needed to be opened to what he was reading.

In Luke 24:15 two men were traveling talking about the crucifixion of Jesus a few days earlier.  Scripture says Jesus came among them and asked what they were talking about. They told Jesus what they knew. But then Jesus opened their understanding so they could comprehend what they knew.

It was through the Word that I learned I was more judgmental than I thought I was. I saw how quickly I would judge what I thought about others or something others did. Once I allowed the Word to open the door to me so I could learn about me, I asked that I never be allowed to close that door again.

When you learn to hear what is being said about you, it will help you understand what you should know about the things you see daily. When you allow the Lord to speak to you about you, He washes the lens through which you see everything else.

When your understanding is open you speak less and you listen more.

You add quiet to the things that are noisy.

You withhold your opinion until you are asked for your opinion.

You base your thinking about anything on what the Lord has said about you.

You tend to your own mess more than you are in the middle of someone else’s mess.

You gossip about your own foolishness more than about the perceived foolishness of others.

The Lord wants to open our understanding to His Word, but He will not force us into this.  He will wait patiently until we come to Him and say “Lord, how can I understand what goes on with my life unless You teach me about my life.”

If you can’t be taught, you can’t be heard by those who are taught.  If you can’t hold your tongue, you can’t be heard by those who hold their tongues. And if you cannot stand the conviction and revelation of the Holy Spirit about you, people will reject your conviction and accusation of them.

Pray the Lord open your understanding about you today. When our understanding is opened, we don’t just hear what others say, we hear more about what makes others say the things they say.

You will better understand God’s Word, when you learn to receive what the Word says about you. Pray that what people hear about you reflects a person who has listened to what the Holy Spirit has said about them.

Live a Delivered Life.

The Lord’s insight. No person before us has lived a perfect life, but many persons before us have lived God- pleasing lives.

Matthew 3:17: “This is My Beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.”

Matthew 6:31-32: “Therefore do not worry, saying what shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear?  For after all these things the Gentiles seek.  But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”

There are many things about life and God that just do not make any sense to me.  I want to live right and be obedient to the Lord but I’m sinful. There always seems to be something in me that makes me stumble and do something I know does not please the Lord.

I don’t want to use being sinful as an excuse for my actions, but I have learned, if I don’t understand where my actions come from or what causes them, I am bound to repeat them, especially the things I don’t want to repeat. I am sure I speak to many of us when I say this; we are trapped by our own ways.

God wants us to do good for sure, even if we are not as good as we should be. And even though all the things we do will never be pleasing to the Lord, we know we can always give more of ourselves to live a God-pleasing life.  He wants us to do right before Him and others.  But just as much, He wants us to live like we are in bondage to His Word more than to our sin. This is the type of life that is pleasing to Him.

In Matthew 6:31-32, Jesus speaks to the Jews.  He tells them not to worry about basic stuff and basic needs. He goes on to tell them that the Gentiles worry about the same things. He encourages them to do what the Gentiles could not do yet because the Word came first to the Jew.

He told the Jews they should seek first the Kingdon of God.  When they did this, He assured them God would supply all their basic needs. A life that seeks after the things of God first is a God-pleasing life.  The gentiles did not know the Lord so they could not seek after Him in this way at this time.

The Gentiles chased after their basic needs apart from Jesus. They looked to man and to their own efforts for the things they needed and desired. We have the same needs as do the gentiles but a God-pleasing life will not live and pursue those needs like the gentiles.

Jesus told the Jews then and you and I now, don’t be like the gentiles because we know Him.

Do good for it is better than doing anything else.  But for the believer, we should do our good because it comes in a life that is chasing after God for all the good He has for us. This is God-pleasing.

Pray a lot for it is better than to not praying at all.  But for the believer, we should pray because we live more than because we want to keep living.  This is God-pleasing.

Work with your hands and with your talents.  But work to store up and use your God given treasures more than to acquire earthly treasures. The best of you is the most valuable treasure you have. Lay up your best in the storehouse of heaven.  This is God-pleasing.

Man can never give you what God alone wants to give you.  Man can never give you anything of greater value than what God can give you.  The gentiles sought what man had. The believer seeks what God has. Gentile living is carnal living.  God-pleasing living is believing living.

God knows you have need for food, water and shelter. But the God-pleasing man does not live by bread alone but by the Word of God.  It is through the Word our bread is provided. The gentiles took care to protect themselves from others. But the man living a God-pleasing life knows that his protection comes through God.

A God-pleasing life is one that seeks everything it needs through a life that spends every moment chasing after God. It is in the chase for God that Jesus provides us with the things we need in this life. If it is a position you want, a status you seek, a relationship you desire, or even a child you long to have, you will find these things more easily when you chase after the Lord for the things He has reserved for you.

A God-pleasing life is a life in which God will be well pleased.

The Lord’s insight.  God is Love.  He doesn’t just do loving things.

1 John 4:16: “And we have known and believed the love that God has for us.  God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.”

1 Corinthians 13:13: “And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

When Moses asked God what to say to the people who would ask God’s name.  God responded by describing Himself by something inherent to being God.  He simply said, tell the people “I am sent you.”  The description I am it not a name.  It is an inherent description of who God is.

Perhaps God wanted the people to know Him for Who He is more than by what He is called.  He is the God Who Is.  That is His most inherent quality. There are some things about man that inherently make them men and women. Men have the sperm needed to fertilize a woman’s egg. Women have the egg that needs fertilization by man. These things are inherent to men and women.

There is one other thing that is or should be inherent to our humanity. That is love. There can be no world without love because God is love. Love is inherent to Who God is.  It is not something that God does because He cares.  Love is who God is and it is the reason He does the loving things He does.

1 Corinthians 13, says, there will be many things in life that will come and go.  Many things that will start and end.  Many talents we will have today but lose tomorrow. Talent and skills do not make us more or better people.  Love that is does that for us.

Believers should want all the gifts God has for us.  We should want the talents and skills He has for us.  But more than that, we should want more of the essence of Who He is. That essence is Love.

Scripture reminds us we will lose our talents and skills, but we should want the thing that will live forever. It says there are three things to desire that abide and can never be lost. They are faith, hope and love.  And of these three things, Love is the greatest.

Love that is, is love that will go a long way and will endure much along the way and it is kind all the while.

Love that is, is love that is selfless as it does not want what you have, it does not want to stand out before you and it does not say “look at me.”  Love that is, is all about others, never itself.

Love that is, is love that thinks about how it behaves so that it never behaves rudely.  It is unshakable and can never be provoked by anything.  It never thinks evil of anyone even of those who are evil.  This is because love that is, is love that does not rejoice when you are down.

So, no matter what your gift or talents may be, you should want faith, hope and love because they are part of your essence as a child of God.  And of these three things, love is the greatest because we are fashioned by Love in love to be love.

Our hopes are the dreams and desires that live in our lives. Faith lives in each of us as the essence of the way we live out all of what we hope for.  But even faith and hope are not enough for us to be known by. Faith and hope may be the reason that we are joyful, but Love that is, is the reason for our faith and hope.

Love lives because God lives and He gives us the part of His essence that lives. Our love will never fail to exist. If you want to live long and if you want to live in love toward others, become love that is.

You may want to compare Love that is, to love that describes how we feel and are made to feel for others and for our children and for the things we cherish.  Love that is cannot be compared to our love for things and by things.  It does not need to redefine what love is; it defines clearly what love should be.

Live a Delivered Life.

Be Steadfast

The Lord’s insight.  The deeper you go into the Word, the more the Word will grow in you.

1 Corinthians 15:58: “Therefore my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.”

2 Peter 3:18: “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

Many of you know that I coach people, mostly business executives. I am often asked where do great people hang out?  We assume great people live, work and play at the same things we do but just in different ways.  Well, they do not.  Great people do not “hang out.”  You do not find them in groups like you find others. Great people are like eagles.  You find them alone, standing and living above the very things other people live in.

Great people do not gather together and protest like others do. They do not spend their time commenting and sharing their views over social media as others do. They keep their opinions to themselves when others run to share something with people they don’t know about things they don’t understand.

Great people are this way because they are steadfast about their growth and development.  They stand alone because they will not stand in the places we stand and they will not do the things we do. They see life as a place of constant and continued growth.

Believers should be this way. But we are steadfast about the thing that is not the most productive. We believe in coming together in fellowship and sharing with one another and with others. This is right because we are called to fellowship. But these things are always ready to do because doing many things is easy. But often times, we are ready to do before the work of the Word is finished preparing us to abound in the things we do.

1 Corinthians 15:58 encourages us to abound in our work in the Lord. To abound is to be lavish and to almost have no limit to the things we do. But that is just one part of our work.  1 Peter 3:18 tells us to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord. Many of us may think this means having more of the Lord’s grace and knowledge.

But for me, while it means to have more grace and knowledge, it also means that the grace and the knowledge about the Lord has more of me.  It grows in me so I am able to grow in how much I can have of it.

When the believer grows in the grace and knowledge of the Lord, he can be steadfast and abound in the work of the Lord. When we are diligent in our growth it will show up in the work others see that has been done in us.

Believers are in many ways like the eagle. The hard work in us is done as we stand apart and alone with just us and the Lord. We must understand that growth in the Lord is work that is done in the soil of the Word of God.  It is work that is below the surface of our lives.  It is work that grows deep down into the Word so that the Word can grow deep into the roots of our lives.  This way, the Word becomes our firm foundation to which we are anchored.

Eagles and great people don’t hang out because this work is always being done in them. We must allow the work of the Word to be engaged into our lives when we are in the dark. We don’t grow in our knowledge as much as the Word grows into our lives and it reveals itself in us in the form of grace and knowledge unknown to others.

So, learn to be steadfast and immovable in your growth and in your development.  Make sure you allow the work of the Word to happen in the quiet and in the unseen soil of your life.  If you do this, what people see in the light of your life will be the manifestation of the work that has been done in the darkest areas of your life.

We must grow deeper before we can grow higher. A believer must grow down in the soil of things as much as he grows up into the light of things. We are naturally drawn to light, but the hard work is to make it natural for us to be drawn to the dark hard work in the soil of life.

If you find a strong believer you will probably find someone who is seemingly slower to speak, who listens more than they share, who stands behind more than they stand out front, and who seeks more understanding than they seek to be understood.

They are steadfast in these ways. If you are steadfast in allowing the Work of the Word to do its work in the soil of your life, He will make you abound in grace and in knowledge so that the things you do in the light are a reflection of the work of the Word done the dark.

Live a Delivered Life.