Author: Allen Forte

Ok, it’s time for a message.  Praise changes you.   In the book of Psalms we are urged to praise the Lord.  In Psalm 149:6 about the saints it says – “Let the high praises of God be in their mouth”.  Praise is not just something we do at church; it is not something we just do in prayer; it is not just something we do when we are being thankful.  Genuine praise is more than words; it is a life of gratefulness trying to live in our lives.  Praise will change who is in control of your life.  When your mouth is full of praise for God, you will have no room to speak in ways that do not praise Him.  When your heart is full of praise for Him you will have no room to have motives that would be contrary to His desires; and when your life is a life of praise for Him you will have no room to live as if you own Him because He has saved you.  When praise is our life; when it’s our heart; and when it’s the language of our mouth there will be no room in our mouths for the little nasty words that fill our hearts and our lives today.  A word of praise that comes from a life of praise is God’s way of saying to others look at them.  They love Me because I love them.  Praise  will change the most difficult and most stubborn and the most unruly thing about us – our attitudes.  And if we can change our attitudes we can change our favor and fortunes. God wants your praise for sure but not just for Himself; He knows real praise is a real life changer.  So let your life and heart and mouth be full of praise for Him.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

Ok, it’s time for a message.  Help me to know me.  Psalm 139:23-24 says “Search me O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting”.  There is a line in a worship song that I like that says “Help me to know my ways”.  There was a time where I spent far too much time trying to tell others what was wrong in their lives.  Then one day I heard myself say to me “let me help you see what is wrong with you”.  I learned that it’s hard to find the wicked mean hurtful things in our own lives until we learn to live in our own spotlight.  So I try to do that – especially in the world we have today – because the spotlights we use for others are bigger than ever.  Now, I live each day asking God to search me out; show me what He finds; root out all the evil; and then to lead me in ways that will endure.  Most of us want what is right; but sometimes because of the stuff we have in us we just don’t know what right is.  I used to be like that.  I learned from Him that it isn’t enough to want to do right; it isn’t enough to believe I do right.  What’s more important to me now is to allow Him to do to me what I wanted done to others.  God taught me this – to know that the eyes of everyone else are always on me so I learned to live as if God is always searching me out so what you find will be something useful for your life.  When you let the Lord search you out you can know He is always very near to you – that is awesome!  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you

Ok, it’s time for a message.  Proverbs 1:5 tells us “A wise man will hear and increase learning.  A man of understanding will attain wise counsel”.  A wise man is a person who listens for and lives by what the Lord says to him.  A wise man doesn’t do what he did yesterday nor does he do what others are doing.  A wise man does what others would never think to do because he listens for the Lord in all things.  A wise man learns from what he is not doing as much as he learns from what he does.  A man of understanding is a man who has been taught by wisdom.  A man of understanding will have knowledge of how before he has experiences because he seeks to learn from what wisdom can say to him.  A man of understanding treats wisdom like it is a person more than just a higher level of knowledge.  So a man of understanding has a personal relationship with the man of wisdom.  You can become a wise man and a man of understanding when you stop living by what you learn from the world and you live by what can only be learned from the Lord.  You cannot have a life with Christ when you have a prenup agreement with yourself to act on your own in some things you won’t trust the Lord to handle your way.  Wisdom and understanding covers you and keeps you from the times when you want to act like everyone else acts because you believe experience is the best teacher for some matters of your life.  The world teaches you how you should act so your thinking will follow your worldly acts; but the wise and understanding man is first taught by the Lord so his in his thinking his acts are shown to be more of the Lord than of the world.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you

Ok, it’s time for a message.  Goodness and Mercy!  In 2 Chronicles 32:32, scripture tells us “Now the rest of the acts of Hezekiah and his goodness, behold, they are written in the vision of Isaiah the prophet”.  Hezekiah was one of the last kings of the Israelites.  This scripture comes just before his death.  So God is telling us that Hezekiah was a good man and he did some good things – too many to cover here.  So the rest of his story, especially his good, can be found in Isaiah and in the book of kings.  Now Hezekiah wasn’t perfect – but like all the people that God loves and uses, Hezekiah made some mistakes but he wasn’t a  failure.  Hezekiah’s goodness was greater than his shortcomings – so God Himself wrote about his goodness.  So what about you and I?  If we knew God was going to write a book about us and share it with everybody, would that change how we live each day?  Some of us care about the things of God but not enough to change things about ourselves.  Hezekiah was a king but he didn’t live like all the other kings; he changed his life for God daily, so God knew that he cared.  Don’t let the book about your life be a one paragraph story.  Don’t be a believer whose life is full of things only the nonbeliever will give you.  The nonbeliever will give you a way out of almost anything but God will be your path to live through anything.  If the most prominent thing about you is the same thing that we find in non believers your book will likely be short on goodness long on selfishness.  Goodness and mercy will follow those of us who do good and who extend mercy. Now that you know this –  what will you do?  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

Ok, it’s time for a message.  I don’t understand.  In the book of Ezekiel 37:1-3, scripture tells us the Lord brought Ezekiel out into a valley full of dry bones and asked him “Son of man, can these bones live?  So I answered (Ezekiel answered), O Lord God, You know”.  We ought to be as wise as Ezekiel in how we handle things we don’t understand.  I don’t understand why some people can become sick with a deadly disease and others do not; today I don’t understand why some people catch and die from the COVID-19 virus and others do not; I don’t understand why some people are successful when others seemingly are not; I don’t understand why some people are believers and others are not; I don’t understand why some people can be happy with the same things that make others unhappy.  There is a lot that I do not understand, but like Ezekiel, I understand this  – I will refrain from finding my own understanding for what I do not know because I could be wrong.  I can cause much pain and agony and I can look foolish when I find an answer in me for all that I do not know or understand.  Instead, I will hold to the One  Who understands everything because I cannot be wrong in that.  I may not understand as much as I would like, but I have learned that living with what I do not understand brings me closer to understanding more myself which helps me live a more satisfying life.  I don’t fill gaps in understanding with my thoughts ;  I fill those gaps with His thoughts. It is in living with what I don’t understand that the seeds of gratefulness are birthed; faith is strengthened; Love is perfected and appreciation for and humility  before others is established.  If you have an answer for everything you don’t understand,  you will become your own God.  Do you understand?  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

Ok, it’s time for a message.     Where are you going?  Scripture tells us in Mark 12:30 that the first and greatest commandment of God is for us to Love The Lord God with all our hearts, soul, mind and strength.  That is a lot more than just saying, Lord I love You – we are all quick to say that.  But He wants us to know it’s serious and we have to be seriously committed to it.  Then in the next verse, Mark 12:31 Jesus goes on to say “ And the second, like it, is this,  you shall love your neighbor as yourself.  There are no other commandments greater than these”.  Now it gets even more serious for us.  I won’t ask if you love the Lord; and I won’t ask if you love your neighbors? You know that or He will show you if you do.  But I will ask if you love yourself?  Because I can see that Jesus wants us to know we may find it easy to get along with Him but it’s gonna take some work to get along with other people – but we have to be up to that just like we get up to loving Him.   In Matthew 7:12, Jesus says to us “ Whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the law of the prophets”.   Listen, whatever way you treat the Lord; whatever way you treat others, you are telling them this is the way you want to be treated. By respecting others you are telling them you want respect to be shown back to you.  You cannot just say I will respect you because I want you to respect me.  That isn’t enough.  You should be careful not to think someone treated you poorly so I am justified in how I treat them back.  Doing this will make people feel justified in how they treat you.  It is not I will do it if they do it; it is I do it because it is what causes others to do it back to me.  Jesus is trying to tell us we cannot be like everybody else and still Love Him.  However little or however much we love others, this is how much we love ourselves.  We have to go first and treat people right and we have to go last and keep treating people right and there is nothing in between that should stop us.  We are not being told we can treat people according to the way they treat us; satan’s children think that way.  People take a broad path to  try and get to a great place in life but it doesn’t work like that – you have to accept that with Jesus, He makes a way for us to get to the place He has chosen for us, right in the middle of the broad path most people are taking to their destruction.  You know if you love the Lord and You know if you love yourself and You know how you want to be treated by others simply by looking at the way you are with others.  If you believe you love yourself it will be seen in the lives of others.  So where are you headed?  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

Ok, it’s time for a message.   When following our hearts leads us away from His heart.  Sometimes we grow impatient with the Lord, especially when it seems He isn’t giving us what we want when we want it and in the way we want it.  Then because we know Him, we take pressing our matters into our own hands and we do things our own way – we save ourselves.  King Saul did this on many occasions.  On one such occasion Samuel speaks to Saul in 1 Samuel 13:14 and tells him “You have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which He commanded you….. The Lord has sought for Himself a man after His own heart”.  Saul’s acts of obedience were actually disobedient acts because Saul sought what he wanted more than what God wanted.  God rejected Saul that day and informed him that He sought a man who would seek His heart not just His blessings.  Many of us would say our hearts are to follow the Lord but that is not the same as seeking after the Lord’s own heart.  When we follow Him, we may never be changed; but we seek to have His heart because we want to be changed from who we are to Who He wants us to be. When we follow Him,  we may decide to follow our own desires when things get tough; but we seek after His heart because we want to embrace tough things in a way that is going to please Him more than to relieve us.  When we follow Him, the persons who follow are still more visible than the persons He wants us to be; and when we follow,  we want others to see the character and integrity of how we see ourselves and the righteousness in the things we do; But when we seek after Him , He shows others how He favors the small humble persons we are, who are not perfect in any way except we are steadfast in our pursuit to catch His heart and to reveal the character and integrity of His work in our lives.  When we believe we are following Him, we can leave a trail of foolishness around us because we foolishly anoint our desires and come to believe they are what He wants for us; But when we seek after His heart, He turns our same foolishness  and mistakes into favor and a deeper identity found in Him.  Are you following your heart or seeking His heart?  Do you lift up your enemy or do you exact revenge on him.  Look around you at the foolish things you are doing in the name of following Him and you will find your answer.  Love a Delivered Life.  Love you.

Ok, it’s time for a message.   What’s going on?  Proverbs 10:12 tells us that “Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all sin”.  We live in a world today where we have in some ways legitimized hatred because of hatred.  When hatred is alive nothing is ever dead.  Hatred won’t allow things to die.  Hatred will seek to punish what should be forgiven.  God may sometimes become angry towards us but He is never mean towards us.  Today it is the social norm for us to uncover more than we cover.  We want to stir up old stuff that has already died.  You see, hatred tells us that we do not have to live in peace with anything that was hurtful in our past.  So hate stirs  up strife in our lives and we then stir up strife in the lives of those around us.  But Love!  Love says to us, stuff is going to happen to us; we are going to do some stuff; and we are gonna know about some stuff.  Stuff is what should remind us to be grateful and understanding and to appreciate that sometimes it’s the stuff that happens to us that makes us better;  and it’s the stuff that we do that we hate that makes us better than that;  and it’s the stuff that God keeps from ever happening to us that makes us our best.  Love doesn’t say stuff is ok; Love says let stuff die and bury it so that the best you can live with your old stuff right where you are.  If it happened five minutes ago it is old stuff.  Get hatred out of your life.  Let it die and cover it with love and let the best you live.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you

Ok, it’s time for a message.  Listen Up!  Scripture in 1 Samuel 3:10 tells us this – “Now the Lord came and stood and called as at other times, Samuel Samuel! And Samuel answered, speak for Your servant hears”.  The Lord was trying to get Samuel’s attention.  Sometimes we can be so busy talking that we cannot hear what is being said.  It is a good thing that we have only one mouth and two ears.  Perhaps the Lord wanted us to know the importance we should place on listening and on hearing.  The answers to our prayers come in hearing; healing comes in hearing; faith comes in hearing; restoration comes in hearing; life abundantly comes to those who hear more and speak less.  The Lord looks to raise up faithful people among us who will live and do according to His heart and His mind.  Our part in all this is to shut up and to listen up.  Not our wills but His will be done.  Too often though we live as though we will tell the Lord how to be a good God to us.  We think we help the Lord see more clearly, the more we talk about the things going on around us, about what people are doing to us and about how bad other people really are.  I have learned the Lord sees as much of me as He sees of the things around me.  So I shut my mouth and listen for what I can learn from Him.  He comes; He stands and He calls to us all just as He did with Samuel.  Do I give Him my attention?  With my mouth all I really do is to call attention to the problem I believe you are and with my mouth I actually reveal the problem I am.  But with a listening life and a quiet tongue, I call attention to the work God has done to perfect His heart and His mind in me.  Listen up and speak less.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you

Ok, it’s time for a message.  Silver and Gold.  In the Book of Acts, scripture tells us of a lame man who daily asked people for money as they entered the temple.  And on one such day he happened to ask for money from the disciples, Peter and John.  Expecting to receive something from them, scripture in Acts 3:6-8 says Peter responded to the man this way saying “Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give to you:  in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk”.  We are living in a world and in a time where many of us want things to be made right for us or for someone we know or for people we believe are being hurt or persecuted or enslaved or wronged in some systemic ways.  We want justice; we want what’s right; we want redemption; we want the rule of law to be held up against those who have brought or are bringing or will bring us pain or hurt or or harm or dishonor in any way.  We will go to the courts to ask for this; we will go to the authorities to request for this; we will go to public opinion and the court of ridicule and scorn and condemnation to demand this of people we don’t even know and even in some cases of people who love us.  Unfortunately for us, the world becomes our temple and it will be happy to listen to our cases and to help us put our cases and our voices on the world’s Facebook for everyone like us to know, so that we can get what we want even if we must shame and condemn others to get it.  Seeing that those who hurt us are brought to justice is the silver and gold we request.  But when we get that type justice, do we have really what we should have?  I don’t know about you, but as for me, I know I could not stand before the world’s Facebook judgment and live.  Who I was in times past is not who I am today.  My past is not clean enough for me to have to live it daily before you and everyone else; if I had to live daily making right all my wrongdoings against you and everyone else, I would die not from what I had done but from trying to atone for what I had done. So that reminds me to never live or to judge or to give in to the way the world has made it right for me to live.  Silver and gold I do not have nor do I want.  But I have Jesus.  And now I try to live like Him snd to forgive like Him and to give like Him and love like Him.  I don’t need people who hurt me or are mean to me or are spiteful toward me to have to live trying to make things right with me.  I use the hard things of my past – things I have done and things I have had done to me – to make me a better person today.  I don’t want to be buried by my past nor do I want to bury others in their past.  I want to help others learn from and to rise up and be better.  I don’t want the pain of my past to cause pain in the present for me or anyone else.  I would rather have Jesus and give others a life devoted to Jesus too.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you