This is WHY we MUST BE SOUL WINNERS!!! Bishop Joseph L. Garlington, Sr. “Those Who Cling To Worthless Idols Forfeit The Grace That Could Be Theirs” Last Thursday, after an eleven-hour drive to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, my wife, Barbara, and I stood with our son Joey and his wife Debbie, peering through a window at the remains of Branden Joseph Garlington, Joey’s firstborn son and our first grandson. From the first moment I met him, when he was nine months old, he brought great joy to my heart and I loved him from that moment. Staring through the glass that prevented us from touching him even in death, there was still that slight smile that he carried interminably. For a brief moment, you wanted to believe that he had found some way to “punk” us, and at the right time, he would just sit up. His mother cried out in anguish, “I just had to see him, it was the only way I could believe he was gone;” and then she wept inconsolably. I stood there with others who were dealing with their own private and public anguish and watched as Nana and Sean consoled each other for some eternal moment. In fact, Joey and Debbie had just returned from Portland, where they had been nursing Sean back to health; he had been hospitalized with a serious case of salmonella. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way,” I kept thinking. He was talented, gifted, and handsome and had so much promise to fulfill. As I said, this was not the answer to our prayers we believed God for. Moses prayer in Psalms 90 tells us “the days of our life, they contain seventy years, or if due to strength, eighty years.” NASB Psalms 90:10. Yet, Branden lay there, having lived less than half of that promise. Branden, like many, made choices for his life that predetermined his outcome. Jonah, while in the belly of the fish declared, “Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.” Jonah 2:8 (NIV). If only we could actually believe God when He says, “The plans I have for you…[are] plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Satan has a plan for your life and Jesus described his mission statement with these words: “The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy….” I don’t think you can easily turn from God; it takes a strong act of the will to disobey God. When the prophet Samuel asked the newly anointed King Saul why he disobeyed the command to wait for him, Saul told Samuel, “I forced myself.” That one act of disobedience caused Saul to “forfeit the grace that could have [been].” My grandson had an anointing on his life that should have taken him to significant places in the purpose of God. Often, fathers will ask the question, where did I fail or what more could I have done? When I am asked that question, I pose another alternative; is not God the Father the perfect Father, who placed His son Adam in a perfect environment with one simple command. In choosing to disobey, he “forced himself” even with the promise of death looming over his action. In some strange way, Adam chose death just as surely as Robin Williams did! Moses forfeited the grace of leading the Israelites into the Promised Land, and yet he knew the favor of God in so many ways. Paul told the Corinthian saints that God would judge an unrepentant life through “weakness, sickness and eventually death to avoid judging us with the world.” I believe these are days the Father is calling us to a life of carefulness and yet to a deep sense that the “plan” He has for us is so much better than we have for ourselves. The key components of His plan are “hope and a future.” A long time ago, God spoke to my heart and said these sobering words, “Joseph, it doesn’t make any difference whether you or Satan sit on the throne of your life; the outcome will still be the same!”
Posted on: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 12:59:44 +0000
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