Welcome to the School of Judgement

Hey guys,

This past weekend was to celebrate the resurrection of Christ, and I hope you had a restful holiday?

I am currently working on realigning myself in Christ, so I'll be looking at posting as many posts as the Holy Spirit leads me. This morning I'll be writing on a topic I am very guilty of, and I'll love to hear your thoughts on it as you read. What you share can be either an encouragement, scriptures for us to pray with, and anything as you are lead. Enjoy!!!
                                                 

Vanity upon vanity

A few days ago, I went to get a pedicure.

As I sat and did my pedicure, a few women around me were getting their nails done. As y'all may already know, nails are a big thing in town now.

And as I admired to a small degree the nails being done, I counted it expedient to have my nails painted. Truth is, I wasn't going to fix nails, but it looked pretty nice on the ladies. I thought, what harm would occur if I got mine painted also? In order to make my nails last longer since I never seem to survive with regular polish for more than a week, I opted for the "gel" nail polish.

I finished up my pedicure and gel nail polish ( took a lot of my time ), and home I went, excited that i was looking wifely to a large extent.

Well, lets fast forward to Monday morning and all my nails are off. They comfortably peeled off.

I had a mix of emotions when i saw the first piece coming off on Sunday evening and the horror when 3 were out by night. I literally spent time and money getting those done, and what do I get out of it? fake polish 🤦🏾‍♀

Well Monday morning comes and here I am with my nails bare of any polish. As I drove to work I looked at the pile of peeled off nail polish on my skirt and all I heard was "vanity upon vanity, all is vanity"

When I sit and think of it, what was my real reason for getting my polish done at a salon? A regular me, just paints my nails myself, because I am good at it. But deep in my subconscious I wanted to feel a sense of importance of getting "my nails done" at a salon.

Well here I am on Monday morning without the privilege of even showing off my nails to my colleagues.

As I thought of this, the Holy Spirit made me see how this act of mine, is a reflection of the daily life and decisions a lot of us make daily. Decisions we make, not because they solely benefit us in any way, but simply because we see others doing it.

Why have we relegated ourselves to want things that are not useful to us?

Vanity[b] of vanities, says the Preacher,
vanity of vanities! All is vanity. Ecc 1: 1

I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:Deuteronomy 30:19

Daily, each minute, each second God places before us the chance to make decisions that benefit us. Question is, what do we choose? The vanities of this world or that which is expedient?

Life or death

"But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's meat, nor with the wine which he drank;" Daniel 1: 8a

As I went about my day today, this one portion of the scripture kept replaying in my mind. It made me stop and ask myself, how many of us make a conscious effort not to defile ourselves in any way?

It brought to memory my wedding day. I was determined to have a DJ who played only Christian music, but as the pressure of planning a wedding gets, I didn't get to speak to the DJ aside the instructions my dad had given.

Fast forward to wedding reception, time for the couple to dance in, and here is the DJ playing a bunch of songs I didn't know or want. In my initial steps I tried dancing, thinking in my head(maybe I'll just get this over fast and sit down). But truth of the matter is, my spirit was not in agreement with any of the songs. So here is the bride few steps into the dance floor, standing still and telling them to instruct the DJ to change the song.

I bet some people thought "the girl is silly" or "Toni is crazy". But here is the truth, my spirit refused to be defiled in its choice of song. Especially not on the day my marriage was being launched and was to give glory to God. My spirit could not condon not worshiping God at that crucial point it time. My spirit had grown used to a certain kind of music.

I bet this is how Daniel was. He had distinguished his life in a certain way and could not for a short moment let the pleasure of this world defile him. My question thus is, in your day to day life, how are you ensuring you are not defiling the the temple of God?

Are you awake?

A few days ago, I had been awake for a while and waited "patiently" for the ladies staying with me to wake up and step out of their room.

By 6.30 am however my patience was running out and I was silently thinking of how best to wake them up and inquire from them if they were children that needed me to be their alarm.

As I stepped out of my room, with agenda —wake them up, I was questioning how childish it was for me to have to wake adults up. At that very point, the Holy Spirit paused me and asked: 

Is this not what you make God do to you? You stay asleep spiritually and wait for him to nudge you several times, through dreams, word of knowledge and sermons, yet you remain asleep. Why get angry at your human sisters when you do this to God always?

I was left speechless you see, and I had to rethink my intention of going to "shout" and wake people up. 

The main reasons were; one, for the fact that God is an ever loving God and reaches out to us in love and two because I was indeed guilty. 

So here is the word of the Lord to me and any other person simply deciding not to step up their Christian game. 

14 Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. Ephesians 5: 14

Eph 5:15 — Eph 5:16

See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil. 

Its time to stop being childish in our Christian faith and arise to our call. It is time to wake up and rise in this end time ministry. It is time to use those gifts and callings. It is time to AWAKE, GROW and MATURE.

You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? Jam 2:19 — Jam 2:20

Selah