Lion Bites – Global Prophetic Alliance – A Thankful Heart

Thanksgiving is the way to break through in this season. Thanksgiving makes way for healing restoration and brings an end to robbery. Misery and complaining have become a too familiar friendship in your life. It’s also been, in some situations, the foundation on which relationships have been built on. But in this season, I am giving you a mouth full of thanksgiving.

I am looking for your agreement with the language of heaven. Will you speak life to all those around you by giving thanks and praise? I am creating within you a heart full of thankfulness and praise. A heart that brings life and hope to all situations. Thankfulness is your best weapon in this season to pull you out of the hardships into God glorious promises.

Challenge: for every grumbling word, speak two positive things about the same situation. Turn your mouth into a house of praise and thanksgiving.

Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (NIV)

The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.

Proverbs 18:21 (NIV)

#lionbites

Tuesday Morning Scripture – Matthew 18:12-14

Ninety-nine Plus One

12 “What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them gets lost, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountain and go in search of the one that is lost?

13 And if it turns out that he finds it, I assure you and most solemnly say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that did not get lost.

14 So it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones be lost.

Matthew 18:12-14 (AMP)

Lion Bites – Global Prophetic Alliance – Prove That I Exist

I call you to lead by speaking kindly to the oppressed. You are strong and release my Holy Spirit when you lift others up. Your gratitude in place of grumbling changes atmospheres.

I call you to think big, to see from my view, and come into a place of influence from my perspective. I call you a Kingdom Influencer.

I am stirring up the hearts of those who do not know me. I’m stirring the questioners, the ones who are desperately looking for my love, heart and freedom. I’m stirring the hearts of people crying out for me to prove I exist.

Today I call you to be the answer to those prayers and that longing in their hearts, to tell people you come in contact with today that God see them, that I know them, that I love them. The harvest is getting ready. Will you go out with me as a co-labourer?

But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.’

2 Corinthians 3:16-18 (ESV)

‘You will be witnesses to all people of what you have seen and heard.’

Acts 2:15 (ESV)

#lionbites

Monday Morning Scripture – Matthew 18:1-11

Rank in the Kingdom

1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”

2 He called a little child and set him before them,

3 and said, “I assure you and most solemnly say to you, unless you repent [that is, change your inner self—your old way of thinking, live changed lives] and become like children [trusting, humble, and forgiving], you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

4 Therefore, whoever [1]humbles himself like this child is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

5 Whoever receives and welcomes one [2]child like this in My name receives Me;

6 but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble and sin [by leading him away from My teaching], it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone [as large as one turned by a donkey] hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.

Stumbling Blocks

7 “Woe (judgment is coming) to the world because of stumbling blocks and temptations to sin! It is inevitable that stumbling blocks come; but woe to the person on whose account or through whom the stumbling block comes!

8 “If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble and sin, cut it off and throw it away from you [that is, remove yourself from the source of temptation]; it is better for you to enter life crippled or lame, than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into everlasting fire.

9 If your eye causes you to stumble and sin, pluck it out and throw it away from you [that is, remove yourself from the source of temptation]; it is better for you to enter life with only one eye, than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fiery hell.

10 “See that you do not despise or think less of one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven [are in the presence of and] continually look upon the face of My Father who is in heaven.

11 [3][For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.]

Matthew 18:1-11 (AMP)

Footnotes

  1. Matthew 18:4 I.e. turns his back on self-righteous pride and adopts a realistic self-view.
  2. Matthew 18:5 I.e. new, childlike believer.
  3. Matthew 18:11 Early mss do not contain this verse.

The Lived Experiences of Black Professional Women at Work

Shirleena Celestine is focused on ‘permanent change’.

Doing a PhD in Inclusion & Diversity, she is researching ‘The Lived Experiences of Black Professional Women at Work’.

Please complete and SHARE the below link so she can hear the voices of as many Black Professional Women as possible from the U.K. and USA. This anonymous survey should take 10 mins.

Over the following months she will be conducting anonymous interviews (you can also let her know if you would like to do an interview, in advance).

https://lincoln.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/bpww

Saturday Morning Scripture – James 1:16-27

Test Your Faith

16 Do not be misled, my beloved brothers and sisters.

17 Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above; it comes down from the Father of lights [the Creator and Sustainer of the heavens], in whom there is no variation [no rising or setting] or shadow [1]cast by His turning [for He is perfect and never changes].

18 It was of His own will that He gave us birth [as His children] by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits of His creatures [a prime example of what He created to be set apart to Himself—sanctified, made holy for His divine purposes].

19 Understand this, my beloved brothers and sisters. Let everyone be quick to hear [be a careful, thoughtful listener], slow to speak [a speaker of carefully chosen words and], slow to anger [patient, reflective, forgiving];

20 for the [resentful, deep-seated] anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God [that standard of behavior which He requires from us].

21 So get rid of all uncleanness and [2]all that remains of wickedness, and with a humble spirit receive the word [of God] which is implanted [actually rooted in your heart], which is able to save your souls.

22 But prove yourselves doers of the word [actively and continually obeying God’s precepts], and not merely listeners [who hear the word but fail to internalize its meaning], deluding yourselves [by unsound reasoning contrary to the truth].

23 For if anyone only listens to the word [3]without obeying it, he is like a man who looks very carefully at his natural face in a mirror;

24 for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he immediately forgets [4]what he looked like.

25 But he who looks carefully into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and faithfully abides by it, not having become a [careless] listener who forgets but [5]an active doer [who obeys], he will be blessed and favored by God in what he does [in his life of obedience].

26 If anyone thinks himself to be religious [scrupulously observant of the rituals of his faith], and does not control his tongue but deludes his own heart, this person’s religion is worthless (futile, barren).

27 Pure and unblemished religion [as it is expressed in outward acts] in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit and look after the fatherless and the widows in their distress, and to keep oneself uncontaminated by the [secular] world.

James 1:16-27 (AMP)

Footnotes

  1. James 1:17 Lit of turning.
  2. James 1:21 Lit surplus of.
  3. James 1:23 Lit and is not a doer.
  4. James 1:24 Lit what sort he was.
  5. James 1:25 Lit a doer of work.

Friday Morning Scripture – James 1:1-15

Testing Your Faith

1 [1]James, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve [Hebrew] tribes [scattered abroad among the Gentiles] in the dispersion: Greetings (rejoice)!

2 Consider it nothing but joy, my [2]brothers and sisters, whenever you fall into various trials.

3 Be assured that the testing of your faith [through experience] produces endurance [leading to spiritual maturity, and inner peace].

4 And let endurance have its perfect result and do a thorough work, so that you may be perfect and completely developed [in your faith], lacking in nothing.

5 If any of you lacks wisdom [to guide him through a decision or circumstance], he is to ask of [our benevolent] God, who gives to everyone generously and without rebuke or blame, and it will be given to him.

6 But he must ask [for wisdom] in faith, without doubting [God’s willingness to help], for the one who doubts is like a billowing surge of the sea that is blown about and tossed by the wind.

7 For such a person ought not to think or expect that he will receive anything [at all] from the Lord,

8 being a double-minded man, unstable and restless in all his ways [in everything he thinks, feels, or decides].

9 Let the brother in humble circumstances glory in his high position [as a born-again believer, called to the true riches and to be an heir of God];

10 and the rich man is to glory in being humbled [by trials revealing human frailty, knowing true riches are found in the grace of God], for like the flower of the grass he will pass away.

11 For the sun rises with a scorching wind and withers the grass; its flower falls off and [3]its beauty fades away; so too will the rich man, in the midst of his pursuits, fade away.

12 Blessed [happy, spiritually prosperous, favored by God] is the man who is steadfast under trial and perseveres when tempted; for when he has passed the test and been approved, he will receive the [victor’s] crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.

13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God” [for temptation does not originate from God, but from our own flaws]; for God cannot be tempted by [what is] evil, and He Himself tempts no one.

14 But each one is tempted when he is dragged away, enticed and baited [to commit sin] by his own [worldly] desire (lust, passion).

15 Then when the illicit desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin has run its course, it gives birth to death.

James 1:1-15 (AMP)

Footnotes

  1. James 1:1 James, the leader of the Jerusalem church, was the half brother of Jesus. He became a believer after the resurrection of Jesus and was later martyred for his faith.
  2. James 1:2 Lit brethren.
  3. James 1:11 Lit the beauty of its face perishes.