So...Today is a new day!

Last night at church I had an epiphany:  I AM MY OWN PERSONAL ENABLER!  As I was laying in my bed meditating (unintentionally) on the message, the Lord spoke to my heart and showed me that I invest in keeping myself back...I AM "THE MAN"  I thought about all of the resources that God has given me to get back into school that I had squandered on sheer stupidity.  I thought about the food that I invest in that tastes good, but keeps me from my goal, thus binding me in defeat.  Then I thought about a verse that God gave me to claim over my family:  Joel 2:25-27 which states:

I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten—
the great locust and the young locust,
the other locusts and the locust swarm^[b]—
my great army that I sent among you.
²⁶ You will have plenty to eat, until you are full,
and you will praise the name of the Lord your God,
who has worked wonders for you;
never again will my people be shamed.
²⁷ Then you will know that I am in Israel,
that I am the Lord your God,
and that there is no other;
never again will my people be shamed.

 

Which ended up really being for me, God is my father and I am his little girl.  He allowed me to fail so that I could come to the end of what I can do and allow him to do it for me.  He wants the glory!  This is how I am new:  I have no more tricks up my sleeve, no more clever ideas, I am too exhausted to DO, all I can do is rest and surrender ALL of me, God does not help those who help themselves, He helps those who fully trust in him surrendering all, determined to do whatever He says (John 2:5).  This is what I do know: He is about to give me a NEW identity, He is going to take me places I dont even have the mental capacity to dream of, He has healed me, and going to use me to lead others to his healing power.

Everyone has (or will have) a moment in there life when they realize that they had the wrong expectations about Change.  For me, my moment came this week, as I lay in my bed thinking back to my expectations upon leaving my world of religious bondage and passive-aggressive abuse.  I was confident as to the church that I would attend and looking forward to it.  I really thought that I would walk in and tell my "tragic" story and become the "talk of the church," as everyone rallied around me praying healing for myself, as well as my family.  Yes, I was this prideful (LOL)!  I also expected to walk in and be told how to live this new life.   Even though, I was walking away from bondage and control, it is all that I knew and without it, I felt unconfident as to my choices and life's path.  I never saw myself sitting here, lonely, broken, and weak wondering if I made the right choice, without the strength to carry on and begin again.  I never realized just how much strength my past churches had sucked out of me.  So, here I am...angry!  Jeremiah 29:11 says, "I know the thoughts that I think towards you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you an expected end."  God has seen everything before it has happend, and what he has began, He will finish in your life.  Abraham believed God, not even considering his circumstances or mistakes.  He trusted God!  I am confident that "All the promises of God are in him, YES and in Him, AMEN!"  And against all that I have been taught, anger and frustration are normal emotions, but I will not allow the devil to "muddy up the waters" by causing me to sin due to my emotion.  God is in control and HE is stretching my faith, patience, love, etc... for whatever else He has for me in the near future.  So, to you I say, just trust him!  No matter what you are going through, God has already paid for every blessing you will ever recieve, all you have to do is accept it, but, some blessings, all you need to do is wait (Isaiah 40:31)!  Oh yeah...It's O.K. to laugh at yourself!  Change can be quite funny too! 

The Rock FWC Media

The Rock FWC Media

I Am NOT a victim of MY FLESH

The Victim

 

Psalm 69:2 I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.


I thought "it" was my friend.  I fed it whenever and whatever it wanted. I was so consumed with its desires that I could never think of even getting dressed without consulting with it first.  I catered my desires to it, even if it meant my physical demise.  I gave it everything.  Eventually, it infected my entire life, even my walk with my God.  Now I sit here in the filth and mire of my own mistake.  I have allowed myself to be tricked and blinded by it...MY FLESH!  Everytime that I fed it, it became stronger, but that was its plan: To become strong enough to mutiny.  I thought we were "just" friends, I even fell in love with it, I loved what it loved and hated the ONE who loved me and warned me to deny it.  I declared my love for my beloved Flesh, by choosing to ignoring The Beloved, the One who had given His life so that I could live.  Even as I lay in this mire, a victim, I reach up to My Flesh for help, and for the first time I look into its eyes, regrettably remembering a verse in the Bible; Proverbs 23:7 For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee.  But surely he would remember all that I sacrificed, thus showing my complete and open devotion.  As I reach  up to it, I not only see abandonment in its eyes, but I see ridicule and feel condemnation. This Flesh that I had given so much to please, was now pointing its finger at me.  It now convinces me that everyone looks through me and see that I am a slave to It:  an ADDICT.  I look down in shame, embarassed, I look around in the mire and wonder how am I going to get out of it.  Would I ever get over the love that I have for it?  As I search for someone to blame and carry this burden with me,  I realize that it was I the whole time.  It was no one else's fault but my own. Maybe if I DETERMINE to do better, or if I read a self-help book that would make it all better.  But then I realize that there is nothing that I can do to make this better.  I am in too deep.  In my shame I take full responsibility for placing the blind fold upon my own life and feeding My  Flesh.  Something that felt so good and rewarding at one point has left me poor, exposed, and lonely.  I repent (II Chronicles 7:14), but have no idea how to clean up the effects of my poor decisions.  I look up into the face of God and see (and feel) His love for me.  BUT GOD...

 

The Victor

ICor. 6:11 And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God

 

 

Without any hesitation or condemnation, God reaches down and picks me up (Romans 5:8).  He washes me thoroughly and introduces me to something called Justification.  I had always thought that this is something that happend only at salvation.  But I remember IJohn 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  God doesn't just give me a quick "brush off" or just doesn't cover me with nice outer clothing, but He cleanes me from the inside, out, just as if I had never sinned.  He showers me with His love,  a love that had always been there but never tapped into.  For the first time it replaces all the bad that I felt about myself.  In an instant I forget about the love that I have for that flesh, because, the love that I have for The One overshadows it.  He lifts up my head and places my feet on stability...the Rock.  Psalm 40:2 He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.  When I thought that God had turned his back on me, It was my sin he looked away from, when He looked on me, He saw His Son, Jesus Christ.  I am no longer a victim but a victor who is determined to only look on my past mistakes as it pertains to helping others not fall into its filthy traps.  I am looking to my future.  I am the called according to His purpose.  Called to minister to women coming out of there bondage, whether it be religion, abusive marriages, addictions, or whatever the devil has put into our lives to make us victims.  I look to Jesus, the Author and Finisher of my faith, who sees in me what I don't yet see in myself, but I know that as I draw closer to Him, I will begin to see what he sees, the way He sees it.  Oh yeah, as for my relationship with My Flesh, I declare and decree that it is over, it was a one-sided "thing" anyway, besides my relationship with The Beloved out shines it all, and is way more rewarding.  And while I know that repairing my life is going to be a long road, I am confident that God, who is now working through me, will never leave me nor forsake me.



 







I WAS a victim....

II Cor. 5:16-18 "Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. ¹⁷ Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.¹⁸ And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;"

THE VICTIM

 

To some my childhood was ideal!  I had two loving parents, whose love for me was impaled only by their sheer love for the Lord Jesus Christ.  My parents were pastors of New Mount Olive Missionary Baptist Church.  Even though my dad was, and still is very popular in the community, he never allowed himself to become "celebrity."  He was also the DJ for the local Christian radio station, on which he would advertise my mother's in home beauty salon.  When my sister, Charmaine turned 5, my parents decided to send her to a Christian school, and as we turned the age of 5, we too followed, suit.  Life was good, until I was 9, and we joined the church.  At first, I was excited to go to church with my school friends and teachers, but then it was a living nightmare.  Church/ School seems amazing, but done wrong, can be a catalyst to "provoke a child to wrath" (Eph. 6:4).  My parents had become Fundamental Baptist in every area of their lives, BUT ONE...they never stopped laying hands and anointing us with oil.  THIS was our savior!  I could tell you all of the atrocities that my family and I had to endure while in this church, most of which I did not realize was illegal child abuse, racism, etc. until I stepped outside the 75 acres of that particular institution.  The stress that this CULT put on people, affected my parent's marriage and turned it abusive.  My parents went from praying and speaking in tounges together to physically abusing each other.  Many times the pastor of the church would give bad reports and put fear in the heart of my dad about our spiritual lives and he would come home overcome with fear and extreme stress and take it out on us.  Many of the spankings would go too far, thus causing us to begin to live in extreme fear and stress.  My childhood, had many great days, but, was riddled by the overwhelming darkness of fear. However, this was life as I knew it, my normal. BUT GOD....

 

 

VICTOR

 

On March 9, 2001 as my father and I were driving to church to excercise, at 4:30 a.m. a drunk driver came out of nowhere and hit us, killing my dad instantly.  At this point, I thought that my life had ended.  But little did I know, God was just beginning a NEW thing in my life (Is. 43:19).  It was a hard dark time, a time that I thought my pastor would be there for myself, as well as, my family.  But instead he told us that God killed my dad because we were stubborn and rebellious.  You may be thinking, "How is this victorious."  Well, here it is, if they had been "there" for us, we would all still be living under that "normal."  God had to show us that this "normal" was not normal at all, in fact it was an extreme cult.  At 23, August 2003, I made my relationship with Christ personal, and ask Jesus to be my savior.  No longer was it about how long my skirt was, or how long I was out on bus ministry.  It was only about Jesus.  The next year, God led me to leave Indiana and move to Alabama.  I was only going to attend nursing school, because I had given up on teaching.  Even though, this church was of the same denomination, they were not an abusive cult.  God was using this time to show me a new world of spirituality that was vertical.  It was also during this time that I realized that It was my calling and life's purpose to be in the ministry of teaching.  I enrolled and Southeast Baptist Bible College and finished my teaching degree.  After graduation, I moved to Georgia, and was there for five years.  It was in Georgia that I realized that IFB churches were a cult.  So, after almost 5 years in Georgia, and 23 years in the cult, I broke away and moved back to Alabama, only this time a new woman, free of all the bondage of religion.  God is so good, and has brought me so far and for so long, I have looked at myself as a victim of the church.  But today, I break free from my past pain and declare and decree thee I am FREE AND FREE INDEED not because of anything that I can do, but because of what HE already did! (John 8:36)  And I can honestly say that I thank God for ALL that He chose me to go through!  I am so excited about this ministry that He is preparing for me to lead and the women that will also get their freedom.  My life verse is Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end." And I am fully persuaded God is not like man....He finishes the work that he starts! 

Philipians 1:6 Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:

 

Be Blessed,

 

S.L. McCoy

Prayer:
Thank you God, that I am a new creature.  And as I put my painful past away, I am taking a moment to Thank you for it!  Because, I am confident in you and I trust that you have an expected end for my life.  Help me to remember this pain when other's are hurting, and give me the wisdom to minister to them the way you have ministered to me!  I thank you, love you, and praise you, in the mighty name of Jesus.  Amen.