Good Morning Peeps! How are you doing this Tuesday morning, good I hope? Today will be the last Devotional for this week. I will be off the rest of the week due to my upcoming back procedure tomorrow (Wednesday) and I would really appreciate all of your Prayers that it is a success. Thank you in advance for those who would be so kind as to send Prayers up for my procedure’s success! Have a good and very Blessed Tuesday and rest of the week too! - May God Bless You and Yours In 2018 and Beyond!!! - “Are YOU 100% sure, that you are Saved and headed to Heaven when you die? Are you sure YOUR name IS written in the Heavenly “Book of Life?” Is there absolutely not a shadow of a doubt in your mind, that your Salvation is already secured and you’re just waiting on the good Lord to call you home to be with Him? If the answer is “No, Not Sure, I Think So, Maybe, or Probably, then you need to get busy right now working on fixing that. You need to be totally sure where your Soul will spend eternity!” And AMEN goes right here….
#SalvationIsOnlyThruJesusChrist
“This is the day that the Lord has made! I will rejoice and be glad in it!”
The Third Eye Perspective:
By Carlos C. Brown
Thought For Today – “It Could Have Been Me…”
Question for my audience/readers, have you ever seen a person experience something good or even tragic and thought to yourself “That could have been, maybe should have been, me?” I know I have and depending on what that situation was (good or bad), it has happened multiple times. Let’s take for example something tragic, how many times when you’ve heard about a tragic accident, that involves something you have done from time to time? I will use a drowning, hearing of the horrible accident that happened last week when a few family members went fishing and the boat they were in overturned and out of what I think was 4 guys in one boat, only two were able to swim to safety. It is with this train of thought, or line of thinking, that it was placed on my heart today to talk about, “It Could Have Been Me…” And AMEN goes right here! I think about the times my cousins and I would sneak and go fishing and even swimming in creeks and ponds full of poisonous snakes, never even thinking about as far out as we were away from home, that if we got bit, or one of us had anytype of “life threatening” accident, there would for sure be no chance we would survive depending on what type of injury we suffered from. And I remember like it happened yesterday, one of my cousins who was one of my best friends growing up did indeed drown at a Church picnic of all events. He was an excellent swimmer, which upon hearing that was how he had died, struck me with a huge sense of disbelief. I was late getting to the picnic and as I am driving over the Toadsuck river bridge, I see all the emergency rescue vehicles with their lights on down where the picnic was going on, as well as multiple boats in the water. An eerie chill went down my spine as I dreaded every foot I came closer to reaching the other side of that bridge and then the road that led down into the park and subsequently the picnic area where all my fellow friends and family were standing in misbelieve. This was especially hard for me to sit and watch them pull my cousin/best friend out of that river all limp and lifeless, knowing it could have, maybe even should have, been me being that we had went swimming so many times when we wasn’t supposed to in creeks and ponds.
I will never forget the look on my mother’s face when she saw me get out of the car and start to run over to her to ask what had happened. Even knowing that I was not there when he and his nephew dove in to swim in the blocked off area where the tragedy happened, you could still see the sheer terror in her eyes that without a doubt makes me believe her thoughts were the same as every other mother there, “It could have been my son.” Was my cousin that unfortunately lost his life that day any different than me, that resulted in his untimely death? NO, he was a born again Christian and he was a good kid on top of that. We both accepted Christ the same day, and were Baptized on the same day too. He was a little crazy at times, in a good and funny way, but nonetheless, he was not a bad person whatsoever. I thought of him as a brother, not a best friend or cousin. I think about him everytime I go over that bridge at Toadsuck, and I still get that same chill up my spine. Now, let’s look at some positives “it could have, maybe even should have, been me” situations. If you know me any at all, you know that I played basketball all my life, and was “ate up with it” as the older generation would say! Describing that I ate, slept and dreamed about basketball, all day every day. I still get tickled when I hear people tell me “man I just knew you would end up going to the NBA as good as you were back in the day” LOL! Maybe they saw something in my talent that I didn’t see, because I never thought, nor do I even to this day think, I was “that good.” My uncle “DT” on the otherhand, he should have definitely made it to the NBA. He taught me most everything I knew about the game of Basketball. I worshipped the ground that man walked on in more ways than one…I was not tall enough to play NBA basketball with my height at the position I was forced to play. There aren’t any 6’4-6’5 low post players in the NBA. They are all 6’9 at least and up to 7’0+ tall. But I have to admit, that I have wondered many times, “why didn’t I grow 6-8” in one summer like Scottie Pippen?” I mean dang, being 6’4-6’5 and trying to play low post in the college ranks, when the guys you’ll be matched up against are 6’8 – 6’9 or taller, just isn’t going to afford you the opportunities to play in the NBA, where all of your counterparts are going to be 7’0 – 7’4 LOL! But regardless, if you don’t know the story about Scottie Pippen, he was a point guard for The University of Central Arkansas (UCA Bears), who grew 6-8” over one summer, which immediately gave him an advantage over all or at the very least, most of his positions’ players, because he still had the ball handling skills of a point guard. Only now, he didn’t have point guards guarding him, he had forwards and centers! Why couldn’t it have been ME that grew like Scottie did LOL! Scottie went on to be drafted by the Chicago Bulls, teaming up with his “Airness” Mike “Air” Jordan and willing I think it was 5 or 6 NBA championships and then being labeled as one of the NBA’s top 50 players of all time. It was just Scottie’s destiny, every piece of that puzzle just fell into place time and time again.
Now I am going to throw you all a curve ball. How many people do you think has died that wasn’t saved, who thought as they breathed their last breath, I could have, should have, would have been saved, “IF ONLY I HAD MORE TIME??” The whole point of the above mentioned examples, is that there are numerous “what if” scenarios that we could wonder about or dwell on, but the one about our “eternal destination” is one that should NOT be debatable. Satan saw where his prideful mentality got him booted out of Heaven, when he became jealous of God thinking, “I should have been, could have been, needed to be God looked at and worshipped at a God too.” What if and just go with me on this, “what if” Satan had convinced God to let HIM be the one to go thru all that Jesus went thru? What if Satan was the one who died on the cross not Jesus? How different would the world we live in today be had this happened? What if Moses had not remained Faithful to God and His commandments? Afterall, Moses didn’t even get to experience the “promised land” that he fought so hard to lead God’s “Chosen People” to, although he did get to see it. Can you not imagine Moses thinking or saying “It could have been, should have been, needed to be, ME not them?” I would be willing to bet, each and every person who was consumed by the great flood that laughed at Noah while he and his family were building the great Ark and gathering two of each living creature, thought to themselves “It could have been, should have been, me?” What about Pharaoh’s army? You don’t think they thought as they were being swallowed up by the Red Sea when the walls of water came crashing down on them? As well as the clergy who lied on and conspired against Daniel when he was thrown in the Lion’s Den? Do you not think they thought as they saw the hungry lions approaching, roaring loudly just before devouring them, “It could have been, should have been me” that survived not Daniel??? Let me ask you a life changing question:
What is keeping you from a daily worshipping, loving, walking, talking, and Praising relationship with God???
Can I get an Amen???
“Today, choose To “Ride or Die” with Jesus Christ! Afterall, isn’t that exactly what He did for us on the Cross at Calvary?
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