Nurturing Your Inner Child

Hey You! This month is all about “Revolutionary Sisterhood”. Join us as we learn how to be the sister we have always needed for ourselves and those around us.

Dear Lord,
Today…….I am asking all my prayer warriors to say a prayer that may help others. So many people are hurting right now. Many are struggling with finances and need jobs. Some are facing foreclosure and don’t even know how they are going to make it from week to week.. Many are lonely. . Many are heartbroken. . Many are facing sickness and health is fading. . Some are dealing with difficult family members. Many have lost HOPE.. Tonight, let us put our prayers and faith together decree and declare breakthrough over our families. Financial miracles WILL take place. Jobs WILL be found. Our Bodies WILL be made whole & sickness WILL flee. Marriages and relationships WILL be restored. Family members WILL find Jesus. Heartbreaks WILL be healed. JOY WILL be restored and HOPE WILL be found. In Jesus Name. Amen!!!!!! Keep God First…….

So there’s been this buzzword lately and I have been obsessed with it ever since.
I have really understood the meaning of these words, this inner child, inner child.
I don’t know if you’re like me and you’ve heard this over and over again, but there’s like this movement for the inner child.
And we’ve been talking about sisterhood all month long if you’re plugged into the podcast, which I highly suggest that you start listening to the podcast.
It’s just Woman evolve wherever podcasts are on your Google Play Store or your Apple podcast app.
I want you to check out the podcast, Spotify as well because we’ve been talking about sisterhood and we’ve been talking about sisterhood in its many forms.
I had a conversation with the mother of my bonus Children and our revolutionary sisterhood that is revolutionary because we both had to overcome petty in order to do it.
We taught to buy logical sisters who are transitioning into adulthood and establishing their lives.
And then even more seasoned sisters who are in their seventies and have seen life really progress in different stages and best friend, sisterhood, sisterhood, that is our theme.
And yet I am challenged because I recognize that not everyone has had an experience with sisterhood, not everyone has a sister, nor have they been blessed enough to have friendships that feel like sisterhood.
And so as I was praying about this message and asking God, what is it that I can do to help the delegation to help those connected with woman evolve to have a better understanding of sisterhood.
And I have to tell you everything in me, wanted to have a conversation about sisterhood as it relates to our connection with other women.
I’m thinking about this podcast I did with a member of the delegation who met her best friends, her sisters for life at a woman evolve event.
And we had a powerful conversation, but up until that moment, she didn’t have any other sisters.
And so I was digging into this subject and thinking about how can I talk about sisterhood.
And I felt in my prayer that God really wanted me to talk about what it means to be a sister to yourself.
It feels like a random impossible equation.
And yet with that buzz word about your inner child, I cannot help but consider that perhaps being a sister to yourself is recognizing that inner child, that divine woman you are trying to become and how they both live within you.
We talk a lot about self sabotage and how we’re sabotaging our own dreams and our own destiny.
How is it possible that we could have self sabotage unless there were two of us inside of us.
One of us reaching for the best of us, the other one clinging to the fear, the warmth of our insecurities and our comfort zone.
And so how do we walk together?
I wanna talk about you having sisterhood with yourself by nurturing your inner child.
Um I’ve been on this journey myself with this whole inner child movement and I wanna give you a definition of what it means to have an inner child.
And for those of you who are maybe joining us for the first time, or maybe you’ve never been connected to woman evolve.
Just I welcome you. I’m so grateful that you’ve taken time to really invest in yourself woman evolve.
And hey, u has really been cultivated and curated to be a space where we just talk about what we’re going through.
I’m gonna share with you some of the things that God is showing me.
It may not be a traditional sermon like you may be used to me here.
You may be used to hearing from me.
But um it is something that God has given me in my prayer and devotional time.
And so I just wanna chat it up with you.
The definition of inner child Oxford Dictionary Dictionary defines it as a person’s supposed original or true self, especially when regarded as damaged or concealed by negative childhood experiences.
So the concept of an inner child is all about who you were before.
You had an experience that made you believe that maybe being who I am is not enough.
Maybe there’s danger, danger in being who I am.
Maybe there’s complications and relationships that prohibit me from being who I am.
As I’m saying this, there are some of you who are probably being flooded with memories.
You’re thinking about the first time you were rejected, you’re thinking about the first time you were shut down right now.
I don’t wanna talk about that wounded inner child.
I wanna talk about who you were before the freedom you possess my baby.
She’s six and she’s just now coming into this stage where she recognizes how she shows up in the world and how it can affect others.
She’s using words like I was embarrassed and so even her at six, she’s beginning to understand that there are parts of me that may not be accepted.
There are things that I can do that could be considered wrong and I internalize them and that internalization becomes a wound.
But before then, sis was not like that at all. Let me tell you something.
If she got upset, you would know about it.
Babies cry when they get upset, they don’t try and swallow it and stuff it down when they are upset, you know about it.
When they are happy, they giggle, they laugh out loud when they have joy, they take off running, they use their voice.
They don’t care who’s around. Let me tell you, my six year old is still using her voice.
There was someone who came to our house the other day and I told her I was standing from upstairs, I could see her walking to the front door and I was like, ok, you can open the door and let them in because I could see who it was.
She opens the door, she lets them in.
I go, ok, I’m gonna go get ready real fast and I’m gonna come downstairs.
She told the person my mom’s putting on her wig, she’ll be there in a minute.
Let me tell you something about your inner child having your child and you, it’s just not the math ain’t nothing and she didn’t care about the sensitivity of it.
She wasn’t worried about me being embarrassed because when you are free as a child, you’re not thinking about rejection or protection or what can I do to make sure people think a certain way about me.
You are just free. You’re watching this and maybe you’re like me.
You have those moments where you just long to be free.
I long to not care about what people think.
I long to fully embrace the skin that I am in to apologize when necessary.
You don’t have to convince most kids to apologize before they have pride. They just apologize.
You don’t have to convince them to say I’m sorry. It rolls right off the tongue of their mouth.
They say I forgive you without any issue.
There is something to be said about who we were before, feel it appropriate to take a minute and just acknowledge the pain, the grief and the fear that has been deposited into you as a result of your inner child being wounded.
I just want you to know that no matter how long ago it was, no matter how small it may be in comparison to other stories that you have heard that your wounds matter.
It matters to God that you’re hurting.
It matters to God that though you moved on and maybe you’re doing better.
Maybe it doesn’t stinging as much as it once did.
It still matters to God that that version of you was tucked inside of you.
My assignment for just a few minutes that we’re gonna be together is to talk about how we take that inner child that was pure and hope filled and bring her into the existence of where we are now so that we can be both mature and wise and aware of the world, but also hopeful on an eternal level that we can have joy in the midst of it all in order to accomplish this though.
It’s gonna take revolutionary sisterhood. You are gonna have to be a sister to yourself.
There’s this verse in Matthew 18 3 through five and I’m gonna read from the new King James. Version.
And it says Jesus says, assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little Children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.
Therefore, whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
Whoever receives one little child like this in my name receives me. Oh my goodness.
Do you mean to tell me that we spend all of our lives trying to become a grown up?
Only for Jesus to say if you’re really gonna be a part of the kingdom of Heaven, you’re gonna have to become like a little child.
I want you to understand that the kingdom of Heaven is not talking about.
If you wanna get to heaven, you have to become like a little child.
The kingdom of Heaven is something that existed right there in that moment, it exists right now.
On this moment, we’re not waiting for Jesus to come for us to get to the kingdom of heaven.
Our responsibility in being connected to Jesus and being exposed to Jesus is to create hunger for us to become members of the kingdom of Heaven.
And yet Jesus says, if you’re gonna do it, you’re gonna have to become like a little child.
How do we do this? How do we become like a little child? I cannot undo what has been done.
I cannot forget the experience that I have had and yet I have the responsibility to become like a little child so I can be a part of a kingdom that is bigger than me.
I feel like I should detour for just a moment and talk about why you want to be a part of the kingdom of Heaven when we see the evil and the atrocity that is taking place in the world.
And we think to ourselves, there’s gotta be an answer to this.
I’m telling you, the answer is in the Kingdom of Heaven. There is a war going on out here.
I feel like quoting a rap from Jay Z. There’s a no, it’s Kanye West.
There’s a war going on out here that we ain’t safe from murder. The excellence watch the throne.
Don’t worry about it just stay focused.
If we recognize that there is a war going on out here, we will see that there is something that is fighting against evil, that the Kingdom of Heaven is a part of fighting against the evil that we see in the world.
And most of us are so neutral in our positioning that we see the evil and think that there is no answer to the evil instead of establishing our position in the Kingdom of Heaven.
As a member of the Kingdom of Heaven, I bring light to dark places as a member of the Kingdom of Heaven, I bring strategy where there is no strategy as a member of the Kingdom of Heaven.
I believe that we can heal the sick. I believe that we can have the lame men walking again.
I believe that those who are experiencing housing insecurity can experience the breakthrough of being established.
And it happens through the kingdom of Heaven and says, give us this day our daily bread.
And then it says your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus.
I need my daily bread so that I can understand how to establish the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.
It was not God’s will for us to be battling with mental illness.
And yet it is a part of our reality.
So when we talk about being a part of the Kingdom of Heaven, it’s God.
How do I navigate this mental illness?
What is necessary for me to become someone who is not governed by the mental illness?
But recognizes that there is grace for this space where I feel like I am losing myself.
God, how do I establish myself in the place of forgiveness? It all happens through the Kingdom of Heaven.
If it’s not a part of God’s strategy, the kingdom of Heaven has an answer to the problem that is living outside of God’s strategy.
The answer may be in medicine. The answer may be in science. The answer may be in creativity.
The answer may be in a sermon.
The answer may be in technology, but those answers can all be a part of the Kingdom of heaven.
When your mindset is my job, my role, no matter what my gift, your talent is, no matter how God uses who I am in order to establish it.
My job is to make sure that something I do in the earth combats darkness.
That’s, that’s what it means to be a part of the kingdom of Heaven.
And Jesus says, if you’re gonna be a part of the Kingdom of Heaven, you’re gonna have to get little like a child.
It’s not that you don’t know what you know, it just means that you’re not governed by it.
That says you’re gonna have to become humble enough to lose out of your mind.
The things that you know, the boundaries that you created, the things that you said, you will never do, the things that you say that you wanna do and be open to living in the moment Children live in the moment.
Children understand the beauty of life, having ups and downs and highs and lows and they don’t let that define their hope.
And so many of us though are too big for our bridges, too big to be like the little Children who need to be in our soul in order for us to enter the kingdom of heaven.
So as your sister, your sister from afar, your sister from a distance, I wanna talk to you about what it takes to become little again because if we understand what it’s like to become little again by nurturing our inner child, connecting with that inner child.
We become more and more like those who are being tailored, cut customized to be used in the kingdom of Heaven.
Maybe that needs to be some of our prayer right now. Some of us, we should be praying.
God help me to get small enough to establish the kingdom.
That it wouldn’t be about me, that it wouldn’t be about my past my fear, but that it would be about your kingdom.
Coming to my family, your kingdom, coming to my marriage, your kingdom, coming to my finances.
God, I’m gonna have to get little to do it. I’m gonna have to get hopeful to do it.
I’m gonna have to have joy to do it.
I’m gonna have to have faith and strength and belief that I can do it because this is requiring more than my history has the ability to cover.
So I gotta go back to square one.
There are three areas where I am learning to be a better sister to myself.
It’s how I am learning to marry that inner child, that inner wounded child with the woman that I desire to become.
It’s how I’m learning to show up and be present in my life and I wanna give you those three.
I’m gonna pray with you and then I want you to go nurture your inner child in whatever way brings you joy and happiness.
I am learning to be a better sister to my past and being a better sister to my past.
I’m looking at Second Corinthians. There’s a scripture here. It’s not unfamiliar. Um We talk uh in this scripture.
Paul is talking to the church of Corinth about the present sufferings that they are experiencing.
I specifically want look at verse 18, the b version of this scripture where it says while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen for the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal, not looking at the things that are seen, but rather at the things that are unseen.
I wanna focus on that and what I wanna talk about you becoming a sister to your past part of the reason why some of us have and let me first define what that means.
Becoming a sister to your, to that past version of who you are, means that you no longer cringe or have shame.
It means that you no longer feel unprotected, wounded, defensive when you consider who you used to be.
When you look back over the choices you made or the things that were done to you.
Some of us are only surviving in the present because we’ve learned to disconnect from our past, but we will never be able to thrive until we decide to be fully integrated.
I’ve got to take my past and my present and bring it together.
Because for the glory of God, I want to see who I can become when I include all of myself.
When God looks at you, God isn’t looking at you thinking I don’t want that part.
I just want this part. So it is arrogant of us to feel that the only thing that God can use are the things that we think are shiny and polished enough.
It is becoming like a child to say at the end of the day, God, here is all of who I am.
Here are my scars. Here are my burns, here are my wounds and yet we are not able to do this because so many of us are looking at the things that are seen.
When I look at my past, I look at the things that I can see.
I see the way that I, I angered others around me. I see the way that I got jealous.
I see the way that I allowed my own pain to step in and damage your relationship.
I see all of these things.
And yet Paul tells us that glory and experiencing glory has so much to do with looking at the unseen.
If you’re gonna be a sister to your past, you’re gonna have to look at the unseen.
What does it mean to look at the unseen? You can’t just look at the results.
You can’t just look at what happened.
You can’t just look at the divorce, the abortion, the relationships that were random and didn’t go anywhere anywhere.
The way that you put yourself on clearance, you cannot just look at what you can see.
You gotta look at the unseen and so many of us refuse to look at the unseen.
And so we live with regret. We live with anger because we never take time to look at the unseen.
If you look at the unseen, you will see that you were hurting when you did those things.
If you look at the unseen, you will see that you were damaged by a comment that someone made.
If you look at the unseen, you will recognize that the unseen was driving the scene that’s powerful.
Because if the UN scene was driving this scene, if you can get to the root of the unseen, that was driving the scene that is in your past, then you will see that the unseen glory of God can take the wheel.
The unseen love of God was evident even in that moment.
And so God helped me to see the unseen love that existed in the place where my heart was, helped me to see the unseen grace that existed in the place where my damage was God helped me to see the unseen and not just the scene, the images that keep popping in my head, the abuse that keeps popping in my head.
God, I see it all the time and I don’t wanna see it anymore. God.
And yet your word in Corinthians is telling me that there’s a possibility that the unseen things are eternal.
There’s a possibility that the things that are not seen are the things that could actually lead me to glory.
And so God help me to stop looking at what I can see.
And there to tap into the unseen being, a sister to your past is to say, I’m not looking at what you did.
I’m not looking at the choices you made. I’m not looking at that body count.
I’m not looking at the way that you did.
What you did, the drugs that you took the drinks that you drank. I’m not looking at the abortion.
I’m not looking at what you see. I’m looking at the unseen, rejected, abandoned girl.
I’m looking at the unseen voice that you never got to use in your family.
I’m looking at the unseen words that damaged you when you were in that school community.
Being a sister to your past is to look at everything that took place.
And to say, I know that this is what you’ve been focusing on.
But as the highest version of yourself as the highest version of who I am.
I’m gonna look at the unseen. It’s so funny.
I have this memory sometimes I just like walk down memory lane. I don’t know. This is so weird.
It’s just me properly. But you know how you like maybe get hurt. This is probably not good but whatever.
Here we are. Hey, you, ok, you get hurt and you like, have to press on it to see like, how bad does it hurt?
Like, does it still hurt real bad?
Like maybe you fail and it’s like, you know, you shouldn’t touch it because it’s healing.
But I just wanna see how bad it hurts.
I do that with my past, I’ll go back over certain things and I’m like, does that still hurt?
Does that? I still feel like shame. Does that still make me cringe?
And in the process I was doing this the other day and there’s this one memory and I ain’t gonna tell you all my business.
I told you most of my business. I ain’t gonna tell you everything.
But there’s this one memory that I have and whenever I think about it, I instantly feel shame.
I instantly cringe. And the other day it popped into my head and while I was ruminating on it, I almost felt tears come to my eyes because for the first time I felt the pain that I was in, in that moment when I made the choice, I didn’t feel like the girl who got it wrong.
I didn’t feel like the girl who did something that she is ashamed of.
I didn’t feel like the girl who felt dirty because she did it.
I felt like a girl who was in pain and I went back and loved on and nurtured that version of myself.
That’s how you become a sister to your past.
The second thing, the second area where I want you to practice, becoming a sister to yourself in is becoming a sister to your present, a sister to this present moment that you are standing in and you’re gonna need a sister for this present moment you’re standing in because there is a voice that would dare tell you, you don’t have what it takes.
There’s a voice that would dare whisper to you that you’re out of your league that you’re far beyond where you’re capable.
There is a voice in your head that is anti you and that voice is not a sister to you.
That voice is an enemy to you.
And yet that voice often has the microphone quite more often than the sister in you.
If there was a sister that was talking to you when you’re present and some of you have that your friendships, but I wanna position you to have them even when there are no friends around.
If there was a voice inside of you, that was saying you got this.
I know you weren’t ready for it.
I know you didn’t see it coming but you can stay in the game.
I want you to know that there’s help on the way.
I want you to know that you were built for this.
I want you to know that when you said yes, that God had this in mind, your yes was pregnant.
I don’t know who this is for, but I feel like God is saying that your yes was pregnant.
The moment that you’re standing in that took you by surprise was included in. Yes.
When God chose you, God already knew that you would be standing in this moment.
And God says still I chose you because that yes was pregnant with your ability to overcome the very present moment that you were standing in.
You’re gonna have to be a sister to your present.
You’re gonna have to coach yourself through this and recognize that if I keep my heart pure, if I stay focused on where God has placed me, if I hang on to the promise connected to where I am, then I will see the goodness of God in the land of the living.
I gotta be a sister to my present. I’m tired of being anti me.
I’m tired of being an enemy to my own destiny.
I gotta be a sister to my present and sometimes that takes work and sometimes that takes prayer and sometimes that means you’re gonna listen to a video over and over again.
Not because I haven’t heard it, not because I didn’t get it, but I’m trying to retrain my mind.
I’m trying to renew my mind. I’m trying to transform my being and it starts with my mind.
So I gotta be a sister to my present.
I’m trying to help me, help me become who God has called me. To be prime example.
Luke 2 34 to 35 Simeon is in the temple in Jerusalem.
When Mary and Joseph come in with Jesus, I would explain who Mary and Joseph are.
But I know most of us know that even if we didn’t, we, even if we weren’t raised in church, Mary presents Jesus to Simeon.
And Simeon is so excited to meet Jesus. He thank God that he kept him alive to see the Messiah.
And then he says something crazy to Mary. He’s talking crazy to her.
Simeon blessed him and said to Mary, his mother, behold, this child is destined for the fallen rising of many in Israel and for a sign which will be spoken against.
Yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul.
Also, wait a minute, Simeon is talking about Jesus to Mary and she knew that Jesus was called to do great things.
She knew that he was gonna be king. She knew that he was the anointed one.
She understood what that meant in the context of the time that they were living in that he would be born with a target on his back.
And she said I can cover this target that’s on his back.
I’ll have him in a barn if I have to, I’ll sneak my way into Bethlehem. If I have to.
She knew that there was gonna be a target on his back.
But Simian tells us that there’s also gonna be a target on her back, says the sword will pierce through your own soul.
Also that the thoughts of many may be revealed?
Isn’t that what it feels like when a sword is pre piercing our own soul?
Generally, that happens when the thoughts of many are revealed when something that was done in the dark becomes light.
When someone decides that this is the moment where I want you to know how I really feel about you.
This is the moment where I’m gonna put you on blast and try to discredit everything that you’ve stood for.
There’s a sword that goes through your soul in those moments.
And yet Simeon is telling her in a present moment that swords are on the way.
If you’re gonna be a sister to your present, you gotta be sensitive enough to understand that swords are on the way God is preparing Mary in a present moment for a future experience.
A sword is on the way.
And I believe that God prepared her in a present moment for a future experience because God understood that I’m not gonna let you walk into it blindly when you walk into it, you’ll say this was that, that God was talking about, this was that, that, that message was talking about.
This was that, that my friends were sharing with me about.
This was that when they said that marriage was hard.
This was that when they said that parenting was hard, this was that when they said that this job was gonna take everything I had have and what I don’t have, this was that when they said this is what it takes to build a ministry.
God says there are going to be swords that are on the way.
It’s not just gonna be about the things that make you feel good, it’s not just gonna be about the things that make you feel called and purposeful that there are gonna be swords along the way.
And I don’t want you to be surprised when the swords come because sometimes you’ll be so surprised that you move out of position, but to be a sister to your present is to begin coaching yourself.
Now, for the swords that are on the way coaching yourself.
Now, for the thoughts of many that will be revealed, God is coaching Mary because he understands that you gotta do this for the long haul.
You gotta make destiny run like this for a long time. You gotta cover for a long time.
And I want you to be a sister to your present by changing the way you speak to yourself and not living from a place of fear.
You’re gonna have to start binding devils you haven’t seen yet.
You’re gonna have to start rebuking demons that haven’t even picked up their head yet.
I feel this prophetically for someone. You wait to pray when you see that there is trouble on the way.
But I hear God saying that you could start rebuking trouble before it even knocks on your door so that when trouble knocks on your door, you’ll already know there’s a word over that trouble.
There’s a word over this situation. This, the word over this circumstance.
I spoke the word before you even got here.
I knew you were on the way and I bound you up.
What does it mean to bind up an attack that is on the way?
It doesn’t mean the attack doesn’t come.
It just means that when it pierces my soul, it can’t have my soul that when it goes through my faith, that it can’t have my faith.
And there is something to be said about a woman who understands in order for my present to start dipping its toe into my future.
I’m gonna have to become someone who recognizes that. Swords are a part of the word.
The word came with swords. The promise came with swords.
The destiny came with swords, the manifestation, it came with swords and I don’t have to be afraid of a sword that I know is on the way.
You don’t have to be afraid.
Trouble is gonna come, grief is gonna come, pain is gonna come.
I cannot tell you that there are not swords on the way, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t live fully in the present.
I feel this the only way for you to survive the swords is if you live fully in the present, man, I gotta say this because I feel like God just gave it to me just because you are shrinking in the present.
It doesn’t mean that it will protect you from the future swords just because you haven’t stepped out on faith just because you haven’t used your voice.
It doesn’t mean that that is in some way gonna protect you from rejection, but it will in some way protect you from feeling inadequate.
As a matter of fact, the only way to survive the swords that are coming regardless is if you allow yourself to be fully who you are to bring all of yourself into a moment so that you can live off of the strength that comes with authenticity, the strength that comes with not trying to pretend that you don’t have what you do have because you’re afraid of it being rejected.
If you would get behind yourself with full strength, when the swords come, they’re gonna be coming on the most strengthened version of who you are.
You gotta be a sister to your present. It’s my last one.
You gotta be a better sister to Jesus. We’re all Children of God.
We say this all the time. I’m a child of God. I’m a child of God.
Does it show up in your DNA?
Does it show up in the way that you speak to others or yourself?
Does it show up in the way that you reflect Jesus?
If we’re gonna be a better sister to Jesus, I wanna be a sister to Jesus.
I don’t just wanna be one of those religious people who come to church and lift my hands.
I want my DNA to look like Jesus.
When someone has an encounter with me, I want them to feel like they had an encounter with Jesus, which means I gotta do a lot of inner work to make sure that my DNA doesn’t look like my shame, that my DNA doesn’t look like my pain, that my DNA doesn’t look like my ego, my pride.
I want my DNA to look like Jesus.
There’s this moment in scripture where Jesus, his mother and brother come to see him and they say, hey, Jesus, you know your mother and your brother are here.
And Jesus says to them, who is my mother, who are my brothers and he stretched out his hands towards his disciples.
And he says, here are my mother and my brothers for whoever does the will of my father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.
If you wanna be a better sister to Jesus, it comes with aligning with the father’s will.
And in order to know more and more about what is God’s will. God.
My prayer starts off my morning prayer.
It’s like God, you are the creator of the universe, you hold the sun in place.
You are the very movement in the ocean.
You have formed the mountains, you are strength, you are wisdom, you are strategy.
I have to make sure that I position God properly. Sometimes we call God father.
And for some people that’s a complicated word.
And so I remove any complications, any daddy issues out of the title. And instead I just call him God.
And I don’t dare to try and imagine the face of a man because that would be once again shrinking God.
But I see just myself shrouded by this cloud, this fire, this energy, this creation that is God for me.
And I sit, sit down and I put God on high.
And then after I do that prayer, I begin to think about God, who were you?
That you would breathe your air into my lungs? God, who were you? That you would create your son?
That you would shrink yourself into human form and allow Jesus to walk the earth so that I could have a demonstration of how to unleash the God that is down inside of me.
God. I want to be more like you to be more like Jesus is to recognize that my DNA came from God and that DNA is love.
John 13 and 35 says Jesus said by this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.
So God you are the great I am and Jesus is the teacher, the model, the bridge that allows me access to God.
So when I follow Jesus, I’m not just following a church, I’m not just following a religion, I’m following a way of being.
And Jesus says, if you, you will know that you are following the way of being properly when people know you buy your love because that love doesn’t come from you to be a better sister to Jesus is to live from a place of abundance.
Man. Jesus talked about if somebody slap you on one side, give him another cheek.
He says, but I say to you who hear love your enemies do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you and pray for those who spitefully use you.
That’s crazy. Crazy. How could I do any of those things? I cannot do it with this DNA.
I cannot do it with the DNA that came from humanity.
I cannot do it with the DNA that came from my shame.
I can’t do it with the DNA that comes from my pride.
But if I set my hope and set my standard on having the DNA that looks like God, I can do these things.
You know why I can do them because I recognize that there’s nothing that someone can do to me that can take away from my identity.
Jesus knew who he was on the cross on the cross.
He said, forgive them father for, they know not what they do.
They thought they were taking something from Jesus, but they didn’t realize Jesus has something that you cannot take.
I am love. And because I live in the place of love, I live in the place of abundance.
I’m not afraid that you’re gonna take something from me that I can’t get back.
I’m not afraid that you can waste my time. I’m not afraid that you’re gonna hurt me.
I’m not afraid that you’re gonna make me angry. I’m not afraid that you’re gonna break me.
I’m not afraid of being shattered because I am connected to Jesus and because I am connected to Jesus, I recognize that living from a place of love means that there is nothing that you can do to me that God cannot restore.
There’s nothing you can do to me that Jesus cannot make the, the difference with.
And so yes, I move with wisdom, but I do not move with fear because I am not afraid of losing my life because I have eternal life through Jesus.
If you’re gonna have eternal life through Jesus, you can’t be selfish about what’s left.
God says you can give it and you can give it freely because I replace anything.
You give somebody’s been having a security wall over what they have left.
They’ve got security guards in the spirit realm, protecting what’s left of who they are.
And I hear God saying that you can remove the security.
I am the great I am and I will restore what has been broken.
I will redeem what has been lost. And I’m gonna do it because I love you.
I’m not gonna do it because you deserve it. I’m not gonna do it because you earn it.
I’m not gonna do it because you wake up and you read your Bible every day and you’re a good little Christian.
I’m gonna do it because I love you.
And because I love you, I want you to stop living like you are so fragile and living like you cannot show up in the very life that I have given you.
I want you to live boldly with courage and I want you to be fearless because I am love says God and my perfect love can cast out your fear.
And that’s been my assignment over the last few weeks is really becoming a better sister to Jesus that I wouldn’t live with.
The fear of rejection that I wouldn’t live with.
This need to be approved that I wouldn’t live with this fear of messing something up or not getting it right.
But that I would just live from a place of love that would make me humble enough to say when I’m wrong, that would make me convicted when I need to change, that would help me repent when my thoughts have gotten too much like my thoughts and not like the thoughts of Christ.
I’m working on being a better sister to Jesus.
This is what sisterhood is when it is turned inward. Revolutionary.
Sisterhood is not revolutionary because of who we have on the outside. It’s revolutionary because of the sister.
We decided to be first to ourselves.
I want you to dare to be a sister to your past love.
That girl embrace that girl. Don’t be angry with her, don’t be ashamed with her anymore.
One second, one minute, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years is too long to be upset with the woman.
You once were, see the unseen that she went through. The pain that she never whispered.
Everyone saw the outcome but no one saw what was happening inside that produced the outcome.
Her innocence was not stolen.
It may have been lost, maybe it was buried but God says it’s not gone.
Your innocence, your purity, your love.
God says I still got it but it is unseen.
So I gotta start seeking out those unseen things by being a sister to my past, be a sister, to your present stand in this moment boldly confidently not because the swords aren’t coming, but because you know the swords are coming and you will survive them anyway, the swords are coming but you were chosen anyway, the so the swords are coming.
But you can still carry this assignment that God has given you when God chose you.
God knew which swords were headed your direction and still said she’s the woman for the job.
Be a sister to Jesus. Let your DNA look like the DNA of Jesus.
Let it be filled with love and compassion without fear of loss or rejection because you can survive that too.
Let it be pure where you see everyone as an opportunity to demonstrate God’s love to allow yourself to say, you know what I forgive you.
I don’t have to hold you hostage to who you were.
I don’t have to hold you hostage to who you used to be. I forgive you.
That doesn’t mean that I have to walk out life with you.
But it does mean that I cannot allow myself to become bitter just because you didn’t do better.
I’m gonna move on and keep my heart pure because I wanna be like Jesus and this anger in my heart, this resentment in my heart.
It doesn’t feel like Him.
Don’t allow it to take up residence when it was just supposed to pass by.
I wanna pray with you friend. I wanna pray for you. My revolutionary sister.
You have always been such evidence to me that God loves me, that God holds a space for you and community and connection.
God thinks of us and you are the evidence that God had me in mind.
Revolutionary sisterhood is the work of nurturing our inner child.
It is how the woman in us shows up with joy again and confidence because we became like a child on the inside with the body and knowledge and mind of a woman on the outside.
Holy spirit. Mm I hear you calling our little child, our inner child, God to a place of rest.
I just have images of little Children in a closet tucked in darkness.
And God, I see you stooping down on our level and saying you can come out now you’re safe, you can come out.
Now the storm is over. That inner wounded child that struggled to survive her childhood, struggled in teenage years got allow us to bring that inner child out.
And God as that inner child begins to bask in your presence, God, I pray that you would restore to us the joy of our salvation that you come back for the lost sheep that lost version of who we were because we belong to live in wholeness and completeness.
God. And as you call out that inner child, God for my sister, I just pray that joy would be her portion.
That strength would be her inheritance and that she would be hungry again, not hungry to prove who she is, but hungry to just experience life, hungry to laugh out loud, hungry to be love in every circle that she’s in.
Hungry to show up as a light so that the kingdom of Heaven can be established.
God may we desire to be in divine relationship with you in a way that shakes the earth in a way that changes things in our community in a way that breaks generational curses Jesus.
We receive you as our savior, the savior and following your life and following your model and example, we will be saved from our darkness.
And so God, I thank you that for the first time, many are just opening their hearts to Jesus.
Some are returning back and God, I just asked that you would be with them in this moment that as they connect with Jesus, that they will recognize that there is no sin, no limitation, nothing that they have experienced that has separated them from the love of God.
Thank you Jesus. That we’re hungry to be more and more like you please receive us as your ratchet ghetto little sisters because we are here struggling.
Ok? But because you’ll have us, we’ll take our place and we’ll allow you to take our rags and turn them to righteousness in Jesus name.
Amen.