Christian Living

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Stiffnecked And Hardhearted

Come out from among them and be ye separate saith the Lord!

This past week as I prayed and prayed whether or not to return to Bible Believers World Outreach Cathedral, if I wanted to do what the man said or follow what God had told me do from the beginning when He sent me there, God spoke to my heart those words; stiffnecked and hardhearted. When I asked God what he meant he said we have to disconnect or disunite ourselves with people that are haughty, stubborn and full of unforgiveness. Pride causes us to be stiffnecked; stilted to an extreme degree, scared, firm and resolute in decisions, inflexible and hardhearted. Hardhearted means we lack sympathetic understanding, unfeeling and pitiless. We are devoid of pity, merciless, not sympathetic to others suffering, distressed or unhappy. There is simply no compassion for others more than our selves. We can be too honest, straightforwardness of conduct or fairness when it is someone else being called to the table, but when it is flipped back to us we cut the conversation short.

A couple of weeks ago I received a telephone call from my Pastor, Oscar Richardson Jr. He told me that the Bible Study that Wednesday night had been all about me. How do we take God's Holy Word and try to destroy another person? God forbid. Of course I did not fit myself in the category of having an attitude problem so I adjusted myself to the areas of concern and wasn't moved by what I had already been prepared by God for. When you are an interceeder and have a prayer life pleasing unto God he warns you of things to come. God had warned me of the spirit of this man and woman in intercessory prayer at their church one Saturday. He had me pray about the situation and I had to walk therein. The only thing left to be done when it was to happen in the natural was judgment. This supposedly holy man of God did not want me to speak in tongues in church or doing prayer, preach, teach, sing or pray in the church. He has a bad attitude towards people that are in sin. I would bring the people to church and he tells me that I am not to bring them again. They had no stability in their lives, of course they did not, they was not saved! Because I did not want to read the book his wife chose for the women to read; (Bad Girls of the Bible) I have been cast down. The Lord told me not to read the book because I was a writer and he did not want me to be influenced by other writings. In the womens meeting she took a punch at me saying "we are not going to read a book written by anyone that do not know how to live the life they write about" making reference to me. I did not take it personal because we do not serve God by how we feel. This was evil coming out of a true heart. We walk after the spirit and not the flesh. Too many people are walking a Christian life in the flesh. Sheryl Richardson hates the spirit of God moving in my life, she is manipulative, envious, jealous, and so much to the point that the church cannot grow. Every woman that comes there and she think the Pastor give a little attention to is run off by her nasty negative attitude. A woman came to visit the church a month ago and I greeted her in my usual way and she asked me if I was the Pastor’s wife. I told her no, I am just a member. I sent the Pastor's sister to get Missionary Richardson and left them to talk. She should have been doing this but she was in the office counting the money. Every since then she had an ugly look towards me. Other women that had left the church kept telling me that she said she had to keep me away from her husband, as she thought that I wanted him. How wrong she is. God sent me there to be a help to the ministry but she never wanted me to and blocked me on every hand. The church will never grow to the point that God had originally planned. They think my life is so out of order because I married a minister that backslid. I did what the Lord told me to do to keep this man alive because he had work for him to do. A few weeks later because he was on drugs a dealer came and wanted to kill him because he owed him money. When he saw me he asked if this was my husband. I said yes and he said because he was my husband he would not hurt him because of the respect he had for me. They need to take a long look into their own house and see where they have disobeyed God concerning me working in the church. Why is this man so worried about who I marry? His wife need to look into his heart and not mine.

I had been awake two nights because God told me to go to the church and I did not want to but finally at 3:00 oclock a.m. I said yes to the Lord and he let me sleep like I had been sleep for days. When God tell us to do something we have to get out of our flesh. When I went to church I sat down like the Pastor had warned me to. Well church started late because they were waiting on me to come in after being in the knowledge that I would be there. He called me in his office and proceeded to do what he said he would do if I sang, prayed or spoke in tongues. I never did any one of those things when I went there. He lied and is still lying. God has no parts of a lie.

Well anyway they (Pastor Richardson, Samuel Wolfe and Willie Mikell} dragged me out of the church literally and Missionary Richardson called the police. They pressed charges against me and had me sent to jail; God forbid. I came and sat quietly but this man acting out of self because he told me about my husband and I told him about his wife; he hung the telephone up in my face and refuse to forgive me if I was wrong. Hallelujah! Has it come to this that when a member after ten years of faithful service to God and that church is unable to pay tithe anymore, homeless and need the Word of God is going to be put out the Church? Lord have mercy. This church went from over 135 members to 18 members. I am not their mistake.

Honesty is sincerity; uprightness of character or action, a refusal to lie, steal, or deceive in any way; really genuine, to tell the truth. But the truth mixed with an inflexible hardhearted, inhospitable person only brings about a stigma no one needs. We the people of God; is guilty of stigmatizing, branding, or marking sin to a person that is not necessarily sin. Others are considered as disobedient in the eyes of others to take the lens off of us and our failures. Once when another member left after his sisters daugher had been killed he told me an out right lie concerning the reason why he left. Right then God said if you beleive anyone beleive the other person which let me know that I had been lied to. Then he told me don't tell no one else. He had told this lie to every one. I wanted to leave but God restrained me. Come to find out the minister was with his sister and misses a ministers meeting that night and the pastor hung the telephone up in his face because he put his sister needing him before that meeting.

Although this has happened to me I must forgive. Forgiveness is a vital part of salvation. Forgive means to pardon; the indulgence, excusing of an offense without exacting a penalty, excuse or forgiveness of a fault, offense or discourtesy. It also means to relieve of a penalty improperly assessed. Because Christians do not feel they are or can be wrong they tolerate things they should not for some and accept things they should not for others. They make apology for others close to them but the blame is still there nevertheless. They never really deal with their actions or their loved ones but throw the hammer at others. We justify our actions, condone or overlook the act with censure behavior leaving us with unforgiveness of the Father. We will not repent for what we think we did not do. Many times we interfere with God’s plans which make ours mute and we look to see where we can place the blame. Look within yourself; that is where the blame lies. We cannot have pardon if we never admit to an established offense. Forgive means that we have given up all claim to requital, resentment or vengeful behavior or feelings.

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