Giving God ALL the Praise ALL the Time!!!

By: Chaplain Ronald Godwin

This week I got a blessed letter from a reader. Something I will cherish for the rest of my life and I want to share it with you and the reply I sent to them. I hope this serves to be an example to all.

Here is what I got just a few hours ago in our email box:

“Just thought you should know, I saw a thing you wrote about people being able to contact you should they ever need to.
I'm not sure how often people tell you this, but I do know it's not enough.
You're amazing, to do what you do, seriously.
You're such a beautiful person.”

This is such a wonderful thing for someone to do and I DO believe we should let those that are doing things for the Lord know we appreciate them for what they are doing. There is NO doubt I “Get” where this lovely person is coming from yet I must share with you my reply to them.

“Well I want to thank you for your comments and I will say that is a first for the most part.

However, I MUST direct you to praising God not me. If it were left up to me, I would STILL be a drug addicted mentally ill person that had no hope. In fact to be honest I would most likely be either dead long ago or in a mental hospital for the rest of my life. That IS where I was headed but God totally and completely restore me and healed my brain.

So, I cannot take the glory or praise for any of this. Though I know what you mean and I thank you for noticing.
If I can ever do anything for you or anyone you know or love, please do not hesitate to give me a shout. Or if you just wanta chat sometime, I love to do that too. ;)

Blessings to you and yours. May the Love of Christ so fill your heart and life He becomes the MOST important part of your life as He is with mine and my family.

We love you and thank you for being our friend.
Chaplin Ron”

Now the reason I have decided to put this in here today is to remind us to ALWAYS give God the praise, the glory, the honor, in everything we do. If you remember long ago there was a king that had the chance to do that very thing. He stood before the people and they yelled out, “It is not a man that speaks but a god.” I can picture him standing there with his arms raised looking out at the people that were praising his name above that of God’s Holy just and righteous name.  I can see his mind thinking, “Hmm, this is cool. They think I am a god. Yes I like that.” He refused to stop them and correct them and he took the praise for himself. He spent the next five days being eaten by worms until he finally died.

Please know I have NO desire to be eaten by worms I can assure you. So I MUST give God the glory and honor for all of what I do. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying I think God is going to strike you dead if you do something like that, though He very well could.

Sadly I see so many today do this very thing whether they realize it or not, that IS what they do. They prop themselves up in the community, the church, the pulpit or whatever as something they really are not. We have also seen MANY of them fall from their lofty positions and when they do the fall is great and they tend to land on a lot of people in the process. They hurt so many when they allow others to think or believe they are something they really are not.

So, what I want to do is set the record straight with you today and come clean with a few things that I hope will help you understand where I stand in all this. NO, I am NOT about to share whole bunch of skeletons that I have hidden in my closest, because frankly I no longer have any. I have long since removed them and shared them with so many.

What I want to do is help you to see and understand something that I hope you never forget. A lesson few realize until it is too late and they have been hurt by a friend, loved one, or someone in the church.

First, no matter who the person is, no matter what their “Position” is. No matter how long they have held that position and no matter how much faith you have put into them as a friend, loved one, and/or a Pastor. They CAN let you down sometime, they can fall, and they can rip your heart out if you are not careful and ready for it.

Let me share with you something that happened early in my walk with Christ. We went to a very good bible based Assembly of God church for many years. I taught there with my wife and as I am now I was on fire for the Lord. My only problem was I was NOT healed from my mental problems yet. So, I would go into bouts of depression and manic stages from time to time. However, that is another story I shall share with you sometime.

We had one of those Pastor’s that was really an awesome man of God, he has long since been blessed by being able to go to be with the Lord now. He was so smart. He was actually too smart for most of us. Few have ever talked over my head in church, that is NOT to brag mind you, but this fella could leave me sitting there with my jaw gapping open trying to figure out what all he had said. There was just too much to take in at once. He later became the Pastor of the Pastor’s in the Reno Nevada and California area.

Now our beloved Pastor was in every way shape and form a man of God at all times. At one point we had to have an assistant Pastor and his long time best friend applied for the position. A man that was full of zeal for the Lord and he got the position, not because they were friends mind you but because the board decided to hire him.

He truly won the hearts of many in the church. I even thought he was awesome because unlike 90% of the rest of the “Christians” I knew he actually listened to me and e even made some ministry plans for street ministry, which has always been my personal heart’s desire to do.

One day however, the church got a huge shock and it did not go over very well. Our Pastor stood on the pulpit crying as he told us that the board and he had come to an agreement that his best friend was no longer able to be the Assistant Pastor. They had to fire him though it was one of the hardest things he had ever done in ministry.

The congregation was stunned to say the least. This was a perfect man of God. How could they fire him? Why did they fire him? And many more questions were on their lips. Our Pastor had to fill us in so we understood and so he could limit the damage as much as possible.

It seemed our assistant pastor had come to our senior pastor and told him that he had had a dream. God had spoken to him that night. His wife had a brain tumor, and yes she did this is true we all knew that and was praying for her to be healed. He told the Pastor that God had told him that she would die from this brain tumor and God gave him permission to sleep with this other woman from the church in which they had already been doing so for some time.

The senior Pastor told him that dream was NOT from God and cautioned him that he had better not act upon that dream but it was too late he had already done so. So the pastor had no choice but to remove him from ministry effective immediately and providing the board agreed permanently, in which an emergency meeting was made, the facts were brought out and he was fired.

Now, before I go on it should be noted that his now ex-wife did NOT die and is alive still to this day and serving God faithfully. Which pretty much proves that dream was most certainly NOT from the God of Heaven and Earth but a god that will one day spend eternity in Hell with all those that foolishly followed him.

Now that I have set the stage and shared with you what happened let me tell you the reason I have done so. You see once this news broke out in the church we lost close to half of the people in our church. It was horrible to watch as people everywhere talked about this and “mulled it over” in their minds. Many got VERY angry at him for doing what he did and they left the church losing their faith in the church, God or whatever they thought they had. Others were surprisingly mad at the Pastor for firing him. Claiming they should forgive him and let him stay on as the assistant pastor. A move the Assembly of God cannot do now or ever if they remain biblically sound.

Others just stopped coming for whatever reason, some I think used it for the excuse they were looking for to stop going to church. Many began claiming things like, “That is it I am done with churches forever. There is nothing but hypocrites in the church and I am not going to be one of them.” Oddly with that very statement they just become one of them but did not realize it of course.

Whatever the reasons where we lost a lot of people over the coming weeks but I am here to tell you I and my entire family was NOT one of them. Was it because we are just so smart, blessed, or is there another reason? Let me share with you what the reason was and still is today.

If I said what happened did not affect us, or mainly me, I would be lying. It did indeed affect me and I knew many of the deeper parts of the story as I worked with this man’s wife on a regular basis and my wife and I went to their house a lot to get ready for the Saturday church services we held on the streets every week. We also enjoyed playing with their kids as well. I was young back then and still played with kids though it was oddly at their house that I busted my spinal cord while playing on the trampoline they had. Yet another long story I may share one day.

To be fair I knew a LOT more than the average church goers in our church and I thank God in a way. Even though I knew all this I can assure you this is NOT why I and my family did not exit the church like so many others, vowing to never return.

The reason was because we knew one thing that was and IS very true about people. People can and many times WILL fail you but God will never fail you. So, with that knowledge we kept our eyes on God more than any man ever and we still do to this day. Thankfully because this was not the only man to hurt us or let us down in the church. My wife and I have been through things you may not even believe. Things that has hurt us personally pretty badly at times but again we know man can and will many times let you down.

So we MUST keep our eyes so focused on Christ that if and when someone hurts us like this it will not affect us like it does so many others that keep their eyes on a man or woman instead of on God.

With that said, let me tell you this and I truly hope you hear me today. NOT that I ever plan on cheating on my beautiful and wonderful wife, because I can assure you that is the LAST thing I would ever want to do, I just do not have a desire to do such things and I never have to be honest.

However, that does NOT mean I will not let you down sometime down the road. I have a habit of sticking both of my feet into my mouth at the same time often. So I may very well write something or if we talk together on the phone or chat with an IM or whatever, I may very well say things that cut you to the heart and hurt you badly.

It would never been my desire or intention to do something like that but I can assure you it would NOT be the first time I did something like that and I doubt it will be the last time sadly. Never the less, it would never be done for the purpose of hurting you.

So, here is what I feel you need to do and I pray this not only makes sense but helps you in the future with everyone you deal with and come in contact with from now on.

Keep your eyes firmly fixed on the Lord Jesus Christ at ALL times. He will never hurt you though sometimes He allows things that hurt for a season I know. In Him there is NO sin, NO wrong, NO sorrows, and NO failures. He will ALWAYS do what is best for you no matter what; though many times we may not realize what He is doing is the best thing for us. We later see it if we stay faithful to Him through it all.

If you take this advice you will never place your faith, trust and so on and so forth on a man or woman no matter how blessed they may be. If somewhere down the road that person you love and care about hurts you, falls from their lofty position as our ex-assistant pastor did than you can sit back and know your hope does not come from a man but from God Himself. You may be somewhat hurt by what happens but you will be free to pray for that person without having the wrong attitudes. You won’t be so quick to pack it all up and give up on the church. Instead it will help you to dig in deeper and it will help you “Walk the Walk” or as my friend from the hospital says, “Walk the Talk”.

Please keep your eyes firmly on Christ and not man. Specially not me and here is why.

If God did not save me I would either be dead long ago or locked up in a mental hospital, like the one I do ministry at throughout the week. I KNOW this for a fact my friends. If I wasn’t locked up I would be sitting in my chair smoking $400. A week in drugs or more as I use to. Looking at pornography 6 or more HOURS every day as I use to do. You see there was NOTHING in me that was blessed and I could not careless for anyone other than myself. That was what I was without God.

Now of course that is ALL different and changed. No longer Do I do ANY of that, thanks be to God. I love people and desperately want to help as many as I can see the truth of Jesus Christ and His saving Grace.

So the next time you see a man or woman of God that blesses you, go to them and praise God for what HE is doing through them. Let them know you are happy to see God using them and make sure to give God ALL the glory. If they glorify God with you and take it the right way than I can assure you they are humble and they will know exactly what you mean. If they seem to baulk at what you have said or stumble with the idea of not getting praise for themselves, take note of that and be very careful with them from then on out. They either have a ways to grow or they are not what they claim to be.

But that is another story we should talk about some other time.

For now I will bid you a good day. I pray you got something out of this. We would love to hear from you so send in your comments and do not forget to subscribe to this blog.

I pray God blesses you as your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ allows.

Chaplain Ron

www.rcmintv.us