Last evening, before settling in for bed, I went to my Yahoo! homepage to log into my email. I needed to catch up on some missed messages since, as some of my Facebook friends know, my husband and I were a little tied up with the bird that flew into our house yesterday morning. Thankfully, we managed to get him out!
Anyway, I read the story of how Pastor Marvin Sapp's new album, Here I Am, has broken a record for all previous gospel albums. It sits at the #2 spot on Billboard's Top 200 and no other gospel artist has managed to do that. That's huge. Sapp's album has the highest first-week sales in gospel since the 1997 release of Kirk Franklin's God’s Property album.
This excited me when I read about it, because the message of the gospel is being put on display. Also, Pastor Marvin Sapp didn't have to compromise his integrity, team up with any secular rappers, or try to project a more "mainstream" (usually a codeword for watered down) message in order to make an impact. And this leads me to my point.
If you do what God tells you to do, He'll enlarge you and put you on display for His glory. You don't have to compromise or try to change who you are. You certainly don't have to become a chameleon and try to conform to what you think will be most acceptable.
All you have to do is be who God called you to be, and trust Him to do the rest.
In today's society, there is a pervasive mindset that says we need to try to have "universal" appeal. But you know what? Our mission is not to please everyone. Rather, we must first please God and let Him draw those people to us that we are called to reach. Although every person you encounter will not agree with you, or embrace what you stand for, at the end of the day, if the Lord is pleased, that's all that matters.
Today, I encourage you to yield yourself to God. Give Him all of you and allow Him to have His way in your life. Right now, the Lord is asking, just as He did in Isaiah 6:8 when He said, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" I pray that your answer will be, "Here am I, send me!"
Listen. The Lord doesn't want any of us to be preoccupied with what others think of us. We spend too much time focused on appeasing the wrong ones. The only mold you and I ought be trying to fit ourselves into, is the one God predestined for us to fill before we were even formed in our mothers' womb.
If you are willing to say Lord here I am, not just with your lips, but by living a life that's pleasing in the sight of God, then He will use you. He will set you up on a pedestal, not for vain glory, but so that His light can shine through you and illuminate this dark world.
As always, thanks for reading and until next time... may you be empowered to prosper!
Dianna Hobbs
