Our relationship with God is real

   Our relationship with God sometimes mirrors our personal relationship with others.

   Some people prefer to live single with no emotional relationship with any person. Millions of people in the world live happy lives as singles without the need for another to fulfill themselves. Such singles have friends with whom they share important moments, successes, and failures. Their relationships are purely platonic without intimacy or commitment of any kind. Such arrangements are actually encouraged in the bible, especially for those involved in ministry.

   Beyond the godly single life, there is a growing list of other types of relationships including:

   A Spuggie is a single person who wants no relationship but just needs someone for the moment for a quick fix. Spuggies specialize in one-night stands, hookups, and late-night calls with people they may not even know.

   Sponsor. A sponsor has no feeling in the relationship at all. It is strictly commercial. A sponsor pays bills, provides resources, and doles out money. A sponsor is a gold miner, the person with money; the other partner is the gold digger, whose role is to get as much gold as possible before the strike runs out. The gold digger has no concern about the mine or the miner.

   We enjoy a covenant relationship with God. He is not a "spuggie," a God of convenience, or a gold miner. We are not gold diggers, seeking what we can get, and he does not sponsor us, giving us what we want in return for what he wants. Our relationship is based on love and sacrifice.

   God loves us despite our unworthiness. He demonstrated that love by giving himself for us. Romans 5:8 says, "But God demonstrates his own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

  That's the one question test forany relationship, would you die for me?

  The answer tells the story.

 

Mankind is charged to have dominion

   Mankind has a responsibility to take care of the earth. Men have a responsibility to protect and provide for their families. In many ways, we are failing in both areas.

In Genesis 1:26, the Adam family was charged with having "Dominion" over all creation. Dominion means leadership and responsibility. 

  Many men are failing in the area of leadership. There is no shortage of men biologically. There is no shortage socially. There is, however, a growing shortage of men in the leadership of the home, church, school, and the general community. 

   It is no mistake that a growing number of communities are seeing their women rise up to fill vacancies created by the absence of men in leadership. 

   Where there is a son or a daughter, there is a father somewhere, but in many cases, the mother is providing the family leadership. 

   Where there is a church, women are rising to chair the committees and shoulder the responsibilities of men. An increasing number of women are becoming elected officials on school boards and other civic bodies in the community because of a leadership vacuum. Adam, Where art thou?

    Men, especially African-American men, have generally taken a backseat to leadership, and women are being forced to manage families and assume leadership outside of their families at the same time.

    Let's pray that our men grow stronger and come out of hiding.

    God expects godly leadership of the world, our nation, communities, and homes. 

    When God calls, let him for our men busy doing his work.

You gotta have swag

     One of former President Obama’s most redeeming qualities was that he had “swag.”

   He looked like he was in control and entered a room a podium with an air confidence that was inspirational.

   

    A person with swag gets attention.

   

If you ask the thug, having swag means to walk into a room with a walk that says you are the toughest, meanest dude in the room. 

    To the ghetto fabulous, it means to wear flashy clothes, with lots of glitz and diamonds, and fancy pick-up lines for the women. There are those with professional swag who stand tall and walk with a gait as if they owned the world.

In this view, the man or woman with swag is loaded with witty conversation, a designer label on a dress, and real hair soft enough to run fingers through.

   Godly Swagger is the man or woman who enters a room with the knowledge that the king of the world empowers him/her, but remains humble enough to keep the common touch. 

    Spiritual swagger dresses for the occasion, with taste and restraint, not too much here or showing so much there. It is confident, yet humble; it is sensitive to the feelings of others, polite, and mannerable.

    

   Godly swag is possessed by the man or woman whose walk in life has a purpose. It really has nothing to do with their walk, the clothes they wear, or their wealth. Their purpose walks into the room before they do.

   Their sense of purpose is what gives them Godly swag. 

 

   Romans 13:13 says, “Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy.” That’s spiritual swag.

   We should remember that our purpose is clear and is just.

   When our life-walk displays this attitude we have SWAG.

   Today, be confident and bold. You are a saved saint. You have Swag!