Ever felt like there just isn't a marriage ministry that understands your unique situation?
Equally Yoked Ministries is a new marriage ministry on the local horizon who understands things wont always be perfect, but that all God’s promises are “yea and amen.” www.equallyyokedministries.com They are affiliated with Renewed Destiny Kingdom Ministries under the covering of Pastor Freda Clemons. From rejection, to perversion, to saving grace, Douglas and Ebony Chandler have a testimony to share about the unfailing love of God and reconciliation beyond adultery, deception and homosexuality. God has been blessing them to travel and proclaim the goodness of God to his people.
How many of us if posed the question, "What do you struggle with the most" would choose Love? Next to salvation, love is the greatest gift that we were given but it is also the hardest gift to give one another. Regardless of our hang ups, Christ felt strongly enough about it, to specifically beckon us to do it many places in the bible. 1 Corinthians 13 states the attributes of love and says that above all else Love never fails. Have you ever felt that love failed you? So many people have been wounded by what that had thought to be love that they gave up on the concept, when really they may have never received it in its purest form. More often than not, we are given a fallacy of love. We are sometimes taught that love rides in on a white horse and saves us from the mediocre life that we live punching a clock for our employers. We fail to realize that love is just as truthful as it is beautiful and that’s the beauty of it. The moment it doesn’t agree with us we no longer think it love, so we commit ourselves to never giving it in return.
Without love, we are unable to really please God. It does not matter how fair we are on the eyes, or how eloquently we can speak to one another, if we can not love without ill intentions that we are unable to truly touch the heart of Christ. Whether or not we can move the masses with our preached word and lay hands on the sick and they recover, if we lack the simplest principle of God, we lack his approval and our works mean little. The very first step in love is to learn how to accept the unconditional(agape) love of the savior. When we miss that first ingredient, our cake will never come out sweet as it should. Luke 10:27 petitions that we must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind. And you must love your neighbor as yourself. First accepting his love allows us to be endowed with a matchless beauty that has never graced the pages of Essence or Jet magazine. Did you know Christ loved us so much that he gave his very own son for us? Some many times people have received a perverse eros (fleshly) love, that they don’t know how to accept the gift from a God who really wants nothing more than you care for us and cover us completely. Once we learn to accept his love in its entirety then we are commanded to reciprocate the love back to him and our fellow men and women.
2009 is a new year but not new issues or rules to live by. There are areas in the lives of people across the nation that are held up because of love, or lack there of. So many doors waiting to be open and opportunities to come knocking but we just cant seem to move the mountain. There are some areas of hurt that are valid and very painful, but we as a people must move beyond them so that we may tackle new obstacles in our lives. It starts at square one. In this next year, ask God for a “redo” in the spirit. Go find your sons, daughters, and old best friends and begin to repair the bridges and mend the fences that had been previously torn down. It does not matter who the wrong party was, but rather who really wants to heal so that we can begin to reconcile the other hurting people back to Jesus the Christ. There is no way to take the years back, but each day that we are given breath, is another chance to fix our brokenness and the those close to us. Don’t allow another setting sun to go down on your unstitched heart. God is love, and because he is love, we can manifest it also.
Ebony Chandler is the daughter of Pastor Freda Clemons, she is a wife, mom and fully capable and committed to accomplish the call of God for her life. She has been victorious over struggles and various attacks of the enemy, in her life including a painful past which has caused her to become radical about the things and the people of God.
Ebony lives by these words. "There is a time and a place for everything..know your time-and you will find your place."
Ebony is the co-founder of Equallyyoked Marriage Ministries in Pittsburgh, PA and is working on the first annual "Over the Rainbow to Sexual Healing Conference" which is to be held June 18,19 and 20th in 2009. It will focus on such issues as molestation,masturbation,homosexuality,fornication and adultery and how to break the curses through Jesus Christ.
