By Sharon Norris Elliott – June 15, 2020 #1: Black People are Human like Everyone Else [Click the link to watch the movie Human.] All kinds of lies have been perpetuated over the years defining Black people. The original lie grew from a perception within one man that he was better than another. Simply […]
Let’s Discuss Books!
Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me… Oh, wait, that leads to something else entirely! Still, I am inviting you with any sayings I can think of:
Come one, come all – Be my guest – You’re welcome once, you’re welcome twice, you’re welcome in the name of Christ.
Just know that I want to see you and your comments and questions on Facebook Live at 5pm (PST) for “Let’s Discuss Books!” I will be talking about my writing journey through the stories of my 12 books. We will be discussing the books, how I came to write them, why I believe they are vital for the marketplace, and what was going on in my life and with my writing growth at the time of each book’s release.
We’ll do this together for 14 weeks and culminate with the exciting launch of the newest book, A Woman God Can Bless, along with the simultaneous launch of the “Woman God Can Revolution!” You won’t want to miss a week (but if you must, you can catch the show again – it will be recorded for replay on Facebook at your convenience). And if you missed week 1, here’s the link!
See you soon!
Sharon
The flagship 12-hour seminar has been abbreviated for you while we get through this lockdown. Let’s make the most of the hours and get that book ready to be published!
Only $50 for both days!
Go to LifeThatMatters.net, click the AuthorizeMe button, and fill out the simple registration form. Once your payment is received, I will acknowledge receipt of your payment and by Thursday, May 14, I will send you the Zoom invitation. Please share this information with everyone you know who wants to write a book, but only paid registrants will receive the invitation and will be allowed to enter the seminar.
Positive Work; Good Times! REGISTER TODAY!
For several weeks each summer, I have the happy experience of spending several weeks in New Orleans with my youngest son Mark, his beautiful wife Tabatha, and my adorable grandchildren Dallas and Jordyn. My love for Mark and Tabatha has not diminished in the least, but as Nana to those babies, I am laser focused on them and just can’t get enough. Since one of my main heart’s desires is that my grandchildren actual know me, not just know about me, while I’m with them, I spend as much time as possible hugging and cuddling. They love to hug 
and cuddle too, so we’re a perfect trio. We all just love to be close. We touch. We hold hands, cradle each other’s faces, squeeze each other around the neck, kiss each other’s cheeks, and pat each other on the back. In a real sense, we “grope” each other in all the appropriate Nana/grandbaby ways.
Imagine my surprise when I read Paul’s use of the word “grope” in the Bible. While at Athens, Paul encountered a bunch of so-called philosophers who “spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing” (Acts 17:21 NKJ). The town was filled with idols, even one with the inscription “To the Unknown God” (Acts 17:23). As Paul explained that “God, who made the world… and has made from one blood every nation of men” was this unknown God, he went on to say that God did it so that men “might grope for Him and find Him” (Acts 17:26-27). The Greek word “pselaphao” means “to handle, touch, feel; mentally to seek after tokens of a person or thing.”
It looks to me as if Paul is recommending that we do with God what I do with my grandchildren: grope. As we “handle” God through reading His word, “touch” God through prayer, and “feel” God in praise, worship, and meditation, we will come to know Him, not just know about Him. And isn’t that our heart’s desire?
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©2018 Sharon Norris Elliott. Feel free to forward this devotion in its entirety, including this copyright line. Leave comments, ask questions, read past devotions, or subscribe to receive these devotions daily in your e-mail at www.sanewriter.wordpress.com. Also, periodically check in at www.LifeThatMatters.net to see what’s going on in the ministry.
Links you won’t want to miss:
from any internet-connected device at www.HSBN.tv and on HSBN’s You Tube channel.
(Stream current show or view past episodes anytime!)
Join the movement! Closer Walk 2018(c) https://closerwalk2018.wordpress.com
Boomerangs Videolink: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2JH_gbinMk
Sharon’s other books still available:
It’s Time to Write that Book!
June 8-9, 2018
St. Matthew Ecumenical Catholic Church, 1111 W. Town & Country Road, Orange, CA 92868
**OR**
June 29-30, 2018
Brand New Life Christian Center, 1110 W. Taft Ave., Orange, CA 92865
Friday evening: 5pm – 9pm, All day Saturday: 9am – 6pm
No more excuses!
The AuthorizeMe® seminar will answer all your questions and meet all your needs. Get that book out of your head, down onto paper, and into a professional book proposal format ready to present to an acquisition editor of a major publishing house.
Here’s the truth: writing a book is hard work, publishing a book is harder work, and marketing a book is the hardest work of all. But if your heart is telling you to write your book, and especially if God is nudging you to write your story, let AuthorizeMe® ease the struggle as you follow your heart and obey the Lord. AuthorizeMe® comes alongside you as you navigate through the choppy seas of becoming a published author.
Spots are filling so get your registration and tuition payment in right away!
The AuthorizeMe® company must know the numbers to expect at the seminar in advance to be sure to bring enough workbooks, handouts, and supplies.
Click http://www.authorizeme.net/online_reg.htm to fill out the registration form.
When you hit “Submit”, you will be connected to the PayPal payment page where you can send either your $50 down payment or your full $199 tuition payment. If you are not ready to send your payment, but you know you definitely plan to attend, send an email message to AuthorizeMe® CEO Sharon Elliott to have her hold your place.
Have you ever heard people proclaim one thing and then watch them practice something totally different? For example, a person might proclaim that it’s utterly wrong to lie, yet at tax time, that same person’s practice is to hide income so as not to pay the government his/her fair share. A person might say she does not steal, yet she will purchase bootleg videotapes of movies, knowing full well that the actors, producers, and studio will not receive a dime of the money that is rightfully theirs from the sale of their stolen property.
How often do we proclaim something to be true about the Lord and then live out in practice that which is diametrically opposite?
In the book of Ezra, chapters seven and eight, King Artaxerxes allowed Ezra to head up a delegation to go back into Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. Ezra responded, “Blessed be the LORD God of our fathers, who has put such a thing as this in the king’s heart, to beautify the house of the LORD which is in Jerusalem… So I was encouraged, as the hand of the LORD my God was upon me…” Ezra 7: 27-28 (NKJ).
After Ezra gathered the men together whom he needed to do the work, he proclaimed a fast to humble themselves before God, and to seek the right way they should do things. Then Ezra must have had a thought. What if their company was ambushed along their way to Jerusalem and all the treasures were stolen that they were carrying back to the temple? I am supposing this unwritten thought, because right after discussing the fast, Ezra said, “For I was ashamed to request of the king an escort of soldiers and horsemen to help us against the enemy on the road, because we had spoken to the king, saying, ‘The hand of our God is upon all those for good who seek Him, but His power and His wrath are against all those who forsake Him…’” Ezra 8:22 (NKJ). Ezra realized he had to practice or live out that to which he had testified. How could he say God’s hand was upon him and then ask a heathen king for protection?
What do we say God can do and then renege by not allowing God to do it? Let’s be mindful today to live by what we testify.
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©2016 Sharon Norris Elliott. Feel free to forward this devotion in its entirety, including this copyright line. Leave comments, ask questions, read past devotions, or subscribe to receive these devotions daily in your e-mail at www.sanewriter.wordpress.com. Also, periodically check in at www.LifeThatMatters.net to see what’s going on in the ministry.
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Mission Trip Update! ZAMBIA AND OTHER SOUTH AFRICAN NATIONS, here I come! I started getting the necessary vaccinations for the trip and all that medication is really expensive. Our team will be purchasing our airfare soon. Then the next money due will be for our hotels, food, and visas. Finally, I want to take books for the women who attend the Power Suit Women’s Conferences. Please do not hesitate. I really need your financial donations now. Thank you in advance! Click this link: https://sanewriter.wordpress.com/2016/03/31/33116-special-request/ to go to the full request. You can give three ways:
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Links you won’t want to miss:
from any internet-connected device at www.HSBN.tv.
(Stream current show or view past episodes anytime!)
Boomerangs Videolink: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2JH_gbinMk
Sharon’s other books still available:
When Paul returned to Jerusalem in Acts chapter 21, “…all the elders were present. When he had greeted them, he told in detail those things which God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry. And when they heard it, they glorified the Lord. And they said to him, “You see, brother, how many myriads of Jews there are who have believed, and they are all zealous for the law; but they have been informed about you that you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children nor to walk according to the customs. What then? The assembly must certainly meet, for they will hear that you have come. Therefore do what we tell you: We have four men who have taken a vow. Take them and be purified with them, and pay their expenses so that they may shave their heads, and that all may know that those things of which they were informed concerning you are nothing, but that you yourself also walk orderly and keep the law. But concerning the Gentiles who believe, we have written and decided that they should observe no such thing, except that they should keep themselves from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality” Acts 21:18-25 (NKJ)
Paul had been accused by the hard-line, old-school Jews of teaching some scandalous stuff that disrespected the Law and the temple. Of course, none of that was true. The Jerusalem elders sat and listened to Paul as he told them “in detail those things which God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry.” The elders glorified God when they heard it and they wanted to prove to the naysayers that Paul was okay and was not roaming around like a loose canon teaching things contrary to the Gospel.
As we keep reading in this chapter, we find that everything was going well until some Jews from another region came to town. Even though the elders had backed Paul up, these outsiders stirred the people of Jerusalem into such a frenzy that they almost beat Paul to death because of their false accusations.
What’s my point? No matter what we do, or who is on our side, there are still going to be some times when we are going to have to be able to answer for ourselves concerning what we believe and teach. Some will listen; some won’t. Some will agree; some won’t. First Peter 3:15-17 says, “ But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear; having a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed. For it is better, if it is the will of God, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil” (NKJ).
Our only responsibility is to be able to clearly communicate the Gospel and let the chips fall where they may.
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©2016 Sharon Norris Elliott. Feel free to forward this devotion in its entirety, including this copyright line. Leave comments, ask questions, read past devotions, or subscribe to receive these devotions daily in your e-mail at www.sanewriter.wordpress.com. Also, periodically check in at www.LifeThatMatters.net to see what’s going on in the ministry.
________________________________
Mission Trip Update! ZAMBIA AND KENYA, here I come! I started getting the necessary vaccinations for the trip and all that medication is really expensive. Our team will be purchasing our airfare soon. Then the next money due will be for our hotels, food, and visas. Finally, I want to take books for the women who attend the Power Suit Women’s Conferences. Please do not hesitate. I really need your financial donations now. Thank you in advance! Click this link: https://sanewriter.wordpress.com/2016/03/31/33116-special-request/ to go to the full request. You can give three ways:
________________________________
Links you won’t want to miss:
from any internet-connected device at www.HSBN.tv.
(Stream current show or view past episodes anytime!)
Boomerangs Videolink: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2JH_gbinMk
Sharon’s other books still available:
Here in America, we don’t often hear stories about demon possession or oppression unless we’re watching a Hollywood production. We have relegated demons to the silver screen. Actually, we somewhat enjoy being spooked for an hour and a half as the actors think it’s a good idea to spend the night in a deserted house in the middle of a forest on a moonless night. We allow the shadowy images to invade our psyches and are relieved when at least one hero or heroine emerges unscathed in the end. We exit the theaters leaving both our popcorn boxes and our fear of demons behind.
The demons might not care so much about the popcorn box, but they are certainly glad we left our attention to them behind. The principalities and powers of darkness want nothing more than for us to think they are no danger, and better yet, that they don’t really exist. They know that we neither fear nor respect that which we deem nonexistent; we are not on our guard against it either.
Jesus did not wonder about the existence of the demonic and neither did the people of his day. When demon-possessed people were brought to Him, Jesus didn’t say, “Oh my friend, you are misguided in your diagnosis. This man is merely troubled.” No, Jesus cast the demons out. In order to cast demons out, He had to recognize they were real.
Christians cannot be possessed by demons because the Holy Spirit has taken up residence within us. However, demons do their best to oppress believers. They will counterfeit within us some of the same troubles they bring upon the possessed. I believe two of their main weapons are blinders and muzzles.
Matthew 12:22 reads, “Then one was brought to Him who was demon-possessed, blind and mute; and He healed him, so that the blind and mute man both spoke and saw.” (NKJ). Just as this man was blind and mute because of demon-possession, some of us Christians don’t see what we should see or say what we should say because we’re allowing the forces from hell to cover our eyes and shut our mouths. We refuse to recognize sin as sin and speak out about it.
It is our job to bring light, to be light, and to sound forth as the voice of deliverance in our world. Stop letting demons oppress you. Remove the blinders and muzzles. “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden” Matthew 5:14 (NKJ).
Receive your sight. Receive your voice.
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©2016 Sharon Norris Elliott. Feel free to forward this devotion in its entirety, including this copyright line. Leave comments, ask questions, read past devotions, or subscribe to receive these devotions daily in your e-mail at www.sanewriter.wordpress.com. Also, periodically check in at www.LifeThatMatters.net to see what’s going on in the ministry.
Links you won’t want to miss:
from any internet-connected device at www.HSBN.tv.
(Stream current show or view past episodes anytime!)
Boomerangs Videolink: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2JH_gbinMk
Sharon’s other books still available:
In the sixteenth chapter of The Revelation, seven angels are allowed to pour the wrath of God upon the earth and all kinds of bad stuff starts happening:
God is obviously perturbed and you would think the people on earth would get the message; yet, not so. Read their reaction, “They blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and did not repent of their deeds” Revelation 16:11 (NKJ).
Not much had changed in hundreds of years. Just a few generations after Adam and Eve plundered mankind into sin, humans had gotten so rotten that we hear God saying, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh…” And the LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart” Genesis 6:3 and 6 (NKJ). God’s next thought was to just wipe everybody out. After all, He was well capable to start all over again. “So the LORD said, ‘I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them’” Genesis 6:7 (NKJ).
To what lengths do we push God before we decide to confess and repent? And by extension, to what lengths do we push our family and friends before we tell them we are sorry for something we’ve done that has hurt them? You see, confession is not only about us. Confession and repentance have to do with the person we have wronged. Yes, we ought feel bad about our wrongdoing, but a true confession has to do with the fact that we have hurt the other person, we feel his or her pain, and repentance comes in when we will make every effort to keep from doing that same thing again. It is not an apology to say, “I’m sorry you feel bad.” It is an apology to say, “I know I hurt you when I…, I did a wrong thing when I…, and I will not do it again.”
Our maturity as children of God can be measured by the length of time it takes us from the recognition of our sin to our confession and repentance. The shorter the time, the more mature we are becoming. Rather than going through levels of denial and arguments of justification, once we become aware we have sinned — that means we’ve hurt God or our fellow-man — our commitment to Christ ought to compel us to immediately confess it before God and turn from it. And if God is trying to get our attention through some form of discipline He’s sent, it’s a great idea to submit to His chastening quickly.
Why are we okay with hurting our spouses, children, other family members, and friends? Can we really blame people for having the thought like God had, I’m sorry I’m in this relationship.? Let’s not be the ones who fall under God’s wrath or move Him to say He’s sorry He made us.
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©2015 Sharon Norris Elliott. Feel free to forward this devotion in its entirety, including this copyright line. Leave comments, ask questions, read past devotions, or subscribe to receive these devotions daily in your e-mail at www.sanewriter.wordpress.com. Also, periodically check in at www.LifeThatMatters.net to see what’s going on in the ministry.
ANNOUNCEMENT: Watch The Holy Spirit Broadcasting Network’s new internet TV show Life That Matters with Sharon Norris Elliott from any internet-connected device at www.HSBN.tv. (Stream current show Monday, Wednesday, and Friday; or view past episodes anytime!)
Pick up a copy of Sharon’s newest release,
Why I Get Into Trouble as well as other favorites, Boomerangs to Arrows, and Power Suit
Why I Get Into Trouble link to our eStore: https://www.createspace.com/5131814
Boomerangs to Arrows: A Godly Guide for Launching Young Adult Children available from Judson Press (http://www.judsonpress.com/product.cfm?product_id=17387),
(Boomerangs Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2JH_gbinMk )
Power Suit: The Armor of God Fit for the Feminine Frame from New Hope Publishers (http://www.newhopedigital.com/2010/08/power-suit/)
Mary’s pregnancy ended in that stable because there was no room for the little family in the inn. After some moves, they ended up settling in the little town of Nazareth where it is said Jesus “…grew and became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him” Luke 2:40 (NKJ). But Jesus had also grown in Mary’s womb. Like with all pregnancies, I’m sure that the larger He grew, the more she could feel Him move in her. Also toward the end of her pregnancy, others could probably see Him moving within her as well.
My wish for you today is that you allow Jesus to grow big in you. The larger you allow Him to grow in you, the more you will feel Him when He moves, and the more others will see Him moving in you.
Merry Christmas.
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©2015 Sharon Norris Elliott. Feel free to forward this devotion in its entirety, including this copyright line. Leave comments, ask questions, read past devotions, or subscribe to receive these devotions daily in your e-mail at www.sanewriter.wordpress.com. Also, periodically check in at www.LifeThatMatters.net to see what’s going on in the ministry.
ANNOUNCEMENT: Watch The Holy Spirit Broadcasting Network’s new internet TV show Life That Matters with Sharon Norris Elliott from any internet-connected device at www.HSBN.tv. (Stream current show or view past episodes anytime!)
Pick up a copy of Sharon’s newest release,
Why I Get Into Trouble as well as other favorites, Boomerangs to Arrows, and Power Suit
Why I Get Into Trouble link to our eStore: https://www.createspace.com/5131814
Boomerangs to Arrows: A Godly Guide for Launching Young Adult Children available from Judson Press (http://www.judsonpress.com/product.cfm?product_id=17387),
(Boomerangs Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2JH_gbinMk )
Power Suit: The Armor of God Fit for the Feminine Frame from New Hope Publishers (http://www.newhopedigital.com/2010/08/power-suit/)
