First we note that the dream state is a spiritual realm and medium through which God communicates His will to His prophets. God told Miriam and Aaron, in the 6th verse of the 12th chapter of the book of Numbers that He reveals Himself to His prophets in visions, and speaks to His prophets in dreams. God allows His oracle to peer through the walls of time to see what God is doing in the Season of Now.

The dream once received is not only a point of communication from God, but becomes the anchor-point toward the fulfillment of the will of God. The dream-seed, as it were is planted in the Season of Now. God knows what is going to happen, because the Word sent to fulfill it comes from God. So God has employed the dream to provide a window into what God has ordained in the construct of the time continuum (Beyond the under heaven experience that we talked about in our last reflection from the book of Ecclesiastes 3). It inspires hope and stimulates action, because a Word from the Lord, even before you can truly see it, touch it, or taste it, is as good as having what God has declared will come to pass- simply because the Word of God will not return back to God unfulfilled or void of fruition. Isaiah 55:11

So when a dreamer dreams, God plants His Word, communicates His plan or intent for His people into a called out servant and oracle of the Lord. The dream may be for the individual, but is often to be declared among the people, because it may also be for them. Here we note that dreams inspired by God can be taken out of context and thus misinterpreted in the finite hand of man. So the interpretation itself warrants seeking the Lord for clarity, as well as spiritual gifting to discern the true meaning of the dream. But even the misinterpretation of man can't override the sovereignty of God! Joseph was rebuked by his father and hated by his brothers, as a result of sharing his dreams with them. While many feel that he should have considered their feelings and kept it to himself, it becomes more evident that his brothers' response was a necessary part of the fulfillment of the dream, as it set Joseph on course for the fruition of the dream-seed planted by God.

Finally, God communicated to the people of God through the Prophet Joel in the 28th verse of the 2nd chapter, that in the last days He would pour out His Spirit on all nations and that their sons and daughters would prophesy, their old men would dream dreams, and their young men would see visions. God is still using His people to communicate His plans, as well as purpose for the lives of men and women, boys and girls in the world today. Where are you in the midst of this awesome experience? What is God saying to you? What is God showing you? Are you declaring what thus says the Lord? Are you walking by faith and trusting that God will bring it to pass?

Dr. Martin Luther King said, "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood... I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!" Many of us have striven toward this dream, because after we heard it with such detail and clarity, we could actually see it! And as the man of God proclaimed it, we believed that it would come to pass. We were set in motion to participate by faith, in bringing it to pass, because "faith comes by hearing. Hearing by the Word of God." Romans 10:17 While we still have quite a way to go, we are certainly closer to it today than when he first shared it.

May we be those who lay hold of our role and responsibilities as servants of the King, as prophets of God in the Season of Now. May we proclaim the dreams that God has planted with us, and write the visions that God has shown us that we may together press forward toward its fulfillment, all for the glory of our awesome God, and the good of those He loves.

Until next time, may the Lord God bless you real good!

In His Service,

Pastor Emery B. Barber
Sheoherd's House, East NY - Brooklyn
For FaithWorks Christian Fellowship

That is why one is bankrupt without Love. Because one would be fruitless, as it relates to Love without Love. So can one call love what Love says is the opposite of Love? If our greatest ideal is to embody Love, to walk in Love. How can we do so without demonstrating Love? Jesus the very embodiment of Love says that His disciples will be known by their Love. His disciples will be known by their Love. Jesus is the disciples Love. So how can one demonstrate Love while rejecting Love.

God so loved the world that He GAVE His only begotten Son (Love), that whosoever believers in Him (God's Son - Jesus - who is Love) shall not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16 (Emphasis and explanation added). Everybody has the right to love. To do so is to be a disciple of Love. To be such necessitates ones faith in, ones belief in Love. To do that is to make the decision to love. And yes God has given everyone the right to love through Jesus Christ our Love, our Lord, our Savior. So are you ready to Love for the sake of the Love that was given, that died, and rose with all power for you to live in Love?

If so reach out to an agent of Love to make the decision to Love today.

In His Love,
Pastor Emery
Bearing His Glory - Telling His Story

"You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart."
Jeremiah 29:1

There are many things that are sought for on a day-to-day basis. Foodies are seeking out foods to satisfy their pallets. Techies seek out the latest and greatest gadgets. God calls us to seek after God - with all of our hearts.

In fact God tells the prophet Jeremiah to inform His people that that IS the way to find God - to "seek God with your whole heart." In what ways are you seeking after The Ultimate Satisfier of Your Souls? Over the next several days we'd like to engage the discussion. So share with your friends and let's talk about it.

In Annette O. Brown's upcoming book, Encounters and Reflections (available soon on Amazon), the author chronicles a journey of responding to the call of God to seek the Lord. Annette's reflections of encountering God, illustrated with the vivid imagery of her photography, art, and writing, provides theological insight into how other can engage real profound connections with the God we long to know. Learn more @ http://aobcreations.com.

In the book of Genesis, Joseph had two dreams. In the first, his sheaves of grain rose above those of his brothers' and his brothers' sheaves bowed before his. In the second dream, the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to him.

The first dream was interpreted by his brothers as Joseph's own belief that he should be the favored first born who would have authority over them when the father had passed away. When he shared the dream with his brothers, they couldn't handle it and consorted to get rid of him. It us vital, however, to understand what the brothers could not handle. It was not the dream that was unpalatable in this case, but it was their misinterpretation of the dream, as well as their misidentification of the servant of the Lord (that alone is a topic for another time.)

The second dream was interpreted by his own father to mean that Joseph would have rule and authority over his parents, family, and the nation. And even his father rebuked him over the communication of that dream. To this day, it seems we can't get over ourselves enough to hear from the Lord. This is a season like never before when we need to hear what God is saying and see what God is showing His people.

We remember Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and we thank God for his many accomplishments as a husband, father, minister, civil rights leader, prophet, and one of God's dreamers.

One of Dr. Martin Luther King's most famous speeches was the "I have a dream" speech, and it is widely lauded as one of the great american speeches in history. My task today, however, is to discuss what the Bible communicates happens when a dreamer dreams, and why it is important for us to engage this marvelous spiritual activity in the Season of Now.

First we note that the dream state is a spiritual realm and medium through which God communicates His will to His prophets. God told Miriam and Aaron, in the 6th verse of the 12th chapter of the book of Numbers that He reveals Himself to His prophets in visions, and speaks to His prophets in dreams. God allows His oracle to peer through the walls of time to see what God is doing in the Season of Now.

The dream once received is not only a point of communication from God, but becomes the anchor-point toward the fulfillment of the will of God. The dream-seed, as it were is planted in the Season of Now. God knows what is going to happen, because the Word sent to fulfill it comes from God. So God has employed the dream to provide a window into what God has ordained in the construct of the time continuum (Beyond the under heaven experience that we talked about in our last reflection from the book of Ecclesiastes 3).

It inspires hope and stimulates action, because a Word from the Lord, even before you can truly see it, touch it, or taste it, is as good as having what God has declared will come to pass- simply because the Word of God will not return back to God unfulfilled or void of fruition. Isaiah 55:11

So when a dreamer dreams, God plants His Word, communicates His plan or intent for His people into a called out servant and oracle of the Lord. The dream may be for the individual, but is often to be declared among the people, because it may also be for them.

Here we note that dreams inspired by God can be taken out of context and thus misinterpreted in the finite hand of man. So the interpretation itself warrants seeking the Lord for clarity, as well as spiritual gifting to discern the true meaning of the dream. But even the misinterpretation of man can't override the sovereignty of God!

Joseph was rebuked by his father and hated by his brothers, as a result of sharing his dreams with them. While many feel that he should have considered their feelings and kept it to himself, it becomes more evident that his brothers' response was a necessary part of the fulfillment of the dream, as it set Joseph on course for the fruition of the dream-seed planted by God.

Finally, God communicated to the people of God through the Prophet Joel in the 28th verse of the 2nd chapter, that in the last days He would pour out His Spirit on all nations and that their sons and daughters would prophesy, their old men would dream dreams, and their young men would see visions.

God is still using His people to communicate His plans, as well as purpose for the lives of men and women, boys and girls in the world today. Where are you in the midst of this awesome experience? What is God saying to you? What is God showing you? Are you declaring what thus says the Lord? Are you walking by faith and trusting that God will bring it to pass?

Dr. Martin Luther King said, "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood... I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!"

​Many of us have striven toward this dream, because after we heard it with such detail and clarity, we could actually see it! And as the man of God proclaimed it, we believed that it would come to pass. We were set in motion to participate by faith, in bringing it to pass, because "faith comes by hearing. Hearing by the Word of God." Romans 10:17 While we still have quite a way to go, we are certainly closer to it today than when he first shared it.

May we be those who lay hold of our role and responsibilities as servants of the King, as prophets of God in the Season of Now. May we proclaim the dreams that God has planted with us, and write the visions that God has shown us that we may together press forward toward its fulfillment, all for the glory of our awesome God, and the good of those He loves.

Until next time, may the Lord God bless you real good!

For His Glory,
Pastor Emery B. Barber
Shepherd's House OBC, East NY, Brooklyn

T'is the season to be jolly! It is a season when many will receive gifts from family, friends, and even anonymous strangers. It is the season that many have left their Thanksgiving gatherings to prepare for, as they sought out the biggest bargains for the greatest gifts. Perhaps the effort to make ourselves jolly has caused many to lose sight of what God has done to truly give us great tidings of comfort and joy. Jesus is the reason for the season, and it is passed due season for us to face the essence of Christ-mas - the gift of God's presence.

John 3:16 rings eternal as head-knowledge. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." As it becomes heart knowledge the reality of this awesome expression of love is that we too are to love the world so much that we continue the expression of giving God's Only Begotten Son - Jesus the Christ. that all may believe and thus have everlasting life!

The proclivity to satiate our own carnal desires in the posture of hyper-consumption and false humility have caused us to engage the very idolistic behavior that calls us away from possessing the greatest gift. God spoke through His prophet Jeremiah and warned us in the 10th chapter of His book vs. 3-5 to, "Learn not the way of the heathen...For the customs of the people are vain: for one cuts a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. Their idols[b] are like scarecrows in a cucumber field, and they cannot speak; they have to be carried, for they cannot walk. for they cannot do evil, neither is it in them to do good.”

And despite God's Word not to engage these ways, we not only neglect the responsibility to teach what thus says the Lord, but many of us as pastors engage in the same acts of idolatry in our homes and assemblies that we call houses of worship! God has already declared His response for such stupidity in the same chapter in verses 14 and 15, that every person who engages in these acts of futility will be put to shame and perish. Verse 21 declares that the pastors will not prosper and their flocks shall be scattered!

Saints, it is truly time for us to wake up out of the drunken carnal stupor of this age! As God inspired the apostle Paul to write in Romans 13:11-14, " know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires."

I know that this is not the Christ-mas message that many of you were looking for, but it is time for you to handle the Truth! It is time to F.A.C.E. the essence of this season of our lives, and it is the Gift of God's Presence. In the 2nd chapter of the book of Luke an angel approaches a group of shepherds in the twilight of the evening to declare that the Savior had been born. He told them it was "the Messiah, the Lord." As this story unfolds in verses 8-20 we find the unfolding of a process - a cycle that we are to engage. Communicated through the acronym F.A.C.E.
God initiated the process when He gave the prophetic mandate that a "Child would be born, that a Son would be given. The arrival of the Anointed One - the Messiah was

FORETOLD
The angel came to ANNOUNCE the Christ's arrival and makes reference to the foretelling as he mentions The Messiah, The Lord. An angelic hosts joins the angel to CELEBRATE and sing joyful praise to God and to communicate the profundity of this moment to the shepherd's and to us, and to all who will believe! The shepherds leave and hasten their way to Bethlehem, which means the House of Bread, to find the Bread of Life wrapped in a feeding trough, where they witness and  EXPERIENCE the joy of God's Presence. Fascinatingly enough, they repeat the process! They run to others citizens of Israel to Announce that was has been Foretold has come to pass. In doing so they invite others to come and Experience the Gift of God's presence. Finally the depart Celebrating this marvelous reality!

We are called to do the same saints! Perhaps part of the challenge is that we have lost the joy and excitement of the season! Perhaps many of us have viewed the coming of the Christ as a foregone conclusion. So much so that we neglect that this Christ, this Anointed One, this Holy Sacrifice was offered to reconcile us to the full eternal presence, purpose, and privilege of our Loving God! The Gift of God's Presence is going to be experienced in greater measure when Christ returns, but we have the blessed joy of knowing that is God is with us right now! In spite of the myriad of challenges that we experience right now, on the ground, while we're still around, God is working all things together for the good! God will deliver us out of every trial and tribulation - in this life and/or in the life to come. God will wipe away every tear from our eyes, and our light and momentary tribulation is not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed in our eternal future.

So I encourage you to turn your eyes, ears, and most of all your hearts toward Jesus - the true Gift of God's Presence! As the songwriter says, "Look full in His wonderful face. May the things of this world grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace."

By His Grace,
Pastor Emery B. Barber

Until the Next Time, may the Lord God bless you real good!

Grace and peace Saints of God!

Today we reflect on the Day of Pentecost, as it is one of the most significant moments in the life of every believer.

As Jesus told the disciples to wait in Jerusalem, and they would receive power when the promise of the Father, the Holy Spirit, had come (Acts 1:8), He was pronouncing the unfolding fulfillment of the prophecy God inspired the prophet Joel to declare. What once was concealed was about to be revealed. In the 2nd chapter of the book of Joel at the 28th verse we find the words, "In the last days I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your old men shall dream dreams." Peter recalls and rehearses this prophecy as he preaches its fulfillment to the multitude after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

God had made an all-inclusive, yet exclusive declaration, that would confirm the end of one age, and mark the beginning of another. Through the outpouring of His Spirit on all flesh, represented by every nation that would believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, God was empowering His Sons Daughters, and Old men to live holy lives - victorious over the power of the enemy, as they executed the task given them in the Great Commission to go and teach all nations everything Jesus taught, baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Matt.28:29

To clarify, Pentecost, transliterated from the Greek to mean fifty, was initiated fifty days after the blood of the Passover lamb was shed and spread on the door posts of Israelite families that were slaves in Egypt, so that God would Passover their firstborn (Exodus 12). While Passover pointed toward Jesus, the once and for all sacrificed Lamb of God whose death was the propitiation for the sins of humanity. Pentecost was marked by the giving of the law to children of Israel. Violation of which brought death, or separation from God. The law was given as a set of guidelines by which they would live with God and one another.

Eternal life is then appropriated by faith in the resurrected son of God who fulfilled the conditions of the Law once and for all. God sends the Holy Spirit, as promised, the Comforter who fifty days after the crucifixion of Christ comes with Power to usher humanity into a new beginning, the dispensation of Grace, on the Day of Pentecost! Where the Israelites had been given the Law, the people of God - Jesus' Church community have been given Grace through the outpouring of the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit to live in line with the will of God with one another. In the Old Covenant God wrote the law on tablets of stone. In the New Covenant God puts His law in the minds of humanity, and writes the law on the tablets of our hearts. Ezekiel 11:19, Ezekiel 36:26, Jeremiah 31:33, Hebrews 8:10

When we think of Grace, we often think only of unmerited favor, but it is also a divine enablement of power for the people of God to live as citizens of God. So the day of Pentecost also marks the beginning of the Church as an empowered community and a movement to grow the Kingdom of God divinely empowered by God. Peter preaches under this empowerment, and 3,000 accept Jesus Christ! Acts 2

As you can see, there are powerful parallels between the Old and New Testament, and they emanate beautiful patterns that communicate God's unfolding plan for our lives.

We invite you to join us as we explore those patterns right here at Faith Works Christian Fellowship in a Bible Study on the "Tabernacle of David,"  "What does Pentecost really mean?" and the soon coming, "Written on the Hearts of His People."

May our continued reflection and celebration of this victorious season be glorious. Until next time, may the Lord God bless you real good!

In His Service,

Pastor Emery Barber

Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ! Blessed Resurrection to you! Today's Word of Faith is He is risen just like He said!

What an awesome scene the scripture unveils to us in Matt.  28:1-10! Two Marys have come to visit the tomb, and they are met with the strange occurrence of a violent earthquake, caused by an angel coming down from Heaven. He single-handedly rolls away a stone that I would imagine was intended to be too heavy to be moved by ordinary men! Too heavy for men to break in, and to heavy for anyone hiding inside with the corpse of Jesus to escape. 

On top of that, after rolling back the stone the angel simply sat on it! The scene is incredible! The guards are so shaken by the dazzling presence of the angel that they are horrified to the point of paralysis! And then the angel says to the women, "Do not be afraid. I know who you're looking for, but He is not here. The Jesus you saw crucified has risen, just as he said." He then invites them to see for themselves, and to then go quickly to tell his disciples that Jesus had risen from the dead and was going ahead of them into Galilee!" It was as if the angel had played a game of tag and cried, "You're it!" "Now I have told you," he said. The angelic messenger had passed on the good news to the first human carriers of this message. 

The two unsuspecting women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, when suddenly Jesus meets them and greets them! Not a ghost, nor a vision, they both clasped his feet and worshiped him. Jesus repeats the instruction, "Do not be afraid..." They were to tell the disciples to meet the Risen Lord Jesus the Christ in Galilee.

If we were to consider all the horrors that we witness on almost a daily basis, we would find ourselves afraid or numb and so desensitized to the pain of our existence that we wonder if we're really still alive. But as Jesus said to the two Marys, he now says to us, "Don't be afraid my sisters and brothers, I have risen just like I said I would! I have kept my promise to neither leave you nor forsake you!" Jesus tell us by application in John 10:10, "I have come that you might have life, and have it more abundantly." The limitations of our finite existence that often caused us to feel vulnerable, insecure, even helpless have been dealt with by our awesome savior!

 So this morning we come to celebrate the fact that Jesus the Christ has already proven through His resurrection that He has no limitations.The reality for us is that when we put our trust in God through Jesus Christ, we also have no limitations, because the Word of God is true. It is secure and firm. We can stand upon the promises of God. As the Apostle Paul was inspired to write, we truly "can do all things through Christ who strengthens us." Philippians 4:13

And as our focus remains heavenward this morning we encounter the greatest witness of the certainty of God's Word. God the Father had a righteous requirement for the sin of mankind that he knew mankind could not meet! So he sends his Son, who is fully God, to be born of a virgin woman, who is fully human so God’s righteous requirement would be filled by the one who would be born into this world sinless, fully God and fully Man! His Word declares that "His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways far beyond our ways!" The God we serve is limitless! Now the Son – the second person of the Trinity, the Logos, or the Word made flesh – Jesus the Christ showed us the way to live a life without limits, as he lived a sinless life, performed miracles, as he healed the sick, raised the dead, fed multitudes with two fish and five loaves of bread, and gave sight to the blind to prove that he was the Christ – not only sinless, but blameless – Jesus is Out of the box, because there is no box that can contain the creator of all that is. Limitless, because He defines the limitations of every created thing. 

If that wasn't enough he showed us the greatest love ever known in that while we were yet sinning,and lavishing in our own personal boxes, amassing chasm after chasm for ourselves, Jesus paid a sin debt with his life that he didn’t even owe, because we owed a sin debt that we couldn't even pay – Hallelujah! On the Cross of Calvary Jesus pronounced the boundary line of our delusion! He declared that enough is enough! Jesus drew the line and declared that death would be given a final death blow, that nothing would be able to separate us from relationship with the Godhead - Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!  

So when the enemy thought he had succeeded in putting Christ in a box by the hands of religious Pharisees and the government of Rome, after seeing what they perceived to be a lifeless shell placed in a borrowed tomb. After covering the body with 100 pounds of spices and oil drenched linen. After rolling a huge stone that took several men to put it in its place. After putting Caesar’s seal on the tomb, punishable by death if touched. 

Early one Sunday morning – three days after they buried him in borrowed tomb, Jesus the Christ breached the binds of death, and GOT UP AND LEFT THE TOMB! He performed what most thought was impossible! And the profundity of it all is that, because Jesus Got out of the box, because Jesus exceeded our expectations, because Jesus moved beyond the fathomable, you and I can get out of the box, we don't have to be afraid anymore, you and I can exceed our expectations, you and I can move beyond the fathomable, you and I can do all things through Christ who strengthens us!!! Hallelujah to the Lamb of God! "We don’t have to slay any lamb anymore! We don’t have to sprinkle any blood on the door. Someone has taken the place of the lamb. His name is Jesus Christ the Great I AM!!!"

There are seven words that communicate the good news of this passage, however we often miss four of them. The angel declared, "He is Risen... just like He said." The angel was reminding us that this resurrection moment was never supposed to be a surprise to anyone! Jesus said in the book of John in the 10th chapter, "I am the Good Shepherd, and I lay down my life for my sheep... No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father." The angel was sent on a mission to remind them of what Jesus said, because it illustrates and thus confirms the divine authority and trustworthiness of Jesus the Christ!

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ declares that only He who created life, can resurrect it after death. The resurrection declares that Jesus is LORD! He has risen from the dead - just like He said - and he is LORD! Every knee shall bow, every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord! So be not afraid my sisters and brothers. Our Jesus is alive and well!

The resurrection of Jesus is a testimony to the resurrection of human beings, which is a basic tenet of the Christian faith. Unlike any other religion, Christianity alone possesses a founder who transcends death and who promises that His followers will do the same. His Word is good! All other religions were founded by men and prophets whose end was the grave. As Christians, we take comfort in the fact that our God became man, died for our sins, and was resurrected the third day. Even the grave could not hold our God. He lives, and He sits today at the right hand of God the Father in Heaven alive and well, and interceding for you and for me. His power is available for you and I to walk in victory! Truly we have no limits through Jesus Christ our Lord, our Savior, and our Redeemer. Hallelujah to the Risen King! 'Til the next time, may the Lord God bless you real good!

Blessed Resurrection,
Pastor B.
FaithWorks Christian Fellowship
Proving God at God's Word