You cannot be afraid of bad influences around you, even with some company you keep. The world itself is full of good and bad, but scriptures declares, “be in the world but not of it” Romans 12:2 And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

All my life I hung out with the good and the bad, beauty and the beast(ugly). I never discriminate against anyone simply because I am not “afraid” of the influences and temptation they could have on my life. I am confident in my Faith and who’s I am. I live by this principle, “greater is he that is in me, than He that is in the world. I trust and have faith in God that He’s my keeper, he will not suffer my foot to be moved. I was once told I could make friends with the devil himself and I said, “as long as he understand I am on the Lord’s side.”

Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven, Matthew 5:16.

Nudity began in the garden of Eden as a shameful thing when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit. Their eyes was open and they knew they were naked and decided to sewed fig leaves together and made themselves clothing. And when they heard the voice of the Lord they were so ashamed they hid, Genesis 3:6-11.

God should of made it clear to Adam and Eve to stay completely away from the forbidden tree and made a fence around it for their protection, not just to inform them not to eat of it. I thought to myself the devil who appeared as a serpent probably was also told not to eat from the tree and did, and for this reason he was stock there all by himself, and desided to deceived Adam and Eve to be his partner in crime against God by being disobedient also. What could had happened to make an angel of God to do such a thing? Maybe he appeared like a serpent because he’d lost his grace with God or was he the tree itself? Poor Adam and Eve I thought, with their innocence, maybe it was the first time they had ever saw a serpent. If Adam and Eve was blessed, to be fruitful, replenished the earth, subdue it and have dominion over every living thing that moved upon the it, every herb, tree, beast, fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, Genesis 1:27-30. They both should of known serpent doesn’t speak.

The Bible says our body is the temple of the Lord, 1Corinthinians 6:19-20. Matthew 5:28 Jesus said, “But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery( sin) with her in his heart.” I think of the birthing of a baby and how we all enter into the world naked, not ashamed and our flesh is clothing for the spirit. Naked means: not covered by clothing, nude. Devoid of of concealment or disguise.

I love nudity, for me it should symbolizes freedom, openness, and to be yourself with sincerity. To others your nudity should convey “I have nothing to hide, I am not afraid, neither ashamed, I have self esteem, I am bold and courageous, not be a temptation for sex or solicitation, sin.” To God nudity could be vulnerability and innocent, not considered sin.

Michelangelo the Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet of the High Renaissance one of my favorite painters who’s artwork expressed the beauty of the human anatomy by his nude paintings and sculptors. He painted the altar wall of the Sistine chapel, Vatican city. The nudity caused controversy for the religious people and I love fact that the vatican waited after his death at eighty-eighty to then cover the genitals of his nude artwork with fig leaves, lol. He was bold, confident and a radical that they respected his artwork. He’s my favorite artist specific because he brought the nudity in the church not as a sexual, temptation, sinful thing. I believe his art of nudity represented especially in the church sincerity when coming before God.

Matthew 26:7 A woman came to Jesus with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, which she poured on his head as he was reclining at the table.

Matthew 26:12 Jesus said, “when she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial.” This verse captured my heart because Jesus is always so busy taking care of everyone else and the time was drawing near for him to be crucified. Not even his disciples, but here comes this woman, a sinner which we all are, and for this reason he came into the world. She didn’t speak but her words was within her actions. Jesus felt loved, the kind of love that he was pouring out, which made it worthy for him to go to cross willingly, I thought to myself.

“Prepare me for my bruial,” these words echoed in my mind. I thought unlike us, Jesus knew exactly when and how he was going to die. And what that woman did is how we should all treat the ones we love while they are yet still alive. Don’t wait till they’re gone to have any regrets on letting them know how we feel about them. I am pretty sure it was faith, when with bold courage she walked into someone else’s home and as a woman to touch a man that’s not your husband back in those days. This is just like the woman with the issue of blood who went through the crowd and confessed she was the one who touch Jesus when he felt virtue left his body, Luke 8:43-48

Who’s worthy to wears this crown? The Mother of Jesus, and why you ask? Because she’s God queen, mother of His son. Divinity and humanity had a child. This was not document in the Bible and neither what happened to her. The question is was Mary taken up into heaven like Elijah or die of old age?

James 1:12 Blessed is a man who perseveres under trail, for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love him. No one can be more deserving of this than Mary. First and far most how can one even comprehend what it would take and be like to bring up a holy child of God capable doing all kind of miracles and impossible things like walking on water to freak you out.

Many Christians never acknowledge Mary’s faith, love, dedication, perseverance through trails, especially to watch her son, beaten, mocked and spat upon, dragged through the streets like common criminal and nailed to a cross for no wrong doing. No respectable, loving and caring parent would be able to stand the way Mary did for her son knowing what it cost him to come into the world and be it’s savior. I can’t help but wonder the kind of gossip also she probably had to endure about her child.

The meaning of the Crown of Heaven and Earth is the representation of power and authority given so you can to rule in both places. The key as spoken by Jesus in Matthew16:19 “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Also Matthew 6:10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

The Crown of the crucifixion represented the oneness in the pain and suffering of Jesus Mary also endured with him. She felt every thing he had been through; she was close with him even to the end. Jesus was Mary’s life mission. Where ever he went she was there, alway knowing where to find him at all times. She had an instinct from God to know his whereabouts. Luke 2:42-49 Jesus went off on his own and was found in the temple.

The disciples had to be taught and guided as to the things pertaining to the kingdom where as Mary already knew her purpose. For this reason the disciples was single out to be of greater interest at the time to be instructed. Mary’s postion as mother of Jesus was an influence to all that followed Jesus. As her nurturing nature was able to mother the disciples as she did Jesus.

After the life death and resurrection of Jesus everyone who walked with Christ even his mother became a warrior for the kingdom mission of the Lord. Great is the mystery of Godliness. Not everything can be explained when it’s revealed. But for those who have eyes they can see and ears and did hear are blessed and favored by the Lord to be able.

With God all things are possible, Matthew 19:23-30. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning, Psalm 30:5. I can do all things through Christ who strengthen me. These three Bible verses of encouragement can carry you through struggles with mental illness along with seeking therapy.

When all has failed, look unto the hill from whence cometh your help. Your help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth, Psalm 121. Mental illness is very serious and affecting a lot of lives. Having faith with therapy can help you to overcome. Faith will allow you to rest in the hands of God while he carries you when you feel like you can’t go any further alone. Faith in God ignites the spirit to overpower the weakness of the flesh.

Take the pain of mental illness and visualize God taking it and placing it in a bottle having the waves of the ocean take it away.” Now walk away and don’t look back. Don’t allow your emotions to be stuck on repeat in your head, neither chose to wear your pain like an old torn up coat you should get the rid of a long time ago.”

It is all a process and it will takes time. Keep hopefull and pray, you will get through it.

We have to all understand everyone in the Bible (characters, person) or a religious person, like a pastor, pope, bishop, priest, are not to be worshipped. They could be acknowledge by giving thanks to God for their testimonials of faithfully walking with Him. God wouldn’t be jealous for us loving or respecting them. We are not to worship or look up to them or each other as God’s(deity) because we are all flawed. In doing so we are putting wait upon a person they cannot carry especially the expectation of them being perfect. Not even Jesus saw himself to be righteous, only God. Jesus never asked us to worship him, just to follow him. John 14:9-11 Jesus said, “the Father and I are one, to see me is to see the Father.” The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father living in me, who is doing his work. Let us not be ignorant, if Jesus said he does nothing of himself it’s only logical for us to understand God is in complete control of everything he does, “everything.” If we follow Jesus then should we be knowledgeable, wise and understanding that we also have no strength or power of our own, totally surrendering our free will to God as Jesus himself did. With this understanding we know that we ourselves aren’t worthy to be worshipped or praise like a deity, it’s all about God and not man who can become conceited. Walking in humility and selflessness is to follow and be like Jesus. To take credit for someone else’s work is to be a thief and a liar.

Every day I go into deep meditation by praying the mysteries of the Holy Rosary. The Holy Rosary (crown of roses)are beads use to count prayers. The prayers are revelation of Mary the virgin as she was chosen to give birth to the messiah. When the messiah came into the world he began his mission establishing the kingdom on earth and was crucified and resurrected for man’s salvation. As I understood it pretty much summons up everything about Mary’s role and that of Jesus in the New Testament and is only use in th Catholic church. I am not Catholic but I love praying the Rosary because of it’s meaning to me specifically. The Rosary to me is by no means worshipping Mother Mary, it is repetition of what the angel Gabriel greeted her with in acknowledgement of her calling by God. And in doing so I myself feel like I am in oneness of the same calling. In understanding the mystery of Godliness the Blessed Mother immaculate conception was one of God greatest. In praying the Rosary you began to gain wisdom, knowledge and understanding, connect with God on a different realm. To me there nothing wrong to praying for Mary to intercede for us to her son, it’s no different than when we go to our Pastor, Pope, Bishop or any head of the church to pray for us. Think of it, they are not God either, but vessels, nor are they to be worshiped, but being obedient to the will of God as Jesus did. So it is with ignorance when people would quote John 14:6 Jesus answered, ” I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Yes makes a lot of sense when understanding John 1:1 In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. It is and will always be to get to God through Jesus the manifestation of the Word.

We should understand the relevance and meaning to Mary the mother of Jesus by reading Luke 1:26-56 Vs 28-The angel went to her and said,”Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Vs 41-When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Now upon this also was one of the evidence as to Mary been given the authority to intercede only through God in her. Also John 19:26-27 another time it was mentioned of her importance at the cross when Jesus saw her there and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “here is your mother.” From that time on,this disciple took her into his own. God is strategic when he made the focus once again on Mary at the crucifixion as it was when Gabriel first came to her. If Moses could of seen a burning bush and be given such authority and power, remember the fire was burning in Mary entire body for months. I could just imagine how it would of affected her spiritually. Moses also never took credit for the things he was lead to do by God. No true faithful man or woman to God would ever put themselves before God. They will always confess all their good works they do only come from the Lord God himself, they can do nothing of their own, but only through Him.

Matthew 24:36 “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the son, but only the Father.” The coming of the son of man.

Let us look at the first time and what was going on when he first came. When Adam and Eve was thrown out the garden of Eden and the serpent with them, life had changed. After the first murder committed by Adam and Even first born Cain, who killed his brother Abel, it seems like it was then the battle began. God kept on slipping more and more out of the view by humanity and sin began to evolve and God began to come up with a solution to make things right. There was the flood: God destroy humanity because we were growing too wicked. He found favor with Noah, who was a good man and the only good man left. God sent a flood to replenish the earth of the wicked people and spared Noah and his family. Yet, sin still existed. Then there was Abram, God found favor with him as he did with Noah. With Abraham came Sodom and Gomorrah (sin city) which God destroyed and spared his nephew Lot and his family. Who was a good example of you can take the man out of the jungle but you can’t take the jungle out of the man.

God had made a promise to Abraham that he would make him a father of nations and bless him. As the Lord had promised Abraham so it was done. Through Abraham God intention was to replenish the world with people who faithfully walked with him like Abraham did. Abraham was willing to sacrifice his  promised only son Isaac he had with the love of his life Sarah in their old age, for the will of God. It seems to me that God was weaning out the sin in man that prevented them from drawing near to him. God was in the process of selecting man according to what he saw in him for His purpose which Abraham was worthy.

What started with Cain and Abel ended with Joseph (the dreamer with the coat of many colors) and his brothers who hated him for the same reason Cain killed his brother, jealousy. But unlike Cain they couldn’t kill him. The Lord was at work in Joseph life, when Joseph said to his brothers,”you intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people.” Upon this revelation Jesus was to come.

The problem between Joseph and his brothers was resolved, except now they become a threat to the Egyptian who brutally beat and enslaved them for years. They prayed constantly for a deliver and Moses was born. Why did Jacob move his family to Egypt? Egypt wasn’t the promise land God had for Abraham, it was the land of Canaan. But there was a famine in the land so Abram went to Egypt with his family. And from then once again all hell broke lose for man. God called Moses as the first deliver. He was the testing ground for man salvation before all others that worked the way up to Jesus. Many others like, Samson, Ruth and Naomi, Samuel David, Elijah, Daniel, and Job. Everyone that is written in the scriptures played an important role to the coming of the messiah.

But all these men like the sacrificial lambs wasn’t able to fulfill the manifestation of the will and laws of God no matter how hard they tried. God walked with man, but nothing wasn’t working to keep us anchored in him without us constantly drifting away. The solution began in the days of Noah, Abraham and all the others that came after them. God had plan for our salvation.

He waited for the right time and the right moment that began with Moses to whom He had given the laws to lead and govern the people according to his will. From the Ten Commandments, the Ark of Covenant and the Tabernacle.

Man spirit was to weak to overcome the sting of sin. Corruption was inevitable especially by the men of God. God plan was an antidote for the poison instead of destroying man once again like in the day of Noah.

The coming of Jesus again will be like when Abraham had pleaded with God to spare Sodom and Gomorrah if he found fifty or ten good man to spare it. Genesis 18:16-33. So shall it be for the coming of the Lord. We can’t allow history repeat itself, look how far we came. No excuses for ignorance. We must be well learnt from it.

God is watching so we have to live each day not in preparation for His coming, but as though He’s already here.

Life is meant to live and live it righteously knowing the Lord with love, joy, peace and respect to others. There’s good times, sad times and trying times. We never know when it will be our time to go home to the Lord. Scriptures declare God breathed the breath of life into us and we became a living soul, Genesis 2:7. In death that breath goes right back to God. God exhaled the breath of life into us, and it’s like he then inhales when we die.

Too many times we take our lives and that of others for granted. We only realize just how precious life is after someone passes away or we are told the c-word (cancer) or other life threatening desease, then our lives flashes before our eyes.With all honesty, I was once one who did exactly that, take life for granted, but now I know better.

I don’t attend funerals simply because I see the dead. I come home and bring back with me their faces in my thoughts of how they use to be and then I can’t get the picture out my mind till it begins affecting my dreams and terrifying me. Emotionally distressed all that is left in me is I coulda or should of, the guilt haunts me. I learn to say my goodbyes to everyone I love by leaving nothing unspoken, honoring and validating them while they are here. If I didn’t make it to see you when you were alive, please I am not coming to your funeral to see your lifeless body. I believe in God so I know you’re not there in the flesh anymore, you are risen to be with the father.

We have to learn to honor the people we care about while they are alive so that they may rest in peace and we have no regrets, so we also can have peace. Just remember death doesn’t discriminate against age, it can happen to anyone at any age and unexpectedly.

Paul spoke about this thorn in his flesh a messenger of satan to torment him. This was to keep him from being conceited. Three times he pleaded with the Lord to take it away from him. But the Lord said to him, “my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness 2 Corinthians 12:7-9

First of all Paul you’re giving satan to much attention (credit), the Lord’s got your back. That fear of your past that keeps hunting you is your thorn. Every where you go especially among the disciples of Jesus and the believers of Christ that you prosecuted is a reminder of who you use to be. But in Christ you became a new person. You cannot be who you are now without the Lord which is your guide and strength. Your flesh is weak, but the spirit willing ( stronger) now that you’ve seen the light. You can’t be prideful when it’s now all about the truth revealed to you, “Jesus and servitude.”

The devil will always try to convince you that you’re still blind when God has given you sight or you’re still in bondage when the Lord has set you free. Why would you want the Lord to remove the thorn from you Paul? Jacob wrestle with God until he was left limping as an result, a reminder of his struggle with God and man, Genesis 32:22-32. Jacob was willing to face what he had to no matter the consequences.

Paul had to remain weak because some people having strength make them believe they are invincible and can do any and everything without God. Paul who was Saul persecuting Christians was being strengthen in his own will, not that of the Lord’s.

Luke 18:9-14 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable. “Two man went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people- robbers, evildoers, adulterers- or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.”

But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Jesus said, “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

What Jesus is saying being a narcissis (prideful) is not going to get you into heavens. Humility and truth will make you righteous in the sight of God.