What’s New? “Going beyond the call of Duty”

Well, First let me say God bless everyone out there. Here in VOLV we are moving forward for God.

On May 1st I hosted the GANG Girls passion for purity ceremony at my home, It was a very powerful experience. Seeing young people commit themselves to God is awesome and then some.

I also received a call from my building architect on Friday May 7th. I quickly rounded up a couple of Men and shot over to his office. He showed me a 3d tour of the Church building. I made some changes, but all in all it was great to see the vision moving forward.

God is a God that calls us to go beyond the call of duty in evey area of our lives. There is no room for half stepping if you want to be great for God.

Read 1st Sam 3:1-10

Ordinary people who make up their minds can do extraordinary things.

It does not matter where we came from or the lifestyle we lived, God can use anyone that chooses to go beyond the call of duty.

This is found in 1st Corinthians 1:26

“God chose the foolish things of the world to confound the wise.”

Many people seem to make the mistake of being used by God and then say, Look what I have done! This is not God’s plan when he calls a person. God does not want anyone to do great things for HIM and then take the glory for themselves. God not only wants the glory, but he desrves the glory. If it wasn’t for the life changing power of Jesus Christ none of us would have the oppurtunity to do anything for God!

Remember, it is not man that calls, but it is God that calls.

We see in Samuel Chapter 3 the event that God used to call Samuel. The voice of God sounde just like the voice of his leader.

Many times we expect God to call us with his audible voice, but that is rarely the case. God uses leaders to call us.

We cant be so heavenly minded that we dont hear the voice of God through the leaders that he puts right in front of our face.

When we are called to do great things for God we are called to go beyond the call of duty.

We cant make the mistake of getting our priorities mixed up when God calls.

I notice that many people neglect their personal life when they feel that God has called them to full time ministry.

Learn to lead yourself before you lead others!

Being called go beyond the call of duty means learning to listen to god.

Not everyone wants to go beyond, but i believe that what we want doesn’t really hold very much weight because it is about what God wants.

In the Ministry of VO International God brings people that he knows will go beyond the call of Duty.

We are all called to do extraordinary things, but few choose to do extraordinary things.

Lets all be people that will go Beyond the call of duty!!!!

Pastor Benny Jaques

The Principles of Accountability!

Hello World, this is the first of many blogs that I will be posting. My hope and prayer is that through this I might in some way help change peoples lives.

During the past several weeks I have been sharing with my leadership and congregation on the subject of accountability, so that is where I will begin here and now.

What is accountability?

Accountability is the obligation to report or justify anything and everything to God and to those that God has given charge over our lives. We are responsible not only for our actions, but also for explaining our actions to whomever we are answerable to.

In Genesis Chapter 3:1-13 we read the story of Adam and Eve and when they ate of the tree. A major pert of learning to be accountable is not being afraid of the cosequences of our decisions no matter how terrible they might be.

Coming clean in other words. When God confronted Adam about eating of the fruit of the tree his first instinct was to not be responsible for his actions. He blamed Eve! It was the woman that YOU gave me God! Eve, on the other hand blamed the serpent for her actions. Both Adam and Eve had not yet learned the principle of being accountable.

It is interesting that Eve followed Adam down the road that he modeled. The same way he blamed her; she in turn blamed him.

This is a principle that does us no good if we just talk about it.We have to practice it.We can’t afford to keep things hidden; because the things we keep hidden always come back to bite us at some point.”Our Sin Will Find Us Out”

Think about these two questions when you think about accountability.

1.) Where have you been?

2.) Who have youbeen hangin’ around with?

The Devil hates acountability. If he can keep you unaccountable, he can render you ineffective. Also, he makes sure that we keep sin hidden and then he waters it so more sin grows on top of the sin already living and breathing in our lives.

We have to make it a point to bring darkness into the light. The devil takes the darkness in our lives and magnified it so it becomes bigger than it really is.

Accountability needs to become part of us just like all the limbs on our body.

Understand that as children of God we live our lives under the covering of God. This is a spiritual covering that we must ot take for granted. Many times what happens in cases where people refuse to be accountable is isolation. The darkness becomes so great because of a lack of  accountability that people tend to fade away into isolation. Isolation is dangerous because the devil likes to play in isolation. He is master at taking a small mistake and because of isolation he makes it seem like the end of the world. Proverbs 18:1 says, “A man that isolates himself seeks his own desires.”

Its easy to be accountable when everything is fine in our lives. The true test is learning to be when our world is falling apart. People fail in this area mostly because they feel to embaressed to tell their leaders whats going on. The fear of being sat down or removed from posistion cripples them. What they don’t understand is that in the long run they will be much better off. God does not repay us according to our iniquity.

“The rubber meets the road when things are going bad”

When we are not accountable we easily fall into rebellion with our leaders and find it easy to drift away because we dont have the anchor of accountability keepin us in our rightful place.

There is also a danger in being accountable to the wrong person or people. When we open up to someone for the sake of complaing we find ourselves opening up to those that are more immature than we are and we receive unhealthy advice, so we can find ourselves worse off than we were in the first place. It needs to become habit that we are accountable to those that tell us the truth!

This principle also helps us see a clear picture og God, ourselves, our family and our church.

I said allllll that to say this, accountability helps us make the right decisions and it keeps on the right path!