The Alignment of the Man is a video teaching by Laymon Hornsby and Derrick Day, illustrating the importance of man’s relationship with God and his neighbor.

Click the link above to view this video teaching by Laymon Hornsby and Derrick Day, illustrating purpose as the precursor to assignment and destiny.

One of the best illustrations of operating in purpose is watching Tiger Woods swing a golf club. Tiger makes it look so effortless, everyone thinks they can swing like him. The reality is God gave him the ability to swing a Golf club such that, even when he’s “working,” he’s at rest.

This is the difference between “work” and a “job.” Work is what God purposes you to do and a job is what you think you have to do. Work, within your purpose, is effortless — you make it look easy. A job, on the other hand, has nothing to do with your purpose and, therefore, you toil at it and it feels difficult at every turn.

When Adam was placed in the Garden, He was given work; he had to tend and keep the garden and name the animals (Genesis 2:15, 19) . When he and Eve sinned, he was given a job (Genesis 3:17-19).

Y’all follow me here — work is a blessing; a job is a curse. The problem for many folks is they spend their lives pursuing jobs instead of pressing into God to understand their work. You cannot do the work without first understanding your purpose and receiving your assignment…

PURPOSE – you cannot know it without first knowing God through Christ Jesus. This can only be found in the mind of the Creator.

ASSIGNMENT – you cannot get it without first knowing your PURPOSE. When you are operating in your assignment, what you do looks effortless. When you are operating outside your assignment, whatever you do seems stressful.

DESTINY – you cannot walk into it without first knowing your PURPOSE and executing your ASSIGNMENT.

Without these, how can you expect to hear, “…Well done, good and faithful servant” when you close your eyes in time and open them in eternity?

© 2010 – Derrick Day (www.derrickday.com)

How many folks have planned themselves into a career filled with blandness and mediocrity when God has called them to greatness — greatness that lies dormant and unfulfilled because of fear and the criticism of others?

It’s easy to be mediocre — even a dead fish will move in the direction of the current. Greatness requires swimming upstream and overcoming resistance. God has called us to be a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people (1 Peter 2:9). Peculiar means casting aside the ordinary!

So many graves are filled with unrealized potential. The purpose of a thing can only be found in the mind of the creator. Without purpose, you CANNOT receive an assignment. Without walking in and completing your assignment, you WILL NOT enter into your destiny.

We as men and women of God (I’m speaking of the Ephesians 4 “five-fold”) have an obligation to EQUIP the saints to do the work of the Kingdom. In other words, folks must learn to grow beyond their physical boundaries and limitations. If we fail to do this, we hobble the saints and hinder their potential.

In Genesis 1:26-28, God gave man DOMINION. Jesus came to restore this Dominion through the re-establishment of his Kingdom, that is, His divine Government. It’s time to walk in the authority given to us by the Lord Jesus and appropriate His promises, that we may manifest His power to all corners of the earth.

© 2010 – Derrick Day (www.derrickday.com)

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.(Proverbs 22:6)

This is one of the most frequently used scriptures regarding child rearing. It is full of sound wisdom that is often overlooked.

Let’s break this down. First of all, what does it mean to train? Dictionary.com has a number of available definitions, I like this one:

to develop or form the habits, thoughts, or behavior of (a child or other person) by discipline and instruction

Training is more than just teaching. Training is instruction but it is also grooming. For example, you train your hedges or trees by careful pruning to achieve a desired shape. Training is also conditioning. For example, athletes train rigorously for an event. Soldiers train for combat. You train to simulate the conditions you will encounter in a real-world event.

But the scripture takes this a bit further – it says train “up.” I thought about this carefully in the context of my own life and drew the conclusion that there are three types of training

• Train Down – To leave to one’s own devices
• Train Across – to train in practical application (vocationally)
• Train Up – to train in the concept or spirit of a matter (professionally)

Training down is easy. Unfortunately, it is one of the most prevalent training involving children. Because man is sinful by nature, leaving a child to his or her own devices means leaving them in sin. The secular humanist trend is to eliminate all vestiges of God from child rearing. Many parents disengage from their children in varying degrees, leaving them to peers and media (internet, television, radio). As a result, they have no moral compass and, even worse, no moral foundation.

Training across assumes that teaching a child a trade will empower a child economically. While this is valuable, it, too, passes on no morality. Giving a child an economic advantage with no moral foundation is a recipe for disaster. It deals with material prosperity but does nothing for soul prosperity. In other words, this is incomplete training.

In both of these cases, the children are not being properly raised. The problem is that many folks confuse raising a child with rearing a child. Raising a child means bringing them up to godly maturity, whereas, rearing is simply caring for a child until he or she is able to support themselves.

This is where training up comes in. This is bringing up a child in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4). Training up a child teaches them to look up – to God and parents. It teaches them to go up – in the way of the Lord. Training up requires Godly order – both parents must be engaged and involved. This means fathers must not shirk their responsibility of passing down wisdom and serving as a type and shadow of our heavenly Father. It means that mothers must fulfill their assignment of nurturing the children. It further means that the parents must be vigilant – observing the environment and behavior of, and listening to the hopes, dreams, cares, and concerns of their children.

And, while we are discussing the way he should go, we as parents must understand that this way is not the way we think they should go. Every child is born with a God-given purpose. It is our job as parents to help our children discover and walk in their purpose. You see, once children discover their purpose, they will “run in their lane” and not depart from it. They will pursue their divine destination with dogged determination and will not waver. They will go into their old age moving from assignment to assignment but never changing their purpose.

This is the greatest legacy we can give our children – the legacy of a godly, purposeful life in Christ.

© 2010 – Derrick Day (www.derrickday.com)

(Author’s note: this post was previously posted in May 2010 and is reposted after the site redesign)

In Ezekiel 37, God takes the prophet to a valley of dry bones. God does something interesting here: He asks Ezekiel the question, “Can these dry bones live?” The prophet’s response is like many of ours,  “Lord, you know.” Here, the Lord gives us revelation, He tells the Man of God to prophesy to the dry bones that they may hear and respond to the Word of God.

What God is showing here is how to operate in our God-given dominion and authority. When God commenced His creative work in Genesis 1, He spoke every thing into being. That is the way God operates; with a proceeding Word. So our first act as “dear children” of imitating our Heavenly Father is to operate using His methodology.

Now we have to understand what the dry bones mean. Theological scholars teach that the dry bones represent the nation of Israel in an apostate condition. But I submit to you that the dry bones represent anything that is dead or dying in your life.

Far too many times, people – even the child of God – faces a dead or dying situation and chooses to abide with or in it. That is not God’s way! When you see something that is not God’s perfect will in your life, you should speak change to it. In Genesis, when God saw darkness, He said, “..let there be light.” In other words, God’s perfect will is not darkness; He spoke to it and told it to change.

God has called his children to be agents of change. We should be like a thermostat; when we enter a room, the climate should change. God has commanded us to be salt and light. Salt is a seasoning and a preservative. That means we should season our environment with grace and preserve God’s Word wherever we are. Light displaces darkness; there is no measurement of darkness, only light. That means that in even the darkest situation, wherever there is a blood-washed, Spirit-filled believer, there should always be a ray of hope!

We have to understand that every miracle of Jesus began with a word. When Jesus calmed the storm, He spoke to it and it obeyed. When He told the fig tree to no longer bear fruit, it obeyed.

The light of God is infinite. In Him there is no darkness or “variation or shadow of turning.” Get this – in Heaven there will be no shadows because God’s perfect light will be everywhere!

So how do we effect change in the Kingdom of God? By opening our mouths and speaking to the situation! And what do we speak to the situation? Go back to Ezekiel 37 and you will find that He spoke God’s Word to the situation.

How did Jesus overcome the temptation of the devil? By speaking the Word of God. It is written, it is written, it is written, He said!

But, so far, we’ve talked about the cure. Let’s talk about why the bones got dry in the first place.

God’s law given to Moses forbade the children of Israel from eating blood because “the life of a thing is in the blood.” Let’s consider that for a moment (Selah, pause and think about that). These bones had no life because they had no blood!

As Kingdom citizens, we understand the Blood of Jesus is the price paid for our redemption. Because of this, we are able to plead (apply) this blood to every aspect of our lives that destruction may pass over us. The first type and shadow of this was the application of the blood of an unblemished lamb to the doorposts of the homes of the children of Israel so that the destroyer (death) would pass them by in the final plague upon Egypt. So, it should not surprise us that when we fail to apply the Blood to a thing in our lives that the very life goes out of that thing!

If there is no blood, there is no life. If there is no Jesus, there is no blood! This is why we have to invite Jesus in and allow His precious Blood and His Holy Spirit to fill the dark recesses of our lives.

If I had to create an advertising slogan, it would be, “The Blood – it prevents dry bones!”

© 2010 – Derrick Day (www.derrickday.com)

The ability to do a thing and stick to it is the core of discipleship. One of the great problems in the Body of Christ is there is a lot of good preaching and teaching (well, and a lot of bad preaching and teaching, too. LOL) but not a lot of discipling. We need to be about making disciples, maturing believers, and multiplying ministries. Discipleship leads to revelation of purpose. Understanding of purpose means God can trust you with an assignment. Operating in your assignment propels you into your destiny!

©2010 – Derrick Day (www.derrickday.com)