His Coach's Wife: His Elect Lady Ministries

I WASN’T ALLOWED TO PAUSE THIS WEEKEND.

The urgency would not let me.

18 Elul 5786 | August 31, 2026
Chai Elul — “the life of Elul.”

Today begins the final 12 days of Elul.

And the question pressing on me is not:

“What is coming next?”

It is:

“What is still unresolved as this year closes?”

Deuteronomy 30 says:

“Call them to mind… return to the LORD your God and obey His voice.”

That is not vague reflection.

That is accounting.

What instruction remains unfinished?

What relationship remains unresolved?

What stewardship remains neglected?

What compromise remains defended?

What allegiance remains divided?

What truth remains resisted?

What obedience remains delayed?

The year is closing.

But some things are still open.

And calendars change automatically.

HEARTS DO NOT.

Then the Torah goes deeper:

“The LORD your God will circumcise your heart… that you may live.” —Deuteronomy 30:6

Today is Chai Elul.

חי — LIFE.

And the Torah connects heart circumcision with life.

That means some things cannot continue.

Some patterns do not need another explanation.

They need an ending.

Some compromises do not need better management.

They need repentance.

Some decisions do not need another sign.

They need obedience.

Some relationships do not need more avoidance.

They need truth.

Some burdens do not need another year.

They need release.

God is after the heart.

Not the performance.

Not the appearance.

Not the public “Amen.”

The heart.

And while the world grows louder with war, fear, politics, uncertainty, competing narratives, and manufactured images, Scripture brings the examination painfully close:

Who is shaping your decisions?

What has been discipling your reactions?

Where has fear become your counselor?

Where has convenience overruled conviction?

Where has agreement with the Word failed to become obedience?

This is the tension of these final days.

Not panic.

Clarity.

Regret says:
“I hate what happened.”

Conviction says:
“This cannot continue.”

Repentance says:
“I am turning now.”

Remember.

Take it to heart.

Return.

Hear His voice.

Obey.

Then God gathers.

God restores.

God transforms.

And God says:

“THAT YOU MAY LIVE.”

The year is moving.

The window for honest accounting is now.

Do not cross into another season while still negotiating with what God already told you to confront.

Do not rename delay as discernment.

Do not call tolerance grace when God called it compromise.

Do not ask for a new season while protecting an old heart.

“Return to the LORD your God… with all your heart and with all your soul.”
—Deuteronomy 30:2

BEFORE WE ASSEMBLE TODAY, CHECK THE HEART.

17 Elul | Nitzavim

“You stand today, all of you, before the LORD your God…”
—Deuteronomy 29:10

Today’s Torah opens with an assembly.

Everyone was present.

But Moses quickly moves from the congregation to the individual heart.

Because you can be in the right room while your heart is moving in the wrong direction.

You can hear the Word, say “Amen,” worship publicly—and still resist God privately.

Then comes the warning:

“I shall have peace, even though I follow the dictates of my heart.”
—Deuteronomy 29:19

That is dangerous ground:

When God confronts something, but we have already allowed ourselves to keep it.

God’s patience should never be mistaken for His approval.

Then Moses warns that a hidden root can produce poisonous fruit.

What becomes publicly visible often starts privately.

A thought.
A compromise.
An offense.
An appetite.
A warning ignored.

Watch the root before it becomes fruit.

So as we assemble today, maybe we should listen differently.

Not only:

What is the sermon about?

But:

What is the Holy Spirit revealing about me?

Where have I heard the Word but delayed obedience?

Have I mistaken God’s patience for permission?

Is there something I keep calling “peace” that God keeps confronting?

What root am I protecting because its fruit has not appeared yet?

Where do my lips agree with God while my choices resist Him?

Am I asking God for another word while ignoring what He has already revealed?

And when conviction comes, will I defend myself—or surrender?

This is the promise of the New Covenant:

The Holy Spirit does not merely give us information.

He transforms the heart.

So perhaps our prayer before entering the assembly should be:

Lord, do not let me leave only remembering what was preached. Let me leave changed by what You revealed.

Expose the root before it becomes fruit.

Correct the false peace.

Show me where my heart has wandered.

And write Your Word deeper than my Sunday routine.

Because the congregation may see where we are sitting.

God sees where our hearts are standing.

🏈 HAPPY COLLEGE FOOTBALL SEASON! 🏈

And just like that…WE’RE BACK. ❤️🖤

Today our Clark Atlanta Panthers open the season against Grambling State, and after sitting with today’s Torah portion, Ki Tavo, I keep thinking about what Moses told Israel before they moved forward.

They had SEEN so much.

The battles.
The victories.
The provision.
The wilderness.
The faithfulness of God through it all.

Yet Moses said:

“Yet the LORD has not given you a heart to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear, to this very day.”
—Deuteronomy 29:4 NKJV

They had experienced the journey.

Now they needed to understand what the journey had taught them.

That hits differently when you live inside the world of football.

Every season brings preparation and pressure, victories and losses, celebration and disappointment. But if we only count what happens on the scoreboard, we can miss what is being formed along the way.

Character.
Discipline.
Brotherhood.
Endurance.
Humility.
Faith.

Sometimes the greatest lesson of a season is recognizing Who sustained you through it.

And when victory comes, Ki Tavo reminds us not to let success erase our memory of the One who carried us.

So as another season begins, my prayer is bigger than football:

Lord, give us hearts to understand, eyes to see, and ears to hear.

Help us recognize Your faithfulness in the victories AND the wilderness seasons.

And when success comes, keep us humble enough to remember Who brought us this far.

New season.
New opportunity.
Same faithful God.

Happy College Football Season! 🏈

CLARK ATLANTA 🐾
vs.
GRAMBLING STATE 🐯

Let’s go PANTHERS! ❤️🖤

Yesterday, Ki Tavo confronted our “Amen.”
Today, it confronts what happens after we say it.
And this weekend, it will ask whether we ever truly saw what God was doing at all.

Yesterday, Israel stood before the covenant and answered:

“Amen.”

They heard the Word.

They agreed with the Word.

But agreement was never the destination.

Today the question becomes:

Did our “Amen” become obedience?

“Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and gladness of heart, for the abundance of everything…”
—Deuteronomy 28:47

They had abundance.

That is what makes the warning so piercing.

The test wasn’t only what they would do without enough.

The test was what they would become when they had plenty.

The prayer gets answered.

The door opens.

The provision comes.

The season changes.

And what once drove us to our knees can slowly become something we expect.

Abundance reveals allegiance.

Did blessing make me more grateful—or more independent?

Did increase deepen my worship—or weaken my dependence?

Did answered prayer draw me closer to the One Who answered it—or did I become consumed with the answer?

Because you can say “Amen” to the Word and still refuse to let the Word change you.

And this weekend, Ki Tavo takes us deeper.

Moses tells Israel:

“You have seen all that the LORD did before your eyes…”

They saw Egypt judged.

They saw deliverance.

They saw provision.

They saw enemies fall.

For forty years, they lived inside evidence of God’s faithfulness.

And still Moses says:

“Yet the LORD has not given you a heart to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear, to this very day.”
—Deuteronomy 29:4

That stops me.

They saw—but still needed God to give them perception.

Because seeing something happen is not the same as understanding what God is revealing through it.

You can experience provision and miss the Provider.

You can survive the wilderness and miss what it was forming in you.

You can witness God move and remain unchanged.

You can know Scripture and resist surrender.

You can say “Amen” while your heart remains untouched.

And revelation brings responsibility.

“For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required.”
—Luke 12:48

So maybe maturity isn’t measured by how much truth we can repeat.

Maybe the better question is:

What has truth changed in me?

We are surrounded by information.

Our eyes are full.

Our ears are full.

But are our hearts awake?

Information is not discernment.

Israel had less information than we do, but extraordinary revelation.

Manna.

Water.

Clothes that didn’t wear out.

Sandals that endured.

Enemies defeated.

And Moses tells them the purpose:

“that you may know that I am the LORD your God.”
—Deuteronomy 29:6

There it is.

The provision had a purpose:

Know Him.

The wilderness had a purpose:

Form them.

The victories had a purpose:

Reveal Him.

God wasn’t merely taking them OUT.

He sustained them THROUGH.

And now He had brought them to the THRESHOLD.

That is where the test changes.

The wilderness asks:

Will you trust God when you have little?

The threshold asks:

What did the wilderness teach you?

And inheritance asks:

Will you remain faithful when you have much?

That is Ki Tavo:

“When you come in.”

We spend so much time asking God to bring us in.

Into the opportunity.

Into greater provision.

Into new territory.

Into the answered prayer.

But Ki Tavo turns the question around:

Who will you be when you get there?

Does increase produce humility?

Does influence deepen obedience?

Does blessing produce gratitude?

Does revelation produce transformation?

Or does abundance slowly convince us that we no longer need the God Who gave it?

That is the danger.

And it doesn’t stop with us.

Israel stood before God as a people.

Families.

Leaders.

Children.

Generations.

Deuteronomy repeatedly warns them to remember and teach what God has done.

Because what one generation forgets, the next may never know to remember.

So the prayer cannot only be:

“LORD, bless me.”

It must become:

“LORD, make me faithful with what You place in my hands.”

And there is an even deeper layer.

God didn’t deliver Israel from Pharaoh so they could belong to themselves.

He said:

“Let My people go, that they may serve Me.”

Deliverance was not independence.

It was a transfer of allegiance.

The New Covenant carries that forward:

“Having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.”
—Romans 6:18

Christ did not merely rescue us FROM sin.

He redeemed us FOR Himself.

Freedom in Christ is not belonging to ourselves.

It is belonging to Him.

And God knew we needed more than commandments in front of us.

We needed transformation within us.

“I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts.”
—Jeremiah 31:33

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.”
—Ezekiel 36:26

Then Christ came.

“Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us…”
—Galatians 3:13

Christ bore the curse.

And through the Holy Spirit, God does not merely give us more truth to consume.

He transforms the heart that receives it.

So maybe the prayer isn’t:

“LORD, speak louder.”

Maybe it is:

“LORD, make me responsive.”

Give me eyes that see.

Ears that hear.

A heart that obeys.

Because saying “Amen” is easy.

Surrender is not.

And Elul is calling us to return.

Moses says:

“…to this very day.”

That means today matters.

Today I can recognize what I missed yesterday.

Today I can repent.

Today I can remember.

Today I can respond.

Today I can return.

“Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.”
—Hebrews 3:15

So before asking God for another door—

ask what the last one produced in you.

Before asking for more influence—

ask whether obedience grew with the influence you already received.

Before asking for more revelation—

ask what you did with the truth you already know.

Before asking for more blessing—

ask whether the blessing made you more grateful or more independent.

This is what I am carrying into the weekend:

LORD, do not let me say “Amen” and remain unchanged.

Do not let me see and remain blind.

Do not let me hear and refuse to respond.

Do not let me become casual with answered prayer.

Do not let abundance weaken my dependence upon You.

Do not let influence grow faster than character.

Do not let revelation outrun transformation.

Make me faithful with what You have already placed in my hands.

Yesterday exposed our Amen.

Today examines our allegiance.

This weekend examines our perception.

Did I hear?
Did I obey?
Did I recognize Him in what I experienced?
And did any of it actually change me?

Because perhaps one of the greatest dangers is not that God has stopped speaking.

It is becoming so familiar with truth that we learn how to hear without responding.

So this weekend, I am sitting with one question:

Have I been consuming the Word—or allowing the Word to transform me?

14 Elul 5786 | August 27, 2026
Parashat Ki Tavo | Deuteronomy 27:11–28:6

What happens when our lives contradict our Amen?

Today Israel stands between two mountains:

Gerizim—blessing.
Ebal—curse.

God’s Word is proclaimed, and the people answer:

“Amen.”

Not merely, I heard You.

But:

I agree with You.
Your Word is true.
Let it stand.

Then the Torah confronts what can remain hidden:

Secret idolatry.
Moved boundaries.
Perverted justice.
Hidden violence.
Dishonor.
Corruption.

That is what makes this portion so piercing in Elul.

God is confronting the distance between our public Amen and private obedience.

Have I said Amen to a set-apart life while tolerating compromise?

Amen to truth while adjusting it when truth costs me?

Amen to God’s will while resisting Him when His will interrupts mine?

Amen to obedience while quietly renaming partial obedience?

The danger is not only rejecting God’s Word.

It is saying Amen to God’s Word while living in contradiction to it.

Jesus asked:

“Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say?”
Luke 6:46

James said:

“Be doers of the word, and not hearers only.”
James 1:22

Then the Torah turns:

“If you diligently obey the voice of the LORD your God…”
Deuteronomy 28:1

And:

“All these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the LORD your God.”
Deuteronomy 28:2

Notice the order.

Israel was commanded to pursue obedience—not blessing.

The blessing would overtake them as they obeyed.

Under the New Covenant, this is not a promise that obedience guarantees wealth, ease, or promotion.

It goes deeper.

“Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law…”
Galatians 3:13

Grace does not purchase blessing through our performance.

In Christ, grace changes the heart from which obedience flows.

God promised:

“I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts.”
Jeremiah 31:33

And:

“I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes.”
Ezekiel 36:27

Stone → heart.
Hearing → agreement.
Agreement → obedience.

Then I think about Achan.

Israel had victory at Jericho.

Then something hidden entered the camp.

The act was private.

The consequences became public.

Victory → hidden compromise → defeat → exposure → correction → restored movement.

And afterward, Joshua brought Israel to Gerizim and Ebal to renew the covenant.

That gives us a sobering principle:

Before blaming every obstacle outside the camp, allow God to examine what may be happening inside it.

Saul gives another warning.

He claimed:

“I have performed the commandment of the LORD.”

Samuel heard sheep.

Saul called partial obedience obedience.

God did not.

Elul is a season to stop renaming what God has already identified.

And tonight, a nearly full Moon will pass into a deep partial lunar eclipse.

That is astronomy—not a prophecy of judgment.

But the image is striking beside today’s Torah:

Something can appear full while passing beneath a shadow.

So what shadow has crossed something God intended to shine?

Pride?

Compromise?

Resentment?

Unforgiveness?

A boundary quietly moved?

A truth quietly adjusted?

Here is the mercy of Elul:

God’s exposure invites us to return.

The New Covenant does not teach us to hide contradiction better.

It calls us into the Light.

“If we walk in the light as He is in the light… the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.”
1 John 1:7

So today I’m asking:

Where does my private life contradict my public Amen?

What have I called acceptable that God has already confronted?

Where have I renamed partial obedience?

What needs to come into the Light?

Because today’s prophetic significance is not about predicting what happens next.

It is about letting the Word diagnose where we are now.

HEAR → AGREE → OBEY.

Hear His voice.
Agree with His Word.
Bring what is hidden into the Light.
Correct what has moved.
Return while mercy is calling.

And when the Word speaks—

don’t only say Amen.

Live like you meant it.

13 ELUL 5786 | AUGUST 26, 2026
KI TAVO | DEUTERONOMY 27:1–10

There is a sense of urgency in today’s Torah.

God commanded Israel to write His Word before they settled into the promises.

Not later.

Not after they got comfortable.

Not after success had a chance to rewrite the story.

Write it.
Teach it.
Hear it.
Obey it.

Because God understood what could happen if they forgot.

Joshua obeyed.

He built the altar.

He wrote the Law.

He read the covenant aloud before the people.

But then Scripture offers one of its most sobering warnings:

“Another generation arose after them who did not know the LORD nor the work which He had done for Israel.” —Judges 2:10

They inherited the land.

They inherited the blessing.

They inherited the evidence of someone else’s prayers.

But they failed to preserve the remembrance.

And forgetting did not stay small.

“They forsook the LORD…” —Judges 2:12

By the end of Judges:

“Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” —Judges 21:25

That progression should alarm us.

The Word was given.

The Word was forgotten.

Other voices gained authority.

Eventually, people became their own standard.

That is why this matters now.

We are living in a time of competing voices, shifting definitions, spiritual confusion, cultural pressure, and constant noise.

And if the Word ceases to govern us, something else will.

Culture.

Politics.

Fear.

Desire.

Ambition.

Preference.

Emotion.

Self.

There is no neutral ground.

Israel shows us another danger.

When they forgot God, they started remembering Egypt differently.

“We remember the fish which we ate freely in Egypt…” —Numbers 11:5

They remembered the food.

They forgot the chains.

They remembered appetite.

They forgot oppression.

That is what spiritual amnesia does.

When covenant memory weakens, slavery can start looking attractive again.

What God delivered us from can begin to look harmless.

What once enslaved us can start to feel familiar.

What He told us to leave can suddenly seem worth returning to.

Then comes 2 Kings 22.

The Book of the Law is found inside the house of the LORD.

Let that sink in.

The Temple was still there.

Religious activity was ongoing.

Leadership was still in place.

But the full awareness of the Word had fallen into neglect.

When Josiah heard what God truly said, he tore his clothes.

That is a warning to the Church.

Religious activity does not automatically equate to biblical faithfulness.

A church can be busy.

A ministry can be growing.

A platform can be expanding.

A message can be popular.

And yet, we must ask:

Is the Word governing us?

That is where Elul turns this inward.

Before I ask:

What has America forgotten?

I need to ask:

What have I forgotten?

What has my household forgotten?

What truth have I softened because obedience felt uncomfortable?

What have I allowed culture, fear, politics, ambition, success, or tradition to interpret for me instead of Scripture?

And what am I passing on to the next generation?

Psalm 78 says the next generation must know the works of God so they can “set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God.”

Our children do not need monuments without memory.

They need testimony.

They need to know:

This is what God said.

This is what He brought us through.

This is why we pray.

This is why we obey.

This is why we refuse what He calls wrong.

That is why Jesus isn't just part of our lives.

He is Lord of our lives.

What one generation treats as optional, another may eventually treat as irrelevant.

But Scripture does not end with forgetting.

Josiah found the Book again.

Ezra reopened the Book.

The people heard again.

They understood.

They wept.

They returned.

So the prophetic word is not only:

Look how far things have drifted.

It is:

OPEN THE BOOK AGAIN.

Let it confront us again.

Let it correct us again.

Let it become the standard again.

And then Jesus speaks to the church at Ephesus:

“Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works.” —Revelation 2:5

There it is:

REMEMBER.
REPENT.
RETURN.

And He said it to a church.

So this is not primarily a warning for “them.”

It is for us.

Before we point at the world, let the Word examine the church.

Before we wonder what happened to this generation, ask what we taught them.

Before we ask God for another prophetic word, ask:

What has He already said that we have stopped obeying?

The progression is urgent:

DEUTERONOMY 27 — WRITE IT.

DEUTERONOMY 6 — TEACH IT.

JOSHUA 8 — OBEY IT.

JUDGES 2 — THEY FORGOT IT.

JUDGES 21 — EVERYONE DID WHAT WAS RIGHT IN THEIR OWN EYES.

2 KINGS 22 — THEY FOUND IT AGAIN.

NEHEMIAH 8 — THEY HEARD IT AGAIN.

REVELATION 2 — REMEMBER. REPENT. RETURN.

And then the Father points us to Jesus:

“This is My beloved Son… HEAR HIM!” —Matthew 17:5

That is the urgency of 13 Elul.

Look around you; we have forgotten. Repent and return for your grandchildren.

Do not wait until forgetting becomes another generation.

Do not wait until slavery looks normal again.

Do not wait until the Book must be rediscovered inside God’s house.

Do not wait until self becomes the standard.

OPEN THE BOOK NOW.

Share the testimony now.

Teach the children now.

Repent now.

Return now.

Hear Him now.

Because the mercy in this warning is that God is still calling His people back while there is still time to respond.