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Dexter Jakes

@imjustdex

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Husband 🤵🏾‍♂️- @lpjakes
Content Creator 👨🏾‍🍳 - @thejakesjuniors
👨🏾‍💼- @tphdallas

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I’ve called @LPJakes a pastor for years. Even when she was my girlfriend, I felt the hand of God on her. I was falling in love and being ministered to at the same time.

I know a little of how heavy her yes was. Watching God use my wife last night made me so happy. Seeing her stand up and give the world a slice of what I get to see every day left me so grateful.

Larissa, I’m so proud of you. I love you.

Your husband. Your biggest fan. by @imjustdex

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a month ago

Dad, we came to celebrate you. Then you asked your children to stand.

You remembered the sleeping in the car. The hair done in the rearview mirror. The times you were across the world helping somebody else while we needed you at home.

You thanked us for what we carried with you.

I’m grateful you made room for that in a room full of people honoring you.

Then you said, “I am so proud of you.”

Of the gifts God put in us. Of how we use them.
Dad, I’m proud of you, too.

I keep thinking about January 10, 2001. A Wednesday night. You preaching. Me receiving Christ, filled with the Holy Spirit, held in your arms at the altar.

And then this July, preaching my first sermon, “Unfinished Glory,” and asking you to lead the prayer of salvation.

I got to minister with you. To hear you pray as other people made the decision I had made under your ministry all those years ago.

Your son. Still being formed. Now getting to share that moment with you.

That is a part of your fifty years I will carry for the rest of my life.

I’m old enough now to understand more of what this calling required. Still your child enough that hearing you say you’re proud of me means more than I know how to write.

Congratulations on fifty years of ministry, @BishopJakes.

Thank you for seeing us in your story. I love you. And I’ll always be grateful that, among all the people God reached through you, one of them was me. by @imjustdex

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a month ago

Fear can write an ending so convincing that you start grieving a failure that hasn’t happened.

Before I preached for the first time, I had already imagined the silence. The panic. The comparisons. What people who had watched me grow up might say.

I was answering to a room I had not entered. I called the rehearsal preparation. Fear made staying still feel responsible.

Fear did not mean I should stay. It did not mean I could not answer.

So I tested the direction: Scripture. Prayer. People who would have told me no.

The direction held. I was still afraid. So I moved.

“The Weight of My No” is up. Comment LADDER and I’ll send it to you.

If you have made a home inside a failure that hasn’t happened yet, I wrote this with you in mind.

Fear can come. It cannot decide. by @imjustdex

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a month ago

I’ve got a crush on her — keep it low though. #TheJakesJuniors by @imjustdex

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2 months ago

Another year of life, and more than anything, I’m grateful.

This past year continually surprised me. What I once thought might be one of the darkest years of my life somehow became one of the most illuminating and special.

I’ve been loved deeply by my family and friends, but most of all, I’ve experienced the love of God in ways I couldn’t have planned or predicted.

And maybe that’s the lesson.

I love control. I love a plan. But God has spent this year reminding me that my imagination for my life is still too small.

So I’m entering this year differently: with open hands.

Less concerned with controlling what comes next and more committed to letting God lead. Expecting Him to surprise me, expand me, and blow my mind beyond the limitations of what I think is possible.

I feel like I’m only beginning to discover what God placed me on this earth to do.

And if He did all of this with a year I once called dark, I can’t wait to see what He does with the next one.

Here’s to another year. I’m just getting started. by @imjustdex

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2 months ago

Some of us pray like tenants on probation.

Maybe by Thursday the Bible is still closed on the table. Not because you stopped wanting God, but because shame has already told you the house is empty again.

You are not an applicant. You are a child. Sealed. Invited to draw near.

Two verses sit under that. Ephesians 1:13: “you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise.” And Ephesians 4:30: “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” Both, in one breath. Seriousness and security in the same sentence.

And here is the part that keeps it from becoming a loophole. If you took, return it. If you wounded someone, make the call and begin repair wherever repair is possible. You do not do that to purchase your way back to God. You do it because grace has made you secure enough to stop hiding from what you did.

The practice from that night: once a day this week, one scene, one Gospel. Not a chapter. Not a study. No notes, no request. Watch Him. Watch what He does with His hands. Watch who He looks at, and how long. Then close it and sit for one minute.

The feeling follows the looking. It does not lead it.

Week 4, “And Dwelt Among Us,” is live at thereturningglory.com/week-4
Tuesday. Week 5: “You Are the Temple.”

If the feeling tarries, the seal does not. by @imjustdex

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2 months ago

come with me to the returning glory community group @tphdallas!

life is better when we have people to walk alongside us.

if you’re interested in joining a group, comment “community” and i’ll send you the link to the 50+ groups available here at TPH or go to thehouse.app! by @imjustdex

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2 months ago

Before we ever went on a date, I was paying attention.

The way you loved my family as if they were already your own, the way you cared for people before anyone asked you to, and the way you loved God when there was nobody in the room to impress.

So I sat with my sister Sarah and told her about you, saying you were my ideal woman. Then I filed it away as a nice thought and went on with my life.

A few months later, my ideal woman slid into my DMs—jokey jokes.

Casual conversation. Then a heart emoji.

She swears to this day that emoji was innocent. I took it as a green light and passed you my number—just in case you had more hearts you wanted to send.

I hung up my jersey that week. A month later, I asked you to be my girlfriend.

The first time you told me you loved me, it came out of your mouth so naturally that I don't think you even knew it was happening. You just said it and kept talking.

Two years to the day after I asked, you walked down the aisle to me and took my last name.

When my father had his heart attack, you never left my side. You held me together and helped take care of him in the same breath.

You got up with me at three in the morning to make sure my mother had ice on her knee. You never waited to be asked for any of it.

There's something about the way those big, beautiful eyes look at me. Whatever I was worried about ten seconds ago has to get in line.

You cover me in prayer, challenge me to become a better, kinder man, and pull parts of me I didn't know were there into the light. You protect my peace like it's your mission.

You turned a bougie boy into a farmer.

I called you my ideal woman before I ever really knew you. Turns out, I was guessing low.

Happy birthday, my Queen, @LPJakes. by @imjustdex

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2 months ago

This picture is worth more than a thousand words — it was Shepherding the whole time. @BishopJakes by @imjustdex

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3 months ago

Everybody has a room. Tuesday, we built a place to open them.

Before there was a tabernacle, there was a garden. And the garden was about the walking. At Sinai, God asked for a sanctuary so He could dwell, not visit. And the true tent showed up in a Person.

Then the room took over. One by one: doors, closets, rooms locked for years. That was the heart of the night. And Larissa said the other half out loud: feelings are real, but they are not the promise.

This week’s homework is one room. Name it out loud, once. Then crack the door: a confession, a hard text you’ve been avoiding, one honest sentence in the dark. You don’t have to clean it before He comes.

And if you can’t even open it? He has been known to walk through locked doors (John 20:19).

If someone came to mind on the fifth slide, send it. You don’t have to say anything.

🔗 The full Week 2 gathering (teaching, questions, homework) is live at thereturningglory.com/week-2 Tuesday, 7 PM. Week 3: “Ichabod.” We meet in the chapel from here on.

Open the door. He fills what you open.

— Dexter & Larissa by @imjustdex

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3 months ago

We planned a table for a couple dozen. 450 of you pulled up a chair, and 1,700 more are taking the journey from wherever you are.   Glory to God!

So here’s where we begin:

We say glory all the time. We almost never mean weight. But that’s the word — kavod, heavy. The presence that once filled a temple until the priests couldn’t stand.

It begins Tuesday, 7 PM — The Weight (Exodus 33). A man on a mountain, in the wreckage of his worst failure, asking the only thing worth asking — show me Your glory.

Table or phone, near or far — the glory was never locked in one room. Come hungry. Not for answers. For Him.

🔗 We meet Tuesday, 7 PM. Taking the journey online? Week 1 is live now at thereturningglory.com.

And wherever you are, pray the prayer we start with: Lord, show me Your glory.

— Dexter & Larissa by @imjustdex

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3 months ago

The affliction is the factory where God’s power escapes. There’s a purpose for the pressing.

This is one of those messages you save and rewatch regularly for the reminder that if God’s hand is still on you, it’s not the end. 🙌

🎥 #UnfinishedGlory by @ImJustDex: TPHD.org/YouTube

#TPHDallas by @imjustdex

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3 months ago