Category: Are You In Need of Cleansing?

²⁶ And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ²⁷ “Now on the tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. It shall be for you a time of holy convocation, and you shall afflict yourselves and present a food offering to the Lord. ²⁸ And you shall not do any work on that very day, for it is a Day of Atonement, to make atonement for you before the Lord your God. ²⁹ For whoever is not afflicted on that very day shall be cut off from his people. ³⁰ And whoever does any work on that very day, that person I will destroy from among his people. ³¹ You shall not do any work. It is a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwelling places. ³² It shall be to you a Sabbath of solemn rest, and you shall afflict yourselves. On the ninth day of the month beginning at evening, from evening to evening shall you keep your Sabbath.” ~ Leviticus 23:26-32

²⁴ For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. ²⁵ Nor was it to offer Himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not His own, ²⁶ for then He would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. ²⁷ And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, ²⁸ so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for Him. ~ Hebrews 9:24-28

I was reading a Christian blog explaining the Jewish feasts, and they explained the Day of Atonement as a ‘Do-Nothing Day’ for Christians because Jesus did it all for us when it comes to atonement. Jesus did it all with regard to our salvation being purchased for us and establishing a new covenant, but there is much for us to do on this day. The Day of Atonement was the most Holiest of feasts the LORD God established. It was the one day a year the High Priest could enter into the Holy of Holies where the Presence of the LORD would come down on the Mercy Seat. Jesus, our High Priest, went behind the curtain in Heaven and made the final sacrifice for our sin. He gave His own blood.

Here’s what I’m getting at: this feast should be just as holy, if not holier, to us than to the Jews. Why? Our God sacrificed His own blood to purchase our salvation. To give us freedom in Him, yet we still give in to temptation. Yet we still continue our lives as if He didn’t. We make claims like ‘we have nothing to do with our salvation.’ We choose the world over Him. TV instead of prayer. Games instead of worship. Social Media instead of reading our Bibles. We should be spending this day on our knees begging for His forgiveness. Begging for His mercy. Begging for His grace. We should spend the day humbling ourselves before our God, our Savior.

This isn’t the biggest ‘Do-Nothing Day’ for Christians. This is the biggest cry-out-to-Jesus day for Christians. The biggest day of reflection. The biggest day of repentance. Don’t waste this day.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Don’t Do Nothing.

²³ Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! ²⁴ And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting! ~ Psalms 139:23-24^ESV

Tomorrow is the Day of Atonement. It is the most holiest of days for the Jewish people. Why? Because it was the one day a year that the High Priest could go behind the curtain into the Holy of Holies, where the LORD would come down in the cloud to meet him. The High Priest would then make Atonement for the sins of Israel. Today, the curtain is torn. Our High Priest has made a final Atonement for us, and no longer do we bring the blood of bulls and goats; instead, we bring ourselves.

We say, here I am, LORD, use me. Search me, O God; is there any wickedness in me? Cleanse me from all unrighteousness. Fill my heart with an abundance of good so that my mouth might speak life and not death. Am I living in Your call, Your will for my life, so that when You come back for me, I’m doing what it is that You have called me to do? Am I a Light to the World, or has my Light dimmed, and darkness can no longer see it?

Let tomorrow, the Day of Atonement, be a day of reflection. Let it be a day that you search yourself. Let it be a day that you renew your faith in Christ.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Renew Yourself.

⁵ And Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, “Inquire first for the word of the Lord.” ⁶ Then the king of Israel gathered the prophets together, about four hundred men, and said to them, “Shall I go to battle against Ramoth-gilead, or shall I refrain?” And they said, “Go up, for the Lord will give it into the hand of the king.” ⁷ But Jehoshaphat said, “Is there not here another prophet of the Lord of whom we may inquire?” ⁸ And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “There is yet one man by whom we may inquire of the Lord, Micaiah the son of Imlah, but I hate him, for he never prophesies good concerning me, but evil.” And Jehoshaphat said, “Let not the king say so.” ~ 1 Kings 22:5-8

¹⁵ The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice. ~ Proverbs 12:15

³ For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, ⁴ and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. ~ 2 Timothy 4:3-4

I was recently reading the comments on a Christian video attempting to explain the Stone Age. There was one atheist in the comment section commenting and calling all these Christians dumb. What I found interesting was that if the Christian gave him evidence he couldn’t refute, he didn’t respond to the comment. He’d only attack, degrade, and argue with someone that he believed knew less than him. He never engaged with anyone bringing facts into the conversation that has now shifted to the possibility of a worldwide flood.

This is the tactic many non-believers use. They’ll go for Christians that they don’t think know as much as they do, and they’ll attack them. They’ll debate, argue, and engage with them so that they can show others, “Look, look. Look how dumb this religion is. Look how dumb its followers are. They don’t know anything and can’t even defend their own beliefs.” All while actively ignoring the one who can defend. The one who knows more than they do.

When you avoid someone because you know they’ll prove you wrong, and only go for the weak, it is intellectual cowardice. Deep down you know you’re wrong. Deep down you know that you cannot defend these beliefs against actual facts and evidence. So, you have to protect it. You have to beat down the weak to make yourself feel strong in your beliefs and stance.

This way leads to death. This way leads to destruction because your beliefs, opinions, and ideologies have become your god. It’s something you have to protect and keep safe at all times because it defines you. It’s the god you made with your own hands. With your own mind. So, you can’t let it go. You can’t let it be destroyed by Truth. So, you avoid Truth to keep it safe.

We should never run from Truth to keep our god safe. Our God should always lead us in the ways of Truth because the one True God is the Truth. He is the Spirit of Truth.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Put Your god On Trial.

¹³ For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. ~ Romans 2:13-14

It’s not those who merely hear. It’s not those who only listen. It’s those who, after hearing, obey. They are the ones who will be justified. The word “justified” carries rich legal, relational, and future weight in Paul’s thought. It primarily means “to declare righteous,” “to acquit,” or “to vindicate.” It is a courtroom term. God acts as Judge and issues a verdict of right standing. Paul is not saying here that God has transformed us into righteous people on the inside; he is saying God declares us righteous before Him.

That distinction matters. You can sit in church every Sunday and Wednesday. You can hear hundreds of sermons and teachings. But if the Word never moves from the ear canal into the heart and into actual obedience, you remain unchanged—and the verdict of “righteous” does not rest on mere hearing.

At some point the teaching must become practice. If it doesn’t, there is no real change. Jonathan Edwards put it plainly: “The salvation that does not change me will not save me.” A simple way to move from hearing to doing is to ask two questions after every sermon, every Bible reading, every time the LORD speaks:

“What are You saying to me, LORD?” “What is one concrete way I can and will obey this today?”

And keep inviting God to search you:

Search me, O God, and know my heart today. See if there be any wicked way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting. Help me to overcome evil with good. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

⁵ Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass. ~ Psalms 37:5

Sounds simple, yet it’s very profound. It’s much deeper than just a casual prayer or a momentary surrender. It’s a deliberate, life-changing act of placing the direction of our lives—our hopes, our dreams, our struggles, and our plans, along with our daily steps—into His hands. It means letting go of the steering wheel of life and allowing God to take the lead—easier said than done.

When we commit our way to Him, we are saying, “LORD, have Your way in my life. Do with my life as You will. Let Your Will be done in my life.” We choose to trust that His path is better than the one we have mapped out for ourselves. We are inviting Him to lead us toward the victories He has prepared—victories that may look different from what we expected, yet prove far richer than anything we could accomplish alone.

Trust is the constant companion of commitment. It is impossible to fully commit to someone you do not fully trust. The verse does not stop at just handing over our plans. It calls for us to forsake our own instincts and ideas, and to fully lean on the One who sees all and knows all. Trusting God means resting in His character even when the road ahead is unclear, and believing that He will make the right decisions for our best eternal interests. It means believing that He is both willing and able to bring to fruition everything we have placed in His care. We will believe as Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 1:12, …for I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.

Listen, what we entrust to God does not just vanish into silence. He takes our surrendered desires and works them according to His good and perfect wisdom and timing.

This is the beautiful exchange at the heart of the verse: we give Him our total obedience, and He works everything to our good. Not always in the manner or moment we prefer, but always in the way that leads to true flourishing. It is a win-win situation. We are freed from the exhausting burden of self-reliance, and God receives all the glory as He fulfills His purposes through our yielded lives.

Perhaps today you stand at a crossroads—facing a decision, carrying a long-held hope, or wrestling with uncertainty. Hear the gentle call of Psalm 37:5. Commit your way. Trust Him. Then watch with expectancy as He begins to unfold what only He can accomplish.

Heavenly Father, help me to submit my complete will to You. Help me to commit all my ways to You, that You might have full and complete control in my life and so lead me into paths of righteousness for Your Name’s sake, in Jesus’ Name, I pray, amen.

¹⁵ And the Lord God of their fathers sent warnings to them by His messengers, rising up early and sending them, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place. ¹⁶ But they mocked the messengers of God, despised His words, and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against His people, till there was no remedy. ~ 2 Chronicles 36:15-16

The LORD God sent warnings to the people of Israel over and over and over again by His messengers. Why? Because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place, which is the Temple. The people had abandoned God and were serving false gods. Still, God kept warning them to turn back to Him, because they were His people and His inheritance and He was jealous for them. And if they did not turn from idolatry and back to serving the One True God, then judgment would fall on them. But here’s the thing: God does not take pleasure in the death of the sinner, nor is it His delight to render just judgment. He would rather forgive than punish. But His people refused to turn back to Him. In fact, they mocked the messengers that He sent, and by doing so they despised His words of warning. They scoffed at the messengers and jeered at them as they poked fun and laughed them to scorn. This did not sit well with God. It actually awakened the wrath of the LORD against them until there was no remedy left for them.

The same pattern operates in the individual life, the family, the Church, and our modern society. Make no mistake, our God has patience with us, but there comes a time when His patience will run out, and there will be no remedy left. It’s not that He is cruel or unjust. He keeps saying, “Stop! Don’t do that! Quit it! Return to Me!” But when His warnings go unheeded, and His messengers are mocked, God takes that personally. If He has to continue sending warnings every single day with no change, then there will come a final warning, and God will act in judgment. There will eventually come a time when He will say, “Enough is enough.” Then there will remain no remedy but only the dreadful expectation of judgment. So may the LORD keep our hearts soft, our ears open, and our wills ready to turn while the day of mercy is still called “today.”

Heavenly Father, please guide my heart that I might hear Your voice, and when I hear, that I might obey Your commands. In Jesus’ Name, I pray, amen.

²⁰ how I kept back nothing that was helpful, but proclaimed it to you, and taught you publicly and from house to house, ²¹ testifying to Jews, and also to Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. ~ Acts 20:20-21

Paul has come down to the end of his ministry. His race is almost run, and the work the LORD had given him was almost complete. He is making his final pilgrimage to Jerusalem, hopefully in time for Pentecost. On his way, he meets with the elders of the church in Ephesus and tells them to remember the kind of life he had lived among them, and also to remember how he taught boldly and without holding anything back from them. Then he basically tells them: This is the bottom line of the Gospel: repentance toward God and faith toward our LORD Jesus Christ; that is the whole foundation that our faith and religion is built on.

Repentance toward God simply means that we must turn away from the things that displease our God, and make a 180° turn toward Him. Then we must continue to follow faith in our LORD Jesus. Now what does that mean? It means that we follow the teaching and preaching of Jesus of Nazareth—the Author and Finisher of our faith.

Repentance is not an option; it is a requirement. Here is what C.S. Lewis said about repentance:

Fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms… realizing that you have been on the wrong track and getting ready to start life over again from the ground floor—that is the only way out of our ‘hole.’ This process of surrender—this movement full speed astern—is what Christians call repentance.

Now repentance is no fun at all. It is something much harder than merely eating humble pie. It means unlearning all the self-conceit and self-will that we have been training ourselves into for thousands of years. It means killing a part of yourself, undergoing a kind of death…

Remember, this repentance… is not something God demands of you before He will take you back and which He could let you off if He chose: it is simply a description of what going back to Him is like. If you ask God to take you back without it, you are really asking Him to let you go back without going back. It cannot happen.

We were God’s enemies before the death and resurrection of our LORD Jesus; now we are sons and daughters if we come to Him in repentance. We must lay down our arms in total surrender to Him, turn around, and go in the opposite direction. Not back to what we used to do, or where we came from, but on a new path, for the old is passed away and the new has come. We must follow the new path that leads us back to God.

I encourage you today, whatever you’re holding back, release it and let Jesus’ words clean up your life, and let God’s Holy Spirit come and fill your life.

Heavenly Father, with a humble heart I come to You, reaching out in faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ, asking You to renew a right spirit within me. Give me a wise heart to serve You and clean hands to lift up to You in worship. In Jesus’ Name I pray, amen.

³⁵ Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” ~ John 6:35

Throughout Scripture, bread is essential to the human diet. In fact, it’s compared to the very Word of God. Jesus Himself even refers to Himself as the Bread of Life. Bread is seen as a life-giving food, yet today the bread we eat isn’t good for us. It has no nutritional value. In fact, it has a lot of harmful additives to it. It really made me think. Bread is a really good example of how the enemy distorts the good things God has for us so that it can be harmful to our souls.

This is why Paul warned the Corinthian Church that even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14). We’re all used to the bread that we buy in stores. It tastes good to us. We crave it. And the moment we taste what actual bread should taste like, we immediately don’t like it. We’ve become so accustomed to bread that is bad for you, that the bread that is actually good for you, we don’t want. It tastes bad to us.

Satan does the same thing with Scripture. He manipulates Scripture until the Truth no longer tastes good to us. Until it no longer satisfies our cravings, and we want our ears tickled. We want our sin justified. We want death instead of life. This is why we are told to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. We are like computers, and our mind is the hard drive. Our mind needs to be wiped of certain procedures in order to move forward. In order to gain new understanding. In order to grow in Christ.

Just like detoxing your body and cleansing yourself of all of those additives, preservatives, etc. will help curb your appetite for them, so will cleansing your mind, eyes, and ears of sin curb your appetite for it. What we fill ourselves with will be what we crave. What we push into our system will be what’s on our mind. It will become our abundance. Therefore, beware of the Devil’s schemes. Pay attention to the bread you’re being served. Is it from God or is it of this world?

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Check Your Bread.