Category: Are You In Need of Cleansing?

²¹ You have heard that it was said to those of old, ’You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ ²² But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. ²³ So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, ²⁴ leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. ~ Matthew 5:21-24

Jesus is taking the Rabbinic teaching to the next level. It was okay to do certain things under the Old Covenant, but Jesus holds His Church to a higher standard.

Now, under our New Covenant, it’s all about grace. It’s all about mercy. It’s all about forgiveness. Our words are seasoned with salt. We don’t let any old thing come out of our mouths. We don’t live any old way.

Matter of fact, look at what Jesus said in verse 23. He said if you’re at the altar offering a gift to the LORD and the Holy Spirit brings to your memory that a brother has something against you. Now, mind you, it’s not if you have something against him or her; no, it’s if they have something against you. If you’re in prayer and conviction hits you, it doesn’t have to be your fault, but it’s your responsibility for reconciliation. Don’t leave matters like that not reconciled. Be the bigger person because you are a child of the King.

Father, help me to be a peacemaker and to understand that I have the ministry of reconciliation. I will not let the sun go down on my anger, nor will I let someone else stew over a misunderstanding, even if it was not my fault. In Jesus’s name, I pray, amen.

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¹⁸ Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. ¹⁹ And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. ²⁰ But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. ²¹ She will bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” ²² All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: ²³ “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call His name Immanuel” (which means, God with us). ²⁴ When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, ²⁵ but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called His name Jesus. ~ Matthew 1:18-25

Jesus being born in Bethlehem is literally the Christmas story. He is our real and true Christmas present from Almighty God. You see, Jesus didn’t come into this world because He had to come, well, at least NOT for Himself. He did not come because we loved Him and wanted Him to come. Matter of fact, the Word says that although He made the world, the world did not recognize Him. We did not know who He was, yet He came anyway and was mistreated and abused. Knowing this, He still chose to give His life for us sinners.

So, it was not because of our love for Him that He came. Jesus came because we were separated from God, and He wanted us with Him. So, He left the splendor of Heaven to save us from our sin. We were utterly lost without Him, and if we refuse His gift, we will continue to be utterly lost without Him.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Be Found.

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¹¹ If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! ~ Matthew 7:11

The Father will give good things to those who ask Him. In John 5:19, Jesus said that He does whatever He sees the Father doing, and whatever the Father does, He too does likewise. Therefore, if the Father gives good things to those who ask, the Son, too, will give good things to those who ask. For Jesus said in John 14:13-14 that whatever we ask Him in His name, He will do it for us because in so doing, the Father will be glorified.

Many of us are seeking the gifts of the world and never seeking the gifts of heaven. And on that last day, when we stand before the throne of God, we will be without His seal to allow us into His eternal love and peace. And all of the things that we were chasing the most, such as a good life and personal needs like clothing/apparel, accessories, food, housing, wealth, etc., would have been given to us while on this earth if we would have just accepted Jesus’ free gift.

Why? Because Jesus has paid for all of that. We get even more than a good life; we get eternal life with all the benefits. All of our needs will be supplied by Jesus, who will give us all things. This is why Jesus is the Spirit of Giving. Jesus was our first-ever Christmas gift, but this gift, unlike all other Christmas gifts, can be accessed throughout the year.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Accept Your Christmas Gift.

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⁶ For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; ~ Isaiah 9:6a

Christmas is all about giving, but it’s also about receiving. There was a father who gave his son the thing he most desired, but the son, being shortsighted, did not receive the gift and thus took away the father’s privilege to give the one thing to his son that he most desired.

Thus, the Christmas message can be summed up in these words:

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given;

That is the Christmas message. Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given. It always comes back to that word and its various forms:

• Give
• Given
• Has given
• Will give
• Gave

Our God is a loving and giving God, who gave the most valuable possession He had, His Son Jesus. He is a kind and compassionate God. He delights in blessing His children with good things because He is a good, good Father, but it’s up to us to accept His good, good gift.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Enjoy His Good Gift.

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¹⁹ If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. ~ John 15:19

Many people wonder who the Bible was written to. I believe Jesus clarifies it for us when He says that if we were of the world, we would be loved by the world. But as it is, we do not belong to this world; therefore, we are hated by this world. I want you to understand that neither Jesus nor the Bible are in the habit of talking to people who are unbelievers now but will be believers later. That is not how prophecy works.

By and large, the Bible is written to and for believers. The followers of Yeshua, Jesus, the Son of the Living God. Now, it does mention the end of the unbelievers, but even that is written to the saints of God as knowledge. So that we can warn the sinner to come to Jesus. In order to understand the Bible, you have to have the Holy Spirit within you guiding you through the Word of God. Why? Because Scripture is not up to each person’s own interpretation.

Thus, the Bible is written to believers, and until you are a believer, the Scriptures and its prophecies and promises do not belong to you. They can belong to you just by confessing with your mouth and believing in your heart that Jesus Christ came in the flesh, died, and rose again.

Dear LORD, please forgive me for all of my sins. Thank You for forgiving me and loving me. Thank You for Your sacrifice on the cross. I believe that You came in the flesh, that You died for my sins, and that You rose again on the third day. Thank You for grafting me into Your vine so I might dwell in Your love and receive Your promises. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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¹¹ About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. ¹² For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, ¹³ for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. ¹⁴ But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. ~ Hebrews 5:11-14

I recently went to a Christian play that incorporated acrobatics and ballet as it told the story of Jesus. The problem was the play, though written, produced, and performed by Christians, wasn’t Biblically accurate. Sure, I overlooked areas where they took a little bit of artistic liberty, the little things, if you will, but the big things just sent my heart rate up. And there were many. Let’s just say my heart rate didn’t drop below 94 for the full 2 ½ hour production. No one that I went with, family and friends, understood why it bothered me so much. My mom just kept saying, “Chew up the meat and spit out the bones.” My friend even had the audacity to call me an angry elf right after saying how much she was enjoying it.

Here’s the thing. It’s not like it was Disney or Dream Works or some other non-Christian Heathen company that created this production. No. It was believers. It was Christians. It was people who are called to witness to the world and bring the Gospel to all people. This is what upset me so much. The Church today refuses to read the Bible for themselves. They refuse to seek the Truth of God instead of their own Church Traditions that have been passed down from generation to generation.

How can we share the Gospel and train up disciples for Christ when we ourselves don’t even know the basics? Peter is not the rock that Christ built His Church on. Christ is the rock. Peter is named ‘little rock’. Peter Himself even says that Christ is the Cornerstone that the Church is built on, yet Christians refuse to study and read their Bible in order to know Truth. They just stick to whatever was taught. The Bereans checked Paul; why aren’t we checking those teaching us today, especially since all the authors of the New Testament warned us of coming false teachers? It doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand why teaching false beliefs doesn’t make the rest of my family uncomfortable and upset. I believe it should. If these are the people teaching the Word to baby Christians and those in the world, then they, more than anyone else, should be teaching the Truth and not just Church Tradition.

Dear LORD, please help me to never stop seeking Your Truth and reading and studying Your Word for myself. Help me to reject anything that isn’t of You regardless of how long I have believed it or how long it has been taught. Teach me to only speak and teach Your Truth and never my own or anyone else’s. Teach me to have patience with and to love those who aren’t as knowledgeable as I am. Please have mercy on Your Church and overshadow us with Your mercy so that we might have an awakening throughout the world. So that we might reject all things that are false and move on from milk to meat. In Jesus name, I pray, amen.

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²² The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, ²³ but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! ~ Matthew 6:22-23

The enemy loves to try to dress up evil and make it innocent so that we don’t run from it but embrace it. We see it all throughout the Church today. Why? Because the Church has embraced the darkness because the Devil dressed it up enough that it doesn’t seem dark or evil. It now seems innocent. In fact, it can even be used to bring people to Christ.

People often speak about Trunk or Treat and how they brought a sermon after the Trunk or Treat and how people found God there. God isn’t in the midst of evil. You can’t partner good with evil in order to attract the world to be saved. You don’t try to mix light with darkness in order to bring people to the light. No. You boldly shine the light into the darkness so that you can light the way to Christ. Others are offended because we say we need to stay away from yoga because it’s a form of Buddhist prayer that opens your body up to spirits.

We can try to clean up darkness all we want, but darkness will always remain dark. Therefore, if the light within us is actually the darkness that we tried to clean up, then how great is that darkness? For there is no light. There is only darkness.

Dear LORD, please clean out the darkness within us. Show us what is in our lives that we have to remove. Show us what is of You and what is of the Devil. Give us a spirit of discernment that we might know the difference between Error and Truth. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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¹⁹ I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first. ~ Revelation 2:19

¹⁰ Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth. ~ Revelation 3:10

The Church in Thyatira had love, faith, and patient endurance, but He did not say He would keep them from the Great Trial. Do you know why? Because the time had not yet come for the Great Tribulation. But the Church in Philadelphia, if not for their patient endurance, they would be the ones going through the Great Tribulation.

But what I want you to focus on is what Jesus said at the end of the sentence. The hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth. It’s not just the Church but the whole world. So, those who are helping bring this to come to pass, you will be right there sharing in the suffering that is coming. You will not escape. The elites, those running the show behind the curtain, don’t care about you. You’re just pawns to them.

Not only will you share in the suffering of the Great Tribulation, but something much worse is stored up for all those who do not accept Jesus as LORD and Savior. It’s called the Wrath of God. But the LORD promises that if you put your faith and trust in Him and you follow Him, He will come back for you. He’ll deliver you from the from the Wrath that is to come.

Dear LORD, please forgive me for my part in ushering in the coming Tribulation. Forgive me for being lukewarm. Forgive me for hiding the Light that is within me. Teach me to follow You. Teach me to let my Light shine before others. Prepare me for whatever might come my way. Strengthen me that I might be found doing what it is that You have called me to do so that I might escape Your coming Wrath. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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¹⁶ For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. ~ John 3:16

As a child, I remember being in Tuesday Chapel morning service at school (I went to a Christian School). I remember I heard the chords to the worship song, How He Loves. I immediately got excited because I loved that song. Then they sang the words “Heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss” instead of “Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss.” I wasn’t just annoyed that the lyrics were different; I didn’t understand why.

That was over a decade ago, and the changing of those lyrics still bothers me. I heard Crowder, the singer who changed the lyrics, say that it was because he wanted to sing it at his church but couldn’t because of that line. They claimed it was inappropriate for church. That it wasn’t a line to be sung in church. So, eventually, the line was changed by Crowder to “unforeseen kiss.”

Many people believe this is a much better and more appropriate description of Heaven meeting Earth, but I would have to disagree.

Unforeseen means: not anticipated or expected: not foreseen: UNEXPECTED

Is that an accurate description of Christ coming to Earth? Is that an accurate description of heaven meeting Earth? An unanticipated, unexpected kiss? No. It’s not. From creation, God had the coming of Christ, and His millennial reign throughout that story. Prophet after prophet was given the revelation of the coming Messiah and the giving of the Holy Spirit. It wasn’t unforeseen. It wasn’t a sweet, innocent kiss. It was a sloppy, wet kiss.

God became man to redeem those who would nail Him to a tree and mock Him as He bled and suffered. Then, not only was all of the sin of the world placed on Him, but  He Himself became sin in order to kill sin in His death. There is nothing unforeseen or innocent about Heaven meeting Earth. It was messy and emotional, just like a sloppy, wet kiss.

Why do we have to clean up God’s affection for us and put on this false representation of piety in order to worship? The Scripture isn’t an easy read. It’s not a book of innocent things, but it describes in detail what love looks like and what adultery against the one who loves you looks like. We miss the very essence of what God has done for us when we water down the Bible and the retelling of that Bible.

Dear LORD, please help me to not allow false piety and false religiosity to keep me from seeing You and Your sacrifice for what it is. Teach me to focus only on You during my time of worship and not allow my fear of what others might think to consume me and my thoughts. Give me confidence in You and who I am in You. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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⁸ You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence. ~ Psalms 90:8

This is a Psalm written by Moses, the man of God, who spoke face-to-face with God and lived. He said that God brings all of our Secret Sins out into the light of His presence. What did Moses mean by that?

God is not fooled by our charades. Nor is He fooled by our playing church. Just because our sins may only be in our mind, in our thoughts, in our imagination, or done in the dark behind closed doors does not mean that God does not know about them.

You can fool some of the people most of the time, you can fool most of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool God any of the time. Make no mistake, the Scriptures teach us God will not be mocked, and neither can He be deceived. Therefore, don’t take His silence as weakness, for it is mercy in this present life.

Dear LORD, help me to place my heart before You. Show me the way to You. Help me not to deceive myself in believing that You don’t see my sins. Forgive me of each of my secret sins and cleanse me from all unrighteousness. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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