Category: Awaken From Spiritual Slumber

²⁸ Jehu eliminated Baal worship from Israel, ²⁹ but he did not turn away from the sins that Jeroboam son of Nebat had caused Israel to commit — worshiping the gold calves that were in Bethel and Dan. ³⁰ Nevertheless, the Lord said to Jehu, “Because you have done well in carrying out what is right in my sight and have done to the house of Ahab all that was in my heart, four generations of your sons will sit on the throne of Israel.” ³¹ Yet Jehu was not careful to follow the instruction of the Lord God of Israel with all his heart. He did not turn from the sins that Jeroboam had caused Israel to commit. ³² In those days the Lord began to reduce the size of Israel. Hazael defeated the Israelites throughout their territory ³³ from the Jordan eastward: the whole land of Gilead — the Gadites, the Reubenites, and the Manassites — from Aroer which is by the Arnon Valley through Gilead to Bashan. ~ 2 Kings 10:28-33^CSB

Jehu was told to remove the house of Ahab from Israel because of their wickedness, which he successfully did, and he was expected to follow the instructions of God with all his heart, but he failed to do so. Because of Jehu’s obedience, four generations of his sons would be on the throne, but because of his lack of dedication to the LORD, Israel began to decrease in number. Jehu, when directly told exactly what to do, followed instruction, but when it came to him seeking and trying to follow God for himself, he fell short.

God isn’t always going to hold your hand and tell you exactly what to do. He’s going to show you the first few times and then He expects you to be paying attention, learning, and preparing to do it on your own through Him. Here’s what I mean. God expects us to be able to listen to the gentle nudge of the Holy Spirit after He has led us into green pastures and showed us righteousness. God expects us to grow, not continue as a small baby. God wants us to mature in Him so that we might have discernment, wisdom, and understanding so that one day, we might be able to lead others to Him the way someone led us to Him.

Where Jehu dropped the ball and led the people of Israel astray and decreased their numbers, we are to hold on tightly to the ball (the Word of God) and spread the Gospel, tear down strongholds, grow in the Spirit, and harvest many souls for the Kingdom of God. When we drop the ball in this area, our physical lives may not be harmed in any way. Jehu’s descended were kings, but his people decreased in number. Our physical lives may not be harmed, but our spiritual lives and those around us begin to decrease when we refuse to learn right from wrong and fail test after test. When we refuse to remove the strongholds in our lives and our family’s lives.

We’re in a spiritual war and if we’re not careful, we’ll fall asleep without even realizing it because we have no spiritual discernment. Our physical lives are going good, we’re prospering, our children are prospering, so we think God is with us, when actuality we turned away from God long ago and didn’t even know His Holy Spirit left us.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Prepare To Do It Alone.

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³⁰ As for you, son of man, your people who talk together about you by the walls and at the doors of the houses, say to one another, each to his brother, ‘Come, and hear what the word is that comes from the Lord.’ ³¹ And they come to you as people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear what you say but they will not do it; for with lustful talk in their mouths they act; their heart is set on their gain. ³² And behold, you are to them like one who sings lustful songs with a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument, for they hear what you say, but they will not do it. ~ Ezekiel 33:30-32

Imagine this: suppose this ‘son of man’ is the Church, and ‘your people’ are its members, ‘the walls’ are the church buildings, and ‘the doors’ are communication devices, such as cellphones, computers, and social media. Then, this would be a direct rebuke to a lukewarm church, such as we have today. The brethren invite each other to church on Sundays, saying, “Come to church this Sunday; Pastor is starting a really interesting sermon series. Come on out and listen; it’ll be fun.” Or, “We have a visiting evangelist who is just on fire. Come on out and hear his message; it’ll blow you away.”

But God says, “They come. They sit. They even take part in the praise and worship. They even chip in when the offering plate is passed around. They amen the good points and even jump to their feet and clap their hands enthusiastically in response to the exciting points the fiery preacher makes. They hear the preacher say that they must make a change in their lives. That they must seek holiness and pursue righteousness, but they will not do it.” They believe that part was for their neighbor. They needed to hear that, but not them. They, themselves, are doing good, real good. No change is needed here.

God says that the reason there is no change is that they are full of lustful thoughts that are expressed in lustful talk because, after all, ‘God wants me happy.’ He is ever interested in my happiness. He loves me too much to correct me. I can love whomever I want to love. I can be with whomever I wish to be with because God is for me. He came that I might have happiness and happiness more abundantly.

The pastor says, “Love the LORD your God, with all of your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” But they hear lustful songs with beautiful voices and well-playing instruments singing, “Do what thou wilt, there are no consequences. Do what thou wilt, with all of your strength, for I AM for you.” And they heap upon themselves all sorts of perverseness and all sorts of debauchery and say to themselves, “God loves me too much for anything bad to happen to me. Because a good and loving God will never send anyone to a fiery eternity in a lake of fire.”

But verse 33 says, “When this comes—and come it will!—then they will know that a prophet has been among them.” When what comes? Sudden destruction. Sudden judgment. An eternity in the Lake of Fire. When these things come, and come they will, then they will know. The problem, however, is when it does come, it will be too late, way too late. God said today is the day of repentance; tomorrow is promised to no man.

Dear friends, there are consequences for your actions, and the consequences will come. Make no mistake: the warning has been sounded; you need to listen and obey the voice of your God and seek His holiness.

Heavenly Father, please help me to hear and recognize Your voice, and to seek Your face, and to call upon Your name, that in the great and dreadful day of the LORD, You will find me doing what is pleasing to You, in Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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⁸ Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. ⁹ What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you. ~ Philippians 4:8-9

Look at Paul’s instructions to the Philippians. He said, What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things. There are four sources.

1. What you have learned
2. What you have received
3. What you have heard
4. And lastly, what you have seen in me

Far too often Christians will sit through a good sermon where God is speaking directly to them, and they will turn to their neighbor and say, “This one’s for you.” No it’s not, that one was for you. Or they will participate in a really good conference with all kinds of tips and helps and are energized at the conference but as soon as they leave, two days later, they’ve forgotten everything that they were so excited about. What we, as Christians, need to do, is to put into practice what we’ve learned, and what we’ve received, and what we’ve heard and what we’ve seen. Now, I’m not saying that we ought to blindly do all of those things, we must first match all of that up with Scripture.

Because Paul doesn’t leave it to our own interpretation, he says, if it is honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, having any excellence, and is praise worthy, think about these things, or in other words, put these things into practice. He gives us a guide to follow so that we will not be easily led astray with useless things. We must make a conscious effort to find these things, or notice these things and then put them into practice.

What I am saying is we need to put more of what we have learned, received, heard, and seen in Godly Saints, pastors, and teachers into practice. It is no use having all of the best tools but never using them, or only using them for a very short period of time and then go back to the old way. So, let us determine to put what we’ve learned, received, heard, and seen into practice if it lines up with Scripture.

Heavenly Father, help us to put into practice all that we’ve been taught, read in Scripture, and seen in other saints of God. Help us not to become stagnant, but moving forward in growth and maturity in the things of God. In Jesus’ name, amen.

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¹⁹ Or if I send a pestilence into that land and pour out my wrath upon it with blood, to cut off from it man and beast, ²⁰ even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, as I live, declares the Lord God, they would deliver neither son nor daughter. They would deliver but their own lives by their righteousness. ~ Ezekiel 14:19-20

No matter how good we think we are, we can’t deliver anyone but ourselves from the wrath of God by our actions. If, LORD forbid, we were to die tonight, it’s not based on our parents’, grandparents’, aunts’, uncles’, cousins’, or friends’ prayers for us that will save us. No one but ourselves can make the decision to follow Christ.

We like to try to preach people into Heaven after the fact, but those touching, heartfelt words mean nothing when we’ve lived a life of continual sin, never once clinging to the savior for help. We do this as a false sense of hope and relief for ourselves, but it further teaches others that it doesn’t matter how we live our lives; Christ still will accept us in the end.

The righteousness of Abraham didn’t help Ishmael be a part of the chosen people. Lot’s righteousness didn’t help his descendants be a part of the chosen people. Isaac’s righteousness didn’t help Esau be a part of the chosen people. Our actions are what we will be judged on. It’s our actions that will either save us from or condemn us to the Wrath to come. There’s nothing else that can save us but our own decision and action of accepting salvation and following Christ with all that is in us.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Don’t Rely On Others.

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¹² For it is not an enemy who taunts me—then I could bear it; it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me—then I could hide from him. ¹³ But it is you, a man, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend. ¹⁴ We used to take sweet counsel together; within God’s house we walked in the throng. ~ Psalms 55:12-14

In this passage, David has come to the sudden and heartbreaking realization that it’s not an enemy or some obscure adversary that has opposed him but his familiar friend who walked in the throng up to the house of God with him.

Today, that would equate to a fellow Christian. A fellow pastor. Someone you used to worship with in church. You attended Bible studies together, and as iron sharpens iron, so you all would encourage each other. Now, that person has turned their back on you. They are in a backslidden state and are causing confusion in the Church.

They propagate holy and pious-sounding mysticism like, “Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words when necessary.” I have no clue where that saying came from, but I’m hard pressed to believe it was Saint Francis of Assisi, whom it is often attributed to.

St. Francis was committed to a life of poverty as an itinerant preacher begging for his food while preaching, and apparently, a very powerful preacher at that. It’s said that he would sometimes preach in up to five villages in a single day. Often speaking from a bale of straw or a granary doorway in the country, and from a box or on the steps of some building when he preached in the town. Even more, it is said of him that he preached with such passion that his feet moved as if he were dancing.

Doesn’t sound to me like someone who said, “Don’t talk about the Gospel, only live it.”

No, that comes from the silencers. Those who want to hush up the Gospel. They will attribute things like that to heroes of the faith, and Christians will grab hold of it and propagate it, silencing the Church without even realizing what they are doing.

Thus, they become the silent watchers themselves. Because, after all, you cannot preach the Gospel without words.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Use Words.

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²⁴ He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, ²⁵ but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away.” ~ Matthew 13:24-25

Jesus compared the kingdom of heaven to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. This didn’t just happen randomly. It wasn’t out of nowhere. It was while his men were sleeping. And that is where the Church finds itself today … just waking up from a long nap and finding weeds have been sown among the wheat.

Because the enemy came and sowed weeds in our wheat field while we were asleep. While we were busy dividing ourselves by race and political parties. While we were busy following the media and celebrities instead of reading the Word of God. Now, we find ourselves surrounded by weeds and unable to differentiate between Truth and lies.

Jesus told us that we will know true believers by the fruit that they bear, but how can we do that if we’ve been asleep so long that we don’t know what fruit is. We’ve allowed words to define themselves, most famously:

Love is love.

What does that even mean? How can you define a word by repeating a word? While we were sleeping they’ve been able to remove the definition of the most important fruit that we can bear. Love is the only mandatory fruit that we must bear, yet we lost the ability to define what it is.

We’ve lost so much while we were sleeping. It’s time for a wake-up call. It’s time for the sheep to separate from the goats. It’s time for the sheep to sound the alarm when wolves in sheep’s clothing are near. It’s time for the Church to wake up and return to Christ.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Notice The Weeds.

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it on all sides of the altar. ¹³ They brought him the burnt offering piece by piece, along with the head, and he burned them on the altar. ¹⁴ He washed the entrails and the legs and burned them with the burnt offering on the altar. ~ Leviticus 9:12-14^CSB

When we think about forgiveness, oftentimes, we only think of the picture-perfect love of our Heavenly Father embracing us. Rarely do with think about the extremely painful price that had to be paid. There was never a time when forgiveness didn’t cost someone something. An innocent animal had to be slaughtered so Adam and Eve’s shame could be covered. Innocent animals had to be slaughtered in order to cover the sin of mankind after the flood. Innocent animals had to be slaughtered in order for Israel’s sin to be rolled over another year. Jesus, the innocent Lamb of God, had to be slaughtered on a tree in order to wash clean the souls of those who would accept forgiveness.

Forgiveness isn’t pretty. It isn’t sweet. It’s a cold and broken hallelujah. The moment we realize the true cost of our actions is when we begin to understand the price Jesus paid for us. The image of the altar of the Old Testament can be seen as a foreshadowing of the body of Christ. No longer does God come down on the Mercy Seat to meet us; He dwells in us. No longer do we sprinkle the blood of an innocent animal on the altar; God covers us in His perfect, blameless blood.

Love isn’t sweet and innocent. It’s painful and heartbreaking. Jesus had to take the sin of the entire world onto Himself and die in order to cancel the debt of sin. Then after He rose again, He had to cover us in His blood.

The cost of sin isn’t cheap. It’s the cost of a life. One day, we will all stand before the LORD, and on that day, He’s looking for His blood. Those who aren’t covered in His blood will have to pay their own debt. They’ll have to spend eternity in Hell away from the LORD. But to those who have been covered in the blood, they will dwell with Him forever and ever on the new earth that He will create for us and Himself.

Dear LORD, please help me not to be ungrateful for the price that You paid on the cross so that You could cancel my debt. Thank You that You gave Yourself for me so that I might escape my well-deserved fate. Thank You for Your love. Help me to realize the weight and severity of my own sin. Teach me to love You with all my heart, mind, and soul. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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⁴ When the Lord your God drives them out before you, do not say to yourself, ‘The Lord brought me in to take possession of this land because of my righteousness.’ Instead, the Lord will drive out these nations before you because of their wickedness. ⁵ You are not going to take possession of their land because of your righteousness or your integrity. Instead, the Lord your God will drive out these nations before you because of their wickedness, in order to fulfill the promise he swore to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. ⁶ Understand that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people. ~ Deuteronomy 9:4-6^CSB

It’s very easy to justify sin when you’re seeing a harvest of plenty. Everything you do seems to be profitable. You have no lack, nor do you have fear. So, when you’re corrected, you justify your actions by the way you’ve been blessed. Blessings from God don’t always mean you have His favor and support for your life choices and decisions. How is that possible?

Jesus said that the Father pours out rain and sends the sun to shine on both the righteous and the unrighteous (Matthew 5:45). Blessings from God don’t always reflect our standing with Him, but sometimes they are the fulfillment of prayers, promises, and gifts from the generations before us. Sometimes the LORD blesses us and elevates us, not because of us, but because of the prayers and faithfulness of our ancestors and the promises the LORD gave to them. And if we’re not careful, these generational blessings will lull us into a spiritual slumber because of the false safety they fill our hearts with. It lies to us, having us believe the darkness in us is actually light. If the light in you is actually darkness, how great is that darkness?

Even though we receive blessings from the LORD, we can still be outside of His covering blood. We can still be outside of His love and on our way to an eternity without Him. This is the importance of continually asking the LORD to search you. To bring anything that is unclean to the forefront that you might remove it from you and from your life all together. We will never reach perfection on this earth, but we never stop seeking it because if we aim for perfection but miss it, we will land among excellence.

Dear LORD, thank You for all the times You blessed me, and I didn’t deserve it. Thank You that no matter what I do, You always want me to come home to You. There’s never a time You abandon me or discard me as unimportant or undesirable. Please search me, and show me anything within me that must go. Please remove from me anything that isn’t of You. Please give me a Spirit of Discernment that I might rightly discern good and evil. That I might have a heart for the things of God and not the things of the world. Please awaken my spirit man within me that I might overcome the flesh. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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²¹ Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. ~ Matthew 7:21^CSB

Whenever you hear a celebrity is a “devout Christian” they use examples of going to church every Sunday, praying before each meal and before bed as reasons why they are so devout. Whenever I would hear this in the past, I felt annoyed. These aren’t even the minimum requirements of God, yet somehow the have the audacity to call themselves devout. Then it hit me, I’m no better than them.

When Christ asked Peter, James, and John to pray with Him and they all feel asleep, Jesus asked “could you not watch with me one hour?” Jesus did this twice. The third time, He left them sleeping. What a terrifying thought. The bare minimum Jesus asks for is one hour watching with Him, when the average Christian, including myself, struggles to pray for 10 minutes straight without your mind wandering off or getting distracted. What a sad state of the Church.

We can’t spend 10 minutes in prayer but wonder why God isn’t moving in our lives. We can’t spend 10 minutes reading our Bible but wonder why God isn’t showing us His glory. We’ve become a selfish Church. We want God to give us rewards for the least amount of effort.

Abraham stayed up all night protecting his sacrifice. Jacob wrestled with God all night. Daniel fasted for 21 days. Moses communed with God for 40 days. All of these men who received great blessings and were used greatly by God sacrificed their time for a chance to see the glory, blessings, and fulfilled promises of God.

Time is speeding up right before our eyes. There aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done. So what are we to do? Prioritize the Kingdom and the rest so fall in place. We put our relationship with God above all else. We take a step closer to God every day. We strive to build the Temple of God, our spirit man, in order to give God more than the scraps off the table. We’ll never be able to give God all that He deserves,  but it’s time we stop giving Him offerings that cost us absolutely nothing.

God already died for us and gave us everything we need for salvation, it’s now up to us to draw near to Him. He opened the door and split the curtain; now it’s time for us to run to Him.

Dear LORD, I’m sorry for all the times I put the things of this world above You. I’m sorry for not making You my main priority in life and not making You the center of my life. Kindle the flame in me that I might never take You for granted or offer You a worthless offering. Soften my heart and renew a right spirit in me, that my soul might pant for You as the deer pants for the water. Help me to crucify my flesh and build up my spirit man within me. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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