Tag: Are You In Need of Cleansing?

¹ What sorrow awaits you who lie awake at night, thinking up evil plans. You rise at dawn and hurry to carry them out, simply because you have the power to do so. ² When you want a piece of land, you find a way to seize it. When you want someone’s house, you take it by fraud and violence. You cheat a man of his property, stealing his family’s inheritance. ~ Micah 2:1-2^NLT

It’s very easy to feel angry and want revenge on people who have power and use that power for evil. We feel so helpless and oppressed. But the LORD said that vengeance is His. This is a difficult concept to understand because we’re a very microwave mentality society. We want what we want, and we want it now. But the LORD is slow to anger and patient so that all have the opportunity to repent and receive forgiveness. Why? Because the LORD created and loves each and every one of us. He doesn’t just take revenge; the LORD takes vengeance. I heard a quote once that said, “Revenge is seeking one’s owns passions, while vengeance is seeking justice.” The LORD seeks justice, not passion getting even.

This is why no one can say that the LORD doesn’t judge. The LORD has to judge, or He won’t be able to fulfill His vengeance, which is bringing justice to the World. This is why we should cling to two very important phrases.

To whom much is given, much is required.

Jesus, Luke 12:48

With great power comes great responsibility.

Uncle Ben, Spiderman

We get angry at those who take advantage of those under them, but do we ever stop to think about whether or not we are taking advantage of somebody under us? Do we treat our waiters and waitresses with respect, patience, and common decency? What about people we’ve hired that work under us? Or maybe our family members that are younger than us? How do we treat others? We, the Church, have been given more than anyone else because we have salvation. Since we have been given so much, do we give enough back in return? On Judgment Day, when we are weighed and measured, will we be found wanting?

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Weigh Yourself.

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¹³ “I will punish her for all those times when she burned incense to her images of Baal, when she put on her earrings and jewels and went out to look for her lovers but forgot all about me,” says the Lord. ~ Hosea 2:13^NLT

Israel was living in idolatry (spiritual adultery). Israel went after the Baals and sought after other idols and gods, so they forgot the LORD their God. Today, the Church is no different.

We seek after the world because we want to be accepted by the world. We give the world our devotion, love, and friendship, not realizing that we are abandoning our one true love. James asks the question, “Do you not know that to be a friend of the world is to be an enemy of God?” Christ said that He called us out of the world, so why are we so desperately seeking to be a part of it?

 God understands that we’re only humans and that we will fall into temptation; this is where mercy and grace begin to work. But grace and mercy aren’t given to us so that we can go out seeking the world and expect God to not only be okay with it but accept and celebrate it. If spiritual adultery angered God in the past, then it will anger Him today. For our God does not change. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

So, don’t be enticed by the forbidden fruit of this world. You have been called out of this world. You have been given the fruit of the Spirit that gives life and life more abundantly. The forbidden fruit of this world only satisfies for a moment, and then it kills like poison, but the fruit of the Spirit satisfies forever and gives eternal life.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Flee Spiritual Adultery.

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²² The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; ²³ His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. ~ Lamentations 3:22-23

Many say that God won’t punish us for our sins because He loves us. But here’s the thing, love doesn’t rejoice in wrongdoing; it can’t accept wrongdoing. Love can only abide in the Truth. So, God’s steadfast love never ceases, but at some point in time, the Last Judgment will happen. It’s not because God hates you but because you chose to live your life as if He doesn’t even exist. We’re each given a certain amount of time on this earth, and what we do with that time is up to us. So, use your time wisely. Don’t waste it. You only have this one life to accept salvation. Every morning we’re given another chance because of the mercy of God. Accept the mercy that is given to us each morning through the grace of God by faith in Jesus.

Mercy is when you don’t get what you deserve. Grace is getting what you don’t deserve. Mercy is only shown to those who have humbled themselves to repentance, and their debt is paid by someone else. And God is our sun because His mercies are renewed every morning that He rises and overcomes the darkness of night, which is why in Eternity, there will be no more night.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Accept The Mercies of God.

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⁶ The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. ⁷ They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and He sat on them. ⁸ Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. ⁹ And the crowds that went before Him and that followed Him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” ~ Matthew 21:6-9

When Jesus came riding in on a donkey, the people made sure not even the donkey’s hooves touched the ground by throwing down their own cloaks and cutting down palm branches so the donkey could walk over. The disciples put their cloaks on the donkey so that Jesus could sit on it. They made sure that nothing dirty touched the Messiah or the donkey the Messiah rode.

Today, the Church doesn’t have this same respect for Jesus. We want Jesus in our hearts, but we allow any kind of filth to enter in. We expect Jesus to dwell in filth. We then justify this by saying that God is love. Jesus loves everybody. Sure, both of these statements are true, but God is a righteous God. Jesus is the King of kings and LORD of lords, so how can we expect Him to dwell with all that He hates? If God is righteous, how can we expect Him to dwell in unrighteousness? Our love, respect, and reverence for God have vastly grown dim over the last few decades.

There was a time when we may not have understood or even agreed, but we at least had respect for the Word of God. Today, we condemn the True Gospel when it’s preached. We twist and manipulate the Scriptures as we justify our sin. Those of Jesus’ day took off their very cloaks so that the donkey He was on didn’t touch the ground; we today don’t love God enough to even call sin sin.

Dear LORD, please soften my heart. Remove all the filth from my life. Deliver me from all of the sins I have grown accustomed to indulging. Teach me to hate sin and love righteousness. Help me to not make excuses for myself or others so that we may indulge in our sinful desires. Cleanse my heart, oh God, that it may a heart after Your own heart, like Your servant, David. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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²⁶ You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean. ~ Matthew 23:26

One of my favorite songs is “Sometimes I Cry” by Jason Crabb. In it, he sings,

I look the part
Blend in with the rest of the church crowd

Some of us only blend into the Church, but we’re not a part of the Church. One of the scariest verses in the Bible, to me, is the parable of the goats and the sheep. See, Jesus said that at the Final Judgment, He was going to separate the sheep from the goats. The scary thing was that the goats didn’t even know they were different than the sheep. They thought they were the same, but the inside, the heart, was what separated them.

See, we can try to look the part and even act the part, but unless we live the part, it doesn’t matter. We have to do more than look like a follower of Christ; we actually have to follow Christ. We can’t live our lives one way, Monday through Saturday, catch the Spirit on Sunday, then go back to how we wanna live. Following Christ is an everyday thing that starts with the renewal of the heart and mind.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Live The Part.

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⁶ You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes. ~ Haggai 1:6

Today, the Church prays but rarely sees an answer. We’re stricken with disease, cancer, and all else the world has. There is no longer a differentiation between the world and the Church. Why? Because we no longer act differently than the world. We have our bags full of holes because we try to make the Word of God fit the world’s standards instead of trying to make the world fit the Word of God’s standards.

God told Haggai that they weren’t getting all they asked for because they lost sight of Heavenly things. They were so busy building their homes and their lives that they forgot about the Temple of God. We today are the Temple of God. God dwells in us, yet we act as if He doesn’t exist. We pray and go to Church, even read our Bibles, but we never change. We don’t believe in judging between good and evil. We don’t believe in correcting sin because it’s not love. We, the Temple of God, are in Spiritual shambles, but we don’t believe in rebuilding it because we don’t want to change.

If we want to be accepted, we have to do what’s right. If we want to do what’s right, we have to know what’s right. The only way to do that is to read the Bible unbiasedly with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. To spend time in worship and prayer in order to build our relationship with the Holy Spirit so that we can better learn His voice and discern the Truth. We have to change in order to see a change. We have to build up the Temple of God regardless of how hard, impossible, or painful it may seem because if we don’t, our lives will never change for the better, and we’ll continue to be rejected just as Cain was.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Rebuild The Temple.

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¹⁵ They cried out, “Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.” ~ John 19:15

The Pharisees were undoubtedly some of the most anti-Jesus people to ever live. They called for His crucifixion. They even wanted Lazarus to be killed because he was alive again by the power of Jesus. They even became so anti-Jesus that they became anti-God as a whole. They declared boldly and loudly that they only had one king, Caesar. God is our king, yet they rejected God because they wanted nothing to do with Jesus.

God came in the flesh, but they didn’t recognize Him. They didn’t realize that being anti-Jesus was being anti-God. There is only one way to the Father. There is only one way to eternal life. There is only one way to God, and that is through Jesus. You can’t be anti-Jesus, but pro-God. They are one. They can’t be separated. Jesus is the door that all must walk through in order to get to God. Have you walked through Him because you can’t go around Him?

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Walk Through Jesus.

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¹⁵ I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! ¹⁶ So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. ¹⁷ For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. ¹⁸ I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. ¹⁹ Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. ²⁰ Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. ²¹ The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on His throne. ²² He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. ~ Revelation 3:15–22

Jesus is counseling us to repent and be zealous for Him because He will soon be back for us. Oftentimes, when we think we’re doing so much and doing so good, we are literally wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked just going through the motions.

So, Jesus is warning us. He’s giving us time to repent. He’s trying to get us to return to the basics of life. To go back to the foundation and rebuild. Tear down strongholds that have woven in between the Rock. We have to get back to putting Jesus first because nothing else matters in the whole world. No profit, no success, and no amount of money will be able to purchase eternal life apart from Jesus and His salvation because none of that can save you. You can’t even take it with you into eternity.

The days are getting harder, and the world is getting more and more evil, but even though there seems to be no hope, even though all the sky is grey, and life seems hopeless, there is still always hope as long as we have breath. Hope is lost when we put our hope in the wrong thing or the wrong person, and that’s usually when we take our eyes off of true hope. Jesus! So, remove all false hope from among you, and strive to hope only in Christ Jesus, our LORD and Savior.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Be Hot.

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² I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. ³ I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. ⁴ But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. ⁵ Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. ⁶ Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. ⁷ He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. ~ Revelation 2:2-7

In this life, we have two choices. We can choose to spend eternity in any one of the two. It’s our choice where we spend eternity, and we choose through our daily decisions. When we choose God and the things of God, we are spiritually saying that we want to spend eternity with Him in a place of peace, joy, and blissfulness.

The city, the New Jerusalem, is so beautiful that the foundations of the wall of the city are adorned with every kind of jewel, while the wall itself is built out of jasper, and the city is pure gold, like clear glass. The streets also are made of pure gold, so pure that it looks transparent. The twelve gates each are fashioned out of one single pearl. In eternity with God, there will be no more tears because God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more. No more dying there. Neither shall there be any more mourning, nor crying, nor pain, for the former things, have passed away.

The other choice is quite the opposite. The Bible describes it as a place of eternal destruction away from the presents of God (2 Thessalonians 1:9). A place where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched (Mark 9:47-48). A fiery lake of burning sulfur (Revelation 21:8). Eternal fire (Matthew 25:41). A place of outer darkness; where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 8:12). A furnace of fire where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 13:41-42). A lake of fire and brimstone, where they will be tormented day and night forever and ever (Revelation 20:10). These things all await those who become discouraged and give up.

So, what is the solution? The solution is simple. We need to get back to the basics. We need to practice self-denial. We need to get excited about the things of God again. We need to believe the promises of God again. The Scripture says we must return to our first love.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Return To Your First Love.

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¹⁷ But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! ¹⁸ I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. ¹⁹ I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”’ ²⁰ And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. ²¹ And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ ²² But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. ²³ And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. ²⁴ For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate. ~ Luke 15:17-24

God loves everyone, but not everyone returns to the Father to receive their free gift of eternal life. So, His love for us is Eternal (Psalms 136). It’s unconditional (Romans 5:7-8). But His love can only do so much. His love is what allows us to return to Him and receive salvation, but His love for you won’t save you if you don’t come to Him. Just as the Prodigal Son couldn’t receive food, shelter, water, and life without returning to his father, neither can we receive Eternal Life without returning to our Heavenly Father.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Run Home.

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