Tag: Awaken From Spiritual Slumber

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Don’t Return To Your Vomit

22b The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire. ~ 2 Peter 2:22

Peter compares returning to our sin as a dog returning to its vomit and a sow (female pig) returning to mire (muck). If this is what returning to sin is like, why do we do it? Could it be because we’ve allowed ourselves to be deceived? According to Paul (2 Corinthians 11:14), Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore we can assume that he disguises sin as well.

See, we often get caught up in the things of this world, and we stop spending time with God. We stop reading our Bible, praying, worshiping, etc. We become spiritually blind to the tactics of the enemy. Even though Jesus has just purged us of our sin, when Satan comes around with our vomit (past sins) in a new dish, we gorge ourselves because of our spiritual blindness.

We have to stay spiritually alert so that we won’t give any opportunity to the Devil. We have to spend time with Jesus every day, lest we fall away and return to our filth He cleansed us from.

LORD God, please open our eyes that we may be spiritually awake, testing and discerning the spirits around us. Give us wisdom that we might see sin for what it truly is. Guide us, LORD God, as we run this race set before us. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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Have Your Eyes Grown Dim?

12 On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. 13 And I declare to him that I am about to punish his house forever, for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. 14 Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever. ~ 1 Samuel 3:12-14

I believe Eli’s spiritual eyes began to grow dim when he started turning a blind eye to what his sons were doing. You can’t keep your hands from getting dirty while playing with pigs. What I mean is, you have to be very careful who you align yourself with. The things they stand for and support will become the things you stand for and support. Therefore, if you strongly support a political candidate, celebrity, musician, etc., you better make sure their views are your views. You cannot stoke the fire and not smell like smoke.

Although Eli was watching her, he had become so comfortable and so spiritually blind that he no longer had the spiritual discernment to see Hannah was distressed in her spirit. Today’s churches no longer have spiritual discernment. Why? Because they are too caught up in the political/social agenda, without even realizing that it is designed to divide and conquer. They divide us on race, politics, religion, and on every aspect of life that they can. We no longer fight for unity. What would happen if the Church put aside all their differences and got together as one body, just like the bread is one loaf, and pray. The book of Genesis tells us that God Himself said that it’s impossible to stop a united people.

God was not pleased with Eli, and He brought judgment down on Eli and his sons. God said that judgment will start at His house, with His people. We better get our act together and start seeking God. We better start calling sin, sin and stop playing around with those who want to kick God out of our country and our government. We better stop promoting the political correctness agenda and start promoting God’s agenda.

LORD, open our eyes that we may have discernment. Awaken our sleeping spirit that we may never choose the world over You. Fill us with Your Holy Spirit that He may guide us as we run the race set before us. Give us strength to make a stand for righteousness. In the name of Jesus, I pray, amen.

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Look For Your Well of Water

19 Then God opened Hagar’s eyes, and she saw a well full of water. She quickly filled her water container and gave the boy a drink. ~ Genesis 21:19NLT

Hagar had become spiritually blind because of pride. She forgot who she was because she had a child for Abraham. Hagar didn’t raise her son to respect Sarah or to love Isaac, his little brother. She had become blinded by envy and pride. Hagar was so spiritually blind that she was sitting next to a well full of water and dying of thirst because she couldn’t see it.

This is how we are today; we’re all in a desert of sin, dying of thirst. Even though we’re in a desert of sin, dying of thirst, we don’t have to be. God is in the desert with us. He’s sitting right next to us, calling us by name. He is our well of living water,

38 Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from His heart.’

John 7:38

but we become spiritually blind because of pride and/or envy, and we refuse to bow our knees to God. We refuse to love His Son. We refuse to humble ourselves and ask for forgiveness, and we miss out on the well of living water that will end all thirst. Don’t live your life thirsty, dying of dehydration.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Look For Your Well of Water.

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The End Never Justifies The Means

3 Then when Judas, His betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, 4 saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” They said, “What is that to us? See to it yourself.” Matthew 27:3-4ESV

The Scripture states that when Judas saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind. It sounds to me that that was not his initial intention. It seems like Judas was trying to force Jesus’ hand. He wanted to see the kingdom restored to Israel and wanted it now. He didn’t want, nor did he expect it to be, a spiritual kingdom. Judas was expecting a physical kingdom that he could see and touch now. He was expecting Jesus to be the anointed king that would free Israel from the tyranny of their Roman oppressors.

Remember, they had just had the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem. Everyone was singing and rejoicing. This seemed like the perfect time to force his will upon Jesus. Force Him to take the throne. But it was not God’s timing. It may have seemed like the perfect timing, but it wasn’t God’s timing, and that makes all the difference. We have to be extremely cognizant of God’s timing, or we will miss the boat completely, and someone else will take our place.

Judas was so focused on His own idea of what Jesus was supposed to be that he missed out completely on who Jesus was. He was in church every Sunday, best friends with the lead pastor; he even preached some Wednesday nights, and yet he had no spiritual discernment. On the outside, Judas was the epidemy of Christianity, but on the inside, he was spiritually dead. He was just going through the motions. He had no relationship with God. This why Jesus says,

“21 Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”

Matthew 7:21-23

See, it’s not about the amount of good you do. It’s not about how many times you go to church a month. It’s not about how close you are with the pastor. It’s not even about how much time you spend in your Bible; it’s all about your relationship with God and our obedience to Him. It doesn’t matter if we say we love God or not; it’s how we live our lives. Judas was best friends with Jesus, he ‘loved’ Jesus, but he didn’t live his life as if he did. He only honored God with his lips.

13 And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me,”

Isaiah 29:13a

We have to seek the will of God. We have to seek Him to know Him. We can’t allow ourselves to fall asleep spiritually so that we can know the will of the one who created us.

Heavenly Father awaken the sleeping spirit within us today. Open our blind eyes and our deaf ears. Set a fire in our soul for You, oh LORD. Fill us with a desire to seek Your presence and Your will. Open our eyes that we may see You for who You are so that we may see Your plan for our lives. Help us to follow the path that You have paved out for us. Guide us with Your Holy Spirit. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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Don’t Blindly Follow

12 As she kept on praying to the Lord, Eli observed her mouth. 13 Hannah was praying in her heart, and her lips were moving but her voice was not heard. Eli thought she was drunk 14 and said to her, “How long are you going to stay drunk? Put away your wine.” 15 “Not so, my lord,” Hannah replied, “I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring out my soul to the Lord. 16 Do not take your servant for a wicked woman; I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief.” ~ 1 Samuel 1:12-16

Eli was the High Priest at the time that Hannah was earnestly praying for a child in the Temple. Eli, though the High Priest, had no discernment. He took yearning and seeking after God for drunkenness. He had spiritually fallen asleep. Is this how the Church is today? Are our leaders spiritually awake?

In our society today, we’ve become more about feelings than about Truth. Why? Is it that our spiritual leaders have fallen asleep? Jesus said, that if the blind lead the blind both will fall into the pit. Just like in the days of Eli, the spiritually blind are leading the spiritually blind straight into the pit. When we stop reading the Bible for ourselves to see if what we are being taught is true, we are blindly following. And if we are blindly following, then how can we know whether our leaders are leading us to life or to death?

Spend time with the LORD. Seek out His wisdom and His discernment through His Holy Spirit. Jesus didn’t die on the cross to take away our sin and then raise again only to abandon us here alone. He went up to Heaven so that we could have the Holy Spirit with us and within us forever. He is our guide so that we never fall into a Spiritual blindness or Spiritual sleep as Eli did.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Don’t Blindly Follow.

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Do You Know Jesus?

“24 but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.” ~ Jeremiah 9:24

I recall the time when I was in the army, and one of my fellow soldiers invited me to go to church with him. The car was packed with his church friends as they squeezed over to let us in. We hadn’t even cleared the parking lot when I felt attacked by these Bible-thumpers with the invasive questions. “Do you know Jesus?” “Do you know Jesus?”

Of course, I did. Rude. I went to Sunday School every Sunday morning as a child. I even received little paper awards for not missing a Sunday all month. I took part in the Christmas programs. I even went to an all-day meeting once; on my own accord, I might add. Of course, I know Jesus.

Well, if truth be told, I really didn’t know Him. I only knew about Him. And He didn’t know me. For the Scripture says that He will say to those on His left, depart from me, I never knew you. Knowing Jesus as your personal Savior is a whole lot different than knowing about Him. You may know who the President of the United States is, but you don’t know him in the sense of having a relationship with him. That’s how many of us are. We know of Jesus. We grew up in church. Sang in the choir, but we’re currently spiritually asleep, lacking a personal, intimate relationship with God. Leaving us with an impression of who we think He might be, who we want Him to be, or who the world tells us He is.

If you’re planning to spend eternity with someone, I suggest you get to know them, just as you would get to know your future spouse. Know their likes and dislikes. What makes them happy and what angers them. What they like to talk about and their favorite things. God is no different. He desires to be known by His people, and He will reveal Himself to those who diligently seek Him. But how do you seek? Read/study your Bible. Pray continually. Spend time in worship. Don’t just have an outward appearance of a relationship with God, only to have no connection to Him on the inside. Go for something more than an outward appearance. Go for a true relationship with Jesus.

Be blessed and stay blessed.

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Don’t Be Religious

“1 Behold, the Lord‘s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; 2 but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.” ~ Isaiah 59:1-2

A lot of the time, we pray to God, but there’s no answer. We go to church religiously, but there’s no Spiritual renewal. And when trouble comes, and we can’t hold on, we blame God. Praying to God doesn’t make you saved; even Satan talks to God. Going to church doesn’t make you saved; even demons go to church. When we get saved but don’t hold to the commands of Jesus, we fall asleep Spiritually.

God didn’t turn away from us. His hand didn’t shorten. His ear didn’t go deaf. But our sin that we refused to give up separated us from God. When we pray with hearts filled with sin, it’s like talking to someone but covering your face with a pillow; they can’t hear you or understand you. We separate ourselves from God but keep up a religious front as if that will justify the sins we’ve grown accustomed to and can’t live without.

Going to church doesn’t save you, praying doesn’t save you either, but combining those things with righteousness and living your life as Christ lived His will. Look at your life; is it a religious front? Or is it Spirit-filled?

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Don’t Be Religious.

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Be Doers of The Word

“22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” ~ James 1:22

Sometimes we get caught up in ourselves. We treat the Bible as a book we read but don’t really follow. We know the Scriptures, but we don’t put them into practice. We know the commands of Jesus, yet we shy away from them. We set up our own rules, justifying them with Scriptures taken out of context. We go to church every Sunday, but we don’t really take in the message. We want things sugarcoated and easy to swallow, but that’s just not Christianity.

Christianity is an action-faith. You can’t just say you’re a Christian and live however you want, cherry-picking your way through the Bible. Being a Christian takes restraint from certain things, faith, love, and imitating Jesus. But many of us have fallen asleep, and we don’t even know it. We have an appearance of Godliness, but it doesn’t go any deeper than that. Be doers of the Word, not only hearers. Don’t be deceived, allowing yourself to drift off into Spiritual Slumber. Awaken. Rid yourself of all of life’s sleeping pills.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Be Doers of The Word.

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Pay Attention To Blockades

“When Lot still hesitated, the angels seized his hand and the hands of his wife and two daughters and rushed them to safety outside the city, for the Lord was merciful.” ~ Genesis 19:16NLT

Sometimes God gives us a little push so that we may be saved from ourselves. Lot chose the land of Sodom, even though it had a bad reputation. He chose men for his daughters in the land of Sodom, even though the men of Sodom were wicked. Lot looked at what he could gain, not what his soul could lose. Sometimes we look at everything we could have instead of looking at everything we could lose.

How many sought after the glamorous life of Hollywood started out as Christians and now are on drugs, completely far away from God, living in sexual immorality, and have become so blinded that they can’t even see that. Or how many sought after a glamorous job but became filled with lust for more and more power. More and more money. So much so that they spiritually corrupted themselves.

Sometimes God places blockades in our path because that’s not the path for us. Because He knows we’re meant for so much more. Because He knows what we’ll lose. It’s his way of grabbing us by the hand and rushing us to safety. But we don’t always take His hand and go, sometimes we jerk away, and we stay, as Lot’s sons-in-law did. And in the end, we are Spiritually destroyed. Awaken and look around. Is this what God has in store for you? Is this good for your Spirit? Don’t be deceived by beauty because Sodom was beautiful and seemed to flourish on the outside, but on the inside, it was wicked and spiritually dead.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Pay Attention To The Blockades.

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Seek With Your Whole Heart

“8 She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore. 9 Because she took her whoredom lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stone and tree. 10 Yet for all this, her treacherous sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but in pretense, declares the Lord.” ~ Jeremiah 3:8-10

The LORD is speaking of the nations of Israel and Judah. He separated Himself from Israel after she worshiped other gods, placing up high-places for them and worshiping there. Once Judah saw what happened to Israel, the LORD expected Judah to learn from Israel’s mistakes, but they didn’t. Judah sinned, in the same way Israel did. When Israel was separated from the LORD, He expected them to repent, but they didn’t. They continued in their idolatry.

Sometimes we are like Israel. We are drawn away by other gods; while God is waiting for us to return, we continue in our sins and ignore the lack of His voice. The lack of His presence. The lack of Him. Yet the longer we stay in idolatry, the less we care. The more we fall spiritually asleep. We care less and less what is right and what is wrong, just what feels good, what feels right. What satisfies our desires until we are no longer asleep but spiritually dead.

And sometimes, we are like Judah. We see others go down a dangerous road. We see the repercussions. The hardships. The emptiness. Sometimes, we even witness their own death, yet we still follow in their footsteps. We still seek after the same things. We still walk away from God, who is life and gives life, to false gods, who are death and bring death. Somehow we don’t seem to learn from the mistakes of those before us because we believe we’ll be the one to get away with it. We don’t even realize that with every step we take away from God, we take towards our spiritual death.

Don’t be like Israel or Judah. Don’t seek pleasure in unrighteous acts or follow in weak footsteps. Look to God for everything, and He will provide it. He will answer you when you call. You will find Him when you seek Him with your whole heart. Don’t do as Judah did when they sought the LORD. They simply looked for a way to escape their judgment, not for a relationship. Not for repentance. But with a false mask of humility and remorse so that they could escape judgment without having to change.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Seek With Your Whole Heart.

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