I want to be clear upfront this is NOT for condemnation, it’s for clarification. I desire to challenge our thinking and perhaps experience repentance unto refreshing. When Christ gets what He desires, we get what we desire, which should be aligned with His heart. “Delight thyself also in the Lord: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” (Ps. 37:4)
Love will not resist or reject Him.
“Repent, then, and turn back, so that your sins may be wiped away, 20that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord…” (Acts 3:19-20)
Let us think of this logically even, Christ calls us into obedience, obviously based in love, but when God gives us clear directives in scripture like “you can’t serve two masters,” or “come out… touch not the unclean thing” and He hears excuses or justification not to obey Him, what do you call that? To me it’s simple, rejection and disobedience.
We are called to:
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; 6In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.” (Pro. 3:5-6)
Can we establish that, trust from love is NOT negotiable for the disciple of Christ? Agreed?
There’s two major hooks I have felt God highlight when I go to prayer for the “church” that need to be addressed:
1. Do we REALLY trust Him for our needs (necessities, provision) being met?
2. Do we REALLY trust Him with our well-being (health and safety).
This is just the tip of the iceberg, the ramifications of unbelief deeply impact our entire lives.
As I have honestly examined these questions of the Lord, I believe we are left with more rhetoric than reality, and we have been found wanting. Again, there’s no condemnation for those in Christ. Yet, He is drawing us to more trust because we love Him.
Here’s the rude awakening from the Lord NOT me, AT LARGE (not all):
1. mammon has been trusted for provision more than Christ, AND
2. the medical/pharma industry for health has been trusted more than Christ, AND
3. corrupt government for protection has been trusted more than Christ.
This is for yourself to examine in the light of truth not argument.
Let me say right here, if the people come to their senses of WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON, I am optimistic for positive change initiated by the very fact of bringing light! “Sunlight is the best disinfectant!”
I am full of hope for a mass returning to the Lord so we can have times of refreshing (the manifestation of His divine provision, healing, and protection). A holy revolution unto restoration of Christ’s intention for ekklesia. The Lamb receiving His Bride who has made herself ready—without spot or wrinkle, fully devoted, trusting, and loving Him.
That said,
“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon (entrusted wealth).” Matt. 6:24
We are in VERY volatile times, even divine disruption. “The house of cards” will collapse. If our dependency is on “the systems,” “the Babylonian matrix” more than Christ it’s “like a foolish man who built his house on the sand… great was its fall.” (Matt. 7:26)
WE SHOULD BE GRIPPED BY THE FEAR OF THE LORD! This is tough LOVE speaking to you! Understand wisdom:
“I, wisdom, dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge and discretion. 13The fear of the Lord is to hate evil; Pride and arrogance and the evil way and the perverse mouth I hate.
14Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom; I am understanding, I have strength.” Pro. 8:12-14
To fear the Lord is to obey love.
Christ’s love compelled Him to die for our sins for reconciliation, restored relationship with Him, not to remain snared and addicted to the world!
I can say it this way, the greatest expression of love was a man hanging on a tree for our sins not his own. His pain for our gain. His heart is for reconciliation!
To what end? What’s in our hearts, To live half-hearted because He’s merciful? Longsuffering? Tolerant? Don’t cheapen the sacrifice. LOVE HIM BACK FULLY by radical obedience, grateful adoration, and whole-hearted devotion.
Remember, the cosmic battle will always be over who will we serve, who will we worship. Ourselves (under the influence of the world and Satan) or Christ. Period.
Christ said, “if you love Me, obey my commands…” which is to love God and one another, not in a generic sense, but in a self-sacrificial and a giving of our lives to Him and others for the sake of the gospel.
To live the life of a disciple is not complicated for Spirit surrendered followers who are anchored into the truth of John 3:16-21. “For God so loved He gave…” If you get that right, you will be saved from yourself (ego life) and this perverse generation. Love light! Love truth! Love obedience! Love Christ!
The truth is, the love of Christ for humanity expressed by the cross devastated, disarmed, and destroyed the father of lies. Nonetheless, he is still “going about, like a roaring lion, looking for whom he may devour…” Who are his victims in light of the finished work of the cross? The ones who agree with his lies and consent to his deceptive influence so he can “steal, kill and destroy.” Resist him, OVERCOME, He IS defeated. We must daily hold fast to our profession of the truth and walk in the Spirit, walk in Love! Make a decisive, determinate-decision now to stop consenting/agreeing with his lies, subtle or overt! Resist the little compromises, unforgiveness, bitterness, lust, hooks of mammon, pride… “a little leaven leavens the whole lump.”
Focus!
To have Christ is to have His love, His power, His character, HIs life—eternal life, NOW. Receive His love and live it according to how he prescribes love and life…
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
18“He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. 21But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”
“Upon this rock (the revelation of Christ) I will build my ekklesia!”
Lets trust him together to provide, heal, and protect us.
