Title: Rid your life of these things | By: J.O. Lawal | Date: October 30, 2022 | Series: From Pastor’s Desk | Number: Vol. 11, No. 26
Beloved: grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. I am glad to welcome you to another week, which is the transition week between the months of October and November 2022. And I pray that God will cause His favour to overwhelm your life every day of the week, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
As we begin this week, let me remind you of the words of Peter that say, “Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind.” (1Peter 2:1NIV) What are the things Peter is asking us to rid ourselves of here? They are the works of the flesh. And he gives us examples of the works of the flesh that we need to rid ourselves of. He mentions malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander. Of course, there are several works of the flesh that this apostle could have used as examples. But he used these ones, I believe, because they are major among those works of the flesh that often mess up Christian fellowship, ruin the church of God and hinder her growth and effectiveness.
For example, as terrible as adultery and idolatry are, they hardly result in church split or disintegration. But malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander, if not addressed on time, can scatter any church in few weeks and fill the brethren involved with bitterness that may not go away for the rest of their earthly lives. And that is one of the reasons God is sometimes ruthless in judging these sins among His people.
Do you remember the case of Ananias and Sapphira? Why was God ruthless in judging them the way He did? Why did He kill these couples on the same day without even blinking an eye? It was because of deceit and hypocrisy. These people were trying to deceive the church of God about their offering, giving everyone the impression that they were giving more than they were actually giving. So, God judged them with death before they could get any chance to introduce other brethren to a life of deceit (Acts 5:1-11).
What this is showing us is that God cares about His church and will not fold His arms and watch anyone corrupt or destroy her, for the church is His temple. In fact, Paul tells us that God will destroy anyone that destroys His temple. All of this is why we need to take Peter’s admonition that we have in our opening text very seriously. We need to rid our lives of very kind of deceit, malice, envy, hypocrisy and slander, as we relate to one another in our various assemblies. Otherwise, we may bring down God’s judgment on ourselves. (Cf. 1Cor 3:16-17)
Unfortunately, many of God’s people are ignorant of these things. Therefore, they allow malice, hypocrisy, envy, deceit and slander to thrive and fester in their lives and among them. It is no big wonder, then, that we have many in our various Christian assemblies today that are battling with all kinds of sicknesses, poverty and distress that will not go away, regardless of how hard they pray or fast. What these ones need to do is to rid their lives of these terrible works of the flesh that they have permitted in them. And the healing of Jesus will begin to manifest in them.
Now perhaps the reason you too are facing certain problems that will not go away in your life is that you have given room for hatred, malice, envy, slander and hypocrisy in your life. You have allowed the devil to be using you to secretly or openly ruin the church of God. You need to repent now so that your life will be healed and made whole. Otherwise, things may go from bad to worse for you. My prayer is that your heart will be humbled to do the right thing without delay, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Have a splendid week.
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