Date: May 30, 2021 | Number: Vol. 10, No. 4
Beloved: grace and peace to you from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. Welcome to another week of this year. I pray that your heart will continually be strengthened by the Spirit of God to remain true to the Lord and firmly established in His righteousness, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
As the Lord has clearly made known to me, one major thing that is hindering the spread and reign of the word of God in our land is the inconsistency of the lives of many so-called children of God with His righteousness. In other words, more people are not coming to the Lord Jesus for salvation because they cannot see the fruit of salvation in the lives of many of us who claim to have been saved by Him. How can we tell people to come to the Lord for liberty from Satan and their sins, when we ourselves are still obviously living as their slaves? Who is going to take us seriously?
See, it is not that people do not want to be saved from their sins, bad habits, destructive influences, sicknesses, generational curses, poverty and so forth; it is just that they want people whose lives will prove to them that they can actually be saved from these things. And God has saved us, recreated us, filled us with His Holy Spirit and planted us where we are to be such proofs to them. Unfortunately, many of us are even ignorant of His intentions and purposes for us. So, we frustrate them by living lives that are totally contrary to what we are made to live.
This, of course, is not foreign to the church. Even in the days of the apostles of old, similar things were happening among God’s people. There were also so-called believers at that time who would not stop stealing, fornicating, swindling people, keeping malice, living in greed, cheating their workers or practising sorcery. There were even murderers, hypocrites and drunkards in the church in those days. Therefore, none of the evil practices we see in the church and among God’s people today is new or peculiar to our time. (Cf. Rom 2:21-22; 1Cor 5; James 4:1-2&5:1-6)
However, the apostles of the Lord of old have also made it very clear to us through their writings that every so-called child of God who is involved in these things is not only blaspheming the name of the Lord Jesus and despising His grace but also destroying the work of salvation that He is doing in the world. Therefore, such an individual can certainly expect a revelation of God’s wrath against him (Rom 2:1-11; Heb 10:26-31). And this not something that will be delayed to the day of judgment. Rather, it is something that he will begin to witness right from this world.
All this is why Peter says to us, “For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God…” (1Peter 4:17NIV) Did you see that? This apostle is not speaking here about the judgment that is coming on the day of the Lord. Instead, he is speaking of an on-going judgment of God that is taking place right here in the world. And he is saying those in the church also will not escape this judgment. In fact, it will start with them and among them.
Therefore, if you are deliberately doing things that are contrary to the righteousness of God, know that you are a candidate for God’s judgment. And how exactly He will judge is not something anybody can say. But from what the Lord Jesus says to the church in Thyatira and what Paul says to the Corinthian brethren, we know that God may judge His people with sicknesses, weaknesses, labour loss or even death (1Cor 11:28-30; Rev 2:20-23). And if you have not experienced any of these things, even though it is obvious that you are living in sin, you need to understand that God is just giving you time to repent. But if you fail to repent within the amount of time He has given you, then you leave Him with no choice but to judge you in His righteousness. And how that will end for you is not what I can say. So, repent now and also tell your partners in sin to repent. Otherwise you may end up being crushed under the wrath of God.
Do have a great week.
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