If you have invited Jesus for the sole purpose of escaping hell, getting healing, marriage or a job, I am afraid you sorely lack of earthly and eternal ambition and you're missing out on the best that God has to offer. Indeed, you have received your miracle -healing, marriage, children, prosperity etc.-, so, what comes after? This is why many people are not experiencing a special brand of Christianity: strong, attractive and conquering. Once they have what they wanted, they are satisfied and no longer look for more. Or, since it worked, they turn Jesus into a 'Father miracles' who is supposed to say “Yes, yes” to all their “I want… Give me…” As for those who were running away from hell fire, once they are assured of their salvation, they now think that they can do as they want. They’d better all listen to Paul. He writes: like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation –i.e.: Jesus Christ (vs. 11)-, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it… Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw-- each one's work will become manifest… it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire (1Cor 3:10-15). Nobody wants to spend their life in a hut. We all wish to live in a beautiful house with a swimming pool, a tennis court etc. This is why I can hardly understand how someone, who can spend eternity in a heavenly mansion, will just put in what can only get them a small heavenly shack! Some may argue that a celestial hut is better than the best earthly palace. True. However, there is also absolutely nothing on earth that can be compared to a mansion in Heaven. Believe me, you really don’t want to spend your eternity admiring your brethren’s mansions and knowing that unlike on earth, there is no longer any possibility of ever redeeming your situation. Receiving Jesus is just laying the foundation and we should not stop there. We need to build the walls, put the roof and all the appliances. In short, we need to do all that is required, in order to have a superb abode.
The Son of God appeared to destroy the works of the devil (1Jn 3:8). This is written on His card. You may not have known it when you invited HIM, but since then, you now know His credentials. So, is this what He is also doing in your life or are you under-using HIM? Be fully aware that He will only destroy evil works in your life and world (your family, workplace, city etc.):
1) Depending on the latitude which you have given HIM to operate in, meaning: depending on the fact that you have received HIM the Western or Eastern way. Remember: He is a perfect Gentleman.
2) Providing you hate those evil deeds too: Jesus does not deliver us from what we love, but from what pains and afflicts us. Somebody gave this testimony. He used to smoke and when he became a Christian, he quickly knew it was not a good thing and vainly tried to stop. Everything failed: prayers, fasting, deliverance sessions and laying on of hands. One day, he invited an old friend, who was also a smoker, to church. The guest radically gave his life to CHRIST and stopped smoking from that very day. Our brother tried to rejoice for the salvation of his friend but he was jealous of his deliverance and, when he could no longer hide his feelings, he bitterly confronted the LORD. “I have been a faithful and zealous Christian for … years. I have begged You to deliver me from my addiction, but You would not do it. Now, in a twinkle of an eye, without any effort, you have set X free. LORD, this is not fair.” When he was done ranting, GOD told him: “I cannot deliver you from what you like! You like the cigarette. You like its smell and what it makes you feel. I cannot deliver you from it because you don’t REALLY want to get over these.” The guy was stunned for a while and then, he suddenly grasped it. A holy disgust arose in him and totally gutted, he grabbed all the remaining cigarettes and threw them away for good.
Many people fail to overcome evil, because they do not look at it with the eyes of GOD. They see it through the lens of their own reasoning. When the Word of GOD says that sexual intimacy outside of marriage is wrong, their head, heart and mouth would like to agree with this and confess it, but their senses remind them of past experiences that they enjoyed and the devil uses this to crush any attempt to resist sin. As long as we will only think of such relations in terms of pleasure, Christ will not be able to free us from fornication and adultery. He is not a magic wand that we can wave and be free, suddenly. I have known a Christian minister whose son was about to further his education abroad. This parent was worried about the fact that the boy was still a virgin and may fell prey of a tough branch, an ‘expert’. He was thus determined to make him lose his virginity and become a man before travelling. In his mind, this was the best gift he could possibly offer him. In spite of everything he had read in the Bible and that had been taught to him or to his son -who feared the LORD until then-, deep down, he had always believed that sexual relations were just great, whether inside or outside of marriage. He wasn’t even aware of this deeply rooted mindset until his son was involved. Now, virginity was only good for girls, but not for boys. The biblical wrong had become good. How do you deliver someone like that? Their thinking must first change: Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect (Rom 12:2). We must learn the biblical truth, accept it and love it before we can be set free (Jn 8:32, 36). When we begin to see our sins like GOD does, to the point that they trigger the same repulsion as murder, drunkenness or drugs does in us, we will finally be ready to be deliver of any of them.
What works at the individual level is also valid throughout the levels of the family and the city. As long as we are complacent vis-à-vis certain situations because: “It’s not that bad!” or “It doesn’t concern me. It will never happen to me”, Christ cannot destroy the works of the devil around us. When we will begin to see things like HIM, we will then be flooded by a holy anger that will make us fast, pray and intercede until GOD renders the heavens and comes down.
Have a great week and GOD bless you.
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