STOP!

STOP!

Ephesians 2:1-3

And you [hath he quickened], who were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:  Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.

               Most of us aren’t crazy about stop signs and traffic lights.  Most of the time we see them as an inconvenience and hindrance to us getting where we want to go.  Just give us green lights and open road and we are happy.  While we don’t particularly like stop signs and stop lights all of us know the consequences that would result without them and often does, in spite of them.  Stop is a commandment that brings to rest our forward motion and momentum, but in doing so it is a commandment that can save us serious harm, loss and destruction if we obey.  It is usually in the disobedience of stop signs and lights that accidents happen.  This same principle holds true in our spiritual lives.  The Holy Spirit and the Word of God have put stop signs up in our lives to protect us.  It was when we obeyed the stop sign that said, “quit living and going the way you are because the bridge is out ahead” that we found life.  The wages of sin is death and if you are going down that road you will die a spiritual as well as physical death.  The Holy Spirit often puts road signs in our lives if we will take the time and be sensitive enough to the Spirit to obey and heed them.  Often, it is in retrospect, that we look back from some devastating or negative event in our lives and suddenly remember all the signs that were along the way to this event that we ignored and continued on.  Now, maybe we are facing heartache, pain, suffering or even death because we failed to heed the warnings.  A package of cigarettes has a warning right on the side of them that tells us they can kill us if we continue smoking them.  Does the smoker heed the warning?  He or she may die of cancer, but they are going to enjoy the moment. 

               The Lord is speaking to many of us today that there are stop signs in our lives that we are ignoring and running through.  We have become so impassioned with what we are doing and where we are going that we don’t want to stop or turn away.  Stop signs are there to save our lives and God wants to save yours.  What is God speaking to you and me to stop from today?   Are there areas of our lives that we are living contrary to His will and purpose for us?  Perhaps we are pursuing something that it isn’t His time for just yet and we need to wait upon Him.  We are a people on the go and often we want to go ahead of God instead of following Him.  Then, of course, we want Him to bless our endeavors. 

               Stop! Take time to get quiet before the Lord and ask the Holy Spirit if you are going in directions and pursuing any paths that are not His will for you.  Some of you already know without asking.  The Holy Spirit is dealing with you even as you read this.  God loves you more than anything!  He came to give you life.  He wants to bless you and give you good things, but He will not honor your disobedience and self-will.  Listen to Him this day as He is telling you to stop in areas of your life.  Proverbs 19:27 (NLT) says, “If you stop listening to instruction, my child, you have turned your back on knowledge.”  STOP! Listen and obey.

Blessings,

#kent

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Is there Action in our Jackson? Is there Action in our Jackson? 1 John 3:8 My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. Do you ever come under the conviction that we know how to talk a good game? We know the right words and phrases, choruses and hymns and the scriptures and verses, but how much of it is just words in our mouth as compared to a living reality and action in our lives. We speak much of the ideas and tenants of Christianity, but is it Christ living his love through me when somebody ask me for help or I have to go out of my way. Are we as the Chinese preachers said, “you are all talky talky, but no walky walky.” If our actual living, lifestyle and action lived up to our entire mental and verbal ascent, what a godly people we would be. I’m talking about the conviction that the Spirit is bringing upon my own heart. How much hypocrisy do we want to tolerate in our lives as we live behind our masks of godly appearance and words? It should be our conviction that our actions should always speak louder than our words. People should know we are Christians by our love, not because we say we are right, can quote scriptures and have a Jesus bumper sticker. How many people reject Christ and go to hell because they never saw the reality of the Christ that Christians spoke about? If we never really embrace and live out the reality then we are as 1 Corinthians 13:1 states, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” Luke 24:19 says, “…Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people.” Jesus didn’t just talk the words of the kingdom of heaven; He walked them, demonstrating in action a divine life. It is the same life He desires to see us walking in. Colossians 3:17 exhorts us, “And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, [do] all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.” Whatever we do in life we want to be acting out of the character and nature of Christ; that is His name. The reason we listen to the Word, and even read this little discourse that I feel God gives to me, is so that we might continue to hear the voice of the Spirit speaking conviction, encouragement and exhortation into our lives. The Lord isn’t here to beat us up through condemnation, but to bring us up through a Spirit filled and Spirit led life. If you continue to read this word it is not because of what I write, it is because of the witness you feel in your spirit that God is speaking things to you personally and encouraging you to be all that you can be in Him. A lot of us in Christianity don’t want to hear that, our ignorance is bliss and we want to continue on with things as they have always been and as we would have them remain. There are others of us, who struggle with our flesh, we miss the mark, we fail and we know that we are so much less than we desire to be, but the Spirit of God burns in our hearts. We continue to cry out for God to change our wayward hearts, to write His laws upon them and to put the will and do of His good pleasure within us. Our eyes are fixed on His strength and not upon our weakness, for in our weakness His strength is made strong. We will be great in Him, because He is transforming us and changing us from glory to glory even into the same image. Even in all of our shortcomings we are reliant upon His love and faithfulness, His patience and virtue to continue living and working in our lives. The only way we can do that is by allowing Christ to be a part of all that we do and all that we are. We continue seeking out His agenda for our lives and not our own. We are continually being sensitive to repent and through His strength turning from our sin. It is His love that we desire to abide in and live our lives out of. Our lives must become the expression of not just words, but actions that stem out of a Christ filled life of love and obedience. God’s love in us must be the wellspring of our actions in life and it is the actions, not just the words that give substance and meaning to our lives. “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror 24and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does. 26If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. 27Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” (James 1:22-27). Blessings, #kent

 

Is there Action in our Jackson?

1 John 3:8

My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. 

Do you ever come under the conviction that we know how to talk a good game?  We know the right words and phrases, choruses and hymns and the scriptures and verses, but how much of it is just words in our mouth as compared to a living reality and action in our lives.  We speak much of the ideas and tenants of Christianity, but is it Christ living his love through me when somebody ask me for help or I have to go out of my way.  Are we as the Chinese preachers said, “you are all talky talky, but no walky walky.”  If our actual living, lifestyle and action lived up to our entire mental and verbal ascent, what a godly people we would be.  

I’m talking about the conviction that the Spirit is bringing upon my own heart.  How much hypocrisy do we want to tolerate in our lives as we live behind our masks of godly appearance and words?  It should be our conviction that our actions should always speak louder than our words.  People should know we are Christians by our love, not because we say we are right, can quote scriptures and have a Jesus bumper sticker.  How many people reject Christ and go to hell because they never saw the reality of the Christ that Christians spoke about?  If we never really embrace and live out the reality then we are as 1 Corinthians 13:1 states, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.”  Luke 24:19 says, “…Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people.”   Jesus didn’t just talk the words of the kingdom of heaven; He walked them, demonstrating in action a divine life.  It is the same life He desires to see us walking in.    Colossians 3:17 exhorts us, “And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, [do] all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.”  Whatever we do in life we want to be acting out of the character and nature of Christ; that is His name.  

The reason we listen to the Word, and even read this little discourse that I feel God gives to me, is so that we might continue to hear the voice of the Spirit speaking conviction, encouragement and exhortation into our lives.  The Lord isn’t here to beat us up through condemnation, but to bring us up through a Spirit filled and Spirit led life.  If you continue to read this word it is not because of what I write, it is because of the witness you feel in your spirit that God is speaking things to you personally and encouraging you to be all that you can be in Him.  A lot of us in Christianity don’t want to hear that, our ignorance is bliss and we want to continue on with things as they have always been and as we would have them remain.  There are others of us, who struggle with our flesh, we miss the mark, we fail and we know that we are so much less than we desire to be, but the Spirit of God burns in our hearts.  We continue to cry out for God to change our wayward hearts, to write His laws upon them and to put the will and do of His good pleasure within us.  Our eyes are fixed on His strength and not upon our weakness, for in our weakness His strength is made strong.  We will be great in Him, because He is transforming us and changing us from glory to glory even into the same image.  Even in all of our shortcomings we are reliant upon His love and faithfulness, His patience and virtue to continue living and working in our lives.   The only way we can do that is by allowing Christ to be a part of all that we do and all that we are. We continue seeking out His agenda for our lives and not our own.  We are continually being sensitive to repent and through His strength turning from our sin.  It is His love that we desire to abide in and live our lives out of.  Our lives must become the expression of not just words, but actions that stem out of a Christ filled life of love and obedience.  God’s love in us must be the wellspring of our actions in life and it is the actions, not just the words that give substance and meaning to our lives.

“Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror 24and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does. 

26If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. 27Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” (James 1:22-27).

Blessings,

#kent

Call to Fitness

1 Timothy 4:8
For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.
Call to Fitness

Sometimes our spiritual muscles and countenance begin to droop and sag over time like much of the rest of our body. The spiritual man need not grow old. He is the eternal youth and life that lives in us. But if left to neglect the spiritual man can’t serve us. Certainly we need to care for the temple of this natural body, for it is what houses and facilitates the spiritual man within us. Our greater obligation and responsibility is to the spiritual man. This is the eternal part of us that is both now and forever.
The spiritual man is fed as we read and study God’s word. The spirit man feeds on truth. He is exercised as he acts upon this truth in faith. He is strengthened and activated in our life of prayer and fellowship with the Lord. Spirit feeds spirit. Do we spend as much time a day feeding our spiritual man as we do our natural man? Are we as attentive to our spiritual needs as we are our physical needs? Would your natural man be in better or worse shape if it was given the same amount of attention and food a day as you give your spirit man? When we put it in this perspective we might see why we might be spiritually weak and ineffective, not only in our lives but in the lives of others.
This is our day to awaken to our spiritual self and who we are in Christ. This is not just a head knowledge, it is a call to spiritual alertness and fitness. I can set on the couch and watch fitness and exercise programs all day long, but unless I engage my body in those routines no amount of mental agreement or ascent will change my physical state. Many of us listen to the word of God and we have a lot of spiritual head knowledge, but like James says, “faith without works is dead”. In order for us to have spiritual strength we have to exercise our spiritual man. James 1:22 exhorts us, “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.” We are a kingdom people called for a kingdom purpose. We must become sensitized to who we are as a spiritual people and not just a natural people. We must see our world through God’s perspective and then act out of our spiritual man in life’s circumstances. Maybe it is just offering to pray for someone or building them up through an encouraging word. Maybe it is random acts of kindness and selfless giving. Whatever it is, it needs to be Christ finding expression through our lives and everyday circumstances. This is exercising our spiritual man.
Jesus commissions our spiritual man in Luke 17:15-18, “He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. 16Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. 17And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.” How many of us are walking daily in this commission? We have to have a strong and energized spiritual man to carry our what we are called to do. The Lord is calling us to spiritual fitness so that we can make a difference in our world. Let us exercise ourselves in all faith and godliness that He may be lifted up and glorified through us.

Blessings,
#kent

Word of the Lord Concerning our Nation

Joshua 23:16

When ye have transgressed the covenant of the LORD your God, which he commanded you, and have gone and served other gods, and bowed yourselves to them; then shall the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and ye shall perish quickly from off the good land which he hath given unto you.

Word of the Lord Concerning our Nation

Raise up a standard of righteousness lest you perish from your land which I have given you.  What you have formerly known is quickly passing away.  Wickedness has entered in and you have allowed sin to prevail.  My people have not raised up the standard of righteousness and as a result ungodliness has come in.  You have winked at sin and compromised with evil.  You have allowed your garment to become blemished and unclean.  You have taken you eyes off of Me and put them on the world and materialism.  That which has made you rich has also made you corrupt.  You have honored me with your voice while your heart has wandered from me.  It is evident what is before you and if you would change that then you must return to me with all of your hearts, humble yourselves and pray.  Repent of the evil you have allowed to come into your heart.  

It is my people that sets the example for the nation.  They are the standard bearers and the light of righteousness among the people.  When their light dims so does the nation.  Wickedness and evil are always present and seeking opportunity.  You have given them opportunity because you have compromised with the world and have been accepting of its values.  

I am the Lord your God.  I am the One who established this nation and redeemed it from the most powerful of countries.  I set My Name here and it was My standard upon which this nation was founded.  As I raised it up so can I cast it down.  My people Israel were for your example that you would not follow after the same example of disobedience, but even now, you, as a nation, follow in their footsteps.  

Return unto me oh people of God.  Rend your hearts and not your garments.  Repent and bring your heart and values back to the standard of My Word.  It is the people of God that are the spirit of a nation.  If the spirit is not whole, the body will suffer.  This is why I have declared in My Word, ” If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”  Notice I am addressing My people who are called by My name.  You are the salvation of your nation and unless you take heed, act and pray your nation will be lost.  

 

blessings

kent

Hot Spots, Cold Spots

Hot Spots, Cold Spots

Revelations 3:2-3
Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God. Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee.

If the Lord were to do a geological survey of our spiritual lives today, what would that topographical map look like? Would we see a high plateau of spiritual consistency with every area of our lives being in alignment with the Spirit of God? I think we are not so much different than the seven churches of Revelation 2-3 that John addresses by the Spirit of God. Each one had their strengths and weaknesses, their high points and their low points. While the Spirit commended them in their strengths, He rebuked their weaknesses and exhorted them to pay attention and give diligence to correcting them. Our spiritual lives are not so different than the churches, because we can see ourselves represented in them. Each one was in a different place, under different circumstances, but each one was exhorted to have an ear to hear the Spirit and overcome. When we honestly survey our spiritual lives most of us can see hot spots and cold spots. We see areas that we are fervent and faithful in, areas of strength where we are walking and doing well in the Spirit. Then, on the other hand, most of us can see areas in our lives where we are in compromise and weak in faithfulness and obedience to the will of God. We tend to preach from the areas of our strengths, while we try to hide and disguise the areas of our shortcoming that we hope others won’t see in us. While the Lord wants us to maintain the strengths that we have and the areas of victory we possess, He is, at the same time, wanting to show us the areas of shortcomings that are hindering us from His highest and best for us. He is constantly calling us to come up higher, to cast off the earthly garments of unrighteousness and put on Christ. These areas of weakness are as varied as we are as individuals, but the Holy Spirit knows our spiritual typography. He knows our high and low places. What we want Him to do in us, as we act in faith, is to bring us up in those low areas so that every area of our life is dwelling in the heavenly places. That place, where there are no holes in our faith and walk with Him that are still abiding in the flesh.
Many of us go to great lengths to put up walls and barriers so that we isolate certain areas of our lives from others. Many of us have a spiritual side and fleshly side. We just conveniently put on what we feel is needed at the time for the place and circumstance we are in. When we are in the worldly setting we act as the world, when we are in a spiritual setting we act spiritual. This is hypocrisy in us. God wants a people that are wholly and consistently His in every area of their lives. Our spiritual destiny and reward with Him is dependent upon it. When we read what the Spirit is saying to the churches here in Revelations, there are strong consequences if areas of offense and weakness are not repented of and corrected. Do we think it is any different with us?
In order to allow the Holy Spirit to have His perfect work in us we need to be willing to allow Him to be Lord in every area and aspect of our lives. We need to have the kind of relationship with Him that we get quiet before Him, listen to Him to speak to us about areas of our lives, through His Word, His Spirit and what other avenues He chooses to use. Then we need to make them a matter of prayer and priority to address and change. Our days are filled with much busyness and distraction, but it is imperative that we prioritize the will and work of God in our lives. What we are speaking of has eternal consequences in our spiritual walk. We can’t afford to allow the temporal things of this life to distract and rob us of our eternal destiny and calling in Christ. He must be the first priority of each day and each area of our life.

When we get too many hot spots and cold spots, we tend to mellow into lukewarm. Revelations 3:15-16 says, “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.” If God is turning up the heat in our lives it is so that we might become hot for Him. We must allow the heat of His Holy Presence to come into those cold areas of our lives and melt the ice cubes of selfishness, inconsistency, complacency, compromise and sin. God wants us to be all or nothing.

Blessings,
kent

Apples of Gold

Apples of Gold
Proverbs 25:11
A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.

Throughout our lives we’ve all come to know and experience how cutting, hurtful and harmful words can be that are spoken in a way that is mocking, cruel or unkind. Words are like a two edged sword, on one edge is life and on the other is death and the flat sides are neutral. As Proverbs 18:21 says, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.” We have these tremendous weapons in our mouths and often we so carelessly use them and abuse them or we fail to use them in a positive way at all.
It is wonderful to think about the power we have to edify and build up another through the power of our words. When we look to speak the best about people then we will see the best in them. Sometimes we all need words spoken to us that are hard for us to hear, but they are truth. The words of a true friend are not always going to make us feel good, but hopefully they will help us to be better people and reveal to us things we need to know about ourselves that we are blind too. Proverb27:17 says, “Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.” In other words, we don’t just speak the words that make us feel good, but we speak the words that help one another grow, the words that challenge us and exhort us.
God’s Word has many passages that give us great hope and purpose. It can greatly edify us and build us up. God’s Word can also cut us to the bone and reveal the ugliness of our sin and wrong motives. Hebrews 4:12 tells us, “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” God’s Word goes to the heart of the matter. If correction is needed, it will correct us and chastise us and if edification is needed, it will build us up and set our feet upon a right path. While hard words are difficult for many of us to hear, we will hear them and receive them more readily if we know that the person’s heart is pure who is speaking those words. If we know the motive for speaking hard things to us is love, then we are more apt to receive those words into our heart in order that they might produce life and betterment in us.
Proverbs 25:11, today’s passage, paints for us a picture that right words, spoken in season, can create rich and beautiful things. If we are walking in the love and spirit of Christ then our words should be moved and spoken out of a right spirit and a contrite heart. In other words, when we are speaking right words into someone’s life we are doing it in love and without spiritual pride or haughtiness on our part. We all need ones that will speak both blessing and correction into our lives, in love. Those are our true friends. Those are the ones that know how to speak out of the nature of God and in the spirit of redemption and mercy. Their words are ‘the apples of gold set in pictures of silver.’
How will we use the sword that God has put in our mouths? Will it produce apples of gold or a bloody mess? Let us choose our words wisely and pray that the Spirit of God directs what, where, when and how we speak. Remember the power of death and life is in your tongue, both for you and for others. Ask God to put a watch before your mouth that you may speak out of both wisdom and love.

Blessings,
kent

Continue to Abide in Me (Prophetic)

Matthew 24:35
Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

Continue to Abide in Me (Prophetic)

Linger not over the things that matter so little. This life quickly passes before you and yet you are consumed with the temporal and not the eternal. You labor for today’s bread while passing over the bread of life. Reach out and receive of me the eternal; that which gives life that doesn’t fade or tarnish or die. Look into my face. Look fully upon Me and then you will see how temporal the earthly things are. Labor for the bread that perishes not and grows not moldy and hard. I am the bread of life and daily you commune with Me as you eat the bread of My life and drink from the cup of My blood.
You are My life flow in the earth, bringing life and distributing the oxygen of My truth throughout the world. Whenever truth is cut off, the area from which it is removed begins to die and death is pursuant. As you live and breath out of Me you bring life to that which surrounds you. As you are faithful to live out of Me you give life, health and hope to those dying places. You may not see it. You may not feel it. You may even be persecuted, rejected and cursed at for it, but that is only the decay speaking. Don’t allow discouragement to come in. Don’t discount the difference you make in the world around you. My disciples are life givers, because they abide in Me and carry My life wherever they go. They are the salt of the earth that offer the seasoning that preserves, heals and restores. You are My ambassadors of Life and Giving. My love is best demonstrated through the lives that have been transformed by it. You are the transformers that take the power and love I pour into you and distribute it out to those around you in practical and real ways that they can receive My love and heart for them.
You may sometimes feel your prayers never pass the ceiling, but I hear the heart cries of My people, because I put them there. They have not gone unheeded or unheard. They come up before Me and I am the culmination and administrator of intercession and prayer. Continue to stand in the gap for others. The prayers of a righteous person avails much and I do hear your heart and your prayers that come from a true heart of love and concern. Pray through by the Spirit. Pray with your heavenly language and with your understanding. Your prayers are not in vain, but like the moisture evaporating from the earth that comes up before Me and accumulates in the clouds of My mercy and blessing that in due season will be rained down again upon the earth to water those dry places that you have lifted up before Me. All things work for My glory, in My way and in My time. Patience is the virtue of the saints, because through longsuffering and perseverance you shall receive your reward. All things have their time and their season and only I fully know the time and the seasons.
Be not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good. My love does not come without testing and trials, because in the midst of it, it is proven to be the real not just the superficial or counterfeit. Men will test My love in you, because they can’t believe just your words, until they see the reality of your actions. So love not in word only, but in action and in deed. The only way that love perseveres and is genuine is when you are fully living out of My Spirit and not your strength. Your strength and your love will fail, where Mine will stand. So faint not, even when you are weary; I will give you rest. I will be your strength, when yours has failed. Live out of Me daily and daily I will lift you up on eagles wings and carry you where human strength can not fly.
Yes, you are poured out, but it is your life in Mine and because your life is mine it becomes My life in yours. Practice My presence daily in every conversation, interaction, decision and need. Praise Me in all things and let My praises be continually in your mouth and heart. I have come to energize your life as long as you stay connected and plugged into Me.
Come today and let us continue to commune together. Drink of My cup and eat of My bread that you may have life in you and have it more abundantly.

Blessings,
kent

Call to Return and Commit

Revelation 3:14-22
“To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:
These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. 15I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. 17You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. 18I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.
19Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. 20Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.
21To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. 22He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

Call to Return and Commit

Hear what the Lord is saying this day. His exhortation to return into Him. The time of religion and pretense is past and His warnings grow short. Father is speaking to all of us that have spiritual ears and that can hear. “Turn your attention away from the world and unto to Me,” says the Lord. “I redeemed you and gave My life for you. I bought you with the price of My blood. It is not in your spiritual knowledge that you are made spiritual, it is in your walk and intimacy with Me. I have been knocking on the hearts of My people for some time now, but so many have grown dull to My calling. They shut out the intimacy of my presence and fellowship, for the busyness of their schedules and lifestyles. My people have become to busy for Me, they are so caught up in the technology and distractions of this age. Hear My people what I say unto you, “Cursed is the man that rejects me and is offended in me. You have cursed yourselves, because you have gone to you idols of technology, comforts and convenience.
Awake, oh you that sleeps, from the dullness of mediocrity and selfishness. I rebuke you because I love you. I call out to you because I want My highest for you. Let not the sacrifice I paid for you be for nothing. Do not crucify Me afresh.
Repent, My people, and return to Me. Your time is short. Return unto Me with all of your heart and I will cleanse and restore you once again. Open the door of your heart and allow me to come and sup with you, to have fellowship and sweet communion with you. Pull down the cardboard exteriors of pretense and hypocrisy and make yourselves real and available to Me.
I am calling out to My own and My sheep will hear My voice and respond to it. A mediocre faith is not what I have called you too. I have called you to be My disciples, to pick up your cross and follow me. Follow me with all of your heart or not at all. Choose to be hot or cold, but be no longer complacent, for that is abhorrent to Me and not acceptable. Choose this day whom you will serve. If you are on the Lord’s side then come and follow Me with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength. ”

Blessings,
kent

Empowered to Bless

Proverbs 3: 27
Do not withhold good from those who deserve it, when it is in your power to act.

Empowered to Bless

When we were young in our marriage there was a time that we really needed a car.  During that time that we were praying and believing the Lord to meet this need in our lives the Lord impressed upon Sharon’s heart that we were going to receive help from certain relatives.  Sure enough, one-day they called us and asked how much money we had to buy a car.  I don’t remember exactly what we had at the time, maybe around $700, but they said they wanted to give us in the neighborhood of $2000 to help us out.  At first we treated this gift as a loan, but then they said no, it’s not that kind of a deal, we want to give you this money and they quoted this scripture as the basis for their giving to us.  Their obedience was such a blessing to us and enabled us to get a good car for our needs.  Now they weren’t rich and they didn’t have money in excess, but they were obedient to do what the Holy Spirit was impressing upon their hearts.  They were God’s blessing to us.
So many times we may hold on to things or withhold our abilities to serve and bless when it is within our power to do so.  I believe that God wants to empower us to bless.  It may not even be with money; it may be with our talents, our abilities, our support and encouragement or any number of ways that we may be able to meet the needs in one another.
Ecclesiastes 11:6 says, “Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let not your hands be idle,
for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well.”  Our purpose is to always be sowing into the lives of others in the ways that we can.  God is a giver and He is one who is continually blessing even when it isn’t deserved.  As the instruments of His love and blessing let us take up this exhortation to not withhold good to those who deserve it when it is in our power to give it.  I think Jesus would have us to go a step further and even give to those who don’t deserve it that we might demonstrate His magnificent love and grace.  Let us be the blessing that God has commissioned us and empowered us to be.

Blessings,

kent