Let's discuss the condition that man was in and why Jesus died for them. This verse defines
us as being sinners, before we accepted Jesus into our hearts. What is a sinner in God‘s eyes? By the very definition
of God's merciful view, it states that, we were an enemy and an offender in a weakened and powerless condition to help
ourselves before we met Jesus as Savior. This is very different then what we defined a man would die for. An enemy is one
who hates and has ill will towards another person and is a competitor and one who injures the sensibilities of man. We were
made in the image of God. In the book of Genesis after God made man, God came into agreement with Him self and said, "I
did a fine job on how I made man." When Satan entered the picture, he lied to Eve and made her believe that she could
do better and that God did not make her complete. In reality, Satan's plan was to damage the sensitivity of God's
prized creation ability to reason about moral or ethical issues. We are talking about
our inability of recognizing our feelings in our emotions, like compassion, sympathy or empathy. When this happens, we cut
our selves off from receiving God's fellow feelings towards us and in turn, it stops Him from being a loving father to
His prized creation. This makes us become our worst enemy.
When we do not follow
God's decrees, we violate God's protected rules to keep us safe and whole in our thinking. We also do not participate
in our inheritance that He gave us when we came into the family. When we function in an unconscious awareness of God's
mercy, and how He cares about us, it then causes us to not understand what really took place in the fall of mankind in the
Garden of Eden. What we do is reject God's mercy and live in a sinner's vulnerability of giving into temptation like
before we accepted Jesus as Savior.
The word for garden in the Hebrew translation
means, a protected hedge. God did not hold it against Adam and Eve because of their failure to believe Him. Adam and Eve rejected
God's mercy because they made fig leaves to cover the shame of their failure from God. This is why the body of Christ
from the pulpits of the world need to stop preaching on behavior modification and passing judgment in their own evaluations
of who and what we have to do to keep our salvation and burdening us down with do's and don'ts.
In addition, they preach like this is everybody else's growing pains but not their own. God is
not the author of confusion and He does not have a bunch of misfit children who are unable to be healed. Just last night in
watching some Christian programming, there was a conversation going on of how God loves His church into wholeness. This was
very good and it was the truth from scripture. People are looking for the truth in this critical hour, including myself. Now
what is very disturbing is that the parties doing the teaching made a statement that they felt the presence of the Lord was
on the stage. If that was so, why did the statement come out of their mouths that they were sick and tired of Christians complaining
about the pain they are going through in their walk with the Lord? What type of compassion and patience do these so-called
leaders in the Christian community really possess?
It is sad to say that, Christians
have been misinformed and are living with a diseased soul that needs some anointed prayer and a vision of a hopeful future
in their lives from mature Christians; who know the love and security of God to open them self up to a loving merciful God
who wants to heal all areas of our life that may be damaged. It is time for the so-called leaders of today to come down off
their arrogant thrones of leadership and get in the trenches with the people of God and minister to them where they are, with
out judgment. It is very disturbing to me when I see leadership in the pulpits of today that started because of their humble
attitude and were raised up by God. However, because they have forgotten their beginnings, they have an attitude of, I have
arrived and have become caught up with works, (their own works) and have no real fellow feeling with the people they are teaching
by showing God's mercy verses man's concept of what they think mercy means.
It
is only mercy and grace with the truth, which sets us free from us being our worst enemy.
There
are loads of scripture that have been misinterpreted with man's judgments of people. We must interpret scripture through
the eyes of the Holy Spirit's mercy, grace and forgiveness. When man uses a judgmental mentality rather then a mercy mentality
in understanding God's way of dealing with man, he is cut off from total healing. That's why the majority of the church
is forever learning and never coming to the truth. I will just give one of these many examples.
In Revelations chapter 3:15-20, John the Apostle wrote a letter to the church at Laodicea. He writes, "I
know your record of works and know what you are doing; you are neither hot nor cold, it's my desire that you be either
hot or cold! So because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I will spew you out of my mouth! For you say, I am rich
and have prospered and grown wealthy and I am in need of nothing. With this attitude, don't you realize that you are wretched,
miserable, poor, blind and naked? Therefore I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined and tested by fire, that you may be
truly wealthy, and white clothes to clothe you and to keep the shame of your nudity from being seen and eye salve to put on
your eyes that you may see. Those who I love, I tell their faults to and convince and reprove and instruct them. So be enthusiastic
and have a passion to talk to me and follow my advice at all times. Allow me to change your mind and attitude. I stand at
your hearts door and knock asking permission to come in and have a very real relationship with you."
One of the most devastating and false interpretations of scripture that I have ever heard is this
interpretation that says, because these people had this condition of self-sufficiency and because they thought they had arrived,
they made God sick to His stomach and He was going to vomit them out of His mouth. It's these kinds of false conditional
love themes with out mercy being preached and taught, that keep Christians in this mentality that makes you not sure how much
God really loves you which keeps us from receiving His mercy. It is only God's patience and mercy being received by these
people teaching this stuff that will cause them to grow up and stop preaching and teaching this stuff. There is a terrible
need in the body of Christ to unlearn some of these false teachings and come to the truth, so people can be set free to explore
a real loving relationship with God.
Let's now rightly interpret what God
meant, by vomiting us out of His mouth. The word of God has to be interpreted through an understanding of God's great
desire to continually restore us to a place of wholeness at His side. This battle of wholeness cannot be communicated through
God themes of Him losing His patience or becoming fed up with His children. When we do this, we stop receiving God's mercy
because there are conditions being attached to it. This stops us from having a passion to love God and in turn love others
as ourselves.
People who are there worst enemy cannot love themselves.
Hebrews 1:3, tells us that, "Jesus is the sole expression of the glory of God. The light being
and the out raying of the Divine. The perfect imprint and the image of God's nature upholding, maintaining and propelling
the universe by His mighty "WORDS" which is His power. When God speaks, things happen.
In Genesis Chapter 1: God first spoke and things happened. "In the beginning God created the heavens
and the earth, and the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. The Spirit of God moved
upon the face of the water and God said "let there be light" and God saw that the light was good and God divided
the light from the darkness." God spoke eight more times, and every time that He spoke, there was a created miracle that
took place.
Out of God's Spirit, from His inner most being He spewed forth
an extension of Him self and created life on the planet. Everywhere God speaks forth and it is received, it brings life. He
is the LIFE GIVER. God doesn't love us when He has a good day and not love us when He has a bad day. His whole nature
and force of life as He exists is His love, mercy and grace. God wants to spew His wisdom into our thought life. He doesn‘t
want to throw us away but, plant His being deeply with in us. When we interpret God's word and believe that, He is fed
up with us, it puts a wall up that stops God from spewing or speaking His life force, which is His word of mercy into our
heart and change us to His way of thinking.
These people were lukewarm because,
they were not seeking God with zeal and their focus was on their earthly possessions. They (were not hungering and thirsting
after God) because, they believed that they had arrived at some secure stature of life. The simplest example I can give on
why God wanted them to be hot or cold is this. In the physical on a cold day, there is nothing like a nice hot drink to warm
you up and on a hot day, there is nothing like a nice ice cold drink to cool you off. We can not grow up spiritually if we
are not becoming sensitive in our reasoning with God's fellow feelings, so we can give to ourselves and others a hot or
cold drink in the spiritual realm as the need presents itself.
God wanted to
sensitize there sensibilities of His desire to protect them from harming themselves. Man with out the influence of the Holy
Spirit has a vulnerability to try to control his own destiny. He will constantly try to lean toward his own understanding
to handle his life's problems. Judgment from people who are in a seat of authority and are being looked at for direction
from people who are looking for help in their searching for wisdom, have a moral and sacred responsibility by God to show
His mercy and compassionate at all times to His prized creation. It is the anointing of the Holy Spirit that brings this about.
We as born again believers must become strong in our discerning skills and learn what James meant
in 1:19. "We must be a ready listener, slow to speak and slow to get angry and take offense." A person can only
learn to be a ready listener if, he or she is getting to discern the voice of the Holy Spirit talking to them with in their
spirit. Now remember, He is a grace and mercy Spirit not a judgment spirit. As we experience this relationship, we become
more secure in trusting His inner voice. In turn, we hunger to hear this voice because it anchors us and it drives out the
fears we have of loss in all areas. We become our worst enemy, take offense, and get angry because of us judging ourselves
by making bad decisions. It makes no difference whether you are in a church setting or going through your daily walk in the
world. This judgment spirit is at work influencing us in our mind and emotions everywhere we go. It is sad that we have so
much of it going on in the born again churches of today.
We as Christians must
become strong with in ourselves and become bold to believe what the Holy Spirit is showing us as we go about our daily activities.
We must learn to become independently dependent people set apart unto God and value ourselves and the abilities God put in
us. We are not to be followers of any denomination or any spirit other then the Holy Spirit. At times, I have found this to
be an intense battle with in me because, we all have a terrible need to belong and be accepted. I would like to tell you that
you will never make a mistake, but that would be a lie. We must become strong rooted word people who are learning how to fight
against this judgmental spirit, which I believe is running ramped everywhere.
Scripture
tells us that the Devil is the accuser of the brethren. It becomes a great concern when the so-called leaders in the pulpits
of the world lay guilt and judgment on God's people. When this happens, these leaders become the Devil's advocate
and it has a dominos effect. It is passed on in our fellowship with one another. In reality when we do this to each other,
it's like committing murder in the spiritual world. When we judge ourselves, we commit spiritual suicide.
David the King in Psalms 23:6 states, "goodness, mercy and unfailing love shall follow me all
the days of my life; and through the length of days of my being, I shall be constantly living and experiencing God's presence."
The word for follow in the Hebrew is radaf: meaning, to pursue, chase and hunt. It states that most of the time this is done
with a hostile intent. Well we know or should know that God has no hostile intents to do damage towards his children. What
we have here is God's total resolve to complete His purposes in mankind with great intensity. God's jealousy and love
for His people is so intense that, He will pursue His children no matter how many thickets of life they are caught up in.
In James 4:5 he says, "The Spirit that lives in us yearns over us. He yearns
because He wants His Spirit to be welcomed by us because, He is a jealous lover." Unless we experience His mercy daily,
we will have a tendency to backslide from receiving His mercy and grace. By exposing our emotions and feelings with deep passion,
it strengthens our resolve and power to live with Him.
In Luke 1:50 it states,
"His mercy (compassion and kindness) toward the miserable and afflicted is on those who fear Him with a Godly reverence,
from generation to generation." When we have a reverential fear of the Lord, there is created in us by the Holy Spirit
an attitude that, the first place we run when there is a sign of trouble is to God to receive His mercy and grace. Our strength
and security is when we acknowledge our need for God in our thought life. As we mature, this becomes a necessity of life for
us who are born again believers. It is His mercy and His empathy feelings that we recognize and receive from Him that protects
us from ourselves. It will only happen as we flow in His Spirit of Mercy, which strengthens our resolve to follow His decrees.
On the wall in my office I have a prophetic word that God had given me in a time of trial and great
travailing. Since God is not a respecter of persons and if you are His child; take it for yourself. Isaiah 49: 8-10 states.
"In an acceptable and favorable time meaning, God with great enthusiasm,
delights and has great affection for us. I have heard your prayer and I am answering and preserving you because, I have made
a permanent covenant with you, to raise you up among un-affectionate and ignorant people and I am restoring the ruin. I say
to you, who are bound come forth; and to you, who are in spiritual darkness, show yourselves by being honest about your hearts
condition and come into the light and walk in righteousness. This will happen as you understand (My Unconditional Love) for
you. I will feed you in all your daily travels where there will be an abundance of grassy hills with no deserts. You will
not be hungry or thirsty. Neither will you be fooled by mirages in a desert. I will have mercy on you and I will guide your
lives."
