While finishing up my next article I wanted to submit this exhortation I gave one night at the Coffee House.
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We are instructed by the scriptures to be vigilant in our faith, to strive to enter the strait gate, fight the good fight, run the race, be good soldiers, finishers of the faith.
Ro 11:18 Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.
19 Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in.
20 Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear:
21 For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest He also spare not thee.
22 Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in His goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.
23 And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them in again.
24 For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree.
With the passing of David Wilkerson, I was reminded that we are all called to be candles of the Lord. Instruments for His glory where He can shine forth as the hope to a world held captive by the powers of darkness and sin. If a believer, any believer, truly humbles himself before the Lord as did Brother David, and allows God’s graces to work to their full extent, then the wonderful glories of God’s unspeakable love, mercies and grace becomes undeniably evident for a world of lost sinners to see through each and everyone of us. For we are not the Light, merely candlesticks upon which the high and lofty One which inhabit eternity has chosen to abide. What manner of love is this, that we can be the light of the world and be called the Children of God?
It has been said by some that “the God of the Old Testament was an angry God.” Now that creates a need for clarity because God never changes. That He is the same yesterday, today and forever is in fact the teaching of scriptures, but they also state that God is indeed angry with the wicked everyday (Psm 7:11), because they have made themselves to be His enemies. His word also clearly tells us that to become friends with world is to willfully engage in war with Him.
After many other’s shared at the Coffee House what the Lord had been placing upon their hearts, I stopped and prayed and asked the Lord to help me bring it altogether and then reasoned the Gospel, pleading for the Church to become the men and women of God they for which they were saved.
So often as believers we are content to dwell in the world with our belief system, thinking that it is sufficient. We know our scriptures, go to our church, busy ourselves with other things that we truly believe to benign, indulging in leisures and entertainments . . . all while the time we need to purchase necessary oil for our lamps and eye salve for true godly vision is quickly slipping away.
We must be found to be in Christ, not just a church. We must have true works of faith which bear witness to our love for God. We need to be godly, not just good. We must be holy as He is holy and not merely moral, for if we are not in Him then all our “good works” are worthless, reprobate, and actually witness against us because we knew the truth and did not truly live in Him.
Re 3:18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.
If God can’t deliver you today, it isn’t because He isn’t able. It is because you aren’t willing to let Him be God. Today is the day of salvation and as long as it is called “today,” Jesus Christ is able to save the utmost those who surrender and entrust the absolute control of their lives into His hands.
The Bible tells us many truths we must embrace if we are to live a life of intimacy with our Redeemer Jesus Christ; that we are to “prefect holiness in the fear of God” and also “without holiness no man shall see God.”
Because these truths apply to everyone of us, the Apostle John tells us, “every man that hath this hope in God purifies himself, even as He is pure.”
Gates of the City 