Niceness vs Redemption…

 

“Niceness — wholesome, integrated personality — is an excellent thing. But we must not suppose that even if we succeeded in making everyone nice we should have saved their souls. A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world — and might even be more difficult to save.

For mere improvement is not redemption, though redemption always improves people even here and now — and will, in the end, improve them to a degree we cannot yet imagine. God became man to turn creatures into sons: not simply to produce better men of the old kind but to produce a new kind of man. It is not like teaching a horse to jump better and better — but like turning a horse into a winged creature.” (C.S. Lewis)

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The fear of the Lord.

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom…” (Proverbs 9:10)

God’s love is amazing — and it’s essential that we know how much He loves us.  But we also desperately need the fear of God. Don’t you think Adam and Eve knew God loved them? They walked with Him, intimately interacted with Him, and lived in a glorious paradise He made for them.  But that didn’t stop them from choosing another way when it was presented to them by the enemy. And that’s because they did not have the fear of God. If they had, I believe things would have turned out differently.

The fear of the Lord is the unshakable knowledge that outside of God’s will, there is nothing but death, darkness and despair.  Even Jesus had the fear of the Lord (Isaiah 11:3).  And if He “delighted” in it, perhaps we should too.

His Bride has made herself ready!

“Let us rejoice and be glad and give Him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and His bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.” (Revelation 19:7-8)

The clearest revelation I have ever received is about the enemy’s end time strategy concerning sexual purity. As we approach the Wedding of the Lamb, there will be greater pressure to give in to sexual sin than at any time in the history of the Church. IT WILL BE BOTH A TRIAL AND A TEST! And those who come through will be the Bride, “without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.”

True kindness…

It is not kindness to comfort and affirm someone in a sinful, self-destructive (self-destructive from an eternal point of view) lifestyle or behavior. We will be held accountable for such things.

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” (Isaiah 5:20)

Want His wine?

Want God to take the ORDINARY WATER of your life
and transform it into GLORIOUS WINE?
“Do whatever He tells you.” (John 2:5)

The miracle of true love!

Loving people with “1 Corinthians 13” LOVE is as much a miracle
as raising someone from the dead.
We must have God’s Power and Presence
operating in and through us to do either one.
And that only happens when we surrender ourselves
completely to Him.

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another;
as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”
(John 13:34)

Putting the pieces together…

“It is the glory of God to conceal a matter,
But the glory of kings is to search out a matter.”
(Proverbs 25:2)

Do you keep a record of the various things God has spoken to you?  If you’re serious about following God, you need to.  Often, dreams, visions, highlighted scriptures (verses Holy Spirit highlights) and prophetic words are like EASTER EGGS — and the meaning seems to be somewhat hidden at first glance, but as we continue to search and dig, we begin to put the puzzle pieces together and see what God wants us to see.  These things are not hidden FROM us — they are hidden FOR us.  Hidden FOR the hungry, “kingly” ones who are willing to continue looking until the big picture begins to appear.  It’s a sometimes frustrating, but always glorious process.