I witnessed something today, that should never be seen or heard… But I witnessed it anyway…

I witness an ex-worship leader who is preparing to go off to a mission training school, who was wearing a Christian t-shirt that had a picture of a nail pierced hand on it drop an “f bomb” in front of other youth group kids.

I couldn’t believe what I had just heard! What a contradiction to the shirt she was wearing and what she supposedly believed in!

Even though I bring this up, it has nothing to do with that girl, I bring this up to hopefully bring some awareness. It would appear that many in the body of Christ are tainted by the world and don’t really care. When I approached this girl, she said she was sorry, but she wasn’t truly sorry. There was no true repentance for smearing the Name of Christ in the mud.

It’s a scary thing to be rockin’ with Christ one day and somehow find yourself in a place that is owned by the devil. It’s a slow fade that happens and we need to be on guard!

We need to make it a point to seek the Lord daily and stand up for the things of God! Not bowing down to fear, corruption and evil…

There is a lost and dying world out there that doesn’t need to see some “Christian” acting, talking or behaving like the rest of the World. It’s time to step it up a notch and Possess the Land the Lord has given us and continue taking ground from the enemy. If was say we love God, then our actions should speak that as well. It’s no time to be tainted by things of the world.

Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be.
James 3:10

As the busyness of life happens and as good times and bad times pass, it can become very easy to lose the focus and purpose we started out with. Sometimes we start out doing a thing and end up doing something totally different…

I want to bring up a couple verses that have a very scary reality check in Rev. 2:2-5
“I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars:
3And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name’s sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted.
4Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.
5Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.”

The reason I say this is a scary reality is because if you look at all of these Nobel qualities that the Lord lists off that the Church was doing…

- Patience.
- Didn’t listen to evil.
- They tested the spirits to see if they were of God or not.
- Labored for the Lord and did not faint.

These are all great things to be doing, but the Lord still has something against the Church that was doing all these right things… They had lost their first love.

They had got so caught up in the “doing” that they had lost focus of Jesus. Sure they still loved the Lord, but they weren’t basing their decisions by their love for Jesus. They fell more in love with the doing the right things that please God, than actually loving God with ALL their heart, soul, mind and strength.

So if you were to get real honest, would the Lord find the same thing in you? And if so, what do you do about it? Well just like God says in verse 5, repent and get back to doing the first thing… Loving the Lord with everything you got!

He deserves our love and devotion, so let’s give it to Him! The Lord loves you very much and if you ever question that, look at Calvery. What Jesus did at the Cross is the greatest demonstration of His love for us than anything else.

Keep moving forward in Him!

As we continue to walk out our faith, situations arise that can test our faith and see if we truly believe we are redeemed. When you understand you are redeemed, things change. You don’t have to do the crap you used to do, you don’t have to behave the way the world behaves.
When you truly understand you are blood bought, you know without a shadow of a doubt that your past is under the blood of Jesus and you truly are a new creation in Christ.

But, there are times where you will be tried to see if you really believe…

I had a situation come up the other day where I had the opportunity to behave redeemed or behave like the “old man” or my past.

I have had a couple situations with a guy who I recently had to kick out of my shop. But, a couple nights ago I had a late meeting at my shop and I was loading my family into our car when this same guy walked through the parking lot with a friend and flipped me off and started cussing at me… then flipped me off again!

Well, before I tell you about how my blood started to boil, just a little bit I have to first let you know about how I was trained…

Before I got serious about my walk with the Lord, I was a compromising Christian and didn’t even know it. My life was NOT Christ, it was martial arts. I had a VERY mean teacher who was trained by even a meaner guy who loved violence. The mentality was drilled into me that if someone flips you off, you break their finger. Plain and simple, that WAS the way I used to think. The Lord really did transform me when I gave all that up.

But now here I was and I had a flashback to that old mindset. Here I had a choice to behave like the redeemed ambassador that I am and that you are, or open up the coffin and let out the “old me”.

Well, it bothered me that this was an issue and it caused me to go before the Lord to deal with it. We know from Romans 8:6 that “… to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.”
Well the situation didn’t give me peace, all it gave with thoughts that lead to death… death to peace, joy, and the mind of Christ.

I know that I am blood bought and I knew that the way my flesh wanted me to handle the situation was wrong.

So I write this as a reminder, we are blood bought! And we need to act like it and we need to make sure we are always renewing our minds. Instead of thinking about how the world would handle that situation, I should be praying for that guys salvation!

We need to be in a continuous state of allowing the Lord to wash us away so more of Him can live through us. I hope this story is a good reminder of the importance of getting into the Word of God and spending time with Him.

May we continue to be washed away with the precious blood of Jesus as we walk this earth empowered as the Redeemed of the Lord!