Praise the Lord everybody and merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone!! I pray you are all enjoying this blessed holiday season remembering always that Jesus is the reason for the season.
This is the time of year that we set our goals for the coming year, our New Years resolutions we like to call them. My desire for this coming year is the same as it was last year, I want to be closer to God this year, I want to be more obedient to God than last year and I want to be used by Him more than last year.
Unfortunately for me the Devil has found out these things and is fighting me "tooth and nail" as I strive to overcome my disability and pain in order to serve God. I cannot just be a Sunday go to meeting type Christian who only goes to church on Sunday and basically ignores Christ the rest of the week. I want to be on fire for the Lord all the time. Jesus states in Revelation 3:14-16 14 And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;
15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.
16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
I don't want to be a lukewarm Christian because lukewarm Christians are unremarkable and do unremarkable things. Jesus would rather we be hot and zealous in our faith. Cold is better than lukewarm because at least if you are cold God knows where you stand but lukewarm means at one point you were hot and have since waxed cold in your faith and now you are neither hot nor cold and therefore useless to Him.
David knew what It meant to be "hot" for the Lord and he wrote in Psalm 69:3-9 3 I am weary of my crying: my throat is dried: mine eyes fail while I wait for my God.
4 They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head: they that would destroy me, being mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty: then I restored that which I took not away.
5 O God, thou knowest my foolishness; and my sins are not hid from thee.
6 Let not them that wait on thee, O Lord God of hosts, be ashamed for my sake: let not those that seek thee be confounded for my sake, O God of Israel.
7 Because for thy sake I have borne reproach; shame hath covered my face.
8 I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother's children.
9 For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me.
Being on fire for the Lord means being scorned by lukewarm Christians and nonbelievers. Those who don't understand your fire hate your fire. Those who hate God now hate you, those who claim to be Christians with their mouths but who have hidden sin are convicted by your very presence and refuse to use that conviction to change their ways because they love their sin more than they fear God. They will give you nick names like "Deac","Rev"and "preacher" and they use them not out of respect but out of hate and jealousy.
Yet I look forward to these things knowing this is the way that is mapped out by God for those who would pick up their cross and follow Him. Paul said in 2nd Corinthians 4:7-11 8 We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;
9 Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;
10 Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.
11 For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh
LET THAT HOLY GHOST FIRE BURN IN YOU
God bless you All, brother Darrell, Speaking Off The Wall
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