Nor shall leaven be seen among you in all your quarters.
Lord God, to fear You is to hate evil. I abhor what is evil. I will abstain from every form of evil. I will look carefully lest I fall short of Your grace; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled. If I regard iniquity in my heart, You, my Lord, will not hear. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. Therefore I will purge out the old leaven, that I may be a new lump, since I truly am unleavened. For indeed Christ, my Passover, was sacrificed for me. Therefore let me keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Let me examine myself, and so let me eat of that bread and drink of that cup. May I, and everyone who names the name of Christ, depart from iniquity. Such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners. In Him there is no sin. Remove, Holy God, the leaven of sin from my life. May I flee from evil.
EXODUS 13:7; PROVERBS 8:13; ROMANS 12:9; 1 THESSALONIANS 5:22; HEBREWS 12:15; PSALM 66:18; 1 CORINTHIANS 5:6–8; 1 CORINTHIANS 11:28; 2 TIMOTHY 2:19; HEBREWS 7:26; 1 JOHN 3:5.
Dr. David Jeremiah Life-Changing Moments with God
Oh the battlefield of the mind of man.
We are taught to learn, taught to supposedly get along with our fellow man.
We are taught a great many things yet the greatest things are missed by most men and women.
There's worldly wisdom and there's Godly wisdom. They are mixed in the mind of all.
The point of setting our minds on things above and not on the things of this world is to sift out what doesn't belong. To prepare our minds for what God has in store for you and I.
We miss the warnings of Scripture often because we don't take the Bible seriously enough.
The world is full of all sorts of evil, moreso that things that are good for us.
Satan's considered the god of this world. What should that tell you? It says that every single believer in Christ Jesus is behind enemy lines.
It doesn't take much to find war stories or movies and reenactments of them. Some are ridiculously wrong, some, like "Saving Private Ryan" or "Hacksaw Ridge" are as realistic as can be seen without being there.
Our world is eminently as dangerous in Spiritual things as those war movies and stories in regards to life and death. Yet most believers and even unbelievers do not get it.
For example, the Bible is God’s Word to mankind. Yet a significant portion of believers aren't reading it. Why? They really don't believe in it being the infallible Word of God.
In the Bible we read of the dangers of Idolatry. Yet in our world today well over 90 percent of people do not recognize Idolatry. That's within and on the outside of the Church. Idolatry itself is everywhere. People don't even realize that's what they have given themselves over to. Idolatry is anything or anyone who we put before our relationship with God. It's what gets our admiration, worship, our praise and our zeal. Look into your life, what do you cling to that is what excites you more than the things of God? What fires you up with more joy and excitement than your relationship with Jesus? I have shared this before because it's a cancer in the Church as well is an idolatry that is present in the church by way of mixing sports teams fight songs in a church service. It's horrific that a worship service is about anything but worshipping Jesus.
We read about prayer, of how Christ gave us commands concerning things to do and not do. If you have never opened your Bible how would you know what they are?
Our lives as Disciples of Christ ought to be about living for Jesus.
Ever see a real cross? The cross is two beams brought together. A person was physically nail to it. Their entire existence dwelled on what that cross was doing to their body. It wasn't about possessions or status or anything or anyone else. To bear your own cross is to carry it. You haven't been nailed to it yet, that came when the condemned arrived at the place of the crucifixion. We, like what Paul said, are crucified in Christ. In the Gospels we are told to take up our own cross and follow Jesus.
Let's go back to that physical description of the cross. The cross beam wasn't light. It caused the bearer no end of struggle carrying it because they were already physically worn down by the things they were put through beforehand.
Jesus was telling us to be singular in our focus on working out our salvation in Him.
Those who bear their own cross are extremely singular in their focus. The things of this world don't matter.
There are evils in this world that are the most cleverly disguised things. That's Satan's intent.
He wants you to convince yourself of the things you embrace. He wants believers so out of the Bible that their lives mirror the world and not God.
It's not to say that we cannot enjoy the good things that can be found in this world. But we need to remember it IS a fallen world. It IS under the rule of Satan, a defeated foe of Christ Jesus. He knows his time is limited. He wants the world for his own. He wants people to stay away from the truths of God’s Word, from Godly living.
He wants you and I to be so busy in this world that we neglect God.
Consider it well that we are to give an account of our lives before Christ.
What will your life show? What fills you with excitement? What have you to show of a life with Christ? We are to be Disciples of Christ. We are to go and make Disciples. We are told to set our minds on things above, not on the things of this world. We are to fill our minds with songs, hymns and spiritual songs. We are to be reading our Bible. Be in prayer. Our love and adoration should be with Jesus.
If we are living like the rest of the world, we are by definition, not lights in the world.
The only light that came into this world was Christ Jesus, read the opening chapters of the book of John. With Christ in us through Salvation, we are to be lights in the world.
There's a very appropriate phrase about warfare. Know your enemy.
How many of you really know even the most rudimentary information about Satan's schemes? 1 Corinthians 14:20 "Brothers and sisters, do not be children in your thinking; yet in evil be infants, but in your thinking be mature."
Even in the Church today many focus on Spiritual Gifts and not the warfare that they are designed to combat. They focus many times on feelings and not the truth of God.
Hate to break it to everyone, the Bible is offensive to all who live sinful lives. Let's actually read what the Bible DOES say:
1 Peter 2:1-12 NASB
"Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, and like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.
And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by people, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For this is contained in Scripture:
“Behold, I am laying in Zion a choice stone, a precious cornerstone,
And the one who believes in Him will not be put to shame.”
This precious value, then, is for you who believe; but for unbelievers,
“A stone which the builders rejected,
This became the chief cornerstone,”
and “A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense”;
for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this they were also appointed.
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Beloved, I urge you as foreigners and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts, which wage war against the soul. Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God on the day of visitation."
Are you living as the rest of the world or are you living for Jesus?
Are you even aware of the evils in this world that you participate in?
Have you believed your own excuses for what evils you DO have in your life?
"I didn't take it THAT seriously! It was only in fun!" Probably isn't going to be a good reason before Christ when asked by Him as to why we did what we did in our lives that the Bible says was sin.
Do you know your enemy? Do you really call evil that which God says is evil?
Are you doing anything to live for Christ or is your life all about you?
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