From Our Wicked Ways
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Getting touchy or resentful with another, or holding any kind of grudge or bad feeling toward another is committing this very sin. We are to be merciful to each other as our Lord has been merciful to us, by forgiving one another and walking in love. For you to hold something against a brother or sister is to have forgotten that you were once forgiven of all your sins. We all deserve to burn in the lake of fire for all of eternity because of our rebellious acts against a holy God, but Jesus brought us mercy and forgiveness through His cross.
Remember God the Father loves all people and desires for none to perish but to be saved, and so should we.
If My People Turn Away from Their Wicked Ways
Brother and sister, if you have been walking in this wicked way of walking out of love with another, you need to get it right. No matter how big the crime committed against you, it is in no comparison to the crimes we have committed against the Lord. He chose to forgive us when we didn't deserve to be forgiven and we must respond in like manner. We don't have the luxury of holding anything against anybody, if we are to inherit eternal life and walk in any kind of victory.
We've been looking at the conditions one by one and this morning we come to this condition: If My people turn from their wicked ways. New International Version if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I.
Church, this is the Word of God. This is our command to love God and love people. My wife Leah often tells our children "if you have nothing nice to say about that person, then don't say anything at all. This love walk is only one of the many ways of God I thought it most necessary to mention this love aspect foremost as so much else hangs on this issue in our Christian walk.
Saints, don't be deceived in thinking you know more than the Master by doing things your own way.
Turn from our wicked ways
Any way other than God's way through our Lord Jesus Christ is a wicked way. For instance, if an airplane pilot is instructed from the control tower as he is coming in to land a plane to drop altitude by say, 10, feet and veer 5 degrees east, in order to avoid another plane having engine trouble on a collision course with him; and he, either through negligence, or pride thinking he knows better than the control tower operator because he has flown the route so many times in the past at his present altitude and bearing rejects the instruction, and so crashes into the other plane; his act of negligence or disobedience to instruction will be great wickedness because of all the people who would be killed.
Similarly, when God instructs on what to do to heal our land and we neglect the instructions of prophetic and apostolic teachers 1 Cor. I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night: A nation or land God has healed is one that is free from political distress: And may the God of patience and consolation grant you You must be logged in to post a comment.
Here the God tells us 4 conditions His people need to fulfill for Him to hear their prayers and their land: Seek His face 4. Faith in Christ and repenting from our sin are two sides of the same coin.
There is no genuine repentance without faith, and no genuine faith without repentance. The result is that churches are filled with churchgoers who have little more intention of obeying God than non-churchgoers. At every point that they see sin, they refuse to repent. In his book I Surrender, Patrick Morley writes that the church's integrity problem is in the misconception "that we can add Christ to our lives, but not subtract sin.
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It is a change in belief without a change in behavior. It is revival without reformation, without repentance. In other words, there are multitudes of people who profess to belong to God who are in the same distant state from God that the Israelites God was speaking to were in.
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They are far from God, chasing after other gods, reveling in sin, and reaping the barren, tragic consequences of turning away from God. God in His love says, come to Me, seek My face, turn from your wicked ways, and I will hear, I will draw near to you. Turning to wicked ways leads us to turn away from God. Turning to God means turning away from wicked ways.
These things are wicked, but the Bible speaks of wicked things going on in our hearts that, to be honest, have become acceptable — even respectable — in the church. Selfishness — nothing kills love in our hearts like self-centeredness. A church filled with selfish people will never love one another or the world.
Turning From Our Wicked Ways
Selfishness will make a Christian or a church hard and cold and unloving. The Bible says gossipers will not grace the halls of heaven. I know churches that put ash trays outside so that people who smoke can go outside to have a smoke. Self-righteousness — being critical of others and feeling superior in our assessment of ourselves is a double edged sword: It takes the work of the Spirit to make us aware of this sin and bring us to repentance. Someone else suffers because of our cowardice. The church is to be filled with bravehearts not cowards.
Now, the reality is that we are all sinners — and the sin we commit is wicked sin. The church is to be filled with murderers and adulterers and thieves and yes, even child abusers, and proud, selfish, self-righteous gossips and cowards who have heard the call of the gospel and repented of their sin and found grace and mercy and forgiveness in Jesus Christ.
But we must not gut the gospel call of the call to repent!