Appreciate purity of heart

You keep yourself pure because you appreciate purity or because you hate to be dirty. Keeping your heart pure is not possible with your own strength neither with human cleaners.

Dirty or pure?
When do you consider yourself dirty? Everybody has his own standards on dirtiness and purity. This is true concerning the dirtiness of clothes and human body and much more with the dirtiness of heart.

The things that make your heart dirty come from both outside and inside you. What you hear, see or feel can make your heart dirty and also what you think, say or do. Because your bad thoughts have been food for your inner man, you have become a sinner. You are what you have thought.

Did the ears of your spirit rejoice at a dirty thought and did the mouth of your spirit eat fruit of pride? Did the eyes of your spirit admire a filthy sight and did the eyes of your soul fasten on greediness? Did the members of your spirit feast on an unclean feeling and did the hands of your spirit reach for dissolute selfishness?

Your bad thoughts are the dirt which tempts you to do evil things that are condemned by your conscience. The being produced by your bad thoughts is the sin that lies in ambush at the door of your heart. Its desire is for you, and you cannot rule over it, if your spirit is deadened by your guilt. When you open your heart for bad thoughts sin occupies you so that you cannot make a difference between it and your ego.

Although sin has killed you, clean thoughts can make your spirit alive again. If you have not awoken to desire clean thoughts, you cannot get a clear conscience. If you don't want to face the judgments of your conscience, you don't allow clean thoughts to settle down in you either.

Of what kind of dirt you, in your opinion, should be cleansed? In this matter we usually follow the public standard. If you face someone who is more pure than you, you realize yourself to be unclean. Jesus, the Son of God is pure! Compare yourself to Him. He who loves God, adopts the opinion of Jesus about what is dirty and what is pure.

God's words can wash you pure. Let the ears of your spirit rejoice at His pure thoughts and let the mouth of your spirit eat fruit of the humbleness of Jesus. Let the eyes of your spirit admire the revelation of God's love on Golgotha and let your soul fasten on the sacrifice of God. Long for the presence of Jesus and enjoy peace given by His grace and reach the hands of your spirit for His deeds.

When Jesus purifies you with His words, your conscience will wake up from its dormancy. Then you will feel guilty and you begin to thirst after God's grace. If you confess your sins to Jesus, His atoning blood will touch your spirit and purify your conscience. Then He also separates your spirit from the ego of your bad thoughts with the sword of His word and you become a new creation, if you let Him do this circumcision of your heart! Starting from this moment your spirit has power to resist the thoughts of your old ego.

Do you appreciate the purity of God? Maybe you are satisfied if you are pure in the eyes of men, although you are unclean in the eyes of God. If you are going to get to Him, you have to be purified.

Pure heart and clear conscience
If you feel that your conscience doesn't accuse you, it doesn't mean that your heart would be pure. If the thoughts and attitudes of your heart are after God's heart then your heart is pure. If you are satisfied with getting forgiveness of your sins and having a good conscience, you are in danger of falling again.

Don't only reach for a good conscience and a salvation from the judgment of God, but ask for a change of your mind and for purging of your thoughts. The water of God's word changes your thoughts and attitudes. This means that you ask for yourself light of God's word that rebukes you.

If we live according to the thoughts of God then we live in light. If we live according to our dirty thoughts we live in darkness. The blood of Jesus cannot cleanse our conscience in the darkness of our unclean thoughts.

"But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin." 1Jo.1:7

If you don't watch over your thoughts, you will fall into the power of darkness. Let the stream of your consciousness follow Jesus. If the Holy Spirit lives in you, you are able to watch yourself just by His influence. When you notice that a dark thought tries to come into your consciousness, immediately pray to Jesus to help you to reject it.

If you didn't watch, you fell into darkness and sinned. If the Holy Spirit lives in you, He will grieve in you and wait for you to come soon away from the darkness to the light of God so that He could give you forgiveness. However if you love to be in the darkness, you will finally claim that you have done nothing wrong. "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." 1Jo.1:8


Power of the blood of Jesus
God has created for us a conscience that demands punishment for evil deeds. Therefore the sacrifice of Jesus is needed so that we could be set free from our guilt. Either you yourself suffer or the Lamb of God suffers your punishment. The conscience of many people doesn't accept a vicarious sacrifice and therefore they don't believe in Bible's Jesus. This results from some religious ceremony that has given their conscience a false peace.

Those religious acts are dead works. You can be released from their hold only after you have experienced the power of the blood of Jesus. "How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God!" Heb.9:14

You cannot serve the living God, if your conscience has gained peace by trusting on any other thing than the sacrifice of Jesus and on the power of His blood.

How can the power of the blood of Jesus affect in your heart? Firstly you must be in the faith of Jesus. To be able to experience the power of the blood of Jesus He must live in your heart by faith. If He is outside He cannot wash from the inside.

Secondly you must confess your sin just as the truth is. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 1Jo.1:9

You must confess your sin to God with all your heart, in thoughts, in words and in deeds. Think about your deed deep in your heart, confessing your evilness that gave birth to your bad deed. Don't speak to God only about your bad deeds, but abhor your bad thoughts and attitudes that have caused your deeds. Repent your thoughts and accept your responsibility for your bad deeds. Prove by thinking and saying right that you want to change.

Many ask forgiveness for their bad deeds only because they are afraid of the punishment but they don't want to change their thoughts. God doesn't forgive you only because you asked. He forgives you because you repent your evilness and you confess your sins.

By confessing your sins you ask for forgiveness. By defending your sins you ask for judgment. What you confess in the light of God's words that is washed away by the blood of Jesus.

"Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus ... let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water." Heb.10:19-22

If the body of our thoughts has been cleansed by the water of God's word and our conscience has received the atonement with the blood of Jesus, we are able to enter the dazzling brightness of the face of God.

GRACE ABOUNDING!

"God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work."-- 2Co_9:8.
ABUNDANCE IS characteristic of God! Go forth on a spring morning, and look on the flowers with which He has carpeted the woodlands.
Daisies and buttercups, primroses and cowslips in myriads, bear witness to the prodigality of His thought and power--His thought to fashion, His power to produce. But this profuse carpeting of the earth's nakedness is equalled in the heavens! There, depth opens beyond depth, lighted and inlaid with constellations, and the wonders of the sky answer to those of the earth. How multitudinous is God's creation!
But what shall we say of His Grace? His Joy is unspeakable, His Peace passeth understanding, His Love is beyond knowledge! Get great thoughts of God, who holds the ocean depths as a drop in the hollow of his hand, and weighs the mountains as grains of dust in His scales. Lie upon that bank of flowers, and consider their multitude; sweep the skies with a telescope and see if you can tell the stars; number the sand-grains upon the shore, and count the shells strewn along the strand; and when you have considered the gifts of His hand, ascend to the wealth of His heart. Study the infinite map of God's nature; compare it with the need of your little life, and then remember that the Father loves you infinitely, so much so that for your salvation and mine He gave His Only-Begotten Son. He has set His love upon you, and will certainly deliver you! He will set you on high because you have known His Name. All the resources of eternity and infinity are at His disposal, and He can make all grace abound toward you, that always having all sufficiency in all things, you may abound to every good work.
This is a very wonderful text! Count the number of universals in it. All Grace Always! All Sufficiency! All things! God abounding to us that we may abound. The word translated abound might be rendered literally "to flow or pour over." "My cup runneth over." Our Lord said: "I am come that they might have life, and have it overflowingly"; "Where sin overflows, grace much more overflows" (Joh_10:10; Rom_5:20).
Let us remember that God does not pour in unless we pour out. If we are filled with the Presence and Grace of Christ in our hearts, we must give ourselves out to others.

PRAYER
Give me grace, O Lord, to see the beauty lying at my feet in the commonplaces of life; and to feel that Thou art as near, and that life is as wonderful today, as when men beheld Thee in the days of Thy flesh. AMEN.

The Riches of Grace

Ephesians 1:3-8

Scripture says that Jesus chose to become poor--leaving heaven and everything that belonged to Him as God's Son--so we might become rich (2 Cor. 8:9). Those riches of grace are described in Ephesians 1. We are . . .

• Chosen by God. Since we belong to the Lord, life has purpose, and we are eternally secure.

• Liberated. Every one of us was in slavery to sin and unable to free ourself. "The flesh" permeated our thinking, attitudes, and behavior. We know this to be true because we formerly kept doing the wrong we didn't want to do instead of the good we had intended. But Jesus broke the power of the old sinful nature so that we might be able to obey God.

Redeemed. Jesus' death satisfied divine justice because His perfect life met every biblical requirement (Deut. 17:1; Rom. 6:23). When we place our trust in the Savior, God considers our sin-debt "paid in full," and we are at peace with Him.

United with Him. At salvation, we enter into a personal relationship with God. He becomes our heavenly Father, and we are His adopted children.

Citizens of heaven. We have been given permanent citizenship in God's kingdom and an inheritance that won't perish (1 Peter 1:4).

Many of us don't realize that we are rich, because we think in earthly terms--bank accounts and material possessions--instead of spiritual ones. While these temporal items provide us with comfort and pleasure, they have no eternal value. Our real wealth is found in the spiritual blessings we've been given through Christ.

The Ministry of Silence

"Be still, and know that I am God." Psa_46:10
There are certain voices which we never hear except when everything is silent. They reach us as a revelation of the stillness. Sometimes on a summer afternoon one gets away from the city or the village and climbs up the grassy hillside till all the noise of human life is lost, and it is often then that there breaks upon the ear a certain indistinguishable murmur as of the moving of innumerable wings.
Travelers tell us that there are rivers flowing beneath the streets of the ancient city of Shechem. During the hours of the day you cannot hear them for the noise of the narrow streets and the bazaars. But when evening comes and the clamor dies away and the dew falls on the city, then quite audibly, in the hush of night, you may hear the music of the buried streams.
There are many voices like those hidden waters. You can only hear them when things are still. There are whisperings of conscience in the heart which take only a very little to drown. There are tidings from the eternal Spirit who is not far away from any one of us; tidings that will come and go unnoticed unless we have learned the grace of being still.
The Art of Being Still
And yet the very element of stillness is one which is conspicuously lacking now. We have been taught the art of exercise, and we have lost the art of being still. A recent writer, in a brilliant essay on the music of today, tells us that we are living nowadays under "the dominion of din." And whether or not that is true of music, of which I am not qualified to speak, it is certainly true of ordinary life. Our forefathers may have had very imperfect ideals of Christian service. They may have tolerated social abuses which we would never tolerate today. But they had one element in their Christian life in more abundant measure than we have it, and that was the blessed element of silence. What peace there was in the old-fashioned Sabbath—what a reverent stillness in the house of God—what a quiet and peaceful solemnity in worship at the family altar! And if today we cannot but be conscious that something of that old spirit has departed, we know that something precious has been lost. It is gain to be immersed in service. It is a high ambition to be energetic. "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might." And yet the Bible never says to us, "Be energetic, and know that I am God." It says, "Be still, and know that I am God."
Indeed, we are so in love with noise today that stillness is commonly looked upon as weakness. And it is well to remind ourselves occasionally that often the very opposite is true. When the rain beats against the window pane, we are awakened by its noise. But the snow falls so silently, that never an infant stirs within its cradle. And yet the snow may block up every road quite as effectually as a landslide and dislocate the traffic of a kingdom. Set a thousand digging shovels to work, and you produce a certain effect upon the soil. But when the frost comes with her silent fingers and lightly touches field and meadow with them, in a single night that silent frost will work more effectually than a thousand shovels.
God does not work in this strange world by hustling. God works in the world far more often by hush. In all the mightiest powers which surround us, there is a certain element of stillness. And if I did not find in Jesus Christ something of that divine inaudibility, I confess I should be tempted to despair. When Epictetus had had his arm broken by the savage cruelty of his master, he turned round without one trace of anger, and said to him quietly, "I told you so." And when a heathen satirist taunted the Christians, asking what nobler thing their Master did, one of them answered, "He kept silence." There is a silence that may speak of weakness. There is another silence that is full of power. It is the empty husk that rattles in the breeze. It is the brook and not the river that makes the noise. And it is good that we should remember that when we are tempted to associate quietness with weakness, as perhaps we are all tempted nowadays.
The Stillness of Absorption
There is, of course, a certain kind of silence which is only the outward sign of self-absorption. It does not indicate that a man is hearing anything; it just means that he is withdrawn into himself. I have heard runners say that in long races they have been oblivious of every sound. There may have been a thousand voices cheering them on, and yet they seemed to run in a great silence. Perhaps all of us have had hours such as that—hours of suffering or of intense activity—when we felt ourselves alone in a deep solitude. That is the stillness of absorption. It is not the stillness to which our text refers. It is of another quietness that it speaks; the quietness which is the basis of communion. For there are times when we never speak so eloquently, and times when we never hear so finely, as when the tongue is silent and the lips are closed and the spirit is the one interpreter. A love that has no silence has no depth. "Methinks the lady doth protest too much." There are people whose love we instinctively distrust because they are always telling us about it. And perhaps it is simply because God is love, in all the glorious fullness of that word, that we have to be still if we would know Him.
Indeed, there is often no surer sign than silence that the heart has been reached and the depths been broken up. In their greatest hours men are seldom noisy. I have watched sometimes an audience at a concert—for to me the audience is more interesting than the music—and 1 have watched the listless attention which they gave to music that reached no farther than the ear. And then perhaps there was some perfect melody, some chord which had the insistence of a message, and it was as if a voice had cried out loud, "Be still, and know that I am God."
Charles Reade, in one of the best of his novels, tells a story of some Australian miners. He tells how they traveled through a long summer Sunday to hear the singing of a captive thrush. And they were reckless men familiar with riot, but when they heard it, there fell a hush upon them, for it brought back memories of childhood again and of England where they had been boys. In a greater fashion that is true of God. We do not clamber to Him by the steps of logic; we reach Him by the feelings of the heart. And it is just because, when the heart is moved profoundly, there falls upon it a silence and a stillness, that we are bidden in our text to be still and know that He is God.
Probably that is the reason, too, why great silences have a divine suggestion. Great silent spaces speak to us of God. I remember a year or two ago visiting the cathedral at Cologne. I suppose it is the most magnificent example of Gothic architecture in the world. And I recall vividly, as though it had happened yesterday, how, passing in from the crowded city streets, the thought of the presence of God was overwhelming. I knew He was present in the teeming city. I knew He was present in the crowded street. I knew that where the stir and traffic were, the infinite Spirit was not far away. And yet it is one thing to know, and it is quite another thing to feel; and in the calm and solemn quiet of the cathedral I felt that God was there. That is what spiritual men have always felt under the silence of the starry sky. That is why they have always thought of God when they lifted up their eyes unto the hills.
Our noisy, talkative life is like the surge breaking on the edge of the shore, and away beyond it is the silent ocean carrying the message of infinity. We lose our sense of God in a big city far more readily than lonely dwellers do. And we lay the blame of that upon a score of things—on the strain of business, on our abundant pleasures. Perhaps there is a deeper reason than all these; it is the loss of the ministry of silence: of the field and the meadow and the hill; of the solitude's which are quivering with God. Spare your compassion for the Highland dweller. The man may be far richer than you think. It may be he has kept what we have lost in the keen and eager zest of city life. It may be he has kept, in all his poverty, those intimations of a present God which are given where a great silence is, as of the lonely field or meadow.
Why God Makes Silences
I close by suggesting that this is the reason why God makes silences in every life; the silence of sleep, the silences of sorrow, and then the last great silence at the end. One of the hardest things in the world, as you all know, is to get little children to keep still. They are in a state of perpetual activity, restless, eager, questioning, alert. And just as a mother says to her child, "Be still," and hushes it to sleep that it may rest, so God does sooner or later with us all. What a quiet, still place the sickroom is! What a silence there is over a house of mourning! How the voices are hushed, and every footstep soft, when someone is lying within the coffin. Had we the choosing of our own affairs we should never have chosen such an hour as that; and yet how often it is rich in blessing. All the activities of eager years may not have taught us quite so much as that. There are things which we never learn when we are active. There are things which we only learn when we are passive. And so God comes, in His resistless way, which never ceases to be a way of love, and says, "Be still, and know that I am God." If that is so with the passive hours of life, may it not be so with the passive hour of death? What is death but the Almighty Father saying to our talking lips, "Be still"? And I for one believe that in that stillness we shall awaken to know that He is God, in such a love and power as will be heaven.

renew and be sure of your faith

Being Sure of Your Faith

There is a story about a boy flying a kite. The kite was so high that it had disappeared into the clouds. A man came by and asked, "What are you doing, son, holding on to that string?" The boy answered, "I've got a kite up there." The man looked up and said, "I don't see it." The boy replied, "Well, I know it's there because I can feel the tug."

That's like the witness of the Holy Spirit within us. We may not always see the evidence, but we feel a tug in our hearts constantly, letting us know that we are in touch with God. That is the witness of the Holy Spirit.

John's first Epistle is an examination book written so that we might have assurance and not doubt. Besides the witness of the Holy Spirit, five other points are brought out in 1 John that must characterize us if we are to be sure that we belong to God.

First, we must believe in the Savior, Jesus Christ. Someone asked Sundar Singh, the great Indian Christian, why he was a Christian and what he found in Christianity that he couldn't find in the other religions of India. He answered with these two words: "Jesus Christ." There is no other One who died for the sins of the world. There is no other One who rose from the dead. There is no other One who gives the hope that He is going to return and set up His Kingdom.

The Scripture says, "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen," (Hebrews 11:1, NASB). Faith carries with it the idea of accompanying assurance. If we have faith, God gives us the assurance, the certainty, the knowledge, that we have passed from death unto life.

Believe
Do you believe? That word "believe" carries with it the idea of total surrender, putting total assurance in what Christ did for us on the cross-not trusting our good works, not trusting our money, not trusting anything, not even church membership, but trusting in the Person of Jesus Christ.

Second, we must have a changed attitude toward sin. What does that mean? Well, 1 John 5:18 says, "We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not," (KJV). "Oh, but," you say, "certainly Christians sin." Do you know what "sinneth not" means? It means "does not practice sin." We don't practice sin. Sin is no longer a habit in our lives.

Confess
But suppose we do sin. Suppose we slip and fall. Suppose we yield to temptation for a moment. What happens? We have to confess that sin. Name it to the Lord and say, "Lord, I have sinned." The Scripture says, "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin," (1 John 1:7, KJV) and "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins," (1 John 1:9, KJV).

Not only are we to confess, but we are to forsake. There's no use repenting of sin and saying, "I'm sorry, Lord, I've sinned," and then going back and repeating it. That's not repentance. Repentance carries with it the idea that we do not repeat it. In other words, sin is no longer a practice in our lives. We may slip and fall from time to time, but it's not a practice. We don't deliberately do it.
That's the reason the Bible teaches that the Christian life is a daily life. The Scripture says we are to "exhort one another daily," (Hebrews 3:13, KJV). We are to take up our cross daily. We search the Scriptures daily. And we must renew our fellowship daily. The Scripture says deny self daily. It's hard. We are living in an age when the pressures on us are greater, perhaps, than in any other generation in history.

Third, we must have a desire to obey God. "And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments," (1 John 2:3, KJV). That doesn't mean that we can keep them all the time, but we have a desire to keep them. We want to. We try to, with God's help. We do good, we feed the poor, we visit people in prison. "As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you," (John 10:21, KJV).

Jesus commanded, "Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel," (Mark 16:15, KJV). Our Team has been going to every continent, to the nations of the world, declaring that Christ is the Answer, that Christ died to save us, that Christ rose again, that He's coming back. And on every continent, in every culture with every ethnic background and every political ideology, we've seen people by the hundreds say "yes" to Christ.

Partake
Fourth, we must try to be separated from the world. First John 2:15 says, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world," (KJV). What does "the world" mean? That word in Greek is "cosmos," and it means the world system that is dominated by evil. "If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world," (1 John 2:15-16, KJV). That means the order, the behavior, the fashion, the entertainment, whatever is dominated by evil. Satan is called "the god of this world" and "the prince of this world." The Bible teaches we are to live in the world, but we are not to partake of the evils of the world.

We are to be separated from the world of evil. "Touch not the unclean thing," says the Lord (2 Corinthians 6:17, KJV). When I face something in the world, I ask, does it violate any principle of Scripture? Does it take the keen edge off my Christian life? Can I ask God's blessing on it? Will it be a stumbling block to others? Would I like to be there, or be reading that, or be watching that, if Christ should return at that time?

Worldliness does not fall like an avalanche upon a person and sweep him or her away. It is the steady drip, drip, drip of the water that wears away the stone. And the world is always exerting a steady pressure on us every day. Most of us would go down under it if it weren't for the Holy Spirit who lives inside us and holds us up and keeps us.

Fifth, we must be filled with the Spirit. The first fruit of the Spirit is love. "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death," (1 John 3:14, KJV). Do you love? Does love dominate your life?

Belong
I'm asking you to make a commitment and be sure that you belong to Christ. You see, Christ took your sins on the cross, those sins are behind God's back. He has forgotten them because of Christ. That is what happens when you come to Christ. He doesn't see your sins, He sees the blood of Christ.

God offers you the greatest and most expensive gift in the whole world, eternal life, but you must receive that gift. God gave His Son. His Son rose from the dead. You can be sure of it. If you truly receive Him, you will be sure.

How to Renew Your Faith

Many people slowly drift apart from their faith and religion. Soon they start to lose their personal contact with God. This is a good thing. God the Father, is the reason why we are all here, and even though some things are hard to believe, there is a way to slowly come back to your faith. Read on, and be nourished by the word of God.
Build Your Faith
"Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God"
You build your faith by reading and speaking God's word. The Bible tells you that as you renew your mind, you will be transformed.


You renew your mind with the word of God

If you're feeling defeated, it could be because you've been listening to the lies of the enemy.

"You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free"

Let God's word tell you who you are and what you have. Don't give any attention to anything that tells you differently. God's word is true.

Acknowledge, agree with, recognise, confess and speak, the word of God
Choose to see yourself as God sees you
Speak out these truths even when you don't yet see the reality

When God called Gideon a mighty warrior there was no evidence to suggest that it was true. God saw and spoke what Gideon would become.

Learn what God says about you and accept God's opinion of you. Believe what God says about who you are in Christ and you will become what you are in Him. By faith, believe the truth and act on what you believe.

You will build your faith as you constantly remind yourself of who you are in Christ.

Biblical Confessions To Build Your Faith
Apart from Jesus, I can do nothing; but in Jesus I can do all things. I choose to see myself as He sees me according to His living Word. My life is hid with Christ in God. I will say the same things that God says in His Word. How can two walk together if they don't agree?

I choose to trust God. His Word will be the final authority in my life. I base my entire life upon God and His living Word. Because I meditate upon His Word day and night and carefully do all that is written in it, I will prosper.

I'm not just an ordinary person; I'm a child of the living God. I'm not just a person; I'm an heir of God and a joint-heir with Jesus Christ. I'm not just a sinner; I'm a new creation in Jesus. I'm part of a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. I'm one of God's chosen people.

Jesus has declared me not guilty. I refuse to be discouraged. God is the God of all encouragement. There is no condemnation for me because I'm in Christ Jesus.

Satan is the father of lies. I won't listen to his accusations. I am cleansed by Jesus' blood. No weapon formed against me will succeed. I will disprove every tongue that rises against me in judgment.

My mind is being renewed by the word of God. I will pull down strongholds and cast down imaginations. I will bring every thought captive to the will of Christ.

I am accepted by God. If God is for me, who can be against me? Greater is He that is within me than he that is in the world. Nothing can separate me from the love of Christ. As the Father loves Jesus, so Jesus loves me. I have the righteousness of God through Christ. I am not a slave of sin, I'm a slave of God and a slave of righteousness.

I will continue in God's word. I know the truth and the truth has set me free. I am free indeed because Jesus has set me free. I have been delivered out of the kingdom of darkness. I'm now part of the kingdom of God.

I will submit to God. When I resist the devil, he has to flee. No temptation will overcome me which is not common to man. God is faithful. He will not let me be tempted beyond my strength. With any temptation He will also provide me with a way of escape, so that I can endure.

Jesus always causes me to triumph. I'll reign as a king in life through Christ Jesus. The Word of God lives in me. I am more than a conqueror through Christ who loves me. I am an overcomer. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. God gives me the victory through Jesus Christ my Lord.

I am a success to the glory of God. All His blessings will come upon me and overtake me because I obey the voice of the Lord, my God. I am confident that those who seek the Lord will lack no good thing.

I will not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Speak God's word daily. Believe it. Allow the living and active Word of God to build your faith, renew your mind and transform your life.

Be Prepared

But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. . . .
For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air,
and thus we shall always be with the Lord.
Therefore comfort one another with these words.

1 Thessalonians 4.13-18

In our study one of the things we learned is that often times Jesus uses analogies and metaphors in his stories that may or may not be real clear to us, because we aren't living at the time Jesus told these stories and aren't real familiar with the context of the times.

Today's parable is one that can be somewhat confusing unless we understand the meaning of the analogy Jesus is using, which is how the kingdom of heaven is like a wedding, at least like the kind of wedding that took place about 2000 years ago.

The parable of the Ten Bridesmaids is about a wedding, a special wedding. In the time of Jesus the wedding day was a big deal, much like today. On the wedding day the bridegroom went to the bride's house for the ceremony; then the bride and groom, along with a great procession, returned to the groom's house where a feast took place, often lasting a full week.

At the particular wedding Jesus is talking about, ten virgins, which is more accurately translated from the original Greek as bridesmaids, were waiting to join in the procession, and they hoped to take part in the wedding banquet.

But when the groom didn't come at the expected time, five of them ran out of lamp oil. And by the time they had purchased extra oil, it was too late to join in the feast.

Now let's look at the parable with an understanding of the characters involved. The bridegroom is Jesus. The bridesmaids represent the church, which is all of us. The lamp is our Christian witness. The lamp oil represents our spiritual preparedness.

So let me re-read the parable with our understanding of the characters involved and let's see if we better understand the point Jesus is making.

"Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. The church folks thought they were ready to meet Jesus. 2 Half of them were foolish, and half were wise. 3 When the foolish shared their Christian witness, it was clear they were not fully prepared for Jesus return; 4 but the wise were prepared. 5 As Jesus was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. 6 But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Look! Here is Jesus! Come out to meet him.' 7 Then the folks of the church got up and waited to share their witness.

8 The foolish said to the wise, ‘Help us prepare, because our Christian witness is not strong.' 9 But the wise replied, ‘No! We can't prepare you; you had better go some place else to get ready.' 10 And while they were preparing, Jesus came, and those who were ready went with him into the heavenly kingdom; and the door was shut. 11 Later on, the other half of the church came, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open the door to us.' 12 But the Lord replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.' 13 Keep awake and be prepared, for you know neither the day nor the hour I will return." Jesus told this parable about the ten bridesmaids to clarify what it means to be ready for his return. When Jesus returns will we be spiritually ready, will we be prepared?

This parable teaches that everyone is responsible for his or her own spiritual condition and Christian witness. This means that no matter how much we may want to, we cannot project our faith or give our faith to another person.

However, what we can do is share our testimony, live as an example, and share the Gospel with passion; hoping people will claim Jesus Christ.

Nor can we take someone else's faith and claim it as our own. At the end of the day each person needs to make his or her own decision about Jesus. Each person has to accept or reject grace for themselves.

Preparation, we spend many hours of our lives preparing for things: Begin a new day For work To get the kids off to school Marching band competition last night A meal A date Conversation or perhaps a meeting Coming to church Retirement

There is no doubt we spend a great deal of time preparing for things, all of which is important. But in the midst of all this preparation do we take the necessary amount of time to prepare for the return of Jesus?

Right at the beginning of the parable Jesus says there are ten bridesmaids, five of them are foolish and five were wise. He tells us this because on the surface they all looked the same. All have come to the wedding; all ten have their lamps aglow with expectation; all ten presumably have on their bridesmaids gowns, there wearing color coordinated shoes, and carrying the same style lamp. We would never guess from their appearance, five were foolish and five were wise. Now it's not how the bridesmaids looked, the lamps, or the long dresses that sets the wise apart from the foolish – it's their readiness. Five of the bridesmaids are ready for the bridegroom to be delayed, but the other five are not.

The wise have enough oil for the feast to start whenever the bridegroom arrives; the foolish have only enough oil for their own time table. Five are prepared and ready, even for a delay; five are not.

Readiness means living the life of the kingdom, living the quality of life described in the scriptures, living a life of faithful Christian witness. Now many folks can do this for a short while; but it's when the kingdom is delayed, problems arise.

Being a peacemaker for a day or two isn't as demanding as being a peacemaker year after year, when hostility continues to break out time and time again, when Jesus is delayed.

Being understanding and merciful for an evening can be alright; however, being understanding and merciful for a lifetime, when the bridegroom is delayed, requires preparedness.

Feeding the hungry and providing a shelter for those with no housing might be ok over a couple of months; however providing for others for a lifetime, when Jesus is delayed, requires perseverance.

Being prepared for the return of Jesus is hard work, it requires patience, perseverance, persistence, and a daily choice to live as Christ prescribed, by loving God, loving others, and serving in the name of Jesus.

At the beginning of a life of faith, we can't really tell the followers of Jesus apart. We all look the same. We're all excited and eager to be good disciples. We read our Bibles, attend worship, and are excited about helping others in the name of Christ. Using the words of the parable we all have lamps; we're all excited about the coming wedding; we all know how to sing praises to our Lord. But as time goes by we soon spot some persons, or perhaps we see ourselves, attempting in vain to fan a dying flame back to life, our lamps begin to go dim, our passion wasn't what it once was, our Christian witness fades behind a veil of cultural influences. And as we observe others or look hard at ourselves we begin to distinguish wisdom from foolishness.

So the question we are challenged with today, is are we like the wise bridesmaids or are we like the foolish. Are we peacemakers, or problem makers? Are we understanding and merciful, or do we just not give a hoot? Are we focused on the kingdom of God, or are we focused on ourselves?

Are we prepared to meet Jesus when he comes, and are we prepared for his delay, meaning are we willing to be faithful over the long haul until he does come, or are we happy being nominal Christians, what John Wesley calls "almost Christians?"

Are we prepared to keep the faith through good times and bad, the up times and down times, through the desert times and mountain top times? We have a choice and it's not too late to make the choice to accept God's grace, to accept Jesus, to begin a new life, and to begin preparing for the coming of Christ.

The years we lived without Christ are gone, the years we lived as nominal Christians are gone, they can't be recaptured, we can't have a mulligan or a redo. We can't rewind our life and try again. The past is the past, and what's done is done.

But this doesn't mean it's too late. We can still get prepared and be ready for the coming wedding feast. What matters most is what we do from this moment forward. Do we take the time to prepare, or do we wing it hoping we can fool God?

So how do we get prepared? Do we have to do some ritualistic thing; do we have to say some special words?

No, what we need to do is accept the saving grace of Jesus, recognize that he is the Son of God, and follow his teachings. We need to live the Gospel in a wise and persuasive way, not foolishly or hypocritically.

We need to take the time every day to take that next step on our faith journey, to grow in our understanding of God and his call on our lives. We need to read scripture every day even if it's just a verse or two and pray to God to help us apply it to our lives. We need to seek to understand better our faith and what it means to be a follower of Jesus, and we need to serve others with our whole heart.

This is what it means to prepare and if we're to busy to prepare, then we're just too busy, and something needs to change with how we prioritize the things we do in our lives. Preparing for the coming of Christ is eternally wise; blowing Jesus off is eternally foolish!

So be prepared, stay faithful to your Christian witness, keep the lamp of hope burning, and be ready, because when Christ comes, he comes for the wise not the foolish. Amen!