10 Questions I would ask Jesus if he gave me a hearing

1. How does salvation work? How does sin work after salvation? 

2. Why do most people end up going to hell, and why is hell so bad? What's wrong with people that they don't want salvation?

3. What happened exactly in heaven when Lucifer's rebellion began? How did it play out? 

4. What will the millennial reign of Christ be like on Earth after the tribulation? 

5. What is heaven like? What's are the adventures that occur there?

6. Why exactly did Adam and Eve turn against God, since they were innocent when it happened?

7. Why did you want to make humans in Your image? 

8. What is the destiny of humanity, what's our purpose beyond death?

9. What does a mature Christian look like practically?

10. Who are you really? What are you, exactly? You aren't human obviously, so what kind of being are you? Infinite in nature, and beyond us, yes, but help me understand more, though I know I can't ever fully understand.

Three Ways to Heal from Traumatic Stress

Today we’ll address the topic of healing. In the fallen world in which we live there are many times when we experience things that harm us. We have to go through hard times. Each of I’m sure could list off traumatic experiences that we’ve been through. Whether we’re soldiers in combat, or children who went through abuse, or those who struggle with addictions, or those afflicted with the blackest depression, we all have scars along the journey of life.

I’ve been through a lot in my life. And I’d like to share a bit more of my story, as I have in the past, and then transition into 3 ways of healing.

From birth on, it's been a struggle. Just after I was born, I would experience terrible stomach pains. When I began to learn to talk I developed a stutter, and had to work through that. In school I got bullied a great deal and spent a lot of time as an outcast. When I was 16 I saw my parents go through an ugly, protracted divorce. When I was 17 I was expelled from my high school and shunned by my former friends. When I was 18 I experienced being locked in a mental hospital. When I was 20 I became a serious drug addict. That same year I experienced serving jail time for the first time, for marijuana charges. I struggled with alcoholism and addiction for years after. I fought severe depression and anxiety on a daily basis. When I was 21 I became addicted to cigarettes. When I was 23 I was sexually assaulted by a close friend. For years I was estranged from my family. I’ve had serious health problems. When I was 25 I was hospitalized in intensive care for a drug overdose. I almost died in ICU that night. At age 26 I experienced rock bottom, the blackest dark depression. On and on the list goes.

But, this is key: I’m not a victim. I’m not a victim. I’m an overcomer. I’m a redeemed, born again, son of the most high God. Because Jesus came to save sinners, I need never be a victim, and the moment I let myself believe that I’m a victim, I’m no longer able to heal. Life is messy. And sometimes terrible things happen. But I have to keep fighting. We all do.

During those years of my struggles, I had dreams. I would dream of walking along a beautiful green path in the forest, along a trail. I would walk through these gorgeous green forests. Sometimes it would be at night. Sometimes I would be afraid, other times I would be filled with wonder and joy. I dreamt very often of the road. It was a respite for me, in my dreams. I didn't know it then, but that trail was the road that would eventually lead me to encounter the living Jesus Christ.

I dreamt many times of walking along this path, in search of the truth. I dreamt one night of ascending this beautiful autumn path, light cutting through the trees, leaves falling, silver birch trees along the road that drifted left and right criss-crossing up a hill. In another dream I saw a beautiful golden meadow, in which I sat down, finally discovering peace.

Yet in the real world my life had become a fading darkness. But reflected in my dreams was a future brighter than I could imagine. In the shuttering cold winds of that dark life, under uncertain skies, in the valley of cold winters, searching for something greater, dying in addiction, in sorrow, finally the twilight broke, the clouds parted, and the light of Christ shined down upon me.

Jesus changes everything. The ultimate source of healing is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the doorway, God the Father is the architect & guide of the plan, and the Spirit is the indwelling healing presence.

Jesus Christ does the mighty work within us. But it isn’t finished there. We still need to heal and grow. There is work to be done.

So let’s look at three ways to gain healing from past struggles and traumas in our lives.

The foundation of these three approaches must be laid in prayer, and Bible study. We should be praying at least twice a day, once in the morning and once at night. Preferably 3 times a day, like Daniel did. We should also be attending a regular Bible study, and be regularly studying the scriptures in our personal time as well. Those two practices are the foundation, but sometimes we must go deeper.

1. Deal with the Trauma

One of the best ways to experience healing is through study and writing things down. God has given us wisdom through His word and through the natural world, yet we may also find wisdom in areas like science, psychology, and philosophy. (Note: We can also be deceived by false ideology in many areas, so we must always be aware of the presuppositions of the fields we study.)

When we go through hard times sometimes we don’t really heal afterward and things build up within as anxiety or depression. When we write things down and learn about the inner workings of our mind, those traumas get cleared out, making way for the light of God’s presence.

I’m convinced many of us don’t experience the fullness of God’s presence because we have too much wreckage from our pasts built up within. But when we clear out those past struggles, we make room for the Spirit of God to fully consume us.

Or as it says in James 5:16 “confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.”

Pray about it, maybe God is leading you to write out some of your past traumas to gain healing. If you'd like a more detailed inventory guide Google search "fourth step inventory guide." You'll find quite a few documents that you can print out to guide your inventory process.

2. Adjusting our attitude

Philippians 4:4-8 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

Our attitude is often default negative. We have to let God adjust that in us. Begin to practice the opposite. Practice positivity. Think about good things. Think about purity. Think about beauty.

Speak those things outloud: Wow, what a beautiful day. That’s really awesome that they did that. Let’s pray for them. God will help them through this. Speak positivity. Speak life. Speak what is good. And soon your whole attitude will change because what is coming out of your mouth is changing.

The tongue can turn the entire ship in a new direction, like the rudder of a giant ship. Says so in book of James.

This one is difficult, I know, I’m prone to reflect on negativity. I’m prone to be cynical and doubtful and pessimistic. But time and again God proves me wrong. See a future where God is there, and you’ll see a bright future, which is true.

Let’s be real, life is hard, and it’s tragic at times, but it’s also very good and full of life. We can be realists, and see the good side and focus on the good. And as we focus on the good, we build toward the good. And it rubs off on others. Project goodness in Christ.

3. Victorious approach to Life

Living a victorious life really does tie into our first point of adjusting our attitude. This is an attitude issue yes, but it’s also a mindset of victory. We have the hope of eternal life because of the victory of Jesus Christ. So because God is now with us, and we are with God, we can expect to live a victorious life. A few scriptures point to this reality:

Deuteronomy 20:4 For the Lord your God is he who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory.’

Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

1 Corinthians 15:57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Psalm 108:13 With God we shall do valiantly; it is he who will tread down our foes.

There is this holy boldness, where we know Daddy God is with us, and therefore we can do anything. We’re safe in Christ. And so we can strike out from a position of strength. We know Jesus has deleted our sins by paying the price for them, so we know that with God anything is possible.

We’re working from a victorious point of view. We’re people of victory. We’ve found the answer in Jesus Christ. This is cause for celebration and amazement, all day everyday, like the word says, Rejoice at all times, and I say again, rejoice!

In closing, there is something very important to remember about healing. I learned it in the past when I worked at a homeless shelter in Wausau. I remember one night I went to sleep, upset, because I couldn’t seem to reach those I felt needed my help. I fell asleep and dreamt that I was chasing this boy. I was trying to stop him, to help him. And every time I would run fast enough to reach this boy, he would jump through a portal, a wormhole into a different dimension. So I’d jump through the wormhole, and follow him, then when I was just about to reach him again, he’d jump through another wormhole and escape.

When I woke up that next day and shared my dream with a coworker it helped me realize something: A person caught up in the sorrow of trauma, addiction, and depression can’t be helped unless they want to be helped. The human mind has nearly an infinite capacity for self deception. See, every time I tried to explain to an alcoholic about what the issue was and how to deal with it, he would flee my reasoning, he would escape from my facts, into a new thought that protected him from the truth. I saw this again and again. I couldn't corner them with the truth, they'd always sneak out a back door.

The point is this: We aren’t going to really heal unless we get totally honest with ourselves. We have to share what is really going on. We have to stop lying to ourselves, and tell the truth. The truth will set us free. If we let it.

"Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 3 Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. 5 One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”
7 “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”
8 Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked."
-John 5:1-9 NIV

What was the first thing Jesus asked the crippled man? The first question Jesus asked him was: “Do you want to get to well?” And that is the first question Jesus asked me when I cried out to him, and he became my savior. "Do you want to be free from drugs and alcohol?" And I said yes, I’m willing to finally get real about this problem.

I need that today too. With every issue and sin that crops up in my life. Because there are always more things to work on. So I have to say to Jesus time and again, yes Lord, now I’m ready and willing that you should have all of me. I want to get well.

The cool thing about our savior Jesus Christ is that he takes people like you and me, and heals us over time, and then compels us to go out and help those with the struggles we have gone through. As someone who has recovered from addiction issues, I can relate to and reach those with the same problems in a way others simply can not. So let me challenge you, if you’d been through some stuff, think about how God can use that to bless others who are hurting.

The Pharisee & the Woman weeping at Jesus' Feet: The Two Debtors

What does it really mean to say our sins are truly forgiven? In our Christian faith we call that justification. A word rooted in the word justice. Which is what my name comes from, justin, means justice or to be justified.

“What is justification? It is the declared purpose of God to regard and treat those sinners who believe in Jesus Christ as if they had not sinned, on the ground of the merits of the Savior. It is not mere pardon. Pardon is a free forgiveness of past offenses. It has reference to those sins as forgiven and blotted out. Justification has respect to the law, and to God's future dealings with the sinner. It is an act by which God determines to treat him hereafter as righteous--as if he had not sinned. The basis for this is the merit of the Lord Jesus Christ, merit that we can plead as if it were our own. He has taken our place and died in our stead; He has met the descending stroke of justice, which would have fallen on our own heads if He had not interposed.” -Albert Barnes

That is the meaning of the forgiveness we’ve received in Jesus Christ. Our sins those terrible things we did, little, small, big, giant, all forgiven by Jesus. Paid in full by Him. And today we’re going to look at what it means to be so amazed by that blanket forgiveness that it draws great love out of us.

Today we find ourselves addressing the last of the parables, which we find in Luke chapter 7. Jesus was ministering in various ways to those in need of healing and even healed the child of a roman soldier, after he sent a response to a request made by John the Baptist who was in prison at this point. It’s an excellent chapter, your homework today is to go home and read Luke chapter 7 and see all that Jesus did, it's a good round picture of who Jesus was in his public ministry.

But here we find Jesus meeting in the home of a Pharisee. Let’s just dive right in, from Luke 7:36-50

36 When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. 37 A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. 38 As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.

39 When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”

So in these first few verses we see the context for our parable today. Jesus is ministering to a pharisee, but a woman who was a known sinner came and wept at Jesus’ feet. The Pharisees response is telling. He is offended at the woman who is there.

Sometimes we can find ourselves offended as well, at those around us who have not received Christ. Or even those who have! Let’s see how Jesus responds.

40 Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”

“Tell me, teacher,” he said.

41 “Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”

43 Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.”

“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.

Jesus is explaining the paradoxical nature of how salvation in Christ works. We would assume that someone who is in the depths of sin is not worthy of Christ. We’d be mistaken. Paradoxically that is one who will be even more deeply in love with Christ, because they’ve been forgiven such a lengthy list of sins.

Jesus often drew this comparison between the pharisees, the religious leaders of the day, and the common sinners who would often come to Jesus for mercy and forgiveness and to listen to him teach.

Interestingly enough, though Pharisees could just as well follow Jesus and obey Him and find eternal life, often the sinners who came to Christ would find a much deeper love and commitment to Christ, because of the intensity of the amazing grace poured out to them.

It continues, 44 Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. 46 You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. 47 Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”

Jesus is drawing a comparison between the woman and the pharisee. The pharisee is apparently a follower of Jesus, but he wasn’t particularly welcoming to Jesus, he didn’t provide the various courtesies, done upon entry, but the woman treated Jesus with great respect and adoration.

And a result this love she showed for Jesus was evidence that her sins were forgiven. They were forgiven by Jesus.

Then in verses 48-50 it concludes like this:

48 Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

49 The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”

50 Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

So in our parable today we find a fairly basic principle, but I think we’re seeing that it’s not really as basic as we might think, it’s; the concept of the weight of one’s love linked to the amount that one has received forgiveness.

This parable is linking love with forgiveness, if I’ve been forgiven a small amount of debt by someone, my love and appreciation for them will exist, but it will be small. I owe someone $50 they forgive the debt, don’t worry about it man, that’s great, I’m free of that debt. But it’s not the biggest deal.

Now say I owe someone $50,000. And they come along, or a get a letter in the mail, and they forgive the debt, my appreciation and amazement is going to be much higher isn’t it?

How many sins have you committed in your life up to this point? Every lie. Every manipulation. Every ill-spoken word. Every drunken spree. Every theft. Every time you hated someone in your heart. Every woman, or man you used or misused. For some of us it’s a very long list. For some it’s not as long. But we were all in that pit of mud, all had sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

That’s why we needed a savior to come, Jesus Christ, to forgive us.

I want to talk about three seats in this parable. Three seats, and which we want to be in.

In this parable, we sometimes find ourselves in the seat of the pharisee, judging someone else who sins differently than us, or more than us, and we scoff at the possibility of them coming to Christ.

There are people who come to the corps, or who I see around town, that I’ve seen and known for years, and I sometimes can end up with an attitude of the pharisee thinking they could never come to repentance. But only God knows. That assumption may be accurate that they have refused Christ, most do, from what I can tell, most people refuse Christ. So it may not be an inaccurate assumption, but that isn’t my position to sit in and make that judgment. I have to regard them in my heart as an opportunity to share the love of Jesus. That isn’t always easy.

Be careful of ending up in the seat of the pharisee. Because our ire for the person Jesus may just regard as ire for him. The pharisee thought poorly of the woman who was a known sinner. This was an attitude predating the incident because we know he did not treat Jesus with the appropriate level of respect, you have God in human form in your home but you don’t anoint his head with oil, or offer him water to wash his feet or even give him a ceremonial kiss. His proud attitude caused him to disregard the savior, or at least not treat him with great respect.

Maybe that’s true for some of us who have bene forgiven a shorter list of sins. We don’t love Jesus very deeply. And hopefully by humbling ourselves, we can learn to love him more and more deeply. Though I don’t know if that’s actually implied in the parable. That may be true though.

Second, some of you may end up in the seat of Jesus at the table. You don’t want to end up this seat either. You don’t want to be in the seat of the pharisee or the seat of Jesus. Some of you may have a savior complex, they call this in psychology the martyr complex, where you’re constantly dying for others, which dying to self and helping others and being poured out for others is vital, but, sometimes we end up rushing toward people who don’t really want to change, and we get the martyr complex, do everything for them, almost dragging them behind us, to try to force them to change, and inevitably, they slide back into the mud and mire, because they were never really ready or even interested, not fully, in salvation or growth or a new life. Many, most are just not there yet, unfortunately.

And we don’t do them any favors by trying to drag them into the kingdom of God kicking and screaming, that’s not our job, let God do that, and sometimes he does. But only Jesus can make people ready to receive salvation.

The parent who constantly rescues her son or daughter from court dates, or jail or homelessness or bills is probably in most circumstances simply enabling their disfunction. Sometimes we have to let people chase the wind, so they can realize just how vacuous and empty it is to chase nothingness.

Thirdly, we want to find ourselves in the chair of the woman. The woman with the alabaster ointment. She is so amazed by what Jesus has done for her, she weeps at his feet, and she anoints his feet with oil, she kisses his feet, she is in total submission to God. She is internally bursting with the life of God, with love itself, bubbling up out of her, like a river, pouring itself out onto the feet of Jesus. Total humility, at the feet of the savior.

And that has been our purpose during this entire sermon series. Parables of Jesus, sitting at the feet of the master. We ought to always find ourselves kneeling at the feet of Jesus.

In tears, amazement, amazing grace attitude at what hes’ done to justify us in His sight. To wash away all our sins.

Listening to him teach, listening and learning from Him.

Kissing his feet, offering up our prayers as a fragrent aroma to God.

Humbly knelt down at his feet, submitted to God, in total subjection to His will and plan for our lives.

In such deep love with Jesus, Jesus says to us again and again in life, Your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.

The Case for Daily Repentance: Examining yourself Daily in your walk with Christ

Today I’d like to make the case to you for the concept of daily repentance. As Christians we know we must be born again of the Spirit to share in the inheritance of Christ.

We must be truly born again. We must be a new person. And as a new person in Jesus Christ we have the holy spirit within us. The Holy Spirit within us guides us into all purity and holiness.

But we live in a sinful world, where it’s common that we dirty our robes by stumbling into sin.

So the goal for the believer in Jesus is to repent quickly whenever we stumble into sin.

Jesus was always very firm on the concept of repentance. It says in Matthew 4:17 "From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

And the Apostle Paul echoed that concept when he said on mars hill, “In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.” -Acts 17:30

The goal then is when we become a follower of Jesus Christ, that we repent, we turn away from sins in our lives. We confess them to God, turn our back on them, and we stop sinning.

Just like Jesus said to the man he healed, in John 4:15, “Now you are well; so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you.”

We stop sinning. But for many believers we have certain sins that we need to repent of, but maybe we haven’t done that yet. And yes, it’s a process. God doesn’t remove everything all at once. But when the Holy Spirit is convicting us, we must repent.

How do you go about repenting exactly? Maybe you have a problem with stealing. You quietly steal here and there. Most people don’t know about it. But you do. Maybe you smoke cigarettes. You keep it quiet but here and there you smoke. Maybe you gossip. You gossip about people, here and there, most people don’t know about it. That’s how sin is. We keep it secret.

One of the best things you can do is sit down with another Christian or your pastor and confess the sin. It loses a lot of power when you share it with someone else.

Get some counsel on how to get free from that sin.

But you go to God in prayer and you say Lord, I confess my sin. I sinned recently Lord by masturbating, or by stealing, Lord convict me of my sin. We ask for conviction from the Holy Spirit. Then we say Lord, we repent, we turn away from that sin. We turn our back on that sin. We renounce that sin. We cast that sin off. We repent away from that sin, and toward you God. Please cleanse us from that sin with the precious blood of Jesus, in Jesus name, amen.

We receive his grace, his forgiveness, then we get to work, making sure we don’t commit that sin again. Whatever it takes.

If there is a secret sin in your life right now you should be very concerned.

Let’s consider a scenario, say I’m a Christian believer who is living in secret sin of slander. I’m quietly slandering others that I don’t like. I’m not repenting of it. The Holy Spirit is insisting that I do, but I’m refusing, and hardening my heart. Then I’m killed in a car accident. I’m telling you the truth, that person is going to hell, they died in unrepentant sin. They are going to the lake of fire to endure permenant torment in fire and sorrow.

If you are living in secret sin, smoking, drunkenness, fornication, pornography, you are in danger right now. You need to repent right now. Today. Seek the Lord, to be forgiven anew, and repent of that sin today. Or you will go to hell. Plain and simple.

God has truly transformed us into new people. But the crazy thing is it happens over and over again. I get to watch as God reshapes me over and over again. He continues to mold us and shape us into his kingdom soldiers.

We need repentance. True repentance, deep repentance. We needs tears before the throne of God. I lament for my the state of my soul. I lament for how easily I do stupid things that God calls sin. I lament for any bit of sin in me. I want holiness. Make me holy Lord! Make us holy as you are holy!

We need a time of fasting, prayer, and confession of our sin. We need extended times of openly forgiving those who have hurt us. We need a time of repentance, to confess that we've set God off to the side of our lives, when He should be the center.

It's not to make us feel bad. It's not to hurt our feelings. No. This is about being transformed by God. This is about God clearing away things in us that need to go, so that we can grow in his grace and become all that He has called us to become.

What we have failed to realize in our lost generation of passivity, luke-warmness, and tolerance of sin is that the sins we don't repent of are deadly, and they will take us away to hell. We have a very cavalier attitude toward sin in our modern time. We just promote 'grace, grace, grace' and we don't even teach our people about heaven and hell and the reality of the coming judgment.

If we have sins in our lives that we haven't repented of, do you think God will hold us guiltless? No, he will not. God loves us incredibly, so very deeply, but God cannot allow sin into heaven. Sin is what pollutes the Earth. He has died for us to cleanse us of sin, so we may live in holiness.

Ephesians 5:6-8 "Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not become partners with them; for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord."

We have a lot of preachers today who don't talk about sin and accountability. It's just grace through faith, that's all, and it's true we receive salvation by grace through faith. But they leave out the repentance. We have to repent, which means to turn away from sin, and live pure lives. Don't let anyone deceive you with hollow words.

Galatians 6:7 "Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap."

But if we persist in unrighteousness, if we continue to gossip, if we continue to commit sexual immorality, if we continue to slander others behind their backs, and curse, and mock, and get drunk, and indulge in lustful thoughts, we will not be entering the kingdom of God. We will go before God and he will say, "I never knew you, you worker of lawlessness. Depart from me." Now that would be a very, very, very bad day.

Matthew 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’"

I don't share this to scare anyone, or to hurt anyone, or to be mean or judgmental. But I have to share the truth. We take sin too lightly! And we are in need of a great cleansing in the church. Please take some time to repent of sin. Live in holiness. Reject the enemy and the ways of the world. Embrace Christ, all of Christ. That is the way of love! We must unhook the plugs of this world that pour sin into our souls, and plug into the Holy Spirit, so that we may walk in purity, as Christ walked.

This should be our daily practice. At the end of each day, get down on your knees before God, and ask Him to search you, and put all your ways before Him. God will walk you through the past day. Take an inventory, and repent of any sins you committed that God shows you. Be zealous, be quick, and turn away from sin.

Fight against it tooth and nail. Fight until you're exhausted. Fight until the flesh cries out for satisfaction, and refuse to give in! Fight for your soul, fight for your life, fight for eternal life! We must be Holy as God is Holy! That is our calling. That is our life. And God will help us. Jesus loves us so much. He will be here everyday to help us live holy, though the enemy attacks, and the flesh is weak in temptation, the Spirit is strong in us to resist. Stand firm in the faith. Put on the armor of God each day in the morning. God will help us. Let us live a lifestyle of repentance. Let us unplug from the world, and plug into the kingdom of God! God be praised for the victory. Amen.

1st Peter 1:13-23 "Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. 14 As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. 15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16 for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”

17 Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially,live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. 18 For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. 20 He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. 21 Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.
22 Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. 23 For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God."