God hates legalism and when we act in super religious pious plastic ways. We create our own set of laws on how people should dress, how they should talk, what music they should listen to, and what foods they are allowed to eat and what foods they are not allowed to eat. We even go as far as saying this is the true day that God must be worshiped. The sad part is we can’t even keep our own man-made laws, let alone the laws of God has put forth before us.  Seems like we play the hypocrite quite often. We are more offended by the foods our brothers and sisters eat, the clothes they wear or how they style their hair while the world is killing one another, advocating the mass genocide of babies, and performing lewd adulterous acts. We just sit in judgment of those Christ has invited to eat at His feast. Do we see how easily we put ourselves in the position of God? When we impose our own worthless laws upon our brothers and sisters in Christ, we stand in judgment over them when they do not live up to our standards, standards we can’t live up to ourselves. It is time to put our self-righteousness behind us, which God sees as filthy rags anyways, and follow after Jesus Christ, our Lord, the one who has delivered us from a life we couldn’t live on our own. Then, and only then, can we start living and loving one another as we are commanded to do so by God.

Pride, selfishness, conceitedness, and self-glorification feed the flesh. The flesh grows stronger and stronger in its attempt to put out the flame of the spirit. In turn, leaders and false prophets arise preaching to people a sweet flesh flattering and fattening message. When the true word of God comes to the people, they anger. The flesh hates God and has no reverence for Him. The flesh (and all those who are slaves to the flesh) wants to kill God and execute all those who follow Jesus. What are we to do? Do we keep quiet and continue to let the blind lead the blind? Of course not! We are to continue in prayer and teach the truth of God through the love of Jesus Christ. Our hope is their flesh may weaken for even a split second and their eyes can be opened, their ears can hear and their hearts willing to accept Jesus into their lives. Let’s not argue or debate with the world, but pray for them constantly. The deeper they dig their self-glorified grave, the harder we must pray for them. There is an interesting saying that was popular recently which said “Yes we can!” That seems to be the most untrue statement I’ve ever heard unless you you add the word fail to the end. Yes, we can fail. Other than that “No, we can’t.” We are so pitiful that we can’t even breath on our own strength without God giving us the power and will to breath. Since the beginning of time we tried and we couldn’t. Why is now so different? If we “can,” then why haven’t we? Let’s be realistic. No, we can’t; Yes, God can and He ALWAYS does!

Thank God he has power over everything. He is the LORD of Hosts! Many times we see things and we have no idea what is going on. We just cry out to God and ask why? We don’t understand the things that are happening in our homes, neighborhoods, cities, countries, states, country, and around the world. We see earthquakes that kill thousands upon thousands to people murdering each other to planes flying into tall buildings, to economical collapse, yet we have no understanding or explanation for these events. We try to rationalize it, but we can’t. We continue to pray but it seems as God doesn’t hear us sometimes. O my beloved, God hears every single prayer of the righteous and humble in heart. He will never forsake those who are His in Christ Jesus. We sometimes think God doesn’t care because He has not rescued us from our current situation. He cares more than we can ever know. He knows the exact number of hair strands on our heads. We have to wait upon the Lord. He is continuously refining us through the flames of His love, mercy, compassion, righteousness, and grace. We can’t forget He is the Lord of Hosts. He determines who wins wars, who is plagued with sickness and diseases, the actions of nature. Our God is in control of it all. God did, God does and God will continue to do. As busy and hard at work God always is, He is still able to dedicate His full attention to listen to our prayers, His children to cry out to Him. We sure do serve a loving and faithful Father.

There is such a tough spiritual battle within us. We do not want to offend anyone but we know we must share God’s truth. There is a natural burning in our hearts when we see people going the wrong direction. We often try to kindle that burning in fear of being offensive. When we see a car driving the wrong way on a one way street, don’t we honk our car horns, flash our lights, jump up and down trying to get that person’s attention? Why is it so tough for us to do the same when we see the lost eternally going in the wrong direction? With the society we live in today, tolerance and acceptance is greatly preached. There are even laws in place that forbid us to do good physically and more importantly spiritually. It just seems to me, from an American standpoint, the more tolerance of what is against God’s will that is preached by the lost and perishing, the quicker our country digs its grave morally, financially, economically and moreover spiritually. Today, it is very popular to be tolerant of what is apparently wrong, but look past being tolerant what is right in the eyes of the Lord. Let us pray for our country, our leaders, and the entire world that they may open their eyes and stop going the wrong way down a one way street.

I just stand in awe at the wonders of God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus came for a purpose and was not distracted. He did not compromise with His course of action. After He rebuked the Pharisees and scribes on the burdens they impute on men, He calls the multitude back and continues to teach them. They same way Jesus called the multitude, He calls us to teach us as well. Some people have a notion that faith and salvation only comes through the preaching of a pastor or priest. That is not true. Romans 10:17 says “faith comes by hearing, and hearing the word of God.” Jesus said “hear and understand.” Jesus was God in the flesh when He walked the earth. Hearing the word of God may initiate through a person, but understanding primarily comes from the study of scripture and prayer. The ear is only the gateway to the heart hearing, knowing, and understanding God’s voice. We can hear the word of God with our ears but until it makes it to our hearts, it will not have any effect on our lives.

O God, please protect us from becoming hypocrites. If we already are, please heal us quickly and remove it far away from us. Do we see a pattern developing from the last few verses? If it started with the judgmental exalted attitude, which then led to compromise to satisfy our fleshly desires, it naturally ends with being hypocrites in the eyes of God and those around us. O how the Lord despises the hypocrite, but loves and rejoices at the sight of the humble, lowly, and meek at heart. We have to ask ourselves these questions. It is a spiritual check-up. Are we only drawing near to God with our mouths? Are we only honoring Him with our lips? Are our hearts far from Him? Are we worshiping in vain? Are we teaching our brothers and sisters man-made commandments? We can so easily fall into these traps leading the lost away from the true and living God. Let’s pray that God keeps us from falling into these wicked ways. We pray not because we think God can’t, but because we know He can and that we can’t do it on our own ability and strength. We need to continue to be filled with the Holy Spirit on a daily basis. In Jesus name. Amen.

Do we ever find ourselves compromising with God’s commandments and/or His will? Of course the answer is yes. God hates compromise. We often put ourselves in a position to compromise with God’s word, but we refuse to compromise with our fellow brothers and sisters. We have it in reverse. Why do we compromise with God though? We are weak to our fleshly wants and desires. We just seem to fail over and over. We feel like we are letting God down. We get to the point where we feel so lost and apart from God. We are slowly fading away and dying in our own compromise. What are we to do? Can we save ourselves? Surely we can’t. However, Jesus saves! I don’t know where we got this mindset that we can let God down. We were never holding Him up. In fact, He is the one who lifts us up and holds us in place. As we draw closer to God with open hearts, He heals us, changes us, purifies our hearts, and takes the compromise out of our lives slowly but surely. Let’s be more open to our brothers and sisters working together with knowing that we are all different, but are still part of the same body, the body of Christ. Our hands never fight with our feet, and our elbows with our knees, and our eyes with our ears; we should not fight with our brothers and sisters either.

Jesus shines His light and His mirror upon us! I thank God He does not play petty games with us as we try to play with Him and with each other. He cuts directly to the heart of the matter. God brings us back to reality. When we try to approach God all puffed up and exalted above everyone else, even above Him, He cuts us down to grown zero. We fall flat on our faces. However, when we approach God lowly and humble at heart, He lifts us up. Reflect for a minute. What stumbling block have we placed in front of our brothers and sisters? Have we told our brethren they cannot eat a certain food or listen to certain genres of music, or even dress a certain way? We seem to focus so much on the physical and outward appearance that we constantly hinder God’s work. Change can only start from the inside. Only God has the ability to bring forth true change. We need to stop getting in His way. How about ourselves? Are questioning and calling out the physical and outward appearance of others while in our hearts we are filled with deceit and hypocrisy? Do we lust after the flesh and hateful thoughts? We really need to ask God to work in our lives instead of nitpicking at how other people live. Honestly, we create our own set of standards that we can’t live up to ourselves. We should really be praising God for working in the lives of others and open ourselves to be worked on as well.

Let’s consider our ways. Have we exalted ourselves above God’s ways and standards? Do we often question God on why He works in certain ways? I know I’ve surely done it plenty of times. We think in our little minds know just so much. The weight of our brain is an average of 1300 to 1400 grams (2.87 to 3.1 pounds). It would cost about $4.95 to ship it in the United States. Yet, we know so much. We can get so wrapped up in our traditions that we turn people away from Jesus. God never appointed us to be His advisors on how people should trust Him, follow Him, and love Him. Imagine that! God following the counsel of sinners. Just the thought is hilarious, and a bit scary. So what traditions are we to follow? Is it the way of the Catholic, the Baptist, or the Pentecostal? Do we eat meat? Or is it only pork we can’t eat? Can women wear pants or jewelry or even make-up? Just listing these rules and regulations gives me a headache. By putting ourselves under these restrictions, we negate Christ’s death on the cross. It is as if the law was not fulfilled by Christ. If the law was not been fulfilled, then Christ’s death was in vain, our belief in Him is useless, and we are still sinners dead in our ways. God forbid! We must follow the ways God. We must have a personal one-on-one relationship initiated from our hearts with God through Jesus Christ who died on the cross for our sins, our transgressions, and our man-made traditions that hold down our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. So, what way are we to follow? Follow Christ and everything else will come into place. Seek the kingdom of God and everything else will be added on to us. How do we seek the kingdom? Believe in Jesus whole-heartedly letting go of useless “good old traditions.”

Jesus healed many people. As many as touched the hem of His garment were made well. That is amazing. The people were healed physically, however, I don’t think that was God primary intention or purpose for healing them. I believe through their faith and belief in God, that God healed them and made them whole, the spiritual oppression and infirmities were lifted from them and released by a touch from God. Through the release of their spiritual pain and suffering, the physical healing came immediately after because that gateway to freedom was opened. God healed spiritually so people could know and trust in Him; God healed physically so it would be seen amongst men and know that ALL things are possible with God. It is even more amazing that God is still healing us today! There are many antics and schemes with faith healing and faith healers but God does not heal the physical until He heals the spiritual. Many of us want to be healed in the flesh but God’s desire is to heal the broken filthy heart we have been pulling around for all these years. He wants to give us a new, pure, healthy, clean heart. O Lord, heal our hearts today! Continue bringing to us the wonders and joy of Your salvation!