Grace and peace be with you as we receive mercy and love from the Father during this time of stretching and transformation.
I beg you not for our sake or for any other, but for the LORD that we would cast down our idols. Please join us in the walk to the threshing floor. For life is more than what we've made it. As the hour approaches, please don't be caught by the deceit and led astray by the tongue of the antichrist. Surrender your will and let the love of God beat the chaff off of your soul, so that we can begin to walk in a manner worthy of His calling. For did you not receive the Spirit of Christ? How then do we still walk in our own power and arrogantly claim our own gospel. For Christ did not come to preach repentance of sins leading once again to dead works. He came to preach the gospel of the kingdom which leads to life.
The walls of our tradition and the new law that we've created by a stagnant understanding of Christ and a lifeless faith must come down. We've become the wolves that Jesus warned us about. "Behold I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves." (Matt 10:16) "Beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves" (matt 7:15) He simply explains how to know if we are the wolves, but do any of us want to receive the truth? We hold fast to our dead works. We hold fast to a pursuit for our own spiritual pleasure. We hold fast to US, and in doing so we have become the wolves. "You ask and you don't receive for you ask with wrong motives so that you may spend it on your own pleasures” (Jam 4:3). How long will we water down the truth of God and quench the Spirit of His Power? Adulterous people! Do we truly desire Christ or do we just want our idea of Him? The hour is late and the difficult times are here. Will we continue to be men and women who are lovers of self? “But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these” (2 Tim 3:1-5nasb).
Will we continue to preach our gospel and quench the ministry we've all been called to? “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit. Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we received mercy, we do not lose heart, but we have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not walking in craftiness or adulterating the word of God, but by the manifestation of truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God” (2 cor. 3:17-4:2nasb).
Are we the wolves? “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves. But beware of men, for they will hand you over to the courts and scourge you in their synagogues; and you will even be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. But when they hand you over, do not worry about how or what you are to say; for it will be given you in that hour what you are to say. For it is not you who speak, but it is the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you” (Matt 10:16-20nasb).
How long will we live this way? How long will we live a life separated from Christ and deceived by the spirit of antichrist? Convinced we're alive but the truth is we're dry bones. For we deny His power and authority over our lives, and by doing so we continue to speak our own words and pursue a power that eliminates Christ. In doing this we create the worship of pleasure and self and in doing so we proclaim the gospel of the antichrist. “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world. You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world” (I John 4:1-4nasb).
Are we the wolves? Have we been deceived into believing that not only is it okay, but that we should become Martha? Have we become a new breed of Pharisee? Are we following the ways of Sodom and caught up in the ideas of Gomorrah? How long will My Spirit contend with this generation! Is the Lamb not worthy of all our praise? Or have we begun to worship an angel that has taken on the image of the Angel of Light?
Have we chased after a stranger? “’Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. A stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers.’ This figure of speech Jesus spoke to them, but they did not understand what those things were which He had been saying to them. So Jesus said to them again, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father’”(John 10:1-18nasb).
Are we the wolves? Do we still preach our own words? Does His Spirit dwell in you in a way that cries out Abba Father? Does He jealously desire His Spirit to dwell in you? Have we really surrendered our lives? “’Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven. “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to SET A MAN AGAINST HIS FATHER, AND A DAUGHTER AGAINST HER MOTHER, AND A DAUGHTER-IN-LAW AGAINST HER MOTHER-IN-LAW; 36 and A MAN’S ENEMIES WILL BE THE MEMBERS OF HIS HOUSEHOLD. “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it”’ (Matt 10:32-39nasb).
Has He become a stumbling block? Is He too boring or too religious? Has He become foolishness? Is He not practical or relative to our culture? Are we the wolves?
