Hello and welcome to
another blessed day which the Lord has made, we will be glad and rejoice in it.
Today’s message is a completion of the topic we started in out last lesson but
we will be going into something different though essential for the attainment
of a pure life as we saw in our last lesson.
We have looked on the areas
of our lives that the word of God must be allowed to rule over and we were able
to see that with the word of God in [place in this particular places of our
lives], we will be sure to say that we are standing with God.
Today, we want to
critically examine what our attitude towards the word of God should be if we
must be pure and holy.
In Psalm 119:10, the
psalmist gave a principle which has remained the only principle emphasized in
several passages of the scripture, it reads; “with my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy
commandments.”
Consider carefully the
phrase ‘with my whole heart’, what does it mean to search for GOD with
one’s whole heart? Does that suggest that there are men who actually seek God
but not with their whole heart? What could have being the possible reason why
the Psalmist desired to seek the Lord with his whole heart and what did he
aimed to achieve as he seek for God with his whole heart?
1.
The Psalmist understands very well that in the heart flows the
issues of life and if his desire to seek God does not flow from his heart, he
will only be wasting his time.
2.
The Psalmist knows that if his heart is not disciplined to
completely focus on seeking the Lord; he will face a lot of distractions.
3.
He knew that seeking God with a partial heart will eventually lead
to him wandering away from the commandments of God.
Let us have a look at few
verses of the book of 2 Chronicles 15; the book of 2 Chronicles records the
story of King Asa’s religious reform which was considered to be one of the
revivals that took place in the Old Testament, it is embodied with a lot of
lessons for us today.
Asa became king following
the death of his father Abijah, as a result of his faithful leadership, Judah
lived at peace during the first ten years of his reign. The prophet Azariah
prophesied concerning Asa, saying “the Lord is with you while you are with him.
If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him he will forsake
you” (15:2). Asa took the prophets words to heart and immediately
embarked on making religious reforms including repair of the altar in the
temple; he gathered the people to make a covenant, commanding that anyone who
would not seek the Lord would be put to death. Sadly the last five years of his
reign were marked by spiritual and physical decline as the king began to trust
on human alliances and ability than God.
The story in this chapter
looks like the situation which was painted by the question asked by the Psalmist
in Psalm 119:9, it portrays the picture of a community that is lacking
righteousness. Asa was a King to the people of God who has forgotten about
seeking God because their hearts has being far from God ever since priest who
will devote their time to teaching the word of God were lacking amongst them. V.3 records
that for a long time, Israel was without the true God, without a teaching
priest and without the Law. You will discover that because there was not a
priest who will teach the Law (the compass for life) they lost their stand with
God, they lost their grip on righteousness resulting in everyone behaving as he
would.
One important truth we must
establish here is that when people stop hearing the undiluted word of God which
alone has the power to convict a sinner, they feel at home in the Church with
their sins celebrated as their weaknesses and their unfaithfulness as there
character resulting in uncircumcised but confirmed Christians who will preach
the word of God and play our pianos, robe in our choir and sing the praise of
the God, work for God in various capacities but has no personal contact with
God whom they claim to know and work for.
a.
For any son of the Kingdom that desires to remain pure for the Master,
he must make sure that he has a teaching priest, one who will always be there
to rebuke, instruct exclusively with the word of God and direct him in the
decisions of life which he is bound to make.
Our youths today behave the
way they do because, our churches has left the teaching ministry which would
have subjected these youths to deep revelation of the will and purpose of God
for their lives which always comes with lights that the darkness of their lives
cannot comprehend and has jumped into the power ministry because ministers feel
that they are not announced when they teach as much as they will if they have
everyone in the gathering fall under anointing hence we demonstrate the power
of God on the youths in the name of
deliverance but fail to subject them to a systematic teaching of how to live a
holy spirit lead life thus subjecting them to deliverance experimentation. The
implication is this, we end up gathering crowds as members who knows little or
nothing on what it is that God demands from us as his Children, hence we have
lost grip of the true God and His law is no longer in us.
If we must be right with
God, then we must avail ourselves to teach and be taught by seasoned ministers
who are disciples, whose business is nothing but teaching you to observe all
that the Lord has commanded you, Jesus Christ said, ‘go therefore and make disciples
of all nations… teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. Math
28:19,30 ESV
b.
Any youth that will live a pure life must be a youth who is with
the Lord. V.2 says, the Lord is with you while you are with Him; if you
seek Him He will be found by you, if you forsake Him, He will forsake you.
This verse suggest to us
that the Lord will not be with you if you do not first of all avail yourself
for Him; the Lord will be hidden from you if you don’t look for Him and the Lord
will forsake you if you forget about Him; Jesus Christ confirmatively declared
in John 15 that any branch that abides not in the Lord will not bear fruit.
The ingredients for bearing
fruit is supplied to the branches that are still attached to the tree not the
once that has being cut off, in the same vain, the instrument that produces a
life of purity in any youth is gotten from the presence of God, for any youth
that refuses to seek the Lord, such will not be able to receive from the Lord this
instrument that can transform his her life into the divine will of God. You
will not be able to bear fruits of holiness and purity while you dislodge
yourself from the Lord. It is in affirmation of this, with full knowledge of
what will happen if one seeks not the Lord that the Psalmist cried out saying,
o Lord I am seeking for You, not just anyhow but with complete seriousness because
as for me, I am seeking You with my whole heart. The Message Bible puts it
thus, ‘I am single-minded in the pursuit of you; don’t let me miss the road
signs you have posted:’ this suggest that one can be seeking the Lord
but not with full concentration thus being double minded while seeking the Lord
and its implication is that he will miss the road signs, a that would have aided
him in living a pure life; he would have missed the chance of knowing what it
is that the Master desires.
Look at v.8 ‘And
when Asa heard these words, and the prophecy of Oded the prophet, he took
courage, and put away the abominable idols out of all the land of Judah and
Benjamin, and out of the cities which he had taken from mount Ephraim, and
renewed the altar of the LORD, that was before the porch of the LORD’
For king Asa to effectively
seek God, he had to put away some irrelevant objects that have for long
constituted to their not knowing God.
c.
Until our youths realize the need to put off the abominable acts
of 21st century youths, living a life of holiness and purity will
almost be an impossible task while some will see it as something meant for only
the aged who are no longer interested the youthful displays.
Truth be told, you cannot be fashion conscious, social media
driven, entertainment inclined with your head filled with almost all the lyrics
of every song of your age and your eyes feed with almost all the movies of your
time especially the Korean and Philippines love series , then the home videos
and others of such which only feed your mind and thoughts with feelings contrary
to the will of God, causing you to live by their cravings and yet you expect
those hearts of yours not to think about filthy things but produce
righteousness and purity.
For Asa, he got rid of
stuff like that which he considered a detriment to him seeking God, for you, a
young man. What are you gonna do about it? This is what Mr. Hebrew had to say
on this issue, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses,
let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.
And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, Hebrews
12:1 NIV
For you a young man who
desires to be pure or is considering being pure a hard nut to crack, you must
start now to empty up your mind of all the abominable and idolatrous deeds of
this age which has being widely accepted and start printing the word of God
daily in your heart.
Finally consider v.12,13
And they entered into a covenant to seek the LORD God of their fathers with all
their heart and with all their soul; that whosoever would not seek the LORD God
of Israel should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman.
Asa and his people decided
to offer their lives to God, it was actually a covenant they had which says
that with
all our heart we offer ourselves to you and anyone that will not serve
you among us shall be put to death.
What does it actually mean
to put someone to death? The Hebrew word used for death here muwth (mooth)
comes from a primitive root which speaks of destroying. You will agree with me
here that when someone dies, we become separated from that person for life.
Hence to be put to death here is a way of saying that they should be completely
separated from us since they will not serve the Lord with us.
d.
Any youth that must be pure before God must determine to seek the
Lord with all his heart (i.e. with his feelings, emotions, thoughts, minds,
desires, will and stuff like that) and should anything within or without that decides
not to join him in seeking the Lord, he must completely separate himself from.
The Holy Scripture as Paul
wrote it in Romans 12:1 calls every one of us to a life of service which should
constitute of our lives being presented at the altar of God daily as a living sacrifice’s,
one that must be alive not dead, holy and pleasing to the Lord; a sacrifice’s
that can be done by not conforming to the world. Beloved, if you must live a pure
life for Jesus Christ then you must get deformed for Him, you must completely
separate from the worldly desires and passions that you may be transformed by the
renewing of your mind.
May our God enrich your
heart as you seek Him every day of your life. Amen
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God bless you abundantly.
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