By Angeline M Duran Santiago
There are choices we make in life that affect us and those around us in such dramatic ways. But, it's the inside of you and me that I want to address here today. I want to address more than anyone else, married Christians who proclaim to be the Light and so easily remain faithful to the darkness.
I believe we genuinely believe that somehow we want to do good, we want to embrace the change we need to live right, and we even know how to make it happen. Still, it is the attachment to those very things that separate us from God that keep us stuck in our current mode and don't let us move on.
Our life quickly becomes a slave to those very things we learned so long ago would hurt us, still we crave it like candy, we desire it like nothing else, and we live a double life.
Yet, we had gone before God, cried our heart out until our eyes were swollen, and the moment that thought or feeling returns, instead of throwing ourselves upon God's mercy, we go right back into the mud, back into the sin that so easily drags us around like a filthy rag doll. We forget we are God's creation, loved and bought with the price of God's Son.
We easily give in to Satan's tools of deceit. We give in to our own cowardice instead of being bold and speaking out loudly agains the hell that rises up against you and saying, "Get behind me Satan and all your hosts from hell! In Jesus Name! You will not have your way in my mind. You will not have your way in my heart. You will not have your way in my home, in my privacy, in the secret chambers of my heart!!!!"
And you know why we fall so easily? Because we are not praying. You say you are. You are not. We fall on our faces because we are not truly seeking God like we should, like we used to when we first gave our hearts to the Lord. I'm telling you, you are falling fast because all you read in the Scriptures are the verses to prove to someone that the end of the world is coming and that what is going on today is all prophetic. You don't read the Word to ask God to speak into the deepest parts of your life. You don't read it seeking to know God's will or to learn what to do each day.
I'm telling you that there is a way out. That door for your escape has always been there. The key has always been provided. But, not getting caught and the way you feel in your secret life is easy. What about the darkness around you? Do you like to carry that around? What about the burden of sin that is always there? Don't you realize you are also opening those doors for your children, your grandchildren? Are you so ready to throw your marriage away? Are you so willing to discard God's Love like it's not real and the only real thing is what you find on YouTube?
You and I are laid out like dirty blankets before the heavens. Even if I were to build one hundred layers of ceilings with all kinds of cement and steel and hide under it all, still there, God will find me. God sees me. God sees you.
You and I are bare and naked before a God that sees and knows it all. It's not even the shame of our outward nakedness that scares me, but the nakedness of who I am inside my heart, of what I have inside my mind, of what is found in the chambers of my memories that will break God's heart, that will push Him away, and that will keep me from truly knowing what it means to walk in His will, walking righteously, in Him.
You are so right. We are not perfect. We fall down, and like the song, we get back up again. But aren't you tired of falling? Aren't you tired of pretending? Don't you ever imagine you'll be found out in your double life before people and God? Do you want to remain the same way?
Today I challenge you, as I do unto myself, to rise up and take your place as a child of God. We are not to walk defeated and so easily tempted and given to sin. We will struggle. We will be tempted. We will be put to the test. But, my brother and sister, my friend, please run to God when the day of hardship arises in your life. Run to God's presence and cry out to Jesus, get into His Word and don't let your eyes become the gateway to a sin that is so hard to push out of your life.
God has a beautiful plan for your life.
Don't let the lifestyle of this world become your motto. Don't accept the lie that because you're a man, it's ok to indulge in pornography, or because you're a newly wed couple, you need to watch these videos or join swingers to learn about sex. Don't accept the lie that says we have to follow the latest trends of this world. We are in this world but the truth is we are not of this world once we surrender our hearts and our lives to Christ and to the Kingdom of Light.
Rise up and fight agains the darkness that is coming against you. There is power in the Name of Jesus. There is power in the blood. There is power in Scripture. There is power in coming before the Lord.
Don't let Satan have his way in your marriage.
Don't let the devil break your relationships.
Don't allow the enemy to have his way in your mind, in your heart, in what you view on your phone or computer. Speak, yell, shout, scream if you must!
Father God, my heart breaks for how we lie so easily to ourselves, thinking we are hiding the truth from you. So many Christians are living like we are following you and serving you, but we are not even ready to rebuke a fever.
Fill us again. Holy Spirit come and burn the garbage, the filth, the mindset and the junk that we have allowed in our lives. Come and fill us with you, with your presence, your holiness, your power. Burn it all away if it doesn't belong in us, if it will not bring glory to your Name.
Run to the Lord, dear friend, dear brother and sister. I am running to Him. I am not perfect. I need Him so much. Lay it all before the Lord and watch Him raise you up powerfully and victoriously, in Jesus Name, Rise my friend, Rise!
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