Re-cap of Room Devotional in Christianchat.info chat room on 2/28/14
Our reading for the night will be Hebrews 12:14-17 & 25
14 Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: 15 looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled;
16 lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. 17 For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears.
Heb 12:25 – See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven,
This is why I title this message : Five Corrosives to Faith
Here we see that Hebrews 12 offers five corrosives to faith, each of which seems rather mundane. But for most of us, the greatest danger to our faith is not a cataclysmic event, but it’s the gradual dulling of our heart toward God.
Have you found yourself standing in Acid and has it corroded your faith, has it wore you down to nothing to a point that’s all they see in you or is this what you show to others around you.
Ok folks if this is the case then you need to do a self check list to find the root cause of the corrosiveness of your faith and find a way to neutralized it in order to put your faith back on track before it gets corroded to a point other will not listen to what you have to say anymore.
You need to see to it that you do the will of God, as we say down in these parts get the hazmat team in to clean up the mess.
So what are the five causes of corrosives in your faith? Well I am glad you asked, Tonight we will cover 5 the points to see how this happens to us.
The 1st. one is Division (Heb. 12:14)
Division and strife have a way of making us forget all about how Christ is “our city.” Someone offends us and our pride gets riled up; before long we are marshalling troops to protect our city. But the author of Hebrews encourages us to “seek peace:’ which means that we should be the first to offer forgiveness, even when wronged or was wronged by someone else in our lives.
It means that we take the towel and wash the feet of those in conflict with us, like Christ did. It means that we serve our “enemies” and seek their well-being. This takes the focus off of our city or selves and refocuses it back on Jesus Christ.
The 2nd. one is Worldliness (Heb. 12:14)
The author of Hebrews tells us to pursue holiness, which is the opposite of worldliness. As long as our minds are saturated with worldly pursuits and things and what about that other person, we will never be able to “see” God they way he really is.
The Greek word for “pursue” lets us know that this takes a lot of discipline. The word literally means “persecute” or “hunt.” Meaning here we are supposed to track it and hunt it down relentlessly.
The 3rd. one is Bitterness (Heb. 12:15)
Idolatry is like a poisonous weed, or as the author of Hebrews says, a “root of bitterness.” It starts off very small, but soon infiltrates the entire garden. Tragically, a lot of us will miss the grace of God because we are distracted by idolatry. We allow something to carry more weight in our heart than God.
Those of us who think idolatry is a non-issue we should ask ourselves: What dominates our thoughts? What upsets us? What makes us jealous? What makes us hold on to the past? Whatever that thing is, it is an idol to us, and if we are not vigilant, it will choke out any desire for God and render us powerless in the workings of the Holy Spirit and his guidance.
The 4th one is Sensual pleasures (Heb. 12:16)
For many of us, the addictiveness of immorality or bodily comforts is drugging us and keeping us from thinking about what really matters.
Think about how much people arrange their lives just to “feel good.” Many of us are slaves to “Esau’s stomach:’ which the author compares to sex, and this keeps us from thinking about what is eternal.
The 5th. One is Inattention (Heb. 12:25)
Many of us are familiar with the details of Jesus’ brutal beating and death. A cat-o’-nine-tails with pieces of bone and metal shredded his flesh to the bone. Isaiah says that he was beaten so brutally that he no longer looked like a human.
Folks he was then nailed up on a cross, naked, in full view of the public, to suffer and die humiliated. We need to take a look at this and be willing to have ourselves stripped, beaten and put up on the cross to expose us for who we really are naked without him.
In closing
If God did all this to save us, and we make him a secondary thought, how can we hope to escape? This is God speaking! Our eternity depends on whether or not we listen—how can we take that so lightly?
Think about it as other people look at you and your actions, what do they see?
Are you full of corrosives that will burn, or do you exhibit the fruits of the Holy Spirit for them to see and willing to receive the new life that Jesus Christ has to offer?
If you’re the other you better fix it before it corrodes you into nothing and shows you in bad light to others around you and render you useless and causing someone to miss out on their salvation.
Which are you? Think about it?
Amen