Apr 16 2009
Who’s Going to Fight for Us if We Don’t?
Not long ago the Lord showed me that as a nation we’ve been lulled to sleep and can’t be roused. We’ve had to fight for almost nothing in our lifetime, since our freedoms were a gift from our forefathers.
But I learned an interesting thing recently in that regard. We own and operate a Bed & Breakfast called The Nestle Down Inn in the heart of the beautiful Missouri Ozarks. We’ve redone it in the past few years so that it’s quite upscale now, but early on we priced it low especially for modestly paid pastors and full time Christian workers. But we noticed that while it was priced low, people didn’t value it very much. When we first upped the price people were much more inclined to appreciate it. We were astonished to learn that truth. It seemed strange that value should be determined strictly by cost.
In fact, in Scripture King David wanted to offer a sacrifice to the Lord, so he asked to buy a threshing floor where he could worship, and the owner offered it to him free. And do you know what he said? He said he would not offer the Lord that which cost him nothing (see 2 Samuel 24:24)–for the very same reason mentioned above. As humans, we have no capacity to value what doesn’t cost us dearly.
So will we give it all up without a fight? Apparently. It’s happening as we speak. I pray that we wake up and repent of our personal and corporate sin and draw near to God, because we’re going to need Him to get through what’s coming. Our relationship with Christ is one more thing to add to the list of what we’ll probably have to fight to hold onto. But it may take that to prove to us what we really have.
I know I sound like a doomsayer, but Scripture backs up such proclamations. Jesus is coming soon, and before He does, He’s going to shake the earth, the church, and each of us personally to find out what we’re made of, and whether or not we are truly His.
Our God is holy, and anything less than holiness doesn’t make the cut, not now, and not ever. So if we want to live in sin, we might as well cut the ties and forget the title, “Christian,” because it won’t hold water in the end. He says His bride must be spotless, with a pure heart. Can we claim that the way we live now?
Let’s draw near to God with pure hearts, asking Him to speak to us, to lead us, and to make us shining lights upon a hill, because if we don’t do it, who will?
Because of His great love,
Nancy
