HAVE YOU CHECKED YOURSELF LATELY? (PART #2)

In part one of this series, we spoke to you about checking yourself, you and God, to make sure everything was ok. We challenged you to take a look at your walk, and your relationship with God, to see just how things were. It doesn’t take a prophet coming to your house to tell you where you stand with God, you know if your prayer life is just repetition and no power in it. You know what sins you are hiding from everyone else, but God, even though the Bible says to get rid of it, you still have it. You may fool me, your pastor, and your friends but one thing is certain, deep down inside you KNOW things aren’t right.

We also told you in part one that it was time to take this seriously, for the coming tribulation is soon upon us, and those not taking time to “check” themselves and make things right with God in this manner would not make it. The question occurs to me, how does one know in checking that you have repaired what is broken? First of all, how do you know what to check for, and second how do you know it is fixed? My friend, thank God we have a checklist and an answer!

This checklist, this guide, I speak of is most important. Without it, many of us could sit here and say; “I’m fine, I’m doing the best I can do and that meets any criteria”. Without this guide line we could all say we are ok, we need no warnings, we are preparing and doing all things right. This guide I speak of is called --- are you ready for it? ---- here it comes:

THE B-I-B-L-E! (aka, The Word of God)

I am so thankful today that we have a guide to go by, a judge to tell us what is right, and what is wrong. I am glad we are not mindless puppets who rely on CNN TV reporters and White House spin doctors to tell us what is right and what is wrong. God has given us the light of his word, wrote down and preserved thru the centuries for us to know him and what he expects and commands of us to do. TV reporter’s words will fail and lie to you, government politician’s words will fail and lie to you, but the word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than any sword, more powerful than a speeding locomotive and faster than a speeding bullet. This word, God’s word, is so powerful when one dare’s to believe in it, it protects them, keeps them, shows them the right path to walk in, reveals light from evil, a good road from one that is full of land mines waiting to destroy you.

If you have not figured it out by now, I am giving you practical lessons to preparing for the coming storm, and the horrible tribulation we must endure. I am giving you the “How to’s” as well as diagnosing the problem. And first and foremost, we must begin to fall in love with his word, we must begin to know it like we know our TV Guide, like our Sunday news paper. Oh, come now, I bet you could tell me just where to look in those periodicals for the next episode of a soap opera, or movie, but you would stumble to find what God spoke to Moses on the mountain top in exodus. By the way that was the ten commandments to help you out. The first step in preparation begins by knowing his word, believing his word, and applying it in everyday life.

I leave you with a thought from the book of James. The “doer” of the word – ( one who applies it and lives it in everyday life) is the one righteous and justified before God – NOT THE HEARER! I challenge you today, get to reading his word now, saturate your mind with his powerful breath, it will change you, I promise.

HAVE YOU CHECKED YOURSELF LATELY?

Howbeit in the business of the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, who sent unto him to enquire of the wonder that was done in the land, God left him, to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart. (2 CHRONICLES 32:31)

I want to speak to you from my heart today. I want you to be honest and ask yourself a question as you read this devotional today, have you checked yourself lately?

Before we leave the house, we will make sure to stop and check ourselves to make sure we have our keys, our cell phone, or wallet or purse. Before we go on long trips, we make sure to check that we have everything we need to endure that journey. Strange isn't that we will worry about those things with such fierceness? I wonder how the church, the body of Christ, would be if we applied such firceness to checking ourselves with how we are with God?

I wonder how our own spiritual walk with God would be, if we stopped for a moment, in our busy schedules, just to check and say; "How do God and I stand with each other, right now?". I think we would have a church that once again walked in the power and fellowship of the book of Acts, and yes, you can walk in the power of the book of Acts, TODAY! Not anywhere in the Bible does it proclaim we cannot and do not let any preachers tell you any different, but I digress.

Our own personal walk would be adversely affected as well. No longer would our prayer life be powerless, our witness to a lost and backslidden world be useless and hypocritical. Done away would be the "pet" sins and secret temptations we hold on too, that hold us back from walking in victory and authority. Porn sites on your computer would be deleted, you would have more money in your wallet, and the greed for it out of your heart. Yes, things would definitely change, if we would stop and "check ourselves" just to see the garbage and sins in our heart before God was forced to, as he did with the king in the above scripture.

I challenge you reader. We have warned you of a coming storm, are you preparing? Are you taking this warning seriously, and preparing yourself, in your heart, to weather the storm and meet your God? Are you cutting off what needs to be cut off and crucifing what needs to be nailed to a cross, in your life? Are you cleaning house in your heart? Listen to the words of the Apostle Paul:

"For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. " (GALATIANS 2: 19-20)

I don't ask you, are you crucified today, that would be premature. I am asking, and God is asking, are you climbing up the tree today, or are you with the crowd below the cross, watching?
Preperation begins now.