God has a standard - Part 1

God has a standard.

And they will go there, and they will take away all its detestable things and all its abominations from there. Ezekiel 11:18

God’s people were to go back to Israel, to be back in His will and the place that He had created for them to be. But first, they were to take away everything that had caused them to sin and stray from that place of promise. They were to stop every evil practice, remove all of their vile images and get rid of every detestable idol that they had created. All of it. Everything that wasn’t pleasing to God. For if it’s not pleasing to God, then it separates us from Him and from walking in His perfectly designed will. We simply cannot worship both God and the things that we lust after, only one will have rule. Things are not bad on their own, just as people aren’t. It is the desire and our affections toward them. If it comes before God, we simply misuse it and neglect Him. God wants nothing before Him or the practice itself, and the love in our hearts, becomes a snare to us and a detestable thing to Him. It causes separation between us.

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Matthew 6:24

You just can’t do it, no one can, it’s impossible. That’s why Joshua said to go ahead and “Choose you this day, whom you will serve. If it seem evil to you to serve God, then serve your idols. But as for me and my house, we are gonna serve the Lord.” He decided to follow the standard that day. Enough was enough. There comes a time where we must choose.

Despise is a strong word and we would never say that we despise God, but to despise means to regard as unworthy. If He is worthy, then how come we so easily and often disregard His commands and overlook His standards? Let’s look further into this. You either do or you don’t, there’s no in-between, and that’ll get you in trouble every time. Almost doesn’t count and we don’t get to where we want to go on good intentions, but rather intentional action.

And Elijah came unto all the people and said, “How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow Him; but if Baal, then follow him.” And the people answered him not a word. 1 Kings 18:21

“If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.” Hebrews 10:26-27

“He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.” Matthew 12:30

We see very clearly that there is a standard. These that Elijah were talking to, didn’t want to choose. Do you? Do I? They continually wavered and limped between two opinions. We MUST STAND For the Standard or we fall in-between the dividing line, lost forever. We must choose to take a stand and stay on one side. Choose! Choice is powerful. There are only 2 sides and if you don’t know which side you’re on, then you’re already losing. To make no decision is a decision. The Word tells us that a double minded man is unstable in all his ways because he rocks back and forth. He’s stuck in-between; torn and miserable. He or she is tossed to and fro, mind all over the place. All because they won’t choose.

Vile images and idols were detestable then and are still detestable now. They may have looked different then, but it’s still the same concept, it just looks different. It’s all just a matter of the heart and what it longs for, where it’s first love is. The Word tells us that where our treasure is, right there is where we will find our hearts also. What do you most long for? It may be our homes, or money, or a car, or prestige, or fortune, or fame, or idols, such as Hollywood, or maybe a spouse, or even a pastor or leader. Again, it may not be that this thing in particular is bad, rather our desire. Anything that leads us away from God isn’t a leader we want to follow. It’s the desire that gets us every time. We may suffer from rejection, looking for love in all the wrong places and having misplaced affections. They will lead us slowly away from truth and right into lies that won’t fulfill. Looking for peace that won’t suffice. Anything that deceives us and causes us to lust wrongfully, isn’t of God. Is your heart after God and to please Him, or is it to satisfy our deepest longings that should be Him? Replace them. It’s time for an exchange.

God wasn’t going to give His people a new heart and new spirit, as we see next in verse 19, UNTIL His people first removed and completely took away EVERY SINGLE TRACE of its detestable things and immoral practices.

And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh: Ezekiel 11:19

We can know better and still stray. I use to hear about backsliding all of the time it seemed when I was little and that word seemed to disappear for years. And holiness somehow and somewhere along the way, seemed to go out the window. Yet it didn’t because Gods word and standards never fade, we just misuse them. We stray, not God. We compromise with the world and it’s standard. It’s impossible to blend in and please God. We are called to be set apart, His peculiar people, to stand out like cities on hills, not to hide or to hide our light. How can we do any of this when we blend so well and look no different than the world, as we abide by and conform to it’s standards? I began to believe that holiness was somehow old fashioned, or a “religious” bad word, and that it wasn’t really a thing anymore (or in my mind, was it really ever). Well, boy was I wrong. It IS and it always will be! Past, present and future just like God: Who was and is and is to come! He doesn’t change, it was always the standard, and it is still just as important. I just had it’s meaning misconstrued.

Holiness is sacred, it’s to be dedicated and set apart for His use. It is Godly, it is good, it is purity and oneness with God. It’s devoted entirely to Him and to His work. It pleases Him. It’s sinless. Not living a life of sin. We are sinners covered in His righteousness and by His blood, making us white as snow. But we must abide in Him and continually walk with Him or we walk out from under the shelter. We all sin but His love, mercy, and grace covers us. We must desire to please Him or it won’t stick. It’s like a sacred marriage, we keep it sacred by keeping in step with the covenant and commitment that we made. If we err, we repent.

We must go back to the simple: trusting God with all our hearts, leaning not to our own understanding that got us in trouble in the first place, and instead: in all our ways acknowledging Him so that He can direct our paths. Get back to the basics. We’ve made it far too complicated and twisted it’s truths into what we wanted it to be. Our whole desire should be His and to please Him, or it’s part and that won’t suffice. He want’s full commitment just like you do. Almost doesn’t count.

God is not looking for complacent Christians, but those whose hearts are perfect toward Him with the desire to please Him. Not perfect people, perfect hearts.

Back to the detestable things. Detestable is disgusting to God. Remember when He said in Revelations 3:15-16, that He knew your works! That you were neither hot or cold. If we are luke warm then He’d spew us right out of His mouth? Why? Because compromise and complacency is neither hot or cold as He said He preferred, and it leads straight to sin! Do nothing and anything goes. If you’re not really hot and not really cold, then your’e just straight in the middle of the dividing line. Don’t know what you stand for, and don’t want to make a stand. One who says: “I’m saved but I can still do that, we see how that’s never really to be changed but rather stuck in the middle, and not on either side of fence.” That person is fooled. That’s one that will eventually slide right back into full blown sin, every-time. Flirt and compromise with sin, it changes you. It attaches to you. The saying goes: “If you dance with the devil, then you haven’t got a clue, for you think you’ll change the devil, but the devil changes you.” Just as bad company corrupts good morals or don’t hold hot coals and expect not to get burnt. Also, there’s nothing as cold as ashes once the fire goes out. Keep your fire burning for Jesus, all else will just disappoint in the end. Sin is but for a season and it’s always against the standard of God.

God has more respect for cold. He prefers us to be turned on or turned off. Hypocrisy is to claim something but to not do it. If your’e just cold, there is no hypocrisy to it. Jesus was not happy with the Pharisees and the Sadducees, because they put heavy laws on others that they weren’t willing to follow or bear. He called them vipers and white washed tombs. However, He spoke directly to the sinners sin, He never condemned the sinner, He just tried to show them a better way. There’s more hope for that person who is willing to see and turn from it. We are never to use grace as a license to sin, therefore making it void and cancelling it out. We are to turn from it and walk in the newness as we follow Christ.

He told us what He would do with those who were luke warm (comfortable, lost zeal and full of excuses, so called believers). He used the analogy “spew you out of My mouth” because it’s a disgusting, detestable taste. It’s an abomination and detestable practice to ride the fence. We are or we aren’t, in or out, on or off. That is why we must FIRST remove those things before we can go any further! We must repent and that means to turn around/ after we seek forgiveness through confession. We turn from that sin and the very thing that held us back and away.

Why can’t we move forward? Why do we seem stuck and not able to go forward? Could it be because THEY (all of our ill practices and things that cause us to stumble) ARE STILL IN THE WAY? Do they still have priority and take precedence over God? We must remove them completely or we are still hanging onto them while trying to move forward into freedom. That’s impossible. Those evil practices are just half hearted truths that lead to full out lies and deceit. They’re a trap that hold us back from following God and none of them please Him. They end up being strong holds in our lives. That which holds us back, just becomes stronger and stronger the more we give in to it’s pull. It’s like quick sand, before you know it, you can’t get out.

If it, whatever or whoever “it” is, leads us away from, then it doesn’t lead us closer to God or His way. We know that His way is holiness, purity and truth. Are we on the path or righteousness or sin? We all fall short and sun daily, thats not the question. The question is do we quickly get back up and get back on the straight path with eyes fixed, OR, do we keep veering to the right or the left. We must have laser focus and a determination, will and heart to follow Him. The bottom line is, we all sin and we all strayed, but Jesus came to save us from that very sin. We must accept and follow. We have and advocate working on our behalf. Do we lean and depend?

My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:

And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.

He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him. 1 John 2:1-5

That’s good news. When we fall short, we can run to Him. But, we MUST keep His commands. We MUST take His Word seriously. If we love Him, if we truly love Him, then we will and will want to keep His commands. We will want to do that which pleases Him. It would hurt us to hurt the Father. The only way to Him is through Jesus, because we are blood bought, we are His. That’s good news. We couldn’t get it right, so He came to get it right for you and I, and now His Spirit resides in you, if you know and follow Him. You don’t have to go it alone and you are not alone on this journey called life. I want to say when I get where I’m going that I leaned and I want to hear well done.

He tells us to keep ourselves unspotted from the world. Why? Because HE IS COMING BACK FOR A SPOTLESS BRIDE. Not a tainted one. That was when we WERE living in sin, but He came and died to save us and redeem us from that old life of sin which we WERE entangled, NOT to just go back to it!!!! We were dirty and are dirty unless we are covered in His righteousness. He clothes us in His robe of righteousness and washed us white once we accepted Him. Question is, have we taken off that robe and traded it back in?

This message isn’t to shame, it’s actually to get you out of the pig pen and back to the Father’s way.

WE MUST STAND FOR THE STANDARD OF GOD.

One of my favorite song lines has always been: “You’ve got to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything”. In a world that seems to fall for anything, will Christ find you amongst the few standers? Let this be your mission. There will be more that don’t than do. Narrow is the way, and many are called, but few are chosen. Why? Because many aren’t willing to take and make that stand. Today’s a good day to make a stand and stand with the few. To continue to stand on every word and promise of God. Everyone of His promises are yes and amen, for those who follow. Otherwise, there would be no need for a standard.

“Dear Lord my God, I need You back in my heart. What are we in pursuit of? Do we even know? I want my pursuit to be: going and growing closer to You everyday. And my mission to be: to do all that pleases You with all my heart. I confess that I have sinned, fell short and strayed. I have found other loves and let them back in. I seemed to have drifted away from and lost my first true love. Lord, I do repent. I call you Lord because I need You to Lord over me, I can’t do it on my own. I call You Savior, because You died to save me from this very sin so that I might live free, yet it’s of my choosing and accepting. I call and acknowledge You as God because You Rule and Reign. You are my Creator and my God. You formed me, made me and fashioned me after Your very own image. You created me with a good purpose and plan in mind and I just want to follow after it; to follow after You. Wherever I got off track Lord, I choose to turn around and lay it all down and get back on track with You. Starting a fresh and a new. Empty handed, Lord I ask that You fill me up with Your Spirit and all that is of You. Anything else or any other priority leads me straight away from You. I just need You! My Leader, my Guide, my Rock, my Father, my Comforter, my Shelter, my Savior, and my Friend, all wrapped into one. God, I’m nothing without You. Thank You for loving and forgiving me when I fall short. Thank you for Your Son, my Savior. I love You God. In Your Son’s Jesus Name, Amen.”

“The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee. Again I will build thee, and thou shalt be built, O virgin of Israel: thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets, and shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry.” Jeremiah 31:3-4

He loves you. Always has, always will. He wants to build you up again. Let Him in today. Let Him rule and reign.