I DO! – Get Your Affairs in Order – June 12th

I DO
June 12, 2021

Get Your affairs in Order

James 4:4-10, ‘You have become spiritual adulterers who are having an affair, an unholy relationship, with the world. Don’t you know that flirting with the world’s values places you at odds with God? Whoever chooses to be the world’s friend makes himself God’s enemy! Does the Scripture mean nothing to you that says, “The Spirit that God breathed into our hearts is a jealous Lover who intensely desires to have more and more of us”? But He continues to pour out more and more grace upon us. For it says, “God resists you when you are proud but continually pours out grace when you are humble.” So then, surrender to God. Stand up to the devil and resist him and he will flee in agony. Move your heart closer and closer to God, and He will come even closer to you. But make sure you cleanse your life, you sinners, and keep your heart pure and stop doubting. Feel the pain of your sin, be sorrowful and weep! Let your joking around be turned into mourning and your joy into deep humiliation. Be willing to be made low before the Lord and He will exalt you!’ (TPT)

The world we live in has contrived many snares. The pitfalls we face were not conceived in the mind of God when He dreamt about His humanity. Though I am sure there are no surprises to God, nothing that He cannot fathom, I also am sure He is saddened by what mankind has manifested. We are the most creative and capable of all God’s creation, meaning we are also the most dangerous to ourselves and to this earth, and ultimately, to the heart of God, because we derived and developed and invented things far beyond our pay-grades, so to speak. Pastor Steven Furtick talked in one of his messages about the imagination and mind of man, how creative it is, how all inventions and creativity is born there. So, is it any wonder, it is what our enemy Satan chooses desperately to attack and annihilate us with the most? He is also using it for his pleasure as it plots evil and wicked schemes and attempts to thwart the goodness God intended.

We have a mighty ‘I Do’, however, that we can shout. Emphatically, we can yell a strong ‘No’ to our enemy, and resist him, and forcefully exclaim a resounding ‘I Do’ to our God. We are told that if we resist the devil, he has to flee. If you resist him, he must depart. With your resistance, he doesn’t get to sit around and ponder whether he will choose to be on his way. No! the Bible says he tucks his pitchfork between his legs and runs. To be obedient, we must first make the choice to not tango with him, to not flirt with the world, to not bed down in an affair—an unholy relationship—blanketed in worldly ways, to not compromise the passions our God created in these earthen vessels, jars of clay. Once we have stood firm and said ‘No!’, he must depart from us, and as this occurs, our God heaps grace upon grace over us. And there is no greater feeling than the joy that comes from peace that surpasses any human understanding.

What a promise ‘I Do’ is! Whether we are committing to a person or simply being intentional in life, our word should be a cherished commodity. This month, journey with me in ‘I Do’ moments which are an oath, a vow, a pact, a pledge, an honorarium.