Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14 NKJV)
It is very essential and vital for us to always pursue peace. Regardless of our personal differences, we should always show peace to others. Peace will come when we show love and justice to others.
We must also pursue holiness. This Scripture says that without holiness no one will see the Lord. If you want to experience victory, always pursue holiness. Hunger and thirst for righteousness. That is the key to true victory.
When you have learnt the secret of walking in the whole counsel of the word of God and in complete union with the will of God, you will be walking in the level of holiness that pleases God. You will experience the glory of God, when your heart is totally yielded to Him.
In complete surrender, submission and humility, we will find victory. That is the mindset of a Christian warrior.
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich. (2 Corinthians 8:9 ESV)
For our sake, Jesus became poor, so that we can be rich. Rich in faith, love, grace, holiness, and divine presence. He suffered so that we will be sanctified, pure and holy. He bore our sins so that we can die to sin and live for righteousness. Glory to God, our God is awesome.
May we never take the grace of God for granted. May we all wash ourselves in the blood of the lamb that makes us clean and holy.
He who loves purity of heart And has grace on his lips, The king will be his friend. Provers 22:11
God is the King of kings and Lord of lords and His Kingship is eternal. This word is telling us that Kings love the pure and graceful. The truth is that great and mighty kings also have friends. They have ordinary friends and special friends. If we purify ourselves and saturate our tongues and lips with grace, God, the greatest King of all, will be our friend. He will be our friend the way that He was a friend to Abraham. God is already our friend by faith but this time around, we will be His friends experientially. We will be His special friends.
Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me. Revelation 3:20
He will be intimate with us and we will know Him deeply. If we open up our hearts to Him, He will eat with us and we will eat with Him at the table of intimate, tender fellowship.
May we open up our hearts to Him, through purity of heart, and sanctification of our lips and tongues.
I was lying down on my bed some months ago, and the Lord spoke to me and said, “ politeness goes hand in hand with wisdom.”
Let us consider this word. Is there really any wisdom in being rude and evil with our tongues? The obvious answer is no, yet a lot of people I know go around, causing so much havoc and destruction with their tongues.
Whatever we desire in this life is what we will get, particularly in the area of grace and spiritual blessings – if we love and desire evil communication and unwholesome words, we will simply continue in it because, believe it or not, the person who engages in it, gets some perverse pleasure in it. Sometimes, it makes them feel superior to those they assault with their tongues and abuse, or it might just be a case of “I simply don’t care how others feel.” In either case, the flesh is being glorified.
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. Matthew 7:7
We need to starve and deny the flesh by making sure our words impart grace, love, encouragement and support to those we speak to. Our words need to build up, comfort, soothe, heal and refresh, not tear down, humiliate, belittle, ravage and torment others.
I have a friend who is not a believer. From the day I met him, some years ago, I have never heard him say any negative thing to me or about others. He was unbelievable in the area of using his tongue wisely. I took it for granted that, that is just his character and I would often tell my other friends that I have this friend who never ever says any bad, negative or evil words to me or about anyone else.
Then, very recently we were talking, and he said to me, “I will never ever use this my mouth to say anything to anyone that will hurt that person. How can I say something to someone, that after I have said it, the person will keep remembering it with pain, and the words will keep tormenting that person? What will I gain from that? I will never do that.” He said it with so much resolve, conviction, passion and determination.
My mind boggled and my eyes became wide with shock. I had a strange look on my face as I looked at him keenly, and digested this new information. That was when I realized that he had put on that character on purpose, and with perfect awareness – it did not fall on him very easily or casually. He craved it.
I had simply assumed that it was just him, but I never knew that not hurting people with his tongue was a practice, and a discipline that he had carefully thought through and resolved within himself never to do. He desired it and God gave him the grace even though he is not a believer.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Matthew 5:6
Do you get what I am trying to say? There is power in hunger, desire, passion and will power and God oversees that hunger or desire in all of creation. Beloved, if an unbeliever could desire that level of tongue purity and God would give it to him, how then will God deny you that grace? You who has been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb with the Holy Spirit as your helper. That man desired the children’s food and he got it. Some requests are not vocalized in prayer – they are simply unspoken requests and desires.
Faith is not all about physical blessings. The best faith is the one that regards spiritual blessings. Sometimes, an unbeliever can exhibit faith in specific commands or instructions but because they do not believe in Jesus and His precious blood that saved us, they remain unbelievers. They do not believe in Christianity but they take parts of the teachings on morality and practice it.
Most religions do this. God gave this man a tamed and sanctified tongue in the area of politeness and not hurting people with the tongue. His tongue is not even saved because he has not confessed that Jesus alone is Lord.
He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”
“Yes, it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” Then, Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment. Mark 15:26-28
This man got part of the children’s food or grace just like the woman whose daughter was sick. Will God deny you that grace? No. The bitter truth is that anyone who goes around being rude and causing havoc with his tongue does not care about sanctifying his tongue. He has no hunger, passion or desire for grace in that area and does not desire it either in the prayer closet or out of the prayer closet.
Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Hebrews 4:16
If we desire sanctified tongues and are humble enough to persistently ask for that grace, God will meet our needs. He gives grace to the humble and resists the proud. If we say that we are perfect and lack nothing without seeing a part of our nakedness, we will remain the same – partially or completely naked.
We will remain the same because we do not even see the need to change. We do not even know that we are partially or completely naked. That is just like spiritual insanity. In the physical, an insane man does not know or recognize his insanity. He is not aware because he is mentally unconscious. A lot of us are not spiritually aware. We are asleep.
This is why it is said: “Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” Ephesians 5:14
May we truly hunger and thirst for righteousness including the sanctification of our tongues in Jesus name. May we be healed from every spiritual insanity and unconsciousness, lack of awareness and nakedness in Jesus name.
According to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood:May grace and peace be multiplied to you. (1 Peter 1:2 ESV)
The Holy Spirit sanctifies us. He is awesome and powerful and He is the Lord. He is also God. Because of this, He is the only one that can make us Holy, complete and pure. He does this by planting the word of God inside us and also enables us to accept His word and retain them in our spirit. It is only by His power that we can understand, keep and practice the word of God.
Without the help of the Holy Spirit we are nothing and less than nothing – we are simply helpless and powerless.
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 2 Corinthians 3:7
Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Acts 5:3
Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.” Acts 5:4
Jesus Himself constantly walked with the Holy Spirit – He needed Him. Jesus was full of wisdom, truth, grace and power by the Holy Spirit. This should serve as a lesson to us and give us some wisdom. If Jesus, the son of God needed the Holy Spirit to fulfil His fathers will, we also need Him.
We must be filled with the Holy Spirit in order to please God completely and be healthy and effective in our daily walk with God including being successful in ministry. Nothing else will do.
