August 24, 2020 WWJWMTD by Steve, the son of John

Are You Living a Life of Lies?

This article is for the believer who wants to be a Judge of Righteousness.

The devil can only speak lies. He might quote Scriptures, but he can never speak the Truth. Too often we also tell lies either to others as well as to ourselves. It is ‘the lie’ that gets us into trouble and keeps us from fulfilling the purposes and goals God has for each believer.

Satan still comes to all of us as he approached Eve and Adam and even as he tempted Jesus in the desert during Jesus’s 40 days of fasting. Satan will always come to us before we embark on doing the will of God or before something miraculous happens in our lives.

Satan seeks only to stop you from accomplishing God’s purposes for your life or ministry and/or hindering you from repenting and experiencing forgiveness. He wants to deny you from being washed by the blood of Christ and making your robe (covering) of righteousness white (clean), effective, and acceptable to God.

Whenever we make excuses for ourselves, justify our behavior, compare ourselves to others, even question “Why me God?”, wanting the easy way out (not having patience), or our failure to understand the ‘Fear of the Lord’, we place ourselves at the door of failure; never finding the forgiveness that God offers through Christ.

Eve made excuses by blaming Satan, Adam blamed Eve, Job blamed God and his friends, but Jesus fought back! Jesus fought back using humility/meekness, quoting Scriptures, and denying himself to have any honor or justification for self-righteousness. Where does your righteousness lie? In self-motivation, in works of personal importance, or is it found alone in repentance and the manifestation of righteousness created by the Holy Spirit.

In the end, all individuals that fulfilled the purposes of God in their generation did so not with ‘their works of righteousness’ but with the Holy Spirit’s depositing Jesus’s righteousness in them, thereby producing the ‘Righteousness of the Holy Spirit’.

Now is time to say, “There is no good thing in me or any good I can do. If there is anything I do that is good, it is only Christ in me, the hope of the manifestation of the glory of God through me.”

Paul, Peter, King David, Ruth, Job, Samson, Moses, and all the other pillars of faith found and fulfilled their destinies in God only through repentance and manifesting the works of righteousness—not by their own efforts or deeds, but what God gave them through His great mercy.

Say this prayer every day, “God forgive for all my sins—all my hidden sins, unknowable sins, self-inflicted sins, prideful sins, sins I have even forgotten about. Search my heart for sins of resentment, jealousy, pride; sins of my spirit for resisting God moving in my life; for fleshly sins of lust, greed, unkind words—for any sin that hurt others, hurt Jesus, and hurt those I loved.”

This process often takes time—it takes time to rid your life of deep-seated sins, forgotten sins, and even those sins that were offensive to God—sins you did not realize them as sins. God is in the cleaning business! Jesus wants to make your life perfectly clean so His righteousness has a place to grow and produce works of purity, judgment, and conviction that the world might be judge and believe.

From repentance to righteous to judgment—this is what the Holy Spirit wants to do in you! It took Jesus’ disciples 40 days to forgive each other and to find unity before Pentecost could arrive. God has given us 80 days to find forgiveness and His righteousness. It is time to get started!

WWJWMTD

What would Jesus want me to do?

Dr. Steven J. Wentland www.wwjwmtd.com

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