“Righteous art thou, O LORD…Thou hast planted them, yea, they have taken root; they grow, yea, they bring forth fruit; thou art near in their mouth, and far from their heart” (Jeremiah 12:1a,2).

We are living in a day of cardboard Christians, pseudo saints, and plastic preachers. Far from being true in the innermost being to God there is falsehood and deceitfulness. Any nation that finds itself in this position is a nation in great decay and headed for destruction.

Words will never move the hand of God to bless unless they are words backed from a righteous life found only in God. God desires truth, humility, honesty, and that is found only in Yawheh, the Covenant Making God.

The prophet Jeremiah was planted in God and true to the core of his being. He was wheat among the poisonous tares of his day. He saw planted around and next to him those who had taken root in the land and who had filled the air with their words that were religious but unrighteous, in other words people far from God.

Friend we are in conflict with the world. It will only get worse and the affliction is real. As long as the world becomes more religious and God’s people become compromised then we can be assured it is all shaping up for judgment. Yet you and I do not have to fall into despair. Jeremiah said, “But thou, O LORD, knowest me; thou hast seen me, and tested mine heart toward thee” (Jeremiah 12:3). God tests us that we may be proven. Character develops in Christ as we understand the times and we are aware of the devil’s tactics. We are on the winning side!

“But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word” (Acts 6:4).
A much needed group of people do not attend the prayer meeting because it’s–forgive me for saying it–boring. They pray about the same things the same old way. We believe as Christians that our prayer life ought to be Scripture-fed, Spirit-led, worship-based praying. Yet, why do we not sense and see greater praying and great pray-ers?
The observation of many is that the evangelical church does a great deal of complaining about the decay and demise of our culture, the low level of political discourse, and the advancement of religious darkness. Helpless as we are to stem these ominous tides, yet incredibly as it sounds, we still do not humble ourselves and pray. We lament that we have not seen revival, but we are not yet desperate enough to seek God for such an outpouring of God’s Spirit.
I want to ask you to open your Bible and read its truth. As you study the passage begin to seek God in prayer. Offer to God these Scripture truths back to Him in prayer. Pray the Scripture back to Him. Concentrate in your efforts to use the Scripture as you pray.
Don’t allow the “ministry of the Word” to become shallow to you. And please do not allow prayer to become superficial. The foundation of what we are and what we do is “prayer and ministry of the word,” even as the early church leaders did, according to Acts 6:4. We can change our church and our world! When we learn to pray effectively and fervently.

An Expensive Delay Led to a Third day of Death

“And it came to pass on the third day, when they were sore, that two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brethren, took each man his sword, and came upon the city boldly, and slew all the males” (Genesis 34:25).

Jacob should have continued to Bethel. God instructed him to return to the place where he first met the Lord. But instead Jacob bought a parcel of land, pitched his tent, built a house and dallying in Succoth and buying more time in Shechem.

Lot pitched his tent toward Sodom and lost his daughters (Genesis 19:30ff), and Jacob moved too close to Shechem and lost Dinah. Jacob was not in a hurry to get back to where he first met God.

Jacob’s delay in obedience to the revealed will of God indirectly brought heartache to the family. Jacob’s granddaughter Dinah was raped and his two sons became murderers because Jacob tarried. When we fail to comply fully to God’s will we place ourselves and our loved ones in danger. Delay led to defilement to deception to disgrace.

Don’t settle “twenty miles short of Bethel” in willful, halfway obedience. We can build our altars to God and it will not “alter” your life. Disobedience never makes up for whatever sacrifices you may give. Morally weak, still deceiving, the old nature lingers in us and we must reckon ourselves dead in Christ everyday. Pay the high cost of right actions before God. The welfare of your life and your children matter.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (Matthew 5:6).

Confession means to simply admit unfaithfulness to God through your sinful thoughts and actions; to totally agree with God’s point of view regarding your thoughts and actions as inexcusable; to humbly accept any consequences brought about by those thoughts and actions; to diligently act in renewed faithfulness toward your gracious, forgiving God.

The Son of Man majors in sinners.  He doesn’t major in sin — He majors in sinners.  But then, everybody’s a sinner, right?  Then what kind of sinner does He focus on?

Hungry ones.  Desperate ones.  And still today, Jesus gives His attention to sinners who desperately need Him to address their sin because of who they know He is.

Could it be that many of us are just too righteous for Jesus?  You know…we’re too “okay” for Jesus.  We’re part of the crowd.  We have not broken loose to go climb the sycamore tree as Zacchaeus did.  We just haven’t realized, as of yet, that unless we’re galvanized into Jesus’ mission, we’ll miss Jesus.

How hungry are you?  How bad do you want Him?  That’s what God wants to know from us.  Are you up in a tree looking for God?  Are you out of fellowship with God?  Then look no further for God is passing by and He is passing for you and me.

“And it was told Laban on the third day that Jacob was fled” (Genesis 31:22).

Jacob’s father-in-law was a full-length mirrored-image of Jacob himself. Laban was a deceiver, a conniver, a cheat and he worshipped at the image of other gods (Genesis 31:10). Jacob was a deceiver, a conniver, a cheat, and he worshipped the true and living God, but he did not see himself as God saw him. So the Lord gave him a reality check for several years. Sometimes it takes a long time for people to get rid of themselves.

Do we realize that God places within our person those to whom we work with, talk to, come into contact with, who come alongside of us to make us miserable. Why? It could be to reveal to us what we are really like. When their glaring faults are detestable and obvious to us we can be sure that we have also have a flawed character trait that we are blind to. Our assessment of them is really God’s assessment of us.

We become our biggest enemies. Even if we did not have the sinister minister of deceit, Satan, in the world, the flesh we have will continue to deceive, corrupt, and judge. So how does God get this out of us? He places a Laban before us to reveal and causes us to feel the burn of what we are like to others.

After the third day Laban came for Jacob. But God revealed to Jacob it was time to leave and go home to the house of God where he first met the Lord. Laban never learned what it meant to bow before the God of Jacob. Laban never changed.

Jacob bowed at the feet of the God and he learned to allow God to surgically remove the blemishes, the faults, and the blindness of his own life. His crookedness, maneuvering, judgmental flaws were washed away over time and God removed much of what was holding him back.

Thank God for the third day. One day God will take away all that holds us back from being what He is like. One day we will awaken into His likeness.