Dearly beloved,
I know indeed that you are suffering. I know you are tired, weary, frustrated and dejected. Life has chewed you up and spit you out. I know that anxiousness, temptation and condemnation consistently knock on your heart’s door. It hurts me to see you suffer under an unnecessary load. When I see you suffering, I grieve for the brokenness in the world and for the pain that My creation is constantly subjected to.
But here’s the rub: I cannot simply take your pain away. To do so would be to go against the very nature of how I have created things and furthermore it would go against my own holy nature.
I have created things so that when something is out of step with my perfect holiness and love, discomfort and pain will come as warnings to help deliver you from the trap of sin and evil.
So many times you ask me to give you peace and joy, help and hope and I not only desire to give it to you, but indeed have paid the price and fully made it available to you. But you will never be able to fully receive and walk in my peace and joy, help and hope if you consistently walk according to the ways of the world, set up for yourselves idols and false gods and if you insist on living according to what seems best to you instead of following my perfect instruction.
So here is my invitation to you: ‘Come to me all you who are weary and I will give you rest’. But recognize that to come to me you will have to agree to leave your sinful and worldly ways. I will empower you to resist temptation and to flee from sin, wickedness and evil but if you intend to come to me for rest and salvation of your soul and life then you must agree to leave your selfishness, human anger, wrath, judgmentalism, retribution, vengeance, fear, jealousy, envy, gossip, sexual immorality, idolatry, licentiousness, negativity, back-stabbing, gluttony, divisiveness, drunkenness, and addictions behind.
If you ask me to save you but you never let me deal with your specific sins or the sin nature inside of you, then you are asking for something that I will never do for it goes against my nature of holy perfect love. If you ask me to deliver you and heal your land but you continue to insist that I support your politics and your mean-spirited behavior one to another, you will never find my rest. This is not because I am withholding My rest from you, but because you are trying to define salvation and the kingdom of God according to your ways and not Mine according to your vantage point instead of from My eternal truth and perfect wisdom.
Dearly beloved, please come to me for your salvation. Ask me to forgive your sins, deliver you from your enemy, give you power over sin and selfishness and yes even heal your land. But then in your asking Me this recognize that I will only answer this prayer according to the promises and the commands I have made. You must leave your ways, seek out My ways and ask and allow Me to direct your words, attitudes and actions. If you ask Me for My help and My blessing but you do not let Me do what needs to be done according to My way and My plans you are sealing your fate under the decisions and behaviors of your own choosing.
This breaks my heart, but I was not lying and My character of holiness has never changed. Please dear child, come to me, and choose My way of holiness, lest you find yourself in darkness now and forever.
Matthew 23:37 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those having been sent to her! How often would I have gathered together your children, the way in which a hen gathers together her chicks under the wings, and you were not willing!
Isaiah 30:15 For this is what the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, has said: “In repentance and rest you will be saved, In quietness and trust is your strength.” But you were not willing
2 Corinthians 6:17 Therefore, COME OUT FROM THEIR MIDST AND BE SEPARATE,” says the Lord.
Hebrews 12:14 Pursue peace with all people, and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.
1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will do it.
Pastor Michael Johnson 