Pestilence (Give it up!)
4 Amens
(Pestilence)
Luke 5:1-11So it was, as the multitude pressed about Him to hear the word of God, that He stood by the Lake of Gennesaret, and saw two boats standing by the lake; but the fishermen had gone from them and were washing their nets. Then He got into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, and asked him to put out a little from the land. And He sat down and taught the multitudes from the boat.
When He had stopped speaking, He said to Simon, “Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.”But Simon answered and said to Him, “Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net.” And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their net was breaking. So they signalled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!”
For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish which they had taken; and so also were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid. From now on you will catch men.” So when they had brought their boats to land, they forsook all and followed Him.God is calling a people/generation to Himself and what happens when you draw near to God is He begins talking to you about things in your life that don’t glorify Him.
We, as God’s children, should all be desperately drawing closer to the living God. Do you realise our proximity is in direct proportion to our effort. James 4:8 says draw near to God and He’ll draw near to you.” Who Draws First?C.S. Lewis.
“When I was a child, I often had a toothache, and I knew that if I went to my mother, she would give me something which would deaden the pain for that night and let me get to sleep. But I did not go to my mother--at least not till the pain became very bad. And the reason I did not go was this: I did not doubt she would give me the aspirin; but I knew she would also do something else. I knew she would take me to the dentist the next morning. I could not get what I wanted out of her without getting something more, which I did not want. I wanted immediate relief from my pain; but I could not get it without having my teeth set permanently right. And I knew those dentists; I knew they would start fiddling about with all sorts of other teeth which had not yet begun to ache. Our Lord is like the dentists. Dozens of people go to Him to be cured of some particular sin. Well, He will cure it all right, but He will not stop there. That may be all you asked; but if you once call Him, He will give you the full treatment.”The truth is that God is Holy and He requires His followers to reciprocate His holiness. But there are snare’s & traps to growing in God and it is those niggling things in your life that you can justify that God is going to talk to you about tonight.
Tonight I’m talking about pestilence.I am not talking about gross sin tonight or transgression although that is an absolute trap. I'm not going to touch on the things that we like to call the big baddies: Drunkenness, Violence, Sexual Immorality, etc…
I’m not even going to say anything new to you tonight but simply reciprocate what God has been trying to say to you for sometime. Up until now you have been able to silence His voice. He brings it up again and again but you continually silence His voice and even get good at it.You can begin to not just silence His voice but you are able to imitate it. You can cause the pleading of your sinful nature to sound strikingly like what He sounds like.
When people usually say to me that they have trouble hearing God’s voice I don’t always buy it! I know it’s something you have to work hard at and something that takes time and a heap of faith but usually what these people are trying to say they are convinced that God is speaking but how does one differentiate between God’s words and the words of our flesh.The way you do it is o stop listening to the words of your flesh!!!
The voice you’re most obedient to, becomes the one that speaks loudest.If you’re anything like me and I'm guessing you are. We get so good at doing whatever we want that we actually ignore God’s voice completely and just obey what our sinful desires until God’s voice is so faint that He can’t even be heard.
Or something even worse: He has ceased to speak to you altogether!Give It Up!!!
……………………………………………………………………………………………Since my salvation some years back there has always existed something that God was prodding me about. Something that He wants gone out of my life something that He wants to remove in order for me to grow. It’s not the big bad stuff that I have had to deal with but it’s the seemingly insignificant little things that I hold on to with a everything I have and God keeps whispering in my ear: “Craig, give it up!” I pretend I don’t hear of course because it’s something I enjoy and so He speaks on: “Craig, give it up!” So I try a different tact, I tell Him who else is doing it and He doesn’t let up: “Craig, give it up!”
And our lives at times can be compared with the game ‘horizontal bungee’.It’s played with giant elastic band wrapped around your waist. This elastic is tied to something behind you something from your past and the purpose is to try and reach the goal while resisting the pressure to go back. Sometimes it feels like making progress but you still have your baggage. You still have your elastic and if you have ever played horizontal bungee than you know that the elastic won’t only keep you from progressing it will also pull you right back to where you started. It doesn’t just forbid forward movement it also prevents you from holding onto any ground you have struggled to win.
These things in our lives that aren’t sin but God keeps pressuring us to relinquish are exactly like that elastic band. Here is the difference between sin and pestilence you see sin will not allow any forward movement it’s more like a brick wall but pestilence is more like an elastic band that will give a little and even allow you to make a little progress but when you have put more pressure on the band than it allows it will throw you back to where you came from.It’s funny when you watch the game being played and certain aggressive people will actually attempt to use speed and power as their advantage and throw themselves forward in an attempt to gain more ground but the elastic is STILL AROUND YOU!!! And though you might make a lot of ground quickly you will always end up where you started. These types of people are usually the conference and camp junkies. They go to such things as these or even youth and get all fired up and make a heap of ground in one passionate lunge forward but the thing is as soon as they get back to life and their feet on the ground again there is no real change in them. You’ll get even others who play the game and they are more the patient and thoughtful type. They don’t explode with any such lunges but they take it a step at a time and think carefully about their next move. Neither of these approaches are wrong or ungodly because the problem isn’t how you play the game the problem is what’s still stuck to you.
You see and forward movement as a sign that God doesn’t really have a problem with what I’m doing. “See I'm going forward, it’s just harmless!” But when you have reached your point of failure in your own strength you’ll be flung back to where you started it doesn’t just hinder forward motion but it keeps steeling the ground you fought so hard to achieve. You can do anything and everything possible but while your keeping that attached to your waste you’ll never be free.Give It Up!!!
God designed you to be free from the world and sold out to Him. He died so you could be the;· Head, not the tail.
· Above only not beneath.· More than a conquer.
· A warrior who’s weapons are not carnal but MIGHTY in pulling down strongholds of the darkness of this age.· A child of the king and an heir of all that the Master has promised.
· You were created to sit in heavenly places not squabble in filth.· To rule as kings and queens and dictate the fate of the Human race.
But you cannot walk in these promises until you are free from these pestilences. Think for a moment what it is God might be talking to you about??? I bet you don’t have to think for long. He has been talking about it for a long time now hasn’t He.
It might be as simple as
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You see in the bible there is this character known as Abraham and he was known as the friend of God. One day he was just having a chat with God and he says to God: “God, mate, buddy, friend, pal, I was just thinking how awesome this relationship I have with You is. You’re the most powerful Being in the universe. You’re the most intelligent being in the universe and you can hear and see everything in fact, You’re the greatest friend anyone could ever have. But, God I was just thinking you know if there was a kind of sign that would show how ‘tight’ You and me are? You know nothing too flashy that would stink of pomp and pride just something small that people could recognise as the symbol of our covenant. For me and also my children and their children and so on.God smiles and bends down to Abraham’s ear and whispers a little something to him: “Abraham, the sign will be circumcision”
“Abraham turns his head up and says: “God I think you’re going to have to speak up because I think I’m misunderstanding you.”“No you’re not, that’s what I said!”
“Oh.” Said Abraham. “Do you have anything else? I was thinking like a cool tattoo or something.”God decided that the sign of a relationship between man and God would be circumcision. And I was wondering for the life of me what does that mean??? Why that???
Let me tell you why: The procedure conducted on infant boys does not remove dead, diseased, or contaminated skin. The skin that is removed is completely healthy human flesh, but it is a breeding ground for future infection.The sign of a generation totally sold out to God is a generation completely void of any area that could develop into a breeding ground for future infection.
That’s exactly what pestilence is: Something in your life that is not sin. It’s not evil nor the devil incarnate but God says that if you want to seek after me and draw close to me than I will require you to wear the sign of our covenant.He says “I am determined to rid your life of all things that will in the future breed infection.”
Jer 4:4 “Circumcise yourselves to the lord, and take away the foreskins of your hearts”God is speaking to you and me tonight about CUTTING some stuff out of our lives.
One day Jesus was preaching in a boat to a mass crowd and when He had finished preaching He told the men who were professional fisherman to cast out their nets into the sea and pull it back and Pete says; “Jesus, mate we have been fishing all night and caught nothing, not only that can’t you see we have just finished cleaning our nets. I’ll leave the preaching up to you and you can leave the fishing up to me, hey? But if yo insist I will and prove to You that I'm better at dictating my own life.”So he throws out his net and draws the biggest ever catch. Peter is so astonished he collapses to his knees and tells Jesus to leave because of the sin in his life. But Jesus simply says “Don’t be afraid, now you will catch men and Peter took what he could carry and followed after Jesus.
No he didn’t, he relinquished all. His favourite fishing rod. His favourite boat and his entire life.……………………………………………………………………………………………
I have said that since my salvation God has been speaking to me about something. There have been many things that He has cut out of my life because He is determined to have me finish my race and make it to heaven.He is not doing it to be a spoil sport or a killjoy He is absolutely determined to rid my life of every breeding ground for infection.
I can give you a list of the thing’s He has fought to tear from my tight grip:-
A gym membership: This one took 4 long years.
- Playing certain sports.
- TV shows.
- Music: This one was hard because when I was unsaved I was a musician, that’s what I did. I played guitar in a band and had to give it up!
- Relationships: God had to actually tell me to disassociate with certain people. Not because He didn’t love them but because they were a bad influence on me.
And yet even today He is still calling me to relinquish some things that I have been holding with a vice like grip and He still calls… “Give it up!”
30 Day D+L
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Miss Kata
Craig C. Ireland
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