Awareness Week: Look Inside for Details

              

                  All over the nation people are encouraged to participate in some type of awareness program.  (I.E. Breast Cancer, Drunk Driving, Getting Organized, Volunteer Blood Donors, etc.)  I looked up a calendar that has lists upon lists of topics to be aware of every month.  I decided that with this idea, I am going to promote a different type of awareness topic; A two-part awareness week.  Firstly, being aware of the schemes of the enemy and his effect on human kind.  Secondly, being aware of the coming return of Jesus to this earth.

                Being Aware of the Schemes of the Enemy:

1.)    Hatred

2.)    Malice

3.)    Discouragement

4.)    Envy

5.)    Sickness

                Satan has a whole bag of tricks he totes around.  As I have said in a previous post, the devil’s main task is to try to make you inefficient in the Kingdom of God.  He does what he can to make us feel low, depressed, and oppressed.  He lies and makes us feel less than what we are.  We give him power over our lives.  We give him power over our thoughts.  We give a footstool power over us.  That’s right something that is supposed to be under our feet, we allow it to hang over our head.

                His main job is to lie, steal, kill, and destroy.  He comes in he lies to us, steals our God-given power over him, kills our peace and joy and destroys all the work that God has done in our lives.  Guess how he accomplishes this?  Our worst enemy gives the devil that power.  You might ask who can be a worse enemy than the devil.  We are our own worst enemies.  After the devil plants his seed and waters it.  He leaves us.  He sees that his seed was planted and moves on to plant others.  He gets us at our weakest areas in our lives and we allow him to have a stronghold over us.  We keep on condemning ourselves long after he has gone.  You see when we are in those discouraged moments and we see no possible way we can deserve to be a child of God, we are not doing anything to benefit the Kingdom we so long to be in.

                I encourage all of us to be aware that we have an unseen enemy.  He lays in wait for us to be at a weak moment and he pounces on it.  Don’t give your God-given rights away.   The Bible firmly states that if you submit yourself to God, the devil will flee from you (James 4:7).  Not might, could be, or never, but that he WILL flee from you.  Take your power back and cast the devil back in hell where he belongs.  Or do like Ms. Joyce at my church and just pat him on his head and send him on his merry way, with the knowledge that he has no place in your life.

                Being Aware of Christ’s Return:

1.)    No one will know the day or hour

2.)    Be ready at all times

a.       Swift and sudden return

b.      No opportunity for last minute repentance

c.       No opportunity to bargain

d.      The choices we have made will determine our destiny

3.)    While we are waiting

a.       Take care of God’s people

b.      Do God’s work in the church and out of it

                Jesus tells his disciples to be watchful, to be aware, for His return (Matthew 24:36-51).  Now He spoke all of this prior to His crucifixion.  Jesus knew what His purpose was on earth.  He let God lead Him and He obediently followed.  He didn’t question God, or argue with Him.  He just went where He was told to go, and did what He was told to do.  So often we hear the voice of God directing us and we choose to argue or ignore what He asks us to do. 

                We are not on this earth for our own whims and desires.  God purposed us.  He made us for a purpose to be a child in His Kingdom.  If you look back hundreds of years ago, everyone had a place in the kingdom, from the men and women who toiled in the fields to the King himself.  Even though we are in a modern time we are still in a Kingdom.  God being the Highest authority.  Make no mistake, everything that is happening, God knew about before it ever occurred.  God tells us in the book of Jeremiah, “ I know the plans I have for you…..plans to prosper you not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” 

                Prosperity is not just a monetary thing.  When you die money won’t matter.  Stop idolizing money and what it can do for you.  The rich man asked Jesus what he could do to have eternal life. Jesus told him to sell his possessions and give to the poor.  He couldn’t do this.  He walked away, sad.  He didn’t look beyond the words sell your possessions. He took from that, that he should sell all he owned and then give it to the poor.  We just talked about this in church.  Jesus did not ask him to sell all of his possessions.  He told him to get rid of all the things that are becoming a wall between him and God.  He advised him to help the poor.  God knows that we have to take care of ourselves.  He is asking that we help the poor.  Not give so much that we can’t provide for ourselves.  But, on the other hand, whatever we give we will get back.  So why do we not follow what God has asked of us.  Why don’t we take our rightful place created for us?

                Right now is the time to act; it is the time to be BOLD for Christ.  Look around you.  Look at what is happening in the world and prepare yourselves.  Because there is a time coming when you will need to act and looking back won’t be an option.  If you start now, If you get prepared now, if you Become Aware now,  you won’t have anything to worry about. 

                Love in Christ,

             Kristine