What Is Your Spiritual Temperature? (Part 1)
It is important to hear what The Spirit of God is saying to us in this hour. The Bible says in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. (Matt 18:16 B). When you hear something over and over out of the mouths of God’s people, it’s time to listen. At the beginning of the year, I heard The Spirit say, “My church must return to her first love. Priorities have to change. I must be first-place in the lives of my people.” I announced to my church that I would be delivering a message about that in the next few weeks. That evening, our church joined in with another church, The River Northwest, in Bremerton, WA. for a revival meeting with Richard & Ronda Moore, from Tampa, Fl. I was astounded to hear that was his exact theme for the entire week. He said some of the very same things that I had mentioned in my introduction. I already had notes jotted down that he said, word for word. We were challenged the entire week to come up higher in the things of God. I felt led to invite them back to our church for the next weekend before they were scheduled to fly out. Richard continued the theme. I was convicted and challenged to begin a quest this year to go higher and deeper in God.
I have not written a blog in a few months. I have been concentrating on my health and some other areas. The Lord told me that it was time to begin again. I am going to do a series of blogs on this subject for a few weeks, or possibly months.
I want to begin by asking a few questions. Are you satisfied with your walk with God? Does He have first place? Are you as excited about Him as the day you were born again? Is He the One you think about most, spend the greatest amount of time with, and sacrifice your finances for? Do you spend as much on church projects as you do your hobbies, vacations, holidays and family? Is He so real to you that you feel as though you are walking and talking with Him all day long? Do you love His people and things more than hobbies, family, or interests? Are you willing to watch a football game for four hours, but become irritated if church goes over one hour? Are you anxious to come to church and want to be the last to leave? Are you anticipating how God is going to speak to you before the service begins? Do you leave changed or bored? Is it easy for you to cop an attitude toward things in church or fellow Christians and yet put up with anyone at work? Do you go to work, the movies, fellowship with friends, participating in your favorite hobby, or out to dinner when you have a virus, cold, or flu, but use the excuse to miss church? Will you starve yourself and work out to make your physical goals, but refuse to fast one day or attend prayer meetings? Will you spend hours texting, reading fb, reading and answering emails, but not pick up your Bible, except in church? Will you spend hours planning camping trips, vacations, weekend excursions, tupperware and other kinds of social parties, but not volunteer with a spirit of excellence for the kingdom? How often will you leave your sleep to answer the Lord’s bidding to come away with Him? Will you sacrifice some fun time to save our nation from it’s perilous down-slide? Will you speak up and tell the truth, when it is not politically correct to most? What if your faith cost you prison time or worse? How much time do you spend witnessing for The Lord verses talking about other things? Does the world love you or hate you? If you were accused of being a Christian, and it were brought to court, is there enough evidence to convict you?
These are just a few of the questions that I am asking myself and will be asking my church this Sunday. I am challenging all of us to these questions this year.
Dr Debbie Rich Rester