Are You Dressed?

I read a verse today that got my mind spinning. As I waited for my son to get out of school, I felt the Holy Spirit pouring this out in a flood. I could not look up the verses fast enough. These are my musings, so here we go.
I John 2:28 in the Amplified Bible "And now little children, abide (live, remain permanently) in Him, so that when He is made visible, we may have and enjoy perfect confidence(boldness, assurance) and not be ashamed and shrink from Him at His coming."
There was a slight remembrance of something when I heard this verse, and it harkens all the way back to Genesis. After Adam and Eve had sinned and eaten of the tree, God made His usual trip to the garden to walk with them in the cool of the day. Let's look at this passage in chapter 3 verses 7-8 "Then the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves apronlike girdles. And they heard the sound of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden." Sounds like they were ashamed and shrinking from Him at His coming.
After this my mind quickly tripped over to the parable of the wedding guests. This is found in Matthew 22: 1-14. Verse 11 says in the King James "And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there was a man which had not a wedding garment: And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless."
By now, I have looked in the margin of my chain reference, and I saw the next verse under "robe of righteousness" I went to Luke 15:22. This is the story of the prodigal son. When the son returns home to his father, the father calls for the best robe to be put on his returning son.
The word "clothed" began ringing in my head, so I looked it up in my concordance. I was referred to Isaiah 61:10 in the King James "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God: for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels." Aha! I'm getting somewhere, but at the same time, I feel there is something vast out there waiting for me. The chain reference leads me to Zechariah 3:4
in the King James "And he answered and spake unto those that stood before him saying, Take away the filthy garments from him. And unto him said, Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with a change of rainment."
I'm realizing that God provides these proper garments with which we need not be ashamed in His presence. Back to Genesis. After God deals with Adam, Eve and the serpent for their sin, verse 21 is the foreshadowing of what I have just seen later in scripture. " Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothed them."
During all of these revelations, I called to remembrance a verse in Revelation regarding garments and shame. Rev. 16:15 in the King James "Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame."
By this time I am starting to assimilate a train of thought regarding being clothed with garments, and not being ashamed. Here's what I see. (And please, if I seem off, please show me through scripture how I am off. Don't leave me in error.)
God is the one who provides the garments of salvation, the robes of righteousness. They are provided through the shedding of Jesus' blood on the cross of Calvary. Those are the only acceptable garments. Without those garments, you will be ashamed at his coming. He will come as a thief, so we must always be ready. We cannot put off accepting these garments. But, from the parable of the wedding feast, I see that some will come to the feast with improper garments. Adam tried to make his own garments, but still was ashamed when God came to walk with him. God made sure before He left the garden that he provided an animal skin garment for them. We also see this concept of improper garments in a practical way in Matt. 7:21-23 "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity."
What garments are you wearing? I John says that if we abide in Him we may have confidence and not be ashamed before Him at His coming. Jesus says in Matthew that only those who do the will of His Father which is in heaven will enter the kingdom of heaven. God gives out the garments of salvation and the robes of righteousness as in Isaiah and Zechariah says that God takes our filthy garments of iniquity and gives us a change of rainment.
Are you wearing robes of your own righteousness? Are you wearing the robes of prophesying in His name? Casting out devils? Many wonderful works? If we are trying to create our own robes of righteousness, Isaiah 64:6 says, "But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags;"
I see only one way to be fully clothed and unashamed in the day of Christs return. We must acknowledge our sin and our separation from God. We must acknowledge that Jesus, God's Son is the only way to obtain the rightful robes. We must accept his sacrifice as payment for our sin and allow Him to be Lord of our life. We must do the will of the Father which is in heaven and abide in Christ. I believe that this is the narrow road. We cannot find our own way of coming to Jesus or we will be looked on as the man at the wedding feast. We will be thrown out.
In this day when the American church is a machine, looking for volunteers to serve in their "ministries", I urge you to search your heart and search God's heart. Don't be flattered that you are wanted. Don't be flattered that you are promoted. If you see ministry as making you look better in God's eyes, beware! Don't be caught unclothed and ashamed.
Are you dressed?

Encouragement for Weary Travelers

Recently, the lyrics to this song have been going through my head. They are as follows:
This world is not my home, I'm just passing through. My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue. The angels beckon me from Heaven's open door, and I can't feel at home in this world anymore .
O Lord you know I have no friend like you. If Heaven's not my home , then Lord what will I do?The angels beckon me from Heaven's open door, and I can't feel at home in this world anymore.
We sang this in church when I was growing up, but I never quite "got" the meaning until I was much older. We say things like, "this world is not my home", but I think we don't "get" it completely. If this world is not our home, why do we put down such large roots? If this world is not our home, why do we worry and fear when people don't agree with us?
I believe that all of us struggle with this in various degrees, because of our humanity. I also believe that we can overcome these things by fixing our eyes on Jesus. This is not the first time I've recommended the cure of fixing our eyes on Jesus, and it won't be the last time. I personally believe that Christianity is and should be simple. Not easy or without problems, but simple. Much of our worries and cares could be diminished or even demolished if we fixed our eyes on Jesus.
I am not someone who speaks in "thus sayeth the Lord" terms, but as someone who watches the signs of the times, I think we can believe that we are in some stage of the last days. We cannot be shocked that evil abounds. We cannot be shocked that our churches are being infiltrated by the ways of the world. We cannot lose our faith and hope. Jesus asked in Luke 18:8 "Nevertheless, when the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?" Matthew 10:22 says, "And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved." Jude verse 3 says, " Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints."
I think all these verses show us that we can't just come to Jesus for salvation, then sit back and relax until the day Jesus returns. We must be active in keeping our faith alive and in enduring until the end. Now more than ever before we need to know as Paul did in II Tim. 1:12 "For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day." If we know Who and what we believe we can stand firm.
Now, I know that we all live in a human body with earthly thoughts and emotions running through our veins. I am not saying we'll never wonder if we're the ones off base or be sad and even lonely in our walk with God. However, if you know what God says in His Word, if you spend time in prayer and in seeking God through His Word; I do not think you can stay for long in a negative or defeated mind set.
We must give the Holy Spirit something to work with in our lives. Jesus said that the Comforter would come and teach you, and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you. If we have God's word in our hearts, the Holy Spirit will bring those things to our remembrance and we won't have to be kept down by what our eyes see around us. I also think that the body of Believers needs to bear one another's burdens. We should be able to talk to our brothers and sisters in Christ about our struggles of faith. I think that in these days you need to watch someones life and see if it bears the fruit of the Spirit before baring your soul, but we should not be afraid to ask for support in prayer.
I would like to recommend some sermon Cd's that have been enormously faith building to me in the last couple of weeks. They are from World Challenge by Dave Wilkerson and they are titled "Standing Steadfast in Christ" and "God Has Not Passed You By" Those two in particular have really encouraged me, but he has many more that I would also recommend. I find Dave Wilkerson to be a steadfast man of faith who seeks the Lord and is not swept about by changing winds of doctrine. I've listened to dozens of his teachings and have always been excited and encouraged in the Lord.
This world is not our home!

God- Mother Teresa or Creator of the Universe?

I've been doing a lot of reading in the Psalms lately and I came across a verse that stopped me in my tracks. Psalm 51:4 caused me to do some serious thinking about what I believe about God. It says, "Against thee, and thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight:..." How often do we think about the fact that we are sinning against God? And, does our view of God cause us to repent when we know we've sinned against Him?
When I think about the American justice system, I think of how many reasons people come up with to justify the sin we commit. When I think of how many ways we minimize our sins, I wonder: Do we realize that we are sinning against the Creator of the Universe? We think of sins in degrees of wrongness, but God doesn't. To Him, sin is sin. When you read the Old Testament and see how God dealt with sin during those times, you can really begin to see how he thought of sin.
In Joshua 7 we see one instance of God's swift punishment for sin. Achan had taken something that God had cursed, and because of this the men of Ai defeated the Israelites. When Joshua sought God, Joshua was told to sanctify the people. God said that he would burn the person who took the cursed thing because he transgressed the covenant of the Lord. Achan, his family, all of his animals and belongings were taken to the valley of Achor and they were stoned first then burnt with fire.
When you hear this story, it is easy to understand why Lamentations 3:22-23 says, "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not comsumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness."
God is not some Mother Teresa in the sky. He doesn't do good deeds. He is the Creator. When he spoke everything we see with our eyes came to be in total perfection. Every fragile ecosytem, every habitat, every aminal with complete bodies were created by God. He created man with all the many systems that we have in our body. When you think about the fact that our bodies work and our organs work in tandem with each other, it is amazing. We can't make excuses to a God this great. We have to stop putting God in a shell of humanity. We were made in HIS image not the other way around.
Sin is sin whether it "hurts" anyone else or not. We can't classify sin by saying, "well, at least I didn't hurt anyone." We hurt God. If nothing else, we hurt God. I can't imagine the pain in God's heart as he walked through the garden of Eden calling out for Adam. I can't imagine what had gone on within God in the time before he went down looking for Adam. I know that when I've known my kids have done something wrong, my heart breaks for them, and for the action that I am going to have to take. I can't imagine how God feels.
I think that if we stopped making God into an image that we can understand and just read our Bibles to know God, our attitudes about sin would change.