This happened many years ago, shortly after I’d just gotten born again:One evening as I had just returned home after that day’s work ,I was sitting in a sofa playing music on the radio and I should tell you honestly that I wasn’t in prayer at that particular time .Suddenly , we got a temporary power failure in our area and so my radio turned off: before I made any movement from the sofa , the Lord began to speak to me audibly in a voice like of a man , I realized he knew me well enough, by name, character, and simply everything : he spoke and said , “Why do you keep sinning , come and repent and then get back into the same sin , is it because you know that am a merciful God that I forgive you whenever you come to me in repentance? Turn to me with all your heart and get out of that sinful nature”. Here I understood the magnitude of Mathew 5:48 that says, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect”.
When He spoke to me –it only lasted about 10 minutes and as soon as He was done speaking, the power that had gone off turned on now. I very well knew whatever the Lord told me that time except that I was treating it as what we’d call simple sins in the human perspective yet again I felt the Lord had been dealing with my spirit about this that whole week .God is always speaking (through the Bible or by rhema word) only that our minds and spirits are far into earthly stuff at times. I realized that even the environment which we create around us at times may prevent us from hearing from God and in some instances when we hear, we don’t understand because of the many things we put into our lives – the unnecessary excitement, failure to read the word of God plus being weak in prayer, I also believe this power failure was God-planned , because there was no way I would listen to His voice with all this loud music turned on , and what’s more – as soon as He had finished talking to me ,the power turned on!
These and others are some of the lead causes of the recurring sin nature in our lives .Paul said “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.The way to fight this battle is by strongly and prayerfully reading the word of God and keeping ourselves in God’s presence(positioning our spirits to hear from God always).
The Bible says in John 3:16 “For God so loved the world (me and you) that He gave His only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have ever lasting life. Verse 18: He who believes in Him is not condemned but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. These scriptures are so true, in fact they are true now more than ever but we should know that however much we live under the grace of Salvation through Jesus Christ, it should not give us liberty to sin but rather that we keep fighting on as we move away from the old nature of sin towards righteousness – not heaping sin upon sin as we keep seeking repentance again and again because we know that He is merciful enough to forgive us. Romans 6:15 “What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?.”
The devil has deceived the world with things like “this is a simple sin or this can’t take me to hell”. There is nothing good, perfect or lasting that you can get from the devil .Jesus tells us we are in the world for our eternal spiritual development. First we are to learn about Him, then we are to teach what we have learned to the rest of the world .We are to reflect His image that we see in the mirror(word of God) to the rest of the world . We are never to forget to do what we have been taught and we are never to forget whose likeness and image we are to reflect and maintain in the world, lest we go to hell for being hypocrites and liars. Luke 12:47 declares “ and that servant who knew His master’s will and did not prepare himself or do according to His will shall be beaten with many stripes”.
God’s servant James tells us a man who clearly sees what he is to be (like Christ) by looking into the word of God, then doesn’t do what the Holy Spirit instructs is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror –for he observes himself , goes away and immediately forgets what kind of a man he was .But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the word , this kind of a person will be blessed in what he does , what I want to stress out here is: salvation is a journey and believing and confessing are the first steps in your walk with the our Lord so when you get on board(for Christ) , make it a point also - to remain on board! Remember Jesus said, in Mathew 24:13 “But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved”.
There are hundreds of things that may never be revealed to you if you don’t study God’s word. Those who the Son (word of God) has set free by the perfect law of liberty are free indeed with great happiness and great joy, “John 8:36 if the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed”. By the time I got that visitation, I realized I had not been prayerfully reading the word of God enough and perhaps that’s why I was referring to some sins as ‘simple’. The only time the devil will take a hold of your life is when you fall for his deceit and move away from the position that Jesus Christ restored us into – the place of salvation, God’s constant surveillance, where you are given the ability (keys) to unlock even the greatest mysteries of life, a place of quenching the storm, the place where God reveals His name.
When you leave that place (spiritual position) or fail to get there, the devil takes charge and closes the door into your God ordained destiny. The Bible states in Revelation 3:8 that “………… I have set before you an open door , and no one can shut it,………. . The door is always open as long as we are in position.
The first step in Eve’s fall into sin was being in the wrong place, in Genesis chapter 3 we find her near the forbidden tree . Proverbs states of the path of wickedness: Proverbs 14:16 “A wise man feareth, and departeth from evil: but the fool rageth, and is confident”.
Get back to the position Jesus Christ restored you into at Calvary when He died for the sins of mankind , the good news is you can decide not to look left or right from now on but look onto Christ, if you’d backslidden ,God says – there is still hope , if you turn yourself completely to Him. The hope of the world lies in Christ. If you haven’t taken Jesus as your Lord and Savior, I pray you do so today!
