Don't Excuse Yourself From Knowing the Evil You Indulge In.

How incredibly easy it is to make no effort to change. How wonderful to believe no effort has to be enacted. How simply glorious to twist the word of the Lord so that we believe we do not have to be other than we are. (Extreme sarcasm intended) Satan would have us despair of ever being different from our evil selves, and barring that- Satan would have us believe we do not have to be different. With either belief Satan captures us and lures us down that broad road painted by the best illusionist artist in existence. The broad road all covered in deceiving art to look like the very narrow road we are admonished to walk.

Accept Christ and you are changed…

Changed for a few minutes, a few hours, a few days, maybe a few months, and possibly a couple of years or how about not at all?  Or changed for a lifetime- over a lifetime.

How many would be Christ followers lack the comprehension that the change made in us is one that begins with acceptance of Christ and from there on in it is a constant change ever in motion, never completed until our Savior returns?

The change being made in us is being wrought in a very hostile environment dead set against keeping us from that real heart change Christ alone can make in us. The hostile world we live in will do all in its power to keep us living in malice. We will be provided with ample excuses for our malicious behaviors. We will be given every right to be filled with malice. We will be told, and tell ourselves, that it is our nature and therefore impossible to keep from being evil. We will be convinced that our intentions supersede our actions and because we didn't mean to be vile somehow it's okay. The power of self-deception will be built up in us until it's all but impossible to tell ourselves any truth. I'd call all that hostile to being the new man we are told to be. I'd call it extremely hostile to accepting the daily task of cross carrying, of Spirit living, of using intentional effort to cease evil and force good in ourselves.

What?!  Force good?!  If it's forced can it be from God?  YES. We are doing the forcing, not God!

It takes little to no effort at all to be evil, it comes so naturally just rolling right off our tongues from our naturally sin-filled minds. How many people have to force themselves to be evil? And by evil, I'm NOT just talking about the 'high crimes' of humanity. I'm talking tiny evils too. You know, that little bitty evil in one quick thought indulging in the prideful act of selfishness- self-pity, self-adoration, self-loathing (make no mistake self-loathing can so quickly turn into self-pity we hardly notice it happening). Tiny evils that love to play dress up in good clothes wearing disguises so they are accepted as good. Sometimes the smallest evils in existence wear the most deceptive cloaks.

Forcing ourselves to be evil isn't too big of an issue. It's the forcing ourselves to be good that causes us trouble.

Making ourselves strip off the disguises we put on, to lay bare all the evils within us, this is the lifetime changing, this is the long game we are called to play- the race we begin and keep running until we can run right into our Savior's arms.

Wake up! Put on your Spiritual armor provided by the Holy Spirit daily and determined to choose to live for Christ and to take these words and so many more and put them in our hearts where they belong.

Eph 4:31  Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: 

Eph 4:32  And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. 

PUT away all evil, pray to recognize any evil that needs to be put away.  Whenever we are NOT kind to someone even in the tiniest way, or the largest way and we think they deserve our unkindness justly so- KNOW it is evil within us to be unkind- seek forgiveness!  Whenever our heart is no longer tender but hardened in anyway, again by things we tell ourselves should keep us from being tenderhearted, KNOW it is evil not to be tenderhearted, DON'T EXCUSE yourself from KNOWING the evil you indulge in. To excuse ourselves is to cover it up and offer it a breeding ground for future evil. Whenever we do NOT forgive someone for ANYTHING - we aren't told to set boundaries on our forgiveness- KNOW it is evil in us to keep from forgiving.

God…FOR Christ's sake… FORGIVES us- and we know, we truly know we in no way DESERVE forgiveness-  yet it is offered to us unconditionally upon our acceptance of it.

Please, Lord, we would be Yours!  We believe, help our unbelief! We want You so badly in our lives, to be yours now and forever!