Do You Stink?

The hardest part of being part of God’s remnant is when Holy Spirit gives you the gift of spiritual discernment and you are able to discern the maturity (or immaturity) of those around you. That’s going to sound judgmental, but it’s really not.  As you mature in Christ, you become cognate of the spirits of those around you. Maybe God heightens that sense so that you can intercede more affectively, maybe it’s to show you where YOUR weaknesses lay in how you love others. It amazes me afresh as to how Jesus did it. How Jesus truly loved us through the ugly.  Loving people when “their ugly” is showing is one of the hardest things to do.

It is like someone walking around with their fly open and they are unaware of it until someone (hopefully gently and quietly) whispers it in their ear.  It’s like being a round someone who stinks, and they don’t even know they stink.  God did not call us to judge others, but to prayerfully PRAY for the stinky because we were once like them.  And this doesn’t go only for the unsaved.  Oh no… There are many who profess to be Christians but walk around looking like they have been sucking persimmons with their bibles tucked under their arms.  They are pompous and judgmental, they gossip, and they purposefully tear others down because they think they are on a “higher spiritual level” with their falsely puffed-up selves, their fruit of the spirit does not line up with the way God called them to be.  In other words – their stink is showing, they just don’t smell themselves, they walk in total unawareness and while others can smell it, they cannot.  They are blind to their own stink.  God calls us to intercede for them, to love them.  Only Holy Spirit can help them look inward and not outward in the way the way treat others. They don’t know HOW to love others in the manner God is asking because the truth is, they don’t love themselves…

The Pharisees who professed to be the most “zealous” of religious people were like that, Jesus described religion in Isaiah 29:13:

“Therefore the Lord said: “These people draw near to Me with their mouths and honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. Their worship of Me is but rules taught by men.”

Are you worshiping God with your heart? If you are only worshiping him with precepts… Your stink is showing… The soap that washes all stink away is the blood of Jesus. To be part of God’s called remnant is to have a heart change. We are saved by grace. Not by works.  Works follow as a result of the heart change, but precepts do not save.

James 1:6 says:

“Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless.”

Take a look at Matthew 7:15-20:

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore, by their fruits you will know them.”

If you are truly a part of God’s Remnant in these last days, you realize the “stinky” parts of you that Holy Spirit reveals to you, and you prayerfully ask God, “If there be any evil within me, I pray you remove it.  If there be anything displeasing to you, I pray you help me to change it.”  That’s applying God’s soap to the situation.  Confessing, recognizing and asking God for help in areas that you can’t fix once you have been made aware of it is EXACTLY what God wants us to do.  

In the book of Revelations God is telling the churches where their strengths lay, where their weaknesses lay and what they need to do and the directions they need to take.  He is doing the SAME with us.

So I ask you, do YOU stink?  What are you doing about it as Holy Spirit shows you what needs changing?  Are you loving others as Jesus loves?  Are you part of the problem and not part of God’s solution?  We are all works in progress… But in order to progress in Him you have to be aware of those areas and address them!  I pray that as this year comes to a close, that we all reflect on the areas within us that need changing.  So that we don’t hurt the body of Christ or stunt the spiritual growth of those around us.  So that we don’t dissuade those who don’t know Jesus as Lord and Savior from coming to know Him.  So that the body doesn’t continually injure and maim itself… That gives the Lord NO glory.  We are SUPPOSED to represent HIM. May we be part of the solution and not the problem, in Jesus’ precious name. AMEN