Move Upon The Darkness

July 21

"You will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged." Matthew 7:2

It's such an easy temptation to look at others and judge them -- by their appearances, by their actions, by what they say. Remember, others most likely are doing the same of you. And if you're compassionate, they likely will be too. The bottom line is, it's God's job to judge, not ours! Mike Huckabee

On the one hand, we are admonished to, “try the spirits, to see if they be of God,” I John 4:1, for we know there is much deception afoot. In II Timothy 4:3, Paul warns, “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.”

We seem to live in that day—the time when “good is called evil and evil is called good,” Isaiah 5:20. The prophet goes on to say, “woe to them who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” Can we doubt that day is upon us when it is disdained to speak the name of Jesus in public prayers but all manner of blasphemy and profanity is commonplace?

Can we dispute that the signs of the times point to His soon return when our highest court rules in favor of sin—even unto the murder of children in their mothers’ womb! Can we stay the wrath of the Almighty when we turn His law inside out and make our own laws to reflect the basest desires of men rather than the immutable standard of Heaven!

We know, “we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places,” Ephesians 6:12. Those who would, “exchange the truth of God for the doctrines of devils,” according to I Timothy 4:1 are themselves deceived by the father of lies (John 8:44).

So while we condemn the sin, we must not judge or condemn the sinner; rather, we must pray for the errant one, allow him to read the living epistle of our own lives that are surrendered to Christ (II Corinthians 3:2), and lean on the Holy Spirit to move upon this present darkness and transform it to the Light that is Jesus, John 8:12.