Title: CAST IT AWAY
Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance,
Matthew 3:8
In Acts 19, we saw a mighty move of God that caused revival to sweep throughout the city of Ephesus. This city was formerly given to a high level of sorcery, magic, immorality and all manner of idolatry, but, when God touched the city, light prevailed over the darkness. Men came in their droves to repent and denounce their ways.
Acts 19:18-20
“And many who had believed came confessing and telling their deeds. Also, many of those who had practiced magic brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted up the value of them, and it totaled fifty thousand pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed.”
The above text is similar to II Chronicles 33:15, ”He took away the foreign gods and the idol from the house of the Lord, and all the altars that he had built in the mount of the house of the Lord and in Jerusalem; and he cast them out of the city.”
A subject of great note in the three portions of scripture I’ve shared above is the work that accompanies repentance. John the Baptist, in Matthew 3:8 calls it fruits worthy of repentance. For after every turning to the Lord, there should be fruits to prove our sincere renunciation of our old ways.
Is there a difference between where you are right now in Christ and where you were before Christ? I believe that the Believer in Christ must strike a distinction when considered with the unbeliever. Our fruits are the products of our inner nature. You are no different from the fruits you produce. Jesus even says your identity is tied to the fruit you produce. – Matthew 7:20
As we face a new day and a new season of our lives, let us pursue after fruits worthy of our calling by God. Let us depend on the Lord to strengthen us so that we can identify and cast off every foreign element of the former self. Let us depend on Him to grace us to seek after and manifest the characters and lifestyle of true Christianity.
Just scan yourself today, what do you identify as that object that needs to be sacrificed upon the altar of your devotion to Jesus? What is that clothe (identity) that must be burned, that place that must no longer be visited, that friend that must be disassociated with?
This is the hour of salvation. It is the time for throwing the old away and accepting the new. Nothing of the old will be accepted in the New. Nothing of the Old will make it into the Kingdom, neither will anyone who is attached to it/them.
Father, in the name of Jesus, thank you for the gift of salvation which I receive in Jesus Christ. Help me to identify and cast away every material of the Old even as I embrace and put on the new today. I cast down all thoughts and strongholds, dividing all connections and relationships with the Old, so that I may be completely free and light to travel in this way. Thank you Holy Spirit for your help and for strengthening me to do this, amen.
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