HOUR
OF SURVEILLANCE
Greetings
to all of you, may the grace and peace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ be with
you. This morning I woke up with a passage in my mind, as if I was listening to
someone teaching me, but I heard it in my own voice. I felt God telling me to post
this here so that everyone could enjoy the Word that I received this morning.
Soon
after the day that God spoke strongly in my heart to open a group named: “Vigilant
Interssores in the Church of Jesus Christ” on Facebook, (sorry it is in
Portuguese) God has spoken so deeply in my heart on a daily bases as I read the
devotionals from David Wilkerson, and thereafter God leads me to other passages
that correspond with the same topic. This morning around 6 o´clock when I woke
up, God led me to think about several things, and I'll put them here as the
Spirit of God ministered to my heart. I noticed that a passage from Revelation that
God gave to John for the Seven Churches came into my mind, because I searched
yesterday where it is written that it says that Jesus is the Alpha and Omega
and I found these passages:
Revelation 1:8 - I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending,
saith the Lord , who is and who was and who is to come , the Almighty .
Revelation 1:11 - Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last :
and what thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which
are in Asia : to Ephesus , and unto Smyrna , and unto Pergamos , and Thyatira ,
and to Sardis , and to Philadelphia, and Laodicea .
Revelation 21:6 - And he said unto me , It is done . I am the Alpha and
the Omega, the beginning and the end. To him who is thirsty I will give of the
fountain of the water of life .
Rev 22:13 - I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End ,
the First and the Last.
I began to meditate on these
passages and realized that much is preached about the fact that in the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was Jesus and that through HIM everything was
formed, but very little is said about the Omega. The Omega means last, the end.
Why do so few pastors talk about the end? Is there a constraint or awkwardness feeling regarding of how people will respond to this? Will they
respond favorably or not? We must remember that the author of these verses
quoted above is not a human being, and yes, it was the Lord Jesus who sent his
servant to write this; so we can and should meditate on it. There was a time in
the beginning when God created everything, and it is this same God who will
take care of the End of all things. And the beautiful part of this is knowing, God
has already sent the Savior who took our place on the cross, and God has provided
everything the same way for an extraordinary END for all HIS children. That is
what it means in Ephesians chapter 1:3-5, where the apostle ministering God's
Word to us says: "Praise
be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the
heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For
he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in
his sight. In love 5 he
predestined us for adoption to sonship
through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—,"[1]
Before
the foundation of the world God had a plan for His family, for all those who
receive the grace of forgiveness after the fact that each of us went astray like
sheep according to Isaiah 53:6: - "We
all walked like sheep have gone astray , each of us has turned to his own way ;
. , but the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." Yet to all who received him ... John 1:12
- "Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed
in his name, he gave the right to become children of God."
God
has prepared a destination in glory for all the humans that receive Jesus as
their Lord and Savior. And God speaks to the 7 churches in Revelation evaluating
each one of them as how they were standing before God.
Does
God evaluate the Churches in our days as well? Absolutely!!! Take some time and
read the chapters in Revelation starting from chapter 2, and you will notice
what God says to them. God sees everything I do, and everything what you do,
and it says what is approved and what is not approved. This reminds me of what
the Word says about Eli who was a priest, and his sons were being very thoughtless on everything they did. They were very selfish and did not sanctify themselves
before God as was required from a priest; they proceeded in the temple as they
thought was acceptable. The thought that came to my mind and in my heart this
morning was: “Is this actually happening in our churches today?” If God would
evaluate me today, as indeed He does evaluate everyone of us, would I be described
as Eli´s sons were? Or does God say of me: “Well done, good and
faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in
charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!” as it is said
in Mathew 25:23?
Eli saw that his sons were not faithful to the
Word of God and did not conduct themselves properly according to how a priest
should do. But Eli took no action upon this matter, he would not call their
attention about the wrong procedure before God, and he let them act in the
temple as they desired.
There
is a great danger in this, for we allow the worldliness enters the courts of
the Lord and this God does not accept. The Bible is very clear when it says
that the friendship with the world is enmity with God.
James
4:4 - You adulterous people, don’t you
know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone
who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.”
The Holy
Spirit questioned me
this morning, saying: "Will you share with the people whom you can reach,
this concern about my Word as I gave it to you?"
May
God bless us that we may be renewed in Christ Jesus and that He may work
through us in the church that bears the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ . Amen ?
[1] http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Eph%201:3-5&version=NIV
The
Peace of the Lord Jesus.
Missionary
Antonina Penner .
Highest
Perspectives Ministries.
