God has given me a word to share today that is not written for the unwise or the fool. It is written to those of you who want to go to the next level in learning truth and who have the desire to actually do what we have been called to do as the body of Christ. The writer of Hebrews explained the person who cannot receive this word and those who can when they wrote Hebrews 5:12-14. “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.”
Whichever person you are will determine whether or not you will be able to understand what I am about to share. I am not here to tickle the ears of the hearer with the devotions I write nor am I here to please man. My life is dedicated to pleasing only one and His name is Jesus Christ! And I know that He is pleased when I speak His truth boldly before man. So I am not ashamed of this Gospel of Jesus Christ and I will not cower in sharing it just because there are some who will not receive it. God’s people have to mature into right minded believers who understand their righteousness in God through Jesus Christ and who operate as one in the mindset of Jesus Christ! If we are going to make an impact in this world with the message of God’s love, grace, peace, and the abundant life He has promised to all who believe; we have to become doers of the Word and not hearers only!
So let’s begin. Read what is written in Luke 5:27-32. “After these things He went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, “Follow Me.” So he left all, rose up, and followed Him. Then Levi gave Him a great feast in his own house. And there were a great number of tax collectors and others who sat down with them. And their scribes and the Pharisees complained against His disciples, saying, “Why do You eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus answered and said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”
Jesus never had, doesn’t have, and never will have, a problem with the “sinner”! To Him it is a non-issue! But to most Christians, the “sinner” poses a real problem! They judge people by what their eyes have seen or their ears have heard and they determine how they will respond to people based on facts, not truth! The facts may show a life being lived in sin or a lifestyle that amplifies sin and this causes great distress among the people in the body of Christ! It happened in Jesus’ day as we see in this passage of Scripture and many other passages and it continues to happen today in the modern day church.
If we are going to profess to be disciples of Jesus Christ then we need to operate in the mindset of Jesus Christ! We can no longer operate from a humanistic mindset that judges people with our human reasoning the way the scribes and Pharisees did. We need to be mature and do what Hebrews 5:14 says, “But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.” We all need to ask ourselves if our senses have been exercised to discern or are they so sensitive to what our eyes see and our ears hear in the natural that we lack discernment and judge people with our natural senses.
It is a spirit of fear and lack of discernment that causes people to fixate on the “sinner” and cast judgment like the scribes and Pharisees did. We were not given a spirit of fear! We were given a spirit of power, love, and a sound mind! A spirit of fear cowers at the sight of the sinner! It trembles at the thought of sin! It shrinks back at the sound of sin crouching at the door! It cringes in the presence of a person who commits a sin! And it causes us to shy away from approaching the unbeliever! In other words it makes us ineffective to carry forth the Gospel of grace and the love of Jesus Christ! Fear is the sin of unbelief in the finished work of the Cross!
On the other hand the person who accepts the operation of the Holy Spirit in their lives will not operate in a spirit of fear. The Spirit of power, love, and a sound mind is at peace at the sight of a sinner! It stands firm on the solid rock of Jesus Christ when sin is present! When sin crouches at the door it tells the devil he is a liar and it blocks the passageway to the mind with the Word of God! In the presence of a person committing a sin, it is NOT afraid or threatened! It empowers us to carry the Gospel of Jesus Christ forward no matter where we are, what we see, or what we hear! The Spirit of power, love, and a sound mind operates in a mindset of discernment and does not judge people based on facts! It judges based on truth and that truth is that Jesus came to seek and save the lost and He is not afraid of the sinner and sin has no power because He died once and for all for all sin! As John 3:17 says, “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”
The Spirit we have been given understands this truth and it is our responsibility to accept it over the facts that present themselves before us each and every day! We can no longer operate in a spirit of unbelief that is rooted in a spirit of fear, focusing on sin or the “sinner”! Jesus needs us, His disciples, to believe Him and to walk in a righteousness consciousness that is not moved by what we see or hear! He said we would be able to do what He did and even more, but unless we come to a full knowledge of what it means to be the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus we will never be able to fulfill our purpose as His body! Let us come to the full knowledge of who we are in Christ Jesus and let us operate in the Spirit that has been given to us so He can lead us to minister His Gospel to the lost!
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