Day 6: Cleaning out the Rust

God’s greatest desire, as the supreme evangelist, is for people everywhere to know Him personally in and through Jesus. God has chosen to reach the rest of the world through His people, the church. Yet, for too long, the church has been corroding and weakening. You know it, and I know it. Denominational splits, unfaithful leaders, greed, sloth, single-mindedness, indifference, and pride are evidence. No wonder our spiritual pipes have become clogged. We have been content to go on living— aware that things are not quite right— yet too lazy to do much about it.

I admit that I have participated in a church that has become corroded and impure, a church that God loves and wants to renew in what Richard Owen Roberts has so succinctly and accurately defined as “an extraordinary movement of the Holy Spirit producing extraordinary results.” For God to flow through us and bring resurrection life to His church, He needs to clean out the rust. “But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honor and some for dishonor. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful for the Master, prepared for every good work” (2 Timothy 2: 20– 21). This purging and cleansing must occur if the Holy Spirit is to flood our nation, our churches, and our very lives.

Just when I am struck by the depth of our nation’s sin and my own rust, God’s promise becomes new again: “When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7: 13– 14). Oh, for you and me to humbly pray and seek the face of God and turn from our wicked ways. For the sake of loving the One who loved us first, it can’t happen soon enough.

Acts 13:47 New King James Version (NKJV)
47 For so the Lord has commanded us:
‘I have set you as a light to the Gentiles,
That you should be for salvation to the ends of the earth.’” 

2 Timothy 2:20-21 New King James Version (NKJV)
20 But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honor and some for dishonor. 21 Therefore if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful for the Master, prepared for every good work. 

2 Chronicles 7:13-14 New King James Version (NKJV)
13 When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, 14 if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

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Phillips, Tom (2016-11-01). Jesus Now: God Is Up to Something Big (Chapter 1 p. 41-43). BroadStreet Publishing Group LLC.