It's Time to Seek the Lord

This is written with a broken heart. It is a hard word, but one directed first at myself. I was greatly humbled by this. I wept over this and continue to pray over this. We truly need to pray and seek the Lord.


Jer 3:13 Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have transgressed against the LORD your God, and have scattered your favors to the strangers under every green tree, and you have not obeyed my voice, says the LORD.
Jer 3:14 Turn, O backsliding children, says the LORD; for I am married unto you: and I will take you one from a city, and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion:
Jer 3:15 And I will give you shepherds according to my heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.

My goodness do you hear what He is saying? It is so heartbreaking when you see this. I pulled apart these verses, carefully examining them, prayerfully searching for understanding. And I've found myself guilty as well. We all are. God says, understand, recognize that you have done wrong, deliberately done wrong, and what you've done deserves severe punishment. Admit it. Confess you have perverted truth and justice in your selfishness. You have rebelled against Me, broken away from Me every way you could. Your behavior has been offensive. Instead of staying faithful to Me on your life's journey in this world, you have spent your life and time with strangers, with profane people, committing adultery against Me. When you need help, when you get in trouble, you call someone else, not Me. When you are not satisfied, you find your pleasure elsewhere, not in My Presence where there is fullness of joy. You get under these green trees, these trees you plant to hide My altars which have become an offense to you and play the harlot with your other lovers. You seek your pleasure and fulfillment with others where you can never find it, worshiping profane things.
Oh, church of the living God we are so guilty. We have set up ourselves to dictate and rule things in the House of God instead of His Holy Spirit being in control. Man decides when the service begins, how it will go, who will sing, who will preach, and if you do get convicted and come to the altar most of the time that pastor will be ready for you to return to your seat after a few minutes and if you are trying by some miracle to touch God in repentance, he'll get up and start talking into the PA system moving the service to it's logical conclusion so everybody can go home, flip on their TV's, get in the fridge and fix them a late evening snack, or do whatever it is people do to relax, and get comfortable, with the Word they heard conveniently forgotten. And we say we love Him? We think we do Him a favor by showing up on Sunday morning and sitting in church for two hours? We might find a few minutes a week to read our Bible but do we really eat it? Do we set aside time and depend on the Holy Spirit to show it to us? To open our understanding to who we are and what we've done? How far we've erred from the truth? We act like it kills us to consider going to a prayer meeting, and offer every excuse in the book for not praying-even at home, like we should.
And it is a warfare, that devil will fight you harder when you are trying to pray than at any other time, but our excuses, and our lack of prayer tells the world and more importantly the Lord, we don't really think spending time with God is worth the struggle. We truly are the Laodicean church, Beloved. Blind, poor, miserable, wretched and naked. Laodicea means 'justice of the people' or 'just the people.' No power or Presence of God. Just the people. It's what the people think is right, it's man's traditions and ways-and that is a far cry from the ways and thoughts of God. For His ways are NOT our ways, nor His thoughts as ours. That's why He said have the mind of Christ. In short, Laodicea is the church man runs as he sees fit, not God. Jesus Christ is seen in Revelation 3 on the outside of His own church, having been taken over by men, knocking on the door, asking to be let in. What meekness. He has every right to kick the door in and reclaim His own but He seeks our invitation. My God, people. No wonder there is so little power to effect real change in our churches. I'm not saying they are all like this, I know better. God will always have a remnant. But for the most part, this is how it is.

What did this church think? That they were rich, they had an abundance of material things, plenty of money in the bank, for Laodicea was a city that had a very wealthy and successful banking system. They thought they had it all, they needed nothing else. When Laodicea was destroyed by an earthquake in 66 or 67 AD, they refused the offer of help from Rome with the rebuilding and spent their own money and labor instead, quickly rebuilding the city. What pride and arrogance. But Jesus said you don't realize you are miserable, afflicted with the disease of selfishness, a spiritual pauper, naked in My sight because you are clothed with the rags of your own righteousness instead of My righteousness. They were trusting in their works, their wealth and their own personal goodness.
Through Jeremiah, God is urging His people to come back, to come home. He calls them backsliding children. They were faithless, idolatrous-they worshiped any and everything but HIM who alone is worthy of worship. They had turned from light to darkness. They slid back from truth to a lie. But God says I AM your Master, I AM your Husband, I'm to have the rule over you, to provide what you need, to care for you. Instead you run to the beggardly elements of the world and the flesh and the devil to find your pleasure and fulfillment. You are Mine but you consort with My enemy-your enemy. Come back to Me, wherever you are I will unite you, bring you back to Zion. I'll give you pastors, shepherds, leaders who share My heart for you, My love for you and they will take care to teach you what I know and they will help you understand who I AM. He was offering them so much better than the world could ever give.

Oh, how He plead with His people. I believe this is still the desire of His heart now. That we would take a long hard look around us. We've got full to half empty churches on every corner. Powerless and ineffective. Though they are near to Him with their mouth, for the most part, their heart is far from Him. You will know them by their fruit, Jesus said. What kind of fruit is the church producing? They aren't producing any for the most part. The young people are out the door as soon as they can be. The hurting come in and leave confused and still hurting. The lost don't bother because to them the church is a money racket just like the politicians. Where is the anointing that destroys the yoke? Not in our churches, for those who sit in them mostly worship themselves first, and their own idea of who God is second if at all. There's no presence of God filling the place showing people their sins, making them hate sin, no anointed Word of God that will create a desire to be free and clean in them. This is why you see a rush to exodus the House of God on Sunday and the restaurants quickly fill up, mostly with church goers. How quickly they leave His house to go their own way, just like Israel and Judah did. Okay, God we gave you two hours on a Sunday morning, see ya next week. Now it's time to go feed my face and then go watch the ball game or go play golf or go to the lake, or whatever. Who is being served here? Self. And the result? Suicides are at an all time high. The youth shelters are full of kids whose parents are either strung out on drugs, or are in jail or sick and can't take care of them. The abortion clinics steadily continue their grisly work, day after day. The schools are indoctrinating our children, pushing God out, and teaching theories as facts as history is rewritten. The hospitals are full, the jails are full, and where is the church on Sunday, or any day? Watching TV, playing sports, eating and shopping, playing on the computer, reading the latest "Christian Fiction" novel, and doing so many other things. Then someone we love has a car wreck, gets sick, or commits suicide, or overdoses on drugs trying to cope with their own pain and we have the nerve to ask God where HE WAS?

Dan 9:5 We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from your precepts and from your judgments:


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