It's Time To Change Out Our Filters !

It’s Time To Change Out Our Filters!

There has never been a time in the history of the world like the hour we are now in.  For years, in His grace and mercy, God has been telling His Own to “Prepare.”  How do we do this?  The thing that Father has been quickening to me over the past 2 years sounds simple… ‘Let go and let God.’  But as any who have tried to do this have discovered, it is not even possible to do in our own strength and understanding. 

We are all familiar with the necessity of changing the filters in our furnace and cars, to keep them running properly.  Well, we are all in dire need of having the filters in our minds changed out, and replaced with the ‘mind of Christ.’  The more immersed in religion we become, the more complex system of religious filters are installed in our thinking.   Accumulating knowledge is a necessary and integral part of the human life, in order to survive in this world. 

However, if we are following Christ; if we have received the incorruptible seed; we are now members of the household of God… and now we must learn to live our lives according to an entirely new set of rules.  No longer can we live according to our own thoughts and inclinations; our fleshly appetites, opinions or prejudices.  The majority of believers are imprisoned by their own religious thinking.  Religion sets up filters to process everything that crosses your path.  Religion puts ‘God’ in a box.  We are trained to see ourselves in a certain light, (i.e. the redeemed, the called and chosen, the heirs of Christ destined to rule and reign), while at the same time judging everyone outside of our little group as being not quite up to par.  We are trained to be suspicious and judgmental, even unconsciously comparing ourselves to others; their perspective to ours.  This should not be….‘For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise’ 2 Cor 10:12.

Do you believe that when God looks down on the earth, He sees all the denominations men has built according to their own understanding… or does He see 'HIS CHILDREN,' without all the walls of separation we have erected that divide us one from another?  Do we imagine that heaven is segregated into religious camps?  If not, then why do we behave that way here and now?

We are all familiar with John 3:16  ‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life’.  But how many of us are equally familiar with 1 John 3:16  ‘Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren’.   

Jesus came to fulfill the law.   When we say that we are not under the law, but under the new covenant, then I would ask you what is ‘new’ in the new covenant?  The only thing new is this… John 13:34  ‘A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.’

I pray that we willingly submit to the rod of correction in our own lives, instead of trying to set everyone else straight.  As we humble ourselves before God, He will bring up every secret thing hidden in our hearts that is not pleasing in HIS sight.  Every wrong thought and wrong attitude we are carrying around in us will be exposed and brought forth to the light of correction.  We will be conformed to His Image, not as we have imagined Him to be, but as He truly is.  

Love – This is the crux of the matter.  This is what separates the sheep from the goats; the wheat from the tares; the wise virgins from the foolish virgins. 

“For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another” Gal 5:13.

“We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death” 1 John 3:14.

“Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them. For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:  (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;) Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord” Eph 5:6-10.

“For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread” 1 Cor 10:17.

How we treat our brothers and sisters in Christ reveals much more than we may realize.  “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” John 3:19.   We should be aware that in the things that we ‘do’ (our deeds), we are demonstrating either God’s love, or we are demonstrating evil (malice, hurtful, mischief)?

“For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned” Mat 12:37.   Our actions speak even louder than our words, for we can use words that might sound good to the carnal ear, even while maliciously attacking a brother or sister in the Lord over a difference of doctrine or belief.  How we hear depends upon our filters, and we need to have our filters changed.  “And be renewed in the spirit of your mind,” Eph 4:23;  “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you” Eph 4:29.

Jesus clearly told us that in this world we would have tribulation.  But let us not be the source of tribulation to our brothers and sisters.  Shouldn’t we be seeking that our own minds be renewed, instead of assuming that we have already arrived, as the religious spirits will staunchly affirm?  If we can’t handle it when everyone doesn’t tell us how wonderful we are, we are not following Christ.  If we go on the attack over differing points of view and doctrinal interpetation, we are not even remotely walking in love.  Are we not charged to enter in to the new life in Christ... that suffering is how we are perfected?  “Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God” Acts 14:22.

The Church as it exists in the world today is splintered and divided, one against another.   If what we see demonstrated is a representation of God, then one could only assume that He is spiteful, vindictive, critical, harsh, demanding self-centered and self serving, because these are the things the world sees manifested by those who call themselves ‘Christian.’   And it is religious thinking (mindsets) that allows this to exist, even flourish.  Completely contrary to 1 Cor 1:10  “Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.”   We have all manner of justifications and excuses for this, primarily being – “oh, but I didn’t mean it that way,” but none of them will hold up when we stand before a Righteous God.  We can cling to our filters, and justify our own wrongdoing, or we can seek the light that will dispel all the darkness within our own hearts.  And as this happens in us, we are changed, we are transformed in our inner man.  We can submit, or we can resist.  We can hold onto our clogged, dirty, polluted filters… or we can lay down all of our wants, our desires, our accumulated knowledge at His feet, in all humility. 

Jesus said, “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” John 17:3.   We can settle for knowing things about God… or we can submit to the operations of the Spirit within our own heart, and allow HIM to cleanse us, molding and shaping us into a vessel of honor, that we need not be ashamed at His appearing.  May we choose wisely.

Amen & Amen

Cathy Morris