DELETE OR DEFAULT??

DEFAULT OR DELETE?

HIT THE DELETE BUTTON!

By Mary Ann Wray

One of the greatest inventions in the tech world is the 'delete' button. You can literally wipe away typos, remove corrupted files and ‘fix’ all types of human errors with the push of a button. Even though we enjoy the convenience and help of this little button, much time, work and design went in to developing it. We also know that before you can delete a corrupted or unwanted file, you have to "highlight" it i.e., identify it from the rest.

In the Christian faith we also have a delete button. It is the cross of Jesus Christ. But too many take it for granted, overlook it or don’t even understand what supernatural design went into the Cross of Christ to take away our corruption. Just like in technology, you have to recognize the corrupt file and mistake for what it is. God calls it sin (hamartia-missing the mark). We ALL have missed the mark folks. We were born that way. Yes, we were born spiritually dead due to the fall of Adam and Eve and we need a savior! (2 Cor 5: 21)

Sin KILLS and CORRUPTS everything in your life/ hard drive. Religion can’t erase your sins. Neither can a little sinner’s prayer alone do it. Good works won’t work. Self help is no help at all-we are weak and He is strong. Going to church doesn’t remove our sins-it just puts you with a rest of sinners needing salvation until you're there to get the equipping you need to follow Jesus at all costs! Meditating on your naval won’t remove them. There is only ONE thing that can delete your sins…the Shed Blood of Jesus. The problem is most people don’t know how to use the delete button. It’s so accessible but so difficult to find through the maze of pride and good works most of us have weaved in our ‘religious’ webs.

That’s why it is so easy for a child to enter into the Kingdom of God. They haven’t developed an intellectual and emotional ‘escape’ or defense system for their sins. They simply hear the gospel, accept the truth of Jesus’ death on the cross and believe HE is the ONLY WAY to Heaven. They are willing to follow Him 100% at that point. It is sad to say that so many parents just don’t have a clue on how to lead them spiritually from that point. That’s why Jesus said it’s better to have a millstone tied around your neck and cast into the sea than to cause a little child to be offended at the word of God and led into sin!

To experience the benefit of the delete button of God you MUST REPENT of the sins first by HIGHLIGHTING them to God! Confess it to Him for what they are and were and ask forgiveness by the spilled blood of Jesus for it. Don't blame your sins on your momma, daddy, preacher, husband, brother, sister, boss or whomever. Take personal responsibility because you and I are our own person before God! He paid a high price for the deletion of your corrupted mistakes and sins!!!! Ignoring it (ignorance of it) won’t make it disappear! God remembers everything unless you properly utilize the delete button.

If you truly repent (change our mind and ways), God not only forgives our sins but He DELETES them in the sea of forgiveness & forgetfulness!!! From that point don't let the devil bring up your past when God has erased it from your hard drive IF YOU truly have repented!!!!!

However, there is a caveat to this!!! Chances are if the devil has a place to keep bringing up things in your past you may not have completely dealt with the sin! If you keep struggling with the same thing over and over, and get into blaming, shifting responsibility to someone else or not dealing with it won’t go away on its own. We can only fall under the condemnation of the devil when we continually walk in the flesh! (Romans 8: 1)

Self-examination before THE CROSS is desperately needed in the Body of Christ today!!! Read Psalms 51 and the Life of King David.

When He was called out by the prophet Nathan, he didn't blame Uriah, Bathsheba, or Joab. He took full responsibility for his own sins. He didn’t deny it or get angry with the prophet like so many folks do today. When he prayed for God to heal the child he and Bathsheba conceived out of wedlock, God didn’t answer his prayer AFTER he repented. Yet the Bible says he washed himself (cleansed himself of sins), changed his garments (repented and determined to live differently), anointed himself (asked for a fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit) and went to the House of God to WORSHIP.

He didn’t start preaching, prophesying or leading immediately. He WORSHIPPED-He gave God what was due Him and had the right perspective! (Read 2 Samuel 12) He humbled himself under the mighty hand of God. He was never allowed to build the house he dreamed of for God. Instead His son Solomon did. There was a consequence to David’s sin on earth even though he was forgiven!

Most people today, curse or give up on God when he doesn’t answer their prayers for healing or anything else, especially when we say ‘sorry God’ for missing the mark but 'nothing' seems to happen. Too many 'men of God' and 'women of God’ get exposed for various sins and start blaming others or say they are 'sorry' with absolutely no fruit or evidence of a changed life through godly sorrow and repentance!!!

I’ll never forget the day, after almost 10 years of backsliding, spiritual ‘devolution’ and lukewarmness, that God called me back and said, "This is the last time I am calling you back by your calling." I had such a hefty dose of the fear of God in me I literally shook all over! I had never heard this message preached from any pulpit! I read the book of Revelation (Chapter 2: 5 & 21) where he gave the church time and space to repent. Grace has a timeline people. Don’t play with God about your sins!

I immediately made restitution for financial fraud-went back to two people from 20 years before I had defrauded. I repented by smashing booze bottles and throwing out garments stained with sin and the like. The reaction I got from the Body of Christ was amazing. Some thought I was ‘overreacting’ to the conviction of the Holy Spirit citing, “God is a gracious God, it doesn’t take all that!” This only made me angrier about sins in my life and in the life of other believers that was going unchecked. I realized I was too close to the grace line as my Pastor puts it and I needed to run as far in the opposite direction as I could. That is the reason I reacted so violently against my sins. What about REPENTANCE????? What about John the Baptist’s and Jesus’ first words of the gospel which were and are REPENT?????

Others I told, walked away from me like I had some sort of disease and scowled at me for being a ‘backslider’. So here we have a mixed bag in the Body of Christ of religious spirits looking down their noses at others’ sins yet forgetting their own and others in the Body of Christ who have a watered down theology of a greasy grace gospel with no hard preaching against sin and repentance of the same! We wonder why revival tarries!

We don’t need revival folks. Why would God want to revive something that should be dead i.e., our flesh? He would be reviving a zombie! We need an awakening and a reformation! David prayed that God would heal his son but instead his son born out of adultery died. God can’t allow works of the flesh to live on in our lives because it will continue to produce a harvest of more sin and death. What makes us think that we DON’T reap what we sow? God would be a liar if he precluded us from reaping a harvest from the sins we commit? (Galatians 6:7)

Yes he forgives and yes He forgets, but we must realize that the law of sowing and reaping works both ways. If we sow the wind and reap the whirlwind how can we expect God to clean up our mess in a minute? How about praying to Him for wisdom to correct the mistakes of the past and the strength and grace to overcome the consequences of our bad mistakes, poor choices and sins? All the praying in the world for God to fix it won’t. Neither will these prayers move His heart. What moves His heart on our behalf is a prayer of true heartfelt godly sorrow for sin and repentance. He resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.

I quiver to see so many people come to an altar and pray a ‘sinner’s prayer’ but they walk away unmoved and untouched. You seldom see man cry out to God for mercy much less see them in church ever again. Yet we can get so emotional when signs and wonders turn up in church. The church fills up and the altar is filled with folks that want a ‘touch’ from God. Better yet, we cry at a chic flicks, scream at a football games or pop a tear when E.T. makes it home- men and women alike! We don’t need a ‘touch’; we need transformation! (Romans 12:1)

Do we truly understand what it cost Jesus Christ to drink that cup of disgrace, horror, sins, degradation, demons and the like in the garden? No wonder why he asked the Father to let it pass. We suffer a few trials and a cup of sorrow and get all discombobulated. Instead of examining our hearts for what might ‘possibly’ be the cause (the curse causeless doesn’t come Proverbs 26: 2) we start rebuking the devil or blame shifting! BUT JESUS prayed, nevertheless, not my will but THINE be done. We have a hard time paying our tithes or making it to church on Sunday yet Jesus went to the cross, despised its shame, descended into hell and rose from the dead for us! How can we call ourselves a follower of Christ without bearing any resemblance to His character with true change and repentance and DEMAND ‘Not MY Will but YOURS be done’?

You can put lipstick on a pig but it’s still a pig. The answer to our problems is not an anointing on our flesh. The answer is to crucify the flesh, repent and allow God to create a clean heart within us and renew a right spirit. Paul said, “I die daily.” This is the true Christian lifestyle brothers and sisters! Then like David, we can know His true mercy at the expense of His shed blood. This should make us all shudder with the fear of God! In turn, this will bring true spiritual refreshing.

It's ignorance my friends, to accept by default the consequences of sin when Jesus paid the price so He could hit 'delete' on your behalf.

“Now, fellow Israelites, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders. But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Messiah would suffer. Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah, who has been appointed for you—even Jesus.” Acts 3: 17-20