"Cleaning House is Powerful"
TEXTS: Acts 19:11-20
TRUTHS:
1. Seeing God move and experiencing His delivering power takes time. Eternal and valuable treasures don’t come quickly. We must build and shape our lives in such a way that it prepares us for what the Lord desires to do in and through us.
2. Our Creator is personal. He created us and provided the necessary environment in order for us to grow, flourish, and be taken care of. Beyond that, He gives individuals specific desires and the means for those desires to be fulfilled and enjoyed. This reality declares that our Creator loves us!
3. Because of the presence of an adversary upon the earth, a temptor who lures us away from the truth of God, the Lord ordered a plan of redemption for humanity through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Every person needs to seriously ponder and respond to God’s offer of redemption from the bondage of sin because judgment is coming.
4. Consider the effort that Noah and his family put forth in building the ark (it took 120 years). This should make us examine if we are being passive concerning living out our Christian faith.
5. The Bible speaks of “the day of the Lord.” All evil beings, death, and decay will be removed from creation and the Creator forever. Everyone who is not clothed in the righteousness of Christ will join them.
6. The goal of the enemy is to destroy the Church to ensure that world evangelism doesn’t go forth from the lives and lips of God’s children. The enemy is always seeking to confuse, discourage, distract, and deceive God’s people.
7. In our current evangelical context there seems to be a staggering amount of spiritual wickedness present each week in the lives of those who belong to a local church. The Lord wants to deliver and clean us up so that we are ready and able to walk in His power (and impact the world). But if we don't have the power of God, there is no chance we will be triumphant over the enemy. We are currently seeing God's people being swept away into deception and God's power alone can lead us out from such darkness.
8. The enemy wants us to pretend like everything is okay when it is not. God wants us free but we must be honest, do the hard work, have the conversations, and draw near to His presence.
TALK TO EACH OTHER:
1. Why do you think the Lord makes His children wait for the eternal and valuable things He desires to fill our lives with?
2. How do you know that God is personal? Can you give a testimony concerning how the Lord has shown this to be true?
3. What does passive Christianity look like? How would you define it?
4. What seems to be the main areas of deception that the enemy is using to deceive and discourage God's people?
5. In what ways do God's children often pretend as if they are okay when, in fact, they are not?
TALK TO GOD:
Pray as you feel led concerning the following areas:
- Wisdom about what is true and what is deception (personally and corporately)
- That we prepare ourselves for a movement that displays the power and goodness of God