IS YOUR HOUSE THE LORD’S HOME?

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In Christ, Mark

The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

"When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation."

Matthew 12:43-45

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

I think we all can relate to a time when we lived our lives in a way that was not pleasing to the Lord. It’s bound to happen to even the best person as sin and Satan have a way of exploiting our weaknesses and causing us to act, speak or think in ways contrary to God’s will.

So how does this happen in the first place? How do we fall prey to Satan and end up in the grip of his sinister intent for our lives?

Well, we can start by looking in our “house”…and check out who is living inside.

For if we truly wish to show Satan that the “No Vacancy” sign is up inside our hearts and minds, then we simply must let Satan see that the Light…capital “L”…is always on…that the Lord is always at home inside us.

Jesus touches on this very issue as we draw near to the end of Matthew, Chapter 12. He has been verbally sparring with the Pharisees and teachers of the law, calling out the religious authorities of the day as being not of God as they could not even recognize that God’s Son had indeed come to earth…the Messiah predicted by the prophets of old.

The Pharisees and teachers of the law weren’t as interested in people following God as they were people following them and their legalistic counsel and discipline over anyone who would choose to deny the ways they espoused. For if the religious leaders were fully in tune with God, there would be no questioning of Jesus…no challenging of His ways…no attempts to try and discredit Him. No, the Pharisees and teachers of the law would be exhorting, worshipping and praising Jesus amongst their people. They would be welcoming Him to come and teach in their synagogues. But they didn’t have that mindset…not even close.

And so the religious leaders never truly did anything under God’s authority or validation. His power was not in them because they didn’t really believe in Him. This is why Jesus spoke the following words, painting the work of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law as being fruitless.

He said, “When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation."

Anyone exorcised by the religious leaders of the day was not really healed. For even though an evil spirit might depart a person being treated by a Pharisee or teacher of the law, they wouldn’t be safe because the lack of godliness within the religious authority would lead to the void left by the evil spirit not being filled by God. Instead, the evil spirit would return with some other evil spirit friends and they all would move in, repossessing the man and making him worse than before. So what really got done? Nothing.

Friends, we simply can’t turn from anything we may do that is sinful and expect to remain away from it, unless we fill the void left by the evil spirit inside us with Christ Jesus, the One who makes evil flee just by the mere mention of His name. We simply must make our “house” the home of the Lord…for when He lives within us, Satan and his evil cannot.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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