From Our Pastor's Desk
There are so many things our adversary the devil has out today to sift the people of God as wheat. The scripture says in Hebrews 13:8, "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and for ever." The same can be said of the devil for "The devil sinneth from the beginning" (1 Jn 3:8a) and still sinneth. And, just as he was thrown out of heaven with a third of his followers, Satan has not changed.
One of the great jeopardizes, as the servants of God to be holy as he is holy, is to stay committed to God through the Holy Spirit. "The prince and power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others" (Eph. 2:2-3). Because of our past in the lust of our flesh, and we were by nature of the flesh, there must be a constant fight against the lust that still remains with us in the flesh.
When the psalmist David began to realize that his heart was not as it was in the early part of his life: David recognized he needed help from God to give him back his heart. "Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me" (Ps. 51:10). We must realize that the only way for the servant to get his heart back, he must go to the Creator God.
This text which was taught by Jesus regarding our treasures upon the earth is teaching and preparing those who are hearing and listening to God that "naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord" (Job 1:21). Jesus is saying why give our heart, soul, and mind to things that are at the most only temporal.
The Greek word for treasure is thesauros, which denotes a place of safe keeping. Therefore, when the Word of God becomes a part of us and we become a part of the Word, the Word becomes thesauros, a place of safe keeping. The patriarch Job in the agony of his sufferings said: "For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me" (Job 19:25-27).
There has come in the 21st Century a praise that is foreign to the ears of God. If you will recall in the scriptures in Exodus 32:17-18, as Moses and Joshua came down from the mountain: "And when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said unto Moses, there is a noise of war in the camp. And he (Moses) said, it is not the voice of them that shout for mastery, neither is it the voice of them that cry for being overcome: but the noise of them that sing do I hear." Yes, the people were dancing, but they were dancing to the golden calf, sculptured after the pagan calves of Egypt.
Our generation of believers should and must ask ourselves where our treasure is? Is it the unsound doctrine that excites the flesh, but not the Spirit? Have our ears heard only the things that they want to hear but have not brought conviction upon us? Have we been so careless that we do not realize our anointing has vanished?
Oh, my brothers and sisters, we all need to cry out, and cry aloud the words penned by the late Bishop Charles Watkins: Create in me a clean heart, Oh Lord; Renew in me a right spirit; Renew, renew, renew in me a right Spirit.