Order In The House : Pastor Tony Samuels
For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?
1 Peter 4:17 (KJV)
We all desire to partake of the blessings of God, but something we should desire more is be in His order. When our lives are out of order, more prosperity will just magnify the problem. You must understand, in the process of God, blessings always follow order. Psalms 24:3-5 (AMPC) says, Who shall go up into the mountain of the Lord? Or who shall stand in His Holy Place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted himself up to falsehood or to what is false, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. Notice, when life was in order, the blessing was the byproduct.
There is a trap of deception that many get caught in, and that is, individuals get their lives in order with the Lord; the result is great blessing, and then after some time living in blessing, their lives fall back out of order. They allow compromise to come in, and because blessings are still present, they think that this is an indicator of the approval of God. Please don’t mistake the presence of blessings for God’s approval. Revelations 3:17-18 (NLT): You say, ‘I am rich, with everything I want; I don’t need a thing!’ And you don’t realize that spiritually you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. My advice to you is to buy pure gold from me, gold purified by fire—only then will you truly be rich. And to purchase from me white garments, clean and pure, so you won’t be naked and ashamed; and to get medicine from me to heal your eyes and give you back your sight. These people thought that because they had outside blessings, they were good, but all it did was mask a spiritual condition. What they called rich, God called poverty, because true riches is the Presence of God. God was identifying them as unclean and told them to get back to purity, to get back to holiness.
God knows where we are at in our spiritual walk, and He will always reach out and correct us to keep us in divine order. Look at 2 Corinthians 6:17-18 (NKJV): Therefore come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, And I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, Says the Lord Almighty. You see, being out of order blocks the Father from coming into our lives with His fullness.
This makes me think of the prodigal son, who left the order of his father’s house. He left with the blessing that order had created, but in the long run, disorder will always bring us to a place of poverty. It’s when people lose it all that they began to recall the life of order and what it produced. Look at this inner conversation that the prodigal son had with himself in Luke 15:17-19 (NKJV): But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants. I come to tell you, you never have to allow your life to wind up in the hog pen for you to wake up. It’s messages like these that the Lord sends into our lives to keep the trajectory of our lives going up instead of going back down into a pit. How you respond will determine your outcome.
True order starts in our individual houses. The House of God is merely a reflection of what people are doing at home in their personal lives. So let’s remember the Word for the year: giving the Lord nothing but our best! Let’s get the sin out of our lives; let’s get compromise out; let’s stay in order with the Lord, and great Blessing will be the result of your life.
Blessing To You!!!