The "P" Word is a Dirty Word!

Satan is called, "the accuser of God's people," in Revelation 12:10. This verse not only gives our enemy this name but also it talks of his demise:

"And I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, "Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. (vs 11) And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony , for they loved not their lives even unto death." 

The heart of the accuser is looking for faults, failures, screw-ups, imperfections, poor performance...anything that he can bring up to make our minds linger on who we were, instead of who God has made us to be. Lingering here, dwelling on our sin nature, keeps us in performance mode...trying to fix it, trying to make things right, trying to change our own hearts and actions. This was the life of our old self before Jesus. In this old life we can never measure up, we can never be accepted, never be good enough, never live in grace, mercy & forgiveness. In this old life we strive, strive, strive to make ourselves perfect, look right before God and others. The accuser is cunning and swift and we often are so easily duped by him and labeled by him, stuck in performance mode to keep our best foot forward at all times. 

The truth is, the accuser is right!  Our old Jesus-less self can never measure up, can never be good enough, can never deserve grace, mercy & forgiveness. Paul writes about this in his letter to the Corinthian church:

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor people who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. AND SUCH WERE SOME OF YOU. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 16:9-11)

And such WERE some of you (Old Jesus-less life)...but you were washed, sanctified, justified (New Jesus-filled life). The Jesus-less life will never inherit God's Kingdom. God perfect holiness can never mix with our sin. His perfect holiness destroys sin, the same way darkness is destroyed when you turn on a light switch. It's the result of His presence. We cannot exist in God's presence without the blood of Jesus Christ and the transforming power of His Holy Spirit working within us. Nothing we do, think, or offer God will EVER work outside of Jesus Christ. 

I have a message I give to our worship ministry members on a weekly basis. Performance has no place in the heart of a worshiper. Performance is a dirty word for us. Performance means that we actually have something that we can polish or make pretty enough to show off to God. Performance is all about our effort, our ability, our own misunderstood level of human greatness - Isaiah 64:10 calls all of our good effort dirty rags! Performance is worthless just like this. If we bring God something fake, something prettied up, it's a white-washed tomb, much like the heart of the Pharisees that Jesus accused of hypocrisy. 

But...such WERE some of you! We are new creations. We are new Jesus-filled lives. We are new today. We'll be new tomorrow. There's nothing to pretty up or perform for Him that can ever be better than Jesus' blood poured out to save us and give us relationship back with our Father God! Performance is the place that gives the accuser his power back. Anytime we think we can strive to perfect what Jesus has already perfected (Hebrews 10:14) we allow the accuser access to point out all the flaws. We give the accuser a voice...after Jesus has already silenced Him! 

The accuser's destruction comes by the blood of Jesus Christ AND by the word of our testimony. What is our testimony? It's our story of how God saved us from a Jesus-less, never good enough life and transformed us into a Jesus-filled, washed, sanctified & justified life. It's not a story of performance or good works. It's a story of a wretch like me being given amazing grace from Him based on no merit of my own. My performance has NOTHING to do with this, other than to point out my lack and my inability. It's in Christ that I live and move and have my being. The Jesus-filled life cannot mix with performance, it's a dirty word, just as darkness cannot mix with light. 

So - today. Bring God a real, gut-level honest offering of worship, offering of your very self with all the good, the bad & the ugly. Bring it all! No shining up, no striving. Psalm 100:3 says, "It is HE who made us, and we are HIS! We are HIS people, and the sheep of HIS pasture." God is well aware of how weak, feeble and dumb sheep are - and yet He keeps them, owns them, knows them, rescues them and calls them each by name! We can't fake it. Shed the fig leaves today and give God what He wants - YOU! Come as you are and offer Him your very self.