“Examine yourselves: you are sowing seeds of your own downfall!

Even as you sow Wheat, you are ignoring the Tares already there and you are sowing more.

In My parable, Wheat and Tares grow together, so the Wheat is not disturbed before Harvest.

I spoke there of the Harvest of People.

I AM speaking now of your hearts and minds. There are little patches of weeds which if left untended will become disordered wildernesses that need teams of professionals to clear.

Even as you think to build for Me you are laying stone on foundations that are incomplete or unstable.

The roots of small plants can undermine the foundations of large buildings.

Little foxes spoil the vineyard while the vines are in bloom. If the flowers are spoiled and not pollinated, the vine does not bear as much fruit.

Clean house! I said this before!

This is not about other people. You are My House, the Temple of My Spirit. Be clean!

Nehemiah’s workers remade the wall with one hand building and weapons for defence in the other.

You need to start building but you also need to stay pure and deeply grounded in your relationship with Me.

Be rooted in My Word.

Be sensitive to My Voice.

Learn to make more space for Me to instruct you in the way you should go.

Learn to listen to Me carefully.

Learn to make necessary minor adjustments moment by moment as you go, so you do not end up wildly off course or miss My destiny for you.

Look to it now! Examine yourselves in The Light of My Spirit — and My Word!

Allow Me to search you and know your hearts, to test your thoughts. I will show you what is wickedness and offensive to Me. I will lead you in My way everlasting.”

Reference Scriptures: Matthew 23:24-30, Matthew 23:22, Nehemiah 4:17-18, Song of Solomon 2:15, Psalm 139:23-24, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20.

Roots of Decline

At a Christian Conference years ago a pastor spoke and I felt disquieted.

I tried not to take it to heart but from what he said I sensed he had a deep-rooted issue in need of healing.

A year or two after that, his wife led a Women’s Conference and joked disparagingly about a particular nation. Women present roared with laughter, but once again I was disturbed in spirit.

They were both later discredited and dissociated from their ministry.

At school, we were asked about the ‘Golden Age’ of Spain and “when, how and why” the decline came.

Most agreed it was later in the sixteenth century, but I argued it was rooted in the time of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.

Even as the Golden Age began, significant causes of later decline had already been set in place. Those issues were not understood, and therefore not managed at the start or by subsequent generations.

They didn’t deal with little weed seedlings so the weeds grew into an unsightly thicket of thorns that choked the beautiful garden that was God’s original design. Decline became inevitable.

In the last few years we have seen far too many institutions, commercial companies, people famous for one reason or another and, worst of all, ministries shaken or completely wiped out by the exposure of huge, fundamental problems.

Further investigation reveals the problems had been issues for a long time but were not dealt with in a timely fashion.

Discipline and repentance was required and but decline was not necessarily inevitable to begin with. It only became so after years of poor stewardship.

Allow God to deal now with the weeds of your heart. Learn to take it to heart with humility even as you’re in the thick of other things. We will never be perfect in this life and, being human, we are often too busy…

Simply turn your heart and thoughts inward to The LORD, giving your focused attention, yielding to that which is lasting and eternal.

For it is in doing so that we can rightly bring things into proper perspective and balance before irreparable damage or harm is done.

 

~ Iris Maud, UK.

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Iris Maud, UK.

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