What is in your closet? What is it that you like to wear? AND is there a small(or large) collection of that favorite thing. Some like to collect and wear eclectic T-Shirts with "snappy" slogans. Others are shoe czars and belt kings. Some love the adornment of shiny pearls, jewels and gems. [ there is nothing wrong with these things, if they are not the emphasis and focus of our lives ] There was a movie where the female lead opened the walk-in closet of the male lead and found nothing but gray suits, white shirts, striped ties, black belts and black shoes...but that is what he felt comfortable wearing because he was not used to taking risks or being different.
Isaiah 2:24 - "And it shall come to pass, that instead of sweet smell there shall be stink; and instead of a girdle a rent; and instead of well set hair baldness; and instead of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth; and burning instead of beauty."
None of us wake up and try to plot out a day to make us feel uncomfortable, out of place, awkward, or rejected. When we spot somebody that is overtly disheveled, dirty and putrefying; we do a double-take to find that they are out of synch with society via a physical our mental instability. This may or may not have been their choosing, but there they are in all of their inglorious inability to cope with the settings around them. This person is in need of help. We also fully recognize the abusive and violent lawbreakers who are in need of incarceration. We all desire to live in a peaceful, stable and safe society where those who are in need of help get it, and the lawbreakers are kept off of the streets.
Isaiah 3: 25, 25 - " Thy men shall fall by the sword, and thy mighty in the war. And her gates shall lament and mourn; and she being desolate shall sit on the ground." NOW though ... there is a sector of the "society of the heart" that little by little is depreciated and led into depravity because of their inability to stand for what is right. They have lived in a pluralistic society without truth as their foundation for so long that society has changed them. The darkness within this "God -resistant" system constantly badgers and belittles insurgents by words like "intolerance" , "equal rights", and "the better good" ... to subordinate the fearful, and align the weak and double minded, and malign those who will question the "New Norm". , Satan desires to grind and wear God's Kids down, and to mar the beauty of their potential closeness to their God. He does this by moving them into a filthy hole of a life that tolerates of sin, lies, and idolatry. And he rewards their tolerance of the things that stand in perversion of the Word of God... by eliminating social pressure.
Stop here for a moment and get out a Bible and carefully read Isaiah 3 (which has "todays society" written all over it) and Jeremiah 13 -- the story of Marring of the Beautiful Linen Sash (or girdle/belt). Now hear the desire and broken heart of God:
Jeremiah 13:11 - "For as the girdle cleaveth to the loins of a man, so I have caused to cleave unto me the whole house of Israel, and the whole house of Judah, saith the LORD; that they might be unto me for a people, and for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory; but they would not hear."
ARE YOU LISTENING! If our hearts are hearing, this is where the breaking begins; and hearing now opens the potential for true repentance, Spirit led worship and lasting life cleansing. What are we tolerating that separates us from that close intimate walk with Jesus?
Don't look around at others ... THIS IS PERSONAL ... GET ALONE WITH GOD and let the change within you begin!
HLFA,
Jeff