July 19, 2018
You cannot drink the
cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the
Lord's table and the table of demons. 1Cor 10:21
Don't worship Jesus
on Sunday and then pursue sin the rest of the week – it’s inviting evil into
the temple of your heart.
In the Old Testament, Moses records the Great Commandment of
God in the book of Deuteronomy as: Love the Lord your God with all your heart
and mind and strength. Later, in the
Gospels, the Jews had modified it to say: heart, soul, mind &
strength. That’s because they had
determined that the heart was both the temple for our emotions/passions as well
as our soul. By that generation, the heart
had been divided into two parts. So it
was crucial that the Scripture was taught to love God both with the heart of
our passions as well as the heart of our soul.
Unfortunately, the nature of humans is to want to divide the
heart up for our own selfish interests.
We want God to save our soul, and are glad to have Him take ownership of
that portion of our heart, just as long as we can use the other portion of our
heart for our own passions. Somehow, we
convince ourselves that it’s okay with God to have a split heart. But we don’t realize how deadly that thinking
is.
Paul makes the point clear when it comes to the believer’s
lifestyle that we cannot divide our hearts that way. Believers in Corinth were worshipping God in
the communion of the saints, but then joining in with the unbelievers in their
parties and pursuits of worldly passions.
Paul equates that to a divided heart – one that pursues God on Sunday
but then pursues its own pleasures the rest of the week. It’s like trying to dine with angels and
demons together.
Followers of Jesus will struggle with the temptations of
sin, but they are not supposed to actively pursue sinful lifestyles. It’s one thing to fail or fall, and another
thing to brazenly participate.
So let’s be real here.
If you’re in an immoral relationship, leave. If you’re participating in activities that
God calls sin, stop them. If you have an
addiction or an attraction to alcohol, drugs or other vice, throw it out and
avoid the places that offer it. If your
tendency is to gossip, fight, react in anger, get help. Stop inviting demons into your heart and seek
the cup of communion with the Lord. Make
your worship on Sunday a reflection of the lifestyle you live Monday thru
Friday.
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