Then many will take offense, betray one another and hate one another. Many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. Because lawlessness will multiply, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be delivered (Matthew 24:10-13 – HCSB).
Tremendous change is taking place today all over the world. Jesus is returning. The spirit of antiChrist, which emphasizes godless, self-serving living, immorality, lawlessness, and the ideology that there are no moral absolutes for human behavior, is threatening the very fabric of cultures worldwide.
And you and I are caught in the crosshairs of a clash between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan. There are two things that I encourage each believer to do every day.
First of all, take authority over the demonic realm that is seeking to hinder you and your family! During my prayer time every morning, I command Satan and every demonic force to keep their hands off of me and every member of my family. I name them by name. Authority is no good unless it’s used! Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven (Matthew 18:18).
Secondly, make a fresh choice each morning to walk in love. Refuse to allow the spirit of the age to hinder your mandate from Jesus to walk in love. The Message Paraphrase of Matthew 24:12 speaks so clearly to the pressure we all face to yield to the cultural strife that is rising – For many others, the overwhelming spread of evil will do them in—nothing left of their love but a mound of ashes.
Let’s choose to make a difference by allowing our conduct to have the reaction of salt on others as we enteract. You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men (Matthew 5:13).
Remember that salt protects and flavors. My grandfather butchered hogs in the early days of the 20th Century. The meat was salted down and placed in a smokehouse. The salt protected the meat from spoiling. You are I protect our culture from completely losing the responses of kindness, empathy, love, and justice based on truth.
Salt also flavors. I sometimes cook a couple of eggs for breakfast. Eggs minus salt taste awful! There’s no flavor! You and I bring flavor to the culture around us. The office environment is brighter, the home is a place of peace and joy, and harsh events are calmed when we choose to respond with truth mixed with kindness and love. Jesus has called us to be peacemakers, not arrogant fighters! And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will (2 Timothy 2:24-26).
Let’s choose to exercise our spiritual authority every day over our families and protect them from the onerous influence of evil. And let’s choose to act in truth mixed with God’s unconditional love as we encounter each issue today. Remember that we are the hands and feet of Jesus in loveless, selfish, lawless age. It’s time to shine!
Here are the attribute of love that we are to live by. They are so well described by Paul in 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7. The Amplified Bible is awesome:
Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily. 5 It is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride); it is not rude (unmannerly) and does not act unbecomingly. Love (God’s love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it [it pays no attention to a suffered wrong]. 6 It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail. 7 Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening].