Occasionally

Occasionally……

1 Thessalonians 5:23 “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

I heard someone say, ‘I drink occasionally’, then he went on to say more that were almost like a knife twisted inside my heart; he said, “may be during parties and important days like Easter and Christmas!” Does this mean anything to you? This person has heard sermons of mine not once but for eight long years! I read about a ‘debased mind’ mentioned in the Bible: Romans 1:28”And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting;29 being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy,…..” These Church-going Christians think that they are doing the right things, but the Bible says, ‘God has given them over to do things that are not fitting because of their disobedience.’ Are you listening?

Please hear me today! You may justify your wickedness by saying: I drink only during weekends, I stick to only Beer, I visit temples but think of only Jesus, I just smoke 10 cigarettes a day, I am physically involved with the girl that I am engaged to, I get very angry and nasty but God understands, I am into this illicit relationship but I still go to church and read the Bible…A young Christian man came to me and said, ‘I watch porn in the office and at home but I stick to my wife.’ God calls this ‘debased mind!’ Repent!

Read the above scripture carefully, Apostle Paul says that we need ‘complete sanctification’ and ‘our whole spirit, soul and body has to be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ You cannot look at God and say, ‘I have just been an occasional drinker and gambler; nevertheless, I don’t miss church services.’ I am sure the devil would guffaw over this statement! Just want to add the caveat that God expects a higher standard of holiness from us! After my salvation experience, I stopped watching secular movies, TV soaps, I broke movie VCDs, I tore all unwanted books and frantically went about closing all the doors that were open to satan one by one, people called me a religious fanatic but that didn’t affect me one bit. We cannot be occasional sinners but we got to be whole-hearted followers of Jesus Christ!

After experiencing Jesus in his life, this is what CBN Director Pat Robertson did, let me put it in his own words: “I didn’t say a word. I just reached up in the cabinet and began taking down the bottles of whiskey we had stored there. One by one I uncapped them and began pouring the whiskey down the sink. Glub….glub….glub…glub…….My wife screamed, ‘have you completely lost your mind?’ Pat Robertson replied, ‘I’m not going to drink anymore, I am a new man now, no more of that old stuff.’