After the Lord spoke to the church in Ephesus, He also walked by the church in Smyrna. There the Lord describes Himself as the First and the Last, who became dead and lived again (2:8). The Lord told them to be faithful unto death, and He would give them the crown of life (v. 10).
Death here is not just the physical death, but the putting to death of the soul-life. Let me ask, every time our parents warned us about something, did they have the intention to destroy us? So why is it that every time they say something, we seem to be sensitive and react in such a negative way? This is because our soul-life wants to rule in us. If we follow the diet according to John 4, 6 and 20, our attitude will be different. The day we eat, drink and breath Him in, we will not be responding in a negative way to our parents! If we realize that our responses are not from the spirit, we still have the way of repentance. We can still ask for forgiveness. It might not be easy to do, but if we depend on the Lord, a genuine repentance will flow out.
The Lord also walked by the church in Philadelphia. There we see that they had little power; but they had two things that the Lord appreciated: they had the Lord’s name and they kept the Lord’s word. This God who is the Word needs to be practical to us today.
John tells us that in the beginning the Word was God, and this Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, and we beheld His glory that is full of grace and reality. Was all this presented to us so that we can only know about Him? He became flesh for the sake of our redemption; and He resurrected so that we may receive His life. This Word who became flesh overcame many difficult things so that one day He could come into us and dispense Himself as life into our being. Therefore, we cannot lose sight of God’s desire.
In conclusion, we need to go up another level. We need to cast down the accuser in our lives. Cast him down regarding our relationship with our parents and with our serving ones. In Revelation 12:11 we see that to be a shining star in the Lord’s hand, one needs three things: The blood of the Lamb, the word of our testimony, and not loving the soul-life even unto death. We can apply the blood at anytime. When we have the rebellious nature that repeatedly responds back in a negative way to our parents, we need the blood of the Lamb. As you apply the blood in repentance, your repentance turns into confession.
1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” This is the way we need to take in our daily living because shining stars are not perfect. On the contrary, they commit sins, but when they sin, they apply the blood.
To give the word of the testimony is to speak the Word. The Lord is the incarnated Word. Everything He spoke, He did; and everything He did, He spoke. We need to be like this! Everything that we speak needs to be a part of our living. This needs to be our testimony!
Finally, we need to be not loving our own soul-life even unto death. We still have not yet graduated from this. The only way to overcome our soul-life is by being in the spirit. Denying the soul-life outside of the spirit is not genuine. A simple way to be in spirit is by calling on the name of the Lord, declaring “Lord Jesus, I need You!” and also taking in the Lord as the bread of life. Ruminate and digest the word, speaking and singing the hymns to one another, and prophesying. These practices need to be a part our daily living so that we can be shining stars in the Lord’s hand.
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