Repentance, Holiness, and the Church

[UnTraditional]

Greetings y'all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ!

I am about to start getting ready for work this morning, but I wanted to share this that God has laid on my heart about the Church today. Recently in a Sunday morning service, there was an incredible move of the Spirit flowing in the midst of the people, and Jesus' Spirit was calling His people to repent. Tongues and interpretation came forth that God wanted His people to come clean. Out of the entire number in the midst of the service (about 100 people there in total) only 4 came forth to repent and be broken before the Lord.

The next day, the Lord began to deal with me about the judgment coming on the Church, how that because the people of God would not repent, that He was about to take the veil off of their lives, and expose all their sins to show who was His and who was not. When I shared this with one member of the Church, it was as if that person wanted to find a way to water down the message of judgment against sin, and make it a message of love and gentle leading.

The truth is, and I have seen this, that God is doing a work of power and cleansing among His people. He is calling them to repentance, and this repentance is birthing holiness in the lives of the Church. By the way, after the people did not move that Sunday service, the Pastor stood up and preached an incredible message on the need for revival, which included a strong anointed call to repent, separate, and consecrate the people, of which few were truly moved. But, that call is what the Lord is calling His people to.

For too long, we have dissed holiness, people desiring to live as close to the Lord as possible. They have desired to live as godly as possible in their dress, their hair, and the physical, and even more so in the spiritual. We have labeled them legalists, labeled them as works related sinners, and cast them off as heretics, even among our own brethren in the Apostolic church. I have been guilty of this. But, when the Lord began dealing with my own heart about repentance, things began to come to a real light for me.

Look, we claim to be His, but many live like the world. We look for loopholes in the Word to get out of serving God. We look for means to water down our walk so we can be more like everyone else. In the process, we slide our Lord more and more into a lower ranking in our life, and this is idolatry. May the Lord help His Church purge themselves of their own unrighteousness, sin, and transgression, and turn with ALL their hearts to Him.

I know many will be offended with this message of repentance and holiness, but when we look at the Church today in the light of what the Bible says the early church was like, we are lower than dung in comparison, because we have compromised with the spirit of this world, become lovers of the world and the things of the world, and have become more of men pleasers than God pleasers. May we find that place of repentance again, true repentance that draws us away from the world and the spirit of the world, and closer to the things of God, to the Word of God, and to the Lord God Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ. If we do not, we are none of His.

May this be received in the Spirit in which it was written.

Sincerely,
William Price