Time Does Not Erase Sin...

While I was there on the ground, the Lord pointed out in my mind specific things in my life that were not right. I thought time would erase them because they were so minor. But I was reminded that little sin is still sin. All sin is sinful and destructive. I saw flashes of moments when I had hardened my heart against a brother. I could see the very place that it had happened. I had never mistreated him, but had made a silent pledge to never get close to him, again. I was reminded of times when my eyes had lingered too long on images of things that were not pleasing to the Lord.

As I was there, I began to weep for my sin, and I felt such a pain for my sin that I felt sick, as if a fever was coming over my body. And the Holy Spirit began to speak to me and now my mind was beginning to catch up with what the Lord was trying to do. And God spoke to me and said, "Because you are neither cold nor hot, I will spit you out of my mouth." I was shocked. "Lord, I have been in the ministry for years, I am a preacher of your word, I fasted last week and pray every day. How have I been so deceived? Why have I never seen this before?"

98% Holiness Is Not Enough...

The Lord said to me, "I wish you would be cold as a pagan, so I could save you again, or hot as a believer that has given 100% to me, then I could use you in My own way." Then the Lord answered my question about why I had not seen this before, "Deceitful is the heart of man, and desperately wicked." I was terrified, I could not believe that moment. Then the Lord spoke again to me and said clearly, "98% holiness is not enough."

In a sense, I was a Pharisee of Pharisees. I grew up in a Christian church. My goal was to be fairly holy, to do pretty well, to pass the examination with a 70%, or a B, but the Lord had different demands.

He rebuked me for my self-righteousness, and exposed the lie of my heart. I then realized my greatest error: I was not trying to be like Jesus. I was just trying to be fairly good. At that moment I felt that all of my religiosity, all of my discipline was like filthy rags in His presence, because I had not believed that the Lord did not call me to be a fairly good person, but that He had called me to be like Jesus. The week before my trip to the States, I had fasted and prayed a lot and I felt so good about myself. I felt I must have been 90% holy or more.

Sometimes we let apparently insignificant sins get into our hearts. But we have to ask ourselves this question, "With how many sins do you think the Lord will allow us to get into heaven? What percentage of evil do you think He will allow us to take with us when the day of the Lord comes?"

As I was in the presence of the Lord, God spoke to me in terms that even a child could understand. At that moment, I could not understand anything more complex than that. He told me, "Nobody gets up in the morning and prepares a cup of coffee or tea and puts just one drop of poison in it, then stirs and drinks it." Then He began to speak to me about the church. There are people in the church who do allow poison in their hearts and in their minds and it is destroying them. No one would consider buying a bottle of mineral water that said on its label: 98% pure mineral water, 2% sewage water. Yet that is just what many Christians have allowed in their lives.

So many people wonder, "Why do I lose the power of God, or the strength of the Lord so quickly? Maybe it is because I am a failure, maybe it is because I am not trained." I will tell you, even when there is 1% of sin in our lives, it can eventually destroy the whole devotion in our lives.

Conviction of Sin, Not Guilt...

I wept, I confessed and I repented. The Lord would point out to me specific sins in my life. He did not point out to generalities. Satan has a fake ministry that he uses especially in the church. His ministry is a ministry of bringing guilt. The Bible tells us that Satan is the accuser of the brethren. He comes to put a general sense of guilt. He never helps us to resolve it. Then all we do is feel bad. There are some leaders, some workers, some servants of the Lord that are in the ministry. Their hearts are trying their best, but they are tortured by guilt. Before they preach they have to get rid of that guilt for one hour, and then it comes back to them. That is not the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

The ministry of the Holy Spirit is to bring conviction of sin (John 16:8). He speaks very directly and specifically, and His word is so clear to us. He will tell us what is wrong with our hearts our thoughts, and our affections and He will demand repentance from us and He will change us. That is the work of the Holy Spirit. It is very different from the work of Satan. Satan comes to destroy lives, to pull entire ministries into depression, into loneliness. There are people who say, "I hope that nobody will know me ever the way that I am personally." But I will tell you this, my brother, my sister, pastor, servant of the Lord, whoever you are, when the fire of the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will say with Apostle Paul, "My conscience is clean". Your life will be purified because of Jesus."

That day I went back to my room and gradually began to recuperate the joy of the Lord. But now instead of landing in the same place as before, I had changed to a new address. The joy of the Lord was in that room. I share my testimony not only just to tell you about something that is happening on the other side of the world, but I know the Lord wants to impart to you what He has given to me.