Where Does Your Allegiance Lie?

The Spirit calls me today as I am watching the shake up of my world. The battle rages and lines are being drawn. Jesus has said, "I did not come to bring peace but a sword" and that sword will divide some of our most cherished relationships. Matt. 10:34.

The question we face is where does our loyalty lie? To whom will we pledge our allegiance when the battle comes to our door or worse yet when it strikes our closest relationships?

We, in America, know little about the "rulers, authorities and powers of this dark world" or the "Spiritual forces of evil in the Heavenly realms" spoken of in Eph 6:12. The strategy of evil here in America seems to be to neutralize the Church and her Warrior calling.

The enemy tries to drown out the call to war coming out of Heaven, with polite and pleasant "works" while administering sleep inducing sedatives. He is deceiving the army of God with perks and benefits that would cause them to trade in their powerful weapons and "beat their swords into plowshares" before time, while the battle is still raging.

The Spirit speaks daily about the danger of "unholy alliances" we are tempted to enter into. Today He calls me to consider the original call to compromise that was made in the Garden of Eden.

Eve was the delight of Adam's heart and made in a likeness of beauty that pleased all his senses. She was given as a gift and the flesh and blood completion of him as a man.

All was well until temptation to disobey God's only command and reject His stark warning was presented and, in an act of her free will, Eve chose the fruit of dark rebellion. Once the act of disobedience was complete, Adam was invited to join in Eve's wickedness and partake of the forbidden fruit.

Adam's decision was a different one. Beyond the forbidden fruit, Adam had to choose between his relationship with His Creator God and his relationship with Eve. Adam's allegiance was tested and it fell to his flesh. We all may well say, "well, who could blame him?" Yet, looking back, generations of people since that day would likely say, "Why did you throw away your amazing life and future just to please your senses?" (For Adam it was an issue of failed leadership but that is a subject for another day.)

Betrayal of the Creator may represent the ancient dilemma that caused the original fall of man, but that is the same dilemma we will all face in our lives today.

Compromise threatens all of us and not just in doing things that call us to repentance. The real threat of compromise is in the place of our allegiance and loyalty to the One who died for us.


The Spirit is calling, asking, in the battle that is raging, "Where does your allegiance lie?" When the sword of Christ begins to divide and decisions of loyalty must be made, where do we take our stand? Does our Lord and Savior have His rightful place in our life and does He have our undivided, unwavering loyalty, where we will forsake all others and stand with Him? Or do we forsake Him and align ourselves with those who walk in the ways of this fallen world?

The Spirit is calling. Can you hear Him?

Where Have You Pitched Your Tent?

The Spirit calls me this morning. Life has been so hectic and chaotic for months and lives have been forever changed. My blog has sat silent but the Spirit continues to speak to me each and every morning.

The dust of the battlefield is finally clearing, so I can spend time processing the wisdom and putting the details together in my mind.

As the Lord's arrival is imminent, we are all being called to give careful thought to our ways. We are all being shaken down and out. We are being tested to see what is in our hearts, before we are called to have audience with our King where we will be required to give an account of how we lived our lives here on earth.

Most fail to realize the seriousness of our choices. Jesus has said, narrow is the way that leads to life eternal. Grace has been reduced in our minds through some teachers to a distortion of true accountability.

Perfect love and perfect justice come together under Grace. Liberties have been taken and the dread associated with a Holy God has rarely, if ever, been felt.

The Spirit calls me this morning to look at Lot's life and where he pitched his tent. Lot was Abraham's nephew. He had moved with Abraham, and spent years in the presence of the Patriarch, God's chosen.

The day came when the Lord had so blessed them with livestock and other things, they needed to separate. In Gen 13, Abraham and Lot discussed the division, and Lot was given the choice of the land. Gen 13:12, "So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordon and set out for the east." Vs 12, "Abram lived in the land of Canaan, while Lot lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tent near Sodom. Now the men of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the Lord."

As the account continues, we fast forward to Gen 18. In this chapter Abraham gets a visit. Gen 18:1-2, "the Lord appeared to Abraham. Abraham looked up and saw 3 men standing nearby."

Abraham was privileged to have an encounter with the Trinity, and the Lord revealed the purpose for His visitation. "Then the Lord said, The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous, that I will go down and see if what they have done is a bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know it."

The Lord came to Abraham, His friend, shared with him the Divine purpose about to be fulfilled and even the "why" behind it.

Abraham was given the great privilege of a visit, but we can also see though this account a picture of the intimate relationship between God and His covenant people. We, in Christ Jesus, are God's covenant people and have access and privilege before our God to intercede and voice our thoughts, concerns and fears for others in the pathway of God's Divine judgement.

But today, the Holy Spirit calls me to look at Lot's life and where he chose to pitch his tent.

The wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah was so great that the outcry against it reached God's ears. Lot chose to live just outside the city, perhaps thinking that he could live with the perks without the liability. It is quite obvious that this close proximity to such wickedness had an impact on Lot's life and his family suffered as a result of where he pitched his tent.

When the angels of destruction were given the assignment to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, the real devastation of the family unit was revealed. Lot attempted to barter his virgin daughters to the crowd of depraved men about to assault the "heavenly" visitors sent to destroy them.

As I look at Lot's life, I realize the ultimate risk of living in such a place of compromise. For whatever the reason, Lot had no impact on the place of wickedness. Conversely, that place of wickedness seemed to have a great impact on him and his family. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah was about to be destroyed, not even Lot's pledged sons-in-law were willing to listen and leave town with him and his family which included their wives-to-be. Lot was not able to persuade anyone, that judgment was about to fall.

God's mercy was the only thing that spared Lot and his family from being destroyed along with everyone else in that corrupt place. With judgement about to be executed, Lot was still hesitant. Gen 19 says, "when he hesitated, the men grasped his hands and the hands of his wife and of his 2 daughters and led them safely out of the city.

God is so faithful up to the last minute providing a merciful rescue even to those who might hesitate in fear.

But once the family was on the road to safety, God's command and warning, "flee for your lives. Don't look back, and don't stop anywhere on the plain", was not heeded nor obeyed and Lot's wife died along with all the others associated with the ungodly city.

God's mercy has an expiration date and we don't know when it will arrived until it is too late. There was a day on the calendar when the door of Noah's ark closed and all those outside the ark perished in the flood of God's judgment.

The Spirit is calling to all of us, "beware where you pitch your tent". The world is full of evil. Temptations abound for us to participate at different levels of life. Yet, we as believers are called to be separate, bound to our God and His principles of Holiness.

Today the Spirit has revealed truth about the dangers of living on the borders of wickedness: compromise with wickedness, tolerance of wickedness, apathy toward wickedness. Lot apparently did not have the reputation for witnessing the truth about a Holy God to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. At the moment of Lot's appeal to the depraved citizens of Sodom to leave his guests alone, they told him to get out of their way, saying further that Lot had come to them as an alien and now, "wants to play the judge".

God warns His people, "give careful thought to your ways". In these end times, knowing the judgement to come, we must all consider where we have pitched our tents. Are we in that border town, having no Godly impact on those around us and in danger of the judgement that will come upon the earth?

Are we bartering our children to the whims and demands of the world, failing to protect them from worldly dangers whether by assault or acceptance of ungodly principles of living?

Are we so entrenched in the lifestyle of the world that we cannot leave it's perks even if our eternal lives depend on it?

Where have you pitched your tent?

The Spirit is calling. Can you hear Him?