Be angry, and do not sin, do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil (Ephesians 4:26-27 NKJV).

Just over a year ago, I had a vision in which the Holy Spirit, in the form of a new born baby, sat upon my left shoulder and told me that He has come to lead and direct me. After this announcement, He charged me to live a life free from sin. His exact words were, “DO NOT SIN.” He also reeled off a number of consequences for sin which I could not remember after I woke from this vision. What I remember is the feeling of dread that was created in my heart as I listened to Him speak of the severity of the consequences of sin. After this admonition, we started out on a journey together with him resting on my shoulder and directing me every step of the way.

Jesus taught: “Those who accept my commandments and obey them are the ones who love me.  And because they love me, my Father will love them.  And I will love them and reveal myself to each of them” (John 14:21 NLT).

Did you know that the more you accept and obey Jesus’ commands, the greater He will reveal Himself to you? This is exactly what He said!  There is no mystery about it.  If you want to live daily in the presence of Jesus, continually feel His warmth, the power of His love and have Him reveal Himself to you in an even greater way, then all you have to do is simply obey His command to love Him with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, to worship Him in spirit and in truth, to esteem Him above all else, to love others as you love yourself, to strive always to live from sin and to fulfill His purpose for your life.  It is not painful at all to obey and to follow the voice of Jesus.  If you love Him, then obeying His commands would be a joy.  When you obey Him, He brings you into a deeper fellowship with Him and you become more fulfilled and your life greatly enriched.

Jesus has called me to a higher standard of holiness because He desires to have a deeper fellowship with me each day and because He has a very important work for me to do which requires holiness. The Apostle Peter admonished, “But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do” (1 Peter 1:15 NIV). Every true child of God is a temple of the living God. God is holy and as His representatives here on Earth, we must also be holy. We all therefore must make every effort to submit ourselves to Jesus, the Most Holy God, our Righteous Judge and our ever loving Savior and ask Him to fully consecrate us to His service. We must show reverence for Him because He is holy and because He is the King of kings and Lord of lords. He is all powerful, all mighty and highly exalted above all the Earth. His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. We need to humbly bow our hearts and our knees in worship before Him and give him the honor due to His Holy Name.

If the Holy Spirit is saying to me, ‘Do not sin,’ I believe that He is also saying the same thing to all believers because we are all members of the same body and because He desires to have a deeper fellowship with each of us. I know that we are all imperfect beings. We don’t always say the right things and we don’t always do the right things and often when we do the right thing, we do it for the wrong reason.

God has called me however to step up to a higher standard of holiness which may include crucifying self a bit more, becoming more open and honest in everything I do, becoming more humble, more loving, more forgiving, more temperate, and more sensitive to others. This is a time for self-reflection, to seek the help of the Holy Spirit to reveal to me the areas in which I am weak, to help me in fully confessing and totally forsaking any sins revealed to me, to dedicate my life afresh to Jesus and ask Him to fully consecrate me to His service. This is a time to seek the strength and power of the Holy Spirit to aid me in living completely free from sin. I am not perfect but my desire is to strive each day for perfection. Therefore, I have a made-up mind to pursue holiness. With that goal in mind, I keep my eyes fixed on Jesus who is perfection Himself and humbly submit myself to Him and ask Him to clean out all impurities and every evil and selfish thought, and to wash me, mold me and make me more and more into his image each day. I desire to be more and more like my Jesus, to be transformed into His likeness, to make His ways my ways and His thoughts my thoughts every day. With Jesus as my mirror, I bring into subjection before Him my motives for everything I do, and repent of every impure or misguided thought behind the things I do, and ask Him to fully consecrate me to His service as I fully surrender to Him my will.

I am praying that each of you will also do your own self-examination and ask Jesus to show you yourself as you really are. If you love what you see through the reflection in Jesus’ eyes then to God be the glory but if not, let us all humbly bow at Jesus’ feet and ask Him to purge us until every unholy or impure thought is removed from our minds and until we can stand before Him and not feel ashamed because of the many sinful and embarrassing things we have done or the unholy thoughts that we entertain from time to time. Let each of us seek to live each moment as if Jesus is present and watching us because He is. Our thoughts are like open books before Him and we cannot possibly hide them from Him no matter how hard we try. Let each of us consider what is really important – to look good in the eyes of others or to be truly humble, pure, holy and honest in the eyes of our loving Savior whose only desire is to save us from a life of sin, the penalty of which is death, to give us eternal life through Him and to fellowship with us each day. When we put our selfish lusts and desires before the desire to live holy and delight in the presence of the Lord, we rob ourselves of the fellowship we could have with our loving Savior. Jesus is a holy God. He cannot fellowship with us if sin dominates our thoughts and our actions. By allowing sin to rule in our lives, we prohibit the fellowship of Jesus and drive away the Holy Spirit.  I encourage you therefore not to simply accept defeat but instead, completely surrender your hearts and souls to Jesus and He will help you to live a life of victory.