Matthew 12:43-45 NIV
“When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.”
Do you remember who you were when Jesus Christ rescued you? The need to be saved involves being captive or enslaved by someone or something? Jesus says those he sets free are free indeed (John 8:36). I remember the day that I came out of the water of baptism, it was a Sunday afternoon when I declared Jesus is Lord. I recall the room where I was when tears of joy flowed down my eyes to have learned that Satan has no authority in my life unless I give it to him by rebelling against God’s will for my life. To know that I no longer live but Christ lives in me as my Lord and savior (Galatians 2:20), compels me to fight against Satan and his demons’ schemes from becoming an enemy of God (1 John 3:1-6). Have you taken the time during your journey with Jesus to take a pulse about where you are in your relationship?
If we do not make regular assessments of our Christian journey, we are at risk of being captured by the demons that once imprisoned us. The passage above is a warning from Jesus that is not being taught often by those who proclaim to have the gospel of Jesus which means good news. I can only assume they are afraid of scaring people away. Well! We ought to be afraid if that is what it will take for us to heed the warning of Jesus. What is an impure spirit? An impure spirit is the manifestation through our disobedience to God’s law that leads us to follow the flesh that makes it impossible to please God (Galatians 5: 16-21, Romans 8:5-8). How is your spiritual house? The scripture says that the spirit goes through arid places to seek rest and does not find it. What is an arid place? Arid is often described as a dry waterless area. Is your spiritual house dry with no conviction, faith, and purpose? Do you have a form of godliness but no power (2 Timothy 3:5)? Are you living a lukewarm life where the world partly influences your way of life and God gets the rest (Revelation 3:16)? Where is your treasure (Matthew 6:19-21)? Are the things of this world guiding your life’s principles or is God’s authority over your life (Matthew 13:18-23)? Have you allowed sins to creep into your life (Galatians 5:16-21)? Does the word repentance offend you or is it refreshing to know healing comes through confessing and repentance (James 3:13-16)? These are some thought provoking questions to give you an idea of the different ways that your house could be spiritually dry, which simply means God is absent from your house. The demons that God has set you free from are not absent, they are waiting for an entry back into your house. Jesus is warning us after he set us free that our house is not to become an idol or museum for show. Our house must be filled with the presence of God’s truth, love, faith, conviction, kindness, humility, patience, gentleness, forgiveness, self-control, continuous repentance, transformation and we must always arm ourselves to fight against demonic attacks from their attempts to invade our dwelling (Ephesians 6:10-20). Jesus says if we let Satan’s demons re-enter us, we will be worse than the first time he rescued us. Jesus made the same reference in John 5:14 after he healed the man at the pool, “Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, ‘see you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you’.” Let us not take our freedom in Christ for granted by allowing ourselves to be deceived by Satan’s demonic spirits to believe the statement: once saved always saved. Let us always draw near to Jesus as our Lord and Savior through his biblical truth so that we don’t fall off our path to hear “well done good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21-29).
