As I was reflecting upon my past, many thoughts came to my mind of what the past almost forty-six years of my Christian walk has entailed in my journey called life.

 

     At twenty years of age, in the midst of youthful changing times, a black man stuck a gun in my face and threatened to kill me if I moved, while he and an accomplice proceeded to rob the bank where I worked. Ended up I had to go in the vault and help his accomplice get the money. While this event was in process, my mind raced with all kinds of possibilities; Would I indeed be shot, would I be taken as a hostage, could I immediately cry out to God for forgiveness of my sins, or would I neglect His gift and spend eternity in the pits of hell?  The mental anguish compelled a spirit of fear like I had never known.

Thankfully, none of those things transpired, but God used the possibilities as a wake up call in my spirit.

 

      Just a few weeks later, after a divine appointment unrealized by me at the time, I found myself in an altar of prayer and God lovingly washed away my sins and gave me a peace I’d never known.

 

     Has it been a walk in the park? No. Has it been all mountaintops? No. Do I have any regrets? No. 

Has it been worth everything it has cost me? Yes, a resounding yes. 

 

     The first scripture to make its indelible impression upon me as a new convert was “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you…but rejoice…” 1 Peter 4:12-13.

 

     Although I had no idea to the relevance of this scripture at the time, it wasn’t long before I began to realize its significance. Fiery trials are a part of our Christian walk, when we truly want to do God’s will and be His disciple. The more I began to delve into His Word, and seek His face for my life, the more the fiery trials came. And here, forty-five years later, the process is still the same. 

 

     God uses fire as an illustration throughout scripture. It is a purger…it’s also a destroyer. We see the evidence of its capabilities all over the world. From the beginning of time until our present day atrocities, the results are the same.  

 

     There are twenty examples of fire listed in scripture, from the burning bush Moses saw to the vision John saw in Revelation of God, whose eyes were as a blazing fire. 

 

     Although God initially destroyed the earth by the flood, then sent the rainbow as His covenant sign that He would never again use water to do so, the fact that He will use fire still remains a future event. 

As a young Christian, it seemed questionable how that might happen, but now in this modern age in which we live there’s no doubt how it will happen. Nuclear power is a ticking time bomb which in all likelihood will accomplish this feat for Him. Evil man will do it as a choice and the consequences will be astounding.

 

     God uses all manner of things, people, places and time to bring His ultimate will and plan to fruition.

It started in the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve paid the ultimate price for the sin they committed.

God’s laws to them were broken by their willful disobedience to partake of the very tree of which God had particularly advised them to leave alone. Of course, they were manipulated by emotionalism, not to justify their wrongdoing, but to make a point. Emotionalism, yes, it’s still very prevalent in our society today. Many lives are destroyed because of irrational choices based on emotions.

     

     The master manipulator, Lucifer himself, who had been cast down from heaven, came to them deceptively, as the serpent. And for those of you who don’t believe in the strong delusion, I tend to chuckle at the possible narrow mindedness or naïveness of our day of those who have completely lost common sense thinking capabilities.  Deception and denial are key ingredients of it.

 

     “Delusion implies an inability to distinguish between what is real and what only seems to be real, often as a result of a disordered state of mind.” (Miriam Webster Dictionary)

 

     In chapter 3 of Genesis, we read the narrative between Eve and ‘the serpent’.  Now, really, how many of y’all have ever heard a snake talk? A literal snake, I mean. There’s plenty of ‘snake in the grass’ deceivers in the world today. I won’t even begin to name names.  But in this case, a literal serpent literally carried on a seemingly literal conversation with Eve. He played on her emotions, and eventually we see the fulfillment of the three categories 1 John 2:16 describes of “all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.” Eve fell for it, hook, line and sinker. And convinced Adam to do the same. Oh, the power of a determined woman.

But it didn’t stop there. Immediately their eyes were opened, and they saw themselves as they really were…naked. Mercy, what a rude awakening! I won’t enlarge on this aspect, but we all are truly naked in our sins before God until Jesus saves us and clothes us with His righteousness.

 

     Of course, we who know the story know what happened next. The blame game began…yep, right there in the midst of the garden. The very utopia of their lives suddenly became a whole different arena.

God showed up, called them on the carpet, so to speak, and the talking serpent never uttered another literal word. Again, his fate was sealed. God immediately administered severe “consequences” for their “choices”.  Did He burn them up? Not literally, but the fires of sin began and continues to follow mankind who continues to walk in sin and rebellion against the one and only living, holy God of Heaven.

 

     They were cast from the garden, and hell on earth began. The wonderful, innocent, constant beauty of God’s creation which they had been given dominance over no longer existed for them and on the East side of the garden was a wall of cherubims with swords to protect the tree of life. Yes, God does believe in walls and barriers to protect His cherished belongings. Remember, Heaven has one, too.

 

     David was the shepherdboy, who played his harp and sang to his sheep, who God said was a man after His heart, who God used mightily to slay a lion and a bear, then the giant, who wrote the Psalms which constantly revealed his heart for God. This shepherdboy, who turned King after the fall of Saul, realized within himself he was nothing apart from God.  In spite of his many sins, after all he went through, he made this statement when he came to Araunah the Jebusite to purchase his threshingfloor to build an altar to the Lord, in 2 Samuel 24, “I will surely buy it of thee at a price: neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the Lord my God of that which doth cost me nothing.” Araunah wanted to give it to him because David was the king, but David was a man who knew he could not offer God anything if it cost him nothing.

 

     Needless to say, the cost of living can seem more than we can pay at times, but as my title asks, what are you willing to pay?  For many of the patriarchs of old we read how it cost them everything to trust God and follow His lead to reach the promised land. God had a plan and purpose for creating this world and all who live in it. He has His own time table and agenda. 

     Naturally, we have the mockers and those who are delusional who walk after their own lusts and as 2 Peter 3 states very explicitly, they say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers died, all things continue alike from the beginning of the creation...” And that chapter is very forthright, but I won’t take the space to reveal its fullness here. 

 

     May we be reminded, God’s not in a rush, like mankind is. The Bible says in 2 Peter 3:8, “one day is with the Lord, as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”

 

     To walk with the Lord, to know His favor rests upon our lives, to do His will and not our own, is costly.

     

     I will never forget hearing Rev. David Wilkerson preach at a camp meeting in South Georgia many, many years ago and telling of an instance in his own life, which truly exposed his real vulnerable self. He preached in hundreds of venues throughout his ministry, from the streets of New York to gang members, to some of the most elaborate churches in the world. When he would go to his hotel room alone many times after preaching, he would tune into his weakness, pornography, and watch it in solitude where no one else was around. But one night he said as he sat consumed by the idol, as he often referred to the tv, the Spirit of the Lord spoke to his heart. He said, “God said to me, ‘David, you can preach anywhere anytime to crowds, because you know my Word. So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it, Isaiah 55:11, but if you want my anointing, you must repent of this sinful act…as Isaiah 10:27 says, the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing.’”

Rev. Wilkerson said he fell on his face before God, and asked him to destroy the yoke of pornography, because he wanted God’s anointing more than his fleshly desires.

What was he willing to pay? His fleshly gratification…because just like David, the shepherdboy and King, David Wilkerson was a man after God’s heart as well. He was willing to pay the cost he knew it would take to walk with God and fulfill his calling.

God answered his prayer, and used him in great and mighty anointed ways after then until his death in 2011. Many called him a prophet of doom, others called him a heretic. Only God is his judge, and  countless souls were won to the kingdom of God through his ministry.

 

         So again I ask, what are you willing to pay? God is asking each of us this question in these last days.

 

D. S. Mullis

.2018