Keeping Up Appearances

Oh, my people, you have been deceived by the world into thinking it is all about how it looks from the outside.  You have been seduced into believing that what other people think matters more than righteousness and integrity.  You have been more concerned with your reputation than mine.  You have been deceived into thinking you are doing it for me – for reasons of honour, excellence, and service – in order to build my house. In reality, you have been building your house.  

My ways are not your ways and my way has always been one that is concerned with the heart more than the externals.  I am coming with my scalpel to rightly divide what is real and authentic from the counterfeit and the impure.  I will cut through the external fripperies, through the gloss and veneer to the real and authentic beneath.  In this time, there will be those who you discover are all veneer and no substance below.  Be prepared as I strip away those with artificiality in their hearts, as I seek a pure bride whose heart is wholly mine. 

Activation: Use the prayer from Psalm 139 as you engage with Holy Spirit in response to this word, allowing him to examine the “thoughts and intentions of your heart,” to shine his light and expose anywhere the enemy has led you into deception. 

Isaiah 29:13 (NIV)

The Lord says: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.

‭1 Samuel 16:7 (ESV)

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

‭‭‬‬Psalm 139:23 (ESV)

Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!