Christian Living

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Forcing The Monkey Business Out

Many times we as Christians are very critical about people who commit sin. Have we ever looked deeply within ourselves to see why certain sins are more prevalent in our thoughts? Have we ever wondered why we confess Christ on Sunday and force the sinner to continue in their sin on Monday? Have we ever considered our own inadequacies? My brother stole money but I stole someone's vision; what's the difference I am still a thief. My sister committed fornication but I thought in my heart to commit it; I still need to repent. My brother talked me down but I am no better because I talked him down and had to repent. Have we ever pitifully complained to God about someone else while the issues lodged in our own heart; has taken up residence and comfortably abide?

If we answer yes to any of the above we are human and realistically growing in Christ. It’s time to force the monkey business out of our minds that we have arrived and get busy about God’s business. The monkey business we engage in has cut God short and we are accountable to Him for taking His place as the God of the souls of men. We are standing in the way of sinners and sitting in the seat of the scornful. How can we confess, repent, and turn from our wickedness and the next person is not according to us capable of doing the same thing. Who made us God and Lord? It is God that brought Heaven to Earth. God wants to be in us, for us, and with us in the battle; not forced to wait until we decide we want to be a winner with Him. Without God we will fail, without Him we will perish. Have we gotten so caught up in ourselves that we forgot to do what God has called us to? It’s time morning come again for some of us. Morning is when things are fresh and new.

Like Jesus in Matthew 27:1 we too will meet our morning of persecution. Jesus had already told Judas what you do; do it quick. Judas after betraying Jesus felt the condemnation, repented himself and brought the thirty pieces of silver to the Chief Priests and Elders. Judas was ready to put away the monkey business and undo his actions against Jesus. Judas was not as ignorant as many say he was. Judas had seen God give Jesus a way of escape many times before this morning. He also had seen Jesus do many miracles; surely He will escape this crowd. Judas never realized though that this was preordained, Jesus had already told him what would be. He said the one that dips with me in the cup will betray me. He was telling them that He was going to be double-crossed; his cover would be revealed by only one of those that knew Him and who He was. One also would deny him thrice or three times before the cock crowed. Betrayal is treason, treachery, and disloyalty which the Chief Priests, Sadducees, and Elders committed. Judas actually was trying to delude, trick and deceive the Elect of the land. His loyalty was indeed with Jesus in his mind. He never gave thought to the spiritual side of what was going on; for Jesus had told the Disciples that He came into the world to die a sinful death. He had done no sin but would consume it upon himself for us that we might be saved. Jesus called Judas to follow Him as one of His Disciples. His love for money pulled him out of reason into monkey business. He would take the money, disclose Jesus place of hiding and announce who Jesus was in the group by a declared kiss. Judas realized his monkey business when Jesus just submitted to the enemy. He said I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. They could have cared less about his morning awakening. They laughed at him I can imagine and mocked fun at the fact that Judas had a conscious.

Monkey business is when we maliciously go up and down like God’s adversary the Devil and stir up stuff not like God. We aren’t to go about as a talebearer among the people, continue in strife, be jealous of one another, have envy in our hearts, lying on each other to make ourselves look good, walk disorderly or be busybodies in other men affairs, and being idle for too long. An idle mind is the Devil’s workshop. We give him room to breathe into our relationship with God when we aren’t quietly working the work that God has called us to. We wander from house to house for so long and eventually we are tattling; speaking those things which we ought not. We murder with our tongues against one another and steal the innocence of the one being targeted just as Jesus was targeted by so unwholesome conversation and monkey business. The last but not least monkey business we get caught up in is this; being an evil doer as a busybody in other men’s matters. Most time to engage in monkey business we are usually out of place, out of our comfort zone, and out of the confines of holiness. Doing, acting, or professing monkey business means we are drying up like a piece of yeast; we are dead men walking.

Monkey business exists even among the elite of the Church. We can get so carried away in our own selves; we oust God like He never existed in our lives. We really do not understand that we have been had by the enemy of our souls. He uses our mouths to speak what he wants in the earth just like God. He is a master manipulator that never gets an original Word from God. One day Jesus went into the Temple and they were doing some of everything in there. When Jesus came in He overturned the tables and cast them out. God is a radical God; He is extreme and fundamental. God is progressive (tolerant, lenient, and open minded), militant (aggressive, warlike, and belligerent), riotous (stirs uproars against sin, confuses the perpetrators of confusion), rebellious (He revolts against sin, is relentless in His nature, unmerciful, vindictive, hard and ruthless when it comes to sin, mutinous, insurgent and subversive), revolutionary (rebellious and novel (He makes things new after they have been destroyed to a state of newness), and heretical. He never deviates from His original plan for Heaven or Earth and all of Earth’s inhabitants. God is not for the monkey business, He wants production, honesty, faithfulness, loyalty, and complete trust. Satan stills try to do a number on God through us knowing that he is no competitions for our God the great master.

Monkey business is what causes divisions in the House of God. We always talk about adultery, fornication and jealousy. But there are many more of the sin to the Spirit in the flesh; uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelling, and such like of the which we have been told before that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. This is monkey business that calls for lying, stealing, and deception; which is Satan’s M.O. We were children in bondage at one time but now we no longer wrestle in our folly with the elements of the world. It’s monkey business though to think that we have arrived because we don’t commit the previous acts of the flesh; but what about the sin we commit in our hearts when we willfully disobey God in one area or another? We go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God. It’s hard to get back to that place in God we once were in when we look back. God have to trust us again and we have to build that trust that we have that full assurance of hope to the end.

Romans 14:16-17 let not then your good be evil spoken of; for the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. God is not the author of confusion but peace. It is Satan a defeated foe that tries to take away our righteousness, peace, and joy when it doesn’t belong to us. This is monkey business. We know that all of our righteousness is as filthy rags. We are made of dirt but created Spirit. This means that we are carnal minded; pertaining to the flesh; fleshly; given to sensual indulgence; as carnal pleasure; lustful; and unregenerate. But once we allow Christ to come into our lives we put away foolishness; all of the monkey business that cause us to be slothful even in God’s business. To be carnal minded brings forth death but to be spiritual minded is where our peace lies which births forth life in the believer. We that are in the flesh cannot please God because the carnal mind submits itself to monkey business. The foolishness of the earth is what a carnal person desires. We cannot live for God and the Devil too! Either we will love one and hate the other but not love both. We have to shave the monkey business out of our heart that it may be purged for good works. After we have carved out the stench of sin we can then bring heaven to earth. God will continuously sup with us because we walk orderly and quietly where He can lead us through the terrains of life as we transition from earth to glory.

Give up the monkey business or have God force it out. It is far better to submit than have God drive it out with force. Force calls for Him to compel us to comply, calls for coercion with power, pressing out of our energy, making our will power weak. Force requires, demand and commands God to usurp His authority, imposing within us a determination to become like Him, and exacting His strength upon us. We can come willingly though that we don’t go through the trouble of showing God that we are the dominant one that is more powerful than He. That’s monkey business; we have no wit to fight the Creator for we cannot win. Blessed is the man that freely comes to God and learn of Him. As we learn we grow, as we grow we pull off and put on righteousness casting out the monkey business of the enemy forever and eternally.

In opposition to some that believe God is a loving God that will never do anything to his people I find that God is really and truly radical. He will destroy; tears up, and put back together again freely or forcefully. God has a Will and it will be done in the earth as it is in heaven. Confess and repent of the monkey business and turn all of your blue Mondays into a do Monday without the monkey business!

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