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Luke 11:17-23: Divided

 “Any kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and a house divided against itself will fall. If Satan is divided against himself, how can his kingdom stand?” (Lk 11:23, Mt 12:30) Jesus says, “He who is not with me is against me.” Jesus has been accused of exorcising demons by demonic power (Lk 11:15, Mt 12:24, Mk 3:22). A conviction of witchcraft was punishable by death. Jesus answers this charge by saying that not only is He innocent but also it is impossible to drive out evil with evil as is charged. Only good can drive out evil. Therefore since Jesus can drive out evil, He is good; thus if you oppose Him than you, by definition, are evil. “He who is not with me is against me.”

Today are we with him or against him? Jesus casts out demons while telling this parable of the haunted house. Sin, in this parable, has many parallels with addiction. Any of us who have ever struggled with addiction know that each time one becomes clean and then slips up, it becomes more difficult to become clean again and remain that way. Like the metaphorical demons of addiction, literal demons and sin return stronger (with more friends) each time. This doesn’t need to be that way. Jesus can clean our houses and when Jesus cleans our house we can let Him keep it clean too (TSA d.6, d.10)!

So what can we do? We can do nothing to clean the house: Jesus defeated sin and death between the cross and the empty tomb (TSA d.6) but looking at Luke 11:27, we notice a woman who calls out to Jesus, “Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you.” To which Jesus responds, as we should to the deliverance He has offered us, “blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it (Lk 11:28).” “He who is not with me is against me”

This is the choice set before us today. We can ask Jesus to sweep our life clean and He will. We then need to choose who we will serve. We can serve ourselves, our own desires; we can serve the Enemy by inviting demons to haunt our lives again or we can serve the Lord and live life abundantly (TSA d.6 d.8). Today we must decide, are we with our Lord or are we against him? 

Please remember too that any of us can ask our Lord Jesus to clean our haunted houses. Even if He has already cleaned it once or one hundred times and we have messed it up again. While we still have breath in our body, we can invite Him back into our lives to clean us up, sort us out and we can continue receiving the Lord’s blessing of eternal life, Luke 11:28, “blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.” As we do this, we will continue in the blessing of the Holy Spirit. This is holiness and this holiness is available to all but we must make a choice (TSA d.10).

Today the choice is yours: are you with Jesus or against Him?
a divided house cannot stand
  
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