Just a reminder for everyone.  Don't get all caught up in dates and times and lose sight of the one who created time.  This month was touted as being epic, with doom and gloom and all kinda bad things happening.  So far it's been yawn worthy.  Now that's not saying that yawn worthy is a bad thing.  Given all the doom and gloom predicted for this month, I'm praising God for His mercy and grace that nothing DID happen.  So I'm not dancing in the street and singing because we dodged a perceived bullet.  I'm praising God that He gave us a little more time before the real stuff falls.

And stuff will fall.  Big, bad, horrible, terrible stuff.  Hell on Earth in some respects.  But here's the catch.  It'll happen in God's time, not ours.  We can set as many dates and schedule as many things as we want.  But if it's not in God's will that it happen that day, guess what, nothing's going to happen, period.  Not a seven year disaster, not an asteroid, not an earthquake, etc.  Really, as history has proven, if God actually wanted all the doom and gloom things that were predicted for this month to occur, they would have occurred long before the date given by so many "prophets" as when it should come.

There are modern prophets in this world today, some passed, some still around.  But I can say this.  You won't hear them saying doom and gloom as much as you will "be holy".  That's one thing I've taken from the few men I see as true modern day prophets above and beyond all those who carry the title in name only.  Those who are true prophets are holiness preachers who not only seek God in true holiness, but cry out to others to do exactly the same.  It's not the typical "be good and don't sin".  They cry out for a pure holiness before God, and in return they're labeled doom and gloom prophets, false prophets, etc.

Remember, God always calls us to holiness.  But more often than not all we give Him in return is filthy rags of self righteousness.  It's why we fall for all these fakers and false prophets.  We'd rather hear from men than from God.  If we lived right and always sought purity and holiness before God we wouldn't need prophets to warn us.  We'd hear right from the source ourselves.  But our sin blocks our hearing.  If you're not hearing from God, then you've almost invariably got a sin problem in your life.  There are times when there is silence from God.  Even Daniel experienced it.  But it rarely lasts long and is usually the result of spiritual warfare in the heavens.

So if you pray a lot, read a lot, study a lot and you still hear little to nothing from God, it should be a sign to you that you have a sin problem.  Like mud in your ears, sin blocks your ability to hear God's voice.  The only way to hear from God is to clean up your life and seek purity and holiness.  Just because you're saved doesn't mean you're holy.  We live in a sin soaked society filled with pride, arrogance, greed, lust, and other more heinous sins.  As a result we come away wearing some of those sins.  It's like the idea of a mud puddle.  You can't walk through one of them and not expect at least a little mud on your shoes.

The same is true with our society.  You can't expect to walk through a sin sick world and not get sick yourself.  Our natural bent is towards sin, and when it's all around us in spades, it doesn't take long for the flesh to soak it up like a sponge.  That is why we need to repent and purify ourselves every day, sometimes multiple times a day.  And once our hearts are pure, we will hear from God, and we won't need a prophet to learn God's will for our life.  We can hear it directly from the source.  So really, stop listening to all the sharks out there who are blatant date setters and false prophets and start turning to God to find out the truth directly from the source.

But most important, even than that, is to seek God in fervent repentance and holiness.  And don't think, "OH, I'm a good person.  I don't need to repent."  Yes, you do.  Every one of us, despite our salvation, still has a sin nature, and we still sin.  We don't have our glorified bodies and minds yet.  As such we are still prone to sinning and failing God.  Perhaps not with the fervor we did before we were saved, but we still fail.  It's human nature.  Even Daniel, for whom no sin is recorded in the bible, prayed a regular prayer of repentance.  Even though he followed God faithfully and mightily, he still sinned.

So if Daniel, a great saint of God, still sinned enough that he needed to repent daily, what does that say of us who couldn't hold a candle to his level of holiness?  Seek God, seek holiness, and then seek God for the answers.  If you're not hearing from God like you should, or even at all, isn't it time to do some radical amputation?  I'm not talking about physically cutting off an arm or a leg or a finger.  I'm talking spiritual amputation.  Ripping things out of your life that cause you to sin or hinder your growth.  In my life God has ripped out many things recently.  One of those was all TV.  My video player is decommissioned, my TV's gone, my video services canceled, what little gaming stuff I had left is gone, most of my electronic "toys" are gone, save only what is a necessity, and so on.

We need to be in this world, but NOT of it.  Therefore we need to separate ourselves within it, set apart, set aside, unique, a peculiar people.  We need to be with this world as many writers have said, with a very loose grip on anything in this world, holding on with barely a whisper of strength.  I myself think we actually need to go a step further and live, not with a light grip, but with none at all.  We need to live with open hands before God.  Why?  Open hands allow Him to take out what harms us, and replace it with what blesses us.  If your arms and hands are not open, Christ can't help you, because He will only remove what we allow Him to remove.

So if our arms and hands are closed, wrapped tightly around the things of this world, there's nothing He can do to help us.  Only when we open our arms and hands to Him can He begin to remove that which is sin in our life, or which causes us to sin, and replace it with things that bless us and encourage us to holiness.  So, open your arms and hands to the Lord.  The arms because they cradle the big things, and our hands the little things.  So seek holiness, because you will need every ounce of strength that God can bestow upon you for what is about to come upon the Earth.  I'm not giving a when.  Man can't know that.  It's impossible.  We're not God, nor should we try to be.  We can't even know the how.

All I can know for a certainty is the what, and that is God's judgment and wrath against a sin sick world.  Should the Lord continue to tarry for a time, know this, we WILL have to suffer through it and endure what is coming.  The only way to truly be ready is to seek God in all purity and holiness, and that begins with submission, humility, repentance and prayer.  Lots and lots and lots of prayer.