Spiritual Harlotry

        I know the title of this post is a bit brash, but bear with me. The title is the only way for me to truly describe what the body of Christ is doing. We as the Bride of Christ are selling ourselves and our birthright for common pleasures of this world. We are grafted in to royalty as it states in Romans 11:16-18. If the first fruit which is Abraham is holy then so are we, but we give up our inheritance to fit in to normal society. We as saints do not fit in to society for a reason, and that reason is that we are supposed to be peculiar people. As I stated in my last post peculiar means to deviate from the norm. We need to stop trying to be accepted by conforming our ideologies to what is popular, and start to shift ourselves to becoming a prepared Bride of Christ.
        One of the best examples of being a spiritual harlot is in the parable of the prodigal son. I have a very close connection with the parable not only, because of the contrasting story but also the fact it was the first thing I studied when I gave my life back to God.

Luke 15:12-13
12 And the younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.' So he divided to them his livelihood.
13 And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living.

12- First the young man asked for the inheritance from his Father, and his Father allotted him what was his inheritance. God has given each of us gifts, and an inheritance in this world. It is up to us what we do with these gifts.
13- Notice that it says that the son journeyed to a far country. The son left his Father, and traveled as far as he could from him, and wasted the inheritance that was given to him.
Prodigal broken down in the Greek and Hebrew means profligacy. 
Profligacy- Unrestrained indulgence in sensual pleasure
We are wasting away the inheritance that was given to us to indulge our senses for pleasures of this world. We dull our senses by the secular music we listen to, the television we watch (with perversion riddled throughout it), the movies that we think are more exciting the the Word, and the lust of our flesh for material items or people (in a sexual manner). It is time to wake up and see that we are pissing away the gifts that God has given us. In a sense like Esau did we are selling our birthright for a mere bowl of soup. Let us stop selling ourselves short for who we really are, and that is sons, kings, friends, and brides of Christ. We are so unique, and are supposed to be living in the understanding of our unique beauty that was bestowed upon us. Too often do we allow ourselves to be fastened as a carbon cut copy of societal acceptance. As the prodigal son did we are doing. We are giving away and selling our inheritance to have sensual pleasure (Not just sexual but pleasure of our senses as well).


Luke 15:17-19
17 "But when he came to himself, he said, 'How many of my father's hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!
18 I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you,
19 and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants."'

To catch you up on the verses I left out I will paraphrase. Basically he lost everything he had, started working for a man feeding pigs (Which was unclean to Jews), and not only did he have to feed the pigs, but he ate from their trough as well. This is a perfect example of how we get so consumed by things of this world we end up eating from the pigs trough. We allow our Spirit to eat from something that is unclean, and defile the purity that God has freely given us. Allow yourselves to eat of His food (The Word and His presence), and not of the pleasures of society.
17- He began to realize that man this life that I am leading is junk compared to how my Father treats His servants. Living without God long enough showed me that God took care of the people that served Him (They never lack), better than those that serve in the world. I like when it says when he came to himself, because it was like a light bulb when off in his head. That God had abundant bread for him to eat, and that there is increase in Christ. 
18-19- This verse reminds me of Isaiah 60:1 Arise and shine for the glory is upon you. The prodigal son finally got the revelation that it was his time to arise and step into the inheritance that Father had given him. He decided that he was tired of being a servant of this world, and wanted to run back to the feet of Christ and serve Him. When I finally hit rock bottom I came to the realization that I could not do anything on my own, and that the lifestyle I led was counterproductive to what God had in store for me. Sitting in my room in San Antonio under the influence of a few pills and numerous beers I broke. I had just broke up with the girl I loved for God, and did not understand why I did it. That day I finally began to speak to God again, and to cry out for help. I was consumed by anger, hate, and rejection. Others may have thought I had it all together, but I was about to embark on a major journey back to the road of glory. The proceeding months I cut taking pills, but was drinking more heavily trying to dull the pain that was in my heart. Nothing seemed to satisfy the emptiness within. I later started going back to church, and there was a shift in my Spirit that began to heal my broken heart. I went to church smelling of alcohol, and the body there still embraced me. The pastor saw something in me for some reason, and began to speak life into me. When I moved back to Houston everything changed for the best. I partied hard one last time for my birthday before being asked to be an intern at Touched by Grace, and the rest is history.


Luke 15:20-24
20 "And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.
21 And the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.'
22 "But the father said to his servants, 'Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet.
23 And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry;
24 for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' And they began to be merry.

Saw-with wide-open eyes, as at something remarkable
Fell-Seize or embrace more or less violently


20- When we are a great way off from the path back to righteousness the Father sees our hearts, and is moved with compassion and will run to us with embracing arms. He looks at us wide eyes, because we are remarkable and beautiful to Him no matter how far we drift from Him. When we stop selling our birthright and come back to Him he seizes us with violence and take us to an intimate place with Him (not perverted but holy).
21- When I came back to God I did not feel worthy to be called His son, and at times I still struggle with the realization that in spite of me I am still His son. It is the very reason of being called a son of God that makes me unique and uncommon. 
22-
Robe-Stole (mark of dignity-The quality of being worthy of esteem or respect)
God wants to cloth us and give us esteem and respect. He clothes us in royalty and richness. Some of us have traded in our royal garments (God given talents and gifts) for nothing but waste of this world. Now that I am in God's will I feel like I am royalty, and that I lack nothing because I am a king. It says in His word that Christ is the King of Kings, which denotes that as a saint and believer of Christ I am a king. It took me my first year of internship to grasp that concept that I am of royal descent, and that I have the inheritance of Abraham. 
23/24- The Father offers up a sacrifice for His son's return, and rejoices in it. Jesus is constantly interceding for us on His throne, and when we make the decision to serve Him and take back our inheritance all the heavens rejoice. They offer up sacrifices of praise and worship for the return of the prodigals. As we sell our birthrights for enjoyment for a moment and die (in our Spirit) to what God has for us, He intercedes (Romans 8:26). When we come to the realization of how fleeting feeding our flesh is, and decide to run back to our first love (Christ) He begins to rejoice.

Be encouraged that even though we have sold everything that God has given us by His grace He will give us back the inheritance that we wasted. Does this give us a reason to keep sinning because of grace? As Paul puts it in Romans 6:1-2 Certainly not! We are not to keep sinning and wasting away our inheritance for the known fact that He will give it back. We are to repent (True repentance is a change of heart and not wanting to do the same thing again), and learn from the experience that we went through. I went through so much in the seven or eight years I spent away from God. I learned that I cannot do it through my own strength, but through my weakness He gives strength (2 Corinthians 12:9). In the darkest hours of my life which were in the last six months I lived in San Antonio I found out that no matter how dark things get His light always shines through. I looked in many different places to find an absence in my heart, only to find that it was a relationship with Him that I was missing. No matter how high I got He was always tugging at my heart yearning for a relationship with me. Many of my friends at the time, and my ex-girlfriend can attest to the fact that I lived to be inebriated. I was so damaged, drug down, beaten, scarred, and lost that the only way to escape was through false sensual pleasures. A little bit was never enough. I always had to take everything I did over the edge, and my personality hasn't changed but my heart has. I do everything for God with the same amount of passion, and desire I did for the world. Remember that He loves us so much that He will anything to bring us back to a place of love and relationship with Him. There is nothing you can do to make Him hate you. There is nothing you can do that will make Him fall off the throne. He is the Alpha and Omega, the Lord of Lords, the King of Kings, and the only True Living God. Be blessed everyone I love each of you from the depths of my heart.

When I originally started to write this post I was going to touch on not only the story of the prodigal son, but on Gomer and Hosea, but God kind of took me a different rout. The next post will also touch on spiritual harlotry, but also the heart of Christ as the Bridegroom.