Revelation 2:20 “I have a few things against you, because you allow that woman Jezebel to teach and seduce…

Jesus addresses a church that possesses many commendable qualities: love, service, faith, patience, and growing works. Yet, He also sees a serious problem—tolerating a woman or spirit referred to as Jezebel, who teaches and seduces Christ’s followers into sexual immorality and rebellion against God.

The Nature of Seduction

Seduction often has two parts:

1. The introduction of a new idea to consider.
2. The enticement through vivid images, fantasies, or mental scenarios that promise pleasure or status.

Jesus identifies Jezebel as a woman, highlighting the power of attraction and influence God has given to women. Men, being vulnerable to this, can be swayed easily. In marriage, a man provides shelter and provision, while the woman contributes beauty and love—gifts designed by God to bless the family.

Honorable women use this influence to honor their husbands and build up their families, not to stir lust in others. Scripture makes it clear that women will be accountable to God for how they use their influence—whether for good or evil.

Biblical Examples of Influence

Eve and the Serpent (Genesis 3:1–6, 12)
Eve was enticed by the serpent’s deception, saw the fruit as desirable, and gave it to Adam, leading to the fall of humanity. Adam, in turn, blamed Eve for his choice.

Jezebel and Elijah (1 Kings 19:1–4)
Jezebel, through threats and intimidation, caused Elijah to flee in fear, demonstrating the destructive potential of ungodly influence.

Seduction in Today’s World

Modern society presents constant temptations through TV, social media, and cultural messaging. These images and ideas, often manipulated by Satan, are powerful—frequently appealing to physical attraction to lure people away from God’s ways. Scripture warns that those who follow these paths will face the same judgment as Jezebel.

Hold Fast Until Christ Comes

Jesus calls His followers to hold fast to truth and righteousness. Great rewards await those who resist moral corruption, keep their hearts pure, and remain faithful.

Practical steps include:

• Reading God’s Word daily
• Praying faithfully
• Attending a spiritually healthy church
• Guarding your mind against seductive ideas and images

By doing so, you safeguard your LightNside, your marriage, and your spiritual witness, living in the light and joy Christ provides.

Revelations 2:14 But I have a few complaints against you. You tolerate some among you whose teaching is like that of Balaam…

The Two-Edged Sword

The theme of this letter to the church and us is not to allow ourselves to tolerate ungodly activities. We are in a nation that goes to church and sings songs to God, but during the week, we can accept the ideas and standards of a society that is quickly becoming ungodly.

The first few verses set the tone of this letter.  “These things says He who has the two-edged sword.”  Jesus is described by John as one who has a two-edged sword coming out of his mouth.  This is serious.  The words of Jesus are true and powerful.   In Revelation 19:21, at the end of the confrontation with the beast and the false prophet, who were both thrown into the lake of fire, Jesus destroyed all the rest of the evil armies from the world with the sword coming out of His mouth.

What is this double-edged sword?  It is the words of God.  The words that give life and death.  The Bible itself, when read aloud or in your mind, is also a double-edged sword. 

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Compromised Believers

Compromised Believers need the two-edged sword to cut their acceptance of evil ideas and lifestyles.

Jeremiah 7:18-19 NIV

The children gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough and make cakes to offer to the Queen of Heaven. They pour out drink offerings to other gods to arouse my anger. [19] But am I the one they are provoking? declares the LORD. Are they not rather harming themselves, to their own shame?

Galatians 5:19-21  19 When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, 21 envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.

These verses are a two-edged sword.  You might have felt the cutting of the sword as you read the last verse.

Do you have ears to hear the two-edged sword? Repent and be an overcomer!

Jesus signs off with the two-edged sword again.  Revelations 2:16-17 16 Repent of your sin, or I will come to you suddenly and fight against them with the sword of my mouth. 17 “Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches. To everyone who is victorious, I will give some of the manna that has been hidden away in heaven. And I will give to each one a white stone, and on the stone will be engraved a new name that no one understands except the one who receives it.

Please look within your heart and see if there is a compromise.  

Let your Light-N-side hear the two-edged sword coming out of God’s Word and His Spirit? 

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, and there was nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering and familiar with pain.  Isaiah 53:2-3
 
 

 Not attractive
 Jesus was not a superstar, rich, or popular growing up.  He was not an influencer, nor did he have any entertaining dance or songs. He was plain, no beauty.  Nothing in His appearance attracted people to him.  People would hide their faces from him.  Jesus was avoided, despised, rejected, and familiar with pain.  This description is found in Isaiah 53:1-3.
  
Shunned
This was my devotion this morning.  We have all seen people rejected because they did not fit our style.  We tend to walk the other way.  I was thinking about all the rejection Jesus received growing up.  He did not fit into most families.  Jesus was plain, no beauty.  We all see pictures and paintings of a manly man with chiseled features.  The scriptures state there was nothing in his appearance that attracted people.  It pains my heart to think about the creator being shunned.  Just the rejection Jesus experienced broke my heart.
 
 Innocent yet silent
 He was innocent of all sin, yet He took mine.  He did not speak about the unfairness of it all.  He just bore the punishment and the increasing pain. Pilot asked someone to stand up for Jesus, but no one would.  They were silent except for the lies and demands of his death.   Jesus knew why, even though he asked God to see if there was another path. His emotional pain was beyond anything man had experienced.  God was also…. silent.
 
God crushed his Son
 The Father of Jesus took all our sins from our desires and sinful attractions and laid them upon Jesus. No one stood up for Jesus, protested his treatment, or even noticed or cared. Jesus alone took our punishment and did not complain.
It was God’s will to crush Jesus and cause Him to suffer.  God and Jesus decided this plan before man was born.
Yet the pain, both physical and emotional, was laid upon Jesus.  Why?  For you and I.  For the world.
 
Finished – Righteousness for all!
He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth. He was like a sheep led to the slaughter.  No one protested.  Life went on around Him. Everyday life revolved around our suffering savior, unaware of the holy sacrifice that was taking place close by.  Jesus suffered alone, quietly.  Until He said, “IT IS FINISHED.”  Then, the curtain in the temple separating us from God was torn from top to bottom.  From God to man.  From Jesus for me.
 
Thank You Jesus
 Thank you, Jesus.  Oh, the Blood of Jesus, shed for me and you.  Oh, what a savior who died for me! Isaiah 53:12b: “Jesus bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressor.”
 I encourage you to read Isaiah 53 sometime today, letting your heart break into pieces and rejoice for our mighty savior’s sacrifice for you, for me, for all.
 
Let you, LightNSide, be forever grateful for His sacrifice.

Luke 22:31-32   “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift each of you like wheat.  But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith should not fail. So when you have repented and turned to me again, strengthen your brothers.”

Not everything can be accomplished quickly.  There is an illusion of quick answers, of drive-through solutions.  This frustration has turned many of us into watchers rather than warriors.  We find ourselves between times of focus and times of floundering.  We wonder when we stopped marching, too busy with life’s issues.

Satan has asked to sift you like wheat.

I have found myself existing ‘between the times’ of faithfully writing a weekly Biblical Devotion to rest with excuses and reasons why I gave the devotions up.  There have been issues in my family, from age to major medical problems I could point to, but in reality, I found myself living ‘between the times’ of duty and excuses.   I faithfully created a weekly Biblical Thought from  2018 to 2023 and began to slow down.  I was no longer faithfully writing devotions from my heart to whoever was listening.  This decline of obedience slowed me down to living in a world between the passion of ministry and a frustrated observer of time filled with guilt.

Maybe you are living “between the times” of launching a new ministry but wrestling with its unknowns and insecurities.  Maybe you are living between an uncomplicated marriage, and now a child is born with its fears, tears, and unknown futures. Perhaps you are at a setback in your life.  Pain and frustration have replaced passion. Perhaps you are lost in a time of struggling with faith, God, and desires.  You remember the strong and secure times, but now you are “living between”  faith and feelings,  strength and searching. 

I have prayed for you that your faith would not fail.

Repent and turn again to Christ.

I am writing today for the first time in 2025. I am again taking up the challenge of this calling. The first thing I must do is repent to God.

Revelation 2:4-5 ” ⁴ Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. ⁵ Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent. “

Nothing happens unless we take responsibility for our actions, even if we face valid issues. We must again become warriors and pilgrims, obedient servants who trust God and allow the Holy Spirit to strengthen and guide us.

Strengthen your brothers

Monuments or Footprints

William Faulkner speaks of the place in our duty to God where we stopped moving forward.  That place where you last left your mark can become a monument or a footprint.   A monument only says, ‘At least I got this far,’ while a footprint says, ‘This is where I was when I moved again.’

I encourage you to once again take on the challenge of God’s calling. Break out of living ‘between the times’ of faith and frustration. Join me in repenting for the idle times and let that place I stopped become a footprint of renewed passion, not a monument to where I stopped.

Let your LightNSide shine in 2025 and forward.

Became vs Pretend!

Four simple words contain more wonder and truth than all the world’s books could capture.  God became man- Emanuel with us. The God of the universe came to earth as one of the poorest of man.  Born in poverty and suffering, He revealed God’s grace and love in ways we could observe.

While some translations say “put on” flesh, it is not a performance from an actor.  On stage, an actor will put on an outfit to portray a character.  We understand he is not really that character but one who puts on a unique costume that can be quickly changed out of when the play is over.  Christ, the Word (Logos) was not acting in a divine play costumed as a man.  He became human the same way you did.

How can this be?

Mary spoke these words to the angel. The angel told Mary the seed was from God instead of a physical man.  Christ became a man at conception and grew for nine months, as all babies do.  The almighty who spoke the world into existence from nothing limited himself to grow slowly through the design He created in mankind.  It is like the potter becoming the cup.  The builder becomes what was built to experience the real pressures on the structure. The programmer becomes the program and experiences the purpose of the programmer.

Man needed a savior.

Because of sin, the darkness of men could not comprehend or observe God enough to live as God intended.  While God sent us samples of Himself through the prophets and events of the Old Testament, we needed more.  We needed to see and feel God.  John 1:17-18.  Since we could not go to God, He came to us.  He became one of us. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

CS Lewis -Miracles (Chapter 14 – The Diver)

“One may think of a diver, first reducing himself to nakedness, then diving in mid-air, then going with a splash, vanishing rushing down through green and warm water into black and cold water, down through increasing pressure into the deathlike region of ooze and slime and old decay; then up again, back to color and light, his lungs almost bursting, till suddenly he breaks the surface again, holding in his hand the dripping, precious thing he went down to recover. He and it are both colored now that they have come up into the light: down below, where it lay colorless in the dark, he (the diver) lost his color too”.

Thank Christ for His sacrifice so you could be rescued and live with His LightNside.