Are you a nitpicker?

"This is wrong!" "Why is this locked?" "She doesn't dress properly." "I don't like that music." "Cut your hair!"

Nitpicking. That's what it is. Straying from the central focus of Jesus Christ to personal irritants.

"You can't preach here!" "You left, you aren't welcome to return."

More nitpicking. Straying from everything Jesus taught to personal agendas.

Jesus says in Acts 26: 17-18, "I will deliver you from the Jewish people, as well as from the Gentiles, for whom I now send you, to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me."

When we turn our minds and our hearts toward God, when we repent of our sins, when we admit the errors of our ways, only then can there be any certainty of being right with God.

It is what is right and true with God that is of any importance, not what we think our individual rights and truths are.

Why do we allow petty things to become so important, more important that the Lord?

Why do we become complacent?

Is God showing you some thing you don't want to face? Have you decided to fight against it and see only that which you want to see?

God speaks to us -- we hear Him when we are in close fellowship with Him. Even when we are angry and frustrated with situations and people around us, God hears us if we seek answers from Him, if we pray for His forgiveness, if we ask Him to show us what we're doing wrong, to guide us in His way.

It's when we have moved away from God and He is no longer central to our thinking, there is a problem. When we don't want His correction, when we don't care to be restored to fellowship with Him.

"As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten (discipline). Therefore be zealous and repent." (Revelation 3:19)

God does not condemn us. He wants His children to return, to be restored, to walk in completeness with Him.

But we must renounce our sinful ways. We must repent of our wrongs, to become right in God's sight, to stay right in His sight.

We must not prevent Jesus from being in His church, from being about His Father's work.

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me." (Revelation 3:20)

He's there and He's knocking. Have you opened the door of your heart to Him? Does He continue to reside within or have you kicked Him out and locked the door?