Jas 2:10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.
Jas 2:11 For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law.
Jas 2:12 So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.
Judged by the law of liberty. The law of freedom.
Definition:
1. liberty to do or to omit things having no relationship to salvation
2. fancied liberty
a. licence, the liberty to do as one pleases
3. true liberty is living as we should not as we please
True liberty is LIVING as we should NOT as we please.
The law of liberty. The law of our freedom exists. We live everyday with laws that are supposed to be geared towards keeping our physical freedom, don't we? Here in the United States we call it the land of the free and we do that because for the most part we are free- aren't we? No dictating ruler can snap their fingers and enslave us, right? It's a criminal act to take away our freedom unless we break the law, a law set up to keep us safe and respectably living among others, yes? So we know what it is like to have our freedom threatened and yet we know what it's like to have our freedom protected- it all depends on which side of the law you want to be on, doesn't it? If you want to break the law the law becomes a law of bondage, a law of restriction. If you want to keep the law it is a law of freedom, of protection.
The law of liberty, the law of freedom. The whole law. The moral law of God - the Ten Commandments, the Ten Laws.
A person who robs someone might proudly say at least they didn't kill someone, but it doesn't make them any less guilty of robbery. A person who commits adultery might proudly say at least they didn't rob someone, but they are still guilty. A person who hates God might say at least they don't kill, steal, or commit adultery, yet they are still guilty. Are you getting the point here? We might never steal, kill, commit adultery, lie, covet, take God's name in vain, worship any other God, honor our mother and father, bow down to statues, but we feel it's perfectly fine to worship God on a day of our choosing - that God will most certainly overlook that broken law because in essence we are worshipping Him on a day, just not the seventh. We honestly believe that God is more than willing to bend this one law that He's left a lot of leeway in this law for us to interpret it as we desire. Do we believe that God meant we could steal little unimportant things and it's okay, just so long as we don't steal important pricey things? No, we don't believe that for a moment. Did God mean it's fine to not honor your parents on occasion just so long as you honor them the majority of the time? You get where I'm going with this, God made His laws without being wishy washy. God gave us these laws as a rule of living in Him, living how He expects us to live. The covenant He made was one of love, and the realization that it'd be impossible for us to keep His perfect law of liberty brought with it- forgiveness, for when we would fail to obey. Our Savior kept this perfect law of liberty, He fulfilled it in ALL ways without faltering in a single point. And it's because of His life of perfection that we too can claim a life of perfection- through HIM. We must rely upon Him in ALL things. We must honor that perfect law of liberty, giving respect to God's moral laws in all ways and when we fall short we need to ask for forgiveness and cling to the only one who can forgive us, our Savior.
Jas 2:10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.
Jas 2:11 For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law.
Jas 2:12 So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.
There is no patting ourselves on the back for keeping most of the laws of God. There is no reward for picking and choosing what we find acceptable as a law and what we don't. The same moral law that gives us the command not to murder - which we ALL really can comprehend without any faltering- is the same moral law that gives us the commandment to worship God -setting aside the seventh day for worship. There was a reason God grouped those ten moral laws together, a reason we can try to pick apart to fit our own agenda but in the end it is ONLY God's agenda that matters, not ours. God never meant for those laws to separate. In fact Jesus grouped them into the laws of loving God and mankind.
Mat 22:36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
Mat 22:37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
Mat 22:38 This is the first and great commandment.
Mat 22:39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
Mat 22:40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Jesus knew that out of love for God the first four of the ten moral commandments would be kept, just as He knew that the last six of the ten moral commandments would be kept if we love our neighbor as we would be loved. He said- ON THESE TWO COMMANDMENTS HANG ALL THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS.
Can you imagine truly LOVING God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind? Also can you imagine truly loving others and YOU desire to be loved? The same respect, the same caring, the same kindness, the same thoughtfulness and understanding you long for- loving others that way- loving ALL others that way?
Just imagine it, how wondrous it must be!
Why in the world would God EVER want to do away with His moral law? Why? There is absolutely NO reason in heaven or earth that God would want to do away with His moral law, none. God created the PERFECT moral law- a law without flaw, a law of liberty. Yes, He did make a law that was done away with- a ceremonial law, but NEVER did He do away with His moral law and it really astounds me that people think He did away with His moral law, it's just so incredibly hard to comprehend why He would ever do away with His moral law, or why He would even want to.
Only those who believe in the freedom to break laws, only those who truly feel free when they are breaking laws- are the ones who can comprehend it because they do not want to love God with all their minds, their souls, their hearts and they most assuredly do not want to love others as they would be loved.
By the grace of our LORD and SAVIOR may we be HIS FULLY! Loving God with all our heart, souls, and minds!
In His forgiving love!
Amen.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Friday, December 30, 2011
Jesus said... Joh 14:15 If ye love me, keep my commandments.
One day in seven, yet on all those days, on each of those seven days - ALL the commandments must be followed. The fourth commandment tells us to set aside the seventh day as our Sabbath. Can we keep the fourth commandment on those other six days? I cannot actually keep the Sabbath on any other day than the commandment requires but… on the other six days I can REMEMBER to keep the Sabbath day that will be coming. Not a single day should go by that we aren't keeping all of God's commandments and that includes the fourth commandment. The fifth commandment calls for us to honor our mother and father- so does this exempt the parentless from having to keep that commandment? It's impossible for them to, right? Or is there such a thing as a 'heart keeping' of ALL the commandments that we don't want to really think too much about? People can come up with plenty of loopholes. Others can say they honor the eighth commandment and do not steal- and yet perhaps they've not had an opportunity to steal- are they still keeping that commandment without the opportunity to break it?
Keeping the heart of the law given to us- is obeying it in all things, it's a constant acceptance of the moral laws of God and an understanding that when we LOVE God we are keeping His commandments. When we love our fellow man - every single one of them even those we believe we have a right to despise the most- then we are keeping God's commandments.
Jesus' life was a living testament to how we are to live- us following in His footsteps.
Do the standards you possess on a daily basis reveal your position as a follower of Christ? Can a person assess your six day weekly life outside of the Sabbath keeping and know you are Christ's?
We are to love God and have no other God's before Him. People can't necessarily see that love of God. They might just think you're a good person. We aren't to have any idols, we aren't to worship statues of stone or otherwise, so people can't see us bowed down before a giant statue of God outside our house- it can't exist. Not taking God's name in vain, not using God's name senselessly isn't something a person will necessarily notice in you- it's not a prerequisite to conversations to do so. Honoring your mom and dad, well people generally are nice to their parents and honoring them isn't a strictly Jesus ordered command- even atheists will honor their parents. Not murdering, stealing, committing adultery- well most people do NOT broadcast this sort of behavior, right? We expect people in our society not to kill or steal, it doesn't mean they are Christ's because they choose not to kill, steal, or commit adultery. The same goes for lying and coveting, even pagan practitioners will say lying and coveting are wrong. All these commandments kept are not necessarily kept because a person loves God. However… choosing to set aside a whole DAY for God, the day HE chose for us to set aside for HIM, this can't be interpreted any other way can it? Can an atheists set aside a day of worship for GOD? No, not and remain an atheist. Can a pagan set aside a day to worship GOD and NOT appear to be God's? No. To set aside a day to worship GOD is to reveal your belief in GOD for ALL to see. I'm not talking setting aside an hour or two for God on a day He hasn't chosen, but setting aside an entire day to worship God, the day God chose, the seventh in our weekly count of seven days in a week.
This is something we need to contemplate a bit- our love of God in keeping HIS laws of love.
We keep them always, we don't set aside certain commandments on certain days. We don't set aside keeping the fourth commandment on the first through sixth days of the week. We live our lives towards keeping that day of worship, that commandment is always a part of our lives all seven days a week just as all the others should be.
Exo 20:3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Exo 20:4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
Exo 20:5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
Exo 20:6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
Exo 20:7 Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
Exo 20:8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Exo 20:9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
Exo 20:10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
Exo 20:11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
Exo 20:12 Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
Exo 20:13 Thou shalt not kill.
Exo 20:14 Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Exo 20:15 Thou shalt not steal.
Exo 20:16 Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
Exo 20:17 Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.
Mat 5:18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
Praise God for His perfection, for His righteousness, for His grace, for His mercy, for His love in all these things.
Forgive us undeserving ones Lord, please, forgive us.
In You Lord!
Amen
Keeping the heart of the law given to us- is obeying it in all things, it's a constant acceptance of the moral laws of God and an understanding that when we LOVE God we are keeping His commandments. When we love our fellow man - every single one of them even those we believe we have a right to despise the most- then we are keeping God's commandments.
Jesus' life was a living testament to how we are to live- us following in His footsteps.
Do the standards you possess on a daily basis reveal your position as a follower of Christ? Can a person assess your six day weekly life outside of the Sabbath keeping and know you are Christ's?
We are to love God and have no other God's before Him. People can't necessarily see that love of God. They might just think you're a good person. We aren't to have any idols, we aren't to worship statues of stone or otherwise, so people can't see us bowed down before a giant statue of God outside our house- it can't exist. Not taking God's name in vain, not using God's name senselessly isn't something a person will necessarily notice in you- it's not a prerequisite to conversations to do so. Honoring your mom and dad, well people generally are nice to their parents and honoring them isn't a strictly Jesus ordered command- even atheists will honor their parents. Not murdering, stealing, committing adultery- well most people do NOT broadcast this sort of behavior, right? We expect people in our society not to kill or steal, it doesn't mean they are Christ's because they choose not to kill, steal, or commit adultery. The same goes for lying and coveting, even pagan practitioners will say lying and coveting are wrong. All these commandments kept are not necessarily kept because a person loves God. However… choosing to set aside a whole DAY for God, the day HE chose for us to set aside for HIM, this can't be interpreted any other way can it? Can an atheists set aside a day of worship for GOD? No, not and remain an atheist. Can a pagan set aside a day to worship GOD and NOT appear to be God's? No. To set aside a day to worship GOD is to reveal your belief in GOD for ALL to see. I'm not talking setting aside an hour or two for God on a day He hasn't chosen, but setting aside an entire day to worship God, the day God chose, the seventh in our weekly count of seven days in a week.
This is something we need to contemplate a bit- our love of God in keeping HIS laws of love.
We keep them always, we don't set aside certain commandments on certain days. We don't set aside keeping the fourth commandment on the first through sixth days of the week. We live our lives towards keeping that day of worship, that commandment is always a part of our lives all seven days a week just as all the others should be.
Exo 20:3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Exo 20:4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
Exo 20:5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
Exo 20:6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
Exo 20:7 Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
Exo 20:8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Exo 20:9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
Exo 20:10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
Exo 20:11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
Exo 20:12 Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
Exo 20:13 Thou shalt not kill.
Exo 20:14 Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Exo 20:15 Thou shalt not steal.
Exo 20:16 Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
Exo 20:17 Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.
Mat 5:18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
Praise God for His perfection, for His righteousness, for His grace, for His mercy, for His love in all these things.
Forgive us undeserving ones Lord, please, forgive us.
In You Lord!
Amen
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Love thy neighbor
Jas 2:5 Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him?
Poor of this world.
We lament our poorness don't we? We spend days, nights, weeks, months, years of our lives wishing and longing to be rich- or at least richer than we are so we don't have to scrimp and save, barely getting by. So much of our time is spent longing for more than we possess. So much time Satan steals from us as he insinuates that our poorness in worldly goods is something to be ashamed of, something to fix, something to abhor, something to hate. Yet we are told by God that the POOR are chosen to be RICH in faith- and HEIRS of the KINGDOM, the poor who LOVE HIM have this promise. The rich who love God will also be heirs and yet very few rich people even feel they have a need of God. Very few rich people will see God's kingdom…
Luk 18:25 For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
Rich men have such an awesome responsibility to help the poor that it becomes incredibly overwhelming. They lose sight of the point where they should help even if it means losing their own riches and becoming poor themselves.
Hath not God chosen the poor of this world.
Rich in faith.
Heirs of the kingdom promised to them that love him.
Jas 2:6 But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats?
Jas 2:7 Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by the which ye are called?
But people despise the poor and being poor. When a person is poor it is a sign of failure- failure to be more than poor. The poor really are despised- and under a guise of pity people might help them a bit, yet that fear of being poor themselves rears its ugly head all too often. You'll get so many people saying they do not despise the poor at all yet the majority of those would not give up all their riches and become poor- to become like those they say they pity. They despise them and do not want to be like them, they despise the idea of being truly poor.
People who belong to God are oppressed by others, those others blaspheme the name of God. We cannot be like them we just can't! We cannot despise the poor, we cannot have respect of people on the level that the earthly do, on the level that our natural person strives to do.
We only have hope through CHRIST, ONLY THROUGH CHRIST!
Jas 2:8 If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well:
Jas 2:9 But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors.
The ROYAL LAW according to Scripture…
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
Lev 19:18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.
Mat 5:43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.
Mat 19:19 Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
Mat 22:39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
Mar 12:31 And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.
Rom 13:9 For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
Gal 5:14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
Fulfilling the royal law.
If we do NOT love our neighbors then we are respecting people in the sense we are judging them and we are sinning.
Oh to love others as we would be loved…treat others as we would be treated. We are given so many incredible reasons NOT to love others by the things they say and do to us. No matter how horrific we are to LOVE them. It is this seemingly impossible feat that we are to accomplish and we ONLY can do this through the GRACE of our LORD, through HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS, HIS LOVE!
Please Lord, Please….
Poor of this world.
We lament our poorness don't we? We spend days, nights, weeks, months, years of our lives wishing and longing to be rich- or at least richer than we are so we don't have to scrimp and save, barely getting by. So much of our time is spent longing for more than we possess. So much time Satan steals from us as he insinuates that our poorness in worldly goods is something to be ashamed of, something to fix, something to abhor, something to hate. Yet we are told by God that the POOR are chosen to be RICH in faith- and HEIRS of the KINGDOM, the poor who LOVE HIM have this promise. The rich who love God will also be heirs and yet very few rich people even feel they have a need of God. Very few rich people will see God's kingdom…
Luk 18:25 For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
Rich men have such an awesome responsibility to help the poor that it becomes incredibly overwhelming. They lose sight of the point where they should help even if it means losing their own riches and becoming poor themselves.
Hath not God chosen the poor of this world.
Rich in faith.
Heirs of the kingdom promised to them that love him.
Jas 2:6 But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats?
Jas 2:7 Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by the which ye are called?
But people despise the poor and being poor. When a person is poor it is a sign of failure- failure to be more than poor. The poor really are despised- and under a guise of pity people might help them a bit, yet that fear of being poor themselves rears its ugly head all too often. You'll get so many people saying they do not despise the poor at all yet the majority of those would not give up all their riches and become poor- to become like those they say they pity. They despise them and do not want to be like them, they despise the idea of being truly poor.
People who belong to God are oppressed by others, those others blaspheme the name of God. We cannot be like them we just can't! We cannot despise the poor, we cannot have respect of people on the level that the earthly do, on the level that our natural person strives to do.
We only have hope through CHRIST, ONLY THROUGH CHRIST!
Jas 2:8 If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well:
Jas 2:9 But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors.
The ROYAL LAW according to Scripture…
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
Lev 19:18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.
Mat 5:43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.
Mat 19:19 Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
Mat 22:39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
Mar 12:31 And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.
Rom 13:9 For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
Gal 5:14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
Fulfilling the royal law.
If we do NOT love our neighbors then we are respecting people in the sense we are judging them and we are sinning.
Oh to love others as we would be loved…treat others as we would be treated. We are given so many incredible reasons NOT to love others by the things they say and do to us. No matter how horrific we are to LOVE them. It is this seemingly impossible feat that we are to accomplish and we ONLY can do this through the GRACE of our LORD, through HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS, HIS LOVE!
Please Lord, Please….
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Help us not to be partial towards others
Jas 2:1 My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons.
Jas 2:2 For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment;
Jas 2:3 And ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool:
Jas 2:4 Are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts?
We judge all too often based on sight, and it's so incredibly hard not to do that isn't it? I know all too often I'm guilty of looking upon a person and based on their outward appearance I imagine them to be a certain type of person. The woman that dresses skimpily- she's obviously an immoral person, right? The boy with the jeans hanging off his rear with his hair spiked and big hoop earrings stretching out his earlobes, why he's obviously a rebellious youth - a troublemaker. The girl with the pink hair and chains crisscrossing her body is obviously disturbed and also a troublemaker. And you know what, maybe my presumptuous thoughts are way off the mark but aren't these people TRYING to portray a certain image? Seriously, don't those who blatantly dress and groom themselves in certain ways desiring to appear in a particular manner do so because they WANT us to view them like that?
I believe we have to be wary and yet NOT judging if that makes sense.
If a person who lives on the streets without access to bathing facilities and without access to decent clothing and such approaches us automatically we tend to be leery of them, yet God would have us treat ALL men equally- even those who appear like gangsters, like gang members, like prostitutes, like pimps, like thieves, thugs, and simpletons, etc. ALL men treated equally- sounds like our constitution doesn't it, but truthfully God would have us NOT judge that outward appearance. While we are wary and not eager to throw ourselves into situations that might be dangerous, we MUST have faith in God that He will protect us or allow us to endure a trial for our faith, no matter what.
If we only cater to those we imagine are of equal or greater stature than ourselves then we are doing the exact opposite of what Jesus taught us. Jesus went to ALL classes of people without prejudice and we are to do the same.
Maybe we don't often find ourselves in situations that make us choose between an upper class or lower class person - as society judges, but when we do we HAVE to ask ourselves who needs us to be more compassionate- the one who has much or the one who has little?
May God bless us and help us to live as He would have us live and treat others as He would have us treat them. Help us NOT to be partial in ourselves- judging wrongly based upon sight as man judges. Help us Lord to judge as God would have us judge- all through HIS grace! Through HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS! HIS AMAZING LOVE!
Amen.
Jas 2:2 For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment;
Jas 2:3 And ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool:
Jas 2:4 Are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts?
We judge all too often based on sight, and it's so incredibly hard not to do that isn't it? I know all too often I'm guilty of looking upon a person and based on their outward appearance I imagine them to be a certain type of person. The woman that dresses skimpily- she's obviously an immoral person, right? The boy with the jeans hanging off his rear with his hair spiked and big hoop earrings stretching out his earlobes, why he's obviously a rebellious youth - a troublemaker. The girl with the pink hair and chains crisscrossing her body is obviously disturbed and also a troublemaker. And you know what, maybe my presumptuous thoughts are way off the mark but aren't these people TRYING to portray a certain image? Seriously, don't those who blatantly dress and groom themselves in certain ways desiring to appear in a particular manner do so because they WANT us to view them like that?
I believe we have to be wary and yet NOT judging if that makes sense.
If a person who lives on the streets without access to bathing facilities and without access to decent clothing and such approaches us automatically we tend to be leery of them, yet God would have us treat ALL men equally- even those who appear like gangsters, like gang members, like prostitutes, like pimps, like thieves, thugs, and simpletons, etc. ALL men treated equally- sounds like our constitution doesn't it, but truthfully God would have us NOT judge that outward appearance. While we are wary and not eager to throw ourselves into situations that might be dangerous, we MUST have faith in God that He will protect us or allow us to endure a trial for our faith, no matter what.
If we only cater to those we imagine are of equal or greater stature than ourselves then we are doing the exact opposite of what Jesus taught us. Jesus went to ALL classes of people without prejudice and we are to do the same.
Maybe we don't often find ourselves in situations that make us choose between an upper class or lower class person - as society judges, but when we do we HAVE to ask ourselves who needs us to be more compassionate- the one who has much or the one who has little?
May God bless us and help us to live as He would have us live and treat others as He would have us treat them. Help us NOT to be partial in ourselves- judging wrongly based upon sight as man judges. Help us Lord to judge as God would have us judge- all through HIS grace! Through HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS! HIS AMAZING LOVE!
Amen.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Unspotted from the world
Jas 1:27 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
Pure religion is revealed in our actions.
We can try all we want to convince ourselves and others that being a follower of God, our Creator, doesn't mean 'living' a certain way, but all we are doing is lying to ourselves and others.
Men of God do behave differently then men of the world and they always have.
Right here in this verse we are told that a man of God will keep himself UNSPOTTED from the world. The only way to remain unspotted is to realize that you can live a spotted life. The world offers us a spotted life. And our Bible - the word of God- tells us what the various worldly spotting consists of.
Read this passage-
Tit 2:1 But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine:
Tit 2:2 That the aged men be sober...
Be sober- not drunkards- being a drunkard is being spotted by the world.
Tit 2:2 ...grave,
Being serious- not being serious is being spotted by the world.
Tit 2:2 ...temperate,
Not being temperate means being unable to control your lusts, your passions. It also means not having a sound mind- this is being spotted by the world.
Tit 2:2 ...sound in faith, in charity, in patience.
Those who are NOT sound in faith, those who have NO charity, those who possess no patience these are those who are spotted by the world.
Tit 2:3 The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers
We cannot be liars.
Tit 2:3...not given to much wine
We cannot be drunkards.
tTit 2:3 teachers of good things;
We must be teaching GOOD things, not evil things.
Tit 2:4 That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,
Tit 2:5 To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.
Tit 2:6 Young men likewise exhort to be sober minded.
Tit 2:7 In all things shewing thyself a pattern of good works: in doctrine shewing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity,
Tit 2:8 Sound speech, that cannot be condemned; that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you.
Tit 2:9 Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters, and to please them well in all things; not answering again;
Tit 2:10 Not purloining, but shewing all good fidelity; that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things.
Tit 2:11 For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,
Tit 2:12 Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world
We must be UNSPOTTED from the world!
Tit 2:13 Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;
Tit 2:14 Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.
Tit 2:15 These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee.
Tit 3:1 Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work,
Tit 3:2 To speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, shewing all meekness unto all men.
Tit 3:3 For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.
Tit 3:4 But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared,
Tit 3:5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;
Tit 3:6 Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour;
Tit 3:7 That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
Tit 3:8 This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men.
Tit 3:9 But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain.
Tit 3:10 A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject;
Tit 3:11 Knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself.
These are just a couple of chapters in the Bible where we can find a message on how we are to live our lives. No where are we told that we can live as we please filled with evil ways, deliberately committing ungodly acts over and over and over again and expect that we will be saved in those acts. Forever we have to give our lives to our Savior, constantly we have to give our lives to God and pray to overcome the evil that plagues us- never accepting the evil, never calling the evil good, never believing that our sin doesn't matter. Satan would have us give up, he pounds away at us wanting us to despair of ever being the godly person, the unspotted person we are to be. We cannot despair! We must live in hope of being transformed by our Savior into the person He desires us to be and we have to live constantly surrendering our lives to Him, constantly seeking forgiveness and grace.
Please Lord help us live unspotted from the world, help us to live with love in our hearts - loving others who have had misfortunes befall them. Please Lord live in us! Clean our hearts, our lives! Please Savior, save us - all through YOUR mercy, YOUR grace, YOUR amazing LOVE!
Amen.
Pure religion is revealed in our actions.
We can try all we want to convince ourselves and others that being a follower of God, our Creator, doesn't mean 'living' a certain way, but all we are doing is lying to ourselves and others.
Men of God do behave differently then men of the world and they always have.
Right here in this verse we are told that a man of God will keep himself UNSPOTTED from the world. The only way to remain unspotted is to realize that you can live a spotted life. The world offers us a spotted life. And our Bible - the word of God- tells us what the various worldly spotting consists of.
Read this passage-
Tit 2:1 But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine:
Tit 2:2 That the aged men be sober...
Be sober- not drunkards- being a drunkard is being spotted by the world.
Tit 2:2 ...grave,
Being serious- not being serious is being spotted by the world.
Tit 2:2 ...temperate,
Not being temperate means being unable to control your lusts, your passions. It also means not having a sound mind- this is being spotted by the world.
Tit 2:2 ...sound in faith, in charity, in patience.
Those who are NOT sound in faith, those who have NO charity, those who possess no patience these are those who are spotted by the world.
Tit 2:3 The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers
We cannot be liars.
Tit 2:3...not given to much wine
We cannot be drunkards.
tTit 2:3 teachers of good things;
We must be teaching GOOD things, not evil things.
Tit 2:4 That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,
Tit 2:5 To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.
Tit 2:6 Young men likewise exhort to be sober minded.
Tit 2:7 In all things shewing thyself a pattern of good works: in doctrine shewing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity,
Tit 2:8 Sound speech, that cannot be condemned; that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you.
Tit 2:9 Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters, and to please them well in all things; not answering again;
Tit 2:10 Not purloining, but shewing all good fidelity; that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things.
Tit 2:11 For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,
Tit 2:12 Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world
We must be UNSPOTTED from the world!
Tit 2:13 Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;
Tit 2:14 Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.
Tit 2:15 These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee.
Tit 3:1 Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work,
Tit 3:2 To speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, shewing all meekness unto all men.
Tit 3:3 For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.
Tit 3:4 But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared,
Tit 3:5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;
Tit 3:6 Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour;
Tit 3:7 That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
Tit 3:8 This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men.
Tit 3:9 But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain.
Tit 3:10 A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject;
Tit 3:11 Knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself.
These are just a couple of chapters in the Bible where we can find a message on how we are to live our lives. No where are we told that we can live as we please filled with evil ways, deliberately committing ungodly acts over and over and over again and expect that we will be saved in those acts. Forever we have to give our lives to our Savior, constantly we have to give our lives to God and pray to overcome the evil that plagues us- never accepting the evil, never calling the evil good, never believing that our sin doesn't matter. Satan would have us give up, he pounds away at us wanting us to despair of ever being the godly person, the unspotted person we are to be. We cannot despair! We must live in hope of being transformed by our Savior into the person He desires us to be and we have to live constantly surrendering our lives to Him, constantly seeking forgiveness and grace.
Please Lord help us live unspotted from the world, help us to live with love in our hearts - loving others who have had misfortunes befall them. Please Lord live in us! Clean our hearts, our lives! Please Savior, save us - all through YOUR mercy, YOUR grace, YOUR amazing LOVE!
Amen.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Living the word of God
Jas 1:23 For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:
Jas 1:24 For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.
We are surrounded by mirrors. Every house has a mirror, every bathroom has a mirror, we have big mirrors and tiny hand held mirrors. Maybe I'm being presumptuous, I'm sure there are a lot of homes without mirrors but not in the United States. Our stores have mirrors, restaurants have mirrors, etc. Barring a mirror there are many reflective surfaces that surround us all the time.
Watching clips from the show Survivor after the contestants are sent back to a camp if they are put on the jury, it's very common for each person returning from the game to the camp to be shocked at how they appear when they get their first real glimpse of themselves in a mirror. They're amazed at how they look and mostly NOT in a good way. They've become so used to viewing themselves daily- several times a day- that to go without access to a mirror is a huge deal to them.
We DO look into reflective surfaces all the time and yet when we go away from the mirror and set about our business do we fully recall our appearance? Some will be quick to say they do but truthfully if they really remembered -would they have to look at themselves so often?
What are we doing when we look into the mirror? What are we expecting to see? We are appraising our appearance aren't we? We are judging whether or not there are imperfections we need to fix-aren't we? Hair that needs to be brushed just so. Dirt on a face that needs to be washed. Teeth that need to be brushed. Blemishes that need to be noted and tended. We are trying to look a certain way aren't we? We call it respectable, decent, well groomed and so on and so forth. We are trying to look our best. A lot of people look into mirrors to put make up on their faces to alter their natural appearance. People style their hair this way and that and they do it hoping it will look good. Some people look in mirrors and are disgusted with what they see- some honestly, genuinely disgusted and others using self-delusion believing they are disgusting when in truth they are not. Mirrors can be good things, showing us things we might not otherwise see that need seeing. Mirrors don't always have to be used for vanity, right?
Looking into a mirror and seeing our natural faces we look at them and then we walk away and we no longer are face to face with ourselves having to see ourselves, examine ourselves. We can begin to imagine we are better than what we appeared in that mirror- right? We don't have to see ourselves any longer and see the truth of our appearance. When we don't see ourselves we can imagine so many other things about ourselves, yes? Some might want to forget what they look like, some might want to forget the imperfections in themselves.
Someone who only hears but does not obey the word of the LORD, is like a person who doesn't want to be face to face with the reality of themselves, their sinfulness.
One who hears the word of the LORD and then does what the word tells them to do is like someone who leaves the mirror and remembers exactly what they saw there, forgetting nothing - it's as if they continue looking into the reflection of themselves so they don't forget what they are seeing. They want to see their imperfections so they can understand that it is God who is great, not them.
Jas 1:25 But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
When we look into the WORD of God we are free to believe in Him, free to have faith, free to love, free to be saved by the grace of our Lord. If we continue to believe in the word of God, NOT FORGETTING the word, we are blessed. If we follow the word of God- actively- then we are blessed in what we do.
We cannot allow ourselves to be stop at hearing the word of God, hearing, ever hearing and NEVER making the word of God real in our lives. It isn't easy making the word of God real in our lives- it involves suffering the death to self that we naturally rebel against. Is it any wonder the majority of people would rather hear and not do.
May we forever and always be hearers and doers of the word of God no matter the pain it brings, no matter what trails, what temptations, whatever it is we are called to face. May we forever continue to grow in the grace of the LORD. Please Lord, help us to be doers of Your word ALWAYS, help us, please we are lost without You.
In Your amazing love!
By YOUR GRACE!
Amen.
Jas 1:24 For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.
We are surrounded by mirrors. Every house has a mirror, every bathroom has a mirror, we have big mirrors and tiny hand held mirrors. Maybe I'm being presumptuous, I'm sure there are a lot of homes without mirrors but not in the United States. Our stores have mirrors, restaurants have mirrors, etc. Barring a mirror there are many reflective surfaces that surround us all the time.
Watching clips from the show Survivor after the contestants are sent back to a camp if they are put on the jury, it's very common for each person returning from the game to the camp to be shocked at how they appear when they get their first real glimpse of themselves in a mirror. They're amazed at how they look and mostly NOT in a good way. They've become so used to viewing themselves daily- several times a day- that to go without access to a mirror is a huge deal to them.
We DO look into reflective surfaces all the time and yet when we go away from the mirror and set about our business do we fully recall our appearance? Some will be quick to say they do but truthfully if they really remembered -would they have to look at themselves so often?
What are we doing when we look into the mirror? What are we expecting to see? We are appraising our appearance aren't we? We are judging whether or not there are imperfections we need to fix-aren't we? Hair that needs to be brushed just so. Dirt on a face that needs to be washed. Teeth that need to be brushed. Blemishes that need to be noted and tended. We are trying to look a certain way aren't we? We call it respectable, decent, well groomed and so on and so forth. We are trying to look our best. A lot of people look into mirrors to put make up on their faces to alter their natural appearance. People style their hair this way and that and they do it hoping it will look good. Some people look in mirrors and are disgusted with what they see- some honestly, genuinely disgusted and others using self-delusion believing they are disgusting when in truth they are not. Mirrors can be good things, showing us things we might not otherwise see that need seeing. Mirrors don't always have to be used for vanity, right?
Looking into a mirror and seeing our natural faces we look at them and then we walk away and we no longer are face to face with ourselves having to see ourselves, examine ourselves. We can begin to imagine we are better than what we appeared in that mirror- right? We don't have to see ourselves any longer and see the truth of our appearance. When we don't see ourselves we can imagine so many other things about ourselves, yes? Some might want to forget what they look like, some might want to forget the imperfections in themselves.
Someone who only hears but does not obey the word of the LORD, is like a person who doesn't want to be face to face with the reality of themselves, their sinfulness.
One who hears the word of the LORD and then does what the word tells them to do is like someone who leaves the mirror and remembers exactly what they saw there, forgetting nothing - it's as if they continue looking into the reflection of themselves so they don't forget what they are seeing. They want to see their imperfections so they can understand that it is God who is great, not them.
Jas 1:25 But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
When we look into the WORD of God we are free to believe in Him, free to have faith, free to love, free to be saved by the grace of our Lord. If we continue to believe in the word of God, NOT FORGETTING the word, we are blessed. If we follow the word of God- actively- then we are blessed in what we do.
We cannot allow ourselves to be stop at hearing the word of God, hearing, ever hearing and NEVER making the word of God real in our lives. It isn't easy making the word of God real in our lives- it involves suffering the death to self that we naturally rebel against. Is it any wonder the majority of people would rather hear and not do.
May we forever and always be hearers and doers of the word of God no matter the pain it brings, no matter what trails, what temptations, whatever it is we are called to face. May we forever continue to grow in the grace of the LORD. Please Lord, help us to be doers of Your word ALWAYS, help us, please we are lost without You.
In Your amazing love!
By YOUR GRACE!
Amen.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Bring my soul out of trouble
We are dependent upon God, and if we forget that we are lost. Without God we have no hope. The miracle of our Savior- is that hope is given back to us. ONLY by the grace of God do we have hope. Nothing we did brought that hope, nothing we can do will manufacture hope. We are given that hope by grace, unwarranted, undeserved.
Have you ever been given something you didn't deserve and you KNEW you didn't deserve it for whatever reason? How did it make you feel? Wasn't there a touch of dismay brought on by the fact you knew the gift was completely underserved, in fact if anything the opposite would be much more appropriate- you should be punished. Yet there it is, an undeserved gift and offered to you.
The most precious gift in life is the forgiveness we can find through our Savior.
His righteousness, not ours, not ever ours.
Psa 143:1 A Psalm of David. Hear my prayer, O LORD, give ear to my supplications: in thy faithfulness answer me, and in thy righteousness.
Psa 143:2 And enter not into judgment with thy servant: for in thy sight shall no man living be justified.
To be judged we will forever be found wanting, in the sight of God we CANNOT be justified on our own- it's IMPOSSIBLE.
Psa 143:3 For the enemy hath persecuted my soul; he hath smitten my life down to the ground; he hath made me to dwell in darkness, as those that have been long dead.
Those long dead dwell in darkness, the darkness of death's sleep and Satan would have us enter into a living death, a living darkness- completely void of the light of salvation.
Psa 143:4 Therefore is my spirit overwhelmed within me; my heart within me is desolate.
The feelings of despair are NOT special to us, every human being has this propensity to feel the overwhelming heaviness in spirit, our heart desolate. There is no magic key to keep away these feelings, and so many people turn to pills and alcohol and other things to push away the darkness in their lives, not realizing it is when we feel the desolation, when we feel the overwhelming of our spirit it is that which draws us towards Christ- towards the realization He has to be our all in all and we will not find peace in this world outside of Him.
Psa 143:5 I remember the days of old; I meditate on all thy works; I muse on the work of thy hands.
Psa 143:6 I stretch forth my hands unto thee: my soul thirsteth after thee, as a thirsty land. Selah.
Everyone has seen how water quickly disappears in the parched earth, yes? You've seen very dry dirt, cracked and crumbling and poured water upon it, yes? Thirsty land eagerly absorbs the water poured upon it without hesitation. A soul thirsty for Christ is eager and ready to absorb all that Christ has to offer.
Psa 143:7 Hear me speedily, O LORD: my spirit faileth: hide not thy face from me, lest I be like unto them that go down into the pit.
Psa 143:8 Cause me to hear thy lovingkindness in the morning; for in thee do I trust: cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto thee.
Cause us to know the way we should walk as we lift up our lives to You God.
Psa 143:9 Deliver me, O LORD, from mine enemies: I flee unto thee to hide me.
Deliver us from all our enemies and the spiritual evil that attacks us is truly from our greatest enemy, help us as we flee to you, seeking to hide in You.
Psa 143:10 Teach me to do thy will; for thou art my God: thy spirit is good; lead me into the land of uprightness.
Teach us because Lord we don't automatically know, we aren't inclined in the natural man to do Your will, TEACH us Lord, please, TEACH us to know and to DO THY WILL.
Psa 143:11 Quicken me, O LORD, for thy name's sake: for thy righteousness' sake bring my soul out of trouble.
Psa 143:12 And of thy mercy cut off mine enemies, and destroy all them that afflict my soul: for I am thy servant.
We would be YOURS Lord! We would be Yours, under Your protection! We are Your servants Lord, Your servants. So much in life would have us turn our backs on You and Your will and follow paths that are far from being the paths You would have us take. Enemies surround us and so often we cannot even see them, the most evil of enemies fighting the spiritual warfare against us while we simply go about our daily lives as if we are not in a war at all. How easy is it to lose a battle you don't even realize you are fighting? Seriously? Sneak attacks at the very beginnings of wars have the distinct advantage of destroying a multitude of lives simply because they weren't expected. Hundreds, thousands dead simply because they didn't even realize they needed to be prepared to fight- that an enemy was right there on their doorstep. Dead before they even understand what's going on. Satan works this way too. Satan loves to have people spend their entire lives oblivious to His existence in their lives in a very, very real way. So many people rush through life and ignore the fact they are in a war, a spiritual war and we need our Savior to destroy those who afflict our souls, we need God to cut off our enemies. We need God to have mercy upon us, wonderful, wonderful mercy.
Please Lord bless us.
Thank you for Your amazing love, for Your mercy, for Your grace!
In You Always!
Amen.
Have you ever been given something you didn't deserve and you KNEW you didn't deserve it for whatever reason? How did it make you feel? Wasn't there a touch of dismay brought on by the fact you knew the gift was completely underserved, in fact if anything the opposite would be much more appropriate- you should be punished. Yet there it is, an undeserved gift and offered to you.
The most precious gift in life is the forgiveness we can find through our Savior.
His righteousness, not ours, not ever ours.
Psa 143:1 A Psalm of David. Hear my prayer, O LORD, give ear to my supplications: in thy faithfulness answer me, and in thy righteousness.
Psa 143:2 And enter not into judgment with thy servant: for in thy sight shall no man living be justified.
To be judged we will forever be found wanting, in the sight of God we CANNOT be justified on our own- it's IMPOSSIBLE.
Psa 143:3 For the enemy hath persecuted my soul; he hath smitten my life down to the ground; he hath made me to dwell in darkness, as those that have been long dead.
Those long dead dwell in darkness, the darkness of death's sleep and Satan would have us enter into a living death, a living darkness- completely void of the light of salvation.
Psa 143:4 Therefore is my spirit overwhelmed within me; my heart within me is desolate.
The feelings of despair are NOT special to us, every human being has this propensity to feel the overwhelming heaviness in spirit, our heart desolate. There is no magic key to keep away these feelings, and so many people turn to pills and alcohol and other things to push away the darkness in their lives, not realizing it is when we feel the desolation, when we feel the overwhelming of our spirit it is that which draws us towards Christ- towards the realization He has to be our all in all and we will not find peace in this world outside of Him.
Psa 143:5 I remember the days of old; I meditate on all thy works; I muse on the work of thy hands.
Psa 143:6 I stretch forth my hands unto thee: my soul thirsteth after thee, as a thirsty land. Selah.
Everyone has seen how water quickly disappears in the parched earth, yes? You've seen very dry dirt, cracked and crumbling and poured water upon it, yes? Thirsty land eagerly absorbs the water poured upon it without hesitation. A soul thirsty for Christ is eager and ready to absorb all that Christ has to offer.
Psa 143:7 Hear me speedily, O LORD: my spirit faileth: hide not thy face from me, lest I be like unto them that go down into the pit.
Psa 143:8 Cause me to hear thy lovingkindness in the morning; for in thee do I trust: cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto thee.
Cause us to know the way we should walk as we lift up our lives to You God.
Psa 143:9 Deliver me, O LORD, from mine enemies: I flee unto thee to hide me.
Deliver us from all our enemies and the spiritual evil that attacks us is truly from our greatest enemy, help us as we flee to you, seeking to hide in You.
Psa 143:10 Teach me to do thy will; for thou art my God: thy spirit is good; lead me into the land of uprightness.
Teach us because Lord we don't automatically know, we aren't inclined in the natural man to do Your will, TEACH us Lord, please, TEACH us to know and to DO THY WILL.
Psa 143:11 Quicken me, O LORD, for thy name's sake: for thy righteousness' sake bring my soul out of trouble.
Psa 143:12 And of thy mercy cut off mine enemies, and destroy all them that afflict my soul: for I am thy servant.
We would be YOURS Lord! We would be Yours, under Your protection! We are Your servants Lord, Your servants. So much in life would have us turn our backs on You and Your will and follow paths that are far from being the paths You would have us take. Enemies surround us and so often we cannot even see them, the most evil of enemies fighting the spiritual warfare against us while we simply go about our daily lives as if we are not in a war at all. How easy is it to lose a battle you don't even realize you are fighting? Seriously? Sneak attacks at the very beginnings of wars have the distinct advantage of destroying a multitude of lives simply because they weren't expected. Hundreds, thousands dead simply because they didn't even realize they needed to be prepared to fight- that an enemy was right there on their doorstep. Dead before they even understand what's going on. Satan works this way too. Satan loves to have people spend their entire lives oblivious to His existence in their lives in a very, very real way. So many people rush through life and ignore the fact they are in a war, a spiritual war and we need our Savior to destroy those who afflict our souls, we need God to cut off our enemies. We need God to have mercy upon us, wonderful, wonderful mercy.
Please Lord bless us.
Thank you for Your amazing love, for Your mercy, for Your grace!
In You Always!
Amen.
Friday, December 23, 2011
Be doers of the word
Jas 1:22 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
It is so incredibly easy to hear and not do the things we hear isn't it? It's easy to KNOW to do good, but incredibly difficult to do the good things we know we should do. Why is it that way? Why?
I KNOW I shouldn't lose my temper. I KNOW I shouldn't speak hurtful things. I KNOW I should be more considerate of others. I KNOW I am so incredibly far from being a doer of the word in so many ways. The closer I long to be to my Savior the further away I seem to go. I've noticed just recently after studying about 'counting it joy', and trying to implement this in my life that Satan pulls out all stops and not just in me but abusing those I love so that it pains me to watch them being spiritually attacked over and over again.
These spiritual attacks happen ALL the time and yet we've been taught to believe they are far from spiritual attacks and simply human invention. Humans don't like to believe they can be used by Satan to hurt others and yet it happens all the time. Satan exploits our weaknesses and our propensity towards evilness in all forms. If He knows we are hurt by something that is supposed to be harmless, he'll do all he can to bring about that supposed harmless situation. Oh there are so many ways the evil one works at us and when we can see his work in us shouldn't it sicken us? I know it sickens me to know that Satan's influence on a spiritual level affects me and my actions. I don't want to be hurtful, harmful, insensitive and yet all too often I find myself being that way and the sad thing is a lot of the times I try and justify the reasons I have for being that way- another trick of Satan's. Preserve SELF at all cost! Even when giving up some of self- turn that into a supremely selfish act through motive. Are we truly giving of ourselves because it is what our Savior desires of us or are we giving of ourselves so that we may APPEAR to be giving as our Savior desires? Satan uses wiles we can't even comprehend as he attempts to twist our lives so horrifically that we don't know whether we are coming or going and His purpose? To get us to give up in despair, to be defeated by all the confusion he's managed to cause.
Doers of the word.
In all our actions.
This isn't simply for becoming the supposed ideal Christian person- diving head first into all manner of Christian acts, this is for ALL aspects of our lives. Our Savior's word touched our lives on many, many levels and it's in ALL those levels that we have to be DOERS of the word. We don't get to pick and choose when we should be doers and when we should not, simply because we should ALWAYS be doers of the word. If we are not ALWAYS doers of the word then we are truly DECEIVING OURSELVES.
Deceiving ourselves has become an art form, hasn't it? We deceive ourselves in so many various ways and we do it because the ultimate goal is to live for self. Self preservation- mentally, emotionally, physically. Our lives revolve around preserving ourselves in so many, many ways. Whenever we get upset in any way we need to stop and ask ourselves if there is any self preservation involved in this upset. By self-preservation I mean are we concentrating on self, preserving our self desires, our wants, our idea of how our lives should be, our opinions, our choices over another's, our needs, our idea of how something should be done or shouldn't be done. Are we putting ourselves FIRST for whatever reason we can think of? Are we more concerned with how we are made to feel about ourselves than anything else? Do OUR feelings come first? Are we ridiculed and laughed at, and does this produce a selfish desire NOT to be treated like that? Does it created a desire to preserve SELF? We NEED to ask ourselves this, we HAVE to ask ourselves this because giving up self is the message of our Savior who came and GAVE UP HIMSELF for US! We are to give ourselves up for Him and for others, we are to come LAST- not FIRST and we put ourselves FIRST in so many, many ways!
Doers of the word in ALL ways or we truly are deceiving ourselves. If we think for one moment we can be hearers only and then go away and live our lives any ol' way we choose, keeping that old man alive, that old self alive and well by feeding it all the sin it's used to being fed, then we are DECEIVED! We HAVE to be HEARERS of the WORD and THEN DOERS! This is an action, the action of DOING, of LIVING the Word of God in our lives!!!
Please Lord, help us! Please! Save us from OURSELVES! Please!
In Your amazing love always!!!!!!!
Through Your righteousness forever!
Please Lord, mercy…
It is so incredibly easy to hear and not do the things we hear isn't it? It's easy to KNOW to do good, but incredibly difficult to do the good things we know we should do. Why is it that way? Why?
I KNOW I shouldn't lose my temper. I KNOW I shouldn't speak hurtful things. I KNOW I should be more considerate of others. I KNOW I am so incredibly far from being a doer of the word in so many ways. The closer I long to be to my Savior the further away I seem to go. I've noticed just recently after studying about 'counting it joy', and trying to implement this in my life that Satan pulls out all stops and not just in me but abusing those I love so that it pains me to watch them being spiritually attacked over and over again.
These spiritual attacks happen ALL the time and yet we've been taught to believe they are far from spiritual attacks and simply human invention. Humans don't like to believe they can be used by Satan to hurt others and yet it happens all the time. Satan exploits our weaknesses and our propensity towards evilness in all forms. If He knows we are hurt by something that is supposed to be harmless, he'll do all he can to bring about that supposed harmless situation. Oh there are so many ways the evil one works at us and when we can see his work in us shouldn't it sicken us? I know it sickens me to know that Satan's influence on a spiritual level affects me and my actions. I don't want to be hurtful, harmful, insensitive and yet all too often I find myself being that way and the sad thing is a lot of the times I try and justify the reasons I have for being that way- another trick of Satan's. Preserve SELF at all cost! Even when giving up some of self- turn that into a supremely selfish act through motive. Are we truly giving of ourselves because it is what our Savior desires of us or are we giving of ourselves so that we may APPEAR to be giving as our Savior desires? Satan uses wiles we can't even comprehend as he attempts to twist our lives so horrifically that we don't know whether we are coming or going and His purpose? To get us to give up in despair, to be defeated by all the confusion he's managed to cause.
Doers of the word.
In all our actions.
This isn't simply for becoming the supposed ideal Christian person- diving head first into all manner of Christian acts, this is for ALL aspects of our lives. Our Savior's word touched our lives on many, many levels and it's in ALL those levels that we have to be DOERS of the word. We don't get to pick and choose when we should be doers and when we should not, simply because we should ALWAYS be doers of the word. If we are not ALWAYS doers of the word then we are truly DECEIVING OURSELVES.
Deceiving ourselves has become an art form, hasn't it? We deceive ourselves in so many various ways and we do it because the ultimate goal is to live for self. Self preservation- mentally, emotionally, physically. Our lives revolve around preserving ourselves in so many, many ways. Whenever we get upset in any way we need to stop and ask ourselves if there is any self preservation involved in this upset. By self-preservation I mean are we concentrating on self, preserving our self desires, our wants, our idea of how our lives should be, our opinions, our choices over another's, our needs, our idea of how something should be done or shouldn't be done. Are we putting ourselves FIRST for whatever reason we can think of? Are we more concerned with how we are made to feel about ourselves than anything else? Do OUR feelings come first? Are we ridiculed and laughed at, and does this produce a selfish desire NOT to be treated like that? Does it created a desire to preserve SELF? We NEED to ask ourselves this, we HAVE to ask ourselves this because giving up self is the message of our Savior who came and GAVE UP HIMSELF for US! We are to give ourselves up for Him and for others, we are to come LAST- not FIRST and we put ourselves FIRST in so many, many ways!
Doers of the word in ALL ways or we truly are deceiving ourselves. If we think for one moment we can be hearers only and then go away and live our lives any ol' way we choose, keeping that old man alive, that old self alive and well by feeding it all the sin it's used to being fed, then we are DECEIVED! We HAVE to be HEARERS of the WORD and THEN DOERS! This is an action, the action of DOING, of LIVING the Word of God in our lives!!!
Please Lord, help us! Please! Save us from OURSELVES! Please!
In Your amazing love always!!!!!!!
Through Your righteousness forever!
Please Lord, mercy…
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Put away all filthiness
Jas 1:21 Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.
Lay apart… put away, cast aside. This is an action. Once again we come face to face with that old belief that you shouldn't have to do anything at all as a Christian because if you do stuff- such as putting away the filthiness in your life you are hoping that action will save you. WRONG. The people who came up with the idea that you no longer have to obey God's commandments, and you no longer have to 'sin no more', that you no longer have to 'lay apart' anything in your life, that you mustn't try at all to do anything whatsoever because then it's 'works' and not 'grace' you are living by- those people are in league with Satan.
Our Salvation is through our Savior alone. We cannot do anything aside from accept what He's done for us in order to be saved. But once we have experienced that new birth then how can we truly expect to carry on in the old man? How? How can we accept the willful sinning we live in as being acceptable to God, because our not sinning won't save us? God has never and will never accept sin. Anyone that believe God will accept sin is fooling themselves. We need to ask forgiveness for EVERY sin, not just the ones we committed before we first accepted Christ as our Savior. We need to ask for forgiveness for the first sin we commit after we've accepted Christ all the way to the last sin we commit. We will NEVER be in a position as long as we are living in a time before the second coming of our Savior, to sin willfully and neglect to beg, to plead for forgiveness from God.
We are wretched beings and only Christ can save us. As wretched beings we are immersed in a constant warfare with Satan. It is a WAR. People don't realize it, but it is. Our lives are spent in a war! A REAL war. A SPIRITUAL war. When we are tempted to sin that is the enemy warring against us. When we sin that is the enemy claiming a victory over us. When we ask for forgiveness with true repentance and sorrow for that sin we are being renewed by our Savior and declared His, not Satan's. Satan wants us on his side and he'll use any means necessary to get us there. If we live in willful sin we are Satan's. If we live in a constant battle against sins that are so easily besetting us then we are striving against sin and we are claiming Christ as the victor over those sins. If we lay down our lives and no longer strive, no longer set aside, no longer go and sin no more, no longer lay apart all filthiness then we are not living our lives as Christ would have us live them. This war is real and we have our part in it, as a soldier of Christ's we have a leader who has told us so much through His life, through His word, through the words of those guided completely by the Holy Spirit. We cannot get to a point in our lives where we NO longer desire to lay aside the besetting sins. As much pleasure as our flesh nature may receive from these besetting sins, they will NEVER be acceptable to God, never! Our flesh pleasure is not the indicator that something is good and acceptable. If this were true then all those who derive pleasure from acts we call criminal would have the right to say they are acceptable acts, good acts from the simple fact they bring them happiness and pleasure.
We are to deny ourselves-
Luk 9:23 And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.
We are to go and sin no more-
Joh 5:14 Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.
Joh 8:11 She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.
We are to lay aside every weight-
Heb 12:1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us
We are to lay apart all filthiness-
Jas 1:21 Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.
We are to do this and then receive WITH meekness the engrafted word- the word of God- the words of life that will save us. Those words we receive are the words of the gospel our Savior preached to all.
By His grace may WE receive the word of God fully into our lives. May we fight in this war we are embroiled in and not surrender to Satan and his evil, deceptive ways.
Please Lord, SAVE US!
All through Your love!
Amen.
Lay apart… put away, cast aside. This is an action. Once again we come face to face with that old belief that you shouldn't have to do anything at all as a Christian because if you do stuff- such as putting away the filthiness in your life you are hoping that action will save you. WRONG. The people who came up with the idea that you no longer have to obey God's commandments, and you no longer have to 'sin no more', that you no longer have to 'lay apart' anything in your life, that you mustn't try at all to do anything whatsoever because then it's 'works' and not 'grace' you are living by- those people are in league with Satan.
Our Salvation is through our Savior alone. We cannot do anything aside from accept what He's done for us in order to be saved. But once we have experienced that new birth then how can we truly expect to carry on in the old man? How? How can we accept the willful sinning we live in as being acceptable to God, because our not sinning won't save us? God has never and will never accept sin. Anyone that believe God will accept sin is fooling themselves. We need to ask forgiveness for EVERY sin, not just the ones we committed before we first accepted Christ as our Savior. We need to ask for forgiveness for the first sin we commit after we've accepted Christ all the way to the last sin we commit. We will NEVER be in a position as long as we are living in a time before the second coming of our Savior, to sin willfully and neglect to beg, to plead for forgiveness from God.
We are wretched beings and only Christ can save us. As wretched beings we are immersed in a constant warfare with Satan. It is a WAR. People don't realize it, but it is. Our lives are spent in a war! A REAL war. A SPIRITUAL war. When we are tempted to sin that is the enemy warring against us. When we sin that is the enemy claiming a victory over us. When we ask for forgiveness with true repentance and sorrow for that sin we are being renewed by our Savior and declared His, not Satan's. Satan wants us on his side and he'll use any means necessary to get us there. If we live in willful sin we are Satan's. If we live in a constant battle against sins that are so easily besetting us then we are striving against sin and we are claiming Christ as the victor over those sins. If we lay down our lives and no longer strive, no longer set aside, no longer go and sin no more, no longer lay apart all filthiness then we are not living our lives as Christ would have us live them. This war is real and we have our part in it, as a soldier of Christ's we have a leader who has told us so much through His life, through His word, through the words of those guided completely by the Holy Spirit. We cannot get to a point in our lives where we NO longer desire to lay aside the besetting sins. As much pleasure as our flesh nature may receive from these besetting sins, they will NEVER be acceptable to God, never! Our flesh pleasure is not the indicator that something is good and acceptable. If this were true then all those who derive pleasure from acts we call criminal would have the right to say they are acceptable acts, good acts from the simple fact they bring them happiness and pleasure.
We are to deny ourselves-
Luk 9:23 And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.
We are to go and sin no more-
Joh 5:14 Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.
Joh 8:11 She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.
We are to lay aside every weight-
Heb 12:1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us
We are to lay apart all filthiness-
Jas 1:21 Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.
We are to do this and then receive WITH meekness the engrafted word- the word of God- the words of life that will save us. Those words we receive are the words of the gospel our Savior preached to all.
By His grace may WE receive the word of God fully into our lives. May we fight in this war we are embroiled in and not surrender to Satan and his evil, deceptive ways.
Please Lord, SAVE US!
All through Your love!
Amen.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Slow to wrath
Jas 1:16 Do not err, my beloved brethren.
Jas 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
The Father of lights.
God created the light, remember?
Gen 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
God created the main source of our natural light- the sun. And He created the moon and the stars - all light sources or reflectors of light.
Gen 1:14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
Gen 1:15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
Gen 1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
Gen 1:17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
Gen 1:18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
God truly is the Father of lights. And NOT only is He the Father of- the Creator of lights, He is the Father of the LIGHT of the world- Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.
Joh 8:12 Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
Every good thing comes from God, every truly good thing. Just because our perception is skewed from thousands of years of sin and so many call evil good, and good evil, doesn't mean that God is the Father of evil things. We call a lot of perverted, disgusting things good because we've had our senses so incredibly dulled by Satan. We need to fall before God on our knees and pray that we aren't duped by the evil one who has taken so many people's eternal lives through His perversions. This isn't a popular way to talk at all, this is frown upon by people because they simply do NOT want to hear truth, it goes against their comfortable existence living side by side with Satan's evil they've accepted as good. No one wants to be told that the majority of things they love, the things they like, the things they've embedded into their routine of life all are evil. No one likes it, no one. We come face to face with the evil in our lives and we make a choice whether to accept it or not. We can choose to continue on without changing a thing- this is the power of choice we have- and we can choose our own path. God offers us life- and He offers us ALL good gifts, ALL perfect gifts. Does this mean we'll have all things happy, happy, NO! We've talked about this a lot. The happiness we need to seek is ONLY found in our SAVIOR! If we seek for happiness elsewhere we are only setting ourselves up to fall over and over and over again! It'll be an endless rollercoaster- never ending torture and we'll put ourselves through it because we can find happiness, we can find incredible happiness called JOY in our Lord!
Jas 1:18 Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
Jas 1:19 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:
By the will of our LORD we all have come into existence. The apostles, the disciples that lived when our Savior walked the earth and for several years after He ascended to heaven were truly a kind of firstfruits- they were the first to live in a world after the promised Messiah's coming. No others had ever lived in that time, not one. And because these men and women lived in this time, this new existence they were cautioned…
'Be SWIFT to HEAR.'
'Be SLOW to SPEAK.'
'SLOW to WRATH.'
Is this EVER bad advice? Seriously, is it?
I know I am VERY guilty of jumping right in there to offer my thoughts, my opinions on things without taking any time to hear, truly hear. And as for being slow to wrath, I have to hang my head in shame over and over again because my wrath all too often seems to come instantaneously.
Jas 1:20 For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
And that wrath of mine will NOT work the righteousness of God.
That instant wrath of mine goes against God.
Please Lord, please help me to be swift to hear- help me to learn to LISTEN so much more than I do. Please Lord, please help me be slow to speak- help me learn to be quiet, to learn that I don't have to be heard like I all too often believe I do.
Please Lord, please help me to be slow to wrath- help me keep my instant temper in check, please, help me Lord I don't want to work anything that isn't the righteousness of God.
By YOUR GRACE LORD!
In YOUR LOVE!
Amen.
Jas 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
The Father of lights.
God created the light, remember?
Gen 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
God created the main source of our natural light- the sun. And He created the moon and the stars - all light sources or reflectors of light.
Gen 1:14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
Gen 1:15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
Gen 1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
Gen 1:17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
Gen 1:18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
God truly is the Father of lights. And NOT only is He the Father of- the Creator of lights, He is the Father of the LIGHT of the world- Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.
Joh 8:12 Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
Every good thing comes from God, every truly good thing. Just because our perception is skewed from thousands of years of sin and so many call evil good, and good evil, doesn't mean that God is the Father of evil things. We call a lot of perverted, disgusting things good because we've had our senses so incredibly dulled by Satan. We need to fall before God on our knees and pray that we aren't duped by the evil one who has taken so many people's eternal lives through His perversions. This isn't a popular way to talk at all, this is frown upon by people because they simply do NOT want to hear truth, it goes against their comfortable existence living side by side with Satan's evil they've accepted as good. No one wants to be told that the majority of things they love, the things they like, the things they've embedded into their routine of life all are evil. No one likes it, no one. We come face to face with the evil in our lives and we make a choice whether to accept it or not. We can choose to continue on without changing a thing- this is the power of choice we have- and we can choose our own path. God offers us life- and He offers us ALL good gifts, ALL perfect gifts. Does this mean we'll have all things happy, happy, NO! We've talked about this a lot. The happiness we need to seek is ONLY found in our SAVIOR! If we seek for happiness elsewhere we are only setting ourselves up to fall over and over and over again! It'll be an endless rollercoaster- never ending torture and we'll put ourselves through it because we can find happiness, we can find incredible happiness called JOY in our Lord!
Jas 1:18 Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
Jas 1:19 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:
By the will of our LORD we all have come into existence. The apostles, the disciples that lived when our Savior walked the earth and for several years after He ascended to heaven were truly a kind of firstfruits- they were the first to live in a world after the promised Messiah's coming. No others had ever lived in that time, not one. And because these men and women lived in this time, this new existence they were cautioned…
'Be SWIFT to HEAR.'
'Be SLOW to SPEAK.'
'SLOW to WRATH.'
Is this EVER bad advice? Seriously, is it?
I know I am VERY guilty of jumping right in there to offer my thoughts, my opinions on things without taking any time to hear, truly hear. And as for being slow to wrath, I have to hang my head in shame over and over again because my wrath all too often seems to come instantaneously.
Jas 1:20 For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
And that wrath of mine will NOT work the righteousness of God.
That instant wrath of mine goes against God.
Please Lord, please help me to be swift to hear- help me to learn to LISTEN so much more than I do. Please Lord, please help me be slow to speak- help me learn to be quiet, to learn that I don't have to be heard like I all too often believe I do.
Please Lord, please help me to be slow to wrath- help me keep my instant temper in check, please, help me Lord I don't want to work anything that isn't the righteousness of God.
By YOUR GRACE LORD!
In YOUR LOVE!
Amen.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
In my mother's womb
Psa 139:13 For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb.
Psa 139:14 I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.
Psa 139:15 My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Psa 139:16 Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.
Psa 139:17 How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!
Psa 139:18 If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.
God knows us while we are in our mother's womb.
God makes us- fearfully, wonderfully, marvelously.
Before we are even created, before we are conceived…God knows us!
It's so incredibly hard to imagine, isn't it? Being known before we are even conceived, being known as we are growing in our mother's womb.
I read this today and thought immediately of my great niece, Rayne Elizabeth born this past Sunday, and my great niece Lyla Rose still in her mother's womb growing soon to be born. God knows these babies! God knew US as babies! We are not conceived by chance without our Creator knowing. The very same Creator who formed the first human beings from the dust of the earth- creating every single part of us from the tiniest cell to the deepest hidden parts inside of us- is the same God today who knows each and every one of us before we are formed.
Some people might speak up about now and start in about all the babies born deformed and such and they'd start blaming God for that and how horrible He must be to allow a baby to be born suffering. These are the same people who become atheists, the same people who would rather believe there is no God than believe there is a God who allows horrific things to happen not only to adults but to tiny innocent babies who've not even had a chance to commit any wrong.
People don't get the whole big picture. They focus on a few bits and then form their opinions, their beliefs. The horrors this world has in it exist because of a choice made by first- an angel, and secondly another choice the first human couple made- NOT because God designed evil and forced it upon that angel or the first humans. People then say God should NEVER have given the angel or mankind a choice but simply made everything perfect without any chance at all whatsoever to do anything wrong, to disobey, no choice between good and evil.
That good and evil exists, and has existed since long before mankind is a mystery- a mystery that we're not allowed to delve into. One of those secrets that belong to God.
Deu 29:29 The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.
God knows of good and evil- it exists and God in making angels gave them the power of choice in knowing evil and good to choose one or the other. Then God made mankind and they didn't know of good and evil other than there was a tree that possessed the key to that knowledge and they were forbidden to eat from that tree and told rather to trust solely in God for all things, they were given everything perfect just like people say they want. Of course people say they NEVER should have been given a choice, that tree should NEVER have been put in the garden and people should have just been allowed to live in this perfect existence without any choice but to do so. We in essence should have been the puppets of the master, NOT ever being allowed an opportunity to love God. Seriously, love can never be forced and setting up a situation where there is NO choice takes away the love. When we love someone it's because we CHOOSE to love someone. Love is a choice, it's not a lustful emotion as so many believe. Love is a choice to make and we do it over and over again in good and bad times as the ol' marriage vows go. Unfortunately the marriage vows aren't enough- we need to choose to love our neighbor, not just a single partner in life, not just our family members. Love is a choice we make and we make it constantly- not just once or once in a while.
Yes, God could have given us no choice- and in return He would have had no love.
That WE made the wrong choice is on US, not on HIM and this is where people get it all messed up. Taking the blame for things goes against our sinful nature- the nature Adam and Even inherited instantly upon disobeying.
Gen 3:12 And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.
Gen 3:13 And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
The blame went where? Not on themselves. Yes, they had help- Adam had temptation from Eve and Eve had temptation from Satan, but they ULTIMATELY made the choice to disobey, they were not forced.
God did NOT want evil for us. God did NOT want sickness for us. God did NOT want death for us. Yet so many are eager to blame Him for it all, unwilling to take any responsibility at all for anything.
We are truly fearfully and wonderfully made by a God who loves us so deeply He forbears with us after all these many, many, many thousands of years not willing that any will be lost that would be saved, that would choose love over all- even self.
May God bless those little babies, born and unborn - they were fearfully and wonderfully made by our amazing Creator. May their lives be filled with His love now and always.
Amen.
Psa 139:14 I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.
Psa 139:15 My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Psa 139:16 Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.
Psa 139:17 How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!
Psa 139:18 If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.
God knows us while we are in our mother's womb.
God makes us- fearfully, wonderfully, marvelously.
Before we are even created, before we are conceived…God knows us!
It's so incredibly hard to imagine, isn't it? Being known before we are even conceived, being known as we are growing in our mother's womb.
I read this today and thought immediately of my great niece, Rayne Elizabeth born this past Sunday, and my great niece Lyla Rose still in her mother's womb growing soon to be born. God knows these babies! God knew US as babies! We are not conceived by chance without our Creator knowing. The very same Creator who formed the first human beings from the dust of the earth- creating every single part of us from the tiniest cell to the deepest hidden parts inside of us- is the same God today who knows each and every one of us before we are formed.
Some people might speak up about now and start in about all the babies born deformed and such and they'd start blaming God for that and how horrible He must be to allow a baby to be born suffering. These are the same people who become atheists, the same people who would rather believe there is no God than believe there is a God who allows horrific things to happen not only to adults but to tiny innocent babies who've not even had a chance to commit any wrong.
People don't get the whole big picture. They focus on a few bits and then form their opinions, their beliefs. The horrors this world has in it exist because of a choice made by first- an angel, and secondly another choice the first human couple made- NOT because God designed evil and forced it upon that angel or the first humans. People then say God should NEVER have given the angel or mankind a choice but simply made everything perfect without any chance at all whatsoever to do anything wrong, to disobey, no choice between good and evil.
That good and evil exists, and has existed since long before mankind is a mystery- a mystery that we're not allowed to delve into. One of those secrets that belong to God.
Deu 29:29 The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.
God knows of good and evil- it exists and God in making angels gave them the power of choice in knowing evil and good to choose one or the other. Then God made mankind and they didn't know of good and evil other than there was a tree that possessed the key to that knowledge and they were forbidden to eat from that tree and told rather to trust solely in God for all things, they were given everything perfect just like people say they want. Of course people say they NEVER should have been given a choice, that tree should NEVER have been put in the garden and people should have just been allowed to live in this perfect existence without any choice but to do so. We in essence should have been the puppets of the master, NOT ever being allowed an opportunity to love God. Seriously, love can never be forced and setting up a situation where there is NO choice takes away the love. When we love someone it's because we CHOOSE to love someone. Love is a choice, it's not a lustful emotion as so many believe. Love is a choice to make and we do it over and over again in good and bad times as the ol' marriage vows go. Unfortunately the marriage vows aren't enough- we need to choose to love our neighbor, not just a single partner in life, not just our family members. Love is a choice we make and we make it constantly- not just once or once in a while.
Yes, God could have given us no choice- and in return He would have had no love.
That WE made the wrong choice is on US, not on HIM and this is where people get it all messed up. Taking the blame for things goes against our sinful nature- the nature Adam and Even inherited instantly upon disobeying.
Gen 3:12 And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.
Gen 3:13 And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
The blame went where? Not on themselves. Yes, they had help- Adam had temptation from Eve and Eve had temptation from Satan, but they ULTIMATELY made the choice to disobey, they were not forced.
God did NOT want evil for us. God did NOT want sickness for us. God did NOT want death for us. Yet so many are eager to blame Him for it all, unwilling to take any responsibility at all for anything.
We are truly fearfully and wonderfully made by a God who loves us so deeply He forbears with us after all these many, many, many thousands of years not willing that any will be lost that would be saved, that would choose love over all- even self.
May God bless those little babies, born and unborn - they were fearfully and wonderfully made by our amazing Creator. May their lives be filled with His love now and always.
Amen.
By the grace of God we will NOT FEAR
Fear-
Gen 15:1 After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.
Gen 26:24 And the LORD appeared unto him the same night, and said, I am the God of Abraham thy father: fear not, for I am with thee, and will bless thee, and multiply thy seed for my servant Abraham's sake.
Gen 46:3 And he said, I am God, the God of thy father: fear not to go down into Egypt; for I will there make of thee a great nation:
Gen 46:4 I will go down with thee into Egypt; and I will also surely bring thee up again: and Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes.
Fear not.
The message here from God is to FEAR NOT.
Fear not because God is OUR SHIELD.
Fear not because God is OUR EXCEEDING GREAT REWARD.
Fear not because God is WITH US.
We must believe.
By faith Abraham believed God and His word. God was REAL to Abraham. God has to be REAL to us. Fear will overwhelm us if God is not REAL to us.
Fear is real, not fake, not something that is non-existent. Fear is something very, very real to so many people in so many ways. Fear comes to us in many disguises. Fear to one is not fear to another.
Abraham feared having to do what He was being asked, otherwise why would God tell Him to fear not if fear wasn't a factor?
Jacob feared going down to Egypt when Joseph sent for him. Fear was real to Jacob. Fear was real to Abraham. These were great men of God and fear was something they needed to overcome. God needed to tell them to FEAR NOT and He did so for a reason. God knew of their fear. God knew that they needed reassurance because their fear was real. Too many people scoff at fear as if it can't affect them- especially men. Don't be afraid, don't show fear, fear is for wimps, fear is for babies, fear is wrong.
Fear may be wrong but the thing is, people want other people to conquer fear all on their own to prove that they are greater than the fear, they are the ones who either succumb to fear or fight it. It sounds good. It sounds uplifting, it sounds like ego building doesn't it? And being uplifted and ego building is good right? Not right. Turning our lives to focus on our selves is wrong. We have to give up self and grab a hold of God. It is through God we lose fear because God takes that fear away, not because we have that power. TOO many people think they should be able to stop fearing on their own.
We stop fearing because God is our shield, God is our great reward, God is with us, God tells us to fear not. We do cling to God and all He tells us, we believe in God- not ourselves. As long as we believe WE should be able to rid ourselves of fear without depending upon God we will forever fear. Satan may allow us to believe we've conquered fear without God, but it'll be a false belief one that He controls.
By the grace of God we will NOT FEAR, through God we will NOT FEAR. When fear threatens us- and it will- we need to seek God, depend upon God, live for God not ourselves.
All through HIS love, all through HIS grace and mercy, always!
Amen.
Gen 15:1 After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.
Gen 26:24 And the LORD appeared unto him the same night, and said, I am the God of Abraham thy father: fear not, for I am with thee, and will bless thee, and multiply thy seed for my servant Abraham's sake.
Gen 46:3 And he said, I am God, the God of thy father: fear not to go down into Egypt; for I will there make of thee a great nation:
Gen 46:4 I will go down with thee into Egypt; and I will also surely bring thee up again: and Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes.
Fear not.
The message here from God is to FEAR NOT.
Fear not because God is OUR SHIELD.
Fear not because God is OUR EXCEEDING GREAT REWARD.
Fear not because God is WITH US.
We must believe.
By faith Abraham believed God and His word. God was REAL to Abraham. God has to be REAL to us. Fear will overwhelm us if God is not REAL to us.
Fear is real, not fake, not something that is non-existent. Fear is something very, very real to so many people in so many ways. Fear comes to us in many disguises. Fear to one is not fear to another.
Abraham feared having to do what He was being asked, otherwise why would God tell Him to fear not if fear wasn't a factor?
Jacob feared going down to Egypt when Joseph sent for him. Fear was real to Jacob. Fear was real to Abraham. These were great men of God and fear was something they needed to overcome. God needed to tell them to FEAR NOT and He did so for a reason. God knew of their fear. God knew that they needed reassurance because their fear was real. Too many people scoff at fear as if it can't affect them- especially men. Don't be afraid, don't show fear, fear is for wimps, fear is for babies, fear is wrong.
Fear may be wrong but the thing is, people want other people to conquer fear all on their own to prove that they are greater than the fear, they are the ones who either succumb to fear or fight it. It sounds good. It sounds uplifting, it sounds like ego building doesn't it? And being uplifted and ego building is good right? Not right. Turning our lives to focus on our selves is wrong. We have to give up self and grab a hold of God. It is through God we lose fear because God takes that fear away, not because we have that power. TOO many people think they should be able to stop fearing on their own.
We stop fearing because God is our shield, God is our great reward, God is with us, God tells us to fear not. We do cling to God and all He tells us, we believe in God- not ourselves. As long as we believe WE should be able to rid ourselves of fear without depending upon God we will forever fear. Satan may allow us to believe we've conquered fear without God, but it'll be a false belief one that He controls.
By the grace of God we will NOT FEAR, through God we will NOT FEAR. When fear threatens us- and it will- we need to seek God, depend upon God, live for God not ourselves.
All through HIS love, all through HIS grace and mercy, always!
Amen.
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Fear is a snare...Trusting in the Lord is safety.
Pro 29:25 The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the LORD shall be safe.
Too often we fear things upon the earth. I know I've spent a lot of my life in fear- fearing one thing or another and the truth is fearing man is a snare. Fearing things of earth, fearing man-made things is a trap of Satan's. Satan loves when we fear because that fear reveals that we do not trust fully in the LORD.
We say it's natural to fear and it is, the natural man does fear and should fear, yet a man who is spiritual must place their trust in the Spiritual- in God.
There is a huge temptation to fear. And it is a temptation to fall into fearing and losing trust in God. A snare, a trap to let fear have a hold on our lives.
We read this…
Luk 21:26 Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.
Fear causing men's hearts to fail.
If we live in a world where the worst of the worst has not yet occurred, and we let fear have it's power over us, what will happen when the worst does take place?
Fear brings a snare.
If we fear men, we are likely to be fearful of 'things', yes?
Fear… anxiety, terror.
Dictionary definition-
fear
noun
1.
a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid. Synonyms: foreboding, apprehension, consternation, dismay, dread, terror, fright, panic, horror, trepidation, qualm. Antonyms: courage, security, calm, intrepidity.
2.
a specific instance of or propensity for such a feeling: an abnormal fear of heights. Synonyms: phobia, aversion; bête noire, bogy, bogey, bugbear. Antonyms: liking, fondness, penchant, predilection.
3.
concern or anxiety; solicitude: a fear for someone's safety.
4.
reverential awe, especially toward God: the fear of God. Synonyms: awe, respect, reverence, veneration.
5.
something that causes feelings of dread or apprehension; something a person is afraid of: Cancer is a common fear.
Pasted from
Fear. I think I need to study this more because of the temptation to fear that has ruled my life in so many ways.
May God bless us as we delve into this study more deeply.
By His grace… more tomorrow.
Praise God for His amazing love, His amazing mercy, for the miracle of my great niece being born today.
In His love!
Amen.
Too often we fear things upon the earth. I know I've spent a lot of my life in fear- fearing one thing or another and the truth is fearing man is a snare. Fearing things of earth, fearing man-made things is a trap of Satan's. Satan loves when we fear because that fear reveals that we do not trust fully in the LORD.
We say it's natural to fear and it is, the natural man does fear and should fear, yet a man who is spiritual must place their trust in the Spiritual- in God.
There is a huge temptation to fear. And it is a temptation to fall into fearing and losing trust in God. A snare, a trap to let fear have a hold on our lives.
We read this…
Luk 21:26 Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.
Fear causing men's hearts to fail.
If we live in a world where the worst of the worst has not yet occurred, and we let fear have it's power over us, what will happen when the worst does take place?
Fear brings a snare.
If we fear men, we are likely to be fearful of 'things', yes?
Fear… anxiety, terror.
Dictionary definition-
fear
noun
1.
a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid. Synonyms: foreboding, apprehension, consternation, dismay, dread, terror, fright, panic, horror, trepidation, qualm. Antonyms: courage, security, calm, intrepidity.
2.
a specific instance of or propensity for such a feeling: an abnormal fear of heights. Synonyms: phobia, aversion; bête noire, bogy, bogey, bugbear. Antonyms: liking, fondness, penchant, predilection.
3.
concern or anxiety; solicitude: a fear for someone's safety.
4.
reverential awe, especially toward God: the fear of God. Synonyms: awe, respect, reverence, veneration.
5.
something that causes feelings of dread or apprehension; something a person is afraid of: Cancer is a common fear.
Pasted from
Fear. I think I need to study this more because of the temptation to fear that has ruled my life in so many ways.
May God bless us as we delve into this study more deeply.
By His grace… more tomorrow.
Praise God for His amazing love, His amazing mercy, for the miracle of my great niece being born today.
In His love!
Amen.
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Our weapon against temptation
Jas 1:14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
Jas 1:15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
Sin doesn't just happen to us. For the most part we are not victims of sin but perpetuators. I can introduce situations and circumstances that might cause another to sin, presenting temptation to them and for that I'd be guilty. I can also put myself into situations where I know temptation to sin will be present and then I can presumptuously assume that I'll be able to overcome temptation and remain free from committing sins the temptation is drawing me towards. We are not blameless when it comes to temptation, often inviting temptation and then turning around and lamenting our ability to overcome, to resist the very temptation we've placed in front of ourselves.
Satan wants to disguise temptations as being harmless, seemingly innocent so that we surround ourselves by them and in essence we are tempting God aren't we? Seriously, aren't we? It's a different situation when we come face to face with temptation unexpectedly, but altogether another story when we bring temptation to ourselves. In our society today there is so much corruption it would most likely take leaving the mainstream way of life and entering into the existence of the backwoods sorts to escape. One of the biggest tools of Satan is what we consider our entertainment pursuits. How quickly we become almost obsessed with not missing an episode of one show or another we are watching on televison. How crazily absorbed we are in gaming adventures. We've even let books- ebooks, books on our Nooks or Kindles, and even the old fashioned hand-held books have obsessive qualities to us. To suggest to most people that living with out television, games, books, computers would be cause for saying we are crazy, when in truth it's probably what would be best for us. A lot of us live for our entertainment merely enduring work and the time spent in between our necessities of sleeping, eating, and so on. It makes you wonder a doesn't it, the ol' pursuit of happiness we have a right to. Do you think our forefathers who wrote that 'right' into existence had today's way of life in mind? God, in His word to us told us plainly without mincing words that we are to set our TREASURES in heaven. This world was not sugar-coated by our Savior.
Joh 16:33 These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.
What are we going to have in the world? Tribulation.
Where do we find peace? In Jesus.
Peace, joy, happiness, contentment- these things are NOT to be found in our world, but in Jesus. This goes right back to finding joy in 'divers temptations'. We only find joy because we know that Jesus is working in us, we are being presented with an opportunity to witness to ourselves or publically of Jesus' peace, His love.
Going back to temptations and being tempted, we sabotage ourselves and then like to blame God for not giving us strength to overcome our temptations. The next time you are tempted that you notice- and believe me we don't always notice because these sorts of things have become our way of life- the next time you realize you are facing a temptation and haven't yet succumbed to indulging in that temptation ask yourself if you put yourself in temptation's way. Did you some how perpetuate the situation? Did you know you would face temptation and yet go ahead full steam just because, well, it's part of your life?
Another question we need to ask ourselves is… are we focusing on material temptations and ignoring our internal temptations? Do we sometimes instigate a situation that will have us succumbing to anger, jealousy, envy? There is a lot we need to think about, and to shove it all aside and not think about it does no good at all.
Regardless of how the temptations come about there is one thing we need to talk more about and that is resisting temptation. Seems almost silly to say you need to resist the very temptation you might have encouraged doesn't it, but we are far from free of Satan's influence. So many of us have grown up drenched in Satan's ways- and those ways were called perfectly normal, average, acceptable, expected. When we are called to follow our Savior with a heart that is truly His, we will suddenly begin to notice parts of our lives that aren't truly acceptable.
Temptations need to be resisted, yes?
Jas 4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Temptations need to be resisted and we are given the key to that resistance and it isn't a magic pill or potion to swallow, it is active resistance, intellectual resistance. Jesus did not come face to face with Satan and his tempting and close his eyes hoping Satan would leave off, that he would go away. Jesus was prepared for that direct temptation from years and years of immersing Himself in His Father's word.
We ignore the word of God, we scarcely know a verse or two by heart and this is the very protection we are given against the temptations we will face.
Just because we do not have Satan personally presenting himself to us and tempting us does not mean that evil being isn't present in every temptation we face. He's there even if we cannot hear his voice, even if we cannot see his face, even if we cannot reach out and touch him. This spiritual adversary is there and present with all his evil cunning. So when we are tempted we are being tempted by the same evil entity that tempted our Savior in the wilderness. We need to use the same weapon our Savior used against Him- the WORD of GOD.
'It is written…'
We've been told.
God has said.
God's word reads.
God says.
This is the truth of the matter.
This isn't God's way.
God has revealed.
That is wrong because God told us this is right.
We can't fight temptation by saying we don't want whatever we are being tempted with. We do want it that's what makes it a temptation. If we didn't want what we were being tempted with then it'd be easy to simply ignore the temptation- in fact it wouldn't truly be a temptation at all. So trying to tell ourselves we don't want something we clearly do want is fighting temptation with the wrong weapon. Jesus didn't say he didn't want the stones changed into bread, he stated a fact. He stated WHY it would be WRONG for Him to indulge in the temptation to change those stones into bread.
Mat 4:3 And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
Mat 4:4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
He was hungry. He wanted to eat, to relieve that hunger.
Mat 4:2 And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred
Hungry. Very hungry. Desiring food. Famished. Jesus wanted to eat something yet he wasn't given anything to eat, he wasn't near any food, he was in the desert with rocks and sand, not bread and fruit. There was no food, if there had been food then he most likely would have eaten the food. Satan didn't come bearing a platter of meat and cheese with a jug of wine on the side waving it in front of a very hungry Jesus. The outcome would have been the same, because Jesus would not have done anything the Father didn't direct Him to do. He would have refused the food and drink. Some might think that would have been a greater temptation, to have the food right there in front of Him. Yet Satan wasn't really tempting Jesus to simply eat. He was tempting Jesus to DISOBEY God because in disobeying God is where we sin. Satan was tempting Jesus to break the laws of God that were given to human beings. How? By tempting Jesus to set aside the very humanity He'd taken on and reveal His spiritual power selfishly. Satan was trying to get Jesus to shrug off the pains of humanity and use His divinity. Jesus knew that if He used His divinity that He would be admitting that it was impossible for Him to adhere to His humanity and impossible to save those who had been corrupted by Satan.
Mankind was NOT to live for eating and drinking, eating and drinking was not true life. Keeping the body alive means nothing at all without God. There is no point at all in living without God. Obviously mankind does a great job living without God and surviving on food alone, right? Yet the living they are doing is a temporary existence that will perish in the long run. Any scientist will tell you that a man doesn't have to believe in God or His word and he will still live perfectly fine eating. In fact there have been many, many people who have lived their entire lives without God and had seemingly no issues with staying alive. What Jesus is telling us is that life without God is truly a death sentence. At the end of their earthly existence- because there is NOT a single person alive today that was alive 150 years ago and less. We have a life span and when that life span is over there is no living and eating, no keeping alive. The man who has lived out that life span without God will not have eternal life in God, yet the man who has listened and lived by the word of God as well as their food will have life eternal when the Savior comes and raises them from their graves.
Jesus faced Satan and told him - It is written- God has said- that man is not to live only by eating but by God's every word. Living by God's word, following God's word brings life because love is found in God's words, not in food. It's more important to live for God than for self.
It is written.
When you are tempted can you say - It is written?
Maybe we ought to try - It is written, yes?
Jesus used- It is written and He is our example.
1Pe 2:21 For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps.
Christ suffered, we will suffer and Christ was our example and we need to follow our example in all things.
Christ faced temptation unlike any we will ever truly face, and when He faced temptation He turned to God's word. We have to use God's word. God's word is our sword-
Eph 6:17 '...and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God'
If we do not arm ourselves with the only weapon available to us how can we ever hope to face the wiles of the Devil and survive?
Seriously? How? We are told to take the whole armor of God- is it just to play dress up? I don't think so. We are to don our spiritual armor to fight this very real spiritual battle. The weapon of choice is the word of God and we desperately need to know the word of God all through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, the living Word of God.
In His love, always!
Amen.
Jas 1:15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
Sin doesn't just happen to us. For the most part we are not victims of sin but perpetuators. I can introduce situations and circumstances that might cause another to sin, presenting temptation to them and for that I'd be guilty. I can also put myself into situations where I know temptation to sin will be present and then I can presumptuously assume that I'll be able to overcome temptation and remain free from committing sins the temptation is drawing me towards. We are not blameless when it comes to temptation, often inviting temptation and then turning around and lamenting our ability to overcome, to resist the very temptation we've placed in front of ourselves.
Satan wants to disguise temptations as being harmless, seemingly innocent so that we surround ourselves by them and in essence we are tempting God aren't we? Seriously, aren't we? It's a different situation when we come face to face with temptation unexpectedly, but altogether another story when we bring temptation to ourselves. In our society today there is so much corruption it would most likely take leaving the mainstream way of life and entering into the existence of the backwoods sorts to escape. One of the biggest tools of Satan is what we consider our entertainment pursuits. How quickly we become almost obsessed with not missing an episode of one show or another we are watching on televison. How crazily absorbed we are in gaming adventures. We've even let books- ebooks, books on our Nooks or Kindles, and even the old fashioned hand-held books have obsessive qualities to us. To suggest to most people that living with out television, games, books, computers would be cause for saying we are crazy, when in truth it's probably what would be best for us. A lot of us live for our entertainment merely enduring work and the time spent in between our necessities of sleeping, eating, and so on. It makes you wonder a doesn't it, the ol' pursuit of happiness we have a right to. Do you think our forefathers who wrote that 'right' into existence had today's way of life in mind? God, in His word to us told us plainly without mincing words that we are to set our TREASURES in heaven. This world was not sugar-coated by our Savior.
Joh 16:33 These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.
What are we going to have in the world? Tribulation.
Where do we find peace? In Jesus.
Peace, joy, happiness, contentment- these things are NOT to be found in our world, but in Jesus. This goes right back to finding joy in 'divers temptations'. We only find joy because we know that Jesus is working in us, we are being presented with an opportunity to witness to ourselves or publically of Jesus' peace, His love.
Going back to temptations and being tempted, we sabotage ourselves and then like to blame God for not giving us strength to overcome our temptations. The next time you are tempted that you notice- and believe me we don't always notice because these sorts of things have become our way of life- the next time you realize you are facing a temptation and haven't yet succumbed to indulging in that temptation ask yourself if you put yourself in temptation's way. Did you some how perpetuate the situation? Did you know you would face temptation and yet go ahead full steam just because, well, it's part of your life?
Another question we need to ask ourselves is… are we focusing on material temptations and ignoring our internal temptations? Do we sometimes instigate a situation that will have us succumbing to anger, jealousy, envy? There is a lot we need to think about, and to shove it all aside and not think about it does no good at all.
Regardless of how the temptations come about there is one thing we need to talk more about and that is resisting temptation. Seems almost silly to say you need to resist the very temptation you might have encouraged doesn't it, but we are far from free of Satan's influence. So many of us have grown up drenched in Satan's ways- and those ways were called perfectly normal, average, acceptable, expected. When we are called to follow our Savior with a heart that is truly His, we will suddenly begin to notice parts of our lives that aren't truly acceptable.
Temptations need to be resisted, yes?
Jas 4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Temptations need to be resisted and we are given the key to that resistance and it isn't a magic pill or potion to swallow, it is active resistance, intellectual resistance. Jesus did not come face to face with Satan and his tempting and close his eyes hoping Satan would leave off, that he would go away. Jesus was prepared for that direct temptation from years and years of immersing Himself in His Father's word.
We ignore the word of God, we scarcely know a verse or two by heart and this is the very protection we are given against the temptations we will face.
Just because we do not have Satan personally presenting himself to us and tempting us does not mean that evil being isn't present in every temptation we face. He's there even if we cannot hear his voice, even if we cannot see his face, even if we cannot reach out and touch him. This spiritual adversary is there and present with all his evil cunning. So when we are tempted we are being tempted by the same evil entity that tempted our Savior in the wilderness. We need to use the same weapon our Savior used against Him- the WORD of GOD.
'It is written…'
We've been told.
God has said.
God's word reads.
God says.
This is the truth of the matter.
This isn't God's way.
God has revealed.
That is wrong because God told us this is right.
We can't fight temptation by saying we don't want whatever we are being tempted with. We do want it that's what makes it a temptation. If we didn't want what we were being tempted with then it'd be easy to simply ignore the temptation- in fact it wouldn't truly be a temptation at all. So trying to tell ourselves we don't want something we clearly do want is fighting temptation with the wrong weapon. Jesus didn't say he didn't want the stones changed into bread, he stated a fact. He stated WHY it would be WRONG for Him to indulge in the temptation to change those stones into bread.
Mat 4:3 And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
Mat 4:4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
He was hungry. He wanted to eat, to relieve that hunger.
Mat 4:2 And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred
Hungry. Very hungry. Desiring food. Famished. Jesus wanted to eat something yet he wasn't given anything to eat, he wasn't near any food, he was in the desert with rocks and sand, not bread and fruit. There was no food, if there had been food then he most likely would have eaten the food. Satan didn't come bearing a platter of meat and cheese with a jug of wine on the side waving it in front of a very hungry Jesus. The outcome would have been the same, because Jesus would not have done anything the Father didn't direct Him to do. He would have refused the food and drink. Some might think that would have been a greater temptation, to have the food right there in front of Him. Yet Satan wasn't really tempting Jesus to simply eat. He was tempting Jesus to DISOBEY God because in disobeying God is where we sin. Satan was tempting Jesus to break the laws of God that were given to human beings. How? By tempting Jesus to set aside the very humanity He'd taken on and reveal His spiritual power selfishly. Satan was trying to get Jesus to shrug off the pains of humanity and use His divinity. Jesus knew that if He used His divinity that He would be admitting that it was impossible for Him to adhere to His humanity and impossible to save those who had been corrupted by Satan.
Mankind was NOT to live for eating and drinking, eating and drinking was not true life. Keeping the body alive means nothing at all without God. There is no point at all in living without God. Obviously mankind does a great job living without God and surviving on food alone, right? Yet the living they are doing is a temporary existence that will perish in the long run. Any scientist will tell you that a man doesn't have to believe in God or His word and he will still live perfectly fine eating. In fact there have been many, many people who have lived their entire lives without God and had seemingly no issues with staying alive. What Jesus is telling us is that life without God is truly a death sentence. At the end of their earthly existence- because there is NOT a single person alive today that was alive 150 years ago and less. We have a life span and when that life span is over there is no living and eating, no keeping alive. The man who has lived out that life span without God will not have eternal life in God, yet the man who has listened and lived by the word of God as well as their food will have life eternal when the Savior comes and raises them from their graves.
Jesus faced Satan and told him - It is written- God has said- that man is not to live only by eating but by God's every word. Living by God's word, following God's word brings life because love is found in God's words, not in food. It's more important to live for God than for self.
It is written.
When you are tempted can you say - It is written?
Maybe we ought to try - It is written, yes?
Jesus used- It is written and He is our example.
1Pe 2:21 For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps.
Christ suffered, we will suffer and Christ was our example and we need to follow our example in all things.
Christ faced temptation unlike any we will ever truly face, and when He faced temptation He turned to God's word. We have to use God's word. God's word is our sword-
Eph 6:17 '...and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God'
If we do not arm ourselves with the only weapon available to us how can we ever hope to face the wiles of the Devil and survive?
Seriously? How? We are told to take the whole armor of God- is it just to play dress up? I don't think so. We are to don our spiritual armor to fight this very real spiritual battle. The weapon of choice is the word of God and we desperately need to know the word of God all through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, the living Word of God.
In His love, always!
Amen.
Tempted. It is written.
Jas 1:14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
Drawn away of his own lust.
His OWN lust.
We each individually have our own lusts, our own flesh desires.
Lust-G1939
Definition:
1. desire, craving, longing, desire for what is forbidden, lust
We are drawn away from God by these lusts, these desires, these cravings we have that are contrary to God's love.
There is not ONE single thing that is good for us that is denied to us.
Satan tempted Jesus to sin, remember that? Jesus was tempted. Some get all upset thinking that Jesus could ever be tempted. They like to imagine that He was above temptation, that the temptation hit an impossibly impenetrable wall a million miles thick, something forever and ever impossible to tempt. The truth is Jesus was TEMPTED- but His temptation - His LUST was NEVER conceived! He never ever fell to any temptation He felt and He did feel them, He became flesh in order to save us. Jesus became flesh so that He might feels as we feel in all ways, that He might face every temptation we face.
Heb 4:15 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
Jesus was TEMPTED- Jesus was draw away of His OWN lust and enticed. BUT the difference, the most crucial difference is HIS own lusts were NEVER CONCEIVED- NEVER INDULGED IN- Jesus NEVER fell victim to temptation but ENDURED, DEFEATED, OVERCAME every single wrongful desire He ever had.
It goes against so much of our thinking to imagine Jesus having any wrongful desires doesn't it? Yet, how could He be tempted in ALL points as we are if He had no real temptation to abstain from? If He were impervious to every wrongful desire, if He came to earth, born of a woman taking on human flesh and utilized a special shield that made it impossible to ever have a wrongful desire- how could He truly be touched with the feeling of our infirmities? How? Every single one of us relates to others and their life stories based on the experiences we've had in our own life, right? We might not go through the exact same things in life, but we will take the closest thing to that thing experienced by another and relate to it through that as best we can. We imagine how they might have felt based on things we have felt on perhaps a lesser degree, a lesser level of experience. If Jesus never felt tempted could He truly be touched with the feeling of our infirmities? Could He? Jesus knew what it meant to be human to feel the human pull towards flesh desires, for wrongful desires- and just FEELING the temptation, just being drawn away towards that wrongful lust was and is NOT sin, it's GIVING into that LUST in anyway- mentally or physically. Jesus did NOT give into any temptation He had but faced and overcame every single one by the WORD OF GOD!
Mat 4:4 But he answered and said, IT IS WRITTEN, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
Mat 4:7 Jesus said unto him, IT IS WRITTEN again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
Mat 4:10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for IT IS WRITTEN, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
Deu 8:3 And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.
WE LIVE BY EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDETH OUT OF THE MOUTH OF THE LORD!
Do you live by the words of God?
Do you face your temptations with the word of God?
Seriously! When you feel yourself being drawn away, do you LIVE by the word of God? Do you say… IT IS WRITTEN? Do those words even begin to enter your mind? Seriously, do they? Ask yourself…do they!? I know they really haven't entered by mind much and I'm ashamed to say that, I really am.
Jas 1:14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
Jas 1:15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
When lust is indulged - we sin- and when we sin we deserve death.
Heb 4:15 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
Heb 4:16 Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.
We need to boldly go to the throne of grace! We only obtain mercy when we go to the throne of grace and find the grace we need when we have fallen into sin, fallen into temptation.
All by the grace of our wonderful God who has not left us without hope, but has given us all the hope we'll ever need in His amazing Son!
More tomorrow by His grace!
Amen.
Drawn away of his own lust.
His OWN lust.
We each individually have our own lusts, our own flesh desires.
Lust-G1939
Definition:
1. desire, craving, longing, desire for what is forbidden, lust
We are drawn away from God by these lusts, these desires, these cravings we have that are contrary to God's love.
There is not ONE single thing that is good for us that is denied to us.
Satan tempted Jesus to sin, remember that? Jesus was tempted. Some get all upset thinking that Jesus could ever be tempted. They like to imagine that He was above temptation, that the temptation hit an impossibly impenetrable wall a million miles thick, something forever and ever impossible to tempt. The truth is Jesus was TEMPTED- but His temptation - His LUST was NEVER conceived! He never ever fell to any temptation He felt and He did feel them, He became flesh in order to save us. Jesus became flesh so that He might feels as we feel in all ways, that He might face every temptation we face.
Heb 4:15 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
Jesus was TEMPTED- Jesus was draw away of His OWN lust and enticed. BUT the difference, the most crucial difference is HIS own lusts were NEVER CONCEIVED- NEVER INDULGED IN- Jesus NEVER fell victim to temptation but ENDURED, DEFEATED, OVERCAME every single wrongful desire He ever had.
It goes against so much of our thinking to imagine Jesus having any wrongful desires doesn't it? Yet, how could He be tempted in ALL points as we are if He had no real temptation to abstain from? If He were impervious to every wrongful desire, if He came to earth, born of a woman taking on human flesh and utilized a special shield that made it impossible to ever have a wrongful desire- how could He truly be touched with the feeling of our infirmities? How? Every single one of us relates to others and their life stories based on the experiences we've had in our own life, right? We might not go through the exact same things in life, but we will take the closest thing to that thing experienced by another and relate to it through that as best we can. We imagine how they might have felt based on things we have felt on perhaps a lesser degree, a lesser level of experience. If Jesus never felt tempted could He truly be touched with the feeling of our infirmities? Could He? Jesus knew what it meant to be human to feel the human pull towards flesh desires, for wrongful desires- and just FEELING the temptation, just being drawn away towards that wrongful lust was and is NOT sin, it's GIVING into that LUST in anyway- mentally or physically. Jesus did NOT give into any temptation He had but faced and overcame every single one by the WORD OF GOD!
Mat 4:4 But he answered and said, IT IS WRITTEN, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
Mat 4:7 Jesus said unto him, IT IS WRITTEN again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
Mat 4:10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for IT IS WRITTEN, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
Deu 8:3 And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.
WE LIVE BY EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDETH OUT OF THE MOUTH OF THE LORD!
Do you live by the words of God?
Do you face your temptations with the word of God?
Seriously! When you feel yourself being drawn away, do you LIVE by the word of God? Do you say… IT IS WRITTEN? Do those words even begin to enter your mind? Seriously, do they? Ask yourself…do they!? I know they really haven't entered by mind much and I'm ashamed to say that, I really am.
Jas 1:14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
Jas 1:15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
When lust is indulged - we sin- and when we sin we deserve death.
Heb 4:15 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
Heb 4:16 Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.
We need to boldly go to the throne of grace! We only obtain mercy when we go to the throne of grace and find the grace we need when we have fallen into sin, fallen into temptation.
All by the grace of our wonderful God who has not left us without hope, but has given us all the hope we'll ever need in His amazing Son!
More tomorrow by His grace!
Amen.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Endure temptation
Jas 1:12 Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.
Enduring temptation. Enduring trails.
Some might say that life itself is a trial and they wouldn't be far wrong would they, not considering all that people have to endure day by day. Is it any wonder that if we endure- if we hold fast through all of the temptations and trials we face that we will receive a crown of life?
When we love the Lord, when we put ourselves on the side of God we are placing ourselves on the front lines of a spiritual war. We are accepting the fact that every single trial that comes our way will be led by Satan and he wants our destruction. Remember when we talked about counting it joy when we face temptation?
Jas 1:2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations
We do that because we are trusting in our Savior to see us through every trial, every temptation and NOT relying upon ourselves. If we were to trust in ourselves we would fail miserably.
There is joy in belonging to God, a joy you can find no where else. Giving God our lives- every single problem, every trial, every temptation must be given to God and it is only then that we can begin to call temptations and trials - joy, it is only then we can endure temptations, truly endured them. We endure out of love for God. We live our lives, our lives that are filled with one trial after another, daily trails, daily temptations.
We can't forget this-
Mat 6:13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil
We should pray not to be lead into temptation, why? Because our natural inclination is to veer towards temptations, it is. The flesh desires things of the flesh and wars against the spiritual things of God. We are asking God to lead us not into temptation, to take away that natural inclination we possess towards temptations. Temptations come not from God, not ever from God but from Satan.
Jas 1:13 Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man
Trials will come, temptations will come and they must be endured, and we must get to the place where we can truly count them joy knowing they are all temporary to eternity.
More tomorrow by the grace of God!
Amen
Enduring temptation. Enduring trails.
Some might say that life itself is a trial and they wouldn't be far wrong would they, not considering all that people have to endure day by day. Is it any wonder that if we endure- if we hold fast through all of the temptations and trials we face that we will receive a crown of life?
When we love the Lord, when we put ourselves on the side of God we are placing ourselves on the front lines of a spiritual war. We are accepting the fact that every single trial that comes our way will be led by Satan and he wants our destruction. Remember when we talked about counting it joy when we face temptation?
Jas 1:2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations
We do that because we are trusting in our Savior to see us through every trial, every temptation and NOT relying upon ourselves. If we were to trust in ourselves we would fail miserably.
There is joy in belonging to God, a joy you can find no where else. Giving God our lives- every single problem, every trial, every temptation must be given to God and it is only then that we can begin to call temptations and trials - joy, it is only then we can endure temptations, truly endured them. We endure out of love for God. We live our lives, our lives that are filled with one trial after another, daily trails, daily temptations.
We can't forget this-
Mat 6:13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil
We should pray not to be lead into temptation, why? Because our natural inclination is to veer towards temptations, it is. The flesh desires things of the flesh and wars against the spiritual things of God. We are asking God to lead us not into temptation, to take away that natural inclination we possess towards temptations. Temptations come not from God, not ever from God but from Satan.
Jas 1:13 Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man
Trials will come, temptations will come and they must be endured, and we must get to the place where we can truly count them joy knowing they are all temporary to eternity.
More tomorrow by the grace of God!
Amen
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
May we be exalted by God alone
Jas 1:9 Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted:
Jas 1:10 But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.
Jas 1:11 For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.
Brother of low degree and the rich. It's safe to say these verses are talking about the poor and the rich. The poor rejoice because they are exalted.
Remember this verse-
Mat 23:12 And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.
Being of a low degree- not having a high exalted position- we can rejoice because of this when the world would rather that we spend our days lamenting the fact we weren't born with that silver spoon in our mouths. In truth there are many more people who are poor than those who are rich. And way too many poor despise being less affluent. There is entirely too much time spent seeking riches- too much time spent trying to acquire things of this world and not things of heaven. The brother of low degree can rejoice because he will not necessarily become rich, but rather be exalted in his low estate.
Exalted- raised, lifted up, elevated. How are the brothers of low degree, the poor, the humble exalted? This is a spiritual exaltation, isn't it? This is a spiritual richness that comes from God and not from any man. And it's not easy for a rich man to become humble enough, to become of low degree enough to see His need of God to exalt him. The rich are often too busy exalting themselves and letting others exalt them to see their need of God's exalting. Only when a rich man realizes that he, like every other human being, is in need-desperate need of God can he understand and be made low. Otherwise, the rich will die in their richness, never realizing their need of a Savior.
Spiritual exaltation. Exalted by God, exalted to understand the kingdom of God, to understand the gospel. The poor, those of low degree have very little to keep them from realizing their need. We are blessed as being poor, blessed.
We should not seek to exalt ourselves either. We could NEVER gain a single earthly treasure that has the power to elevate us heavenward, not one! If we do exalt ourselves we will be abased, we will be brought down low.
This is all about learning that there needs to be LESS of us and more of GOD. God alone deserves a high estate, God alone deserves to be exalted. We are His children, we are His servants, we are His -belonging to Him. He is our heavenly Parent, He is our heavenly Master.
So while the temptation may come to us to covet riches, let us realize how dangerous that is, how dangerous it is to be in a place where you no longer sense a need of God in all things great and small. Riches numb the senses, riches steal from us the sense of neediness. By the grace of God may we NEVER become so rich that we lose sight of our need of God in ALL things. May we forever be brought low so we may be exalt by GOD and only by God and never by us, never by ourselves.
Please Lord, please help us humble ourselves so we may be exalted by YOU. Let our riches be found in YOU and only in YOU. Please Lord God, please let us always understand our need of YOU. In Your amazing LOVE, always.
Amen.
Jas 1:10 But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.
Jas 1:11 For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.
Brother of low degree and the rich. It's safe to say these verses are talking about the poor and the rich. The poor rejoice because they are exalted.
Remember this verse-
Mat 23:12 And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.
Being of a low degree- not having a high exalted position- we can rejoice because of this when the world would rather that we spend our days lamenting the fact we weren't born with that silver spoon in our mouths. In truth there are many more people who are poor than those who are rich. And way too many poor despise being less affluent. There is entirely too much time spent seeking riches- too much time spent trying to acquire things of this world and not things of heaven. The brother of low degree can rejoice because he will not necessarily become rich, but rather be exalted in his low estate.
Exalted- raised, lifted up, elevated. How are the brothers of low degree, the poor, the humble exalted? This is a spiritual exaltation, isn't it? This is a spiritual richness that comes from God and not from any man. And it's not easy for a rich man to become humble enough, to become of low degree enough to see His need of God to exalt him. The rich are often too busy exalting themselves and letting others exalt them to see their need of God's exalting. Only when a rich man realizes that he, like every other human being, is in need-desperate need of God can he understand and be made low. Otherwise, the rich will die in their richness, never realizing their need of a Savior.
Spiritual exaltation. Exalted by God, exalted to understand the kingdom of God, to understand the gospel. The poor, those of low degree have very little to keep them from realizing their need. We are blessed as being poor, blessed.
We should not seek to exalt ourselves either. We could NEVER gain a single earthly treasure that has the power to elevate us heavenward, not one! If we do exalt ourselves we will be abased, we will be brought down low.
This is all about learning that there needs to be LESS of us and more of GOD. God alone deserves a high estate, God alone deserves to be exalted. We are His children, we are His servants, we are His -belonging to Him. He is our heavenly Parent, He is our heavenly Master.
So while the temptation may come to us to covet riches, let us realize how dangerous that is, how dangerous it is to be in a place where you no longer sense a need of God in all things great and small. Riches numb the senses, riches steal from us the sense of neediness. By the grace of God may we NEVER become so rich that we lose sight of our need of God in ALL things. May we forever be brought low so we may be exalt by GOD and only by God and never by us, never by ourselves.
Please Lord, please help us humble ourselves so we may be exalted by YOU. Let our riches be found in YOU and only in YOU. Please Lord God, please let us always understand our need of YOU. In Your amazing LOVE, always.
Amen.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
We need wisdom
Jas 1:5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
Jas 1:6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.
Jas 1:7 For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.
Jas 1:8 A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
We lack wisdom. There is no doubt about that. We need the wisdom that only God can give to us. So many of us are filled to the brim and overflowing with our own wisdom- our worldly wisdom. Way too many of us mistake our worldly wisdom for God's wisdom, believing that somehow our wisdom is enough. We need God's wisdom-only the wisdom that comes from God. And God will give us wisdom if we ask for it, in fact we will receive all the wisdom we need if we ask in faith, pure faith.
Pure faith- no wavering.
Did this man waver?
Mar 9:23 Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.
Mar 9:24 And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.
No.
This man did not waver in faith, in fact He went to the only source of faith and asked for faith help. We need to ask for faith help because we cannot believe that we possess a faith that won't waver- we cannot afford to have such arrogance. Our faith comes from God and we have to seek God in faith. Does it seem contradictory?
Rom 12:3 For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.
We all have the ability to have faith, every single human being is given this ability to believe.
Luk 17:5 And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith.
Luk 17:6 And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.
Faith isn't something that needs increase in size, but in quality.
The father who said right to our Savior- 'Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.' Had it right, didn't he? He had faith, but he wanted the quality of that faith to be all that Jesus required it be.
We have faith, we believe and we need the quality of our faith to increase. We can't let our faith waver. We can't hesitate in believing that God will answer our prayer for faith. We have to pray as that father prayed- 'Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief.'
Jas 1:6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.
Jas 1:7 For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.
Jas 1:8 A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
Double minded man.
A believer and unbeliever rolled into one.
So many of us live with this sort of mindset, don't we? We believe and yet we doubt, we waver. We hesitate, we are unstable. We don't want to be this way do we? We want help with our unbelief and we need to pray for that.
Jas 4:8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.
We need to purify our hearts.
We have a part to play and that part is to have faith- to believe when so much around us screams for us to not believe, to doubt, to waver, to lose sight of God.
We won't receive anything from God if we don't believe.
Heb 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
Lord we believe! Help our unbelief!
Lord keep us from wavering!
We would have any wisdom You can give to us, any understanding we need to be solely and wholly Yours, Lord!
Please Lord, please!
In Your love!
Amen.
Jas 1:6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.
Jas 1:7 For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.
Jas 1:8 A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
We lack wisdom. There is no doubt about that. We need the wisdom that only God can give to us. So many of us are filled to the brim and overflowing with our own wisdom- our worldly wisdom. Way too many of us mistake our worldly wisdom for God's wisdom, believing that somehow our wisdom is enough. We need God's wisdom-only the wisdom that comes from God. And God will give us wisdom if we ask for it, in fact we will receive all the wisdom we need if we ask in faith, pure faith.
Pure faith- no wavering.
Did this man waver?
Mar 9:23 Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.
Mar 9:24 And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.
No.
This man did not waver in faith, in fact He went to the only source of faith and asked for faith help. We need to ask for faith help because we cannot believe that we possess a faith that won't waver- we cannot afford to have such arrogance. Our faith comes from God and we have to seek God in faith. Does it seem contradictory?
Rom 12:3 For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.
We all have the ability to have faith, every single human being is given this ability to believe.
Luk 17:5 And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith.
Luk 17:6 And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.
Faith isn't something that needs increase in size, but in quality.
The father who said right to our Savior- 'Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.' Had it right, didn't he? He had faith, but he wanted the quality of that faith to be all that Jesus required it be.
We have faith, we believe and we need the quality of our faith to increase. We can't let our faith waver. We can't hesitate in believing that God will answer our prayer for faith. We have to pray as that father prayed- 'Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief.'
Jas 1:6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.
Jas 1:7 For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.
Jas 1:8 A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
Double minded man.
A believer and unbeliever rolled into one.
So many of us live with this sort of mindset, don't we? We believe and yet we doubt, we waver. We hesitate, we are unstable. We don't want to be this way do we? We want help with our unbelief and we need to pray for that.
Jas 4:8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.
We need to purify our hearts.
We have a part to play and that part is to have faith- to believe when so much around us screams for us to not believe, to doubt, to waver, to lose sight of God.
We won't receive anything from God if we don't believe.
Heb 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
Lord we believe! Help our unbelief!
Lord keep us from wavering!
We would have any wisdom You can give to us, any understanding we need to be solely and wholly Yours, Lord!
Please Lord, please!
In Your love!
Amen.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Wanting nothing
Jas 1:2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations
Jas 1:3 Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
Jas 1:4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
We are to count it joy when we face different temptations- trials of our faith. The trials of our faith work patience.
IF we are counting it joy we are doing so because we know that any trial we are facing is given to us to grow in faith. These are TRIALS of our FAITH.
Are we able to count it joy when we face hardships of all kinds? It's something that is so difficult that when achieved then you have perfect patience- and you will want nothing. How does this seem possible? Seriously, how?
Only through our Savior. Only through such a complete faith in our Savior that we are lost to self and found solely in Him. Our lives are so wrapped up in being His that we have lost all sense of selfishness, self being first and foremost. Just imagine that sort of life, living solely for Christ and trusting solely in Christ for all things. How amazing that would be.
Today I received some bad news and as the situation unfolded I felt the old irritation start to rise up in me and I was immediately reminded of yesterday's study and I paused for a moment thinking about it… thinking about 'counting it joy' as I faced this trying situation. I wanted to be upset because it's what I consider a normal reaction in this sort of occurrence and yet I knew that I need to realize that my faith was being tried, that I was being tried in fire and I could succumb to the upset or pray and place my hope in God to see me through everything. I have no idea how the situation will be resolved, and the consequences of it not being resolved are not good ones at all, but NOTHING I can do will alter a thing, nothing. I have no control over anything at all in this particular case and so getting upset will do NOTHING, however, having faith in God will do everything. Having faith- believing truly that God will take care of things even when all outward appearances shout otherwise.
Is it any wonder that if PATIENCE is allowed to have its perfect work through the trying of our faith that we will want in nothing? How can we be in want when we are placing all our hope, all our faith in our Savior?
This is so amazing that it's not easy to comprehend at all.
A full trust in God through ALL things no matter what they may be.
A JOY in the face of heart ache, pain, agony, fear, sadness.
It seems unbelievable yet this is truth, truth we need to learn and live by.
Jas 1:2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations
Jas 1:3 Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
Jas 1:4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
This is a progressive work, very progressive work and that means it will happen over time, a learned process. We fall in diver(s) temptation(s)- plural and this isn't all at once. We fall over and over again every day we live may present a trail, or several in one day there is no telling, none. The trying of our faith- and our faith will be tried over and over- this will work patience in us if we are seriously seeking to deal with our temptations and trials in the love of our Savior. We need to LET patience have her PERFECT work and it is a work and we will be perfected and ENTIRE, wanting nothing.
We'll want nothing because we will possess all that truly matters.
The pure love of our Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ!
In His love and grace, His mercy, His righteousness, may His kingdom come!
Amen.
Jas 1:3 Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
Jas 1:4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
We are to count it joy when we face different temptations- trials of our faith. The trials of our faith work patience.
IF we are counting it joy we are doing so because we know that any trial we are facing is given to us to grow in faith. These are TRIALS of our FAITH.
Are we able to count it joy when we face hardships of all kinds? It's something that is so difficult that when achieved then you have perfect patience- and you will want nothing. How does this seem possible? Seriously, how?
Only through our Savior. Only through such a complete faith in our Savior that we are lost to self and found solely in Him. Our lives are so wrapped up in being His that we have lost all sense of selfishness, self being first and foremost. Just imagine that sort of life, living solely for Christ and trusting solely in Christ for all things. How amazing that would be.
Today I received some bad news and as the situation unfolded I felt the old irritation start to rise up in me and I was immediately reminded of yesterday's study and I paused for a moment thinking about it… thinking about 'counting it joy' as I faced this trying situation. I wanted to be upset because it's what I consider a normal reaction in this sort of occurrence and yet I knew that I need to realize that my faith was being tried, that I was being tried in fire and I could succumb to the upset or pray and place my hope in God to see me through everything. I have no idea how the situation will be resolved, and the consequences of it not being resolved are not good ones at all, but NOTHING I can do will alter a thing, nothing. I have no control over anything at all in this particular case and so getting upset will do NOTHING, however, having faith in God will do everything. Having faith- believing truly that God will take care of things even when all outward appearances shout otherwise.
Is it any wonder that if PATIENCE is allowed to have its perfect work through the trying of our faith that we will want in nothing? How can we be in want when we are placing all our hope, all our faith in our Savior?
This is so amazing that it's not easy to comprehend at all.
A full trust in God through ALL things no matter what they may be.
A JOY in the face of heart ache, pain, agony, fear, sadness.
It seems unbelievable yet this is truth, truth we need to learn and live by.
Jas 1:2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations
Jas 1:3 Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
Jas 1:4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
This is a progressive work, very progressive work and that means it will happen over time, a learned process. We fall in diver(s) temptation(s)- plural and this isn't all at once. We fall over and over again every day we live may present a trail, or several in one day there is no telling, none. The trying of our faith- and our faith will be tried over and over- this will work patience in us if we are seriously seeking to deal with our temptations and trials in the love of our Savior. We need to LET patience have her PERFECT work and it is a work and we will be perfected and ENTIRE, wanting nothing.
We'll want nothing because we will possess all that truly matters.
The pure love of our Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ!
In His love and grace, His mercy, His righteousness, may His kingdom come!
Amen.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Joy from pain
Jas 1:1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.
Jas 1:2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations
Joy.
Counting it joy when we fall into different temptations is not easy.
What is the purpose of being tested? When a person is tested they are given a chance to reveal their knowledge. The harder the test the more knowledge you are expected to have, yes? Is this at all appropriate to this verse? Well if we think about it we are being perfected aren't we? The trials and temptations we face are given to us so that our faith is tested. It's not that we will succeed through every trail we face but we MUST learn from the trials we are given so that if we face a similar trial we will not be overcome by it. We are gaining faith, we are gaining understanding, we are gaining knowledge through every single trial we face. When we fall in to different temptations our faith is being tried, we are face to face with difficulties and we are being tried in fire as gold is tried in fire to perfect it.
We cannot hope to escape trials and tribulations. Trial and temptations of ALL different sorts will come to us, this we have to expect and not just occasionally but often. In fact a lot of times we are barely through one temptation when another will rear up and we are brought face to face with something equally or worse than before. We are being worked! We are being molded! We are being fashioned and we are told as we come to these temptations we are to COUNT IT ALL JOY.
Count it joy. Not count it acceptable. Not count it okay. Not count it painful, depressing, sad, anger-filled, anxiety ridden. We are so used to falling victim to wallowing in the disappointment and pain of the horrible trials we face that we can't imagine truly counting our troubles joy.
There is a huge lesson here that we need to study so that we can count our difficulties joy and not pain.
I'm so tempted to say it's impossible, but it's not. I'm so tempted to say that it's ludicrous to believe that something painful and trying should be counted joy. My Bible tells me that it's not impossible. My Bible tells me that it is not ludicrous. I have to believe, I have to have faith in the word of God. I have to learn from the word of God.
We generally can't plan for temptations, for situations, for trials that come our way. We don't want to plan for the, do we? Who wants to anticipate sickness, pain, despair? How can we plan for the unknown? A lot of people plan for "rainy days', they make financial decisions that will provide for those under their care should something happen. People make contingency plans for situations should things go wrong. They get insurance on cars, houses, valuables just on the off hand chance something will happen, something bad.
So, if we are so incredibly focused on planning for bad situations, why can't we take the time to plan for trials and temptations that we know we are prone to facing? We can't ignore the fact that often Satan goes after us in our known weaknesses. We aren't shocked as a general rule, when a trail comes at us over something we have difficulty with. We might be fed up with ourselves for falling victim time and time again, but we aren't shocked. We aren't however calling it joy when we face these known temptations, are we? We lean towards despair not happiness.
We know that there will be plenty awful situations that come at us completely unexpectedly and throw us for a loop- plenty of them. We know that the shock of those sorts of situations will rip joy from us in a heartbeat, even though we are still to count them joy. We need to fill our minds with the knowledge that it is what God's wants from us- to call it joy when we face trials and temptations. We have to - all by the grace of God- understand that the next time a temptation comes at us we should TRY to count it joy! Seriously, we have to do this, we are told to do this and we need to begin to do this if we haven't done it yet.
Joy.
Out of that joy we should give thanks and praise to God for what we are going through. We need to be aware of the joy. It's so contradictory to us isn't it? Just the mere thought of facing a trial and being joyful sounds very, very odd.
Why do you suppose we are to be joyful in facing different temptations? What does the joy mean? It's not to make us appear insane to others is it? No. The joy is what then?
The joy comes from realizing we ARE being tried, we are being PERFECTED by God! We are HIS! We are under HIS love, His law, His grace, His mercy! This brings us the joy. We don't find the joy in ourselves but IN HIM, wholly in HIM. He is WORKING IN US! This knowledge needs to bring us joy! We aren't to be happy that we are so far from perfection, we are to be happy in knowing we are being perfected. Only that knowledge will bring us true joy.
More on this tomorrow by the grace of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!
Amen.
Jas 1:2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations
Joy.
Counting it joy when we fall into different temptations is not easy.
What is the purpose of being tested? When a person is tested they are given a chance to reveal their knowledge. The harder the test the more knowledge you are expected to have, yes? Is this at all appropriate to this verse? Well if we think about it we are being perfected aren't we? The trials and temptations we face are given to us so that our faith is tested. It's not that we will succeed through every trail we face but we MUST learn from the trials we are given so that if we face a similar trial we will not be overcome by it. We are gaining faith, we are gaining understanding, we are gaining knowledge through every single trial we face. When we fall in to different temptations our faith is being tried, we are face to face with difficulties and we are being tried in fire as gold is tried in fire to perfect it.
We cannot hope to escape trials and tribulations. Trial and temptations of ALL different sorts will come to us, this we have to expect and not just occasionally but often. In fact a lot of times we are barely through one temptation when another will rear up and we are brought face to face with something equally or worse than before. We are being worked! We are being molded! We are being fashioned and we are told as we come to these temptations we are to COUNT IT ALL JOY.
Count it joy. Not count it acceptable. Not count it okay. Not count it painful, depressing, sad, anger-filled, anxiety ridden. We are so used to falling victim to wallowing in the disappointment and pain of the horrible trials we face that we can't imagine truly counting our troubles joy.
There is a huge lesson here that we need to study so that we can count our difficulties joy and not pain.
I'm so tempted to say it's impossible, but it's not. I'm so tempted to say that it's ludicrous to believe that something painful and trying should be counted joy. My Bible tells me that it's not impossible. My Bible tells me that it is not ludicrous. I have to believe, I have to have faith in the word of God. I have to learn from the word of God.
We generally can't plan for temptations, for situations, for trials that come our way. We don't want to plan for the, do we? Who wants to anticipate sickness, pain, despair? How can we plan for the unknown? A lot of people plan for "rainy days', they make financial decisions that will provide for those under their care should something happen. People make contingency plans for situations should things go wrong. They get insurance on cars, houses, valuables just on the off hand chance something will happen, something bad.
So, if we are so incredibly focused on planning for bad situations, why can't we take the time to plan for trials and temptations that we know we are prone to facing? We can't ignore the fact that often Satan goes after us in our known weaknesses. We aren't shocked as a general rule, when a trail comes at us over something we have difficulty with. We might be fed up with ourselves for falling victim time and time again, but we aren't shocked. We aren't however calling it joy when we face these known temptations, are we? We lean towards despair not happiness.
We know that there will be plenty awful situations that come at us completely unexpectedly and throw us for a loop- plenty of them. We know that the shock of those sorts of situations will rip joy from us in a heartbeat, even though we are still to count them joy. We need to fill our minds with the knowledge that it is what God's wants from us- to call it joy when we face trials and temptations. We have to - all by the grace of God- understand that the next time a temptation comes at us we should TRY to count it joy! Seriously, we have to do this, we are told to do this and we need to begin to do this if we haven't done it yet.
Joy.
Out of that joy we should give thanks and praise to God for what we are going through. We need to be aware of the joy. It's so contradictory to us isn't it? Just the mere thought of facing a trial and being joyful sounds very, very odd.
Why do you suppose we are to be joyful in facing different temptations? What does the joy mean? It's not to make us appear insane to others is it? No. The joy is what then?
The joy comes from realizing we ARE being tried, we are being PERFECTED by God! We are HIS! We are under HIS love, His law, His grace, His mercy! This brings us the joy. We don't find the joy in ourselves but IN HIM, wholly in HIM. He is WORKING IN US! This knowledge needs to bring us joy! We aren't to be happy that we are so far from perfection, we are to be happy in knowing we are being perfected. Only that knowledge will bring us true joy.
More on this tomorrow by the grace of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!
Amen.
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