Friday, March 25, 2016

We are not better because we believe, we are humbly blessed.

Mankind loves darkness.
LOVES DARKNESS.
Why? Because their deeds are evil.

Seriously, how often do people say they don't want to hear any Bible mumbo jumbo? How often do people turn their noses up at God in favor of their own personal pursuits? The answer to both questions is- a lot.

To accuse people of committing evil deeds because they refuse the light of life in Christ, is to put a lot of people in an uproar. They are very quick to explain that they are good people, doing good things, kind to the poor, helpful to the brokenhearted, generally they are good honest people not lovers of evil deeds. Just because they don't believe in God, or Jesus Christ for their Savior doesn't make them evil deed committing human beings. Right?  Wrong.

Refusing to acknowledge they have a Creator, refusing to acknowledge they have a Redeemer from evil, is in truth an act of evil.  What is evil?

Let's read from another source- but make sure you check Bible verses for yourself-


EVIL
ev'-'-l, e'-vil ra`; poneros, @kakos, @kakon:

In the Bible it is represented as moral and physical. We choose to discuss the subject under these heads. Many of the evils that come upon men have not been intended by those who suffer for them. Disease, individual and national calamity, drought, scarcity of food, may not always be charged to the account of intentional wrong. Many times the innocent suffer with, and even for, the guilty. In such cases, only physical evil is apparent. Even when the suffering has been occasioned by sin or dereliction of duty, whether the wrong is active or passive, many, perhaps the majority of those who are injured, are not accountable in any way for the ills which come upon them. Neither is God the author of moral evil. "God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempteth no man" (James 1:13).
See TEMPTATION.

1. Moral Evil:
By this term we refer to wrongs done to our fellowman, where the actor is responsible for the action. The immorality may be present when the action is not possible. "But if that evil servant shall say in his heart" (Matthew 24:48,49), whether he shall smite his fellow-servants or not, the moral evil is present. See SIN. "All these evil things proceed from within, and defile the man" (Mark 7:21-23). The last six commandments of the Decalogue apply here (Exodus 20:12-17). To dishonor one's parents, to kill, to commit adultery, to steal, to bear false witness and to covet are moral evils. The spiritual import of these commandments will be found in Matthew 5:21,22,27,28. "But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness" (Matthew 6:23). Words and deeds are coined in the heart before the world sees or hears them (Matthew 12:34,35). The word ought or its equal may be found in all languages; hence, it is in the mind of all people as well as in our laws that for the deeds and words we do and speak, we are responsible. "Break off thy sins by righteousness" (Daniel 4:27) shows that, in God's thought, it was man's duty, and therefore within his power, to keep the commandment. "Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well" (Isaiah 1:16). We cannot think of God commanding men to do what He knew they had no ability to do! God has a standing offer of pardon to all men who turn from their evil ways and do that which is right (Ezekiel 33:11-14). Evil begins in the least objectionable things. In Romans 1:18-23, we have Paul's view of the falling away of the Gentiles. "Knowing God" (verse 21), they were "without excuse" (verse 20), but "glorified him not as God, neither gave thanks; but became vain in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened" (verse 21). "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools" (verse 22). This led the way into idolatry, and that was followed by all the corruption and wrongdoing to be instigated by a heart turned away from all purity, and practiced in all the iniquity to be suggested by lust without control. Paul gives fifteen steps in the ladder on which men descend into darkness and ruin (Galatians 5:19-21). When men become evil in themselves, they necessarily become evil in thought and deed toward others. This they bring upon themselves, or give way to, till God shall give "them up unto a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting" (Romans 1:28). Those thus fallen into habits of error, we should in meekness correct, that "they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him unto his will" (2 Timothy 2:25,26).
2. Physical Evil:
Usually, in the Old Testament the Hebrew word ra` is employed to denote that which is bad. Many times the bad is physical; it may have been occasioned by the sins for which the people of the nation were responsible, or it may have come, not as a retribution, but from accident or mismanagement or causes unknown. Very many times the evil is a corrective, to cause men to forsake the wrong and accept the right. The flood was sent upon the earth because "all flesh had corrupted their way" (Genesis 6:12). This evil was to serve as a warning to those who were to live after. The ground had already been cursed for the good of Cain (Genesis 4:12). Two purposes seemed to direct the treatment:
(1) to leave in the minds of Cain and his descendants the knowledge that sin brings punishment, and (2) to increase the toil that would make them a better people. God overthrew Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim, cities of the plain, making them "an example unto those that should live ungodly" (2 Peter 2:6). In the Book of Isa the prophet, we find a number of "burdens": the burden of Babylon (Isaiah 13:1-22); the burden of Moab (Isaiah 15:1-9); the burden of Damascus (Isaiah 17:1-14); the burden of Egypt (Isaiah 19:1-17); the burden of the Wilderness of the Sea (Isaiah 21:1-10); the burden of Dumah (Isaiah 21:11,12); the burden upon Arabia (Isaiah 21:13-17); the burden of the Valley of Vision (Isaiah 22:1-25); the burden of Tyre (Isaiah 23:1-18); the burden of the Beasts of the South (Isaiah 30:6-14); the burden of the Weary Beast (Isaiah 46:1,2). These may serve as an introduction to the story of wrongdoing and physical suffering threatened and executed. Isa contains many denunciations against Israel: against the Ten Tribes for following the sin introduced by Jeroboam the son of Nebat; and the threatening against Judah and Benjamin for not heeding the warnings. Jeremiah saw the woes that were sure to come upon Judah; for declaring them, he was shut up in prison, and yet they came, and the people were carried away into Babylon. These were the evils or afflictions brought upon the nations for their persistence in sin. "I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I am Yahweh, that doeth all these things" (Isaiah 45:7). These chastisements seemed grievous, and yet they yielded peaceable fruit unto them that were exercised thereby (Hebrews 12:11).
David Roberts Dungan

The bottom line- evil is many things, deeds of evil are equally of many variations. Keeping ourselves separated from God is evil.

Our Creator created us to be a part of Him.  When we willingly choose to be apart from Him we are choosing darkness. Why would we willingly choose to keep ourselves apart from God? Because we have the belief in us that we don't need God, that we are self-sufficient.

Joh 3:16  For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Joh 3:17  For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
Joh 3:18  He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
Joh 3:19  And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

If we refuse light on any grounds, we are choosing condemnation.

Many willingly choose condemnation boasting to themselves proudly they've no need of God. They pride themselves on being above the God professing believers, and their ways better being all inclusive in ways God is not. They embrace all evil, rather than desiring people being saved from evil. They call evil good and have convinced many that it is so. Rather than shunning anything in our nature they tell us to embrace ourselves and our nature so we do not have to feel the weight of guilt for being born with evil tendencies, with the easy temptation to evil in our very core. Rather than recognizing how extreme our separation from God has become, we are encouraged to shun God, or to believe that God would never shun our evil selves, that He accepts our evil without constraint.

Yes, mankind loves its darkness, and therefore they reject the light.

Are those who believe in the light superior to those who don't? No, not in a single way. There is no superiority in us, not a bit. We are not better than those who love darkness. We are blessed beyond measure, not better. There is NOTHING in us that deserves better than any other. Nothing. I am not better because I believe. I am humbled, grateful eternally, and saddened by those who choose darkness over light.

Please, Father God, please, we would choose the Light of Life- Jesus Christ our Lord, our Savior. Please shine upon all the darkness in our lives and helps us to repent and seek Your forgiveness. Please save us from ourselves, please. Let YOUR light shine in us in all ways, in any way so that others will want to know YOU, the true God, the true Savior, the true Spirit of God.

Please.

In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, now and forever!!!!!!!

Amen.

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