Speak NOT Evil

Jas 4:11  Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge.
Jas 4:12  There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?

Speaking evil…

How do we speak evil of others?  Evil is telling lies about another, right? Evil is speaking bad in any way about another, yes? Evil is daring to judge the eternal life of another.  We all talk about each other- that is human nature. Talking about another person in a good way is never deemed bad, is it? Is there any harm in talking good about another?  I can't think of any, unless it is received in a bad way, or the talk is meant to puff up the ego of another. If there is any deceptive element in the good things then it turns it into evil.  

We know how much it hurts another to be spoken of badly. Even if you've never been the victim of someone speaking of you badly, you've most likely witnessed the scenario on a television show or movie. Over hearing someone speaking badly about you cuts to the core, why? Because most of don't want to be spoken badly about. We want people to think good of us, not evil.   We don't want to be hurt in anyway.

When we speak evil of another person we are judging them, even if we say we aren't.  We are making statements that portray another person in either a good light, or a bad light. We do NOT know the heart of anyone, we can't know the heart of another.

While we might speak evil of someone who has committed awful acts and justify it by the fact they've done evil, we cannot know the heart of even the most evil of people. People we might want destroyed for their atrocities, even those people we still do not know their hearts and can't presume we do.

Can we speak of the evil done by people? We have to judge the acts of people in order to discern right from wrong, but we do NOT have to judge a person's eternal life.

We are NOT to speak evil one of another.
When we speak evil of another we are JUDGING them.
When we judge someone we are basing it upon the law of God.
When we judge someone's eternal life we are judging the law, because we are only judged by the law there is no other way to judge. If we JUDGE the law we are calling ourselves a judge rather than one subject to the law.
There is ONLY ONE LAWGIVER.
There is ONLY ONE ABLE TO SAVE.
There is ONLY ONE ABLE TO ALLOW DESTRUCTION.

Are we that ONE? NO!

If we presume to be the lawgiver or the Savior we are lost!

Do you see the danger in judging?
Then you must see the danger in speaking evil of another person.

We don't want to see that danger though. We'd rather keep that danger cloaked in our self-righteous, justification because we enjoy speaking evil of others, we call it harmless. We think we are somehow doing something good when we speak evil of others, and we don't even call it speaking evil- if we did- maybe we wouldn't do it. We call it 'just talking', 'just saying', 'just pointing it out', 'just passing time', 'just harmless discussing', 'just hurting no one, it's the truth'. 

We presume to KNOW the truth. We presume to know the HEART of another when we speak about them, believing we know the truth. We don't know the truth of another's heart. We haven't a clue about where they've come from t make them what they are, just as they have no clue about where we have come from and what makes us who we are.

We can pretty up the evil speaking all we want, but in the end, it is wrong and we will be judged ourselves by the way we are judging others.

Please LORD, please help us to recognize our evil speaking. Please don't let Satan color it pretty and wrap it in a bow so that we think we are doing good and not evil. PLEASE help us, let the Holy Spirit convict our hearts so that we recognize the wrong and seek to repent and ask for forgiveness for that sin.

Please LORD, bless us! HELP US! Without You we are NOTHING.

In YOUR LOVE ALWAYS!

Humble Yourself

Jas 4:10  Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.

humble
  
1.
not proud or arrogant; modest: to be humble although successful.
2.
having a feeling of insignificance, inferiority, subservience, etc.: In the presence of so many world-famous writers I felt very humble.
3.
low in rank, importance, status, quality, etc.; lowly: of humble origin; a humble home.
4.
courteously respectful: In my humble opinion you are wrong.
5.
low in height, level, etc.; small in size: a humble member of the galaxy.

How often do you humble yourself before the Lord?

We need to be humble before God and way too often we lift ourselves up as if we have worth of our own. 

We grow up being told here and there that we have to have high self esteem, to have low self esteem is a bad thing because then we don't think we are of any worth and other people will walk all over us. We'll let ourselves be used and abused if we have low self esteem, or so it's said. Over and over we are told to find worth in ourselves, that we have to believe in ourselves. Yet to find worth in ourselves outside of our Savior is truly worthless, it means nothing whatsoever. To be cocky and self assured is so incredibly dangerous. There will be so many people who are lost because they do not feel their need of a Savior. They'll believe their own self-worth is more than enough to guarantee them salvation.  They won't feel their worthlessness in the sight of God and because of that they won't feel the need to humble themselves.

I'm NOT saying we have to be wimpy, cry babies, who never speak up. What I'm saying is we have to find our worth IN CHRIST! He is our RIGHTEOUSNESS! He is our WORTH. Without Christ we are NOT WORTHY and will NEVER be worthy. When we believe that we are worthy outside of Christ we are raising ourselves up when we have no right to.

Humble ourselves. Humble- NOT PROUD in ourselves. INSIGNIFICANT, INFERIOR to God ALWAYS! Subservient to GOD.

How dare anyone believe they are more significant than their CREATOR!
How dare anyone believe they are better than their REDEEMER!

Yet people do and they do it ALL the time.

We are NOTHING in and of ourselves. Of ourselves we will ultimately no longer exist. We did NOT bring ourselves into existence. Not a single one of us will ourselves to be, not the first human and not the last. We are by design, willed by God to exist.

Recently I saw a movie that had men seeking to find their creator believing this creator was an alien being. They ended up finding him and the alien being wasn't happy to see them at all, in fact he began to kill them. Men fabricate so much in trying to explain their existence. Some believe we came from ooze billions and trillions of years ago, that we descended from apes. Stories, so many stories. And these people call our God just a story as well.

Our God has proven Himself over and over and over again in so many ways. History attests to our God. Our God has given signs and many, many wonders time and again. Yet people want God to give them more and more rather than have faith, rather than believe. People want to blame God by saying He never revealed Himself to them. People want to believe that God has somehow ripped them off, fooled them, that if only HE did more then they would believe.

God is NOT to blame!

God has given ALL he needs to give.

We must humble ourselves before God.
We must humble ourselves in the sight of our God.

Only God will lift us up in the way that matters more than any lifting up upon earth matters. 

We can be lifted extremely high in the sight of men and it means absolutely nothing.  We can be lifted up as high as we want to believe we are lifted up, but it will mean nothing. If we are not lifted up by God then any lifting up is in all reality just a lie.

We don't need to feel GOOD about ourselves, we need to feel GOOD about our GOD!

Please LORD help to learn to humble ourselves in this crazy world where we are taught and teach our children that to be humble is an undesirable thing. Help us LORD to find worth ONLY IN YOU! You will give us any WORTH we need when we are YOURS.  You will give us YOUR WORTH and there is NO GREATER WORTH IN EXISTENCE!

All in YOU and all by YOUR LOVE, YOUR GRACE! YOUR MERCY!

Be Afflicted

Jas 4:9  Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.

Afflicted- humbled, weakened, depressed, downcast, low, oppressed.

Afflicted- to be wretched that is realize one´s own misery.

Why do you suppose we are told to - 'be afflicted' ? 

To be humbled, weak, depressed, downcast, low, oppressed, understanding our own misery? 

Not only to be afflicted but to mourn and weep, to let our laughter turn to mourning, and our joy to heaviness?

So many want to believe we are only ever to be happy and I'm not saying we shouldn't, but we HAVE to comprehend our own worthlessness, don't we? We are in fact totally worthless in and of ourselves. We have NO righteousness of our own, none. We make the mistake of thinking that we have righteousness. We do. We like to think we have goodness all of our own. We don't want to realize that we owe EVERYTHING first to OUR CREATOR who gave us life, and secondly to our REDEEMER. 

Our Redeemer.

To be in need of a Redeemer means only one thing, doesn't it?

To be in need of a Savior means only one thing, right?

re·deem  (r-dm)
tr.v. re·deemed, re·deem·ing, re·deems
1. To recover ownership of by paying a specified sum.

To RECOVER ownership-  the unredeemed have lost their owner.

2. To pay off (a promissory note, for example).

To PAY off a debt.  The unredeemed have a DEBT.

3. To turn in (coupons, for example) and receive something in exchange.

The unredeemed do NOT receive anything.

4. To fulfill (a pledge, for example).

The unredeemed are NOT fulfilled.

5. To convert into cash: redeem stocks.

There is NO conversion for the unredeemed.

6. To set free; rescue or ransom.

The unredeemed are NOT set free, they are NOT rescued, they are NOT ransomed.

7. To save from a state of sinfulness and its consequences.

The unredeemed are NOT saved.

8. To make up for: The low price of the clothes dryer redeems its lack of special features.

The unredeemed are NOT made up for.

9. To restore the honor, worth, or reputation of: You botched the last job but can redeem yourself on this one.

The unredeemed will NOT have their honor, worth, or reputation restored.

To be in need of redemption means you are UNREDEEMED.
To need a Savior means you are UNSAVED.

We HAVE to realize our true STATE.  Without that realization we are just playing games, that's all and nothing more. Without the honest realization of our state completely stripped of a Savior, a Redeemer, then we cannot fully comprehend our need of being saved, of being redeemed. We tend to believe we are good enough. We have good in us that warrants that redemption. We were brought to life and that entitles us to saving, but it doesn't. Just because we exist does not mean we deserve to exist for eternity, yet so many believe they are guaranteed eternal life just because they are alive.

We have to truly realize our unworthy state because if we don't we don't truly realize our need to be saved.

When we are afflicting our souls we are afflicting them because we understand our HELPLESSNESS.

The Day of Atonement for those living prior to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was a very SOLOMN occasion.

Read this--all of it and then read it again--

Lev 23:23  And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
Lev 23:24  Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation.
Lev 23:25  Ye shall do no servile work therein: but ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD.
Lev 23:26  And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
Lev 23:27  Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a  DAY of ATONEMENT: it shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall AFFLICT your souls, and offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD.
Lev 23:28  And ye shall do no work in that same day: for it is a day of atonement, to make an atonement for you before the LORD your God.
Lev 23:29  For whatsoever soul it be that shall not be AFFLICTED in that same day, he shall be cut off from among his people.
Lev 23:30  And whatsoever soul it be that doeth any work in that same day, the same soul will I destroy from among his people.

Those who did NOT afflict their souls would be CUT off from their people, they did NOT receive the atonement. Those who did ANY work in that day were DESTROYED.

Why?! This sounds so harsh and yet the lesson to be learned is so incredibly important that it could be no other way, no other way at all.

Why?

Because those who do NOT understand their TRUE NEED of saving, will NOT be saved! Those who believe they have work of their own they can do to earn salvation, that some goodness in them will get them eternity WILL BE DESTROYED! This is the lesson we need to learn!

Yes, we need to be AFFLICTED.
We need to MOURN.
We need to WEEP.
Our laughter needs to turn to MOURNING.
Our joy needs to turn to HEAVINESS.

Jas 4:9  Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.

We need this because we need to comprehend our NEED. We truly are helpless. Is it any wonder we need to be as little children totally dependent upon our HEAVENLY FATHER?

Please LORD, help us to comprehend! Please LORD give us understanding! Help us LORD, please HUMBLE US! Teach us to afflict our souls, to mourn, to weep in realization of our desperate and COMPLETE need of YOU!

All in YOU LORD! ALL IN YOU! ALL YOUR LOVE!

Are You Double Minded?

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.

Double minded.

Clarke's Bible Commentary states:

'A double-minded man - ???? d??????? The man of two souls, who has one for earth, and another for heaven; who wishes to secure both worlds; he will not give up earth, and he is loth to let heaven go. This was a usual term among the Jews, to express the man who attempted to worship God, and yet retained the love of the creature.

Rabbi Tanchum, fol. 84, on Deu_26:17, said: “Behold, the Scripture exhorts the Israelites, and tells them when they pray, ?? ???? ??? ??? ?????  lo yiyeh lahem shetey lebaboth, that they should NOT have two hearts, one for the holy blessed God, and one for something else.” A man of this character is continually distracted; he will neither let earth nor heaven go, and yet he can have but one. Perhaps St. James refers to those Jews who were endeavoring to incorporate the law with the Gospel, who were divided in their minds and affections, not willing to give up the Levitical rites, and yet unwilling to renounce the Gospel. Such persons could make no progress in Divine things.'

Mat_6:24  No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

Double minded.

How many people are caught between both worlds? Satan would have us ALL be caught there.

Luk 18:18  And a certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
Luk 18:19  And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, that is, God.
Luk 18:20  Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother.
Luk 18:21  And he said, All these have I kept from my youth up.
Luk 18:22  Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.
Luk 18:23  And when he heard this, he was very sorrowful: for he was very rich.

Do you suppose that the LACK in the ruler who would inherit eternal life was one of double mindedness?  His riches- which are of the world, and his desire for heaven- which is of God.  He was lacking ONE thing- HE was double minded because his riches distracted him from GOD!

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 are to desire the cleansing only Jesus can give us, in submitting to God we can be cleansed. We are to desire to have a purified heart, a heart that is NOT corrupted by the worldly things in our lives keeping us torn between both worlds. Full devotion to God, all through the blessings Christ makes possible.

We despair that we will ever be fully devoted, don't we? Why? Because we LIVE in the world and as such we take part of worldly things.  We have our jobs, our families, our friends, society that all need our attention. We can't hole up in a monastery,  we are called to be lights on a hill, not hid in some place where no one can see the light of God living in us.

We have to have God in ALL we do.

In our job, our families, among our friends we have to be witnesses and the ONLY way we can be witnesses is if we are God's.  

Double minded.

Clarke's commentary stated that a man who has a double mind is continually distracted. Are we distracted from the things of God? Do we find it hard to put God into all we are doing?  God must be with us in all we do. As we work, God must be with us. As we play, God must be with us. As we take part in our family activities, our family lives we have to have God with us.

We must choose God over all things and not hold fast to the world. We can't let the things of this world come before things of God, if we do then we are not wholly God's.

God first- in all things.

We must live our day to day lives, but we have to consecrate ourselves to God daily and truly lay ALL our plans at God's feet allowing for His will to be done in us. Allowing ourselves to be used by Him for all that He wills for us. We can make plans, but our plans must be subject to God's will. If God wills for our plans to change then we must follow whatever changes He wants for us.  If we are double minded then we will consider things of the world that we shouldn't consider because GOD should be FIRST!

Please LORD, Satan would have us double minded. Satan would have us keep our hope in this world and he'll do all he can to that end. Please LORD, SAVE US, PURIFY US, CLEANSE US! We don't want to be among the double minded! HELP US LORD, HELP US!

All in YOU!

Draw Nigh to God

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.

Draw nigh to God.

Heb 7:19  For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by the which we draw nigh unto God.

How do we draw near to God?  ONLY through JESUS CHRIST.

Heb 10:22  Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.

Only our Savior can save us, cleanse us.

In the old testament times right up to the time before Jesus' death, the way to draw near to God was through sacrifice, and through the yearly cleansing. People would bring sacrificial offerings to God's temple and have God's priests minister there as they offered their sin offerings. People KNEW there had to be a shedding of blood, or else there would be NO remission from their sins.

Heb_9:22  And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.

Once our Savior took on the role of our Sacrifice it was through HIM, through HIS BLOOD that we are saved, that we are cleansed.

So here in this verse James 4:8 we are told to… CLEANSE our hands and PURIFY our hearts.

Before we can present ourselves to God we must feel the weight of our filthiness, of our impurities.

So many people feel the horrible weight of sin and wish for that weight to be lifted off them, because to have it lifted off means that we've been forgiven and that sin is no longer upon us, right? Yet for how long after you are forgiven and all the weight is removed from your spiritual shoulders do you remain cleansed and pure? A second?  A minute? An hour? A whole day? More? Until the next sin, which could truly take place the second after you've been forgiven, couldn't it? It only takes a moment for an impure thought to stain ourselves once again.

People love the idea of once forgiven always forgiven because they feel they now have a free pass to forgiveness and every sin committed after accepting Christ as their Savior, repenting, and being baptized, is automatically forgiven. It's not true. You can TURN back from God, and sin does that. Un-confessed, unrepentant sin is a separator between us and God.

We need to forever recognize our need for our Savior. It's a constant need, an endless need, a need we will have forever. There will never come a time when we no longer need our Savior and the gift of His forgiveness.

We only have hope in our submitting to God, and we submit to God by drawing close to Him and as we draw close to Him we are able to see just how vile and filthy we are. When we recognize our sins we MUST ask for forgiveness with a true heart full of repentance, only then can we be cleansed, and our hearts made pure.  To think that we have something of our own that can cleanse and purify us is a fallacy. We are made clean and purified by growing closer and closer to our Savior.

Recognizing our sin put the nails through the hands and feet of our Savior and drove that spear into His side, is realizing the horror of sin, and by the grace of God we are enlightened by the Holy Spirit to recognize the filth of every sin in our lives. There is NO sin that is pretty and clean. There does not exist a sin of a pure heart.  Sin is filth and stains everything it comes in contact with.

We need to really see the awfulness of sin- every sin- so that when we do sin it produces a true repentance, a true desire to no longer sin.

Drawing nigh to God- recognizing our NEED of God. When we recognize our NEED of God, He will acknowledge us and draw closer to us. 

Just as it is truly wonderful to be clean physically, it is truly wonderful to be clean spiritually, purified. We MUST wash in the blood of our Savior so HE can cleanse us with His blood. We wash in His blood by recognizing Him as our SAVIOR, accepting that He sacrificed His life for us, knowing He lives for us and will not be complete until we are with Him once again when He returns to bring All that are His home with Him.

All in HIS amazing LOVE.

What causes the devil to flee?

Jas 4:7  Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you

Resist the devil through submission to God, and he will flee from us. 

Why will the devil flee? What causes him to flee from us?

The devil left off tempting Christ in the wilderness after Christ resisted him by using the Word of God to refute all the temptation being thrown at Him.  Was this an example for us? YES!

If our Savior had to use the Word of God to resist the devil what makes us think that we won't have to do the same thing?

Sure, we aren't face to face with the devil. But we face temptations all the time. The trouble is we don't view them as temptations coming directly from the devil.

A lot of the time we seem to act instinctively towards sinning rather than not sinning. The little lie, the little misconception might pop out of our mouths without us ever truly having a debate about whether or not we want to choose to sin.

Not every temptation is forthright and time friendly.  That piece of chocolate cake in the fridge beckoning to you when you've already had your piece of cake for the day, well, you have time to contemplate that cake sitting in there. You begin to war with *yourself* over the pros and cons of consuming that cake, surfeiting, gluttony are words that begin to ring in your ears. This war you are having with *yourself* is truly a war you are having with the devil though he'd much rather you just keep thinking you are only fighting yourself, it is more palpable to us to fight with ourselves than recognize the enemy of God is fighting with us wanting us to choose HIS side over GOD'S, choose HIS ways over GOD'S ways. If the devil were there physically before us, urging us to indulge in our appetites, what do you think you'd do? Would you want to give into that vile creature? If the devil were present wouldn't we have to realize that we were actually in the midst of the battle between good and evil, GOD and the devil? Wouldn't we have to realize we are making a choice between God and the devil?  It's not simply a little harmless temptation at all, but a confrontation in the Spiritual battle.  This is a REAL skirmish you are having and yet the devil doesn't want us to believe that at all- remember- you are warring with yourself, not him (according to him the great deceiver!)

Back to those times when you aren't contemplating some temptation, but out of nowhere you are suddenly face to face with the choice and it's an instantaneous choice, happening right then and there and uhoh, you lie perhaps to save yourself some embarrassment.  Then right after you've lied you feel the weight of what you've done. You lied. You know it's wrong and the guilt is there present and accounted for and yet you don't admit you've lied, you wallow in the guilt because to confess to the one you lied to would be worse than the embarrassment you would have felt had you not lied earlier. A huge tangled web of deceit is being woven and Satan loves those webs. So there you are, you didn't have time to wage the battle, in fact you didn't have time to don your armor, you were just suddenly sinning so how do you resist that sort of sinning?

We said earlier that submitting to God is resisting the devil. How can we keep in a constant state of submission?  And shouldn't we have  our Spiritual armor on all the time? 

We aren't perfect, we aren't sinless, only our SAVIOR is perfect and sinless.  Is this an excuse we can use?  The I'm not perfect excuse. No. There is NO excusing our sins away, our sins must be confessed, repented of, and they will be forgiven, but they are NOT excused.

Every single sin needs confessing and repenting of, and this is a real HEART felt repentance, not mere mouthing of the words.

We must RESIST the devil.   When it is at all possible we must use our Savior's example and use the REAL word of GOD to resist satan. When we recognize we are having a spiritual confrontation we really SHOULD go to the word of God, not just try and think it away or wish it away on our own.  And when things happen so fast- when we are stabbed with one of satan's darts before we even realize we are confronting him- we must confess, repent, and seek sincere forgiveness from our SAVIOR.

Remember this--  it's a couple verses I use a lot--

Rom 7:24  O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Rom 7:25  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord

We have a SAVIOR and it's to HIM we must always go whenever we are warring with the devil. We must go to Him and submit to Him. We must believe that He is a God of LOVE and all that He asks of us is for our own good. Every battle we are in is somehow going to make us stronger in our faith as we are refined by the fire of affliction.  We must submit to our God in choosing HIM over the devil.

The devil will flee when we are submitted to God, when we choose to let God be our Savior and recognize Him as such. This is an ACTIVE submission, not a one time activation and never think about it again. This is a submission you have to CHOOSE often and always, never getting to a place where you've chosen to submit enough. Yesterday's submission does NOT guarantee your submission for today or tomorrow.

Again using the analogy of marriage- your marriage vows are renewed daily when you choose to honor them daily, right? When you choose to disregard your marriage vows, no longer honoring them, you are in danger of ending your marriage, you are putting your marriage in jeopardy.  All it takes is one day of no longer honoring the vows, one hour, one minute, right?  You must make the choice to honor your vows, just as we MUST make the choice to submit to our God.  You are not forced to stay with your spouse, people leave their spouses daily, choosing to dissolve their marriages.  You choose to stay with your marriage partner, it's a choice.  And we must choose our God daily!

The devil will flee when you are fully submitted to God. Does that mean you'll never have to resist the devil again, that he'll never come back?  No, absolutely not.  Sometimes he'll come back right away, other times he'll wait, and every single time we must resist him by continuing to fully submit to God. And truly we must all strive to be in a constant state of Submission. Sometime it will seem as if the devil's attacks will never end. We have to remember that  even if it feels like we'll never have a reprieve, or that he'll ever flee leaving us in any sort of peace, in the end when it truly matters most Satan cannot claim the eternal life of one submitted fully to God, he'll have no recourse but to FLEE!  PRAISE GOD!

All by the GRACE of our GOD!
ALL through HIS LOVE!

Jesus- Our Perfect Example of Perfect Submission to God

From yesterday-

Jas 4:7  Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

'In that submission comes resistance towards the Devil who would have us never yield ourselves to God. The last thing the Devil wants is our submission towards God because he knows when we are submitted to God that he cannot touch our eternal life and that is the thing he wants most from us- our eternal life.'

Why do you suppose it is that a lot of people who seemingly reject God and embrace Satan's ways have what we'd call a good life? They make lots of money, they have power, fame. I'm not going to say, and will never say, that Satan controls all the rich, famous, powerful people. I am going to and will always say that Satan controls most of them. Satan could careless what devices he uses to keep us from eternal life.  If some are kept his by riches, great. If others are kept his by adversity, wonderful. If giving fame to others will keep them from God, Satan is thrilled.  Some curse God when they face rough times and others embrace Him. Some bless God when they gain riches, and others… well, most are thrilled and will seldom curse God for good things. And while they might not curse God they may grow seemingly closer to God as they receive what they perceive are blessings, but truthfully a lot of those who do this are the first to curse God when bad things begin to happen and so you KNOW that the relationship they've forged with God is superficial and not a true one. They are only God's when good happens and when bad strikes they blame God. 

There are as many variations of relationships we can forge as there are grains of sand on the sea shore. No two relationships are completely the same.

The ultimate end to all our lives is one of permanent life or permanent death, nothingness.

Satan isn't so much concerned with our temporary death sleep except to ONLY get us into that death sleep before we are God's. If he can get us to die in our sins, unrepentant, unregenerate to the new life in Christ, then he's thrilled because he has claimed another for his side.  If HE is going to meet his ultimate end, he wants to take as many of us human beings with him as he possibly can and this is his goal, his reason for what he does. He would deprive God of as many of His possible children as he can.

God created human beings lower than the angels, and yet, it was an angel who introduced sin and then encouraged humans to sin.  That angel had NO ONE, NO BEING whatsoever encouraging him to sin. 

Just as a child who grows up in a wonderful environment with truly no horrors that can infect many childhoods, and that child turns out to be filled with evil.  People look to the parents to blame them. People want to learn of that sicko's warped, deranged upbringing that turned him or her into that evil creature. It's NOT always true that there is a horrific childhood to blame.  So how does it happen? It happens with the choices we make .

Two children in the same environment and one turns out great the other horrible so what's to blame? The choices the individuals made shaped them. We make choices. Both could have been confronted by the choice to commit sin, but only one may have embraced that sin while the other shunned it.

Our choices shape us and will always shape us.

If Satan can influence our choices to his design then he's going to do it, no matter what that means. He stops at NOTHING to urge us to sin.  Just as we know and believe that he influenced our first parents, he influences each of us. He doesn't sleep, he doesn't have to rest at all, he can work ceaselessly to get us to be his, on his side.

SUBMIT to GOD.

SUBMISSION to GOD is our ONLY protection, our ONLY means of resisting Satan. You cannot submit to God and God's ways, and fall to Satan's evil. It's only when we STOP submitting that we are overcome by sin. 

Our SAVIOR was the perfect example of perfect submission to the will of God. Jesus' entire life was one of submission to the Father God.

We must cling to our SAVIOR, cling to HIS righteousness and pray for the same submissiveness, the same yielding to God that He had and has towards Him.

Remember, Christ could do NOTHING without the FATHER. He dare NOT do anything without the FATHER! The Father is LIFE, the Father is LOVE! Choosing anything other than the FATHER is choosing death and evil, it may not seem so. A lot of sins seem completely harmless because the BIGGER picture is completely lost. We cannot afford to lose the BIGGER picture, yet for many the BIGGER picture is completely lost and they like it that way.  The bigger picture reveals God, it reveals us and our relationship with God. Unfortunately many don't even want to think about God at all or their relationship with Him.

Please Lord help us to CHOOSE YOU always! Help us SUBMIT to YOU and in that submission resist the Devil who would steal our eternal life with YOU and YOUR LOVE.

Help us LORD! Save US!