Are we trying to get God to bend to our will?

A Pharisee of the highest order.

Act_26:5  Which knew me from the beginning, if they would testify, that after the most straitest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee.

Born a Jew.  Blameless in his religion.

Php 3:5  Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee;

Php 3:6  Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.

How many people of ALL religions right NOW upon our earth are persecuting Christ followers because they believe their own religion demands they do this?

Act 9:1  And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest,

Act 9:2  And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem.

How many people curse Christ followers and wish them all dead? If various reports in the news and such are to be believed…  a  lot.

There are A LOT of zealous people who believe whole heartedly in their religion just as Paul believed in His and Paul was CHOSEN by God, visited by a risen SAVIOR! 

We cannot forget it was a Christ-follower PERSECUTOR that Jesus chose personally to be one of His greatest apostles. 

Gal_1:1  Paul, an apostle, (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead;)

Just how incredibly SHOCKING it had to be for one who so zealously persecuted Christ followers to comprehend that he had NOT been doing the will of God in his persecutions.  That NONE who were persecuting them were doing God's will. They THOUGHT they were doing the will of God, they truly believed they were doing the will of God. They weren't persecuting people for the pleasure of it, they weren't hunting them down, they weren't killing them for the joy of it. They - at least Paul- was only happy in the belief he was doing God's will. He would have kept on zealously persecuting all Christ followers and His heart was pure of the guilt of it because He truly BELIEVED it was God's will He was doing and THAT is why our Savior chose Paul, because He KNEW all Paul truly wanted to do was the will of GOD. When shown the error of his ways Paul quickly changed! Paul wasted NO time in doing a complete turn around all because His hearts desire was GOD'S WILL, not his own!  Had he found joy in the hurting and killing of people he could not have been used by God at all. If Paul had been zealous for the sake of being zealous, he couldn't have been used by God.  God's true Will- THIS IS WHAT PAUL DESIRED. 

Often we will be shown by our God the error of our ways and it is up to us to choose God's will over our own, over even a way of life that has been ours since birth. 

God's WILL.

Is this our desire?

Or are we trying to get God to bend to our will?

People do that all the time. They want God to yield to their sinful desires so they can claim to worship and honor Him and His will but all the while indulge in their own lusts.  People want their lusts to be God's will. People want God to be accepting of ALL things in us because we are born the way we are- flawed with very horrendous flaws.  Rather than believe we can be born with flaws we would have God allowing these flaws mean His acceptance of them.  We don't want to accept that SIN has created these flaws. To accept that our flaws from birth are sin created- their origin being sin- would mean we need to seek forgiveness for them and we don't want to do that. We want to believe that God accepts our sins and we do not need to ask forgiveness for what He accepts. 

Originally created to be perfect in God's love, we became born of sinful parents. We inherited the tendencies to sin and sin and sin. The personal sin tendency you have doesn't matter- your tendencies may be completely different from mine-  what matters is they are sin.  We've come to believe that children can inherit addictive tendencies from their parents- drs, scientists, specialists of all sorts in various studies have said children of alcoholics are more likely to become alcoholics and we believe them.  A lot of our sinful tendencies do seem to be passed on down the line, but not all of them. We all have sin tendencies unique to us as individuals.  You might have a, b, c, d, e, f and g sin tendencies while I might have b, d, f, I, k, m sin tendencies. There can be overlaps or completely different tendencies.  I may have a dozen and you may only have two.  What I'm saying is we are truly all born with the tendencies towards sin. In what people say is my dna I might be programed with a desire for excessive amounts of physical lust, just because that is in MY genetic make up doesn't make it any less of a sin if I act upon that lust.  By saying it's in my blood we are trying to EXCUSE our sinful ways and make them acceptable, we do it ALL the time.

We desire our WILLS be done, not God's will and God knows this! We can't hide it from God!

Paul desired God's will be done, NOT HIS own will. PAUL warred against his sin tendencies, Paul fought in the war and we are ALL call to fight this fight- this very personal fight! You cannot war anyone else's personal battle against their own sin tendencies.  We are NOT to judge, we are to LOVE and let GOD reveal the sin. We have to reveal God's LOVE in meeting the NEEDS of all when we recognize there is a need to be met.  

If we are called to a path that asks us to sacrifice all personal pleasure, if we are called to a path that askes us to give up the sins that so easily beset us, that is what we are called to. 

Every single one of us with our own personal sins are called to forsake them by God.  You might think your personal sin is a harder one to give up, a greater sacrifice to make, but only God knows the depths of agony people go through as they fight in this spiritual war against the flesh. We are not to judge anyone's eternal life, not a single person's!  We are to LOVE.

Please God - YOUR WILL BE DONE!

In the name of Your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior!

Amen.

Tempted to faint

Will Christ Find Faith On Earth? (Our Savior's Question)

Luk 18:1  And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;

Luk 18:2  Saying, There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man:

Luk 18:3  And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary.

Luk 18:4  And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man;

Luk 18:5  Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.

Luk 18:6  And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith.

Luk 18:7  And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?

Luk 18:8  I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?

Faith on earth.

God's elect cry day and night to Him.  God hears them!  They might not want to believe He does because their prayers on not answered as they desire, but by faith they MUST believe.

Faith that God hears.

How often are we bothered by what we call nagging? Maybe not so much between adults, though there is that running joke about husbands and their nagging wives. As parents we most likely have all been confronted with nagging children.  The nagging takes place because someone - a child, a wife, anyone - wants something and they aren't getting it readily enough, so they keep asking. They might ask once a day, once an hour, once a minute (children really nagging). The continual asking is bothersome just as the unjust judge in the parable said- the widow was troubling him because she kept coming to him- so he answered her request.   This as a PARABLE is not telling us to bug people, but rather to pray without ceasing, pray and not give up praying, pray in faith that eventually the praying will be profitable no matter how long it seems to take.

Christ asks- Shall God find faith on earth when He comes to avenge those who are His from those who are Satan's? 

By His GRACE He will!  We must NOT FAINT, though OBVIOUSLY we will be tempted to do so.

Our lives are not measured by what we possess

What is your most favorite possession?

Most of us own things, most of have possessions. In fact some of us are very protective of the things we own. What are you most protective of? What is the one thing you don't want to live without?  Look around you wherever you are. Look at the things you own. Maybe you're in your home and everything you see is yours and you see a lot of things. Maybe you're in an internet café and the only possessions you have are your clothes. Maybe you're in someone else's home and you can see a lot of possessions but very few are yours. We have things. Yet answer me this one simple question- is there ANYTHING you own worth more than eternal life?

Luk 12:15  And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.

So many people love to reveal to others all the things they own. The more expensive, the nicer, the more they want to show them off. They want others to see that they are successful and they measure that success in their possessions and their ability to have numerous and expensive possessions. On the other side of the coin, people tend to view themselves as failures when they don't have possessions, or the ability to obtain them.

Our lives do NOT consist in owning a lot of things, or owning expensive things. We are STEWARDS of all we possess and in our possessions we cannot find eternal life, not in a single one. 

We need to BEWARE of coveting THINGS, any and all things!

Coveting the smallest of things is just as bad as coveting the biggest of things.

Our LIVES are not measured by what we possess, but by who we possess. 

Christ can live in us!

Col_1:27  To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory

Christ in us is the HOPE of glory.

Christ is all we need!

All by HIS GRACE!

Total Surrender

Joh 13:13  Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am.

Joh 13:14  If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet.

Joh 13:15  For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you.

Joh 13:16  Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him.

Joh 13:17  If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.

Jesus said HAPPY are we when we SERVE OTHERS, NOT SELF.

Rom_14:22  Hast thou faith? have it to thyself before God. Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth.

FAITH before GOD. Being able to NOT condemn ourselves before GOD in the things we do- these are those who are HAPPY.

Jas 5:10  Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience.

Jas 5:11  Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.

Enduring suffering, enduring affliction as all who are God's will do, WE count them as happy because they DID endure to the end, keeping their faith in God so that when the resurrection comes they will rise to meet their Christ in the air! Yes, we say they are happy because they ENDURED this life and all it's hardships. They did NOT go about their own business concerned primarily with their own happiness, they desired God's will above their own.

1Pe_3:14  But and if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled

SUFFERING for righteousness sake-- this is HAPPINESS!  Not giving into self serving sin!

1Pe_4:14  If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified.

REPROACHED for Christ- this is HAPPINESS. SERVING our SAVIOR!

Php_4:11  Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.

Being content in CHRIST no matter what STATE we find ourselves in! 

1Ti_6:8  And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.

Food and raiment- NOT RICHES- NOT personal pleasure- these things should make us content.

Heb_13:5  Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.

Content with what we have NOT coveting what we don't, this is what we should be.

Do you see the BIG picture here? We are to be happy in CHRIST our SAVIOR, NOT the things of this world. Yet we SCREAM that we deserve to be happy in so many things that aren't of Christ at all. We want happiness anyway we can find it and we'll do all sorts of things in search of that happiness. We'll live in the sins that give us happiness until we are so fully entrenched in self, that we never look to Christ.  Or, we'll tell ourselves Christ WANTS us to be happy. CHRIST wants us to do things that make us happy, He doesn't want us sad and we justify our self-serving desires.  I've done it! I know what I'm talking about! We convince ourselves that we must do the things we are tempted to do simply because they are our temptations and we are weak and can't help ourselves.  It's true, we can't save ourselves, but we sure shouldn't tell ourselves that we have to give into our temptations. We need to fight against our temptations and by fighting we must SURRENDER to Christ! We must surrender SELF to Christ!

We can't ask Christ to take all of us but this little piece that we want to cling to because we get pleasure from it no matter how fleeting that pleasure may be.

We must ask Christ to take ALL of us! To help us surrender ALL every last bit of who we are to Christ.

We must REPENT!

We must CONFESS!

We must SEEK FORGIVENESS!

And our desire has to be a total surrender to God's will.

We must desire our will be what God wills- ALWAYS in ALL things!

We must COME out of BABYLON- who holds all the temptations we could ever face.

Rev 18:1 And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. 

Rev 18:2 And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. 

Rev 18:3 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. 

Rev 18:4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. 

Rev 18:5 For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities

PLEASE FATHER we do NOT WANT to be partakers of the sins of Babylon! We do not want to receive the plagues of Babylon!  PLEASE save us from ourselves!

In the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Sin interferes with self-serving so we no longer all it sin

'For her sins have reached unto heaven'

We live in a world that does NOT want to believe there are sins. Seriously, we do.  We live in a world where OTHER people are sinners, the really BAD people are the sinners. This world is a mess because of the awful people in it. This world is a mess because of the sinners, not us. I've got news for everybody…

Not only DOES sin exist, but we are ALL sinners and ALL of us fall short.

Rom_3:23  For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God

SINS are very real. And to the naysayers concerning the validity of sin as a reality we live in, I pray your eyes are opened before it's too late, because there will come a -TOO LATE.

Rev 18:1 And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. 

Rev 18:2 And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. 

Rev 18:3 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. 

Rev 18:4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. 

Rev 18:5 For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities

We must come out of the sin acceptance people have sank down into like a very warm comforter on the coldest of nights. People have wrapped sin around them and they nurture it, they don't abhor it at all. They REFUSE to call sin- sin! 

Sin interferes with self serving.  Sin is a huge hindrance to self serving and people do not like ANYTHING interfering with their ability to serve themselves whatever it is they desire.  Heterosexuals hate not being able to satisfy their lusts with fornication, with self-gratification, with adultery.  Homosexuals hate not being able to satisfy their lusts with the same- only with the same sex. People hate not being able to live with the MANY various defects we are born with and there are numerous defects in all forms, physical, mental, emotional. We are FLAWED from birth because we cannot be this ideal person in all ways we know deep down we were INTENDED upon creation to be. Even the person who seems to have it ALL together in all ways is lying to themselves and other and if they believe they have it all and are perfect without any flaws that in itself is a flaw. People do not want to be told they cannot indulge their birth given flaws. They were given these flaws by birth, they are natural flaws they had no hand in creating on their own so why shouldn't they be able to make the best of them- enjoy them because being happy, finding pleasure, finding joy, these are the things we are told are our rights. We tell ourselves these are our rights- happiness. But is it our right to find happiness for ourselves? Is it? Really? Is this the message of our Savior? No. We are to SACRIFICE ourselves for others, for God. This is TRUTH, and it's a TRUTH the majority of people do not want to believe, they REFUSE to believe it and when it is told to them, they ridicule those with the message. They ridicule them and hold fast to believing they know best and those saying these things are stupid and fools. They believe lies to serve their self serving.

God help us please, help us to choose YOU over ourselves! Please God, help us! We would serve YOU and others, not ourselves!

Please, Father, bless us! Keep us in YOU heavenly Father, all by the mercy and grace of Your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ!

Amen.

                       

'Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins'

Come out of her my people.

Rev 18:1 And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. 

Rev 18:2 And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. 

Rev 18:3 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. 

Rev 18:4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. 

Rev 18:5 For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities

Come out of her my people.

The plagues will fall make no mistake about it, they will fall. And when those plagues fall everyone will have had their fate decided by THEMSELVES. No one decides if you are saved or not saved.  God is not picking and choosing, God is not flipping a coin. Everyone decides for themselves. NO one will be able to say in all truthfulness that they were treated unfairly and are undeserving of the plagues, they are undeserving of eternal death. People might lie to themselves and believe they have been misunderstood but GOD knows the hearts of everyone.

We need to surrender ourselves to God and His will, holding nothing back. We need our sins to be revealed ALL of them, so we may repent of them and seek forgiveness.

These truths spoken of in God's word are for OUR edification. We must LEARN from them.

COME OUT OF HER, BE NOT PARTAKERS OF HER SINS!

There WILL be a people who belong to GOD and they WILL come out of all the evil in this world that is trying so desperately to snare as many as possible.

More on this tomorrow by the grace and mercy of our LORD as HE WILLS.

In HIS LOVE ALWAYS and FOREVER!

Amen

This world will NOT get any easier for Christ followers

Could we live without any laws?  Could even two people live together without having agreed upon ways of behavior?  No.  Every society has it's laws whether they are called laws or not, they exist. There are standards, there are rules, there are the ways of things that must be adhered to in every single relationship.  Put just two people together to live with each other for a year and see how long it takes for them to have agreed upon behaviors assigned. 

To live means to have to engage in activities of living.  You don't live unless you engage in the activities of living in one way or another. There are many people kept alive today by people using artificial means to enact those activities of living that they cannot do for themselves.

The necessary activities of living- eating, drinking, sleeping, elimination.

We eat, drink, sleep, eliminate waste from our body or we die.

When we get together with others to live we all have our own ways of doing these things.  How awful it would be if there were two people living together where one insisted upon being awake and active to the point of keeping the other  from sleeping when they desired to sleep.  What if one ate all the food for the day without allowing the other any? What if one used up all the water for the day? What if one decided they could eliminate their waste anywhere they desired?  Would this result in a happy living environment? Absolutely not. I'm talking about a situation where people are unable to NOT live together.

As soon as people start living with each other their behaviors have to be amended to an agreed upon way of life.   When this happens rules are formed, spoken or unspoken.

Throughout our world every society has formed their own rules.  Where a society form rules that are in opposition to another's often there is a push to get the societies to form basic rules of humanity. We have the united nations in our world that is supposed to be a worldwide rule maker deeming what is and what isn't an acceptable society.  We go to war to correct societies that live in opposition to those universal rules. We want everyone alive to have the right to a peaceful way of living. We desire worldwide peace, there is a fight for this elusive thing.

We live in such great opposition to one another on grand scales- country wide scales and individual- much smaller scales.  There will NEVER be worldwide peace as long as we are flawed human beings prone to non-peaceful acts. And as soon as someone tries to FORCE peace they are committing an action contrary to peace.

People who believe that the world will one day straighten itself out are deluding themselves. The natures of flesh we are born with prevents world wide peace.

It is OVERCOMING those natural flesh tendencies through JESUS CHRIST that is necessary.

We can't overcome them on our own, but with Christ we can. We must put ourselves in HIS hands daily, hourly, minutely, unendingly.  We must recognize our eternal, infinite need of HIM to be our righteousness. 

We are NOT called to take our evil flesh natures and call them good.

I am NOT called to take my selfishness and justify it so I can continue being selfish. I am not called to excuse away my selfishness or any other sinful way in myself, but I am called to confess it and forsake it on a daily, hourly, infinite basis.  When I succumb to my flesh nature I must CONFESS and once again forsake. And if this seems like an endless cycle of sin, confess, forsake, sin, confess, forsake that's because it has to be until my Savior seals me as His. Forever we are dependent upon our Savior. Forever we must live fighting the WAR against sinning without calling sin good and therefore giving up the war.  There is NO easy way out of this, not one single easy way out.  It's a FIGHT, your life is a FIGHT.

If people get together and decide they no longer want to fight against certain sins, that is their right, I can't stop them. If whole societies get together and make a universal sin no longer sin, I can't stop them.  Just because they've done that doesn't mean that sin no longer exists. It just means the majority of the world has accepted the sin as being good and they no longer will fight against it. They will label themselves enlightened and pat themselves on the back.  We were warned this would happen. Sin would be call good and good things sin.

No, I can't stop writing about this yet, it's heavy on my heart.  People want me to call evil good, and if I don't, I'm the evil one.  This is what it has come to and I cannot call evil good.

EVERY single one of us fights our personal propensity towards various sinning, some of us have a multitude of flesh weaknesses. We can sin in our minds without ever sinning outwardly and it is STILL sin! We all have our battles to wage, there isn't a single person alive who does not.  My battle might be easy to you, and yours easy to me.  But we ALL have the battles to war with over that which would keep us from accepting Christ as our Redeemer. 

Your battle might be in the newspaper headlines, mine  hidden where no one can see.  Mine might be in the headlines, while yours remains unseen. 

Satan wants us all equally and will fight for us in our personal ways. He has a personal battle plan for every individual.  Some people are easily won, others will never be won and I PRAY to GOD I am NEVER won by SATAN so that he determines my eternal death.  I pray I cling to Christ MY RIGHTEOUSNESS, never putting any hope or trust in my own filthy rag righteousness.

Isa_64:6  But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags

I have been wrong about many things in my life, many, many things. I must confess I have called various sins good and even tried to get others to do so and I can only beg for forgiveness.  Please….my Savior forgive me!

Christ followers everywhere, be prepared to continue to live in a world where more and more evil will be called good and you will be called hateful because you refuse to call evil good. 

This world will NOT get easier for Christ followers.

May we only ever follow Christ's TRUTHS and love HIM first and foremost, loving God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit- these three Gods must be loved first and then through their love we can LOVE ALL OTHERS, all while hating sin.

All in the name of Jesus Christ my Lord, my Savior! My Redeemer! My Hope!

Amen.