Don't Fight Them and They Won't Harm You

I just read on a facebook friends status, of the shooting of a criminal by a police officer.  Her post was exposing the scam of some of these tiny little quips to discredit and malign the character of the officers, while lying by half truth, what really happened.

I have seen several of these videos, I call "yellow journalism" because they show a miniature minute and everyone gets excited that the "cops" are doing something evil.

I don't believe these videos, policemen are highly trained and do not want to get into trouble with wrong procedures. 

The lies that one black man told that his friend was shot in the back was despicable.

I am also tired of the media calling the criminal who was shot.....a "victim."  The police and the public are the victims of these thugs.

The lack of respect for authority is the problem here and a tribalism that places a family or people group above truth.  I was thankful that in the case of the looting and robbing that went on in protest of the criminal shooting, there were sensible blacks who came out against the looting and thievery.

I know that a choke hold would not be used on me, because if an officer approached me, I would obey his commands and be respectful. If someone is not fighting then they will not be strong armed. 

The media has been the most prejudice of all against the black community. They have portrayed the black community as volatile and unreasonable in their actions and attitudes, but what they don't show are all the other blacks that are not acting that way and don't approve of what is going on in their communities.

May we keep in mind that we should not take up offenses for others, when we were not there to see what happened.  Too often we love to take the side against authority when God has clearly told us to obey them.

Romans 13:1-7

"13 Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God.

2 Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves.

3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same.

4 For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to EXECUTE wrath on him who practices evil.

5 Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience’ sake.

6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God’s ministers attending CONTINUALLY to this very thing.

7 Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor."

Self Esteem Is Still A Sin

40 years ago after I became born again, I stood against many sins that others were telling us not to judge.

The one that caused the most stir was my strong belief that the "self esteem" teaching was against God and the teachings of the bible. Many church goers argued that we all have to have "self esteem", but none of them could use scripture to justify it.

We are born with too much self esteem. We have to be taught to think of others first, we have to be taught to give up our rights for the greater good.

Philippians 2;3
"Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves;" Other translations say "esteem others better than yourself."

Another lie that used to be spoken often was that we have to love ourselves first before we can love anyone else. That was a teaching from the pit of hell. We managed to get many people to justify self focus, even saying things like; "today I am going to do something just for me for a change."

The people I knew who used that phrase were always doing something just for themselves, there was no change in it.

Humble, loving, giving believers are not thinking of ways to continually get for themselves, they are those who are serving others, and enjoying it so much they don't have time to think about themselves. They don't notice they are not getting their way, and they are not noticing how much they get in return, that is not important to them.

There is emptiness in the lives of those who fight for their own "esteem." There is never enough of it, the more we esteem ourselves the more esteem we desire, it is a sort of addiction.

Whatever we foster in ourselves the most, is the character trait that will rule us.

Perhaps those who fight to argue for self esteem, are those who want it so badly for themselves that they cannot conceive of not having it.

John 3:30
"30 He must increase, but I must decrease." God calls us to diminish our own importance and enhance the importance of Christ, the more we do this the less we think of self and the more we think of others.

The devil knew just how to cloak the self esteem lie in various forms of verbiage to make it sound good, after all ear tickling is the job of the devil. Getting people to believe a lie while making them feel like they are helping someone with it, is the greatest deception of the devil. He used it on Eve in the garden, he said "you can be like God."

With the verbiage concerning self esteem he was saying, "you need to love yourself, it will help you love others." When God said to us that we are not capable of loving, it is only in Christ that we can know how to love and actually live it.

1 John 4:19 "19 We love Him[a] because He first loved us."

1 John 4:20 "If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen."

Jeremiah 17:9 ""The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?"

No person without Christ can love, we are without God's kind of love before we are born again.

Ephesians 3:17-21
"17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— 19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

20 Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, 21 to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen"