Go With God!

One of the devil's greatest tactics is to use people to place unScriptural expectations on those he wishes to discourage or taunt. These people accuse us of things that are not true, or that even God never told us to be or do. When we do not comply to the unScriptural demands, we are treated as though we have sinned or are rebellious, when the truth is that we who seek the Word for our guidance, rather than the mandates of men are free of human tradition.

 

When we find ourselves under the control of ungodly human mandates not based on the Bible, we need to pray, gaining the strength and resolve to never allow ourselves to be placed under man's traditions.

 

Mark 7:1-6

1 The Pharisees and some of the scribes gathered around Him when they had come from Jerusalem,

2 and had seen that some of His disciples were eating their bread with impure hands, that is, unwashed.

3 (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands, thus observing the traditions of the elders;

4 and when they come from the market place, they do not eat unless they cleanse themselves; and there are many other things which they have received in order to observe, such as the washing of cups and pitchers and copper pots.)

5 The Pharisees and the scribes *asked Him, “Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with impure hands?”

6 And He said to them, “Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far away from Me.

7 ‘But in vain do they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.’

8 Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men.”

9 He was also saying to them, “You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition."

Compassion is in the Heart

How we treat our pets is a reflection of the compassion in our hearts. Those who are mean to pets are probably indifferent to people too. We do not turn our compassion on and off, it dwells in us and is demonstrated with every living thing.

Proverbs 12:10 "A righteous man has regard for the life of his animal, But even the compassion of the wicked is cruel."

Ephesians 4:32 "Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven... you. "

Zechariah 7:9 ""Thus has the LORD of hosts said, 'Dispense true justice and practice kindness and compassion each to his brother; "

Colossians 3:12 "So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; "

The Narcissists Must Control You

This is exactly right!!!!!

Holiday Entertainment Bliss

We are a materialistic pleasure seeking society!!!! Ask anyone to give up one of their favorite holidays and they will accuse us of all kinds of things. Why do they love them so much?

 

My guess from years of observation, is that this people love the decorations, the gifts, the fun and the revelry, very little if anything to do with Christ.

Christ is a superficial add on to validate what the observer wants to do. Sort of like a person who keeps going into the bar every night for a drink claiming he talks about the Lord in there, when in fact he holds up his drink and says something like "amen to this" and later claims he talks about the Lord in the bar. 

 

Many people think if they say a canned prayer at the Christmas gathering every year, the same one, they have kept the holidays as unto the Lord.

 

Keeping a celebration as unto the Lord would look very different, it would include serious prayer, Scripture reading, singing to the Lord and all the other things would be add on to that, rather than the other way around.

 

I feel about these holidays the way I feel about sports figures who go on the field to pray in front of everyone. What are they praying for out there that they couldn't pray about in the privacy of the locker room?

Matthew 6:6 ""But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you."

When sports teams pray on the field I have to think it has more to do with traditions of men than actual prayer, since they violate Matthew 6:6 when they do it.

We think if we put on a good show in front of people, that validates the holiday or the ball game, as a spiritual event, even if the prayer is canned and tacked onto the meal instead of a major portion of the event, it suffices as "honoring to God."

Amos 5:21 ""I hate, I reject your festivals, Nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies."

Watch what will happen here, I can predict it. Many will come to defend what they do rather than pray about it to see if their own heart is right. They will use every argument in the book to justify all their entertainment bliss.

It's God's Word In Us!

Romans 7:15 "For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate."

When God told us in 1 John 1:9 to confess our sins, He was speaking to born again believers. Believers do sin, if they thought they don't then they have sinned by thinking that.

Christ's blood covers our sin, in our flesh we still possess the fallen nature. The Lord continues to cleanse us throughout our life as He works on us.

1 Corinthians 3:15 "If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire."

Every believer will be judged for the purpose of rewards, but not for salvation.

Ephesians 1:13-14 tells us that we are sealed when we become born again, never to be lost again. If we do not confess our sin, we do not grow in holiness, if we do confess our sin, we will grow and have reward in heaven.

Ephesians 1:13-14 "13 In [a]Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory."

Ephesians 2:10 "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them."

We confess and He does the cleansing.

Written to believers;
1 John 1:8 "If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us."

Believer do not want to sin, if they are not sinning in their own effort, then they are prideful and have the sin of pride. We are to confess our sin, ask for cleansing and then Christ will do it.

1 John 1:9 "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

We confess and He does the cleansing! Anyone who thinks they are cleansing themselves by their outer deeds are walking in pride. The cleansing Christ does is in our hearts changes our deeds. If our heart is right, our deeds will be right. The heart condition needs to be fixed before the outer condition can be real. When we sin, even in little ways, we know God has more work to do on us and that work continues until we die.

So many people attempt to walk rightly without a change of heart, all it does is cause them to appear holy without being holy. When something is only in appearance, it has little value and will digress from whence it came.

When we see people who claim to love the Lord, return to their vomit, without conscience, fully immersed in their sin loving every minute of it, we have probably witnessed someone who was pretending, as a good actor or actress playing a role. Since it was not real in the first place, having been deeply a part of their inner spirit, it could not sustain itself.

If we are born again and sin, God will nag us until we repent, if we continue to refuse to listen, He will ignore us, our prayers will not be heard while we continue the downward slide toward the consequences of our own sin. God will not bless a stubborn heart.

John 9:33 ""We know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is God-fearing and does His will, He hears him."

Proverbs 1:28 ""Then they will call on me, but I will not answer; They will seek me diligently but they will not find me,"

I have used this myself with my children when they were younger, to refrain from blessings them when they refused to be obedient. They were still my children, but the fellowship was broken and so were the blessings.

Confession had to occur to fix all that. Without confession there would not be a change in behavior and the bitterness and anger in their hearts would grow as they continued to reject my authority.

The longer we choose not to confess, the harder our hearts become. Stubbornness is like a cancer, it grows when not dealt with. After being deeply entrenched in bitterness and anger, the soul becomes sickly and often does the body.

Psalm 66:18 "If I regard wickedness in my heart, The Lord will not hear;"

1 Corinthians 11:30 "For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep."

Bitterness, anger and rebellion actually ages the body. Not all illness is because of sin, however much is, each one has to pray and ask the Lord if they are ill because of their sin or is this just a training period to lean on the Lord more.

In the case of Job, we know he had lessons to learn even though he was a righteous man who had not sinned. Others were tested to expose their sin that they might repent.

Psalm 107:17 "Fools because of their transgression, and because of their iniquities, are afflicted."

The soul and the body are deeply connected, that's why we can use the skill of "lie spotting" to detect lying. Facial muscles do certain things when we are lying, even if we don't know our body is doing it, a person's heart is revealed often in body language. Our bodies react to what is happening in our soul, we cannot stop it, only the discerning notices it.

There are times when we sense something is not right, but we can't prove it, so we let it go until we see more blatant evidence. There is a speaker I am having serious reservations about, who claims to be a former terrorist who became a Christian. I won't name him because I have no proof, warning signals are surfacing that make me reluctant to use any of his videos. I may have a time or two in the past but will not any more.

The key to all of this is to continually pray for discernment about ourselves and others to come to a knowledge of the truth. We cannot confess if we don't see the truth and we can't warn others of false teachers if we are fooled by their messages.

1 Thessalonians 5:21 "But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good;"

Forgiveness or Confession?

Confession in the passage 1 John 1:9 is not referring to "asking forgiveness."

homologeō - ὁμολογέω : Confess, means to "agree with God."

http://jesusgiveslife.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-true-meaning-of-biblical-confession.html