As we grow in the Lord over the years we may notice the closer we stay to Christ in us and the more we wish to obey Christ the more friends we will lose. God will give us new ones in keeping with our new growth so that we do not go backward to keep those who do not want to move forward in holiness.
We would love for our old friends to come with us as we grow, but if they will not then we must move on, or the old friends will hold us back.
1 Peter 2:1-6 "2 Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander,
2 like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation,
3 if you have tasted [h]the kindness of the Lord.
As Living Stones
4 And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, 5 you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
6 For this is contained in Scripture:"
Wednesday, December 18, 2019
Walking with Wise Men or with Fools, You Choose!
Amen!!! I have noticed over the years that those who remain with the same friends who are superficial, year after year do not mature. They remain infant like in their walk as well as their spiritual understanding.
Born Again or a Pretender?
YES! In my experience the pretenders don't ask to be more like Christ because they assume they are already just like Him. They love to praise themselves.
Luke 18:13-14 "…13 But the tax collector stood at a distance, unwilling even to lift up his eyes to heaven. Instead, he beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner!’ 14 I tell you, this man, rather than the Pharisee, went home justified. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”"
Luke 18:13-14 "…13 But the tax collector stood at a distance, unwilling even to lift up his eyes to heaven. Instead, he beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner!’ 14 I tell you, this man, rather than the Pharisee, went home justified. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”"
The Great Stress Reliever
The Truth Godly Wives
Be very cautious about judging a woman as leading over her husband when you do not live in the household.
There are woman who love the Lord, they walk uprightly desiring to please the Lord in all their ways, however, they are married to men who are either not saved or who are Christians who do not lead. These men provoke their wives through their disobedience to God.
When a woman is following hard after Christ while living in a home with a man who does not lead, she is not usurping him, she is merely following Christ and often the unsaved or lazy husband will follow her.
It is not the desire of the woman who loves Christ to lead over her husband, it is her desire to obey Christ even if no one comes with her. Often the husband follows her because its a safe place to be. This lazy husband will not lead even if the woman were to stop obeying God, because he has no desire to lead anyone, except when it benefits him personally.
I have met many women like this, they want righteousness in their home but their spouse does not care anything about that. In these cases the woman must speak truth as led by the Holy Spirit and she must obey God even when her husband refuses.
Everyone of us will stand before God on the day of judgment and no one will be asked "who made you live this way?" God will focus on our own obedience to Him first.
1 Peter 3:7
"Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered."
More husbands violate this passage than any other! They do not honor their wives and they train the children by their dishonor to also dishonor their mother.
Men who do not obey this passage often experience silence from God when they pray. They have no interest in honoring their wife, their prayers are not answered but they can't figure out why.
SO......what is the answer to this problem of disobedient husbands, I write now to the wives. The answer is simple, keep in prayer continually, walk as the Holy Spirit tells you to walk and do not operate in the relationships with your husband according to your feelings. You will feel frustrated and lonely at times, do not engage with him when these feelings are present.
Calmly speak truth AS LED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT and do not respond to accusations and rage. If you, the wife have done something unkind then make it right by apologizing for your responses in anger and go on to do better next time.
Some husbands will deliberately attempt to start fights over things in which there should be no fight, but the wife does not have to fight, she can choose not to respond.
Do all you can to love your husband, serve him with proper boundaries and remain faithful to God even when he is not.
1 Peter 3:1
"Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives,"
Those who will judge a wife who is faithful to God as sinning when she has to say no to the request by her husband to sin, are not to be regarded as friends, remove them and carry on with Christ Who lives in you.
No husband has been brought to the Lord by a woman obeying his sin. However a husband can be influenced for Christ because she follows hard after Christ. When a husband sees a woman willing to be rejected to follow Christ it shows the husband how much she loves God.
NOW : "Stay calm and carry on", as the British phrase goes! Never allow the unsaved or lazy husband to keep you in a state of frustration and depression, simply give all your feelings to God and keep going. Never operate from your feelings, always operate from truth.
There are woman who love the Lord, they walk uprightly desiring to please the Lord in all their ways, however, they are married to men who are either not saved or who are Christians who do not lead. These men provoke their wives through their disobedience to God.
When a woman is following hard after Christ while living in a home with a man who does not lead, she is not usurping him, she is merely following Christ and often the unsaved or lazy husband will follow her.
It is not the desire of the woman who loves Christ to lead over her husband, it is her desire to obey Christ even if no one comes with her. Often the husband follows her because its a safe place to be. This lazy husband will not lead even if the woman were to stop obeying God, because he has no desire to lead anyone, except when it benefits him personally.
I have met many women like this, they want righteousness in their home but their spouse does not care anything about that. In these cases the woman must speak truth as led by the Holy Spirit and she must obey God even when her husband refuses.
Everyone of us will stand before God on the day of judgment and no one will be asked "who made you live this way?" God will focus on our own obedience to Him first.
1 Peter 3:7
"Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered."
More husbands violate this passage than any other! They do not honor their wives and they train the children by their dishonor to also dishonor their mother.
Men who do not obey this passage often experience silence from God when they pray. They have no interest in honoring their wife, their prayers are not answered but they can't figure out why.
SO......what is the answer to this problem of disobedient husbands, I write now to the wives. The answer is simple, keep in prayer continually, walk as the Holy Spirit tells you to walk and do not operate in the relationships with your husband according to your feelings. You will feel frustrated and lonely at times, do not engage with him when these feelings are present.
Calmly speak truth AS LED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT and do not respond to accusations and rage. If you, the wife have done something unkind then make it right by apologizing for your responses in anger and go on to do better next time.
Some husbands will deliberately attempt to start fights over things in which there should be no fight, but the wife does not have to fight, she can choose not to respond.
Do all you can to love your husband, serve him with proper boundaries and remain faithful to God even when he is not.
1 Peter 3:1
"Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives,"
Those who will judge a wife who is faithful to God as sinning when she has to say no to the request by her husband to sin, are not to be regarded as friends, remove them and carry on with Christ Who lives in you.
No husband has been brought to the Lord by a woman obeying his sin. However a husband can be influenced for Christ because she follows hard after Christ. When a husband sees a woman willing to be rejected to follow Christ it shows the husband how much she loves God.
NOW : "Stay calm and carry on", as the British phrase goes! Never allow the unsaved or lazy husband to keep you in a state of frustration and depression, simply give all your feelings to God and keep going. Never operate from your feelings, always operate from truth.
The Mind is a Powerful Influencer
Today in physical therapy my therapist was sharing with me a story that demonstrated the power of emotion and its impact on our life.
The story was about a man who was out in the wilderness. He felt a stick poke him in the leg but thought little of it and continued on his walk. After a few hours he began to feel much pain and his leg swelled up dramatically.
He was rushed to the hospital and discovered he had been bitten by a venomous snake. He could have died from this bite, it was a frightening experience.
At a later time that same man was again in the forest, he felt a bite, falling to the ground in pain and terrified his mind recalled the last time he had been bitten by a dangerous snake. However, this time there was no snake, what he felt was the poke of a stick.
This is an excellent example of the workings of the brain concerning our experiences in life. Our brain hangs onto the memories of things from the past often reliving them as if they are happening all over again, when sometimes they are not.
I recall a time when I was having a lovely time at the beach with my husband. We were on the boardwalk passing in front of stores window shopping. As I peered into a window I saw a vase exactly like a vase my mother had in our home when I was growing up.
Instantly feelings of sadness rolled over me at the first glance of that vase. I looked at my husband astonished and explained to him what was happening. There was no reason to feel sad or unhappy, everything that happened that day had been happy. A single vase catapulted me into a time many years ago that no longer existed.
The memories of home life were filled with sadness and depression. At the sight of that vase those feelings returned even though no thoughts of those times were present. My brain took me back to the time of sadness without any previous specific events in my conscious memory, about those sad times. Our family was one in which there was little love displayed. Mostly everyone lived life to "one up" everyone else in the house without concern about anyone else. Any attempts to bring love and empathy to the family was met with mocking, as though the one who displayed love and kindness was strange or weird.
I am convinced that the devil touches our minds in spots of bad memories to debilitate us, leaving us weak and impotent to carry on in the present. In my case he wanted to make me sad by bringing back a "feeling" of something that no longer existed.
I am also convinced that false memory causes siblings and other family members to hold things against one another that were not accurate. If a parent trains a child to despise another sibling, all the child remembers is that they don't like that child, there are no other specific memories that bring about the contempt, only the memory that Mom/Dad didn't like that child.
When there is a "golden" child in the family and a "scapegoat" child, the golden child will operate from an attitude of superiority not because of their accomplishments but because they were led to believe they were superior by the parents.
The same is true of the scapegoat child. The parents assigned the role of inept and unworthy of love to the scapegoated child causing everyone else in the family to treat this person the same way they saw the parents treating them. Even causing doubt in the scapegoated child that they were even worthy of love.
There is an old saying; "more is caught than taught." When a parent treats someone as less than worthy of love and kindness, all those in the family will follow the lead of that parent. They will believe something is wrong with that person without any evidence, except the way their parent treats that person.
We love our parents so it follows that if our parents were treating someone badly they must have had a good reason. We see this all the time in society and in politics. The one who questions what is going on in the house and wants something better will be seen as a trouble maker worthy of greater contempt.
We are seeing right now in this monstrous demonstration of foolishness through the impeachment hearings. Those in power have no good reason anyone can see to come against our president but they keep making generalized statements without any evidence causing non-thinking people to think something is wrong.
This dynamic happens often in our culture, churches and families. Those who want power and prestige for themselves will invent things to be wrong when they sense they are losing power and control over others.
The narcissist will attempt to destroy the reputation of the scapegoated family member because they cannot control them. We see this in churches when a false doctrine of men controlling people results in cult like thinking. Rather than speaking truth to influence people they rage, dominate and mock to control through intimidation. They are not interested in the spiritual well being of anyone, they are only interested in being superior and controlling those who disagree with them. They judge many things they h ave no business judging. Sin should always be judged as sin, but these people will judge things as sin when they are not, they are merely disagreements on questionable matters.
If they cannot force someone to bow to their false doctrines they will attempt to turn others against the one who walks in truth. This has been the tactic of the devil since the beginning. He could not control God so He attempted to turn Eve from God to the lies of the devil. Then Eve was able to influence her husband to disobey God too.
Why do people disobey God? Most generally it begins with a desire for something, then culminates in rationalization to make their actions seem right. In short, God was wrong and the men were right, in the eyes of those who justify sinful behavior through their own demented thinking.
Proverbs 12:15-16 "15 The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to counsel. 16 A fool’s anger is known at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult.…"
It is not possible to change the mind of another person, we can only bring truth. Whatever their reaction to truth will show us their heart. If they rage in anger at the hearing of truth, refuse to consider it or discuss it, then we know there is a sinful prideful heart. If they receive it with joy desiring to discuss it for clarification then we have met a person who loves to learn truth to please God.
Those who love God want to be open to correction and learning. However, the man who is full of their own pride and resistant to God will also be resistant to truth.
Proverbs 12:14-16 "…14 By fruitful speech a man will be filled with good things, and the work of a man’s hands will reward him. 15 The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to counsel. 16 A fool’s anger is known at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult.…"
God instructs us to remove ourselves from fools, there is no convincing them of their sin, in fact any challenge to seek righteousness will be met with rage.
We must not allow the influences of past human relationships or our own minds to control our choices. We must seek God, allowing His truth and His Holy Spirit to determine our way.
The story was about a man who was out in the wilderness. He felt a stick poke him in the leg but thought little of it and continued on his walk. After a few hours he began to feel much pain and his leg swelled up dramatically.
He was rushed to the hospital and discovered he had been bitten by a venomous snake. He could have died from this bite, it was a frightening experience.
At a later time that same man was again in the forest, he felt a bite, falling to the ground in pain and terrified his mind recalled the last time he had been bitten by a dangerous snake. However, this time there was no snake, what he felt was the poke of a stick.
This is an excellent example of the workings of the brain concerning our experiences in life. Our brain hangs onto the memories of things from the past often reliving them as if they are happening all over again, when sometimes they are not.
I recall a time when I was having a lovely time at the beach with my husband. We were on the boardwalk passing in front of stores window shopping. As I peered into a window I saw a vase exactly like a vase my mother had in our home when I was growing up.
Instantly feelings of sadness rolled over me at the first glance of that vase. I looked at my husband astonished and explained to him what was happening. There was no reason to feel sad or unhappy, everything that happened that day had been happy. A single vase catapulted me into a time many years ago that no longer existed.
The memories of home life were filled with sadness and depression. At the sight of that vase those feelings returned even though no thoughts of those times were present. My brain took me back to the time of sadness without any previous specific events in my conscious memory, about those sad times. Our family was one in which there was little love displayed. Mostly everyone lived life to "one up" everyone else in the house without concern about anyone else. Any attempts to bring love and empathy to the family was met with mocking, as though the one who displayed love and kindness was strange or weird.
I am convinced that the devil touches our minds in spots of bad memories to debilitate us, leaving us weak and impotent to carry on in the present. In my case he wanted to make me sad by bringing back a "feeling" of something that no longer existed.
I am also convinced that false memory causes siblings and other family members to hold things against one another that were not accurate. If a parent trains a child to despise another sibling, all the child remembers is that they don't like that child, there are no other specific memories that bring about the contempt, only the memory that Mom/Dad didn't like that child.
When there is a "golden" child in the family and a "scapegoat" child, the golden child will operate from an attitude of superiority not because of their accomplishments but because they were led to believe they were superior by the parents.
The same is true of the scapegoat child. The parents assigned the role of inept and unworthy of love to the scapegoated child causing everyone else in the family to treat this person the same way they saw the parents treating them. Even causing doubt in the scapegoated child that they were even worthy of love.
There is an old saying; "more is caught than taught." When a parent treats someone as less than worthy of love and kindness, all those in the family will follow the lead of that parent. They will believe something is wrong with that person without any evidence, except the way their parent treats that person.
We love our parents so it follows that if our parents were treating someone badly they must have had a good reason. We see this all the time in society and in politics. The one who questions what is going on in the house and wants something better will be seen as a trouble maker worthy of greater contempt.
We are seeing right now in this monstrous demonstration of foolishness through the impeachment hearings. Those in power have no good reason anyone can see to come against our president but they keep making generalized statements without any evidence causing non-thinking people to think something is wrong.
This dynamic happens often in our culture, churches and families. Those who want power and prestige for themselves will invent things to be wrong when they sense they are losing power and control over others.
The narcissist will attempt to destroy the reputation of the scapegoated family member because they cannot control them. We see this in churches when a false doctrine of men controlling people results in cult like thinking. Rather than speaking truth to influence people they rage, dominate and mock to control through intimidation. They are not interested in the spiritual well being of anyone, they are only interested in being superior and controlling those who disagree with them. They judge many things they h ave no business judging. Sin should always be judged as sin, but these people will judge things as sin when they are not, they are merely disagreements on questionable matters.
If they cannot force someone to bow to their false doctrines they will attempt to turn others against the one who walks in truth. This has been the tactic of the devil since the beginning. He could not control God so He attempted to turn Eve from God to the lies of the devil. Then Eve was able to influence her husband to disobey God too.
Why do people disobey God? Most generally it begins with a desire for something, then culminates in rationalization to make their actions seem right. In short, God was wrong and the men were right, in the eyes of those who justify sinful behavior through their own demented thinking.
Proverbs 12:15-16 "15 The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to counsel. 16 A fool’s anger is known at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult.…"
It is not possible to change the mind of another person, we can only bring truth. Whatever their reaction to truth will show us their heart. If they rage in anger at the hearing of truth, refuse to consider it or discuss it, then we know there is a sinful prideful heart. If they receive it with joy desiring to discuss it for clarification then we have met a person who loves to learn truth to please God.
Those who love God want to be open to correction and learning. However, the man who is full of their own pride and resistant to God will also be resistant to truth.
Proverbs 12:14-16 "…14 By fruitful speech a man will be filled with good things, and the work of a man’s hands will reward him. 15 The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to counsel. 16 A fool’s anger is known at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult.…"
God instructs us to remove ourselves from fools, there is no convincing them of their sin, in fact any challenge to seek righteousness will be met with rage.
We must not allow the influences of past human relationships or our own minds to control our choices. We must seek God, allowing His truth and His Holy Spirit to determine our way.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)