A Lazy Lot!

Have you ever wondered why the children of narcissists are not close to one another?

The reason is that the narcissistic parents taught "by example" to be in continual competition with their spouse and even with their own children.

"More is caught than taught", this is why so often people tend to follow their culture with all of its commercials and propaganda to think the way they are being influenced more than thinking through things for themselves, we know from the state of the churches that most people do not seek Christ for their answers.

We are a lazy lot, we like to do what everyone else is doing rather than ponder things to make up our own minds. It is also the problem of addiction to being accepted by the culture around us.

We have actually been trained by the reactions of others to seek the approval of those around us rather than evaluate things to find out the truth.

This is also why we see so many people watching a two-minute video on the internet about a crime thinking we have enough information in that short clip to be able to judge the people in that video.

We have many people buying into all kinds of foolishness merely because someone said something that excited their sense of adventure.

I remember a video I watched in which a young man cut a banana in half as well as a kiwi fruit, placing half banana and the half kiwi in the dirt together while explaining that this would produce a kiwi banana fruit.

That is a banana that was yellow on the outside and kiwi green on the inside. There were people who actually believed this, even arguing with me that it was true. Interestingly enough no one ever saw a plant from that diverse union or any fruit from it. This was such bad science that those who were reasonably intelligent knew it was a silly joke. AND yet, some people believed it, said they would try it, and would not be convinced otherwise, arguing for their side even though it was all untrue.

This is the state of our world today, people are more likely to believe what they want because their life is full of feelings-oriented fantasy thinking. If they can think it up, it must be true, they believe. This is also why the antichrist will be able to do false miracles convincing most people in the world that he is God.

When our culture is more oriented toward fantasy thinking and feelings driven we are doomed. Rational thinking becomes unpopular, it is the fly in the ointment of the pleasure seekers. Those who point out the truth to those who have been led by the nose through their feelings and fantasy will be considered to have rained on everyone's parade, they are the pariahs of the community.

This was the way it was in the time of the apostles and the old testament prophets. They were considered insane and a problem to be eliminated by the rest of the ancient world.

Why would we think it would be different now? Born again believers who tell the truth, attempting to make good sense out of things according to God's Word are the modern-day pariahs.

In case someone doesn't know the word "pariah" it is a small fish that is dangerously carnivorous, even being known to eat human beings. The term has come to mean someone who is an outcast from society, someone to be feared and eliminated.

This is the way the mainstream media is treating Christians these days. It is also being taught in almost all venues by the example of the speech laws and the disapproving facial expressions on those who have contempt for born-again believers.

Here is how God said to act when faced with this disapproval.

Luke 6:27 "27 But to those of you who will listen, I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. "

1 Peter 3:8-10 "8 Finally, all of you, be like-minded and sympathetic, love as brothers, be tenderhearted and humble. 9 Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this, you were called so that you may inherit a blessing. 10 For, “Whoever would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech.…"

Christ is Always with Us!

What Did God Mean? That is the Real Question

Many will say; "but that's not what it means to me", in reference to Bible passages. God never intended to make the scriptures or the holidays what we like, He gave His Word to tell us His heart and His commands the way He expects us to understand them.

God never said anywhere in His word to interpret His words the way we like to believe them.

God never said in His Word that adding our own ideas to His Word was acceptable. In fact He said just the opposite.

John 14:24-24 "…23 Jesus replied, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word. My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. 24 Whoever does not love Me does not keep My words. The word that you hear is not My own, but it is from the Father who sent Me. "

Never say "this is what the scriptures mean to me", say this instead; "this is what God meant them to say." When we are so arrogant as to believe we can change God's Word to fit our own desires or our culture we are in rebellion against Him. It is better not to talk about Him or His Word at all than to lie against Him.

God gave us His Word with His meaning, He wants us to learn His ways, obey His commands, and love Him so much that we cannot tolerate dishonoring Him in any way. Christ is the very essence of His Word, He cannot be changed or manipulated to our liking.

God never meant for us to choose what we wish to believe, He wanted us to read His Word, believe Him and obey what He says in it. There are no excuses we can always ask the Holy Spirit to open the understanding to us.

We also would do better to ask God than any other human being. When I was a new believer I asked others I thought were more spiritual than myself. Sadly most of them gave me wrong answers and watered down scriptures to fit what made people feel good about themselves. I didn't feel better about myself, I felt aggravated because the Holy Spirit in me caused me to question these psychological teachings and dive deeper into His Word and prayer.

When we are walking with Christ a lie against Him becomes an irritant like a spec in the eye, it cannot be tolerated and must be removed. The smallest spec in the eye feels like a large rock, nothing relieves it, the only removal relieves the irritation.

The most satisfying place to be in our Spiritual walk is to have total confidence in Christ Who lives in us. Even if we lose all our friends and family to obey Christ we are at peace and content because we are obeying Him.

Hallelujah!!! We love people, we listen to their wisdom to compare it with the Bible, but they never take priority over Christ in us.

How much more we can enjoy our brothers and sisters when we know they are flawed like us and need Christ to be the one to guide them. We can love them as they are with all their flaws and warts while accepting instruction and correction ourselves.

Pride is a destroyer, it destroys relationships, learning, progress in holiness, and everything else it touches. Pride got the devil thrown out of heaven, why on earth would we want to follow his lead in our walk. It is Christ we follow, not a man, not the devil but Christ alone when we are born again.

Pride is a destroyer of all that is good!

Proverbs 16:17-19 "…17 The highway of the upright leads away from evil; he who guards his way protects his life. 18 Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. 19 It is better to be lowly in spirit among the humble than to divide the spoil with the proud."

Easter: The Holiday of the Pagans

I do not celebrate "Easter" as so many "Christians" do. They have been given a strong dilution to believe this holiday was given by God, it was not. It is a man-made holiday instituted by the Catholic church to inculcate into the church some paganism to draw in the pagans.

You can take anything you like, attach a Christian meaning to it but if it was not commanded by Christ it remains pagan in spite of tacking on a Christian theme to that which comes out of paganism.

Here is what God says:

Mark 7:13-14 "13 Thus you nullify the word of God by the tradition you have handed down. And you do so in many such matters.” 14 Once again Jesus called the crowd to Him and said, “All of you, listen to Me and understand:…"

By attaching pagan practices to Christ we do not have a Christianized pagan holiday we just have blasphemy, assigning to Christ what belongs to the pagans.

Many years ago as a Catholic I was into all these holidays believing they honored God. When I became a born-again believer on fire for Christ, He opened my eyes to the origins of all these holidays and gave me a disdain for them.

If every believer would just search the scriptures while asking the Holy Spirit for wisdom they would see that God never commanded or endorsed any of these man-made "Christianized pagan" holidays. They were the devil's trick to distract "religious" people from Christ. Many religious people pride themselves in their practices as though doing these rituals makes them special in some way, it appeals to the flesh.

Notice how so many people show up at church gatherings on these holidays while ignoring Christ the rest of the year? That is because they are "feel good" holidays that relieve the conscience. Many unsaved people gain a sense of safety and happiness from doing what is worthless to God.

I grew up with these traditions, the dress-up clothes, the coloring of eggs, the special services every year, but in the home, there was no mention of Christ and a lot of pride that led to mean-spirited words and actions regularly. There was no fruit of the Spirit in the home, only traditions that caused a lot of stress.

God said you shall know them by their fruit.

What is the fruit? Here it is, the very character qualities of Christ that dwell in every born-again believer.

Galatians 5:22-23

"22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things, there is no law.

When these character qualities are missing there will not be continual bad manners, snide, and mean-spirited remarks. In fact, there will be kindness, concern for others, respect for them as though they have value. There will not be raging in a discussion or intimidation to control others. If we were to ponder each quality we would see how love is present in every one of them. Even when there is corrective instruction there is no sense of superiority or intimidation from the one correcting, there is gentle with kindness to help. Those who rage, using intimidation and mocking have no love. Even worse when they are told they are acting badly they will further rage as well as blame their target for daring to show them their fault.

This prideful stance is proof the one doing this is not walking in the Holy Spirit. If this happens continually as a way of life then we can presume this person is not born again no matter what they say. The solution is to not engage with them and pray for their salvation.

You see, many people who love these pagan practices with Christ's name tacked on, are walking in the flesh, full of self-exaltation without the fruit of the Spirit. Yes, there may be some kind people who are not born again who love these holidays, but these people still need to become born again.

If it is difficult to remove the holiday from your life at least call it "Resurrection Day" and stop indulging in the pagan practices that honor the goddess Eostre. Leave behind all that is associated with this paganism and make it all about Christ. Soon after making this choice, you will notice you have grown a hatred for what dishonors God. You will have no need for any of it and even more at peace than you were when you enjoyed the rituals.

Just something to pray about, how much do we love Christ more than our traditions?

Mark 7:7-9 "…7 They worship Me in vain; they teach as doctrine the precepts of men.’ 8 You have disregarded the commandment of God to keep the tradition of men.” 9 He went on to say, “You neatly set aside the command of God to maintain your own tradition.…"

Yes, it's true, we can worship God in vain without His blessing by adding paganism to our worship.

0 Comments