The Heart of the Born Again Believer

Titus 3:1-3 "1 Remind the believers to submit to rulers and authorities, to be obedient and ready for every good work, 2 to malign no one, and to be peaceable and gentle, showing full consideration to everyone. 3 For at one time we too were foolish, disobedient, misled, and enslaved to all sorts of desires and pleasures—living in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another."

Ephesians 4:31-32 "Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, outcry and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and tenderhearted to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you."

James 3:17-18 "But the wisdom from above is first of all pure, then peace-loving, gentle, accommodating, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial, and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap the fruit of righteousness."

His Workmanship

There are those who use the excuse that "God says to comes as you are" to justify never changing our ways after we have said those words to accept Christ.

 
The reason God tells them they are accepted as they are when they first come is that He is the one who changes them. They cannot clean themselves up, He must do it.

No one has the ability to clean themselves up before they trust in Christ. They must trust in Him first and then He begins His worrk in us.

 
Ephesians 2:9-10 "…9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance as our way of life."

Get that? We are HIS WORKMANSHIP, not our own!

Our Family and Cultural Expectations

Sometimes I feel so sorry for those who are all bound up with the drama they create and the relationships they ruin.

 
Without regard to truth, many people who gossip about others more often than not are concocting in their own minds what they wish were true to diminish the reputation of others when they harbor jealousy. Not what they know, but what they wish were true.

 
They are jealous of believers who have peace and joy, and especially those who have corrected them; they must do something to be mischievous, causing doubt in the minds of others who do not hate the person the gossiper hates.

We are seeing more of this in these last days of deception because of the hatred toward God and all authority. Anyone who lives for Christ and refuses to follow the world will be hated by those who walk disobediently.

Those who walk with Christ don't have to say anything; merely not participating or not praising the world for their useless activities is enough to enrage those who love the world more than they love God.

 
Matthew 10:21-23a "…21 Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rise against their parents and have them put to death. 22 You will be hated by everyone because of My name, but the one who perseveres to the end will be saved. 23 When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next."

God not only gives permission for us to remove ourselves from those who bring division and trouble, but He commands that we flee from them when they refuse the gospel and when they have contempt for us.

 
Keep in mind that many who pretend to be Christians will call us divisive for expecting the brethren to cling to and obey the Bible, the Word of God. Jesus Christ is the very essence of His Word, to ignore Him is not trusting in Him but in the self of the flesh.

 
Believers are not responsible for remaining with rebellious people, hoping they will one day be an influence on the ones who have rejected Christ and us.

 
Remaining with those who have rejected Christ and us is the same as believing we are the ones who must work in their lives; it leaves no room for trusting that we did what God told us to do, and now it is up to God to bring others into their lives if it is His will.

 
We are merely the messengers for a particular period of time. When it is time to move on, then we must go and leave them alone.

 
John 15:18-21 "If the world hates you, understand that it hated Me first. If you were of the world, it would love you as its own. Instead, the world hates you, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.

Remember the word that I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you as well; if they kept My word, they will keep yours as well."

Christ must be enough for us, even if no one else walks that path of salvation with us; we are at peace and have great joy to walk it alone. However, we are not alone completely; many people are communicating with us on the internet who have experienced the same rejection and understand what we are going through. They share our sorrows and our joys like no one else could.

 
Elijah the prophet thought he was all alone, but God showed him he was not alone, to encourage him.

1 Kings 19:18 "18 Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal and every mouth that has not kissed him.”

"A joy shared is double the joy and a sorrow shared is half a sorrow"! I don't know who said it, but we find the principle in Scripture.

 
Romans 12:15 "15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep."

This is why narcissists will not share in your joy or weep with you. They want to further burden you with their indifference, and they hate it when we are joyful, so they attempt to diminish it by refusing to engage in our happiness.

 
God's way of relationships is so lovely and satisfying that the thought of interacting with narcissists is illogical. Why would we share our griefs or joys with those who hate us? It makes no sense. It is better to be alone without them than to engage only to be diminished at the important times of our lives.

 
God is so gracious to show us what evil people look like spiritually so that we can avoid their nonsense and spend our time with those who love Christ authentically.
Those who are truly born-again will enjoy us because they love Christ. They are our family who will spend eternity with us, who will be at the marriage supper of the Lamb with us, and we will all come back with Christ at the end of the tribulation when Christ destroys evil upon the earth.

 
Hallelujah!!!!

The Spiritual Implications in Life

Sister Joan reminded me in another thread that everything that happens to us in life has spiritual implications. I was blessed to hear her say this and commented the following:

"Amen, Amen, everything has a spiritual component to it, and often we look only at the feelings or the circumstances and miss the spiritual."

When we think superficially based on feelings and desires, we are going to miss God's truth that goes deeper and more profound.

 
Life has so many lessons for us when we delve deeper into the matters of life to find the lesson that transforms our thinking and brings intense wisdom and understanding.

 
Being satisfied with the superficial will keep us bogged down in misunderstandings and false doctrine without the ability to discern truth from error.

2 Timothy 4:3-4 " 3 For the time will come when men will not tolerate sound doctrine, but with itching ears they will gather around themselves teachers to suit their own desires. 4 So they will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.…"

Jealousy, anger, outbursts of wrath, and much more are generated from a heart that dwells on feelings and a need to be superior to others.

 
1 Timothy 4:1-2 "Now the Spirit expressly states that in later times some will abandon the faith to follow deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons, influenced by the hypocrisy of liars, whose consciences are seared with a hot iron."

Titus 1:10-11 "For many are rebellious and full of empty talk and deception, especially those of the circumcision, who must be silenced. For the sake of dishonorable gain, they undermine entire households and teach things they should not."

Empty talk, that being senseless bantering about things that do not matter, or deliberate misinterpretation to be able to assess things so they elevate the one who is madly in love with themselves.

 
The whole world is this way now. Only those who are born-again can escape the temptation to mistakenly and deliberately interpret things according to our own desire to hate someone or something.

 
The Holy Spirit in us will cause conviction in others that motivates them to hate believers. Satan is working hard in these last days to destroy Christians or at least their witness in the world by turning the world against them.

 
1 Peter 5:7-9 "…7 Cast all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you. 8 Be sober-minded and alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9 Resist him, standing firm in your faith and in the knowledge that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering."

When we know these things, we can remain joyful, hopeful, and ready with an answer without false guilt when someone becomes offended over silly things.

Why They are Leaving the Institutional Church

Amen, Amen!!!!! This is why so many believers are leaving the institutional church heavily peppered with unbelievers who think they are going to heaven.