Christ Died Alone for the Sins of Others

We can never be more alone than Christ was as He hung on that cross for the sins of others while no man was at the foot of that cross, it was the women.

All those who loved and followed Him even preached with Him were absent. Jesus Christ had the love of the Father and still cried out; "Father why have you forsaken me."

Jesus Christ did the greatest thing anyone could ever do and He did it by Himself, in a manner of speaking. No one deserves more praise than He does for what He did for us!!!!

So then why do so many believers disregard His commands in His Word which are the very essence of Who He is, that is God with the authority to command us His children.

Hallelujah!!!!

Christ Love Sustains us When the World Hates Us!

My personal testimony about the permanency of marriage and God's will in a difficult marriage.

We have to remember we chose the person we married and probably without much prayer. I believe God would have warned us and we would have listened if we had asked Him.

Most people base their desire for someone on physical attraction and on how friendly they are before the marriage. Everyone is friendly to the one they want to win. It is very hard to discern a person's character when we are busy desiring them. The clues are always there, we just ignore them to focus on what we want to believe about them.

In my case, I was a cultural Christian who became Catholic to marry my husband. I was 16 years old when we became engaged. We married when I was 18 and no we didn't live together as people do now.

After we were married I became a Christian while my husband was an unsaved Catholic. It was rough, he was angry at me all the time about everything because of my "radical Christian thinking." I prayed that God would save him, and eventually, he did. My point, I was so convinced by God that I was to stay married no matter what that I agonized in prayer for his salvation. Yes there were times when I threatened divorce but God did not allow me to carry it out, He gave me His love to be able to see the value in the marriage even if I had to live in difficulty the rest of my life.

So often we ignore the clues before marriage that are blatantly evident after marriage. We don't seek God for our marriage and we rely on attraction rather than the important character qualities.

Bottom line: we must stay married, focus on prayer for our spouse and allow God to do work in us as we become more Christlike. Our focus cannot be on our trials, it must be on our own character building through the trials. Just some thoughts I learned that might help those in agony in a difficult marriage.

My children still treat me the way my husband did before he became born again. They do not love me nor do they want to hear from me. There is constant irritation at any mention of God as well as rejection toward me. I know this is because of the influence of non-believing family members who treated me with contempt during their up-bringing. They passed their stories about me to their spouses and I get the same treatment from their spouses.

I pray for my children regularly but have no expectation that things will be different between us because of the cultural influence of self-worship so deeply entrenched in this world. I no longer look for validation or love from family, all of that is fulfilled by Christ in me. It would be a happy day if this all changed and the family repented and became new creations in Christ, however, if that never happens I remain full of joy and love through Christ Who lives in me.

We have to remember we may never experience love in this world as the world grows darker, but we always have Christ who loved us more than any human being could. Many who would say they love and honor us do not know what it looks like because they do not have Christ. Christ's love is clearly evident to those of us who have experienced it, there is no question that it is far greater than any human love.

Matthew 10:35-37 "…35 For I have come to turn ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36 A man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’ 37 Anyone who loves his father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me;…"

Matthew 10:21

"Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rise against their parents and have them put to death."

Nehemiah 8:10

"Then he said to them, “Go your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

This passage was written to Israel but the lesson applies to all those today who love the Lord. He is our strength, if we have no one else we always have Him and He is enough.

Philippians 4:4

"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice."

Come Out From Among Them

"When most hear the word “leaders,” they think of institutionalized leaders. An institutionalized leader is one who has been institutionalized by an institutional-church system. Institutionalized leaders are not true leaders; they have not been appointed by Christ, but by the religious system that credentials them." Larry Jones

Mr. Jones has correctly stated here that leaders are not ordained by man to be leaders in the church, they are commissioned by Christ as they are led into the ministry by the Holy Spirit. They are not chosen by God based on a diploma from a human institution. The men who appoint these leaders are men who are led by the Holy Spirit and know the personal lives of each one they appoint. The men who serve a congregation were well known by that congregation before they were appointed.

Leaders did not come to a completely unfamiliar assembly from far away, not knowing the people and the people not knowing them. There is danger in choosing someone based on their "credentials" from a Bible college when no one knows their lives and attitude. So many church splits have happened because an unknown person comes into the congregation and begins to teach whatever he was taught in those institutions rather than from the Holy Spirit and unadulterated Bible. I have seen this more times than I can count.

Titus 1:4-6 "4 To Titus, my true child in our common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior. 5 The reason I left you in Crete was that you would set in order what was unfinished and appoint elders in every town, as I directed you. 6 An elder must be blameless, the husband of but one wife, having children who are believers and who are not open to the accusation of indiscretion or insubordination.…"

Acts 14:23

"Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church, praying and fasting as they entrusted them to the Lord, in whom they had believed."

The leaders for church gatherings were chosen from among the people where they lived not from far away. These men were known by the people they would serve, there were no "credentialed" persons based on a diploma or degree. These men were led by the Holy Spirit, receiving their instruction from the Holy Spirit.

Our human institutions that seem to think they can do a better job than the Holy Spirit are humanistic and earthly oriented. If there was a human institution that began with well-meaning intentions have gone bad because the grants they were given by powerful and wealthy men removed an opportunity for the institution to rely entirely on Christ. When the institution relies on grants by wealthy men they begin to teach what those benefactors expect them to teach. Relying on the monies from grants is a pitfall for any institution.

When pastors began to be paid a salary for their "work" they saw their job as a job rather than as a calling from God. Whether they realized it or not they began to be careful not to offend those who paid them their salary. In fact it morphed into men in the pulpit holding up their finger to the wind to see which way it was blowing in order to determine their sermons to please the people in the pews.

Rebukes became non-existent, parishioners became expectant that they would fire the one man paid pastor if he taught what they didn't like to hear.

So in our day, we have many pastors who are tickling ears to keep their salary and medical benefits.

2 Timothy 4:3 "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but having itching ears, they shall heap to themselves teachers in accordance with their own lusts."

When a man is a preacher because he loves the Lord and depends entirely on Him for his help, this man will not water down or compromise the message because he has nothing to lose if the people don't like it. If all the elders preached and taught and no one is paid there need not be worry about being fired or losing something that sustains them.

Each elder has their own job to sustain their families, they have no need for stipends from the congregation. When a traveling preacher comes through the gathered funds from the congregation can gift this visitor with whatever he needs to travel from place to place. This is not the same as a steady salary.

1 Corinthians 9:14

"In the same way, the Lord has prescribed that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel."

This passage has been interpreted in terms of our modern western thinking that allows for salaries for a one-man pastor system which is clearly unbiblical. Paul said to "appoint elders", he never said "appoint a pastor", this means that one man is never the entire focus of any gathering. There is to be a plurality of leaders in a gathering so that no one man would ever be the focus.

In most gatherings today the pastor is seen in an almost idolatrous way, the only one who can preach or teach. The people in the pews will not hear anyone else and even become angry when the pastor is corrected by someone. This too is unbiblical.

Having come out of the Catholic church I am painfully aware of the idolatrous way the priests are admired and treated with such honor that no one is allowed to criticize them. Believe it or not, having seen this system and come out I began to see it in Protestantism, in which the diplomaed pastors were given this same idolatrous honor, as though any challenge to them was considered monstrous.

I used to say to people that Protestants have their "protestant popes", astonished that I would think so they would counter me with; "no we don't." Because they didn't know the Bible or God's order in the church gathering they thought it was biblical to have a paid one-man pastor who knew everything and only he could teach the truth.

This led to much error in the church as the seminaries churned out men who were trained by other men how to grow numbers in the church while dumbing down the truth to get the people in the pews.

Many men were drawn to the seminaries because of their lust for power over people. There are many narcissists in the pulpits today who use joking, stories and intimidation to entertain and dominate over the people. Often very little scripture is used and peppered with human wisdom with the origins coming out of psychology.

I was in a church many years ago in which an "ordained" pastor held the Bible above his head and proclaimed that all of life's answers were not in this book, and all of life's answers are not Jesus Christ." We were not in the pew that day but heard it from others who also attended there. Needless to say, we left that gathering and never returned.

This was a sad day for us, we had just left the Catholic church and this protestant church was recommended to us by people we knew. We had no idea as new believers that any "Christian" thought this way. We were on fire for the Lord as new believers we didn't know others thought this way.

Even though many pastors would not say those ugly words this pastor said, they act as though they believe them.

I have begun to believe that most men who go to Bible college these days are there for the power, special knowledge over others, and a secure job, not because they have been called by Christ. The evidence is in the arrogance they display and the twisting of scripture they do on a regular basis.

If you are one of these pastors please search your heart and seek the Holy Spirit. If you want to be led of Christ leave these organizations, come out from among them and begin all over again to obey God's Word.

2 Corinthians 6:16-18 "…16 What agreement can exist between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will dwell with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be My people.” 17 “Therefore come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.” 18 And: “I will be a Father to you, and you will be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”"

If you happen to attend a good gathering where there is a pastor be careful not to make him your idol. This system is not a salvation issue but has brought a lot of misunderstanding to the gathering as well as the people in the pew depending on the pastor rather than doing their own studies, prayer and seeking Christ at home.

If you happen to attend a good gathering where there is a pastor be careful not to make him your idol. This system is not a salvation issue but has brought a lot of misunderstanding to the gathering as well as the people in the pew depending on the pastor rather than doing their own studies, prayer and seeking Christ at ho

Grace is for the Repentant

Forgiveness requires both sides of the same coin, that is confession of offense and forgiveness when it happens. The purpose of forgiveness is to reconcile a relationship.

We are to forgive the way Christ forgives, that is when there is repentance.

Luke 17:3-4 "…3Watch yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. 4Even if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times returns to say, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.” "

Because of the teachings of psychology, most Christians believe we should forgive for ourselves even if the offender is not sorry. This is not Biblical. We are to forgive when someone is sorry.

However, we should not treat people badly just because they are not sorry but the relationship remains broken until the offender repents. Just as with Christ. Those who will not repent from their sinfulness will not be forgiven by God. He is our example.

Also, just because we "say" I forgive them, does not mean their heart will soften to be sorry. Enabling does not fix things for those who are not sorry they harmed someone.

Isaiah 26:10-11 "10 Though grace is shown to the wicked man, he does not learn righteousness. In the land of righteousness, he acts unjustly and fails to see the majesty of the LORD. 11 O LORD, Your hand is upraised, but they do not see it. They will see Your zeal for Your people and be put to shame. The fire set for Your enemies will consume them!…"

Grace is for the repentant, it is not given to the unrepentant.

Confident People do not Rage at a Challenge

There is More than One Kind of Cheating on a Spouse

There is more than one kind of cheating on a spouse. Placing extended family above your spouse is a form of disloyalty. Placing yourself above your spouse is disloyalty.

Matthew 19:4-6 "…4 Jesus answered, “Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”…"

When we leave our families to marry a spouse we do not completely abandon our families unless they are destructive to the relationship. However, they no longer have priority in your life over your spouse. Extended family may have opinions about something we are doing but when they place pressure on us as a couple to do things the way they do them, that is the time to get away.

Every married couple must break from extended family to have their own lives their own way. If you are in an extended family system that requires you to be like them, do what they do, and go where they go, you must get away from this and make your own traditions.

There are many family structures that place intense and unreasonable demands on married couples as though the couple is married to the family. This is unbiblical and destructive to a marriage. IF this is the condition you are in then you must move as far away from the extended family as possible so they will not be able to influence the marriage.

1 Peter 3:7 "7 Husbands, in the same way, treat your wives with consideration as a delicate vessel, and with honor as fellow heirs of the gracious gift of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered. "

I have observed extended family placing pressure on the husband to oppress and discipline the wife falsely. They attempted to influence the husband that the wife should not have her own ideas, her own desires or express herself openly to her husband in her obedience. This is patently unbiblical and ruinous to a marriage.

When we marry we become one flesh, which means that we allow each to express ourselves within their roles as God made us as well as inputting verbally our desires for the marriage. Discussing something in marriage to come to a common agreement bonds a couple to one another. To remove this bond through one person barking orders and the other person obeying without a word will destroy the relationship.

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.

Colossians 3:19

"Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them."

1 Peter 3:1-6

"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, when they see your respectful and pure conduct."

Ephesians 5:33

"However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband."

A husband cannot honor the wife when he is treating her like a mindless slave. A wife cannot revere her husband when he treats her as an object to be used for his own purposes.

Marriage is a relationship, not a contract. It is a relationship, not a slave-master or father-child relationship. It is too adults with gifts and talents coming together to help one another grow in holiness. The wife is the counselor to the husband as well as his companion in the endeavors God has given him to do. She is a valuable asset to him with differing vantage points that can help him see sides of things he may not see.

The wife is also the manager of the home. She sees to the needs of the home, her children, and her husband so the husband is free to be in the workplace earning the money for the wife to run the household.

The manager of the home is an important position, she decides how it will be run and what will be done in her home. The husband is not to usurp this God-given role by dictating how she does her job. A husband may express some desires for certain things but he does not dominate over this, it was not his to give to the wife, it was God who gave it to the woman.

A woman should care if her husband is pleased with what she does in her role of CEO of her household, after all, he lives there too and they are one together.

A husband who disregards the needs of his wife and a wife who disregards the needs of her husband are both acting selfishly. This should never occur in a marriage where two people are one.

When we make a decision within our roles we consult with the other half of us to make sure they are pleased with the decision. If one is not pleased then there must be discussion to come to a common agreement. If a common agreement cannot be reached then the husband must make the decision as led by God. However, the husband ought never to make decisions completely disregarding the input of the wife and the wife should never disregard the input of the husband. They are ONE, the other half of us matters and has been given for a reason.

God did not make man and wife ONE for one to disregard the other. The woman must decide to follow Christ on her own as the husband must decide to follow Christ on his own. They will have differing views on things from time to time that must be discussed, no one forces another to believe a way that meets with theirs, this would be hypocrisy.

Each person within the marriage seeks God on doctrine, if they are both seeking God then they will agree on all important matters. Christ is not divided and no one person is above Christ.

There are those who believe they should take on the beliefs of the husband because he is the leader. The sad thing about this is that it causes women to learn not to think for themselves and make good honest decisions about truth through their own seeking of Christ. Husbands are wrong at times, they need the wife to show them the Bible passages working as helpmate to their husbands.

1 Peter 3:1-2 "1 Wives, in the same way, submit yourselves to your husbands, so that even if they refuse to believe the word, they will be won over without words by the behavior of their wives 2 when they see your pure and reverent demeanor."

Our behavior and resolve to follow Christ has more power with husband who are unsaved than any words would. "More is caught than taught" is a true saying.

Those who are married to saved husbands need to be open and verbal about the truth when their husband has a blind spot. Husbands are not our gods, they make mistakes and need our counsel from time to time just as we need theirs.

A husband who does not have an open and honest wife who will challenge him from time to time will never grow spiritually past infancy. Anyone who has no challenges to their behavior will not grow emotionally or spiritually. We need one another, the most important person in our lives is our spouse, we must be challenging one another continually to greater levels of holiness. Without this, no one grows.

Even the wife remains immature because she will not speak the truth openly, she becomes a mouthpiece for her husband even when he is wrong, she is no help to him.

noun ezer, עֵזֶר. is helpmate in Hebrew. Eve completed Adam. Husband and wife are two parts of a whole, serving a mutual purpose, that is to serve God. Husband and wives are two equal half of a whole sharing a common purpose.

Titus 2:4-5 - "Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God."

Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 - "Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up."

When a husband acts like a dictator, not as one with her, he is not valuing the wife as his equal and partner in life. When a wife disregards the needs of her husband she is acting independently as though she were not one with her husband.

God said that we should love our spouses as we love ourselves. No one despises themselves, if we love others as we love ourselves we would have little time to worry about getting what we want only. Everyone loves themselves, we are born that way, we don't have to work at that. The real challenge is to love others as much as we love ourselves.

Matthew 22:38-40 "…38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”…"

Just a side note, those who say they hate themselves are lying. They are so self-absorbed that they hate how their life is going they want something they believe to be better than what they have, this is not self-hatred, it is an over-emphasis on self. If those who say they hate themselves would stop thinking about themselves and focus on others they would find there was no self-hatred, only excessive self-love.

When we love our spouse as much as we love ourselves we will want them to succeed in life emotionally and spiritually. We cannot stand to watch those we love act badly causing a damaged reputation for themselves. We cannot stand to see them fail in their relationship with God.

Those who believe they are being good wives by allowing their husbands to be horrid people without any input from them are deluding themselves, they are more concerned about looking "submissive" to others than they are about the well-being of their husbands. Every woman must be led by the Holy Spirit when approaching a husband with a problem. If the husband blows up in anger then the wife must remove herself and input until the Lord works in his heart.

When we love someone, caring deeply about their success as loving human beings we will speak the truth, if they will not listen then we leave it with God, carrying on to do what is right in God's Word even if our husbands will not.

Below are some instances when the authorities over men or midwives were instructed to do something and those who followed God could not obey.

Acts 5:28-30 "…28“We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name,” he said. “Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us responsible for this man’s blood.” 29But Peter and the other apostles replied, “We must obey God rather than men. 30The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging Him on a tree.…"

Exodus 1:17

"The midwives, however, feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt had instructed; they let the boys live."

Daniel 6:13

"Then they told the king, "Daniel, one of the exiles from Judah, shows no regard for you, O king, or for the decree that you have signed. He still makes his petition three times a day."

1 Samuel 25:1-32 is a passage about Abigail who was married to a man who was not obeying God, so she had to take matters into her own hands to do what was right before God.

Abigail was married to a wretch of a drunk. She was described as "A beautiful woman with a beautiful mind as she had is surely one of God’s masterpieces."

When a woman will not be the helpmeet to her husband, working for his good by expressing truth and living it, she is no good for the husband. We must love our husband more than we love ourselves. We must love them so much that we are willing to be hurt by him to bring truth from God to the marriage.

Bottom line: Seek God in all things, do not listen to those who have human traditions they have added to the Bible to diminish the Oneness union of a man and woman.

By the way, Abigail was acting on behalf of her husband as the other half of him even if he was not doing right, the other half of him did do what was right and helped a possible horrid situation. Her story is well worth reading in 1 Samuel.

The more we know the word of God the less we are influenced by false and destructive doctrine.

Hallelujah!!!

Pleasing God

Caring about what wicked people think of you places them above God. Do not be a "people pleaser."