Friday, July 12, 2024
Thursday, July 11, 2024
Proof We Love Christ
"The more I get to know people the more I love my dog." German Philosopher
Thankfully there are many born-again believers who carry the sweet Spirit of Jesus Christ within their souls. These people walk on the straight path with love for Jesus Christ and humanity so much so that they are willing to be hated by everyone and anyone to be able to bring the truth that will save them from hell. They are willing to die to self often losing their own family members to follow Christ.
John 14:15-16 "15 If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate to be with you forever—…"
When we love what Christ loved enough to die for, that is the world while they were still sinners, then we will warn those who do not know Him so they will change their mind and want to be changed by Him into a new creation.
John 14:21
"Whoever has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me. The one who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and reveal Myself to him."
Those who see the Bible, the very words of Christ, as a book of suggestions to choose which ones to follow and which to ignore do not love Christ. They are those who want all that Christ has to offer but do not want Him.
2 John 1:6
"And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the very commandment you have heard from the beginning, that you must walk in love."
Our Character Determines our Attitudes and Actions!
There are many people who say they are Christians attending church buildings every week who have never trusted Christ. They only "say" they have but the evidence of the character of Christ is not present in their lives. The fruit is rotten and the desire to obey the whole counsel of God in the Scriptures is conspicuously absent.
God's fruit in all born-again believers looks like this:
We will not see those who possess this fruit playing silly manipulative games or sporting superiority to appear special and above others.
We will not see them deliberately and covertly or overtly diminishing others to elevate themselves. Those who love Christ love others and want to help encourage them rather than tear them down to feel the joy of watching them fall. It is the hatred of the devil that promotes jealousy in the hearts that operates in the lack of empathy and rudeness.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7
"4 Love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous; love does not brag, it is not arrogant. 5 It does not act disgracefully, it does not seek its own benefit; it is not provoked, does not keep an account of a wrong suffered, 6 it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 it keeps every confidence, it believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."
God said: Matthew 7:15-20
You Will Know Them by Their Fruit
15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.
16 You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles?
17 Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.
18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.
19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Therefore by their fruits you will know them."
Anyone who says to you that you cannot know the heart because only God knows the heart, remind them that Christ lives in us and gives us His discernment and principles from the Bible that tell us the heart of a person. Otherwise the warnings God gives us in the Bible to avoid certain people would be meaningless. We are told by God to evaluate someone as to whether or not they would make godly companions. A person's actions on the outside cannot be different from the heart condition, everything flows from the heart before it becomes an action. Attitudes can easily be seen even before actions occur that warn us something is off, then we can ask the Holy Spirit to show us the nuances of the warning.
Proverbs 4:23
"Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life."
If someone murders they are a murderer in their heart before they did the deed.
If someone steals they have hate in their heart that allows them the excuse that they had a good reason to steal.
If someone lies they have a heart of deceit that brings forth the false words.
Everyone who violates any part of the Ten Commandments has broken every other commandment just as Christ said because their heart is one of rebellion against God. Someone who lies, someone who steals and someone who murders has dishonored their parents and justified their sin.
Those who dishonor their parents through rudeness and neglect have broken the commandment to "honor father and mother." If someone honors one but not the other they have violated God's Word. The command was to honor both parents.
What is honor: this is rarely defined by people because our culture has been trained to believe honor means coming to their birthday party or giving them a holiday gift. These things may be nice but they are not honor.
Honor is to value someone, value them through attention to their wisdom desiring to please them because of who they are in God's eyes, those that bore us and raised us. Another aspect of valuing parents is to never speak to them harshly with disrespect no matter how much you disagree with them. Treating a parent with contempt because of a disagreement is to violate all of the commandments of God.
Doing something friendly, such as a birthday party, for a parent and then treating them with disdain the rest of the year tells us their party was to elevate themselves and not for the parent.
Honor is far deeper than a gift once a year or showing off in front of others to raise up oneself in the eyes of others. The best gift a parent can receive is loving concern, empathy and kindness to them when no one else is looking.
In my experience, as I have observed, the narcissist treats the parents with a disingenuous (insincere) form of respect when others are looking and disrespect when there is no one to see them.
Our culture as a whole has become hard wired to think that saying something makes it so and doing something out of obligation lacking love and even courting contempt, is good enough as long as others don't notice.
God looks at the heart rather than the words and even the actions.
Matthew 7:21-23 "21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’"
Genuine actions and words from the heart are what counts with God.
Wednesday, July 10, 2024
Navigating Through This Ungodly World
"Never get angry about something you cannot change" Ronald Reagan
Never take advice from those who have failed in relationship after relationship while never making any significant emotional or spiritual growth or broadening of their character.
If someone acts the same way at 70 as they were at 20 this is a person who will bring nothing of value to the relationship because they have not self-reflected to learn all their lives, what makes us think they will do it now?!! They do not understand important matters, they don't evaluate to discover the truth and they are easily offended by those who do not walk according to the narcissist's desires. These people will never have your back nor do they care to, they only want you as supply to elevate them, anything else is an irritant to them.
Understandably, most people will be acquaintances as we move through life. We can enjoy them while remaining superficial for a time. However, deeper more meaningful relationships will take time, effort, and understanding as we engage in all manner of trials and joys in life together sharing important matters while enjoying the input of our friends.
Those who have not grown emotionally and spiritually are not able to see why they lost someone, they only blame the one who became weary of their nonsense and departed.
These self-proclaimed special people become angry and full of rage that what they did chased someone away. They never self-reflected to understand they played a major role in why someone could no longer put up with their covert and sometimes overt manipulation tactics to cause frustration in their target.
When someone cares only about remaining in control and superior to others there can never be closeness or cooperation, there is no reciprocity. They do not help others in life unless it elevates themselves in the eyes of others and it is usually minimal when they do.
I cannot count the number of times I heard this very disturbing phrase from people; "at least I can say I did something" as though the minimum was enough to boast while making those who do this feel that they made a difference when in reality they made very little if any difference at all.
In other words, the narcissist does as little as possible for others to be able to brag but not enough to be a real help and they never do something if they are asked, they only do what they want. They will be very helpful to those they wish to impress and who elevate them continually, but they will never be there for those they see as beneath them.
A narcissist never wants to be inconvenienced by the problems of others so they use the excuse that it is not their responsibility.
I do many things that are not my responsibility because I love someone. I like to be a "wingman" as they say, someone who is there to support someone as they move through life. Even if there is nothing I can "do", I can always "be" supportive when there is a trial, a new adventure or anything else, even if I am not needed.
Narcissists love to boast to others they are excluding in order to show off to their target what the narcissist has that the target does not have. This is why social media has become so popular, most people love to parade themselves exaggerating their exploits and all the adventures they are having to create jealousy in others.
When I see most social media posts, I notice people saying subtly, "look at me, look at me." All of us do some of this to share happy things with our friends because we enjoy too when they share with us, but far too many use this forum to brag and parade themselves without regard to the people who are seeing the post.
This is the reason it is so easy to "delete" someone from our lives these days, people are merely objects to be used to enhance one's own image in these final days before Christ comes.
This truly is the "me generation" that is described in 2 Timothy 3. Those who do not love others but love themselves a great deal. These too are the people who will not listen to sound doctrine or godly advice. As God said, they heap up for themselves those who will say what they want to hear and reject those who say what is needed and righteous.
2 Timothy 3:1-5
Difficult (ragingly insane) Times Will Come
3 But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come.
2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, slanderers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,
3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, 4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 holding to a form of godliness although they have denied its power; avoid such people as these."
2 Timothy 4:3 "
For the time will come when they will not tolerate sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires,"
You may have already noticed that the parents who go along to get along, neglecting to impart truth and wisdom to their children will be those who are loved by their children and their families.
Those who bring truth and light with God's wisdom will be rejected, mocked, maligned and ignored in these last days. Count it as great blessing when you are not loved by the world.
John 15:18-20 "18 the world hates you, understand that it hated Me first. 19 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. 20 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.…"
It is foolishness for us to attempt to change others. We can only tell the truth and remove ourselves when they will not listen. And, perhaps, someone may listen, learn, and change their ways, although rare in our generation. The very least that will happen is we learn to become steadfast and strong no matter what others are doing.
John 17:14
"I have given them Your word and the world has hated them; for they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world."
James 4:4
"You adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever chooses to be a friend of the world renders himself an enemy of God."
Knowing God's Word concerning these things will keep us steeped in joy, peace, and comfort as we navigate through this dying world.
Behavior not Words
Behavior reveals the heart not words, Watch the behavior. Satan lied to Eve, she believed the words.
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