A dear brother said that there are people who will "eat the apple just because they were told not to eat it.
He's right, each person must evaluate their own attitude and make their own decision to honor Christ.
Someone who will eat the apple because they were told not to do so is demonstrating their rebellion. Those who want to grow in holiness will take a challenge as a blessing.
Never water down your message because of the possible response. When someone responds in anger all that is happening is the real them is coming out.
Those who love the Lord consider a challenge to become holy as a blessing.
1 Peter 1:15-17 "…15 But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do, 16 for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.” 17 Since you call on a Father who judges each one’s work impartially, conduct yourselves in reverent fear during your stay as foreigners.…"
When we are careful to say things that people will accept we are not allowing the real them to become exposed to themselves. We don't need to see what is inside another person but the individual must see what is inside themselves if they are to confess their sinfulness to be cleansed.
Isaiah 35:8
"And there will be a highway called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not travel it--only those who walk in the Way--and fools will not stray onto it."
Philippians 3:7-19 "7 But whatever things were gain to me, these things I have counted as loss because of Christ.
8 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them mere rubbish, so that I may gain Christ,
9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith,
10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death;
11 if somehow I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
12 Not that I have already grasped it all or have already become perfect, but I press on if I may also take hold of that for which I was even taken hold of by Christ Jesus.
13 Brothers and sisters, I do not regard myself as having taken hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead,
14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
15 Therefore, all who are mature, let’s have this attitude; and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that to you as well;
16 however, let’s keep living by that same standard to which we have attained.
17 Brothers and sisters, join in following my example and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us.
18 For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even as I weep, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ,
19 whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who have their minds on earthly things.
20 For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ;
21 who will transform the body of our lowly condition into conformity with His glorious body, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself."
Hallelujah, Amen!
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