Tolerating Sin in Others Diminishes Our Walk with Christ

I don't want to lose what God is doing in me.

 
When we tolerate what God hates as others dishonor Him, we become more like those who willfully sin against Christ.

 
Tolerating sin in others to be their friends is to diminish our walk with Christ, He is the One we should care about pleasing.

 
1 Thessalonians 2:4
"But just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts."
Romans 8:27 "And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God."

We can Know what God Knows Because His Holy Spirit Lives in Us

It is not true that only God can judge the heart. He knows and imparts that wisdom to those who belong to Him.

Christ said; "you shall know them by their fruit." He gave us the principles by which we can know the character of a man. We cannot say who is going to heaven or hell because we don't know if they will repent in the future. We can know if they belong to God or not by their fruit.

Matthew 7:16-17 "…16 By their fruit you will recognize them. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.…"

What is the fruit?

Galatians 5:22-23 "22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.…"

When we evaluate what the world is saying about God by comparing it to God's Word, much of what people believe is in the Bible is actually opposite of what God teaches in the Bible.

What He knows we can know too by using His principles to discern the truth.

Blessings or Gifts Just Saying

When someone say something "is a blessing from God" more often than not they are thinking of material possessions and things they can look at and enjoy.

However the blessings of God for the believer are Spiritual not temporal, even though our food and everything else physical are gifts from God, our blessings are the wisdom, faith and confidence we have in Him.

If all our material possessions and our health were taken away we should still have our wisdom, it cannot be taken from us, therefore it is the real blessing, far greater than any temporal thing.

Sadly many "Christians" are glorying in their idea of their material blessings but lack the real blessing of wisdom.

Proverbs 4:5-9

"Get wisdom; get insight; do not forget, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth. Do not forsake her, and she will keep you; love her, and she will guard you. The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight. Prize her highly, and she will exalt you; she will honor you if you embrace her. She will place on your head a graceful garland; she will bestow on you a beautiful crown.”

When all is taken from us, even our own fleshly bodies, the wisdom remains and follows us to our next home.

Proverbs 4:7

"Wisdom is supreme; so acquire wisdom. And whatever you may acquire, gain understanding."

Proverbs 16:16

"How much better to acquire wisdom than gold! To gain understanding is more desirable than silver."

Those who value material wealth and health will miss the wisdom of God. One cannot love both at the same time, one must be sacrificed over the other.

Obey God and Don't Worry about the Responses of Others

Ezekiel 3:17-19 "…17“Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from My mouth, give them a warning from Me. 18 I say to the wicked man, ‘You will surely die,’ but you do not warn him or speak out to warn him from his wicked way to save his life, that wicked man will die in his iniquity, and I will hold you responsible for his blood. 19 But if you warn a wicked man and he does not turn from his wickedness and his wicked way, he will die in his iniquity, but you will have saved yourself.…"

How often are we confronted with pressure to do what others are doing and go along to get alone?

When we stand for righteousness we will be maligned and judged wrongly and irrationally. It only matters what God thinks not what others want to believe about us. And, if we are led by the Holy Spirit to warn someone then it doesn't matter what their reaction or accusation is, it only matters that we obey God.

Scapegoats Can Hear the Voice of God

When a team is on a losing streak the scapegoat is the coach and he is fired, not that he was the problem, it was the players who performed in the game.

Scapegoats are those who are chosen to be seen as a problem when they do not groupthink with others among the collective thinkers. This happens in churches, families, and other venues in the community.

When someone comes along and says: "there is a better way, could we take a look at it?" those who are in charge and are failing, see this as a personal attack and a danger to their status as the commander, the motivator and controller of the minds of others, even perhaps the more valued one in the eyes of others.

We saw this in Pilot who determined the sentence for Christ as death. He determined the death of Christ by washing his hands of it and passing it off to others. He was concerned about his popularity with the people more than he cared about justice. Even though He didn't want to kill Christ he would not make the determination to remain safe from the people.

When Christ healed the sick and made the blind to see, rather than excited about His love and kindness as God, the Pharisees assigned His miracles to the work of the devil in an attempt to refuse to admit Who Christ was, that He is God.

I once received an e-mail from someone who accused me of all the things that person was demonstrating. They had assigned to me what they were doing and I was not. This is common in our culture of intense deception and lies.

Do not be disturbed when those who love the world more than Christ want to see you as the one who is evil while they elevate themselves.

When we self-reflect and evaluate ourselves, according to the Bible regularly as the Holy Spirit guides us we will be able to see ourselves in truth no matter what others say about us.

The Holy Spirit will quickly inform us when we need correction and He will also warn and advise us when we are being falsely accused. However, we must know the word of God to discern what He is telling us. If the Holy Spirit informs us we must go to the Bible to find the principle involved to be sure it is He Who is speaking.

Matthew 5:11 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account."

John 16:13 "But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come."

Do not be afraid to seek the Holy Spirit and believe Him when He speaks. You will know His voice, anyone who has depended on the Holy Spirit knows what that is like, to hear from God.

John 10:27-28

"27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:"

Hallelujah!

"Mimetic" a New Word that Enhanced My Understanding!

I just heard a word I had never known about before, that word is "mimetic", which means "imitation" within a culture.

We are a culture that mimics one another to such a degree that individuals cannot think for themselves anymore, they are merely mimicking what others are saying and doing while being convinced it is right because everyone else is doing it.

When someone in the culture is different lacking the desire to follow everyone else they are singled out for mockery and demeaning, they are dismissed and ignored for their independence from the rest of the mimickers.

Groupthink is not only common now but so elevated to the level of a god, that anyone who does not think like the group cannot be tolerated.

In Christian groups these outliers, that is people who think for themselves and question everything, will be excluded in much more subtle ways. They will be ignored and left out of the group gathering. They may even be invited to the group only to be ignored while in it.

Group thinkers and mimics within a church group gathering are all about appearances, they want to be seen as kind people so they invite the one who thinks for themselves but their goal is to make sure that outlier sees them being ignored. The group wants their presence to feel the pressure from the others that they will never fit in unless they become like the group.

James 3:14-16

"But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice."

Galatians 4:16-17 "…16 Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth? 17 Those people are zealous for you, but not in a good way. Instead, they want to isolate you from us, so that you may be zealous for them."

However, once someone has become the scapegoated outlier there is no chance of them ever being let in equal to the others even if they change their way and become like everyone else in the group.

Once the determination has been made that an outlier is not one of them the group will see the change to become like them as foolish. The group never ever accepts the one who was initially different from the group, they don't trust the one who changes to be like them, or perhaps the group saw the strength of the outlier secretly admiring it but jealous of it and resents the outliers attempt to become one of them viewing it as hypocrisy.

These groups are extremely and demonstratively superficial despising anyone who desires a profoundly deeper walk with Christ.

Jesus Christ was the ultimate scapegoat rejected by the priests in His day because He was claiming to be God. The Pharisees were terrified of His influence in the culture and had to make an example of Him, even lying to cause distrust in the people for Him.

Those who treat scapegoats with contempt are the biggest hypocrites. They elevate themselves when they do not measure up to their own idea of themselves while lying against the scapegoat who thinks for themselves.

It is alarming to the hypocrites when they meet someone who knows what they believe and is willing to be different than the culture to follow Christ. Sadly we see this in almost all church gatherings today, more clique than truth sits in the pews as false doctrine and schmooze talk emanate from the pulpit.

I have even heard pastors say they "protect THEIR pulpit" as they were taught in seminary so the people in the pews will follow them and believe everything they say, while the scapegoat who dares to think with the mind of Christ depends on the Holy Spirit, is demonized and rejected as "rebellious" by those who love their cultural Christianity and idolize their leaders.

Those who follow Christ will see all the problems in the apostate church and will be maligned, repudiated and mocked. The Holy Spirit-led believer cannot remain where the leaders and the leader's followers will only believe the man in the pulpit.

In these places, the Holy Spirit is nearly completely ignored, if He is present at all, while the man in the pulpit gets the glory.

1 Corinthians 10:31

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God."

Philippians 2:9-11

"Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

When we see Who Jesus Christ really is we can never elevate any man or praise them for being special. Christ is Perfect Holiness, no man can live up to that and no man is worthy of special treatment.

Romans 3:23

"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,"

Psalm 72:19

"Blessed be his glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory! Amen and Amen!"

Whenever a man is elevated to the level of special in anyone's eyes, the person who does it is not looking to Christ or every man would look the same, that is needing the Savior, Jesus Christ, nothing special and without merit except for Christ Who lives in those who have been born again, so it is not the man but Christ.

We love our brothers and sisters in Christ but many do not love Christ and claim to be Christians because they punish those of us who see every man for what they are, devastatingly evil except for Christ. No one gets a special position or award for their own accomplishments, in ministry as they see it.

Giving an award to a pastor is the same as devaluing the Holy Spirit giving credit to the man what belongs to the Holy Spirit, if the award had anything to do with good works.

We enjoy our brothers and sisters in Christ very much, but none of us need an award for following Christ.

John 12:42-44 "42 Nevertheless, many of the leaders believed in Him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue. 43 For they loved praise from men more than praise from God. 44 Then Jesus cried out, “Whoever believes in Me does not believe in Me alone, but in the One who sent Me.…"

Proverbs 3:5-6

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths."

1 Corinthians 2:5

"So that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God."

John 13:35

"35 By this all people will know that you are My disciples: if you have love for one another.”

There are no "cliques" among God's people who live through the Holy Spirit. There is no groupthink but there is Holy Spirit as we live in the mind of Christ.

Hallelujah!