The nation is full of narcissists now who accuse others of doing what the narcissists are doing and those they accuse are not doing. Satan is very clever, weak-minded people are easily manipulated by lies, seeing only what they want to see.
Noah was a righteous man in the eyes of God, because of this God rescued him from God's wrath when He flooded the earth. We know Noah must have had many relatives in the water while he was in the ark.
We are in a similar state now, surrounded by "religious" people who are not born again, some even expecting to be rescued in the rapture but have no heart for Christ or any of His fruit.
Galatians 5:22-23 - "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law."
Many of us are experiencing the angst of people who claim to have "religion" but have nothing of God's love, all the fruit of God's Spirit is dependent on the Love of Christ, the first fruit.
Lot was surrounded by wicked people who wanted to abuse and use His angel guests. Noah was ignored and rejected by all his kinsmen when he preached for 120 years and the only ones taken out of the flood were his immediate family.
Lot and Noah left behind many family members, just as is happening to most born-again believers today. God said that most will follow the wide road to hell while few will follow the narrow road to heaven.
Count it joy when you are reviled and rejected by family. Not that they are lost but that their rejection means you are following on the narrow road and those who are on the wide road will hate you for it.
James 1:2-4
"2 Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."
I have actually been accused of giving my opinion when all I did was quote God from His word. When I show them I only quoted God they accuse me of "the way I said it." When an unsaved rebellious person doesn't like the truth, no matter how gently you say it they will begin to attack your character instead of addressing exactly what you said.
The most hated thing among rebellious people is anything or anyone who exposes their sin, even if it isn't written about them personally.
Rebellious hearts don't see that they give themselves away through their anger. Their overt and covert tactics of demeaning language and withholding love is what exposes them but they cannot see that they exposed themselves.
1 Corinthians 2:14 "
"But a natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned."
We cannot change the heart of one who resists God, we can only tell the truth and walk away leaving them to God.
The devil will continually torment us in our thoughts that we did something wrong. We must fight his lies with the scriptures. In order to do this we must know the scriptures, believe them, and live them. The devil has no defenses against a person who knows God's Word and is living it.
The devil uses thoughts and enticements the same as he did with Eve. If we know the truth we can quickly dismiss the lies avoiding mocking intimidation and false guilt.
False guilt can silence the truth, it is vitally important that we know the difference between false guilt and conviction of the Holy Spirit. If we know the scriptures and walk in the Spirit we will know.
We are in what I call; "Spiritual bootcamp" in this life. We are in training for when we will rule in the Millennium with Christ. The harder things are for Spiritual muscles to grow strong if we are focused on Christ.
Remember the principle we learned about in weightlifting? In order to make muscles stronger we must first tear the muscles, then as they grow back they are bigger and stronger as they mend, than before they were torn.
God has to break our own will to replace it with the will of Christ. Those who refuse to be broken by Christ do not grow stronger, they grow weaker as the pressures of the world around them diminish their resolve to stand for Christ.
Those who are not born-again do not grow wise merely by becoming older, they grow weaker because they no longer feel a need to pretend anymore. Pretense is hard work and cannot last when the one without the power of Christ can no longer withstand the pressure of the world around them. They revert to what comes naturally and easily to them and that is their baser human nature, without God's principles and righteousness.
Have you ever heard words like this; "that old man used to be so kind but lately he seems mean and rude."? I have, I used to think it was just life getting someone down because of ailments, but now I believe it is because the trials of life have revealed the real inner self when there is no longer strength to pretend anymore.
Trials bring out the real us, that's why God allows them in our lives. He wants us to see His power in us and He wants us to discover ourselves, what is real in us, whether there is still sefl-will or whether we have been trusting Christ. Our reactions to life will tell us a lot.
This doesn't mean we don't weep when things are difficult, or that we never get discouraged, it just means where we focus our hope shows us what our mindset is, if on Christ then we grow, if on self, then we become weaker.
Hebrews 12:11-13 "…11 No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields a harvest of righteousness and peace to those who have been trained by it. 12 Therefore strengthen your limp hands and weak knees. 13 Make straight paths for your feet, so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed."
Let's be growing healed believers who are far different at the end of our lives than we were at the beginning of our Salvation in Christ.
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