Gifts from the Heart are of More Value than Gifts from Obligation

Gifts given out of obligation are no gift at all, but a burden. Hosea 6:6

Obedience and Truth

Partial obedience is still disobedience and
Half-truths are still whole lies

Partial Obedience is Still Disobedience

We are living in the end times in which many, if not most people are experiencing individuals who are very selfish and mean.

I remember when the "self-esteem" teaching began back in the 1970's most people began to accept it because it sounded kind. Then the churches followed the world and adopted it too.

The problem with the building of "self-esteem" is that it is the devil's way of fooling people into believing we need to foster "sefl-love" not realizing that we are all born with self-love and need to love others better than ourselves.

Philippians 2:3-4 "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves".

Sadly even those who said they didn't agree with "self-esteem" teaching began to implement it eventually under the pressure of family, church and friends who thought it was mean and rude to discipline children. This is the opposite of what God taught in His word and because church people were not reading the Bible or those who were reading it were interpreting it in the context of what the world was doing instead of evaluating the world according to the Bible we have the mess we have today. The culture is self-destructing as we near the end of the church age.

Now we have most families broken and fractured, even Christian families who attend gatherings every week but have no clue what God teaches and have followed the world's ways.

Ephesians 6:4 "

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord."

Putting this passage with other passages from the Bible we learn that lack of discipline is a form of frustrating a child because leniency brings insecurity to the heart of a child who is neglected through "time out" and indulgence when they have tantrums.

Proverbs 23:12-14 "…12 Apply your heart to instruction and your ears to words of knowledge. 13 Do not withhold discipline from a child; although you strike him with a rod, he will not die. 14 Strike him with a rod, and you will deliver his soul from Sheol."

Even the seculars back in the day, when we were children, understood physical discipline as the correct model to teach children to respect and obey their parents and to be considerate of others in society. The followed the biblical model not realizing where it came from because it worked well to build a respectful, helpful and kind society.

Many of us had difficulty with our children because we did the right thing according to God's principles but the schools they attended, and the churches as well as extended family came against what parents did that complied with God's Word. The children saw the world punishing spiritually and emotionally their parents and thought their parents were doing something wrong. Because the "village" influenced the children they learned to defy their parents in their teen years becoming bitter against them. This same generation treats parents with contempt except those lenient parents who accept any and all sin as long as their children want it.

Sadly these rebellious children are raising rebellious grandchildren who lack respect for anyone especially anyone who will correct them verbally.

We were raised to work together for the greater good, but our children's generation was trained by the culture to seek their own glory causing them to be uncooperative without regard for the greater good all they care about is being elevated in the eyes of others and the center of attention. The spirit of competition is greater than its ever been and working together is rarely practiced now.

We hear all the time how difficult it is to find young adults who do a good job at work and will collaborate for a more excellent purpose. The sense of "team-work" is passing away while independence is promoted. The idea of the "individual" being more important than the group, has permeated everything. God said it would be this way in the end times. This is one of the reasons I am convinced we are in the end times.

Society is looking continually for their fifteen minutes of fame even if they have to walk over others to gain it.

2 Timothy 3:1-5

Difficult 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."

Those who use the Bible as the standard to follow are demeaned and rejected for being legalistic, but those who reject the Bible have their own set of rules the Bible does not teach and twist the scriptures to justify their false assertions.

The idea of "legalism" has been twisted to mean adherence to the Bible. The truth of the matter is that it is not legalism to obey the scriptures, but it is legalism to obey man's rules that God never commanded. In these last days "bad will be called good and good will be called bad."

Satan has been very clever in turning the entire world into a rebellious state while lying and claiming the Bible followers are the rebellious ones.

The legalists are calling the Bible followers legalists and denying their own form of human legalism in defiance of God.

It is impossible to reason with those who have decided what they want to believe that is against God's Word, the best thing to do is walk away and encourage those who want to walk with 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."

1 John 2:3-5

"By this we can be sure that we have come to know Him: if we keep His commandments. If anyone says, “I know Him,” but does not keep His commandments, he is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone keeps His word, the love of God has been truly perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him:"

1 John 3:22-24

"and we will receive from Him whatever we ask, because we keep His commandments and do what is pleasing in His sight. And this is His commandment: that we should believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and we should love one another just as He commanded us. Whoever keeps His commandments remains in God, and God in him. And by this we know that He remains in us: by the Spirit He has given us."

God gives us every principle necessary to live as He wants us to live. If we love Him we love His principles and actually follow them. Those who pick and choose what they want to follow are not obeying.

Partial obedience is still disobedience.

Nothing in this World is more Frightening than hearing "Depart from Me I never knew you!