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Wednesday, November 4, 2015
Holiday Entertainment Bliss
We are a materialistic pleasure seeking society!!!! Ask anyone to give up one of their favorite holidays and they will accuse us of all kinds of things. Why do they love them so much?
My guess from years of observation, is that this people love the decorations, the gifts, the fun and the revelry, very little if anything to do with Christ.
Christ is a superficial add on to validate what the observer wants to do. Sort of like a person who keeps going into the bar every night for a drink claiming he talks about the Lord in there, when in fact he holds up his drink and says something like "amen to this" and later claims he talks about the Lord in the bar.
Many people think if they say a canned prayer at the Christmas gathering every year, the same one, they have kept the holidays as unto the Lord.
Keeping a celebration as unto the Lord would look very different, it would include serious prayer, Scripture reading, singing to the Lord and all the other things would be add on to that, rather than the other way around.
I feel about these holidays the way I feel about sports figures who go on the field to pray in front of everyone. What are they praying for out there that they couldn't pray about in the privacy of the locker room?
Matthew 6:6 ""But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you."
When sports teams pray on the field I have to think it has more to do with traditions of men than actual prayer, since they violate Matthew 6:6 when they do it.
We think if we put on a good show in front of people, that validates the holiday or the ball game, as a spiritual event, even if the prayer is canned and tacked onto the meal instead of a major portion of the event, it suffices as "honoring to God."
Amos 5:21 ""I hate, I reject your festivals, Nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies."
Watch what will happen here, I can predict it. Many will come to defend what they do rather than pray about it to see if their own heart is right. They will use every argument in the book to justify all their entertainment bliss.
It's God's Word In Us!
Romans 7:15 "For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate."
When God told us in 1 John 1:9 to confess our sins, He was speaking to born again believers. Believers do sin, if they thought they don't then they have sinned by thinking that.
Christ's blood covers our sin, in our flesh we still possess the fallen nature. The Lord continues to cleanse us throughout our life as He works on us.
1 Corinthians 3:15 "If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire."
Every believer will be judged for the purpose of rewards, but not for salvation.
Ephesians 1:13-14 tells us that we are sealed when we become born again, never to be lost again. If we do not confess our sin, we do not grow in holiness, if we do confess our sin, we will grow and have reward in heaven.
Ephesians 1:13-14 "13 In [a]Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory."
Ephesians 2:10 "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them."
We confess and He does the cleansing.
Written to believers;
1 John 1:8 "If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us."
Believer do not want to sin, if they are not sinning in their own effort, then they are prideful and have the sin of pride. We are to confess our sin, ask for cleansing and then Christ will do it.
1 John 1:9 "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
We confess and He does the cleansing! Anyone who thinks they are cleansing themselves by their outer deeds are walking in pride. The cleansing Christ does is in our hearts changes our deeds. If our heart is right, our deeds will be right. The heart condition needs to be fixed before the outer condition can be real. When we sin, even in little ways, we know God has more work to do on us and that work continues until we die.
So many people attempt to walk rightly without a change of heart, all it does is cause them to appear holy without being holy. When something is only in appearance, it has little value and will digress from whence it came.
When we see people who claim to love the Lord, return to their vomit, without conscience, fully immersed in their sin loving every minute of it, we have probably witnessed someone who was pretending, as a good actor or actress playing a role. Since it was not real in the first place, having been deeply a part of their inner spirit, it could not sustain itself.
If we are born again and sin, God will nag us until we repent, if we continue to refuse to listen, He will ignore us, our prayers will not be heard while we continue the downward slide toward the consequences of our own sin. God will not bless a stubborn heart.
John 9:33 ""We know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is God-fearing and does His will, He hears him."
Proverbs 1:28 ""Then they will call on me, but I will not answer; They will seek me diligently but they will not find me,"
I have used this myself with my children when they were younger, to refrain from blessings them when they refused to be obedient. They were still my children, but the fellowship was broken and so were the blessings.
Confession had to occur to fix all that. Without confession there would not be a change in behavior and the bitterness and anger in their hearts would grow as they continued to reject my authority.
The longer we choose not to confess, the harder our hearts become. Stubbornness is like a cancer, it grows when not dealt with. After being deeply entrenched in bitterness and anger, the soul becomes sickly and often does the body.
Psalm 66:18 "If I regard wickedness in my heart, The Lord will not hear;"
1 Corinthians 11:30 "For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep."
Bitterness, anger and rebellion actually ages the body. Not all illness is because of sin, however much is, each one has to pray and ask the Lord if they are ill because of their sin or is this just a training period to lean on the Lord more.
In the case of Job, we know he had lessons to learn even though he was a righteous man who had not sinned. Others were tested to expose their sin that they might repent.
Psalm 107:17 "Fools because of their transgression, and because of their iniquities, are afflicted."
The soul and the body are deeply connected, that's why we can use the skill of "lie spotting" to detect lying. Facial muscles do certain things when we are lying, even if we don't know our body is doing it, a person's heart is revealed often in body language. Our bodies react to what is happening in our soul, we cannot stop it, only the discerning notices it.
There are times when we sense something is not right, but we can't prove it, so we let it go until we see more blatant evidence. There is a speaker I am having serious reservations about, who claims to be a former terrorist who became a Christian. I won't name him because I have no proof, warning signals are surfacing that make me reluctant to use any of his videos. I may have a time or two in the past but will not any more.
The key to all of this is to continually pray for discernment about ourselves and others to come to a knowledge of the truth. We cannot confess if we don't see the truth and we can't warn others of false teachers if we are fooled by their messages.
1 Thessalonians 5:21 "But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good;"
When God told us in 1 John 1:9 to confess our sins, He was speaking to born again believers. Believers do sin, if they thought they don't then they have sinned by thinking that.
Christ's blood covers our sin, in our flesh we still possess the fallen nature. The Lord continues to cleanse us throughout our life as He works on us.
1 Corinthians 3:15 "If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire."
Every believer will be judged for the purpose of rewards, but not for salvation.
Ephesians 1:13-14 tells us that we are sealed when we become born again, never to be lost again. If we do not confess our sin, we do not grow in holiness, if we do confess our sin, we will grow and have reward in heaven.
Ephesians 1:13-14 "13 In [a]Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory."
Ephesians 2:10 "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them."
We confess and He does the cleansing.
Written to believers;
1 John 1:8 "If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us."
Believer do not want to sin, if they are not sinning in their own effort, then they are prideful and have the sin of pride. We are to confess our sin, ask for cleansing and then Christ will do it.
1 John 1:9 "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
We confess and He does the cleansing! Anyone who thinks they are cleansing themselves by their outer deeds are walking in pride. The cleansing Christ does is in our hearts changes our deeds. If our heart is right, our deeds will be right. The heart condition needs to be fixed before the outer condition can be real. When we sin, even in little ways, we know God has more work to do on us and that work continues until we die.
So many people attempt to walk rightly without a change of heart, all it does is cause them to appear holy without being holy. When something is only in appearance, it has little value and will digress from whence it came.
When we see people who claim to love the Lord, return to their vomit, without conscience, fully immersed in their sin loving every minute of it, we have probably witnessed someone who was pretending, as a good actor or actress playing a role. Since it was not real in the first place, having been deeply a part of their inner spirit, it could not sustain itself.
If we are born again and sin, God will nag us until we repent, if we continue to refuse to listen, He will ignore us, our prayers will not be heard while we continue the downward slide toward the consequences of our own sin. God will not bless a stubborn heart.
John 9:33 ""We know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is God-fearing and does His will, He hears him."
Proverbs 1:28 ""Then they will call on me, but I will not answer; They will seek me diligently but they will not find me,"
I have used this myself with my children when they were younger, to refrain from blessings them when they refused to be obedient. They were still my children, but the fellowship was broken and so were the blessings.
Confession had to occur to fix all that. Without confession there would not be a change in behavior and the bitterness and anger in their hearts would grow as they continued to reject my authority.
The longer we choose not to confess, the harder our hearts become. Stubbornness is like a cancer, it grows when not dealt with. After being deeply entrenched in bitterness and anger, the soul becomes sickly and often does the body.
Psalm 66:18 "If I regard wickedness in my heart, The Lord will not hear;"
1 Corinthians 11:30 "For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep."
Bitterness, anger and rebellion actually ages the body. Not all illness is because of sin, however much is, each one has to pray and ask the Lord if they are ill because of their sin or is this just a training period to lean on the Lord more.
In the case of Job, we know he had lessons to learn even though he was a righteous man who had not sinned. Others were tested to expose their sin that they might repent.
Psalm 107:17 "Fools because of their transgression, and because of their iniquities, are afflicted."
The soul and the body are deeply connected, that's why we can use the skill of "lie spotting" to detect lying. Facial muscles do certain things when we are lying, even if we don't know our body is doing it, a person's heart is revealed often in body language. Our bodies react to what is happening in our soul, we cannot stop it, only the discerning notices it.
There are times when we sense something is not right, but we can't prove it, so we let it go until we see more blatant evidence. There is a speaker I am having serious reservations about, who claims to be a former terrorist who became a Christian. I won't name him because I have no proof, warning signals are surfacing that make me reluctant to use any of his videos. I may have a time or two in the past but will not any more.
The key to all of this is to continually pray for discernment about ourselves and others to come to a knowledge of the truth. We cannot confess if we don't see the truth and we can't warn others of false teachers if we are fooled by their messages.
1 Thessalonians 5:21 "But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good;"
Forgiveness or Confession?
Confession in the passage 1 John 1:9 is not referring to "asking forgiveness."
homologeō - ὁμολογέω : Confess, means to "agree with God."
http://jesusgiveslife.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-true-meaning-of-biblical-confession.html
homologeō - ὁμολογέω : Confess, means to "agree with God."
http://jesusgiveslife.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-true-meaning-of-biblical-confession.html
Tuesday, November 3, 2015
Share One Another's Burdens
Everyone has a struggle with sin from time to time, there is no reason for anyone to feel superior to another believer. When we exude an attitude of superiority we are showing contempt and disrespect for the one we devalue.
Here is what God said to believers:
1 John 1:8 "If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us."
May each interaction with brothers and sisters be for the sake of the good of others, rather than our own self aggrandisement. When we love others, we encourage them when they are down, through the use of Scripture and prayer. When our brothers and sisters are experiencing happy times, we share in that happiness as though it were our own, because we love them and enjoy their blessings for them and with them.
Galatians 6:1-10
1 Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted.
2 Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ.
3 For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.
4 But each one must examine his own work, and then he will have reason for boasting in regard to himself alone, and not in regard to another.
5 For each one will bear his own load.
6 The one who is taught the word is to share all good things with the one who teaches him.
7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.
8 For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.
9 Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.
10 So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith."
Friday, October 30, 2015
Pride and Heroes
1John 1:27 The ANOINTING which you have received of (HIM) abide in you!! YOU NEED NOT ANY MAN TEACH YOU, the same anointing teach you of all things is true & no lie as it has taught you, you shall abide in it!!!!!!!!
Only those who are full of pride need heros.
Only those who are full of pride need heros.
Trust Christ Not A Version
There are many KJV onlyistst who overlook the mistranslations in that version because they are convinced it was "inspired" by God. IT WAS NOT, the original Greek and Hebrew written down by the apostles were inspired, but all translations have inculcated into their translating, elements of their own western mindset.
I do not place my trust in any translation but in the Holy Spirit to enlighten what I read. We have the original copies of those inspired languages, but since we cannot read those, we have to depend on the Holy Spirit to help us in our understanding.
Many errors in thinking have come about because people have trusted languages in translations rather than the Holy Spirit, as well as trusting teachers and scholars over the Holy Spirit.
We should listen to people who have studied and then take what they say to the Holy Spirit rather than just buying into their view hook, line and sinker, simply because they have a Bible degree. Much that is wrong is being taught in the seminaries now and have been since the beginning of those institutions. Even Paul the apostles challenged those who heard him to go home and look to the scritpures to make sure the things he said were true. It would strengthen their faith to pray and read themselves. Paul was also teaching that we must learn from the Holy Spirit, not believing men alone. If this were true in Paul's day with the original languages, then why would we not do this with translated works, even the KJV of the Bible.
There are more likely to be problems with translations than with originals. We do not have the originals, but we do have original copies. The oldest copies should be the best ones, since the more we copy things the more likely to be errors.
Acts 17:11 "Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so."
I began with the NIV, the Lord showed me many things while reading it, but as I grew in the Lord, it became clear from the Holy Spirit promptings that something wasn't right. No one warned me against it, the Holy Spirit within me did that. Also when I was questioning the matter of divorce and remarriage, everyone who knew me was against my views, it was the Holy Spirit that showed me the evil of these acts, even though the Christian culture disagreed, all the scholars I knew of disagreed.
I knew it was wrong, as I began to ask the Holy Spirit for more information, He brought to me other scholars who were saying the things the Holy Spirit was telling me, to confirm that I had heard Him right. I did not come to my conclusions because others told me what I should believe. The Holy Spirit first prompted me, then I began to research to confirm what He said to me.
Never get caught up in following a group who claim to have the only truth, but rather question all of it, take it to the Holy Spirit in prayer and remain there while He begins to show you answers. Nothing He will say will contradict the Bible, but will instead open our eyes to what is there.
http://lifehopeandtruth.com/bible-questions/why/easter-in-the-bible/
I do not place my trust in any translation but in the Holy Spirit to enlighten what I read. We have the original copies of those inspired languages, but since we cannot read those, we have to depend on the Holy Spirit to help us in our understanding.
Many errors in thinking have come about because people have trusted languages in translations rather than the Holy Spirit, as well as trusting teachers and scholars over the Holy Spirit.
We should listen to people who have studied and then take what they say to the Holy Spirit rather than just buying into their view hook, line and sinker, simply because they have a Bible degree. Much that is wrong is being taught in the seminaries now and have been since the beginning of those institutions. Even Paul the apostles challenged those who heard him to go home and look to the scritpures to make sure the things he said were true. It would strengthen their faith to pray and read themselves. Paul was also teaching that we must learn from the Holy Spirit, not believing men alone. If this were true in Paul's day with the original languages, then why would we not do this with translated works, even the KJV of the Bible.
There are more likely to be problems with translations than with originals. We do not have the originals, but we do have original copies. The oldest copies should be the best ones, since the more we copy things the more likely to be errors.
Acts 17:11 "Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so."
I began with the NIV, the Lord showed me many things while reading it, but as I grew in the Lord, it became clear from the Holy Spirit promptings that something wasn't right. No one warned me against it, the Holy Spirit within me did that. Also when I was questioning the matter of divorce and remarriage, everyone who knew me was against my views, it was the Holy Spirit that showed me the evil of these acts, even though the Christian culture disagreed, all the scholars I knew of disagreed.
I knew it was wrong, as I began to ask the Holy Spirit for more information, He brought to me other scholars who were saying the things the Holy Spirit was telling me, to confirm that I had heard Him right. I did not come to my conclusions because others told me what I should believe. The Holy Spirit first prompted me, then I began to research to confirm what He said to me.
Never get caught up in following a group who claim to have the only truth, but rather question all of it, take it to the Holy Spirit in prayer and remain there while He begins to show you answers. Nothing He will say will contradict the Bible, but will instead open our eyes to what is there.
http://lifehopeandtruth.com/bible-questions/why/easter-in-the-bible/
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