Did you know that Jesus Christ broke the Sabbath, its one of the reasons the Pharisees were so angry with Him. They used His breaking the "Sabbath" as an excuse to refuse to believe He was the Son of God and equal to God.
John 5:18
"18 For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God."
Thursday, April 11, 2019
Love is a Choice not a Feeling
Love is a verb, an action word. It is not based on feelings but on truth.
Karen Long said the following:
"You can't fall out of love. You can only choose to stop obeying the commands to love.
It is what I refer to as "world-speak" to say; "I've fallen out of love," or "My spouse has fallen out of love," or "I just don't love you that way anymore."
Scripture describes love very differently than the way we think of it. We think of it as an emotion whereas scripture describes it as an act of obedience. An emotion can and will inevitably fade. Thus the feeling of having "fallen out of love." But obedience, as a sign of your integrity for a covenant, remains until death. With His life and death, Jesus clearly demonstrated love as an act of obedience by taking up His cross and then dying on it. As He said, He was willing to put His Father's will before His own. He demonstrated unwavering integrity for His Father's Law and the covenant of love. This is love (and faith) according to God, Who is Love.
So, understanding the truth about love, I hope you can see it's not possible to fall out of love. It is possible on the other-hand to choose to stop obeying the commands to love or to have never obeyed them to begin with.
I will go so far as saying that in our marriages most of us never obeyed the commands to love to begin with. Instead we got married mostly as a result of “romantic attraction" (aka; limerence) and relied on the feelings of elation that came with it to carry the relationship for a time. But eventually, those feelings faded and by then it’s likely we already had children and we had begun to accumulate memories and moments as well as expectations for the future. So, wanting to be optimistic, we told ourselves this will somehow get better. But it didn't get better and soon it was no longer bearable for us or our spouse and a crisis could not be avoided.
In the beginning, when Adam and Eve "fell" their sin was that they stopped obeying the commands of God, Who is Love. As a result, they were banished from the presence of Love. Now the goal for all of us is to reconcile with God so we can return to Love. We do that through our obedience to the commands to love as we love God, our neighbors (those close to us) and ourselves."
And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love. - 2 John 1:6"
Karen Long said the following:
"You can't fall out of love. You can only choose to stop obeying the commands to love.
It is what I refer to as "world-speak" to say; "I've fallen out of love," or "My spouse has fallen out of love," or "I just don't love you that way anymore."
Scripture describes love very differently than the way we think of it. We think of it as an emotion whereas scripture describes it as an act of obedience. An emotion can and will inevitably fade. Thus the feeling of having "fallen out of love." But obedience, as a sign of your integrity for a covenant, remains until death. With His life and death, Jesus clearly demonstrated love as an act of obedience by taking up His cross and then dying on it. As He said, He was willing to put His Father's will before His own. He demonstrated unwavering integrity for His Father's Law and the covenant of love. This is love (and faith) according to God, Who is Love.
So, understanding the truth about love, I hope you can see it's not possible to fall out of love. It is possible on the other-hand to choose to stop obeying the commands to love or to have never obeyed them to begin with.
I will go so far as saying that in our marriages most of us never obeyed the commands to love to begin with. Instead we got married mostly as a result of “romantic attraction" (aka; limerence) and relied on the feelings of elation that came with it to carry the relationship for a time. But eventually, those feelings faded and by then it’s likely we already had children and we had begun to accumulate memories and moments as well as expectations for the future. So, wanting to be optimistic, we told ourselves this will somehow get better. But it didn't get better and soon it was no longer bearable for us or our spouse and a crisis could not be avoided.
In the beginning, when Adam and Eve "fell" their sin was that they stopped obeying the commands of God, Who is Love. As a result, they were banished from the presence of Love. Now the goal for all of us is to reconcile with God so we can return to Love. We do that through our obedience to the commands to love as we love God, our neighbors (those close to us) and ourselves."
And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love. - 2 John 1:6"
Pressing On Toward the Goal
Wednesday, April 10, 2019
He Hated Their Feast Days and He Hates Ours Too
Think about it!!!
When God said this about the feast days of Amos's day, He was describing the fact that the feast days were purported to be for God but God rejected them. They said they were for God but really they were for their own pleasure.
Amos 5:21-23
21 “I hate, I reject your festivals,
Nor do I [a]delight in your solemn assemblies.
22 “Even though you offer up to Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
And I will not even look at the peace offerings of your fatlings.
23 “Take away from Me the noise of your songs;
I will not even listen to the sound of your harps.
Matthew 15:7-9 "…7 You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied correctly about you: 8‘These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. 9 They worship Me in vain; they teach as doctrine the precepts of men.’”…"
When God said this about the feast days of Amos's day, He was describing the fact that the feast days were purported to be for God but God rejected them. They said they were for God but really they were for their own pleasure.
Amos 5:21-23
21 “I hate, I reject your festivals,
Nor do I [a]delight in your solemn assemblies.
22 “Even though you offer up to Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
And I will not even look at the peace offerings of your fatlings.
23 “Take away from Me the noise of your songs;
I will not even listen to the sound of your harps.
Matthew 15:7-9 "…7 You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied correctly about you: 8‘These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. 9 They worship Me in vain; they teach as doctrine the precepts of men.’”…"
No Pain No Gain!!!!
Did you know "SPUG" was a word taken from "Websters New Modern English Dictionary" Published in 1924?!
A dear Christian man came to visit us and brought this dictionary definition. I thought it was very interesting because it shows us how much our culture has changed over the years.
Discernment used to tell us who should be given needs and who should not. Just giving to give is not a virtue, sometimes it can be foolish when it is enabling someone to be lazy.
"SPUG" is the Society for the Prevention of Useless Giving."
I thought his was appropriate for our time in which people give without a thought to whether that giving is helpful or necessary.
I am not a fan of the food drives that I see so often. These food drives do not operate with any level of accountability. They pass out food to anyone who comes to fill a bag, even those who have plenty of food at home, even those who have food stamps and welfare checks every month.
When our giving is nothing more than to make ourselves feel special, we have lost the heart of giving.
Giving in the past was for the purpose of actually helping someone who needed help. It was done anonymously, without praise and glory and to those who demonstrated a good measure of ethical hardworking mentality, when their trials were not of their own making.
Those who refuse to get off drugs, who spend their money on alcohol and those who waste it on cigarettes as well as cable tv and cell phones who use them only for playing, should not be receiving extra food.
I have known people who waste the money they do get on foolishness and then expect others to pay their bills because the money ran out before the bills got paid.
We have a lot of money in this country, but with it comes the urge to flaunt it by giving even when it is unnecessary. When someone has made their own poverty by refusing to be trained in a job or taking the steps to get themselves cleaned up, they should not be rewarded for their choices.
When someone becomes so destitute from the sin they wallow in, they are more likely to reach out to God for their help. When they do reach out to Him, He will answer their prayer, but it won't be free stuff. God will give a person a job when they want one. He will make them start at the bottom to learn how to humbly accept the consequences of their choices. Then over time as they are diligent in their quest to be righteous and diligent, God will move them up the ladder, allowing more money and the respect of the community.
The key to everything is turning to Christ to be cleansed, accepting His will for us even in meager means. God has a purpose in allowing us to start at the bottom to work our way up. We must first accept our lower rank before He will bless us with a higher one.
There is far more blessing in knowing we worked hard, were diligent and made it by trusting Christ, than there is in wallowing in pity and begging others to rescue us. There will be kind people along the way who will help, but not by giving, by showing the way to work.
There is a saying we have all heard over the years. I don't know who said it but it makes a very good point, that is:
"give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime."
Think next time you are tempted to give that drug addict a dollar, he may be going to spend it on drugs when enough of you have piled up the dollars.
Love does not look very much like what most people think today. Love is showing the hard but productive path. Love is speaking the truth that will cause movement in the direction of deep change within those who have been treated softly for so many years.
How does that saying go? OH YES....."no pain no gain", it doesn't just work for athletes, it works in life too.
A dear Christian man came to visit us and brought this dictionary definition. I thought it was very interesting because it shows us how much our culture has changed over the years.
Discernment used to tell us who should be given needs and who should not. Just giving to give is not a virtue, sometimes it can be foolish when it is enabling someone to be lazy.
"SPUG" is the Society for the Prevention of Useless Giving."
I thought his was appropriate for our time in which people give without a thought to whether that giving is helpful or necessary.
I am not a fan of the food drives that I see so often. These food drives do not operate with any level of accountability. They pass out food to anyone who comes to fill a bag, even those who have plenty of food at home, even those who have food stamps and welfare checks every month.
When our giving is nothing more than to make ourselves feel special, we have lost the heart of giving.
Giving in the past was for the purpose of actually helping someone who needed help. It was done anonymously, without praise and glory and to those who demonstrated a good measure of ethical hardworking mentality, when their trials were not of their own making.
Those who refuse to get off drugs, who spend their money on alcohol and those who waste it on cigarettes as well as cable tv and cell phones who use them only for playing, should not be receiving extra food.
I have known people who waste the money they do get on foolishness and then expect others to pay their bills because the money ran out before the bills got paid.
We have a lot of money in this country, but with it comes the urge to flaunt it by giving even when it is unnecessary. When someone has made their own poverty by refusing to be trained in a job or taking the steps to get themselves cleaned up, they should not be rewarded for their choices.
When someone becomes so destitute from the sin they wallow in, they are more likely to reach out to God for their help. When they do reach out to Him, He will answer their prayer, but it won't be free stuff. God will give a person a job when they want one. He will make them start at the bottom to learn how to humbly accept the consequences of their choices. Then over time as they are diligent in their quest to be righteous and diligent, God will move them up the ladder, allowing more money and the respect of the community.
The key to everything is turning to Christ to be cleansed, accepting His will for us even in meager means. God has a purpose in allowing us to start at the bottom to work our way up. We must first accept our lower rank before He will bless us with a higher one.
There is far more blessing in knowing we worked hard, were diligent and made it by trusting Christ, than there is in wallowing in pity and begging others to rescue us. There will be kind people along the way who will help, but not by giving, by showing the way to work.
There is a saying we have all heard over the years. I don't know who said it but it makes a very good point, that is:
"give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime."
Think next time you are tempted to give that drug addict a dollar, he may be going to spend it on drugs when enough of you have piled up the dollars.
Love does not look very much like what most people think today. Love is showing the hard but productive path. Love is speaking the truth that will cause movement in the direction of deep change within those who have been treated softly for so many years.
How does that saying go? OH YES....."no pain no gain", it doesn't just work for athletes, it works in life too.
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