How to Deal with a Narcissist!

I have even seen narcissists deliberately tell a lie about you so that you will become defensive, the more you attempt to prove the truth the worse they become.

Amir Tsarfati: BREAKING NEWS

41 Years of Memories with David Reagan | Christ in Prophecy

The Essence of His Word!

Jesus Christ is the very essence of His Word, He is called the Word because He embodies the essence of everything He says in the Bible.

To use the Bible as a book of suggestions is to disregard Christ Himself.

Far too many people who would say they are Christians have little to no regard for God's Word. They add to the Word with their own ideas or the ideas of the culture, without regard to the heart of God.

Those who say they believe the Bible but disregard His instructions about discipline, marriage, divorce and remarriage, and many other things are living in a fantasy world pretending to love His Word but not in reality.

Obedience is the key to our love for the Lord. To regard God's Word is to read and seek in Prayer the Holy Spirit to show you truth that you may follow it. We do not read the Bible to find loop holes allowing us to be comfortable in our sin. God will not speak to one who does this. He only speaks to those who want to know Him to obey Him.

John 14:15

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments."

Wow, notice that? God said "if you love me", "keep my commands." What are God's commands, they are everything He said in His Word and all the lessons we learn from His Word in the Old Testament as well as the new testament.

The entire Bible was not written to us but it was written for us. We must take all the lessons the patriarchs learned and taught and consider their wisdom to be followed in our day.

God's Word is timeless, it can be taken as pure truth and embraced with enthusiasm. When we love the Lord we want to pour over every word to find its meaning but not how we wish to believe it. We want to learn what God's meaning was, He knows best and will never lead us into wrong thinking.

IF someone is reading the Bible to make up their own meaning they will miss the truth and their fantasy will grow, diluting their walk.

Too many people read the Bible with the purpose of making it say what they like to hear. They lead many astray with their concocted teachings.

1 John 5:3

"For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome."

God's commands are not burdensome to us because we love Him and whatever He says so much that we can never be satisfied, we want more and more of Him, which means we will want more and more of His Word, the way He means for us to have it.

There is an amazing joy that comes from knowing Him and His Word, but even more protection and joy in obeying whatever He says.

We are protected from false teaching, committing sins in our lives that have lifelong serious consequences, and even teaching us how to relate to brothers and sisters in Christ. Even how to relate to unsaved people.

All the instruction you need for life and obedience to Christ is in the Bible. When we are not sure what God says about something we can always pray for understanding from the Holy Spirit.

James 1:4-6 "…4 Allow perseverance to finish its work, so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 5 Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. 6 But he must ask in faith, without doubting, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.…"

We do not need to be unsure or blown and tossed by everyone who wants us to think a certain way, we can ask the Holy Spirit, believe Him and stand firm in the face of opposition from others who do not understand what God has told you.

I probably cannot count the number of times the Lord told me something to do and others did not understand, even trying to deter me from following what He told me.

When God is not specific in His Word, perhaps we are not sure which car to buy or which town to move to, He can give us clear direction but we have to wait patiently for the answer. It has been amazing how God has ordered our lives over the years in unexpected ways. When He has done this there was no question of what He wanted us to do.

When we were looking for a house to buy on limited funds we had chosen a manufactured home. The people who were handling the sale were dragging their feet so long we were worried that we needed to get on the land we had purchased.

Because of their delay, we prayed that God would hurry them or give us another solution. The very next day my husband found one on a lot, brand new, a repo from a dealer that no one had lived in. The home was larger than the one we ordered and much less expensive. He was not looking, he had passed it on his way to work and there it was, everything we needed and for a cheaper price. We believe the people who were building the other newer home were delayed because God had something else in mind for us.

Every time we had an idea about something and prayed, God gave us better than we had expected. There have been so many things like this for us that I pray first now rather than wait until our plans don't work out.

When God orders our day our month our years we spare ourselves a lot of mistakes and blunders. Our human mind cannot be compared to the perfect knowledge of God. He knows the future, something we cannot possibly know. He guides us even when we don't know the reason for the direction He is taking us. We don't have to worry or plan ahead, we simply live each day trusting Him, making our plans and willing to be redirected when they do not work out.

Psalm 32:8

"I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you."

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."

The "Religious System"

When we have been raised in a "religious system", one in which we were taught the rules but not the way of salvation we are likely indoctrinated into thinking that is no Biblical.

Our way of thinking in a system of rules is followed by a sense of working real hard to earn our way to heaven.

No one can earn any part of their salvation, this is a "works-based" religion based on self-effort. It leaves the follower of the rules proud of themselves instead of dependent on Christ.

When we know that Christ went to the cross to pay for our sins and that only He can be good, then is when we can let go completely of self-effort and rely on Him to change us into what we should be.

So many churchy systems today have abandoned the real gospel, which is faith in Christ alone. Not faith in preachers, or trained and learned people or even in ourselves to any degree, our faith is in Christ alone.

When we believe in Christ and what He did on that cross on our behalf we have to believe too that we have nothing we are able to do to save ourselves. Death was the penalty for sin, but it had to be the sacrifice of a perfect Lamb to cover our sin, we could never fulfill that for ourselves.

When we realize that it is all the work of Christ that saves us then we also know it is all His work in us that keeps on working after He comes to live in us when we trust in Him.

Ephesians 2:10

"10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."

When we walk with Christ He is the One Who works in us, we can rest in Him. Christ is our sabbath rest from here until we meet Him in the air during the rapture.

When we mess up and disobey His word we hate it, confess it to be cleansed and begin again in obedience.

1 John 1:9

"9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous, so that He will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Our flesh wars against the Spirit Who lives in us. Our flesh remains fallen and must be subdued by the power of the Holy Spirit. When we seek Christ in all things He will continue the process of transformation as we submit to Him.

The more we confess as we are convicted the more we grow in His power.

God does not reform our old self, He transforms us completely into a different person, our Spirit becomes His, the old is gone and we are brand new.

However, we are trapped in this fleshly body that is dying, we must battle the flesh as we grow in holiness.

Galatians 5:24-25 "24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us walk in step with the Spirit.…"

Romans 6:6

"We know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin."

Galatians 2:20

"I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me."

Galatians 5:16

"So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh."

What incredible joy it is to walk in the Spirit, growing every day as the joy increases even in the midst of hardship we know Christ goes through with us.

The life of the born-again believer does not get easier after we have been changed by Christ, sometimes it gets hard, even often it gets harder but we do not view the hardship the same way we did before we were saved. We view all trials and hardships with a heavenly and eternal perspective, a sort of boot camp of training to strengthen us. We cannot become strong by an easy life, which would make us soft and useless. Our strength comes from having to work through difficulties in the power of Christ learning His responses to life.

James 1:2-8

New King James Version

"2 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials,

3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.

4 But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.

6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.

7 For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord;

8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways."

We learn how to handle trials by enduring them while coming out the other side with more wisdom than when we began.

We Cannot Make Others Love Us! We know Christ loves us!

Amen!!! I have always loved my children but I cannot make them love me. So, when they have rejected me I move on as though they are dead to me.

If they come back one day it would be wonderful but If they do not I am fine because dead people will not be resurrected by our efforts. If they are not born again they cannot be our companions because they do not walk the same path we are walking.

Our brothers and sisters and spiritual children are those who love Christ. We must develop our relationships based on Christ, not blood relations. Just some thoughts, I hope helps those who feel abandoned.

The brothers and sisters, sons and daughters who are born again are our family. These are the people we will spend eternity with, they love our Savior and appreciate us because of Christ in us.

When we focus on those who love Christ while praying for those who have not yet found Him to become born again we will not grieve anymore, we will rejoice.

When we agonize over lost relationships that we did not cause we are diluting our walk and our witness. We must carry on focusing on what God has given us to do and stay there. We cannot be fully effective if we are distracted by sad feelings of loss when there is no solution we can see outside of Christ, He is the key to it all.

A Little Humor!