The Fruit is the Proof

Matthew 7:21-23

"21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’"

Many people in our culture say they are Christians but have no interest in God's Word or if they do, they have no interest in understanding it through the teaching of the Holy Spirit. They interpret the Words of God the way they want to believe them. They do this in human relationships too.

Most people interpret the Bible in our day according to their own personal traditions not necessarily what God was teaching in His Word. They interpret the Bible according to their desired belief and what other teachers are telling them, not based on prayer and seeking the Holy Spirit for wisdom to hear from Him.

John 16:13-14

"13However, when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. For He will not speak on His own, but He will speak what He hears, and He will declare to you what is to come. 14He will glorify Me by taking from what is Mine and disclosing it to you."

Those who depend on human beings to teach them without regard to whether the Holy Spirit is involved will have only their feeble human understanding based on the traditions of men to fall back on. Since the Holy Spirit is held in such low regard these days the church is falling into apostasy.

We know the level of disregard for the Holy Spirit by the blank looks and sometimes groans when we say we will wait to hear from the Holy Spirit.

I have heard often people taking scriptures out of context to make the words say what they want them to say and not what God meant by His words.

Much of the understanding of modern Christianity is based on psychology, a system that was spawned from Darwinism. Treating people as if they are nothing more than another animal causes the scientists to study the animals and think that human beings operate the same way since, in the scientist's mind, people are nothing more than a higher species of beasts.

Thankfully not all scientists think this way, some are born again and understand that the authentic science they study in nature proves the Bible and the existence of God. They know that human beings respond to things far differently from the animal kingdom.

In order to understand human beings, we must read the Word of God and pray for the Holy Spirit to give us wisdom. The Bible is full of wonderful wisdom and examples in life that show us the nature of human beings, their responses good and bad to everything.

Jesus Christ died for the entire world, all the world had to do was trust in Him and they would have an incredible eternity. When He was on earth Christ healed people and lived in poverty along with most of the world at that time. All He desired was the love from them, then He would be all we need giving us an inheritance so great it cannot be imagined by mankind. We have His Word that promises us this inheritance beyond our human imagination, and yet, most of mankind will reject Him.

Attempting to explain trust in the Holy Spirit today to the modern day narcissists brings division, not because we do something wrong but because most who say they are Christians are apostates and have never experienced hearing from the Holy Spirit.

Mankind is so stubborn they would rather believe they must depend on themselves than surrender to Christ Who will ultimately give us more than we could ever imagine.

Irrational stubbornness is a deceiver, making most believe they can do better than God in this life and they will affect our own salvation in the next.

Even those who say they are saved by grace and cannot work their way to heaven will act as though their good deeds make them special giving them a foot into the kingdom. Saying something is far different from believing and following. There is no true belief if there is no following what we "say" we believe.

God says we will know our brothers and sister in Christ by their fruit. It is alright and even commanded to challenge one another to see if we are truly saved or just pretenders wanting to be a part of a "feelings oriented" club.

Galatians 5:22-23

"22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law."

If this fruit of the Holy Spirit is not present, then there is no salvation, it is the evidence of a life changed by Christ, the very character qualities of Christ.

Matthew 15:7-8 "…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.’ ”…"

The warnings from God are clear, to make no friends with those who pretend to be Christians but deny Him in their actions. If their actions are contrary to their words, they are either infantile Christians who still need to learn, or they are not born again at all and never have been so.

Paradise Valley

What is Humility?

"Humility is not thinking less of yourself, humility is thinking of yourself less" than you think of God and others.

7 Signs of Christian Narcissist

Reasoning with the Devil is Foolish

When you attempt to give a good reason why you did something the narcissist will call it an excuse. Because narcissists often blame others for their own actions or attitudes, they claim every explanation of ours is just an excuse.

Claiming our explanations are excuses is a way of demeaning their target. Narcissists cannot and will not have a rational and reasonable conversation without diminishing the character of the one they fight against.

 
When we attempt to be rational with a narcissist their go-to tactic is character assassination, rarely remaining on topic they go after us to cause emotional flare-ups.

 
It is nearly impossible to get a reasonable answer from a narcissist when we ask a question to clarify what they are saying. We hear things like; "you never listen", when we are attempting to get them to talk openly so we can listen they use personal attacks and never answer the question posed to them.
When we see this tactic employed we know it is time to end the conversation, nothing said after that will calm the narcissist. They use every response as a springboard for more arguing and fighting.

The arguments of the narcissist are irrational and vindictive, but sadly over nothing. They will take a sentence and blow it so out of proportion that it leads to frustration in us, this is their purpose. The narcissist wants to cause confusion, frustration, and anger in their target, they poke and poke until the bear finally growls.

 
These tactics are demonic, the narcissist is controlled by devils, if not possessed they are controlled by the devil's thoughts. We know the devil places thoughts into people because of what he did with Eve in the garden.

 
The devil spoke lies to Eve to turn her against God and to motivate her to sin. He is using the same tactic today that he did in the garden. He made Eve question God's motives even suggesting that God was withholding information, even lying to her.

 
Narcissists today are using the tactics of the devil. He attempts to get us to doubt our stand for righteousness by getting people to come against us, using language like; "that is not kind or loving" when we desire to obey God.

The devil has convinced people to pressure others to disobey God's principles and ways as though it is wrong to do so.

 
I have even had people pressure me to be friends with people God clearly told me to avoid. When this happens we need to state without reservation that God told me what to do and no pressure from others will make me change my mind. In some cases, we may need to do what Jesus did with Peter, tell the devil this; "get behind me Satan." We need not speak to the person who is being used of the devil, we can speak to the devil in the name of Jesus Christ and silence him.

 
Just recently the devil spoke through a man to my husband. The man didn't like the truth my husband was speaking so he told my husband to "shut-up", in a threatening voice, twice.

When we encounter rage such as this when the truth is being spoken we know it is a devil using the mind and mouth of the person speaking.

 
Proverbs 22:24-25 "24 Do not make friends with an angry man, and do not associate with a hot-tempered man, 25 or you may learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare.…"

Proverbs 29:22
"An angry man stirs up dissension, and a hot-tempered man abounds in transgression."

This is God's answer to the problem of men and women who are full of anger. We are to remove ourselves from them, with the understanding that we cannot reason with them or fix them. We must leave them to God. Pray if you like for their salvation, but do not think that you can influence them.

 
Proverbs 21:24
"Proud and haughty scorner is his name, who dealeth in proud wrath."

2 Corinthians 6:14-17
"Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?"

It is clear that if we attempt to reason with an angry person we will ultimately end up shouting back the way they shout at us. We will become like those who hate us. Our goal is to remain Christlike no matter what others are doing, in order to do this we must get away from them if we do not our flesh will emerge at some point and the devil will have won that round.

 
2 Timothy 3:1-5
"3 But realize this, that in the last days difficult (ragingly insane) 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."

James 1:12. "12 Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love Him."

The Stinging Locusts of Revelation

Sister Celeste and I were discussing how terrible it is going to be in the tribulation for those who have not trusted in Christ.

 
Yes, people who are not born again have no idea how terrible the world will be. Especially those in our country where we have had relatively easy lives compared to other countries.

 
The creatures I think about the most are those "stinging locusts", they are demons attacking people in their minds and bodies. There are no defenses against them because they are spirit beings, no way to kill them or fight against them in any physical way. The attacks are spiritual and illusional in nature even though they torment the body too, there is no defense against spirit beings who cannot be killed.

The people attacked by them will want to die but cannot die. Revelation 9:6, not only because of the stinging scorpions but also all the other terrible things upon the earth will cause people to want to kill themselves.

 
Revelation 9:1-11 "And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.

2 And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.

3 And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.
4 And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.
5 And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he strikes a man.
6 And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.
7 And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men.
8 And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.
9 And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle.
10 And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months.
11 And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon."

The Condition of the Apostate Churches

To blame everything on the devil is to make God powerless and the devil more powerful than God.

 
Some people think they can control the devil by invoking the name of Christ against him. While God said if we resist the devil he will flee from us, it did not mean that we can stop all the antics of the devil in the world. I say this because God has given the devil permission to carry out the end times events.

 
We can resist the devil in our hearts by refusing to allow him to influence us to do evil. God said that believers have Christ living in them Who has power over the devil.

 
The devil cannot do anything without God's permission. Job 2

Reading the book of Job shows us that everything the Lord allows the devil to do has a purpose for the world and the believers will have victory over him.
In these last days God has allowed the devil to influence wicked leaders and those who are not born again, to punish them in their evil and to perhaps devastate them to the degree that they might seek Christ.

 
In the account of Job, the devil was allowed to torment Job only proving Job's faithfulness to God and teaching Job as he sought God for help.

 
Hardship on someone reveals their heart, it does not cause them to sin, it reveals the sin that was already in there that no one could see but God.

 
Sometimes we do not know what is in our heart until we are faced with hardship, then we see what comes out as evidence of our true heart.

 
1 John 5:19
"19 We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one."

1 Peter 5:8
"8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour."

The devil cannot destroy a Christian or the Christian's salvation, but he can ruin the witness of the believer if the believer succumbs to the devil's tricks.

 
The only way to be strong and able to thwart the attacks of the devil is to be walking closely with Christ in obedience. If we know God's word and obey it Christ will be strong on our behalf.

 
However, if we do not know His word and do not obey Him, the Holy Spirit will go silent and we will be left to endure the attacks of the devil. So many Christians are bent on having their own way, figuring things out for themselves that they do not seek the counsel of or listen to the Holy Spirit.

 
1 Thessalonians 5:19
"19 Do not quench the Spirit,"

Quench: Meaning to extinguish the fire of the Holy Spirit. Or to silence Him allowing us to be without His help for a time and without His comfort until we repent of our own ways.

I have seen in churches over the years the people succumbing to the lies of the devil, holding fast to worldly wisdom drawing in unbelievers who love their sin and their own ways, causing a serious dilution to occur. Many are completely apostate now and others are very sick and weak because of their allowance of false doctrine.

 
1 Corinthians 11:29-31 "…29 For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. 30 That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. 31 Now if we judged ourselves properly, we would not come under judgment.…"

These people have a form of religion but have no desire to walk with Christ in obedience. In fact, many are hostile when someone comes and attempts to use the Bible for instruction. They fight against the truth while holding onto their own false version of Christianity.

2 Timothy 3:1-5
"3 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away."

Sadly most churches are in this condition but think they are doing well.

 
Revelation 3:16-18 "…16 So because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to vomit you out of My mouth! 17 You say, ‘I am rich; I have grown wealthy and need nothing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked. 18 I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, white garments so that you may be clothed and your shameful nakedness not exposed, and salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see.…"

The churches must repent before they can be a witness to the rest of the world, if they do not all they do is bring a false doctrine and false gospel to those they infect.