THIS is the #1 reason why people hate Christians

Gossip Separates Friends

Worship in Spirit and in Truth

God told us to worship in "Spirit and in Truth", Jesus Christ is the Spirit and He is also the Truth. Where we meet, when we meet and with whom or how many, does not matter to God.

Matthew 18:20

"20 For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.”

Acts 17:24

"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples made by human hands."

2 Corinthians 5:1

"Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is dismantled, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands."

Do not allow human traditions to cloud your belief about God and His Word. Much of what goes on in the buildings people call churches is not Biblical.

Seek Christ first in all things.

Narcissim by Gwendolyn Wehage

Glorifying God not Self!

Our trials train us and are a witness to the world of the power of Jesus Christ in us, that we do not become unhinged when we go through trials while remaining faithful to Christ right through it all.

Trials strengthen us to be able to handle anything that comes our way, a sort of boot camp for training to rule with Christ in the Millennium.

In order to have wisdom we must go through many things in order to understand them. We must experience rejection to learn how to remain faithful in spite of the rejection, loss, and demeaning nature of the world around us.

It is easy to be "joyful", happy, and strong when there are no trials, this kind of strength is not strength at all, it is not enduring joy based on Christ Who lives in us.

It is easy to be loving and kind when someone else is loving and kind toward us. Real strength has been achieved when we learn to remain loving and kind in spite of what others may do to harm us.

Ephesians 6:10-11

"10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. 11 Put on the full armor of God so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil."

To be strong we must break down the muscles of our own strength to build back stronger the muscles the Lord provides.

Remember a weight lifter must tear the muscles so that when they heal back they are stronger than before. In order to make them strong he must break them first.

Our own will must be broken and done away with in order for the Lord to work His will in us. Anyone who thinks they will be fine with only their will in control will learn quickly that they cannot obey Christ and do great things without His will His way.

There are far too many people who think it is smart to do our own things our own way as long as we claim it was from God even though they violate the word of God to get a job done for God. God does not accept these humanistic self-willed sacrifices claiming to be for Him. We must stop attempting to think up clever ways to do things for God and instead consult Him for His ways.

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.’ ”…"

If someone says they are doing something for God but what they are doing violates the word of God, then they are placing their trust in themselves as though they think they know better than God, that they are more knowledgable than God, they must repent and ask God what He wants and then obey Him. Then after we have asked we need to go tot he Word of God and search it as led by the Holy Spirit to hear from Him.

John 16-12-14 " 13 However, 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. 14 He will glorify Me by taking from what is Mine and disclosing it to you.…"

Whatever we do in obedience to Christ will always glorify God not ourselves or any other person.

Anonymous Sources are a Tool of the Devil

"Gaslighting is invalidating you and your perception" as one person put it.

Mind games are another way narcissists attempt to control your emotions. Their tactic is to bring on an emotional response in their target, it's how they perceive control over someone.

When we do not react or respond and just walk away they know they have no power and will begin gossiping to cause others to see us in a bad light.

We see this in the media all the time. The media uses words like: "they refused to" instead of they declined to do something. They manipulate the understanding to make us think that someone would not do what they should have done, instead of reporting honestly that the person had honest choices and made one.

Spinning the language in a way that makes the hearer think something was terribly wrong is a favored tactic of the media and of narcissists. Let's face it, the media is the personification of narcissism, of course not all but nearly most.

Even conservative talk show hosts spin things to bring their listeners to a conclusion they wish them to believe. Liberals do these things on steroids but conservatives are not innocent either.

When we leave out part of the information to lead someone to a conclusion that is not entirely true, we have sinned. Half-truths are whole lies as someone once said.

And, sadly, even worse is when religious leaders use manipulation, intimidation and "half-truths", they are telling a lie while attempting to control others.

Never did God say in His word that we should attempt to control others. Christ told the truth but never manipulated. He asked questions to get people to think and even trap them in their own lies. The purpose was to bring to light what is dark, exposing deception and manipulation for the evil that it is.

If we are going to expose the spin and manipulation we need to develop Biblical discernment. In these last days, there are foolish conspiracy theories without proof floating around insincerely and treacherously betraying trust, leading people to false conclusions with little to no evidence.

If you have not seen anything for yourself, only having media hype then it is best to disregard it. It is a distraction from Christ an the work God has for us to be continually feeding on the conspiracies that you have not been called to solve. Just repeating the lies you have heard from others isn't doing anything except creating fear while agitating the hearers to distrust Christ.

If you have not seen the event you hear about then don't repeat it to anyone else. If you are continually going to news sources that traffic in sensationalism from sources you should not trust, then stop looking at this nonsense.

Philippians 4:7-9 "7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. 8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable— if anything is excellent or praiseworthy— think on these things. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me, put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.…"

There is no instruction from God to dig for dirt that does not pertain to you. those who love the dirt are perhaps the ones who would rather enjoy filth than God's Word.

Lastly, anyone who places their trust in "anonymous" sources is acting foolishly.

Charles Spurgeon: “Never write what you dare not sign. An anonymous letter-writer is a sort of assassin, who wears a mask, and stabs in the dark. Such a man is a fiend with a pen. If discovered, the wretch will be steeped in the blackest infamy.”

As believers, we must keep our minds free of muck that the devil uses to cause division and dishonesty. You can be sure if anything is anonymous it is not worthy of repeating.

Love Our Enemies: This does not mean they will change because we do what is right, it means we will not become like them if we obey God in this!

God told us to treat our enemies with the love and respect they do not show us.

This means they remain our enemies. Nowhere in the Bible does God say if you love your enemies they will stop acting disrespectfully toward you.

Our goal as believers is to keep ourselves living in the light no matter what others are doing. If we exact revenge or try to school a raging narcissist we are playing their game with them.

Stop trying to teach the narcissist a lesson, remain true to your commitment to obey God, and leave the narcissist to God.

Proverbs 26:4-5

"4 Do not answer a fool according to his foolishness,

Or you will also be like him.

5 Answer a fool as his foolishness deserves,

So that he will not be wise in his own eyes."

Once we have discovered the nature of a rebellious person we can take the appropriate steps to remove ourselves. God never commanded anywhere to keep rebellious people in our lives unless we are married to them, that is another subject for another time.

It is a modern foolish idea that if we treat the scoffer and the narcissist with love that they will like us and then like Jesus. We know this is not true because Jesus Christ and the apostles all lived out the Christ-like life and they never followed anyone around hoping being good enough would influence the evil man.

Kindness to a wicked man is salt in the wound of their sinfulness. They burn with anger when someone is kind to them and even worse if we love them so much we are wiling to speak the truth that might save them from hell.

It is wise to speak the truth once to the narcissist as directed by the Holy Spirit and remove ourselves when they rage in anger and hatred. Hanging around them for more abuse is unbiblical and does nothing but further empower them as they see us cowering under their heavy hand.

Modern psychology sees narcissists as wounded people but they are not wounded, they are angry and refuse to turn to Christ. We all have an excuse humanistically speaking to be bitter and self-exalted in our own minds. There is no one on the earth who has not been harmed by others in some way and there is no one on earth who has not harmed someone. This is never an excuse to become hateful toward someone because someone else was unkind to us.

Why would some people choose Christ to be cleansed and others hang onto their bitterness and anger using the hurts in their life as an excuse to harm others?

We all have a choice, we can treat others better than others treated us or we can treat others the horrid way they treated us, a sort of vengeful balancing of the scale humanistically speaking.

Making ourselves like the wicked person does nothing except to ruin ourselves. It doesn't change the wicked person and it serves only to change us into wickedness ourselves.

The only way to avoid becoming like the narcissist is to demonstrate every day no matter what is done to us, the Christ-like character God wants us to live out. We cannot say it's not possible, oh, yes it is not possible in our own effort, but it is possible through Jesus Christ Who lives in us.

Since all of mankind, meaning every single person, is born wicked and able of great sinfulness. It is only Jesus Christ Who can change a person from a sinner into a saint. It is Christ alone who changes us and when we falter He redirects us through discipline.

Hebrews 12:5-7 "…5 And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons: “My son, do not take lightly the discipline of the Lord, and do not lose heart when He rebukes you. 6 For the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and He chastises every son He receives.” 7 Endure suffering as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father"

We trusted Christ to take our sins on Himself, let's also trust Him to take care of things as we obey His commandments. We must focus on our obedience and His direction not on the hurt others might attempt to cause us.

I find that the more I focus on Christ the less I feel any sense of hurt or attack. I see the attacks but they bounce off like water from a duck's back, having little or no impact on my emotional or Spiritual well-being.

Hallelujah, Christ is our victory, we don't have to manipulate or cause anything to happen, He's got this life and knows all of it far better than we ever could. Also, don't forget that we will use what we have learned in this boot-camp for ruling with Christ in the Millennium. How exciting is that?!!!!!