There is an epidemic now of disrespect from adult children

Sadly, too many people feel obligated to remain with family no matter what, but this should not be the case. We are free to remove anyone from our lives and get on with our own without them.

 
Anyone who would pressure us to remain with those who disrespect us should also be removed. We do not need foolish drama in our lives that only perpetually torments us. No one else should pressure someone to have someone as a friend.

This is a subtle form of bullying. No one else can know the full dynamic of others in our lives; they must trust us to make our own decisions based on the leading of the Holy Spirit.

 
We love our children, but in our day of deep rebellion and arrogance, we must take control of our own lives without the continual dramatization of immature family members who cause trouble at every turn.

 
Matthew 10:21-23 "…21 Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rise against their parents and have them put to death. 22 You will be hated by everyone because of My name, but the one who perseveres to the end will be saved. 23 When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next."

I have a basic philosophy I am convinced is Biblical, which is, never remain with those who work to undermine your walk with Christ.

Those who misinterpret you deliberately without a desire to get to know you will never edify you in Christ and you will not be able to edify them because they do not value anything you say or do. I am happy to understand others, but when they not only don't want me to understand them and have no desire to understand me, then there is no basis for a relationship.

 
This modern culture has become so completely self-exalting to the degree that, as a rule, people do not care about one another, and empathy is almost entirely absent. We love to care about others, but when they see our caring as an intrusion, then we have to move on and pray that the Lord will present Himself to them.

 
2 Timothy 3:1-5 describes what we are experiencing right now, but we often walk in denial, hoping we can salvage the wreckage, only to be disappointed by the lack of results for our efforts.

 
2 Timothy 3:1-5
"Godlessness in the Last Days
3 But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people."

It is not mean or rude to politely decline to do things with family. It is not mean or rude to politely make our own choices and decisions to be with like-minded people who love the Lord as much as we do.

 
When those we have moved on from begin to realize their need for Christ and become born again, then we will be siblings in Christ. When this happens, the drama will no longer be present, and their entire way of viewing life will be changed, because they will be a new creation.

 
It is not unloving to make our own choices pertaining to friendships. We are called to do so in God's Word.

 
Proverbs 14:6-8 "…6 A mocker seeks wisdom and finds none, but knowledge comes easily to the discerning. 7 Stay away from a foolish man; you will gain no knowledge from his speech. 8 The wisdom of the prudent is to discern his way, but the folly of fools deceives them."

Proverbs 13:20 "He who walks with the wise will become wise, but the companion of fools will be destroyed."

1 Corinthians 15:33 "Do not be deceived: “Bad company corrupts good character.'"

Proverbs 9:6
"Leave your folly behind, and you will live; walk in the way of understanding."

We must pray for people, but this does not mean we will be friends with everyone.

Do not be Intimidated by Big Sounding Words

Do not be intimidated by those who use big-sounding words to appear authoritative. The Bible is for the simplest mind when Christ teaches those seeking Him.

1 Corinthians 2:3-5 "…3I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith would not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power."

One does not have to be a scholar using big words to understand the Word of God and to be a teacher of His word.

Hebrews 5:11-13 "11We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain, because you are dull of hearing. 12 Although by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to reteach you the basic principles of God’s word. You need milk, not solid food! 13For everyone who lives on milk is still an infant, inexperienced in the message of righteousness."

We have no need for someone to teach us because we have the Holy Spirit, but we edify one another as each one grows in wisdom, we share with one another. This is different from requiring a degree to teach or depending on seminary-educated people to tell us what to believe.

 
John 16:13-14 "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.…"

Notice something in this passage in John, it is God Who is glorified, not the person who thinks of themselves as wise.

 
Sadly, in our day, modern scholars rely more on what others teach them than they do the Holy Spirit. The modern church system has deceived people into believing they must have more educated teachers, that the average man cannot gain wisdom without them.

 
This could not be farther from the truth. No one can teach better than the Holy Spirit, and anyone who possesses the Holy Spirit has wisdom to share.
May believers stop looking to men to prop them up, but seek the Holy Spirit to train and teach them.

 
John 14:26
"But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have told you."
Nowhere in the Scripture do we find God instructing us to find "highly educated" men to teach or have authority over congregations.

 
1 Corinthians 2:10-13
"But God has revealed it to us by the Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of man except his own spirit within him? So too, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us."

Too often, people look to that "educated" pastor for everything as though he were the mediator between them and God. Even if they say he is not, they treat him as the authority over them. There is only one mediator between the born-again believer and God the Father and that is Jesus Christ.

 
1 Timothy 2:5 "5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;"

John 14:6 "Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."

Romans 5:10 "For if, when we were enemies of God, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through His life!"

"Through His life", when we are led and trained by the Holy Spirit, He gets all the glory. No one should receive glory for their teaching because it comes from Christ, if it is Biblical.

 
Hebrews 8:6 "Now, however, Jesus has received a much more excellent ministry, just as the covenant He mediates is better and is founded on better promises."

When man preaches in his own effort through his own training, he glorifies himself. When a man teaches in the power of the Holy Spirit, he glorifies God.
The church is falling into great deception because they are listening to those who love the praise of men, influenced by their education.

 
Matthew 23:5-7 "All their deeds are done for men to see. They broaden their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels. They love the places of honor at banquets, the chief seats in the synagogues, the greetings in the marketplaces, and the title of ‘Rabbi’ by which they are addressed."

Men in our day do not "broaden their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels" to impress others; they broaden their scope of education by man-made institutions to be revered by others. Because of this, they are using language no one understands while falling into doctrines and practices God never taught.

 
Our challenge is to follow Christ and not men.

Elders of the Ekklesia: The Role of Elders in Early Christian Assemblies

Christ Paid it all No Need to Pray for the Dead

Today, on a "Christian" ministry, I heard a "Protestant Pastor" say, "We should be praying for Charlie Kirk and his family." It upset me because I am a former Catholic who left behind all Catholic verbiage when I left the Catholic church.

Why would any born-again believer use a phrase like "pray for the dead"? Yes, I agree with praying for his family, but why would I pray for him if he were saved?

 
The dead who have been saved by God no longer need our prayers; they are with God. What would we pray for when praying for the dead? Those who believe in praying for the dead believe the person who died could not go into the presence of the Lord without first finishing the punishment themselves in a place called Purgatory, which Christ paid for on the cross. They believe in purgatory as a form of finishing work that the human does, as though they could add anything to what Christ did for them.

2 Corinthians 5:8 "but we are of good courage and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord."

Unbiblical ideas, coupled with a lot of biblical language, are not something to ignore. Why were the other two hosts on that program not correcting the one who was calling for a prayer for the dead person? Fear of offending someone is the lie of Satan; correction is necessary when dealing with Biblical truth.

 
Christians ought to stop adopting the language of the unsaved to placate them. This is exactly what Catholicism did to entice the pagans to become members of the church many centuries ago. Over time, there became more paganism in the church than Biblical truth, making the church more fully cultic.

The idea that just "joining a church gathering" will make people Christians is itself a pagan idea. People do not become saved by being a member of any cult or pseudo-Christian organization. Nor do they become Christians by joining an authentic Christian gathering.

 
I began to understand when Kirk proclaimed to a Bishop that he was "very close to becoming Catholic." Whether or not he was saved, I do not know, but I thought his testimony was one of salvation. Now, I am confused. But none of that matters when we are focused on Christ instead of people.

 
Since most Christians in our day are more focused on political leanings than on Christ, I see how they might be easily fooled by emotional deliveries in which the speaker says all the right words. This is why it is important to focus on Christ and what He says in His Word and not on people who "appear" good.

 
The antichrist will say all the right things in the beginning, fooling many apostate Christians. He will do lying miracles, promising prosperity and safety. It will sound so good that most people will clamor to follow him.

 
It is human nature to want to follow and elevate a person they can see with their eyes. The danger with this is that it can and often does lead to worship of man above Christ. It is very subtle but amounts to the same thing.

 
I do not judge Kirk's Christianity based on anything he said, but I do take issue with declaring that a dead Christian person must pay further sacrifice with his own body to secure his salvation, and I reject the idea that we should pray for or speak to dead people.

 
Let's keep our focus on Christ, take a lesson from martyrs to follow Christ even if it means our death, not to follow a person, but to follow Christ.

What About Socialization?

2 Timothy 3:1-5
Godlessness in the Last Days
"3 But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.
2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,
3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good,
4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people."

Next time someone tells you "what about socialization" in reference to homeschooling, say something like this:

 
"The public schools are now placing weapons detectors at the doors of the schools and locking the children in like prisoners to protect them from the bullies that might try to sneak guns and drugs into the schools. Those places are dangerous and wicked."

 
And

Say: "You mean drugs, alcohol, disrespect, and bullying? I don't think my children need that kind of socialization."

 
The intimidation that a parent is a bad parent because they do not place their children in harm's way every day, to an out-of-control culture, is the devil's lie.
Why people think the family is not enough "socialization", is beyond me. Absolutely silly that we need to be like the culture to live in.

 
We have no need nor desire to fit in with the culture; in fact, God commands us not to fit into the culture.

 
Most homeschooled children I have met have been more respectful, better educated, and higher achievers than those who go to public institutions. Those places train them to emulate foolishness more than they teach academics that will provide good skills for obtaining jobs when they leave. They are less respectful in those places and more self-absorbed under the teaching of self-esteem. They do not teach confidence; they teach selfishness, a very big difference. 

The socialization people think they are missing something, but only ruin the health and well-being of children lumped into a crowd every day with those who don't love them.

 
Deuteronomy 6:6-8 "6 These words I am commanding you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 And you shall teach them diligently to your children and speak of them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down, and when you get up. 8 Tie them as reminders on your hands and bind them on your foreheads"

Proverbs 22:6
"Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."

These instructions were given to parents to train and teach their own children, not to hand them off to government institutions.

 
Just saying!!!!!

Changed By Christ not by Ourselves

2 Timothy 3:1-5 Godlessness in the Last Days
"3 But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people."

In this passage of 2 Timothy, for some time I wondered why "pride" and "arrogance" were mentioned because it seemed to me to be the same thing, why mention the same problem with two different words.

 
Then, as I discovered, at least in the English words, arrogance is pride on steroids in the sense that pride is a condition in which the person has excessive pleasure in themselves, thinking too highly of themselves. Arrogance is the condition of believing one is better than others.

 
Often, these two mentalities go together, as it is difficult to think of oneself as wonderful without also thinking that one is better than others.

 
What is sad is that anyone who is fully satisfied with themselves usually condemns others as inferior to them. It is challenging to distinguish between pride and arrogance, as one often leads to the other.

 
God couldn't have been clearer in His Word, the Bible, that all people everywhere have a sinful nature that will lead them to hell. No one is better than anyone else, and all sin leads to hell.

 
There are sins that have greater consequences than others, and sins that can easily be hidden because the impact on one's life seems minute compared to others. The problem is in measuring one sin against another. It is the heart condition that God looks at, not the size of the offense. A person who steals a piece of gum from someone else is going to hell as much as a murderer, but not because of the size and nature of the sin, but because they have a heart of theft that needs transformation. It is the heart condition that is the problem.

 
It doesn't matter how small a sin is; it is the nature of a man whose heart is sinful. Have you ever met a person who has never done anything anyone could point to as sin because his life was seemingly perfect without flaws?

There are people who think rudeness is not a problem as long as they don't hit someone. But the rudeness is a sinful heart that hits a person with words or subtle dismissiveness as though they are better than the one whom they believe does not deserve respect. The rudeness defies the fruit of the Spirit that is in every born-again believer.

Galatians 5:22-23
"22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law."

This person was never arrested, never used drugs, didn't beat their wives or kids, treated everyone well, and even gave to the poor. Their life appears to be picture-perfect. And yet, everything they did was to appear special to others. This person is not saved because their life was exemplary; they still had within them the sinful nature that made everything they do based on themselves.

 
Christ does not save someone because they have anything good in themselves; He saves those who know they have been entirely selfish, prone to self-exaltation without true love for others, who are broken over their own sinfulness and desire to be changed by Him into a new creation.

 
Everyone, no matter how good they look, needs to confess their sinful nature. Without confession, there is no cleansing. Christ does the changing and cleansing in those who want Him.

 
It is only when we realize how sinful we are and the need for Christ to cleanse us that we will be changed. If we are attempting to change ourselves, we are still depending on ourselves, remaining sinful.

 
Our sinful nature is what makes us worthy of death and hell. Christ went to the cross to die a brutal death on our behalf to pay our debt of sin. We must trust in Him to change us and cleanse us.

 
Anyone who is depending on themselves and their own goodness will not be saved. CHRIST DID THE DYING FOR US; HE MUST DO THE CHANGING IN US. Everything in our transformation is Him; He does it all when we hate our sinful nature and want Him to transform us.

 
There is no "revival" of the soul that can happen; it must be a total transformation. Revival implies there was once good there that must be revived, but there is no good there at all, and never was any. It is only the transformation by Christ that changes our very nature.

When someone becomes born again, they have been changed by Christ into the opposite of what they were before. They think completely the opposite of how they thought before, leading to actions that demonstrate righteousness. God gets all the glory, we get none.

 
Philippians 1:11 "filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God."

Notice this phrase; "that comes through Jesus Christ", not through our own efforts.
No one who is born again by the hand of Jesus Christ can ever think more highly of himself than he ought. If fleshly pride remains because we are trapped in the body of sinful flesh, then it must be expunged through prayer. Asking God to remove in us what is displeasing to Him will be what produces growth in holiness.

Psalm 51:10-19 "10 Create in me a clean heart, God,

And renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me away from Your presence,"

Those who become born again but do not continue to self-reflect according to the standards of the Bible will be disciplined by God. And if sin is not confessed, the Holy Spirit will stop communicating with the believer who remains stubborn.

 
Psalm 66:18 "18 If I regard wickedness in my heart,

The Lord will not hear."

1 Thessalonians 5:19-22 "19 Do not quench the Spirit, 20 do not utterly reject prophecies, 21 but examine everything; hold firmly to that which is good, 22 abstain from every form of evil."

Quench, meaning to put out the fire. The Holy Spirit will remain for ever in one who has trusted Christ but there will be discipline for everyone to grow in holiness.

 
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. 6For the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and He chastises every son He receives.” 7Endure suffering as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?…"

Those who are born again are sealed by the Holy Spirit and eternally saved at the point of salvation.

 
Ephesians 1:13-14 "13 In 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 the promise, 14 who is a first installment of our inheritance, in regard to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory."

When we have sinned after becoming saved the Holy Spirit will not allow us to be comfortable in that sin until we confess it to be cleansed.

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."

1 John 2:1-2 "1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate before the Father— Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 2 He Himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.…"

After you have been changed by Christ, never allow anyone to tell you that you have lost your salvation. If anyone could lose their salvation by sinning, then it was not Christ who changed them. It is the Spirit of God who removed our sinful spirit but we remain trapped in this sinful body of flesh that we must battle.

 
Notice the body does not go to heaven with the believer when he dies. Nothing sinful can go to the Father in heaven, so the body remains while the changed Spirit of the believer goes straight to God.

 
2 Corinthians 5:8 "but we are of good courage and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord."

Anyone who is depending on themselves to keep their salvation is not depending on Christ and does not believe He was the One Who changed them permanently by His Own hand.

 
Those who are depending on Christ have great joy except when they are sinning, then they grieve and have no rest until they confess it to be cleansed.

 
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."

Trust Christ alone always!!!!!

What God Hates