Amen, the hardest people to reach are those who have a very high opinion of their self worth. They have not yet reached the truth that they are nothing and Christ is everything. They rage when told they need improvement, even holding deep resentment when corrected or disciplined.
May the Lord convict the stubborn hearts!
Psalm 51:16-17 "…16For You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; You are not pleased with burnt offering. 17The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise."
When a man is a tyrant in marriage, negating the elevated position of the woman in marriage as God intended, he sins against his wife and against God.
https://biblicalgenderroles.com/2014/11/04/what-did-god-mean-when-he-called-woman-a-help-meet-for-man/
Liberals would have us apologizing to the devil for exposing his evil. Never apologize for doing what is right just because a rebellious heart didn't like it.
Proverbs 28:4 "Those who forsake the law praise the wicked, But those who keep the law strive with them."
To apologize for doing what is right because someone who is sinful gets angry is the same as saying God was wrong for calling evil what it is and punishing it.
Yes! Two can be raised in the same family and be entirely different. It all depends on their individual perspective and mind set. If parents were to blame for the failures of children then God would have been a bad Father to Adam and Eve.
Also:
Ezekiel 18:20 "20"The person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the father's iniquity, nor will the father bear the punishment for the son's iniquity; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself."
Since we are imperfect parents we can expect that God will have to stand in the gap for us. We cannot take responsibility for the successes of our children any more than their failures. We do the best we can and leave the rest to the Lord.
Do I have to think to eat when I am hungry?
Do I have to think to rest when I am too tired to continue?
Do I have to think to scratch an itch when needed?
Do I have to think to blink when something falls into my eye?
Do I have to think to pick myself up when I trip?
Do I have to think to clean up a mess, when I spilled something on myself ?
Do I have to think when my muscles hurt and I must move to be more comfortable?
I do all these things with very little thought at all, it comes naturally to me to do these things.
Do we understand that when Christ lives in us our natural inclination is to think as He would think and do as He would do!
Those who are not automatically thinking with the mind of Christ may not be born again. We do have to train ourselves to be like this by reading His Word and obeying what He tells us.
If we are not automatically thinking like Christ, then something is wrong with our walk, we are neglecting His Word, prayer and obedience. OR, even worse, we were never born again to begin with.
Hebrews 5:12 "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!"
Hebrews 9:14
"how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself unblemished to God, purify our consciences from works of death, so that we may serve the living God!"
Next time someone asks you if you "follow" the commandments, boldly profess, no, they are a part of me. Do I follow my feet where they go? Do I work real hard to lift my hand to my mouth to feed myself? I do all this without thinking and without trying.
Lastly, doing evil is very uncomfortable for the believer. In order to do evil as a born again believer goes against our new nature. We hate it, we resist it and confess when we are weak and fall into it.
Before we were born again it was natural for us to sin, it was comfortable and we even defended it. After we were born again, sin was distasteful even repulsive to us, we avoid it.
Before salvation sin was natural, pleasurable and compelling.
After Salvation sin is repulsive to us, we are compelled to avoid it.
Romans 7:14-25 "14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.
15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.
16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.
19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.
20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.
22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law;
23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.
24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?
25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin."
I see the Lord of the Sabbath as living in me. It was given before Christ came, when He came it was fulfilled and now that Sabbath rest lives in me. He is my rest every day, I am free to choose a day or everyday to worship. And, He worships on my behalf when I don't know what to say.
We don't have to work anymore, Christ paid for our salvation, He did all the work for that, so I rest in Him and He does all the work in me.
The Sabbath rest is no longer a particular day, it is now Christ in us all the times. Completely fulfilled.
Matthew 12:8 "…7 If only you had known the meaning of ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. 8 For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” 9 Moving on from there, Jesus entered their synagogue,…"
The Sabbath is not a particular day, it is a particular Person, God, Christ in us.
Christ observed the Sabbath day when He was here because He had not yet died, He also observed the Passover, because He had not yet died. After His death we were given the Lord's supper in place of the Passover because the Passover was a picture of the Lord to come. After His death the Lord's supper was the fulfillment, He had come, He died, was buried and rose again, that's what I celebrate.
I do not celebrate that He will come, I celebrate that He did it and it was finished as He said before He died. There was nothing more to be done to cover man's sin with His blood, He did it all on that cross.
