Why He Didn't Like the Stranger

I heard a short story recently;

One man speaks to another man on the street and says; "see that man over there?" The other man says "yes", and the first man says; "I don't like him." The second man asks him why he does not like that man over there, The answer of the first man is; "I don't like him because I don't know him."

This is subtly common in our culture today when there is no love, respect or hospitality for strangers.

Hebrews 12:1-2 "1 Continue in brotherly love. 2 Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it."

Every person we meet and everywhere we go is a person to be loved and respected. There are some evil people we ought to avoid, but in everyday life, we can speak words of kindness everywhere we go as we allow Christ to work in us, He shines.

Fear of man will prevent us from boldly embracing others in love. The fear of man will cause sheepish hiding and self-protection.

When we love Christ we love others. When we love Christ we overflow with kindness, helpfulness and joy at the presence of another human being, someone who might become born-again just by time spent with them.

Our life is rich and full when we have no fear of rejection or appearances. Pretense will destroy all joy and effectiveness for Christ.

Racism happens because those who are racist are fearful of someone or something they know nothing about. Fear is what drives people to be cliquish, superior acting and downright rude.

May the Lord give us the joy, peace, and gentleness necessary to be evangelists for Christ.

The fruit of the Spirit of one Who possesses the Holy Spirit of God looks like the following:

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."

Time Is Running Out!

Fear or Christ You Choose

Narcissists constantly live in fear, fear of losing control of others, fear of their environment, fear of not being accepted, fear of politics, and everything else in between.

Fear is continually in the heart of the narcissist because very little of life can be controlled by us. We can only make ourselves feel in control in small ways but when you think about how many things we depend on others about, we really have very little control over our lives.

We cannot control the medical system in our country or our own health.

We cannot control whether there are groceries at the store to be able to shop for our families, we depend on those who grow the food, those who bring the food to the stores, and the owners of the stores and their prices.

We cannot control the weather, the monetary system of our country or the laws that govern us through taxes, inflation and permits we must purchase to build homes.

The list of things we cannot control is very long and yet we have learned to accept this while making ourselves believe we control what we eat and where we go and what we do by adhering to the rules all around us.

Let's be clear, if we are in Christ we have no worries because He is the one in control over all those things we cannot control. However, those who do not know Christ live in fear all the time that they will not be able to control everything in their lives. They have fooled themselves into believing they are in control when they go to the grocery store, when in fact they can only buy what the merchants decide to provide for them or the farmers grow.

The unsaved must believe they control their environment and yet the government tells them they must have licenses and permits to drive the car down the road or build a home. The government tells them the taxes they must pay as well as which roads they can drive on.

We have more freedom in America than we have ever had before but the people are becoming more fearful, angry and easily offended than I have ever seen in my lifetime. All of this is because of fear.

Born-again believers who are following hard after Christ do not have fear, frustration and violence in their hearts. They have accepted that the rules are placed there under the eye of God.

Romans 13:1-2 "1 Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which is from God. The authorities that exist have been appointed by God. 2 Consequently, whoever resists authority is opposing what God has set in place, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.…"

A believer in Christ realized that God has allowed all governments to exist even the bad ones because He has a purpose in all that He does. For the believer, we don't always know the purpose but we have faith that God knows what He is doing.

The happiness of the narcissistic culture is only present when they are getting something they want their own way. For the born-again believer, the joy never leaves them, in fact when they do not understand or do not get what they would like they can assume God has another plan other than our personal desires and what will be best for us and others in the long run.

Proverbs 3:5-6

"5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart

And do not lean on your own understanding.

6 In all your ways acknowledge Him,

And He will make your paths straight."

Think of the Spiritual rather than the Fleshly

The narcissist wants you to be demeaned through covert ignoring. They"invite you to the party so you can see them enjoying others and ignoring you."

The narcissist will call and chastise you if you do not show up at the party they invited you to because you were not there to be ignored, one of their favorite tactics.

Ignoring is another form of gaslighting, in other words, they are attempting to make you feel like you did something wrong to them so that you ruminate over and over again about something being wrong.

This is laughable if it were not so tragic how often these tactics destroy relationships. There is no honesty, kindness or curiosity about you only manipulation and receipt continually.

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

There is nothing to be gained in your spiritual walk to keep company with those whose only desire is to destroy you. There is nothing to be gained by keeping company with those who do not love Christ, are not born again and have no interest in Spiritual matters.

Time Is Running Out!

Oh How I Love the Animals

I told my husband the other day that if I had a "bucket list" the first thing on it would be to visit the lion park run by a man named Oleg in Crimea Russia.

However, I don't have a bucket list because I want what I do in this life to be directed by God. God has not allowed me the resources to be galavanting all over the world so I am happy where I am doing what He has for me here.

I do have a desire to one day in the Millennium spend time with animals as well as people. I consider animals God's blessing to us, without a doubt they have more purpose than just food for us.

In the new earth, animals will not be dangerous to us, they will not eat one another or attack humans. What an amazing time this will be for the rest of eternity.

Imagine a world with only loving kind people who love Jesus Christ as much as we do and enjoy hearing about His Word and principles!!!

Isaiah 65:25 "The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, but the food of the serpent will be dust. They will neither harm nor destroy on all My holy mountain,” says the LORD."

2 Peter 3:13

"But in keeping with God's promise, we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells."

All born-again believers have so very much to look forward to it ought never to be that we agonize continually over what we live with right now. This is merely a training ground for us as we grow in holiness and grow in trust toward our Lord. Hallelujah!

It's on the Inside First Before it becomes an Action

Whatever is already inside our hearts is what will come out when confronted with an error or corrected over a small matter.

Many people these days are "loaded for bear" meaning they have anger inside ready to emerge at the slightest attempt on the part of someone else to explain their behavior and how it affects others.

The culture as a whole has been trained by the self-esteem teaching that they ought never to accept or ponder a correction. They are entitled to praise and total acceptance of all their behaviors no matter how damaging, there is always an excuse given to allow for a lack of accountability.

No one can grow and change without correction and disagreement. The person who is always looking to be validated and refuses to engage cleanly in disagreement will be an angry person on the inside.

Those who are not angry on the inside do not snark and rage at others over disagreements. Wise people see disagreement as an opportunity to learn from others as well as impart their own wisdom to others.

Notice how immature our children's generation is in terms of discussing any matter to come to a mutual decision. It is nearly impossible in our culture to engage in disagreement to resolve a matter without someone becoming angry and combative.

When a culture as whole cannot receive correction there is loss of relationship, rational government decisions, incorrect and even destructive training in schools and even more sadly monstrous teachings against God's word in Christian churches.

The more we operate from the standpoint of feelings the more we disregard God's Word and bring paganistic advice to those in our sphere of influence.

Feelings are based on fleshly responses to stimuli, they often are not accurate leaving people feeling angry when there is no reason to be angry.

Feelings cause people to despise someone who has done nothing to them except dare to have their own views. When the innocent person has expressed their views innocently the hearer will interpret those views as personal attacks because they are not in agreement with what the hearer wants to believe.

When feelings become the go-to response those who base their attitudes on their feelings will misinterpret anyone who will disagree with them as the enemy.

We are living in a culture that thinks if they feel something that feeling must be accurate therefore there must be someone else to blame.

I knew of a situation in which a man corrected a woman in an e-mail about a wrong date she placed in her letter. He told her that she might want to change that date because it was incorrect. The response of the woman was to become angry and chastise him for the way he expressed himself. I read the letter and there was nothing wrong with the delivery, it was polite and kind but straightforward.

When we see this happening we know that the offended party is interpreting the comments of the man in terms of how she would do it if she were correcting someone, and that would be in angst and intimidation.

A narcissist sees every correction as a personal attack no matter how kindly it is delivered. When a narcissist does not want to be seen as in error about anything they will attack the delivery rather than the issue at hand.

Have you heard things like: "its the way you said it" when you are just being factual about something? How about "you are mean-spirited" when all you did was disagree in a calm and factual way?

When a narcissist is injured through correction no matter how mild they immediately go into personal attacks against your character as well as lying when they say "you said", but you didn't say what they claim.

One time I gave many scriptures to a woman to make my case about a particular topic. This woman came back to me and said; "you didn't even give scripture to prove your point." When I told her I did and sent the scriptures again she came back with insults against my character. Never at any time did I mention her character, I simply spoke the truth using God's Word. When someone does this we know they have lost the discussion and have moved into the blaming and intimidation for the purpose of causing a sinful reaction in us. This is all designed by the devil to cause us to sin. I did not sin in this conversation, I simply ignored her attacks and blocked her from my communications.

When we see someone operating this way in anger and lying against us we know one more word will not change their views. The best thing to do is leave them to the Lord and move on. Answering them according to their foolishness only makes us a fool just like them.

Proverbs 16:4-5 "Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be like him. 5 Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he become wise in his own eyes.…

Matthew 7:6

"Do not give dogs what is holy; do not throw your pearls before swine. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces."

Proverbs 23:9

"Do not speak to a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of your words."

Proverbs 29:9

"If a wise man goes to court with a fool, there will be raving and laughing with no resolution."

I have experienced all of the tactics of raging fools who hated the truth. Yes, and I have watched a fool laugh at me for mentioning that we should trust the Holy Spirit and not our own minds.

We are living in a world now that is filled with fools and ragers, those who are living nearly entirely on the basis of their own feelings and personal desires. And, sadly many in the churches today are of this sort.

The only way to avoid becoming like these ragers is to avoid them and continue to speak the truth to anyone who will listen. Ragers will attempt to shut down our communication by making us feel guilty for telling the truth because someone became angry. Notice they blame the truth-teller and coddle the angry person?

Satan wants us to fear man, shut our mouths and allow evil to take over without any challenges. We are to be vigilant about proclaiming the principles in the Bible without our churches. Those who do not want to obey the Bible must be removed, but in our day this is rare so evil reigns supreme in the house of worship.

1 Corinthians 5:1-13

"It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father's wife. And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. ..."

Discipline for those who will not obey the Word of God is commanded in God's Word, it is not a suggestion but a command.