This Generation:
Proverbs 29:21 "21 A servant pampered from his youth will bring grief in the end."
Sunday, March 2, 2025
The Traits of Those the Devil has Entrapped
1. The public persona and their private self do not match. They are different in front of other people depending on who they like or dislike. Kind to those they wish to impress and mean to those they think are beneath them.
2. Loyalty to anyone is superficial and dependent on your performance. As long as we serve a function for them they will be good to us. If we do not serve them they discard us.
3. They can never admit mistakes or sins. They are angry if we confront them. It is not possible to have a rational and reasonable discussion to resolve problems. They blame us for their own flaws.
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."
4. They give lots of advice but will listen to none from others. They criticize everything, even the smallest matters for those they do not like. They do not like confident people who make their own choices. Narcissists are all about control over others.
James 1:19 "
You know this, my beloved brothers and sisters. Now everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger;"
5. Narcissists never self-reflect except to pretend they are above others. They expect others to admire them but have no respect for others. They live with a false self refusing to evaluate their own character or actions. They are basically dishonest people who lie frequently.
James 5:16
"16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working."
6. They have an agenda for those they wish to control and punish anyone who will not comply. They judge as "bad" anyone who will not bow to their way of thinking.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8
"4 Love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous; love does not brag, it is not arrogant. 5 It does not act disgracefully, it does not seek its own benefit; it is not provoked, does not keep an account of a wrong suffered, 6 it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 it [a]keeps every confidence, it believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."
7. They place people in categories, and these people are judged as either "all good" or "all bad" based on what the people offer or don't offer them personally.
James 2:1 "My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory."
8. They have many fantasies and boast about those to others. They cannot stand being "ordinary", they must appear special and associated with the beautiful people.
2 Corinthians 10:5
"Casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God"
9. Narcissists must be seen as powerful over others. They consider themselves the authority over others.
Philippians 2:3 "Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility consider one another as more important than yourselves;"
10. They have no ability to express empathy, loving and kind expressions of love because they don't have it within themselves. They pretend love by giving someone a gift but the gift is always a way of elevating themselves.
11. They lie frequently even when there is no reason to lie. They will lie to elevate themselves and will lie to devalue another person. They are huge secret keepers. The fear of anyone seeing the real them is a thing they fear the most. They also hate it when an honest person comes along and is genuine, it is intimidating and disgusting to them because they see it as a weakness.
John 8:44 "You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he tells a lie, he speaks from his own nature, because he is a liar and the father of lies."
12. They use veiled or covert threats in an attempt to get at someone they cannot control. They will lie to relatives about us, withhold grandchildren from us, and manipulate others to be against us with them.
Proverbs 16:28 "A dishonest man spreads strife, and a whisperer separates close friends."
13. Wealth represents power to the narcissist. They count themselves above others if they are financially above others. Boasting about what they have is continual and without restraint.
14. When confronting a narcissist about their behavior we will be met with irrational and punishing anger. Disagreements are intolerable to the narcissist because they must have everyone elevate them to enjoy them.
Hebrews 12:14
"14 Pursue peace with all people, and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord."
15. Narcissists are dismissive of the concerns of others. They have black-or-white thinking, either you are all wrong or you are all right and if you are all wrong they treat with contempt the one they see as wrong and if you are all right you are golden and treated like a god.
16. Narcissists have no interest in understanding anyone else. They either love you or hate you based on whether or not you treat them special. They cannot tolerate anyone who treats them as normal people just like anyone else.
Romans 12:9-18. "Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; 10love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord."
17. Narcissists like to steal praise from other people. They never let someone else have the limelight for an accomplishment they try to make it seem like they had a part in it.
18. These people exude a chronic undertone of anger. It is always just below the surface ready to explode at the slightest perceived provocation. They nitpick about the silliest things as though they are important. They take every word as a personal attack even if it isn't about them at all. When they walk into a room they suck all the joy out of it and attempt to dominate the conversation so that no one else can engage.
Proverbs 29:22 "…21 A servant pampered from his youth will bring grief in the end. 22 An angry man stirs up dissension, and a hot-tempered man abounds in transgression. 23 A man’s pride will bring him low, but a humble spirit will obtain honor."
19. They have double standards, they expect things out of us that they would not do themselves. They accuse us of things they are doing but we are not.
20. They do not know what love is, they equate love with conformity to them.
21. They have no appreciation for our boundaries. They expect us to do as they want but have no desire to do what we want.
22. Narcissists will disappear when we are in need and return when the fun starts. They have no stomach for the hardships and trials of others but expect others to be there for them when they are in need of help.
These are the main traits of the narcissist. As we pray for them to be broken by God in repentance, we must keep our distance because of the chaos and misery they bring when they come calling.
Proverbs 22:24 says, "Make no friendship with an angry man, and with a furious man thou shalt not go".
Christ did not surround Himself with those who were against Him. The apostles did not keep continual company with those who hated Christ and them for loving Christ.
Our culture has trained its people to remain with people even when they are troublemakers. When these people insert themselves into our lives bringing nothing but evil and hate, God tells us to avoid them.
2 Timothy 3 verse 5 commands us to avoid such people.
"3 But realize this, that in the last days difficult 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."
This passage is a description of the last days apostate church. They will be horrid people claiming to be "religious" but are working against God in practice. We are to avoid them, this may mean and often does mean that we must remove ourselves from their false system of churchianity and remain in small faithful, loving groups who love the Word of God and actually seek to follow it.
Saturday, March 1, 2025
His Commandments Lead Us to Christ
Many years ago I was not unhappy that they removed the ten commandments from the schools because I said; "they're not following them anyway."
Then the Lord spoke clearly to me that the commandments were not there to follow but to show us our own sinfulness opening the door to introducing the gospel.
Then God spoke to me again through His word when He said this;
Galatians 3:24
"24 Therefore the Law has become our guardian to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith."
When I realized the commandments were given so that people would see their inability to be good and the inability to follow them, then they could repent and trust in Christ and what He did for them on the cross.
The sad thing is that even though the commandments were in the schools there were no plaques explaining the way of salvation through Jesus Christ alongside them. This was because the culture as a whole was teaching by example that we could be good by just following those commandments. It kept the children in line to be decent, but it never brought them to salvation.
They treated following the Ten Commandments the way they treated athletes for winning a ball game. You won if you followed the right path, and you could be proud of this accomplishment of being a good person and winning the game.
This mentality fostered arrogance and self-will instead of breaking the will in humility to come to Christ. It was more about societal expectations than it was about Christ. I know this because only a few years ago I asked young people in high schools if they were "Christians", their answer was which church they attended nothing about their salvation experience through faith in Christ.
Once I asked a young man why he wore the "what would Jesus do" bracelet. He said it helped him witness to others when they asked about it. He said it reminded him of the right things to do in particular circumstances and that it protected him from doing the wrong thing. This all sounds very righteous, doesn't it?
I then told him that he was assigning to that object what is the job of the Holy Spirit. Everything he said the bracelet did for him was the job of the Holy Spirit. I told him if he wanted to walk with Christ then he should throw away the bracelet and communicate with Christ in himself and trust the Holy Spirit instead of an object.
When I told this story to other believers they mocked me that I was being legalistic. When I explained to them that using a bracelet to help them with anything in life is no different from a Catholic using St. Christopher medals around their neck to protect them. It was an idol and should be discarded.
Sadly, those Christians argued with me, dismissed the discussion as foolish and as far as I know continued to promote this mentality of the bracelet. Cultural Christians are always thinking up ways to help God doing things their own way.
So many things "Christians" do today are their own idea thinking they are helping God. All they have to do is obey what God said to do and they won't need anything else except their heart and their mouths to speak the gospel to anyone. No money needed, no objects except the Bible needed, no special props, just their Christ-filled heart and their own mouths.
Mark 16:15-16
"15 And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. 16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned."
Our world is the one we live in all around us. There are those who are called to go to different countries to preach but most of us are called to live out our Christian lives in our own communities and speaking to others as led by the Holy Spirit. We need not seek others to know our calling, it is the Holy Spirit in us Who gives us our specific marching orders. No one but the Holy Spirit can guide us to where He wants us to go.
Galatians 3:13-14 "…13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” 14 He redeemed us in order that the blessing promised to Abraham would come to the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit."
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