fresh-hope

Re: Saved?

2011-03-06T07:50:00.001-05:00

Let's look at another similar verse, again I want to post it in context though, so I'll underline the one I'm talking about:

Galatians 5:1–8, It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth? That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you.

The entire book of Galatians is all about not going back into the slavery of trying to earn your salvation through the law or anything else for that matter. Remember that again the apostle is talking mainly to Jews. Paul isn't telling us that anyone who is circumcised is lost. Like Jesus taught, Paul is trying to get them to see it's what's in their hearts that matters. If they (or we) are being circumcised (or baptized or anything else) thinking that it will save us, then we are going down the wrong path. When we do that, we're turning away from our salvation and once again trying to earn our way to heaven or prove our worthiness. The "Truth" that Paul is referring to is the Truth that salvation is through Christ alone and is a gift to us. We can't earn it or buy it, and no matter how perfectly we live our lives, before or afterward, we can never ever be good enough to warrant it.

Paul was fighting against false teachers that had invaded the church. These were proud Jews who are referred to as Judaizers and they taught that what Moses began in the old covenant and Christ added in the new covenant had to be finished and perfected by our own efforts, in particularly by circumcision. This is very much like what the catholic church does today in it's way.

Back in the days of the early church, remember too that these people had seen and/or experienced some pretty amazing miracles done by the apostles so it was very tempting to hang around the Christians and be part of them and profess faith in Christ. However, being Jewish it was also very difficult for them to put aside a lifetime of learning about the law. These people were ripe for the false teachers! In fact they remind me very much of what Jesus talked about in the parable of the sower, remember?

Matthew 13:20–21, The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away.

Notice those words, "falls away" again? So what Paul is telling these folks that are torn between following Christ and following the law is that they cannot have it both ways. Christ alone saves, period. Just because they go to church and say the right things isn't going to help them in the long run. If they return to the law, even just to circumcision in order to be saved, then they have rejected salvation in Christ, and have placed themselves under the obligation of the law again. According to the law, when you place yourself under it, it means you are obligated to keep the entire law and that if you break the smallest of the laws you're as guilty as if you broke them all. Paul is reminding them of that in hopes that they'll realize again how totally hopeless it is and that the only way they can really be saved is through Christ. Paul was contrasting the way of grace vs law, and/or faith vs works, as the means of salvation.

We know that Paul and all the apostles taught that salvation was a free gift and through Christ alone. We know they said it couldn't be lost. We can see from all this that the people who are doing this weren't ever really saved. They had been exposed to the faith, they had been told about salvation, they'd seen the miracles confirming it's truth, and they understood what was being said. But they just couldn't get past their fear that "what if/maybe we need to do this other too". Again it reminds me of the catholic church and the hold they have on many people through fear. That's why Paul called it slavery and bondage. So these folks are what the bible refers to as apostates. The very same kind of people that Hebrews 6 talks about. People who have been exposed to the truth of the Gospel and then knowingly turn their backs on Christ. That's the definition of an apostate. Just like the people in Hebrews 6, these people had been part of this church and had witnessed Christ's ministry in the lives of all the other believers there, but then refused Christ alone. That's what "tasted of the heavenly gift" and "shared in the Holy Spirit" and tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age is talking about. Notice once again the words, "fall away" in this passage as well.

Hebrews 6:4–6, It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.

As John MacArthur puts it: "They came to the very doorway of grace and then fell away, back into their works-oriented religion."

There's one other thing though that I think is really important about this. I think many of us at one point or another worry that we have somehow done this ourselves, and we wonder if we can still be saved or if we ever really were. I know that I went through this myself. Well there's one easy way to tell if you've done this or not. Notice that Paul says it's impossible for them to be brought back to what? To repentance. So what is repentance? Remember this verse about it?

2 Corinthians 7:10–11, Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. At every point you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter.

So repentance is a godly sorry that before we're saved brings us to salvation and after we're saved produces an eagerness to clear ourselves, to be free of sin, and concern that we might have sin or that we have sinned.

You see, someone who is apostate doesn't feel godly sorrow about it. They don't long for salvation. Instead their sinful nature usually prides itself on being followers of the law or how good they are by themselves etc. They don't have doubts or remorse or alarm about what's happened. Nor do they desire to change it. So if we've done something that we think might put us in this category, but we are feeling just awful about it, who or what do you think is making us feel awful? Our sin nature? hardly! It's the Holy Spirit and the only way the Holy Spirit can be making us feel that way is if He is dwelling within us! Therefore you can be sure you haven't committed this sin if you're feeling godly sorrow.

If we are longing to be restored and be in communion with Jesus again then that's a sure sign that the Holy Spirit is at work in us restoring us at this very moment. We can then know that all that happened was that we fell out of fellowship, that we stopped "abiding in Him" or weren't "remaining in Him" during that time and that now the Holy Spirit is helping to restore us so that we can once again abide in Him. Or to put it another way, so we will once again be plugged into the source--Jesus!

Re: Saved?

2011-03-06T07:49:00.001-05:00

Yvonne said:

Could someone please Explain this Scripture? Heb 6.4

Yes I can hon, but I've done a bible study on it already and even posted some other good ones on it. Let me give you a link to that and then I'll try and give you a "short answer". This is exactly the kind of question I was hoping someone would ask on the saved bible study thread. LOL

Falling Away? A Study Of Hebrews 6

Ok, to be honest, this is/can be such a difficult passage to explain adequately in a few words, at least for me lol, and I'm pretty tired right now, so I'm just going to post what some commentaries say for you here. For more info please go to the link I provided ok? And then if it's ok with you, I can merge this with the bible study thread, saved, and we can continue it there when I'm more up to it tomorrow ok?

Keep in mind the rules to studying the bible: it must be read in context with the book/chapter and the whole bible and the bible never contradicts itself; when it seems to we look to the rest of the bible for the answers.

Though a cursory look at this text might lead one to think that Christians can lose their salvation, that idea is not the issue. These verses instead speak of the need for believers to persevere in the Christian faith. The verbs “enlightened” (v. 4), “tasted” (vv. 4–5), and “became companions” (v. 4) describe persons who have professed Christ and claim to be believers. To “have fallen away” (v. 6) means to commit apostasy. The writer of Heb admonished his readers not to go back to the OT sacrificial system because Jesus is superior to it in every way. If they were to turn away from Christ, repentance would be impossible because it cannot be found anywhere else once Jesus is rejected (10:26–27). By their actions, such persons disgrace Christ openly and try to re-crucify Him. If they forsake faith in Christ after having professed it and go back (i.e., do not persevere), they never were actually saved to begin with (see Mt 10:22; Mk 13:13).
The Apologetics Study Bible: Real Questions, Straight Answers, Stronger Faith

6:4–6. This passage does not teach that one can lose his salvation through disbelief or apostasy. These verses refer to a hypothetical situation whereby the author stresses what would happen to a saved person if he could fall away. The author does not believe one can lose his salvation, or that his readers had (cf. v. 9); but he so speaks to demonstrate the folly some might have in imagining that they can turn back to Judaism without suffering loss. Though the author is not writing about his readers (v. 4, those), he still is writing for their sakes (v. 9, you). If they shall fall away is the translation given to the fifth participle of the passage. This is a legitimate and even common grammatical usage by the author within the warning passages (cf. 2:3; 10:26; and even 6:8). The first four participles refer to actual blessings whereas number five describes a potential situation, and so can be translated unlike the first four.
The important point about Hebrews 6 is that it agrees with the general tenor of Scripture concerning the security of the born-again believer. One basis for the security of the believer involves the promises recorded in God’s Word (vv. 18–20; 7:24, 25; 8:12; 10:10–14; John 10:28–30; Rom. 8:28–39; Eph. 1:13, 14; 4:30; Phil. 1:6; 1 John 5:13). Yet, an even stronger basis for security is found within the nature of the new life God gives. Though conversion involves man’s will, it is God’s will that produces regeneration (John 1:13). Thus, salvation is infinitely more than a decision that one can make and then break. It is the work of God that transforms one from darkness to light (1 Cor. 4:4; Col. 1:13), from death to life (John 5:24), from a child of the Devil to a son of God (Rom. 8:14–17). It is a completed, regenerating work (10:14; Eph. 2:8—“You are saved,” or “You have been saved and stand saved”—Greek perfect tense).
King James Version study Bible

The author of Hebrews does not suggest in these verses that apostasy or falling from salvation is possible. Rather, he provides the strongest possible argument for the impossibility of reinstatement to salvation if one were to fall. The hypothetical spiritual experiences about which the author speaks are clearly those of a genuine believer. Enlightenment is followed by tasting the heavenly gift and sharing in the Holy Spirit. Even the powers of the coming age have been experienced by these Christians. Indeed, the initial phrase of v. 6 could be translated “and having fallen beside.” Again the case is hypothetical, referring to the biblical truth that if one could fall from salvation, he could never be saved again. The fact that there is no thought of an actual forfeiture of salvation may be seen elsewhere in Hebrews (cf. 6:19; 10:14), as well as throughout the remainder of the N.T. (cf. Eph. 4:30; 2 Tim. 1:12; Jude 24). Actually the author of Hebrews is confident in the profession of the recipients of his epistle, as is indicated by v. 9.
Believer's Study Bible.

The explanation even in most of my commentaries is very long and involved as this is an important passage so again it would be better for you to read that study and then I'll merge this and we can discuss it tomorrow ok?

Re: Saved?

2011-03-06T07:46:00.001-05:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by yvonne2u2

Sanctification is the consequence of justification and is dependent upon a person being in a right relationship with God

Could you further elaborate for me the statement above. I have heard a lot of different things in regards to Sanctification, but don't understand it a whole lot.

Basically justification is when we are declared holy by God at our salvation; and sanctification is what happens after we've been justified and is when we work out our salvation like that verse tells us to, putting what we've learned in God's Word into practice in our lives and therefore living righteously.

DEFINITION OF JUSTIFICATION: Being declared righteous by God.
The Evangelical Dictionary of Theology defines justification as “to pronounce, accept, and treat as [righteous], and not . . . liable, and, on the other hand, entitled to all the privileges due to those who have kept the laws.” It declares a “verdict of acquittal, and so excluding all possibility of condemnation. Justification thus settles the legal status of the person justified.” It makes a person, as has been commonly said, “just as if I’d never sinned.”
CENTRAL PASSAGE:
Romans 5:1, Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

DEFINITION OF SANCTIFICATION: The process of spiritual growth toward the character image of Christ.
CENTRAL PASSAGE:
1 Thessalonians 4:3, It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality;
Perhaps the central passage in Scripture that describes this process is
Philippians 2:12–13, Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.
30 days to understanding the Christian life in 15 minutes a day

Does that help?

Re: Saved?

2011-03-06T07:45:00.001-05:00

Sure, I used to get really confused by all the various terms too! First let me address what your friend said. I believe what she was referring to is this passage:

1 Corinthians 7:13–17, And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. But if the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace. How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or, how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife? Nevertheless, each one should retain the place in life that the Lord assigned to him and to which God has called him. This is the rule I lay down in all the churches.

Ok, to really understand what he's saying here we need to first understand what the word sanctify means:

Sanctification is one of several possible English translations of qdš, hagios and their cognates. See *HOLINESS for usage. Context alone determines whether the translation should be holy, holiness, holy one, saints, consecrate, consecration, sanctify or sanctification. Even in individual passages translators do not always agree. Its broad meaning is the process by which an entity is brought into relationship with or attains the likeness of the holy....
....Sanctification occurs as a consequence of movement towards the Holy One, not as the basis for holiness.
New Bible dictionary

DEFINITION OF SANCTIFICATION: The process of spiritual growth toward the character image of Christ. ...Sanctification must be understood in two ways from its use in Scripture. There is positional sanctification, which means we are permanently “set apart” for God. That happened when we were born again; it is now complete and needs no further action (Acts 26:18). Then there is progressive sanctification, which is the moral and spiritual renewal, growth, and renovation whereby we are changed more and more into the character image of Christ. ...
....sanctification requires a mutual interplay between the initiating work of God and the responding work of man (even though man’s response, his willingness to respond, and his ability to respond are gifts of the Holy Spirit). Perhaps the central passage in Scripture that describes this process is Philippians 2:12–13, Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.
30 days to understanding the Christian life in 15 minutes a day

OK, now let's look at the passage in context. Paul was talking about whether or not someone who was now a Christian should divorce their spouse if the spouse wasn't a believer. Remember in their culture they were accustomed to the idea that God has set apart the Jews and didn't want them intermarrying with those of other religions and/or cultures. They knew God had called them to be separate. So now they were wondering if now God wanted them to further separate themselves, since they also understood that it was a sin for a Christian to marry someone that wasn't a Christian. They were basically saying, "but we're already married so now what do I do?" To answer their question, Paul told them that as long as their spouse was agreeable to remaining married to them that they should stay in the marriage. To encourage them he explained that by staying in the marriage they would be sanctifying their unbelieving spouse and children.

Generally sanctification is used in relation to someone who's been saved so it's easy to misinterpret this that way. That's why you have to remember the other rule of studying the Bible. You don't interpret the bible, the bible interprets itself, and it never contradicts itself. When it seems to do so, as in this example, then the answer is to discover what else the Bible says on the subject matter.

I can assure you that nowhere in the bible, old or new testament, can anyone be saved in any way except through faith in Jesus. The only difference between salvation in the old testament and the new is that in the old testament people were saved by faith that God would send the Messiah to take care of the problem of sin, they just didn't know what His name would be. In the New Testament, we know His Name. But both were saved by faith in Christ. So we can know for sure that this passage is not saying that your spouse or children can be saved by you. They too must come to Christ.

If it's not saying that, then what is it saying? Well the easiest way to determine that is to again let the bible speak for itself. In the Old Testament when God declared someone or something "holy" or when He sanctified someone or something (means basically the same thing) He taught that if someone or something else came in contact with whatever He had sanctified, that person or thing also became "holy" or "sanctified". Not saved-just sanctified, holy. It did get pretty complicated but that's the basic idea. Here's a passage that describes this:

Haggai 2:11–13, “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Ask the priests what the law says: If a person carries consecrated meat in the fold of his garment, and that fold touches some bread or stew, some wine, oil or other food, does it become consecrated?’ ” The priests answered, “No.” Then Haggai said, “If a person defiled by contact with a dead body touches one of these things, does it become defiled?” “Yes,” the priests replied, “it becomes defiled.”

Consecrated meat was meat set apart for a specific sacrificial purpose (cf. Lev. 6:25; Num. 6:20). While the garment that might contain such meat would also be holy (cf. Lev. 6:27), that holiness of the garment could not be transferred to bread … stew … wine, oil, or any other food. But this is not true of ritual defilement, as indicated by the priests’ positive reply to Haggai’s question regarding the transmission of ritual uncleanness (Hag. 2:13). A person’s ceremonial defilement (e.g., by contact with a dead body) is as transferable to other things as is a contagious disease (cf. Lev. 11:28; 22:4-7).
The Bible knowledge commentary : An exposition of the scriptures

The part about defilement doesn't apply to the Christian married to a non Christian spouse because the Christian is like the firstfruits offering and is holy, therefore making the whole "batch" of their family holy.

Romans 11:16, If the part of the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy; if the root is holy, so are the branches.
Ezekiel 44:30, The best of all the firstfruits and of all your special gifts will belong to the priests. You are to give them the first portion of your ground meal so that a blessing may rest on your household.

James 1:18, He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.

So what this all means is simply that God blesses the unsaved in the household because of the saved person. (Look at how He blessed Potiphar and all of Egypt even because of Joseph!) Because they both see how the believing person lives their life and they see the blessings from that persons life, they are more likely to become saved.

So in this passage sanctification doesn't refer to their personal standing but rather to the sanctity of the marriage itself and to the fact that the Christian will be a constant witness to them of God's reality and of the Gospel and of His blessings. Paul wanted to make sure that none of the Christians used their salvation as an excuse to dump their spouse as that wouldn't have been a good witness to the spouse. (remember, in the old testament, God did demand that the Israelites that had married outside their culture get rid of their foreign wives and children. Ezra 9:1-Ezra 10:17)

Now with that out of the way we can go on to the other part of your question. I'll do that in my next post. I hope this helped!

Re: Saved?

2011-03-06T07:44:00.001-05:00

Today I'd like to talk about another verse that sometimes throws us for a loop:

Philippians 2:12–13, Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

As always we need to take into consideration what was being said prior to this. He was talking to them about their attitudes toward each other and what was going on there. He then pointed out that Jesus had humbled Himself and been obedient which is what we are also to do. It's at that point the word "therefore" comes in. So Paul is basically saying, "Since Jesus humbled Himself and thought of others first and was obedient to God, and as you have also always obeyed, continue to do this to work out your salvation."

Now, what did he mean when he said "work out" your salvation? Let me see if I can give you an everyday kind of example. Ok, this is going to be a pretty pathetic example but it's all I can think of right now Let's say I give you a gym complete with every workout machine there is. It now belongs to you. It's in your name and no one can ever take it away from you. You own it. Now, you can let that gym sit there and collect dust, or you can use it. I gave it to you because I obviously want you to use it. I want you to work out (sorry for the pun lol) your body so that it's all it can be. (told you it was pretty pathetic lol)

Now the Lord gives us our salvation for free. It's a gift to us. It's completely free, BUT He wants us to use it! His purpose for us is to do good works as He grows us up into the likeness of His Son.

Ephesians 2:8–10, For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

2 Corinthians 3:18, And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

This again is the difference between those who have been saved and do nothing with it-they continue to live worldly lives and those who have been saved and live for God being obedient to Him as He wants us to be. We are not all going to wake up someday being just like Jesus; God isn't going to just magically make us all like Him at some point after our salvation. No, that comes from good old fashioned hard work and obedience. Which is what Paul was saying to them. Just as Jesus was obedient, so we need to be obedient and put into practice in our daily life what we are learning from the Lord.

That part I underlined is what the words "work out" means in this verse. So what Paul is saying is to take what they know and use it! Don't just mouth the words, don't keep it as just head knowledge, make it heart knowledge and use it in your life. The verb “work out” carries the meaning of “work to full completion,” and that "completion he's talking about is being just like Jesus. We aren't being told to "work for" our salvation, but rather to put into practice in our daily lives what God has been working in us by His Spirit. In other words, we are to work out the salvation to it's ultimate conclusion of Christlikeness that the Lord has already given us. The bible calls this process "sanctification".

So you can see our salvation should really be viewed in all three tenses:

past, justification; --this is what Christ did when He died and rose again for us. Let me post the actual definition:
The acquittal, or declaration of being righteous, before God as judge. It is a central aspect of Paul’s understanding of what God achieved for believers through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Zondervan Dictionary of Bible Themes.

present, sanctification; This is when through abiding in Christ, in our personal relationship with God, we live righteously allowing the Holy Spirit to constantly renew us, constantly making us righteous and holy.
The process of renewal and consecration by which believers are made holy through the work of the Holy Spirit. Sanctification is the consequence of justification and is dependent upon a person being in a right relationship with God. Zondervan Dictionary of Bible Themes.

and future, glorification. (when our salvation is complete and we are glorified with Christ at the rapture)
This is why the the apostles were constantly teaching about the rapture and telling us to look forward to it, because that is when our salvation will be made complete. It is then that we will receive the new body to go with the new spirit we received when we were first saved. It is then that we will finally be forever rid of our old nature so we will no longer have to fight with sin. So after the rapture there will still be different kinds of Christians. We'll all have our new body etc and all will be saved, but some of us, those who were obedient and studying His Word and put it into practice will be fully matured and be ready to reign with Christ for the next 1000 years. Others will be saved but still be "infants" in Christ because they did nothing with their salvation. They didn't "work it out" in their lives and they weren't obedient. So they won't be reigning with Christ. They will be given something to do that's in line with how much they've learned (which is pretty much nothing). There will indeed be weeping when they realize just how much they messed up when they let the opportunities of their earthly life slip away without working out their salvation. Then there will be those that are at just about every stage between being mature and being infants. They too will be rewarded based on how much they worked out their salvation while they were here.

I talked more about this in this study: What will we feel when we finally stand before Him?

Re: Saved?

2011-03-06T07:43:00.001-05:00

I'd like to cover a couple of things about our salvation today if there's time, but if not, I'll just finish up tomorrow. First is the parable of the Sower that Jesus tells, because it explains exactly what kind of people are who here the Gospel. Rather then posting the parable itself, I'm only going to post His explanation of what it means and then we'll discuss that. This is one that really helped me understand that there are actually two kinds of "believers" or "saved" people.

Matthew 13:18–23, “Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path.
The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away.
The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful.
But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”

Jesus explains that when the Gospel is preached that people will respond in one of 4 ways to it. The first two ways He describes are ways that don't lead to salvation; the last two are ways in which a person is saved, but their way of dealing with their salvation is different which produces two different kinds of saved people in the Church.

The first group hears the Gospel but doesn't understand it. (the seed that fell on the path) They're blinded by Satan but the reason they are blinded by him is because of the persons stubborn desire not to turn to God. If their sinful stubbornness not to turn to God hadn't been there, then God would have removed the blinders from their eyes. We know this because of what Jesus explained in the previous passages. He was referring to:

Matthew 13:15, For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’

Isaiah 6:9–10, He said, “Go and tell this people: “ ‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’ Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes.Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”

So Satan is allowed to blind them due to that and they remain unsaved.

The second group (stony or rocky ground) really only partially understands the message but they appreciate it and want to be saved. The reason I say they partially understand is because the problem is that they're trying to follow the teaching in their own strength. The reason they're doing it in their own strength is because they have no root, or no "foundation" for their salvation. Remember when we discussed what the foundation of our faith is and how we get it and are to build it up through study and prayer? For those who don't recall or haven't read that study, our foundation is Jesus Himself. We did a very good study about the foundation and all it means starting with post 2 in the study: Stress,worry,fear etc & the Christian You can follow all the "rules" (if you want to call them that) in the bible, but if you don't have that firm foundation in Christ, meaning having Him dwelling in you and understanding at least the basics of your faith, then your faith cannot be real and you cannot be saved. The way this shows up in lives is that when troubles come (and they surely will) their faith doesn't stand up to the test and is washed away by the storm. Let me quote a very little bit of that study here just to make sure everyone understands what I'm talking about:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cindy

Luke 6:46-49“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?I will show you what he is like who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice.He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built.But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.”

Here we see that the secret is the foundation has to be right, the foundation must be built on Jesus and must dug deep. I don’t think it’s a surprise to any of us that Jesus is the foundation and that it must be Him or it won’t work, but what does it mean to “dig deep”? To answer that, let’s look at the opposite first, which would be shallow. Something done shallowly is something that has been done in such a way that it lacks depth of intellect, knowledge or intelligence. So to dig deeply we need to supply knowledge and intelligence.

....Digging a deep foundation on Jesus requires time and commitment from us. It’s not something done quickly or with little thought. That really does make sense though since the ultimate outcome is quite important. In fact, it’s so important that Jesus tells us to count the cost of it before we begin.

In other words, the people in the rocky ground group, believed the message but didn't ever place their faith in Jesus. They had head knowledge, but no heart knowledge and so are unsaved. You can find the people from this group in church too and it can be hard to tell them from those who are saved, at least until they start going through trials. Once that happens, they're the ones who apparently "fall away". As you can see though, they really didn't fall away, because they were never saved to begin with.

Now is when it got really interesting to me! This third group is the group in the thorns. They respond to the Gospel and believe. They ask to be saved and are in fact saved. BUT they don't respond to the Holy Spirit wanting to change them, so they either bear very little or no fruit at all. It's like they turn their brains off after the salvation part is taught them. They want that free ticket to heaven but they're not interested in becoming more like Christ or anything that goes along with that. They may crack open their bibles occasionally or even dutifully read it 15 minutes a day. They may attend church every Sunday, but that's about as far as they ever go, unless they get roped into helping out in some ministry or other because they feel too embarrassed to say no. They can seem to "walk the walk" and they certainly learn to "talk to the talk", but there is no real growing personal relationship with the Lord. Mainly they live quite worldly lives, not much different at all from those that aren't saved.

I see it like this: Let's say I'm sitting in a waiting room and I start talking to the person beside me, "Joe". We spend the hour waiting talking to each other and I get to feel like I know him and he feels the same way about me. Because we've met each other and had some little conversation there is now a personal relationship between us.

Now I have some choices to make about Joe. I can pursue that relationship with him and by taking time to give him a call or write to him or meet him for coffee or whatever our relationship will grow.

Or I can choose to simply leave the relationship the way it is and not take it any further. Joe might call me or come by a number of times, but I'm always busy and don't have time to spend with him, so our relationship suffers.

That first meeting would be similar to each of us when we meet Jesus personally and are saved. These people in the above "thorn" group have that kind of personal relationship with Jesus. They've met Him and talked to him a short while but that's it. They're much too busy to consider taking time out of their day consistently and diligently in order to develop that relationship further. They are saved though because God is true to His Word, so they will live with us in Heaven. What they don't seem to realize is that there will be a pretty big gulf between them and those of us who are in the last group. We may all be in Heaven, but there will be a big difference between us.

Then there's the last group, the good ground. That would be us. These are the people who believe the Gospel, repent and are saved, just like the previous group. The difference is that they allow the Holy Spirit to work in them and change them day to day to become more like Jesus. Obviously the folks in this group can still differ from one another as to the amount of dedication they have for obedience and allowing God to change them. This group is the group of disciples, the followers of Christ; they don't just believe, they're changed and changing and looking forward to seeing the Lord in Heaven and desire very much to please Him. They cannot get enough of His Word and are constantly in prayer.

Don't get me wrong, the people in this last group have their moments of "burn out" or whatever, because after all we're still human; but for the most part they live for the Lord. They're pretty easy to tell apart from those who aren't saved.

As I said, this really helped me understand there there really can be "believers" that have no fruit or very little. Of course there are many other passages that teach this as well, but I'm feeling rather worn right now so I'll have to take this up more tomorrow...

Re: Saved?

2011-03-06T07:41:00.001-05:00

Today let's look some more at salvation. But before we do this, I want to remind everyone about how to read and study your bible. The reason for this is that we're always going to come across things we don't understand or that might scare us. The wonderful thing is to know that we don't have to worry because we have the Holy Spirit to teach us and to lead us into all truth. (as long as we're saved). That doesn't mean though that we don't have to put forth some effort too, starting with actually studying our bibles (the whole bible not just the new testament!) and talking to the Lord about what we're studying and asking Him questions. The bible will always interpret itself. Therefore we never have to interpret it. The way God does this is simple. When you come to a verse you have a problem with, or just one you want to know more about, you look up every verse that could possibly have anything at all to do with it. This is where good concordances and commentaries and things like that come in. Because besides just telling you what they think a verse means, often a commentary will give you more cross references to check out. Keep in mind too when you are reading commentaries that you should never simply accept what they have to say as being "the truth". They are not infallible, only God's Word is. Keep in mind as you're looking up and studying all these other verses that God's Word will NEVER contradicts itself either. Sometimes it does seem to, but only until we figure out what He's actually saying by checking out those other verses! So first make sure you are reading the verse's in context and then find out what else God has to say about that subject. The better you know the whole Bible the better you'll understand everything. If you're new at this, please see this thread which explains more about it: How to Read, Study and Understand the Bible

Re: Saved?

2011-03-06T07:40:00.001-05:00

Now, if you're like me I can just imagine the question you're dying to ask...what about Judas???? This may sound like a glib answer, but it is the truth, glib or not, and I believe I can prove it. At least I did to my satisfaction. I think one of the reasons the Lord had things happen the way He did was just so we'd have this example to reassure us.

First I find it very interesting that Judas was with the Lord for a several years and yet never became saved. Not only that, but he "talked the talk" and "walked the walk" as the saying goes. So most of the time, to all outward appearances, he seemed no different then any other disciple. The important words in that sentence are "outward appearances" though. Remember, the Lord sees what's in our hearts. Outward appearances don't matter to Him! Let's take a little closer look at Judas as we review some of the things that the Lord tells us that we can expect at salvation.

I think one of the first things that jumped out at me was this: (all scripture is from the NIV unless otherwise stated)

John 12:4–6, But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.” He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.

Keep in mind that this happened the week before Jesus was crucified, so this was at the end of His ministry, not at the beginning. When people are saved, they are changed and become a new person. For some the initial change is just huge and for others it's a seemingly small change; but for all that change continues until the day we die. (Rather then posting all the verses that support this, I'll simply assume you know them but if you'd like examples all you need to do is ask and I'll provide them) The fact that this was after Judas had been with Jesus a long time and that instead of changing for the better, he had continued his old habits of stealing is very telling.

As the treasurer for the disciples, the collected money was used to support them--buy their food, clothes, a bed to sleep in sometimes, etc. We can see from the scriptures that not only was Judas stealing money meant to support them all, but that he was doing so to get things just for himself. He was being "selfish" which is most definitely not a fruit of the spirit! Judas quite obviously put himself, his needs, and his wants ahead of everyone and everything else. That's very much like most of us are before we're saved. But the Lord tells us that we are to put others first and before others we are to put God. So the chain would be: God, your spouse, your children and the rest of your family, all others who are saved, everyone else that's left, and finally, last, yourself. The more someone grows in spiritual maturity, the more we will see that being lived out. We can see from that verse that Judas was a fake. He wasn't really living the life of a person who was saved, he was just going through empty motions.

The other sin that this shows is the sin of greed. So we see greed, selfishness, lying (I'm quite sure he didn't volunteer the information that he was stealing from them to the other disciples) and stealing. These are not things that would be done by someone who was saved.

Matthew 26:14–16, Then one of the Twelve—the one called Judas Iscariot—went to the chief priests and asked, “What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?” So they counted out for him thirty silver coins. From then on Judas watched for an opportunity to hand him over.

In the above passage we see that Judas planned to betray Jesus and he wanted to get a little something for himself out of it, above and beyond the recognition of being the one to do their bidding. Again not a trait of someone who's been saved. This is not a picture of someone with unrealistic ideals trying to do "the right thing" as some would have us believe.

John 13:2, The evening meal was being served, and the devil had already prompted Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray Jesus.

Notice in this verse that one little word "already". We can see from this that Jesus had been possessed by the devil for some time already before carrying out his little scheme.

Matthew 26:25, Then Judas, the one who would betray him, said, “Surely not I, Rabbi?” Jesus answered, “Yes, it is you.”

This wasn't a surprise to Jesus though. He knew all abut it and had known before he ever picked Judas as an apostle. I'd also like to point out one other thing about this. We know for sure that Judas was possessed by the devil because the Bible comes straight out and says so. We also know that someone who is saved cannot be possessed by a demon or Satan. They can be harassed, but not possessed, so this also shows that Judas was never saved.

John 6:70–71, Then Jesus replied, “Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!” (He meant Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, who, though one of the Twelve, was later to betray him.)

Again we see that Jesus wasn't surprised about this. Further however, Jesus again states he is possessed. This isn't something a Jew would ever say lightly in those days and Jesus certainly wouldn't have said it if he didn't mean exactly what He said.

Mark 14:43–45, Just as he was speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, appeared. With him was a crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests, the teachers of the law, and the elders. Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: “The one I kiss is the man; arrest him and lead him away under guard.” Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, “Rabbi!” and kissed him.

Notice that Judas led them straight to Jesus. There was no doubt, no hesitation, no second thoughts. Again this is not the character of a saved person.

NIV Matthew 27:3–4, When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty silver coins to the chief priests and the elders. “I have sinned,” he said, “for I have betrayed innocent blood.” “What is that to us?” they replied. “That’s your responsibility.”

This is the big one that often throws us off. People often misinterpret this to think it means Judas "repented", but the fact is, he didn't repent, not in the way we mean the word when we talk about repenting from our sins anyway. Let me post it in a couple of other versions so we can get a better feel for what he actually said:

ESV Matthew 27:3–4, Then when Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” They said, “What is that to us? See to it yourself.”

KJV Matthew 27:3–4, Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that.

NET Matthew 27:3–4, Now when Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus had been condemned, he regretted what he had done and returned the thirty silver coins to the chief priests and the elders, saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood!” But they said, “What is that to us? You take care of it yourself!”

That word that's translated "repented" or "changed his mind" or "regretted what he'd done" etc. actually does mean all those things but it doesn't mean "repent" the way it's used when talking about someone "repenting to salvation". The word used in this verse is metamelomai, “to regret”; the term the bible always uses for repentance that leads to salvation is metanoia. The big difference between the two terms is that the one used here simply means he regretted what he did; while the other term, the one used in connection with salvation means repenting (regretting) one's actions (sins) which leads to a change in how you live. So basically it's saying that while Jesus felt bad about it, he didn't feel badly enough to change anything and would most likely do it again if the situation arose.

Shortly after this Judas hanged himself and was lost forever, just as Jesus told us:

NIV John 17:12, While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name. Those whom You gave Me I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.

ESV John 17:12, While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.

This too confuses some people and makes them think Judas was saved or else how could Jesus say He'd "lost" him? If you look closely at what Jesus actually said, you'll see the Truth though. I'll give you a hint: How did Jesus "keep them"? He kept them in His Father's Name, right? The only way He could do that is if they were saved. Since He couldn't "keep" Judas that way because Judas wasn't saved, He "lost" him. So as you can see, instead of "proving Judas was saved", this passage actually does the opposite. It proves that Judas was never saved. (I posted the passage in a couple of translations so you could better see why someone who is kept "in the Father's Name" is saved.) As we can see from all of this, Judas was never born again, he was never saved. He wouldn't even call Jesus "Lord" but instead would only call Him "Rabbi" or "teacher". The day will come though when even he will bend his knee and confess that Jesus is in fact Lord.

Re: Saved?

2011-03-06T07:39:00.001-05:00

As I said to Tricia, part of the problem most of us have with the idea that we cannot lose our salvation is that we figure we're the ones in control of things. We can even say, "well, God does give us the freedom of choice, freedom of will" and that's quite true--to a point. What we really need to realize is that in this as well as in everything else, God is the one that's in control.

We do have free will to choose if we are going to accept the gift of salvation or not, but once we have made that choice, the free will part goes out the window. Why? Because once we've made that choice, (I'm not talking about babies and children who's parents make that choice for them and baptize them or something--I'm talking about when we make that choice intelligently, knowing what we're choosing and why) we are no longer are own. Once saved, we belong to Christ: body, mind, heart soul and spirit.

If we say that we have the freedom to choose to turn away from God completely and lose our salvation then we're calling God a liar, and that's not a very smart thing to do. Let me share just a few of the scriptures that show there is nothing we can do to lose our salvation, not even deciding to turn away ourselves:

Jude 24–25, To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.

Now we know what kind of "person" God is. We know His attributes: he's loving, kind, merciful, just, holy, etc. Right? Well then if God is all those things, and He is able to prevent us from falling away from Him and losing our salvation, what kind of person would He be if He did allow some to do so???? He would be denying His very makeup!

John 10:27–29, My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.

That's pretty definite right there. No one can take our salvation from us period!

John 6:37–40, All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”

Again, very straight forward, no mixed messages in this at all. This takes care of the idea that we can willfully turn away ourselves too, because once we are saved no one, not even ourselves can take it away. If we say that someone can willfully turn away from God after being saved then we are questioning God's integrity, ability and power and adding works to our salvation. In addition we're saying that we have to trust ourselves, not God in order to be saved! I think when we see it spelled out like that, it becomes even more obvious that there is simply no way we can lose our salvation.

There are many more passages like those we could look at, but instead I want to look at some that aren't usually thought of for this subject.

Romans 8:30, And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

This verse shows us what God's Will is for those of us He saves. He has literally chosen us before He ever even made this earth! We are predestined. Once born those who are predestined are called by Him to be saved. When we answer that call, He justifies us, which means He declares us righteous through the Blood of Christ. We then continue to live here on earth constantly being changed into the likeness of His Son until the day we either die or are raptured. That day of the rapture is the day of the completion of our salvation, the day He will glorify us in our new bodies! (to learn more about the sequence of our salvation go to this study: Our Blessed Hope )

Now, did any of you notice something about that verse? The Lord didn't throw in any conditions about any of those things did He? He didn't say, "I'll call them and some will answer and be saved". He didn't say that He would save us "but some will turn away before they die so they won't make it till the end". Nor did He say He would glorify "those that were left". No, What He said is that everyone who is really saved, will stay saved and be glorified on that awesome day!

Psalm 37:28, For the Lord loves the just and will not forsake his faithful ones. They will be protected forever, but the offspring of the wicked will be cut off;

Now, who are the "just"? People that try hard to live right? No, it's those of us who are saved! We are justified through Christ, not through our own efforts! What does it say about us? That we will be protected forever, not "until they fall away" or "until they change their mind".

Philippians 1:6, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Here's another favorite of mine because Paul says that no matter what it looks like on the outside to us, He is confident that God is doing exactly what He said He would do which is that He will conform us to the image of His Son! Once again God puts no conditions on this. We aren't saved by grace and then kept by human effort. We are saved by Grace and kept through the power of almighty God!

Paul declares that very thing again right here:

2 Timothy 1:12, That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day.

What has Paul "entrusted to Him"? He has entrusted his very soul to God just as each of us do at salvation. In Rom 8:31-34 Paul basically say that if God is sovereignty declares each of us who are saved to be forever just, then who in the world could possibly over turn God's verdict??? Do you honestly think that we are powerful enough in ourselves to tell God He's wrong? Well some of us I'm sure have been silly enough to try and tell God He's wrong, or try and tell Him that they "want out of the deal" or that they don't believe Him anymore etc. Fortunately for us, it doesn't matter what we think or feel about His decision. Once we're saved, since every single aspect of our salvation is solely the work of God, it's a done deal and cannot be "undone".

That my friends is why it's called "The Good News!" It honestly isn't "Well there's good news and bad news", it's all good! I have more I want to write about this but don't want my post to get so long it's hard for you to read, so I'll start a new post for my next part.

Re: Saved?

2011-03-06T07:37:00.001-05:00

For example: John 15:1-17

This is a really wonderful chapter. In this chapter Jesus is speaking to those who are already saved and explaining to them the various differences in His relationship with those who are saved. He's not telling them how to be saved, he's telling them how to be in a good relationship with Him. How they can "abide" in Him.

John 15:1–8, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.

To get it out of the way right off the bat Jesus tells us that if someone bears no fruit at all, they've never been saved and since they were never saved to start with, He "cuts them off". (like Judas)

You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.

This is one of my most favorite verses of all! We are clean!!! Totally, completely clean! There are no "ands", "ifs" or 'buts" or "excepts" about this statement. Those who have been saved are clean! We are forgiven of ALL our sins, past, present and future!

Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

Again, now He's not talking about salvation, He's talking about relationship. We remain in Him when we are living according to His Ways rather then the worlds ways. When we backslide or sin, we are no loner "in Him". We're still saved, just not in relationship with Him; just as my children weren't when they misbehaved. He explains that the only way we can bear fruit for Him, which is His will for us is if we remain in Him. In other words when we start trying to do things in our own strength it's not going to work. We must be in a close personal relationship with Him in order to do His Will and in order to live the way God wants us to.

If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.

uh oh! now does this mean we lose our salvation? Again, no! He is still explaining what happens to us both when we are living in Him and when we don't. And there are times for all of us when we're not living in Him, simply because we're still human and we haven't yet received our new bodies and had our old nature removed. (that won't happen till the rapture)

When we aren't abiding in Him, we cannot produce fruit. Our prayers are pretty worthless and we're usually living in a worldly manner at least partially. Here Jesus is giving us a visual clue to what's happening to us spiritually when we're not plugged into Him, when we're not abiding in Him. We begin to "wither" spiritually. Next, Jesus isn't saying He's going to pick us up and throw us away, He's simply continuing with his comparison and saying that those who are withered and not living in Him are like withered up branches that the gardener throws away. We're worthless to Him in that condition. Jesus knows, because He knows our hearts, that for those of us who are saved (and remember, He's talking to people that are already saved) there could be nothing worse then to think that we would be withering up and dead inside spiritually and so worthless to Him. That's why He gives us that word picture to remember it by.

If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

Now He goes back to when we are abiding in Him and reminds us to always remain in Him, not to let ourselves get disconnected and wither up. He tells us that as long as we're remaining in Him, our prayers are answered and we will bear a lot of fruit for Him.

John 15:9–12, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love.

OK, NOW is Jesus threatening us? Of course not! He again is telling us to remember that we need to remain in Him. Then He tells us how to do that. We do it by being obedient to Him. He even explains that that was how He remained in His Father's love while He was here. He did that to show us how we could remain in Him.
I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.

His last statement here about why He's telling us this should put to rest any possible fear that "remaining in Him" is talking about our salvation. He's not threatening us. Instead He wants us to be filled with His Joy. He wants us to have lives of victory and joy in His love. He can and will give us that, that was His intention from the very start, but too often people simply accept His gift of salvation and let it end there. Those people will NOT live in His joy or victory. Only those who remain in Him after they are saved will live in joy and victory!

Just to make sure there's no misunderstanding at all, I want to reiterate that we all go in and out of this relationship with Him. (when I say "we" I'm meaning those of us who are truly disciples and following Him and not those who say they are Christians but don't remain in Him. They are not in a close personal relationship with Him.)

How do we fall out of this or stop "abiding in Him"? Whenever we sin for one thing, or whenever we fall back into old worldly patterns--maybe laugh at a crude joke that we shouldn't have even listened to, allowed ourselves to watch something on TV we shouldn't have, when we stop studying His Word, when we're disrespectful to others, etc. We get back into step with Him though confessing our sin and turning around (repenting) and going back to being obedient to Him.

Finally both so you'll know this isn't just "my" idea of what this means and so you'll have an even better understanding of this foundational teaching, I want to quote from two commentaries that I think you'll enjoy reading:

The key word is abide; it is used eleven times in John 15:1–11 (“continue” in John 15:9 and “remain” in John 15:11). What does it mean to “abide”? It means to keep in fellowship with Christ so that His life can work in and through us to produce fruit. This certainly involves the Word of God and the confession of sin so that nothing hinders our communion with Him (John 15:3). It also involves obeying Him because we love Him (John 15:9–10).

How can we tell when we are “abiding in Christ”? Is there a special feeling? No, but there are special evidences that appear and they are unmistakably clear. For one thing, when you are abiding in Christ, you produce fruit (John 15:2). Also, you experience the Father’s “pruning” so that you will bear more fruit (John 15:2). The believer who is abiding in Christ has his prayers answered (John 15:7) and experiences a deepening love for Christ and for other believers (John 15:9, 12–13). He also experiences joy (John 15:11).

This abiding relationship is natural to the branch and the vine, but it must be cultivated in the Christian life. It is not automatic. Abiding in Christ demands worship, meditation on God’s Word, prayer, sacrifice, and service—but what a joyful experience it is! Once you have begun to cultivate this deeper communion with Christ, you have no desire to return to the shallow life of the careless Christian.

....The vinedresser prunes the branches in two ways: he cuts away dead wood that can breed disease and insects, and he cuts away living tissue so that the life of the vine will not be so dissipated that the quality of the crop will be jeopardized. In fact, the vinedresser will even cut away whole bunches of grapes so that the rest of the crop will be of higher quality. God wants both quantity and quality.....

....The greatest judgment God could bring to a believer would be to let him alone, let him have his own way. Because God loves us, He “prunes” us and encourages us to bear more fruit for His glory. If the branches could speak, they would confess that the pruning process hurts; but they would also rejoice that they will be able to produce more and better fruit.

Your Heavenly Father is never nearer to you than when He is pruning you. Sometimes He cuts away the dead wood that might cause trouble; but often He cuts off the living tissue that is robbing you of spiritual vigor. Pruning does not simply mean spiritual surgery that removes what is bad. It can also mean cutting away the good and the better so that we might enjoy the best. Yes, pruning hurts, but it also helps. We may not enjoy it, but we need it.

How does the Father prune us? Sometimes He simply uses the Word to convict and cleanse us. (The word translated “purge” in John 15:2 is the same as “clean” in John 13:10. See Eph. 5:26–27.) Sometimes He must chasten us (Heb. 12:1–11). At the time, it hurts when He removes something precious from us; but as the “spiritual crop” is produced, we see that the Father knew what He was doing.
The Bible exposition commentary

I absolutely must share this one because it talks especially to those of us with computers LOL This might make it easier to remember too.

Computer networks have become important systems in today’s competitive marketplace. They enable teams of workers in different offices, at regional sites, and even from around the world to join together on tasks that would otherwise be difficult if not impossible.
One way of setting up a network is to use a central computer to handle the main programming, storage, and communication functions, with remote workstations for individual input and retrieval. This is similar to the situation that Jesus described in His image of the vine and the branches (John 15:1–10):

(1) Jesus is the key (15:1). Like the central processing unit of a computer system, Jesus provides the life, the direction, and the commands for His followers, those of us “on-line.”
(2) To be effective, believers must maintain their relationship with Jesus (15:4). In order to use the features of a network, a user must remain attached to the network. If one “signs off,” there is no more access to the central computer or to others in the network. Likewise, if we allow sin to disrupt our walk with Christ, we lose fellowship with Him and with other believers (1 John 1:6–7).
(3) Jesus wants His followers to be productive (John 15:5–8). Companies install computer networks so that their employees can get their work done. The systems cost too much to be treated as toys or to be underutilized. Correspondingly, the relationship that believers have with God was purchased through Christ’s blood, so we need to take it seriously. Christ wants us to enjoy walking with Him, but He also wants us to accomplish His purposes.
(4) To love Jesus is to follow His commands (15:9–10). Occasionally network users receive an “error message” indicating that they have not followed the instructions of the program correctly. By the same token, Jesus has given us commands to follow, and the only way to experience His life and power is to obey those commands. To do so is not only practical, but an expression of our love for the Lord.

Are you “on-line” with Jesus, drawing on His resources and obeying His commands? Is your life productive, accomplishing the tasks and responsibilities that He has assigned to you?
Word in life study Bible

Saved?

2011-03-06T07:36:00.001-05:00

I know that often when we're first saved we come with many questions and even doubts about our salvation and what exactly it means, how we can be sure of it, if we can etc. This isn't anything new because even the first Christians had all these same questions and doubts. The Lord made sure that the apostles dealt with all these things in His Word though so that we can know for sure what the answers to these questions and doubts are.
1 John 5:13, I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.

Let's take a close look at John's statement here. He says I write "these things" to you, so what are the things he's talking about? He's talking about what he said just prior to this statement. So let's see what he just said there:

1 John 5:9–12, We accept man’s testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son. Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart. Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son. And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

John is telling us that he wrote this to us so that we would know, without any doubt that we are saved and have eternal life in Jesus. Now, just to make sure we're really understanding John, let's look and see what the original word that was translated "know" means in the original language: (If you see circles or squares etc it's because you don't have the Greek or Hebrew language installed on your computer)

3857 οἶδα (oida): vb.; ≡ DBLHebr 3359; Str 1492; TDNT 5.116—1. LN 28.1 know, possess information about
Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Greek

3359 יָדַע (yā∙ḏǎʿ): v.; ≡ Str 3045; TWOT 848—1. LN 28.1–28.16 (qal) know, i.e., possess information about
Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew

1492 οἶδα [eido, oida /i·do/] v. A root word; TDNT 5:116; TDNTA 673; GK 3857; translates as “know” to know. 2A to know of anything. 2B to know, i.e. get knowledge of, understand, perceive. 2B1 of any fact. 2B2 the force and meaning of something which has definite meaning.
Strong, J. The exhaustive concordance of the Bible

3609a. οἶδα oida; perf. of 1491a; to have seen or perceived, hence to know:—appreciate(1), aware(3), become learned(1), having a knowledge(1), knew(16), knew … about(1), know(216), know about(1), know how(9), knowing(36), known(4), known about(1), knows(15), knows how(1), realize(1), realizing(2), recognize(3), , understand(5), understanding(1).
New American Standard Hebrew-Aramaic and Greek dictionaries

1. ginosko (γινώσκω, 1097) signifies “to be taking in knowledge, to come to know, recognize, understand,” or “to understand completely,”
2. oida (Perf. of εἴδω, 1492), from the same root as eidon, “to see,” is a perfect tense with a present meaning, signifying, primarily, “to have seen or perceived”; hence, “to know, to have knowledge of,” whether absolutely, as in divine knowledge
Vine's Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words

With all of that there should be no doubt in our minds that John meant exactly what he said. He wants us to KNOW that we are saved without any doubts whatsoever. He is writing to us who are saved, not to people who aren't. He tells us in the preceding verses how we can know for sure we're saved. He says that anyone who believes in Jesus has God's testimony (the Holy Spirit) in his heart. In other words, we have God's Truth in our hearts. God's Truth says that Jesus has given us Eternal Life. So those who don't know this, don't have God's testimony in their hearts and aren't saved.

John was writing this to specifically counter the false teaching that was going around at the time that Jesus didn't give people eternal life.

What tends to confuse people now is something that really didn't confuse the early Christians because they understood what was being said. We tend to confuse the issue of salvation with the issue of "abiding in Christ" and look at them as though they were the same thing, but they're not. This particular letter that John is writing is being written to clear up false teaching and to explain to those who are already saved how to live a life of fellowship with God. If you'd like to know more about that subject, we did this study on it: The principles of all genuine fellowship with God

Now let's clear up the difference between these two things, salvation and living in fellowship with God. Remember, these are Jew's that he is talking to for the most part. They've been saved but they're not accustomed to having a personal relationship with God. They're accustomed to just having the law to follow and priests to intervene with God for them. What Jesus taught about what's in their hearts being more important then what they did was really radical to them. Now they knew that if they felt lust for a woman it was just as much a sin as if they'd actually had sex with her. This was difficult for them to process as it can be for us too. But now they didn't need to have a priest sacrifice for them and go through all kinds of rituals to become "clean". Instead they could just go straight to God.

Now comes the part that's hard for us to get but that they seemed to understand easily. Through the Law, God taught the Jews a number of very important things. One being that He is Holy and cannot abide sin.

Habakkuk 1:13, Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong.

Being Holy means that God is separate from sin which is why He taught the Jew's (and us) about the difference between "clean" and "unclean" and told them to separate themselves from the other nations. They were to be (and still are to be) a Holy Nation, separate from sin, just like God. That's what we're to be as well.

Ephesians 1:4, For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.

1 Peter 1:16, for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”

So it was a very serious matter when a Jew sinned and took a lot of ritual (and dare I say "tradition") to get it cleared up. This was hard for them to let go of and something the false teachers grabbed hold of to try and entice them with. Whereas Jesus had come and told them that for those who were saved, their sins were forgiven. All their sins: past, present and future! But the Jews understood what we don't seem to. That even though they're forgiven, when we sin after we've been saved, it still puts a damper on our relationship with God. Our sins may be forgiven, but until we recognize that sin and repent of it, confessing it to Him (which means agreeing with Him that it is a sin) we have put a block in our relationship with Him. We are no longer "abiding" in Him, or in fellowship with Him. We're back on the outside, looking in.

We haven't lost our salvation--not at all! If we did, it would make God a liar just as John said! We've simply fallen out of fellowship with Him. Let me see if I can use an every day example to make this plain.

My children were pretty average kids. They had their good days and their bad days. When they misbehaved they didn't stop being my children, but our relationship definitely cooled! They knew when they'd been bad was not a good time to ask me for a favor! In fact, they knew that they'd better not ask for much of anything until I got an apology from them. It didn't mean that I'd stopped loving them or that they weren't my child any longer or that I was no longer their mother. It simply meant that they were not in fellowship with me any more. Our relationship was no longer "easy".

As soon as I got that apology though and they began to behave themselves, our relationship went back to normal. Our relationship, our fellowship, was "close" and "easy" again.

This is the difference between when the bible is talking about salvation and abiding in Christ. (it's also referred to as walking in Christ, living in Christ, fellowship in Christ, etc.) It is not referring to our salvation except for the fact that only those who are saved can have this fellowship or relationship with Him.

Once you understand this it makes the bible MUCH easier to understand and takes the fear out of those passages for us. I'll give you an example in the next post.

Read and reply on Fresh Hope

The Bema Judgment of Believers

2010-11-02T14:53:00.001-04:00

"Only one life, 'twill soon be past; only what's done for Christ will last."

1 Peter 4:17 For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God?

1 Corinthians 3:12-15 If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.

This is the judgment that every believer will go through after the rapture. Notice that the judgment isn't about our sins, or concerning our salvation. We are all saved period and that will never be taken from us. However this judgment concerns everything we have said and done since the moment of our salvation. The foundation laid for each of us was Jesus Himself, and it's what we built on that foundation that will be judged.

I want to point out that God isn't going to just judge the quantity of our work, but He will also judge it's quality. Therefore someone who has spent their entire life in missionary work or volunteering in soup kitchens or something like that, but whose heart had not really been in it, and who wasn't truly doing it for Jesus, won't be rewarded for it. Yet another person who out of love and concern for their fellow man because of what Jesus did for them, helped a neighbor, will be rewarded for that act of kindness. So this is about our hearts and our attitudes as well. If we tell others about Jesus because we're trying to earn brownie points with God, then it will be burned away as dross; but if we tell others about Jesus because we love Him, and because we want to see that person saved, then that will be judged worthy or reward.

I think the biggest question I had when I first heard about this was "how does someone build on that foundation?" That is answered in God's word too. The first way we build on the foundation is by something I'm quite sure you're all sick and tired of hearing me say. It's God's Truth though so I'll say it yet again. We build on it every time we read, study, and reflect on God's Word and talk to Him about it. Again if we are "reading the bible" out of a feeling of "duty" then that won't build on the foundation and will be burned away as dross. If however we are reading and studying His Word because we love Him and want to know more about Him and know His Will for us, and know more so we can speak intelligently to others about Him, that will build on the foundation and be rewarded.

So the first two ways and the foremost ways we build on the foundation is
1. by reading, studying and reflecting on God's Word and
2. through prayer.

In other words, by working to become mature in Christ.

I want to say a little more about prayer here though because many types of prayers will survive the fire as will the time spent praying them. Anytime we spend time praying for others or praying for God to help us understand His Word or His Will for us etc will survive the fire.

The next thing that builds on the foundation is

3. telling others about God. That includes things like witnessing, discipling others, teaching others, teaching Sunday School, or bible class, or even doing what I'm doing right now. It would include answering other people's questions about God and anything else that has to do with this. Again though it must be being done out of our love and gratitude to God for our salvation and not because we think we "have to" or because we want to look good to others.

The next area that builds on the foundation concerns how we live our lives after salvation. Anything we do regularly that is in line with God's will for our lives will build on the foundation. For example,

1. wives submitting to their husbands, raising their children to know the Lord and His Ways, honoring their husbands and being a good godly wife to them, even something as simple as keeping their house clean because they know that's what Jesus would want them to do;

2. husbands loving their wives the way Christ loved the church--with a sacrificial love, raising their children to know the Lord and His Ways, being responsible for the spiritual development and growth of their wife and children;

3. having a good work ethic and working for the Lord and not man--in other words, when you do your best even though you could get away with doing less because you know that's what Jesus asks of us; when you put up with being treated badly, not getting that promotion etc because you know that your real boss is God and not a man and that your reward for your work will be much better then any raise a man could give you.

4. Managing your money in accordance with God's Word. Being a good steward of all He's given you. Paying your bills on time etc.

5. Giving money toward God's work in the world. Supporting your minister/church or whoever or wherever you are fed; giving to Christian charities that help others, for example two of the places I give to are Teen Challenge and Moody Radio. Supporting missionaries and their work. Supporting Christian pro life organizations that work with mothers to help them keep their babies, train them in parenting skills, get them the things they need and help pay for their medical care etc. Any place or person that you support that is doing God's Will would come under this.

6. Another area of our lives that would survive the fire would be areas where we take good care of our bodies so that we can be healthy and fit so we can serve the Lord as well as we can. Again here it makes a difference what your attitude about it is and why you're really doing it. If you're doing body building so you can look sexy, that's not going to survive the fire. If you're exercising so you can do the things that the Lord wants you to do, that will survive.

7. Another area would be how we dress and the impression we give others when they first see us as well as when they get to know us. If we're dressing according to God's Will which is to dress modestly and we're doing it because we know it's God's Will and we desire to obey Him and please Him, that will survive the fire.

8. Anything we do for others out of concern for them or to help them will survive the fire because the Lord tells us to help others.

9. Obeying the authorities over us, our government, the laws etc will also survive the fire as the Lord tells us we are to obey the laws unless they contradict God's Word. For children, obeying their parents will survive the fire for they are told to obey their parents.

10. Time spent at church or in His worship will survive the fire IF we are there for the right reasons. Again if it's "duty" or to "look good" then it won't survive, but if we're there because we love God and want to be where He wants us then it will survive. It doesn't matter what kind of church it is, where it is--such as in an "official church denomination" or in your own home--if you are meeting to worship God it will survive the fire. Now this one brings up a whole can of worms however since there are definite things we are to do and things we are not to do as far as church goes. We are not to tolerate false teaching of any kind, so if you're attending a church that does teach heresy and you have done nothing to stop it and are still there, then that won't survive the fire. Which brings us to the next point.

11. Times we've tried to steer people away from error and or heresy and or sin will survive the fire if we're doing it in love and because we love God and don't want others to miss out on anything.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

2 Timothy 4:2 Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.

12. Time spent encouraging others and helping them get through hard times, helping them to keep their focus on God will survive the fire as well.

I'm sure that we could add many other things but what it boils down to is why we're living the way we are. What are we most concerned about? Are we more concerned with what others will think of us, or are we more concerned with what God will think?

The things that are going to burn up are all the time we've wasted, the times we've spent in frivolous things, times we've spent on selfish things. The time we've wasted "looking out for ourselves" instead of others.

Now the Lord doesn't expect us to spend 100% of our time working. He does want and allows us to have times for just refreshing ourselves. I know for myself though that I have often taken that "time for refreshing myself" to the extreme and that won't be honored.

So these are some of the main areas that will survive the fire and for which we will be richly rewarded. However it's about more then just rewards, it's also about how we are going to spend eternity. (notice I said "how" not "where"). We'll get into that tomorrow though as this is already quite long. I do want to leave you with a few more verses that speak about this judgment to reflect on though:

Luke 12:48 But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.

Matthew 10:40-42 “He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives the one who sent me. Anyone who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and anyone who receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man’s reward. And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward.”

2 John 8 Watch out that you do not lose what you have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully.

Hebrews 10:35-38 So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For in just a very little while, “He who is coming will come and will not delay. But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him.”

Hebrews 11:25-26 He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.

Luke 14:12-14 Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

The Bema Judgment of Believers on Fresh Hope

Growing up

2010-10-27T11:08:00.001-04:00

“We are all as an unclean thing.”
— Isaiah 64:6

The believer is a new creature, he belongs to a holy generation and a peculiar people—the Spirit of God is in him, and in all respects he is far removed from the natural man; but for all that the Christian is a sinner still. He is so from the imperfection of his nature, and will continue so to the end of his earthly life. The black fingers of sin leave smuts upon our fairest robes. Sin mars our repentance, ere the great Potter has finished it, upon the wheel. Selfishness defiles our tears, and unbelief tampers with our faith. The best thing we ever did apart from the merit of Jesus only swelled the number of our sins; for when we have been most pure in our own sight, yet, like the heavens, we are not pure in God’s sight; and as he charged his angels with folly, much more must he charge us with it, even in our most angelic frames of mind. The song which thrills to heaven, and seeks to emulate seraphic strains, hath human discords in it. The prayer which moves the arm of God is still a bruised and battered prayer, and only moves that arm because the sinless One, the great Mediator, has stepped in to take away the sin of our supplication. The most golden faith or the purest degree of sanctification to which a Christian ever attained on earth, has still so much alloy in it as to be only worthy of the flames, in itself considered. Every night we look in the glass we see a sinner, and had need confess, “We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.” Oh, how precious the blood of Christ to such hearts as ours! How priceless a gift is his perfect righteousness! And how bright the hope of perfect holiness hereafter! Even now, though sin dwells in us, its power is broken. It has no dominion; it is a broken-backed snake; we are in bitter conflict with it, but it is with a vanquished foe that we have to deal. Yet a little while and we shall enter victoriously into the city where nothing defileth.

Spurgeon, C. H. (2006). Morning and evening : Daily readings

What he says here is very true but I felt led to add both an admonition and an encouragement to it today. What he is basically trying to get across is simply how very far from the perfection of God even our very best is. Although we will always be sinners and be defiled by sin in this life, the Lord tells us that we are not to simply accept that give up trying to do better.

Romans 6:1-3 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

Romans 6:11-12 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.

We are told over and over that we are no longer slaves to sin, we can now choose who we serve, sin or God, and that we are to choose righteousness over sin. Paul likens it to being an athlete in training which is really appropriate because this life for us is a school and we are in training for what we will be doing throughout eternity.

1 Corinthians 9:24-27 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

We are told to remember our blessed hope because it is then that we will receive our new bodies which will be totally free from the stain of sin and those bodies will match the new spirit that was given us at salvation. So at the moment we receive our new bodies our "old spirit or nature" is totally done away with, it will no longer exist and the only spirit within us will be the new spirit that God placed in us at our salvation.

Think back again to the passage I just posted from Paul about how we are in training. I'm sure you've all familiar with the facts of life that if you don't use your muscles they will deteriorate and you'll get flabby and be out of shape. Even the world tells us that our minds are the same way--if we don't use them, then our ability to remember things will deteriorate and so will our ability to process and understand information. So just like a muscle you have to keep your brain in shape. We're all aware too that when a baby is born they aren't born knowing everything or being able to do all that an adult can do--they can't even crawl yet much less walk! Every moment a baby is awake they're learning; they're absorbing all the information around them, they're using their muscles as they wave their arms and legs around, etc so they're actually with the help of good parents training their bodies and minds. As they get older the training continues. Every parent wants their child to do their best and use all the abilities that God gave them, so they certainly don't want their children to get lazy and stop studying or even to stop playing because "play" is how they exercise their bodies too.

The reason I bring this up is because the new spirit the Lord puts in us at salvation is very much like a newborn baby. It's at a tremendous disadvantage too because it's been born right beside our old spirit which we've been "teaching and growing" every since we were born. If it wasn't for God's grace and mercy, our new spirits wouldn't stand a chance against our old fleshly spirit! God expects us to nurture our new spirit and grow it up to maturity. That's what Paul is talking about. We have to feed our new spirit with God's Word in order for it to have the knowledge and tools it needs to defend us from our old spirits.

This is why it's so true that the more time you spend in God's word, reading it, studying it, and reflecting on it, while talking to the Lord about it, the stronger and more mature your new spirit becomes. That's what becoming mature in Christ is all about. We want our new spirits to be mature when we receive those new bodies to match it! More importantly though, God wants us to be mature by then! While we will all have a wonderful life in eternity, God will not be mocked even then.

Galatians 6:7 Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.

1 Peter 4:17 For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God?

We will all be saved, yes, but our future in eternity will be dependent upon how much we mature here. This is our one and only chance to grow our new spirits, train them and make them strong in the Lord. This is what this is talking about:

Hebrews 11:35 Women received back their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection.

Philippians 3:10-11 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Now for the encouragement. To put it simply and bluntly, the more time we spend in God's Word, talking to Him about it, reading, studying and reflecting on it, the stronger our spirit will be and the less we will sin; the stronger our connection to the Holy Spirit will be and the quicker we will hear Him as He guides us and teaches us. So while we will always be sinners and be defiled by sin as long as we are in these bodies, we do not have to be wallowing in it! We can be victorious over it to a great degree! No, we won't be perfect, but the more and more mature we become, the closer to perfect we'll get and the easier it will get too! Again, it's just like a baby growing up. When they're first learning to walk, they fall down a lot, and as new baby Christians or any Christian who hasn't worked to become mature in their faith, (by studying God's Word etc) when we first begin to say no to sin and fight against it, we'll fall down a lot. However, the more we study and talk to the Lord, the more mature we get and the stronger we become until little by little, we're not falling down so much anymore; and then after yet more time, we rarely fall down at all!

Colossians 3:10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.

Hebrews 5:13-14 Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.

1 Corinthians 3:1-3 Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly—mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men?

1 Peter 2:2-3 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.

2 Peter 3:18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen.

John 17:17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.

We are living in the last days. There is no doubt about that anymore. God is calling us all back to His Word. This is our very last chance to grow to maturity in whatever time we have left here in this school. Have no doubt about it, the Lord is testing each of us to see if we are committed to Him and willing to obey Him by spending time each day studying, reading, and reflecting on His Word and talking to Him about it so that we can become mature. When we do that then the Lord changes us to be more like Jesus every day.

Re: Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials

2010-09-03T10:16:00.001-04:00

As I was studying to prepare for today's post, I realized that I haven't mentioned something that would probably be helpful to you all. You may already be aware of this for for those who aren't, I thought I'd better mention it.

When you are studying a book in the bible or even a topic, it's important to remember a couple of things. First, it's not really a book. James, as well as the other "Books" is a letter. Now letters are written to specific people so in order to understand what's being said, it helps to know who the letter is being addressed to. In other words, who is James writing to?

Is he writing mainly to Jewish unbelievers trying to convince them that Jesus is Lord?

Is he writing mainly to Gentile unbelievers trying to convince them that Jesus is Lord?

Is he writing to those who are already saved, mainly elders who are already spiritually mature? (Keep in mind that back then they would have never allowed someone to be a deacon, elder etc. that hadn't been saved for quite some time; those positions were only filled by people who were spiritually mature--people who both walked the walked and talked the talk; who could and did teach and disciple others etc.)

Is he writing to those who are saved in the congregations? Remember that back then they didn't allow people to lie about what they were. You were either saved or you weren't or you were pretending to be and were a false teacher. They most certainly didn't teach or show "tolerance" for false beliefs, false teaching etc among their members.

The next thing you need to look for is what the main point of the letter is. What is it the apostle is trying to get across to this group of people? What is the theme?

Once you know who the letter is being written to, and what the theme of his letter is, it will help you determine what the writer means when he writes some things.

In the book/letter of James that we're studying now, James is writing to people who are already saved. His theme is spiritual growth and maturity These folks are apparently still somewhere near the beginning stages of their Christian walk and he's attempting to show them how to become spiritually mature. He's sharing with them what kinds of things will hold them back in their growth, what will help them move forward, what kind of things they can look for that are hallmarks of spiritual growth and what kind of things would show that they're going the wrong way-that instead of growing spiritually, that they are stagnating or back sliding.

I guess you could almost look at this letter as though James was a teacher who had prepared his class for a test that was about to be given and he was now going over the material one last time and giving them a pep talk too to let them know he was sure they'd do just fine on the test tomorrow.

Because of that, James is a wonderful book for us to study, since we are all saved, and we are all looking to grow and become spiritually mature. In many ways, you could even say that James is a "how to" letter to us! He packs a lot of wisdom into a very short space! So knowing this, we can continue on.

Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials

Re: Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials

2010-08-31T12:43:00.001-04:00

Today I'd like to look at this thing about "joy" a little more, picking up where we left off with the verse from 1 Peter. Even today's devotionals were about this subject so I'll start with a verse from them:

John 15:9-11 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.

I know most of us really don't like looking at "commands" and we certainly don't like calling them commands either, yet there it is. You know, over the years I've noticed something about God's commands to us, even the ones we don't like. All of them are for our good, not His. Even this next command which has to do with joy:

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

God doesn't "need" us to pray. he already knows what we have, what we need and what we want--better then we ourselves do! So our prayers don't help Him. He doesn't need us to be joyful or to give thanks either. Again, it's not going to do a thing for Him. So why does He say that? He commands us to do these things because these things will help us. Like any good father, He knows what's best for us, what will truly make us happy and healthy etc, so He has made rules for us to follow so we can be joyful and happy all the time.

We don't have to follow His rules. We will still be saved if we don't follow His rules, so our salvation isn't at stake here, but something very important IS at stake. Our relationship with Him. Think about it on an earthly level. As a parent I too made rules for my children to live by and I expected them to follow my rules because they loved me. Sometimes they didn't though. When that happened, I didn't stop loving them, and they didn't suddenly stop being my children. Even the child that seemed to constantly rebel against the rules didn't stop being my child. It did affect our relationship with each other when they didn't obey me though. I would get upset, they would get rebellious and defensive. Generally they would either avoid me as much as they could and when they couldn't avoid me, they'd attempt to avoid the subject of what was wrong.

It's the same way with our Heavenly Father after we're saved. When we don't obey His rules it affects our relationship with Him. We find that we're no longer "abiding in Him" or "remaining in Him", because we're trying to either avoid Him or avoid the subject of the area we're in rebellion about. Often if this isn't taken care of we'll start trying to do things on our own instead of relying on Him and so our relationship will deteriorate even more. Again, we're still saved, but our relationship with Him isn't healthy and full anymore. So let's go back and look at those verses again now that this is clear:

John 15:9-11 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.

He has told us what so that our joy is complete? He has told us that the way to remain in His love is by obedience to His commands. Ouch! Now this Christian walk is starting to sound a little difficult! Now we have responsibilities. We are to obey His commands, but what do we get out of this? He says that if we do, His joy will be in us and our joy will be complete. Now that is quite a promise don't you think?

Does that word "complete" ring a bell? Remember where we heard it last?

James 1:2-4 Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

So here we again have joy and completion linked together again and Jesus and/or our faith in Him is also an integral part of both passages. If you think about it, that verse from 1 Peter has all these things as well because our goal is the completion of our salvation:

1 Peter 1:6-9 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

So now we see that this joy is linked to Jesus and our faith in Him. Remember, this is a "living hope" a living faith, not just some head knowledge. We're talking heart knowledge if you will. We're talking about the joy from our relationship with Jesus, but not just from our side of that relationship, but from His side of it too. Now let's look at some other verses this time from Hebrews. First we learn something pretty amazing--

Hebrews 5:8 Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered

Jesus learned obedience from what He suffered! If that's how Jesus learned while He was on earth, why do we think we're so different that we could learn some other way? We've already seen how important obedience is in our relationship with Him, so if it's that important, to keep our relationship to Him close and good, doesn't it stand to reason that obedience is going to be one of our big lessons to learn?

Let's see what else Hebrews says about this subject of obedience, trials, suffering, discipline etc, faith, completion (remember, we receive the completion of our salvation when He comes to get us at the rapture), perseverance, and joy:

Hebrews 10:35-38 So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For in just a very little while, “He who is coming will come and will not delay. But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him.”

Hebrews 12:1-7 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.” Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?

So once again we're right back at our relationship with the Lord. When we're saved we become His children. As His children He expects obedience and will discipline us to get it. He also will test us to refine our faith and encourage our growth to maturity. You see, we can't be "complete" if we're not mature. So all of this is entwined together. There's yet other words that are going to become part of this pattern too such as "peace", "holiness", "righteousness", and "our good". Let's look:

Hebrews 12:10-11 Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

And how do we come by these things--righteousness, holiness and peace? We are trained by God's discipline and those trials we hate so much! Look again at what James says:

James 1:2-4 Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Let's see what Paul said about being mature and complete:

Philippians 3:12-16 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained.

Paul let's us know that even he knows he's not perfect yet, but he's doing his best to be obedient to God and so always presses onward. Then he says something very similar to what James says although we hadn't looked at that yet. he says that god will make this clear to us. Here's how James puts it:

James 1:5 If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.

We usually take this verse out of context and think it means that God will give us wisdom about anything we ask. While God will do that, in the context this verse is in, James is saying that God will give us wisdom about the subject he's talking about. So let's read it in context:

James 1:2-5 Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.

So James and Paul are telling us that if we want God's wisdom about our trials and how they can and should be faced with pure joy, and what those trials will do for us, that we must ask God for wisdom about it.

This is a good place to end for today and I hope we'll all ask the Lord to give us His wisdom about this subject, that He will open our eyes and ears that we might see and hear what He has to say to us about this.

Romans 15:13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials

Re: Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials

2010-08-30T13:36:00.001-04:00

Ok, let's start at the beginning then.

James 1:1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes scattered among the nations: Greetings.

Did you notice that James calls himself a servant of God and Jesus? The word translated servant means "bond slave". He is saying that he no longer owns his own life. Instead of determining his own future, he now belongs to God who bought him as His slave when He died for him on the cross.

2 Corinthians 5:15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

So James doesn't just consider himself as God's slave. This isn't some special position that only the disciples and apostles filled. Instead, it's a position that all who have been saved are in. You and I are servants of God. Our lives are not our own. We hear that all the time and even say it, but do we really understand what that means??? This is the kind of attitude we're all to have every day, yet it's rare of any of us to even consider what God might want us to do that day. Most of us just continue to do whatever it was we normally do without giving it another thought. So this is for sure something we should reflect on and integrate into our daily lives.

James is writing this to his fellow Jews who have once again been scattered all over the world. This is still very relevant to us though because he's not writing it to just "regular Jews", he's writing it to Jew's who have been saved, just like him. These Jews are now Christians; they're "followers of the Way".

Acts 24:14 However, I admit that I worship the God of our fathers as a follower of the Way, which they call a sect.

So don't think this book isn't written to us, it is! Now comes his most astounding sentence:

James 1:2-4 Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

This is just amazing! We are to consider it "pure joy" when we're going through trials! He had to have known that every person reading his letter was going to say, "What???" "How????" so that's what he deals with next. But first I want us to notice that he addresses this sentence to his "brothers". He doesn't put himself above them in any way nor is is talking down to them or even lecturing them. He's talking to them about a common experience they've all had and that he himself has had. Notice after he tells them that we should consider it pure joy, he says, "because you know". In other words, he's not telling them something new, he's just reminding them of what they've already learned through experience as has he.

So he tells them to consider it "pure joy", not partly joy and a bunch of hassle, not something to complain about, not something distasteful that we have to get through whether we like it or not, but instead, to consider it "pure joy". This is just about incomprehensible to most folks now I think. At least it sure was to me! I mean no matter how you look at it, like when you have to get a shot to protect you from a virus, you may have to do it, but you sure don't look forward to it with pure joy! So how in the world can we do that??? Why in the world would we do that???? Let's look and see.

James 1:3-4 because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Ahhh! So that's it! We should consider it pure joy because we know that the trials will lead to our spiritual maturity, and as we become spiritually mature we become "complete, not lacking anything"! So we're not to see our trials as a calamity, or as something "bad" or as a punishment from God or curse of some kind etc. We're to see them instead as a test of our faith. One thing to keep in mind about this is that God doesn't test us to see if we'll fail, He tests us to help us succeed! One thing I have learned from experience with the Lord is that He will keep on testing you in an area over and over and over, until you DO succeed! He never gives up on us and He never leaves us.

If you'll recall when my husband first got laid off we were doing another study that had something to do with trials and I mentioned that I knew that it was a test for me and that I was determined to pass it because I didn't ever want to have to go through another test on that particular subject again!

At the time I said that, I knew that the trials we were going through was a test for me, but I didn't realize that all our trials are tests. So I'm just learning this too.

Most kids in school don't like tests and I think that hangs onto us even as adults. We often even view tests themselves as trials and now God's telling us to view the trials we're going through as a test, which reads "trial" to us, with pure joy!

But He tells us that when we've passed each trial we become more mature and when we have finally become spiritually mature we will lack nothing and be complete. Now THAT, I agree, is something to look forward to! And you know when we'll be totally "complete"? At the rapture!!!! The rapture is the completion of our salvation!

Peter mentions this too and compares our faith with gold:

1 Peter 1:6-7 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

So now we know that our trials will produce spiritual maturity in us by refining our faith, and that it will then bring praise, glory and honor at the rapture! Did you notice I underlined the words "proved genuine"? That's because the word that's translated that way actually means "to test for the purpose of approving"! So the Lord is going to keep testing us till we all come out with straight A's!

You see, we have a 'living hope". Our hope isn't in some dead words on paper, but rather in a living God who loves us and wants what's best for us. He has lots of plans for our time in eternity with Him and in order for us to enjoy it to the fullest extent, He needs to get us all through our schooling here. I've always looked at life on earth like a school, and the more I study God's word, the more I see that it really is! Because we have a living hope though, we are responsible to respond to the things that happen in our lives with faith. When we do that, we're basically putting our faith into practice. So a sound faith built on a firm foundation is going to result in sound practice. This is the kind of faith, or living hope if you will, that enables us to face our trials with joy because the trials refine our faith and prove it's reality, it's value.

1 John 5:3-4 This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.

Then when the unsaved see us living our faith and facing our trials with joy, they want what we have, and so we bring others to Christ as well. It's all because the focus of our faith isn't in some abstract thing, but is instead in the person of Jesus, who is very much alive and who speaks to us through His Word, who guides us and never leaves us, who loves us, that we can have this "pure joy" even during trials.

Let's look again at how Peter puts it, but this time let's look at it in context:

1 Peter 1:3-9 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

I wanted to share this with you again because I just love how one of my commentaries explains this and wanted you to see it too:

Believers can rejoice because they are (pres. tense) receiving (komizomenoi, “to receive as a reward”) what was promised, namely salvation, the goal or culmination (telos, “end”) of . . . faith. For those who love and believe in Jesus Christ, salvation is past (“He has given us new birth,” v. 3), present (“through faith are shielded by God’s power,” v. 5), and future (it is their “inheritance,” v. 4, which will “be revealed in the last time,” v. 5, and is “the goal of your faith,” v. 9). Since each day brings believers closer to that final day, they are now “receiving” it. All of this—in spite of persecution which deepens and demonstrates one’s faith—is certainly cause for “inexpressible and glorious joy”! (v. 8)

The Bible knowledge commentary : An exposition of the scriptures

I really wanted to cover more today but I can see this is getting pretty long so I'll stop for now and pick it up again tomorrow.

Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials

2010-08-29T13:28:00.001-04:00

James 1:2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds

Did you do a double take when you saw the title of this study? I bet back when James wrote this that the folks he wrote it to did a double take too!

I know we've done studies about the subject of trials before, but it looks like the Lord isn't done with us yet. I've had a specific subject on my mind that I thought He wanted me to do a study on and was ready to start it today. However, I also was strongly feeling I should be doing a study on James. So I figured I'd go take a look at James first and pray and see if i could figure out which one the Lord wanted me to do first.

Well...guess what? The study I thought I was supposed to do and the study on James are actually going to be one and the same! I just love it when God does something like that!

I'm really excited about this study because I just know we're going to learn a lot from it! I hope you'll all join me in it too. What I'd like to suggest is that we all read the first chapter of James today and think about it and tomorrow I'll start the study. Although this is a short book and even the chapters aren't very long, there's a LOT of information packed into this little book and even into this short first chapter. So don't be surprised if it takes us a couple of days or more to cover each chapter. Even if it does though, I still think it's best if we start out by reading the whole first chapter ok?

For this I'll just give us a bit of background that I've learned today. The first thing which really shocked me is that James isn't James! Yep LOL that's right! I always assumed this was written by the apostle James, our Lord's half brother, and it was, but his name wasn't James. Let me share with you what the commentary says though:

The human author of this epistle is not easily identified. The New Testament mentions at least four men named James: (1) the son of Zebedee and brother of John (Mark 1:19), (2) the son of Alphaeus (Mark 3:18), (3) the father of Judas (not Iscariot; Luke 6:16), and (4) the half brother of the Lord (Gal. 1:19). Which one wrote the epistle?

James, the son of Zebedee, could not be the author since he suffered martyrdom under Herod Agrippa I before this epistle was written (Acts 12:2).

It is unlikely that the little-known son of Alphaeus was the author though some, especially Roman Catholics, equate the son of Alphaeus with the Lord’s brother. They claim that James was really Jesus’ cousin through Mary of Cleopas (Alphaeus), the Virgin Mary’s sister. This contention, however, violates a literal interpretation of “brother” and is clearly an attempt to support the invention of the perpetual virginity of Mary. It seems clear from Scripture that children were born to Joseph and Mary after the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is called “her firstborn” (Luke 2:7), implying that others were born thereafter. The Scriptures state that Joseph had no union with Mary, that is, no normal physical relationship, “until” (heōs) after the birth of Jesus (Matt. 1:25). Repeated references are made to the Lord’s half brothers and half sisters and four of His brothers are named: James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas (Matt. 13:55).

James, the father of Judas (not Iscariot) did not figure as an important person in the early church. He could hardly be the author of this epistle.

It seems clear therefore that the author is James, the half brother of the Lord, who became the recognized leader in the Jerusalem church. This conclusion is supported by the authoritative tone of the letter and by the marked similarities in Greek between this epistle and the speech by James recorded in Acts 15.

Though James was reared in the same home with the Lord Jesus, he apparently did not become a believer until after Christ’s resurrection. John wrote, “For even His own brothers did not believe in Him” (John 7:5).

James’ encounter with the risen Lord may have brought him to saving faith. Christ “appeared to James, then to all the apostles” (1 Cor. 15:7). Paul later listed James, Peter, and John as “those reputed to be pillars” of the church (Gal. 2:9).

The strongest evidence for the authorship of the Epistle of James clearly favors the half brother of Christ. Furthermore, Origen, Eusebius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Athanasius, Augustine, and many other early writers support this view. .....

....James was actually Jacob (Iakōbos). It is not certain why the English translators chose “James” rather than “Jacob.” “James,” “Jake,” and “Jacob” all come from the same root. Bible translations in other languages tend to utilize the transliterated name from the actual Hebrew “Jacob” (ya‘ăqōb). Could it be that King James desired to see his name in the English translation he authorized?

The Bible knowledge commentary : An exposition of the scriptures

So, with that little tid bit of information, let's read the first chapter! I'll post it here, but of course you can read it in your own bibles too!

James 1:1-27 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes scattered among the nations: Greetings.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.

The brother in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position. But the one who is rich should take pride in his low position, because he will pass away like a wild flower. For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich man will fade away even while he goes about his business.

Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.

When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.

My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.

Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.

If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials

Re: The Fear Of The Lord Is The Beginning of Wisdom

2010-08-22T09:37:00.001-04:00

The Lord just keeps opening my eyes to more and more about the Fear of Lord every day. In the portion of the bible I was reading yesterday, He pointed out some interesting things about Job that I hadn't noticed before. Let me share them with you:

These verses tell about Satan's first attacks on Job:

Job 2:7-10 So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes.

His wife said to him, “Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!” He replied, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.

Did you notice that part I underlined? Now if someone were to suggest today that the Lord was responsible in some way for our troubles, I hate to think what others would say! Yet here there is no debate about it. Job says in no uncertain terms that God gave him all the good things he had and that he knew that God had allowed them to be taken from him. We don't like to think such things though because to us now, it makes it seem that God isn't "good" because He let's bad things happen to us. Let's look at what happens to him next and how he reacts:

Job 1:13-19 One day when Job’s sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother’s house, a messenger came to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys were grazing nearby, and the Sabeans attacked and carried them off. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”

While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, “The fire of God fell from the sky and burned up the sheep and the servants, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”

While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, “The Chaldeans formed three raiding parties and swept down on your camels and carried them off. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”

While he was still speaking, yet another messenger came and said, “Your sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother’s house, when suddenly a mighty wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house. It collapsed on them and they are dead, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”

Can you imagine if similar things had happened to any of us today how we would respond to them? Wars, raids, fire and hurricanes..no one today would suggest aloud that God had allowed those kind of things would they?

Now, notice the very next verse:

Job 1:20-22 At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.” In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.

Once again there is no doubt in Job's mind that God is in control so He has therefore allowed this evil to befall him. Job doesn't sin because he doesn't try and say that God was wrong or bad to allow these things to happen.

What's interesting to me is that for the most part when people today suggest that God either caused something bad to happen or allowed it to happen, that they are labeled as being superstitious. Yet, if we really believe that God is in control, then how can we say that anything can happen without His knowledge and without Him at the very least allowing it? We can't. He either is in control or He's not. He either is all powerful or He isn't. It can't be both ways.

I think perhaps in trying to make God more palatable to the unsaved, the church stopped preaching about how God does discipline, punish, test and prunes us. Instead they focused on how God is love and left out the other part. So we forgot that while He does love us, He also has expectations of us and will discipline us when we don't meet those expectations. The world has taught us a very corrupted definition of love too which doesn't help either. We need to remember that God is not some mushy, tolerant, "give them anything they want" God. He is instead, just, righteous, holy, impartial, jealous, omnipresent, omniscient, powerful, mighty, glorious, majestic, merciful, loving, fearful, perfect and awesome God, that will not share His glory with anyone.

The more I study on the subject of the fear of God, the more certain I am that it's something we would all be wise to develop! Look at just this one verse and how it says that the fear of God will help us. (I'm going to show it in two different versions)

2 Corinthians 7:1 Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.

2 Corinthians 7:1 Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.

Personally, I think using the "fear of God" has more impact then "reverence for God". Mainly because today, people really don't understand reverence very well either.

7:1 These promises that God will dwell among us, receive us, and be our Father (6:16-18) should motivate us to holiness, as should the proper fear of God. See 5:10, 11; 1 John 3:1-3.

Spirit filled life study Bible.

2 Corinthians 5:10-11 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience.

1 John 3:1-3 How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.

1 Peter 4:17 For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God?

Some people are beginning to see that God is beginning to judge the earth even now, yet what makes us think that He ever stopped?
You know, it's easy to say that judgment has begun because of the evil people and the unsaved, but we forget that the bible says the judgment begins with us who are saved. That alone is enough for me to want to cultivate the fear of God in myself! I don't really think we can do it ourselves though. Oh we can certainly try and we should, but I think in order to fully know the fear of God, that it's something the Lord Himself has to help us with....

Join us on the board!

What the bible says about swearing & using vulgar words

2010-08-13T16:21:00.001-04:00

I am so excited!!!! I wasn't sure even which thread to put this on, since we've currently got 4 of them that are so interrelated, but I think this is the most appropriate one so I'll put it here.

I've been studying all day on the theme of our thoughts, our words, our emotions, and the fear of the Lord. I have to confess that I've been having a really hard time at stopping swearing. Mainly because I haven't been allowing myself to "replace" the words. With nothing to replace them with, it's kind of left me floundering so I asked the Lord to help and show me what to do. He just showed me and I'm so excited! He used something that most would think is totally unrelated lol, but it's perfect!

I had read a devotional a while ago that dealt with how our Lord dealt with emotional pain when His heart was troubled and when He was crucified. It really hit home with me because I live with constant pain. When dealing with his emotional pain, he didn't lash out, he didn't complain, he didn't swear. He prayed and when He spoke, this is what He said:

John 12:28 Father, glorify your name!”

Well, I've been sitting here studying all this time and naturally the pain in my back had gotten worse. My cat came and insisted I take a break to give her her treats and when I stood up the pain shot through me like an arrow and I swore in my mind. I guess that's better then saying it out loud, but not to me, so I immediately told the Lord I was sorry and asked His forgiveness and He immediately reminded me of that devotional. That's when it hit me! I can use that for swearing as well as pain!

What's really strange and why I know this was from the Lord, is because I've honestly never used a swear word or replacement swear if you will because of the pain before! It's just never happened in the last 10 years. But for it to happen now when I've been studying so hard and praying for the Lord to help me learn how to conquer this with His help, was just too perfect to be a coincidence!

So now, instead of replacing swear words with more innocent words such as "shoot", I can simply say, "Father, Glorify Your Name!" and mean it! That not only prevents me from swearing or using any kind of vulgar or coarse words, but it totally changes my emotions and thoughts immediately!!! So that takes care of the problem of that list of "reasons" and things we're feeling too! What an awesome way to do it! Thank You Lord!!!

This is the list I'm talking about that I posted earlier in this thread for those who don't remember:

anger
frustration
sudden and unexpected pain,
sudden unexpected fright,
fright in general
hurt-hurt feelings
habit
for shock effect

Since you all haven't seen that devotional, just so you get a fuller meaning of what my thoughts were when He reminded me of it, I want to share it with you here too.

Receiving one’s self in the fires of sorrow

What shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? But for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify Thy name. John 12:27-29 (R.V.).

My attitude as a saint to sorrow and difficulty is not to ask that they may be prevented, but to ask that I may preserve the self God created me to be through every fire of sorrow. Our Lord received Himself in the fire of sorrow, He was saved not from the hour, but out of the hour.

We say that there ought to be no sorrow, but there is sorrow, and we have to receive ourselves in its fires. If we try and evade sorrow, refuse to lay our account with it, we are foolish. Sorrow is one of the biggest facts in life; it is no use saying sorrow ought not to be. Sin and sorrow and suffering are, and it is not for us to say that God has made a mistake in allowing them.

Sorrow burns up a great amount of shallowness, but it does not always make a man better. Suffering either gives me my self or it destroys my self. You cannot receive your self in success, you lose your head; you cannot receive your self in monotony, you grouse. The way to find your self is in the fires of sorrow. Why it should be so is another matter, but that it is so is true in the Scriptures and in human experience.

You always know the man who has been through the fires of sorrow and received himself, you are certain you can go to him in trouble and find that he has ample leisure for you. If a man has not been through the fires of sorrow, he is apt to be contemptuous, he has no time for you. If you receive yourself in the fires of sorrow, God will make you nourishment for other people.

Chambers, O. (1993, c1935). My utmost for his highest : Selections for the year

So it looks like I'm going to be both thinking and saying aloud, "Father, Glorify Your Name!" a lot now, and as far as I'm concerned, the more the better! What better thing to do or ask then to ask Him to glorify His Name in whatever pain, anger, hurt, or whatever, that I'm experiencing at the moment? What better way to change my attitude instantly too!

You know, thinking about all this made me realize something else. When our Lord was flogged, tortured and crucified, I would think that if there was ever in this world a legitimate cause for swearing, or using vulgar or coarse language, that would be it! But He didn't! Not one "bad" word came out of our Lord's mouth. In the gospels we can read every word He spoke from that evening at the last supper until the moment He died, and He did not utter any word that would be offensive to use in front of a little child at any time.

I am not by any means trying to be legalistic here or in any of the studies I do. I am very simply presenting what the Bible says as I try to learn from it what His Will is for how I should live, just as He tells us we are to do. I'm not talking about "rules" and "laws" here. Or at least not "only" about those. I don't know about others, but I want to live in such a way that my life here and now is pleasing to my Lord who gave His life for me. Like a little child, I want to please my Heavenly Father and I want Him to be pleased with me! Being obedient to my Lord brings me great joy! It's when I fail Him that I'm miserable and in tears!

It's kind of funny but most people are scared (and so was I) by the passages that tell us that we are to deny ourselves and take up our cross, and that in order to find our lives we have to first lose them.

Mark 8:34-35 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.

The reason I say it's kind of funny is because it wasn't until I did begin to give up "my" life, my "self" and live for Him, that I began to consistently experience real joy! It took quite awhile, but I finally realized that when we give up our lives and live for Him instead, that's when He gives us a more abundant life! So what He says really makes sense, because when we lose "our" lives for Him, we begin living more abundantly then we would have ever known was possible before!

John 10:10 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

I don't ask anyone to do the things I do, or believe what I believe. I only post my studies to help those who are also on this journey or who might be following behind us later and find this helpful. I try very hard not to post just what I think God's Word is saying, but instead try to post His Word and show people where and how I get what I do from my studies. Not so they'll know I'm "right", but so that others can learn "how to study" by following the same principals. I know some folks think I post too many scriptures and I have tried to post fewer, but that's why I post so many so people can see the context of them. Scripture must be read in context, not only with the passage and book it's from but with the entire bible for it to make sense.

Ok, enough of that! Time to go get at least something done around here LOL God bless you all and I hope this helps someone else too!

What the bible says about swearing & using vulgar words

Re: What the bible says about swearing & using vulgar words

2010-08-13T16:19:00.001-04:00

I guess one way of determining for sure if you could or not, would be to imagine yourself standing face to face with Jesus, feeling and seeing His total amazing holiness and purity, both of which have been imputed to us and which we are to live by and act on, and imagine yourself using each of those words toward Him in exactly the same manner you would normally use them in your life now.

If you can do that without even flinching or cringing a little, then by all means continue to use them. As for me, I cringe just considering thinking about it! Remember, THIS is who you will be saying those things to:

Revelation 1:12-18 I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lampstands was someone “like a son of man,” dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.

Daniel 7:9-10 “As I looked, “thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took his seat. His clothing was as white as snow; the hair of his head was white like wool. His throne was flaming with fire, and its wheels were all ablaze. A river of fire was flowing, coming out from before him. Thousands upon thousands attended him; ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The court was seated, and the books were opened.

Ezekiel 1:25-28 Then there came a voice from above the expanse over their heads as they stood with lowered wings. Above the expanse over their heads was what looked like a throne of sapphire, and high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man. I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded him. Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. When I saw it, I fell facedown, and I heard the voice of one speaking.

Exodus 15:11 “Who among the gods is like you, O Lord? Who is like you— majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders?

That God tells us:

Leviticus 20:7-8 “ ‘Consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am the Lord your God. Keep my decrees and follow them. I am the Lord, who makes you holy.

Ephesians 4:22-5:7 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body. “In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need. Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a man is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient. Therefore do not be partners with them.

1 Thessalonians 4:7 For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life.

Matthew 5:48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

What the bible says about swearing & using vulgar words

Re: Complaining & How it all comes together

2010-08-12T10:02:00.001-04:00

Is everyone caught up? Ok, the second thread I see running through all of these is what is commonly called "the fear of the Lord". In fact it's been on my mind so very much that I've asked the Lord to teach me that fear. I know we've discussed this before so I looked for the thread and bumped it up for us so any who want to review it can. It's The Fear Of The Lord Is The Beginning of Wisdom

I did a quick search in the Bible for the phrase "fear the Lord" and came up with 82 hits in 81 verses in the ESV Bible. (I used that one as it generally gives the most accurate information when looking for specific words) The KJV gave 75 hits in 74 verses. Then I tried the phrase "fear God" and got 34 hits in 34 verses.

Here's a couple of examples:

1 Peter 2:17 Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.

Revelation 14:7 He said in a loud voice, “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water.”

Luke 12:4-5 “I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.

Acts 9:31 Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace. It was strengthened; and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it grew in numbers, living in the fear of the Lord.

2 Corinthians 5:11 Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience.

This verse from 2 Corinthians is often translated "terror of the Lord".

and of course the ones we're most familiar with:

Proverbs 1:7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.

Psalm 111:10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding. To him belongs eternal praise.

What I'm afraid of is that we don't really know what it means to fear the Lord.... it's not REAL to us....or maybe it's just me.... Let's pray that the Lord in His mercy will teach us, guide us, and give us wisdom and discernment about "the fear of the Lord", that we can better serve Him.

Since I asked the Lord to teach me about this I've been noticing something in the bible as I read and study it daily. I noticed before too but I guess I just never related it to this before. All through the bible you see statements like this, very matter of fact, like they thought it was a plain as the nose on their face and needed no explanations:

2 Chronicles 24:18 They abandoned the temple of the Lord, the God of their fathers, and worshiped Asherah poles and idols. Because of their guilt, God’s anger came upon Judah and Jerusalem.

2 Chronicles 24:24 Although the Aramean army had come with only a few men, the Lord delivered into their hands a much larger army. Because Judah had forsaken the Lord, the God of their fathers, judgment was executed on Joash.

2 Chronicles 26:19-20 Uzziah, who had a censer in his hand ready to burn incense, became angry. While he was raging at the priests in their presence before the incense altar in the Lord’s temple, leprosy broke out on his forehead. When Azariah the chief priest and all the other priests looked at him, they saw that he had leprosy on his forehead, so they hurried him out. Indeed, he himself was eager to leave, because the Lord had afflicted him.

Nehemiah 4:15 When our enemies heard that we were aware of their plot and that God had frustrated it, we all returned to the wall, each to his own work.

Nehemiah 2:8 ...And because the gracious hand of my God was upon me, the king granted my requests.

Ezra 9:7 From the days of our forefathers until now, our guilt has been great. Because of our sins, we and our kings and our priests have been subjected to the sword and captivity, to pillage and humiliation at the hand of foreign kings, as it is today.

Ezra 8:18 Because the gracious hand of our God was on us, they brought us Sherebiah, a capable man, ...

Ezra 6:22 For seven days they celebrated with joy the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because the Lord had filled them with joy by changing the attitude of the king of Assyria, so that he assisted them in the work on the house of God, the God of Israel.

2 Chronicles 32:22 So the Lord saved Hezekiah and the people of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib king of Assyria and from the hand of all others. He took care of them on every side.

As you can probably tell lol all I did was quickly scroll back through the books I've been reading and copied a few of the verses from them. Did you notice anything similar about all those verses? Let's go back and read them again, only this time, let's imagine that these are things that are happening right now-today. You can even fill in the names with names from our current history if you want.

Are you starting to see what I am? They are describing every day events and major events in their lives, both good and bad and saying that the Lord was responsible for these things and the way things worked out. Can you imagine what that would look like today right here in America? Let's pretend for a moment what that might look like if it did happen here. We might here something like this:

Take the oil spill for example. When some people suggested that it was because of the hand of the Lord they were often ridiculed.

Or how about the weather that's been so crazy and even devastating all over the world this past year and more? Again when someone says that it's the hand of the Lord, people often ridicule them.

If someone suggests that a military win or defeat or stand off is because of the Lord they're ridiculed.

When a ruler actually does something right, who is given credit? Usually it's the people themselves that take the credit. You hear speeches about how "the people won" because "they stood up to the government" etc or other things like that. I don't recall ever hearing it suggested that the Lord changed the governments mind....or that He had any hand in it at all.

When lightening struck the building where the Lutherans were meeting when they decided it was OK to accept gay priests, people laughed at those who suggested God's hand might have had something to do with it.

I guess what I'm beginning to wonder is if just maybe we've become "too civilized". The things like those I mentioned above are always written off as ridiculous, coincidental, and superstitious now days.

Like last week when I went to the grocery store and after not finding something I really needed for 2 months, they finally had it, and I jumped up saying "Thank you Lord!" quite loudly lol There was no doubt in my mind that the Lord was behind the fact that the store had finally stocked that item again, yet I know that many people looked at me as though I'd lost what few wits I still had!

I have continued to ask the Lord to teach me to fear Him so that I can know the "fear of the Lord" so that I can please Him and plan to continue to ask for this.

I'd like to point out one other thing about this too. See how the fear of the Lord is linked here to not complaining and not arguing? (It's also linked in other places with not lying, not worrying, not swearing, etc.)

Philippians 2:12-16 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life—in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing.

Those who fear the Lord are not going to swear, lie, worry, grumble, complain etc. They'd be to afraid to do so! You know who I think of when I think of the "fear of the Lord"? Abraham, when he obediently went to sacrifice his son to God. Now that to me is the perfect illustration of the fear of God. Would any of us have been obedient if we heard God telling us to do something like that? I wish with all my heart that I could say that I thought I would be, but I don't. I don't think I would have done it. Why? Don't I love Him enough? Don't I trust Him? I think it's because i don't fear Him enough. That's why I've asked Him to help me work on this.

I can't wait to hear what you all think about this!

Complaining & How it all comes together

Re: Complaining & How it all comes together

2010-08-10T10:40:00.001-04:00

I just re-read what I posted yesterday and realize that I really didn't cover how complaining is a sin as thoroughly as I usually do. That's mostly because I'm pretty sure we've covered this before, but I honestly don't remember. It might be that I studied it before and didn't share it here. So if anyone has questions or wants more info about it please feel free to ask.

Now let's try and pull all of those studies together: the ones about taking our thoughts captive and how our thoughts can be sinful; the one about swearing and the one about lies, and finally this about complaining. There are actually several common threads I see running through them all.

The first thread I saw running through all this was that we are to be like little children. You might ask how this relates to the taking our thoughts captive, lies and swearing threads though so I'll try to explain. First let me share one of the verses where Jesus tells us to be like little children:

Matthew 18:3-4 And he said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Let's look for a minute at what characteristics a little child has that the Lord is looking for in us. Here I'm talking about a child of about toddler age who has good loving parents obviously and not someone who's been abused.

First of course a little one loves their parents.

A little child is trusting of their parents. When they have a problem or when they get hurt, they automatically come to their parents, tell them about it and they not only believe that their parents will "fix" it, it doesn't even occur to them that their parents might not! When Mama tells her little one that the doctor is going to give them a shot and that even though it hurts it will help them get better, they trust that their Mama (or daddy) knows what they're talking about and is telling the truth.

A little child believes whatever their parents tell them. If Mama says something's going to happen the next day or whenever, then they expect that's going to happen. It doesn't occur to the little one that Mama might lie.

Little children fear their parents. No, I'm not talking about being fearful as though they think they might get hurt by them. I'm talking about the kind of fear that the bible says is good-godly fear. That kind of fear could translate into meaning having respect for them, love, feeling awe of them, a reverence, a desire to please them, a feeling that they are above them and deserve honor etc. However, there is, as my oldest daughter pointed out to me, an aspect of that fear that does mean "being scared". As she said, a little child wants to please their parents for all the above reasons, but when they don't obey, the do feel afraid because they know that their parent is going to punish them and rightly so.

A little one would never consider not revealing everything to their parents. In fact, they usually can't wait to tell them in every bit as much detail as their vocabularies will allow, all that they've experienced that day. (once they learn to talk, it's getting them to stop that's the problem LOL)

Little children want to please their parents so they mimic their parents and generally obey them too. That's how little ones learn to talk, to walk, to feed themselves etc. They copy their parents and do what their parents tell them to do. Not only that, but they do it joyfully! Can you picture a parent with their arms outstretched to their little one, saying, "come to mama, walk to mama!"; and the little one tries to take their first tentative steps, knowing mama and daddy won't let them get hurt. Notice that the "almost" toddler doesn't require long explanations from their parents about how they really can do this, and that they really should trust them, and they need to be obedient etc.

I'm sure there are more, but I'm running out of time here lol. These are the things our Lord was telling us that we need to go back to being once we're born again. These are the attributes we're to have toward Him and our Heavenly Father. I don't think it was any accident that our Lord told us to call our Heavenly Father, "daddy" either.

Romans 8:15-16 For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.

Galatians 4:6 Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.”

The word “Abba” is the Aramaic word for “Father.” It is the diminutive form used by small children in addressing their fathers. It is appropriate to see its similarity to the English word “Daddy.” Used by Christ (cf. Mark 14:36), this familiar form indicates intimacy and trust as opposed to the formalism of legalism.

The Bible knowledge commentary : An exposition of the scriptures

Ok, so now let's take those attributes of a child and see how they relate to us in our relationship with God. These attributes of how a little one is toward their parents are describing how our relationship with our heavenly Father should be.

loves
Trusts
Believes
fears
reveals everything, doesn't try to hide things
pleases
mimics
joyfully obeys

One thing is immediately clear and that's that an unsaved person cannot experience any of these things with God because they don't have a relationship with Him at all. This also shows that it is only through developing a close intimate relationship with Him that we can grow to maturity in Christ. It sounds backwards doesn't it? While the people in the world are striving to "grow up", be independent, be "on their own", etc.; here we are striving to be the opposite! We want to go back to that initial loving, trusting stage; we want to become more dependent, and the more dependent we become, the more "mature" we become LOL

I'm really running out of time today so I'll have to finish this part on Tuesday I'm afraid. Before I go though let me give you all some verses that show how we need these attributes in our relationship with God. That way we'll have something to reflect on till Tuesday anyway!

Matthew 22:37 Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’

John 14:1 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.

Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Proverbs 9:10 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

Proverbs 5:21 For a man’s ways are in full view of the Lord, and he examines all his paths.

Proverbs 28:13-14 He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy. Blessed is the man who always fears the Lord, but he who hardens his heart falls into trouble.

Romans 12:2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

2 Corinthians 5:9 So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it.

Ephesians 5:1-2 Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

Matthew 5:48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Matthew 5:12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

1 Peter 1:15-16 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”

Complaining & How it all comes together

2010-08-07T14:31:00.001-04:00

I've been thinking about this a lot lately since we've been writing about it and it amazes me how closely these studies are all tied together:

Stress,worry,fear etc & the Christian (condensed)

what is your take on swearing (bible study thread)

Little white lies.....

Thoughts that are sin

So I've been reflecting on this a lot as I said and decided to start a new thread to show some of the ways they all connect.

First let's review just a little. We've learned so far that it's our thoughts that are the root of our attitudes, feelings and even actions. We know that's why the Lord tells us we are to guard our hearts. (the word translated hearts means both our thoughts/minds and our hearts/emotions). We've learned too that thoughts themselves can be sinful and we've learned what to do with those kind of thoughts. (take them captive and replace them with the truth). We've learned too that even our feelings can be sinful and since they're caused by our thoughts, we know how to deal with that as well now. That's really great too because now instead of treating the symptoms of the disease of sin, we're getting to the root of it.

OK, with all that said, what I'd like to do is show you the next piece the Lord added to the puzzle for me which filled it in enough for me to finally see the pattern.

I had been talking to the Lord and realized that what I was really doing was complaining to Him about things. That immediately reminded me of this verse among others:

Exodus 16:8 Moses also said, “You will know that it was the Lord when he gives you meat to eat in the evening and all the bread you want in the morning, because he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we? You are not grumbling against us, but against the Lord.”

I'm pretty sure that we've discussed this before too, but when we complain about things, even when we're complaining to other people, what we're really doing is complaining against God. We're telling ourselves, other people and Him that we don't really trust Him, nor do we appreciate our circumstances or how He's arranged things in our lives. Sounds pretty harsh doesn't it? I know that I was pretty floored when I first realized that complaining was a sin. I really really didn't want to accept that, but no matter how I tried to get around it, just like with the lying, swearing, fear and worry, I finally had to admit that His Word was true and that complaining was indeed a sin.

Let's look quickly at how complaining is a sin.

We know that God's Word is true and we know there are some very basic principals that we must believe. We must believe that God is good and that He loves us; that He loved us enough to die for us so that our sins could be forgiven and we could spend eternity with Him. We know that we are to trust Him and believe what He tells us. We know that God is omnipotent, omniscient, perfect, just, righteous, love, truth, merciful, faithful, longsuffering, powerful and wise.

Are you with me so far? Ok, then let's look at this very familiar passage:

Romans 8:28-32 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

According to this passage, everything that happens to us God uses to work for our good. It also says that He will do anything for us to help us conform to the image of His son, and that in fact we WILL be conformed to that image one way or another because it is predestined for us to be. We also know that He hasn't withheld anything from us that we need for this life; It's all right here in His Word:

2 Peter 1:3 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

We know too that He actually has plans for us and that nothing happens to us or to anyone by random chance because He is in control.

This is very hard to incorporate into our daily lives though. We're used to what the world has taught us which is basically that we're either lucky or not. I remember when my husband got laid off. We were devastated and it was so easy to complain, to cry and ask "why me Lord?" In fact it was when I was in the very act of asking Him "why me" that I realized exactly what I was doing. I wasn't trusting Him! Remember when Jesus was on trial and what He said?

Matthew 26:53 Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?

John 19:11 Jesus answered, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above.

And we have these verses and many others that show us that God is in control:

John 3:27 To this John replied, “A man can receive only what is given him from heaven.

Jeremiah 27:5-6 With my great power and outstretched arm I made the earth and its people and the animals that are on it, and I give it to anyone I please. Now I will hand all your countries over to my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; I will make even the wild animals subject to him.

Daniel 4:35 All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him: “What have you done?”

Acts 4:27-28 Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.

So I had to ask myself, if God is in control, what do I have to fear or be upset about? If God is in control, if He loves me and has plans for me that include a hopeful wonderful future and include me becoming conformed to be like Jesus, then there is nothing to worry about because whenever God says He will do something, it is done. Period. There are never any ands ifs or buts about it. God's will is always done and in our cases, since we're born again, we know what His will for us is.

Isaiah 55:11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

Isaiah 46:11 ... What I have said, that will I bring about; what I have planned, that will I do.

Now, if we truly believe all this, then what do we have to complain about? Nothing at all because everything is being used to work toward our good and the wonderful future He has planed for us. If we do complain or grumble about it though then we are saying that we really don't believe these things. That God isn't trustworthy, that He really doesn't love us or care about the things we're going through, and that we really know better then He does what's good for us, etc. That my friend is once again a sin. We are literally calling God a liar and a cheat. We are being idolatrous and prideful by saying that there are things and or people or even ourselves that are more powerful, more wise, more loving etc then God. We are being hypocrites as well and I'm sure if we really sat here and thought about it, we could come up with a number of other sins as well. One big one is that we are once again demanding that God prove to us (by doing whatever it is WE think is right) that He is good and loving and just. We are insisting on living by sight rather then by faith. Obviously none of these thoughts, feelings or the actions and words that come from them are from faith.

Romans 14:23 ... and everything that does not come from faith is sin.

Please know that I do not mean to imply that I have conquered this sin. I wish I could say that I have, but I haven't. Since I live with chronic pain daily, I've certainly have a lot of opportunities for practice though. I've gotten to the point where I recognize it as sin, and confess and repent of it when I catch myself. I've even gotten to the point now where I'm catching it more quickly then I used to, and am able to bring my thoughts back into alignment with His Word. That's gratifying and I know it's only because of the Lord's help that I've gotten that far; but I still have a long way to go. Just knowing that every time I start to complain, I have an opportunity to practice aligning myself with God's Will helps though because I can see that the more I apply His Word to my life, the more I slowly but surely become conformed to the likeness of His Son my Lord and what greater reward could there be then that?

Now that we've covered the complaining part, tomorrow we can look at how this last piece of the puzzle pulls it all together!

Complaining & How it all comes together

Re: Little white lies....

2010-08-07T12:54:00.001-04:00

Here's one last way to look at this whole subject. Forgive me if I've already said this, but sometimes I can't remember which part of the studies I've written down here and which parts are just in my personal notes.

Take a look at this verse:

John 8:44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

By that verse alone (and there are many others) we can easily see that lying-any and all kinds of lies, is from Satan and not from God. Lying is something humans come by naturally. Think about it...have you ever known of any parent that had to teach their child to lie? I sure haven't! No, we have to teach them to tell the truth because lying comes naturally from their sin nature.

Then we have this verse:

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

Here we are shown again one of God's attributes. God is truth, just as God is love. Satan is the opposite of God. Now that we know God is truth we know that in order to be like Him, we too must be the truth as much as we can be. We can't do it on our own though because just as we had to teach our children to tell the truth, we need our Daddy to teach us to tell the truth ALL the time. So He then tells us:

John 14:15-17 “If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

He gives us His Holy Spirit to dwell within us. The Holy Spirit is also God and being God, He too is Truth just as Jesus and the Father are Truth.

John 16:13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.

God will never ever guide us to go against His own written Word. Never! Not for any reason! That is one Truth that we can stand on all our lives and use to test things to see if they're from God or not. If someone tries to tell us that God told them to lie, we can instantly know that they have been badly deceived because God cannot go against Himself and God is Truth.

I'm afraid that there is simply no way to get around the fact that any and all lies are a sin, regardless of why the lies are told, where they're told, how they're told or anything else we can think up as an excuse.

This is yet another area where we who have been born again are different from the world. The unsaved hate to be told they've done something wrong and will instantly defend themselves and make excuses for what they've done. However as we mature we begin to want to know what our sins are. We want to know them so we can stop doing them because we want above all else to please our Lord. We love Him and don't want to disappoint him or hurt Him. Therefore we generally are pleased in a way when we discover something that we've been doing is a sin. We're not pleased we've been sinning but are pleased that we now understand that it's a sin and can ask our Father's help in overcoming it. We can then praise Him because we know He will never turn us down when we ask for help to please Him!

I'm not saying that those of us who are born again don't ever get defensive when we learn something we do is a sin; sometimes we do that too, but we do it for a different reason then the world does. The world does it because they want to be right. We do it because the thought that we might be displeasing our Lord is so horrible to us that we often don't want to admit it our guilt at first.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately since we've been writing about it and it amazes me how closely these studies are all tied together:

Stress,worry,fear etc & the Christian (condensed)

what is your take on swearing (bible study thread)

Little white lies.....

Thoughts that are sin

So I've been reflecting on this a lot as I said and I think what I'd like to do is start a new thread to show how they all connect.

Come and join us on Fresh-Hope.com!

Re: Little white lies.....

2010-08-05T10:14:00.001-04:00

I wanted to bring this over from the other thread for those who haven't seen it:

Quote:

I find it hard to believe that God would want us to help a criminal do harm or kill someone as in the scenario I shared. I doubt I would do it and I sure hope someone would lie if I was the one being chased. Something just doesn't seem right about that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cindy

What you're saying then really is that you're trusting in the lie, and the person doing the lying and not God. God does not approve of anyone's lies in the Old Testament and He did not tell us it was Ok to lie in some instances. This is a difficult thing for sure which is why I brought it up. It's one thing to say that "little white lies" are wrong (which they definitely are) but when we continue and say that a lie told to "try and save someone's life" is wrong and a sin, most people do have trouble accepting that. (I don't recall any of the apostles or early Christians lying to save their lives or the lives of their children even) But what it comes down to in the long run is do we believe God's Word or man's philosophy? Do we trust man or God? Do we really really believe that God says what He means and means what He says? We aren't told to live by the worlds standards but by God's standards. It's not easy and I doubt if any could do it without His help, but that's the great part, because when we decide to follow Him and obey at any cost, then He takes over and does the rest. That's when verses like these come into play:

Matthew 10:19-20 But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.

I don't think the Holy Spirit is going to direct anyone to lie. If someone said He did, we'd know they were lying because God doesn't lie nor does He ever tell us to.

John 14:1 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.

Matthew 16:24-26 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?

Revelation 12:11 They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.

We aren't saved by lies, or by any effort of our own or of others even, but by God.

Psalm 20:7 Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.

Isaiah 31:1 Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who trust in the multitude of their chariots and in the great strength of their horsemen, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel, or seek help from the Lord.

It's in times like this where we have to decide to obey God or sin and lie that we see just how much we really trust Him. It reminds me of the story of David and his friends. They stuck to God and never lied to get out of the trouble the Babylonian officials were always trying to get them into. It would have been very easy to lie but they didn't, and God saved them. However we have to be like they were and decide ahead of time that obeying God is more important to us regardless of whether or not He saves us. That's why I've always loved this statement they made to the King during one of those times:

Daniel 3:17-18 If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”

I hope and pray that I can grow up to be that strong and mature in my faith!

Quote:

How about Rahab and Michal and David. All told lies. As did the prophet who led the armies away from their correct destination. ( I'l try to find it if the story doesn't come to mind)
Rahab lied about the spies. Michal lied about David. Both to save lives.

David lied when running from Saul and took and ate the shewbread.

I am not defending lieing just wondering if it is permissible.

Is God a liar then? Does He really go against His own Word? If it ok for us to lie under some circumstances then we might as well just throw the bible in the trash because it's useless as it doesn't tell the truth if it contradicts itself. I'm just going to quote some commentaries so people will see that it's not just me saying this.

Joshua 2:4-6 But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. She said, “Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they had come from. At dusk, when it was time to close the city gate, the men left. I don’t know which way they went. Go after them quickly. You may catch up with them.” (But she had taken them up to the roof and hidden them under the stalks of flax she had laid out on the roof.)

Was Rahab wrong to lie since her falsehood protected the spies? Are there some situations in which a lie is acceptable?

After all, some say, this was a cultural matter, for Rahab was born and raised among the depraved Canaanites among whom lying was universally practiced. She probably saw no evil in her act. Further, if she had told the truth the spies would have been killed by the king of Jericho.

But such arguments are not convincing. To argue that the spies would certainly have perished if Rahab had been truthful is to ignore the option that God could have protected the spies in some other way. To excuse Rahab for indulging in a common practice is to condone what God condemns. Paul quoted a prophet of Crete who said that Cretans were inveterate liars, and then added, ”This testimony is true. Therefore, rebuke them sharply, so that they will be sound in the faith“ (Titus 1:13). The lie of Rahab was recorded but not approved. The Bible approved her faith demonstrated by good works (Heb. 11:31),but not her falsehood.

The Bible knowledge commentary : An exposition of the scriptures

2:5I do not know:The NT commends Rahab for her faith, not her falsehood (see Heb. 11:31). James mentions her together with Abraham as an example of good works (see James 2:25). The Open Bible

But the visit also meant the salvation of Rahab and her family. Although the Bible does not commend Rahab for her lies, it does commend her faith (Heb. 11:31) that revealed itself in works (James 2:25). Her faith saved her and her family from destruction (Josh. 6:17–19), and it resulted in her becoming an ancestress of the Messiah (Matt. 1:5). Once you begin to trust God and obey Him, you never know what He will do!

With the word Bible commentary

2:4 Lying is never justifiable; but in this case, because of Rahab’s immature faith, it is understandable.

Spirit filled life study Bible

First, Rahab was a pagan woman living in a pagan society. The degree of ethical consciousness displayed by the early Phoenicians and Caneanites was very low indeed. No doubt Rahab was absolutely unaware that telling this lie was a sin. She was humanly no more concerned over this falsehood than she was over her own occupation. Secondly, nowhere do we find a reference that either the spies, or later Joshua, ever condoned this lie. A lie by any other name, even if it is little and white, is nevertheless a lie. The spies did not ask Rahab to lie for them, nor did they commend her for this action. Thirdly, although there appears to be seedlike faith in Rahab, nevertheless there is no clear reference to her faith in the true God of Israel until after the lie was told. The deception, which was almost matter-of-factly and routinely carried out, was not at all ethically troublesome to Rahab before her confession of faith in Jehovah. One can only assume that the situation would have been different after that confession. KJV Bible commentary.

1 Samuel 21:1-3 David went to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. Ahimelech trembled when he met him, and asked, “Why are you alone? Why is no one with you?” David answered Ahimelech the priest, “The king charged me with a certain matter and said to me, ‘No one is to know anything about your mission and your instructions.’ As for my men, I have told them to meet me at a certain place. Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever you can find.”

The king hath commanded me a business, and hath said unto me, Let no man know—This was a direct falsehood, extorted through fear. David probably supposed, like many other persons, that a lie is quite excusable which is told for the sole purpose of saving the speaker’s life. But what is essentially sinful, can never, from circumstances, change its immoral character; and David had to repent of this vice of lying (Ps 119:29). Psalm 119:29-30 Keep me from deceitful ways; be gracious to me through your law. I have chosen the way of truth; I have set my heart on your laws. A commentary, critical and explanatory, on the Old and New Testaments.

Deception. It is disappointing to see David depending on lies for protection. He lied to the priest and to the king, but he could not lie to Doeg: “For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light” (Luke 16:8). Whenever you think you have “pulled off” a smart deal, you will find a Doeg ready to give you trouble (1 Sam. 22:9ff.; see also Ps. 52).
“Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who deal truthfully are His delight” (Prov. 12:22).

Is It Ever Right to Lie?
Scripture commands us to tell the truth and warns about the consequences of lying. Jesus is our example, for there was no deceit in His mouth (1 Pet. 2:22). We must always speak the truth in love (Eph. 4:15). If our telling the truth endangers others, silence is our best response. When David ran ahead of God, he found himself in trouble and lied. The safest thing is to stay away from those situations and to pray, “Lead us not into temptation.”
With the word Bible commentary.

And this commentary points out the consequences of David's sin of lying:

David resorted to deception at this point is not clear. He may have responded in panic either to get Ahimelech to supply his needs and/or to protect the priest from later accusations concerning knowledge of David’s flight. The brief mention of Doeg anticipated his future merciless role (1 Sam. 22:18, 19). In the twisted mind of the rejected king the presence of David at Nob and the help Ahimelech gave David seemed a conspiracy against the king (1 Sam. 22:8, 13, 16, 17). With total contempt for the priesthood, Saul called for death of the priests (1 Sam. 22:16–18). His Israelite servants refused such a heinous order, but there was no hesitancy on the part of the Edomite, Doeg (1 Sam. 20:18), who extended the massacre to all Nob as a city under the ban (see 1 Sam. 15:3, note). This was a further fulfillment of the prophecy against Eli’s house (1 Sam. 2:31–33; 4:11, 18; 1 Kin. 2:26, 27). When David learned of the disaster through its only survivor, Abiathar, he confessed that he was ultimately responsible for it. This is a tragic example of how sin affects others. David assured Abiathar safety because David was sure of divine protection (1 Sam. 22:23)
1 Samuel 22:20-23 But Abiathar, a son of Ahimelech son of Ahitub, escaped and fled to join David. He told David that Saul had killed the priests of the Lord. Then David said to Abiathar: “That day, when Doeg the Edomite was there, I knew he would be sure to tell Saul. I am responsible for the death of your father’s whole family. Stay with me; don’t be afraid; the man who is seeking your life is seeking mine also. You will be safe with me.”
Woman's study Bible

There are actually many more instances of lying in the bible. Just as there are many instances of adultery, idolatry and every other sin. I seriously doubt any of us would say that adultery was ok in certain circumstances or attempt to say that God thinks it is either. Why then do we attempt to say so about lying? One of the things atheists love to say is that God approves of polygamy because that's in the bible. Well I'm sorry to let them down, but God doesn't approve it it either. Yes, it's in the bible, just like lying, adultery, stealing, idolatry, and murder, but God approves of no sin for any reason. The people in the Bible however are human just like we are and they all sinned-every single last one of them, just as we do. That is what the bible records, God doesn't approve of any sin.

Come and join us on Fresh-Hope.com!

Re: Little white lies.....

2010-08-05T10:12:00.001-04:00

Guys, I'm not saying that I never told a "little white lie", of course I have! I don't anymore because now I know it's a sin, but I did before then. What isn't good is for people to make excuses for their sins or to say or think that "God will understand because He knows my heart". Yes He will understand, and Yes, He does know our hearts. He also knows our hearts are black and deceitful and that lying is a sin that shouldn't be accepted.

Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?

Matthew 15:18-20 But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean.’ For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what make a man ‘unclean’;

Romans 3:18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

I realized that at least for me that when I began making excuses for my sins and say things like that, it showed a lack of the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord is something that's really almost alien to our generation. Those of us who are saved really have to work on that with the help of the Lord. It gets harder too because of all the tolerance that's preached and the "God is love" stuff too. Yes, God IS love, but our very definition of "love" is different now then what God calls "love". Love isn't someone saying, "oh you can do whatever you want because I love you". Tolerance isn't love! We often forget this one little line about love too:

1 Corinthians 13:6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

Please know that when I say "we" I really do mean "me" or "I" because I'm really talking about myself and my own experiences and what I've seen and learned. But let me go spend some time with the Lord and then I'll come back and write some more.

When someone asks a question such as "does this dress make me look fat" or whatever, by telling them the truth gently and with love in a diplomatic way, we are giving them the opportunity to deal with the truth instead of hiding behind a lie. Would you want someone to tell you your zipper was down or would you prefer to go around in public all day with it down because people were afraid to tell you the truth? It's always better to tell the truth and to trust God then to lie and cover up the truth in darkness. I know that my husband hasn't gotten the hang of this about clothing yet. I could care less if something makes me look fat LOL but I'm not always sure if some things go together well so I'll ask him. I want the truth! That's WHY I'm asking so that I can go change before someone else sees me! Most of the problem is though that Bruce can't tell either LOL so he always pleads the 5th!

Little white lies.....

2010-07-31T14:16:00.001-04:00

I saw an article yesterday which reminded me of the question, "are little white lies a sin"? I thought it would be a great topic for a bible study because ultimately it doesn't matter one little bit what any of us think about the subject. The only thing that matters is what God thinks about the subject.

I know many Christians are going to see this story and think it's wonderful but that one little part really bothers me and I have to wonder how many others will see it, and if they do, how many will consider it a lie? Here is a link to that thread for any who haven't seen it yet:

Jesus saves Broward storekeeper from a robbery (is it OK to lie?)

I remember my first experience on a Christian message board. It was several years before I started FH. Someone on the board was asking for advice about what she should tell her mother about something. Now this was an adult, a married woman, asking for the advice. She didn't live with her parents anymore either. What she wanted to do was tell them a lie. In her opinion it was a "little white lie" and she didn't really think God would mind... I was totally shocked at the responses she got from fellow Christians! It was quite a long thread already, with well over 30 replies and every single one of them agreed that it was perfectly OK to tell a little white lie. (which is what this woman in the story said could be referred to as)

I just couldn't believe it. So I posted and tried to say in as gentle a manner as I could that lying was never an option for a Christian and tried to explain why. Boy, talk about being flamed! There was nothing left of me but ash when those folks were done with me! I prayed about it and never posted on that thread again. I felt I had said what the Lord had wanted and it was up to them to each deal with it they way they wanted to. That experience though so profoundly affected me that I never forgot about it and it's one of the reasons I started FH.

So let's begin by looking to see just what God's Word has to say about this subject:

Colossians 3:9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices

Leviticus 19:11 .... ‘Do not lie. “ ‘Do not deceive one another.

Psalm 34:13 keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies.

Ephesians 4:25 Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body.

1 Peter 3:10 For, “Whoever would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech.

We can easily see from all of the above that we are not to lie, that's obvious. What about little white lies though? I remember when I asked someone about this myself when I was a teen. Their reply to me was to go back through my bible and see if i could find any "if"s, "and"s or "but"s in those verses. In other words, no where in God's Word do we see the Lord saying, "don't lie "unless it's to prevent hurting another persons feelings". Or don't lie "unless you have to in order to save your life". Or, "don't lie "unless you have to save someone else's life".

Those are usually the 3 big excuses we come up with to excuse our lies. We often even believe that we're doing the right thing when we do that and can even come up with verses such as to do all things in love etc that kind of back it up. Let's look then and see what else we can find out about lying, falsehood, and the truth to see just where we should draw the line.
John 8:44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

This seems to make it plain that any lie since there are no qualifiers in that verse, is a sin and is therefore coming from our sin nature and under the province of Satan.

Revelation 21:8 But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”

Again there are no qualifiers here. This doesn't say, "except for people who just tell little white lies". So this too shows us that lying is of Satan, it is a sin and is something we're not to do under any circumstance.

Psalm 119:30 I have chosen the way of truth; I have set my heart on your laws.

This is just one of many but I wanted to post it to remind us that God's way is often called the "way of truth". Do you really think that the way of truth includes little white lies?

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

Not only are God's ways called the way of truth, but God is truth, just as Jesus Himself said in the verse above.

3 John 11 Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil but what is good. Anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God.

Ephesians 5:1-2 Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

In the above verses we're told not to imitate the things of Satan and we've already seen that he is the father of lies, so we can be pretty sure that even little white lies come under this.

Ephesians 5:8-11 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.

John 8:32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Again we're reminded that we need to put off our old selves and put on our new selves. We are to live in the truth and speak only the truth. One of the characterizations of truth is that it sets the person free, while darkness (lies) puts chains on a person. The Lord will always honor us when we are obedient and speak the truth even if it might cost us our own lives or the life of someone we love. He knows how hard it is for us to trust Him so when we are obedient and choose to trust Him and speak the truth anyway, He will never let us down!

Did you catch that? That's the root of the sin when we lie to save someone's life, even our own, what we're doing is saying that we don't trust God to handle the situation unless we are disobedient. We're saying that God's ways aren't good, aren't trustworthy and don't work! Where is our trust and our faith? We're putting it in ourselves instead of in God and looking mostly to "luck" as well! That doesn't sound at all like the way God wants us to live!

Then there's the story of Ananias and his wife Sapphira when they lied to Peter about how much they sold their property for. They wanted to keep some of the money for themselves instead of giving all of it to the apostles to be used for everyone. There was noting wrong with their desire to do so and if they had told simply told the truth, that they were keeping some for themselves and giving X to the church there would have been no problem. To some this too could have been considered a little white lie. It cost them their lives though so I don't think God thought of it that way!

Acts 5:3-4 Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied to men but to God.”

The words translated "filled" in "filled your heart" means "controlled or influenced" so we see again that lies are from Satan and not of God at all, no matter what kind of lie it is.

Ananias sinned against the Holy Spirit of God by lying. The sin was not one of being stingy; Ananias and his wife simply wanted to appear more generous than they were, possibly as generous as Barnabas who had sold some land and brought the proceeds to the apostles (4:36, 37). Sudden death for both husband and wife, within three hours of each other, seems to some to be harsh judgment for their “little white lies.” Believer's Study Bible.

In many places besides the above story the bible teaches us that when we sin, it is God we are rally sinning against and not other people:

Psalm 51:3-4 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge.

Considering all of these things, I really don't think it's wise to be telling even "little white lies"!

Come and join us on Fresh-Hope.com!

Re: End Times Health Problems

2010-07-27T10:23:00.001-04:00

I think I've come across something that might shed some light on the problems we're often faced with these days health wise. I've been studying the old testament a lot lately and recently came across this passage:

2 Chronicles 16:12 In the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa was afflicted with a disease in his feet. Though his disease was severe, even in his illness he did not seek help from the Lord, but only from the physicians.

Asa wasn't following the Lord but instead was relying on other people so the Lord disciplined Him with wars and other things, even sending prophets to tell him that was why these things were happening. Finally the Lord afflicted him with this disease, but even that didn't cause him to turn to the Lord. When I read this, it reminded me of what God says in Revelation, how no matter how severe the judgments are that still the people don't repent and turn to Him.

If you look back through history, before the medical profession became so big and before it became easy for most people to seek a doctor for health care, whenever people were sick, they turned to God for help. Then doctors came along and little by little as that profession grew, people stopped turning to God and instead just like Asa, often only sought help only from the doctors.

Notice that the Lord is not condemning doctors or the medical community, but rather condemning those who do not seek His help as well.

I know that even today in the so called "less civilized" third world countries, where doctors aren't easy to find or see, the people there still seek God and when missionaries go there, we still see miracles just like those in the Bible. I remember when some folks from my church went to a place in Africa. They came back so excited and had lots of audio and video and we saw the miracles, it wasn't fake. They told us about one man who's legs were all shriveled up and atrophied from cerebral palsy (I'm very familiar with that since my youngest daughter has it). They witnessed to him and he was thrilled and asked Jesus to be his savior. They prayed for him and right before their eyes, his legs straightened out, bones, muscles, tendons, everything! Where he could never have walked or even stood before, he stood up and praised the Lord!!! My pastor's daughter, Amy who was 17 at the time was the one leading the prayer over this man and it affected her so deeply that she hasn't been the same since. She's a full time missionary there now.

The point is that God wants us to rely on Him and not on our selves or other people. He doesn't mind us going to to the doctor, that's fine, but He does mind if that's all we're doing. Just as with Asa, it wasn't that he sought a doctor, but that he "only" sought help from the doctors and not from the Lord as well. The Lord tells us:

Jeremiah 17:5 This is what the Lord says: “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the Lord.

Remember, one of the apostles was a doctor so we know the Lord doesn't mind us seeing them:

Colossians 4:14 Our dear friend Luke, the doctor, and Demas send greetings.

Now when we read some of the descriptions of the times we live in, such as in 2 Timothy 3:1-5; Romans 1:28-32 ; and 2 Peter 2:10; even when we just look around us it's pretty obvious that most people have turned from God. Even when people are living in really difficult times such as right now, where do they turn? Do you see them rushing to church, or perhaps in the bookstores buying Bibles? I see them in book stores looking for books in the "Self help" aisle, or perhaps looking for advice from other men who are "experts" in economics, finances, medicine, etc. Those that have already tried those books tend to be looking in the aisles for alternative medicine, and eastern mystical religious practices such as yoga, holistic health, meditation, visualization etc. Their next step when even that hasn't changed anything isn't to turn to to God but to go deeper yet and get involved in psychics, witchcraft, pagan or eastern religions and things like that.

Yes, just like Asa and so many others in the bible, they turn only to men instead of God, which is what He will soon be sending judgments down on them for.

Revelation 9:20-21 The rest of mankind that were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood—idols that cannot see or hear or walk. Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts.

Revelation 16:9 They were seared by the intense heat and they cursed the name of God, who had control over these plagues, but they refused to repent and glorify him.

I had never quite thought of it this way before, but we have turned other people and even ourselves into our "gods". We have become every bit as idolatrous as Israel was when they worshiped Baal going directly against God's command:

Deuteronomy 5:7 “You shall have no other gods before me.

Think of the main phrase that the bible uses to describe people during these times: "lovers of themselves" and yet the Lord tells us:

Matthew 22:37-40 Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Do you see anything at all in there about loving yourself? I sure don't! In fact loving yourself is a lie from hell that the world has been shoving down people's throats for a long time now, especially using worldly psychology to do so. The world, including us unfortunately, is now reaping the awards for what it has sown by teaching that, for indeed people are now very much "lovers of themselves", so much so that their love for others including God, has turned cold just as God said it would.

God tells us that He will discipline those He loves, so when we, like Asa, forget to seek the Lord first and foremost when we're having a problem in any area of our life, (from our health, to our finances to our emotions, or whatever it might be) we can expect His discipline.

Hebrews 12:5-6 And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.”

Revelation 3:19 Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent.

Unfortunately though the vast majority of the world and of our own society are not born again and they are not going to repent even if they finally figure out what's going on. We know that from Revelation. So I'm afraid that the discipline is going to continue. I think the seeming increase in illness, disease, pain and disability is the Lord calling people to turn to Him as well as doctors. God does give us a promise though. Returning to what started this line of thinking, read with me what happened with Asa. Since it's not too long, I'm going to post it all in context for us. See if you spot His promise to us:

2 Chronicles 16:7-13 At that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said to him: “Because you relied on the king of Aram and not on the Lord your God, the army of the king of Aram has escaped from your hand. Were not the Cushites and Libyans a mighty army with great numbers of chariots and horsemen? Yet when you relied on the Lord, he delivered them into your hand. For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. You have done a foolish thing, and from now on you will be at war.” Asa was angry with the seer because of this; he was so enraged that he put him in prison. At the same time Asa brutally oppressed some of the people. The events of Asa’s reign, from beginning to end, are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel. In the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa was afflicted with a disease in his feet. Though his disease was severe, even in his illness he did not seek help from the Lord, but only from the physicians. Then in the forty-first year of his reign Asa died and rested with his fathers.

Did you see it? Well of course you did LOL I underlined it! Isn't that neat though how the Lord hides His promises right in the midst of something like that? Let me post it separately for us to reflect on:

2 Chronicles 16:9 For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.

This has already gotten longer then I meant it too but when you have time read 2 Chronicles 15:1-2 Chronicles 16:14. Very interesting look at how the Lord deals with us and with nations as well.

related posts:

Developing Biblical Self-Esteem

Christian Psychology

End Times Health Problems

2010-07-27T10:21:00.001-04:00

Because so many of us have been so very sick lately it just seemed very unnatural to me so I asked the Lord if this was something that was part of the signs of the end times. I've been asking Him about it for some time now, but of course being sick I wasn't really able to search His Word for answers until lately. Well yesterday He gave me a clue so I had a place to start and I think I've found the beginnings of the answer to the question of why so many of us are getting sick.

Once I've done the study I will post it in the bible study forum but since it affects us personally right now I figured I'd share what I was learning as I was learning it.

Not all my notes and stuff but just the basics so you'll have an idea of where to look if you want to study this as well.

Please feel free to add your thoughts or anything the Lord has told you about this too ok? That way we can learn from each other too.

OK the clue He gave me when I asked Him again the other day was to look at "plagues". Since I'm currently reading the OT and had just read about some curses, at first I thought that was what He meant. But when I was cross referencing some of them, I kept being sent to Mat 24 which is where Jesus tells us the signs of the end time! I was thrilled! But also confused LOL

So after some study I discovered this tid bit:

Matthew 24:7 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. (NIV)

nothing in there about it though so I thought maybe it was lost in the translation and began looking at others and came to this:

Matthew 24:7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. (NKJV)

So I looked up "pestilence" to see what it said about it:

pes•ti•lence \ˈpes-tə-lən(t)s\ n

1 : a contagious or infectious epidemic disease that is virulent and devastating

Merriam-Webster's collegiate dictionary..

The words “pestilence” (Jer. 21:6) and “plague” (Num. 11:33) seem to refer to contagious diseases of epidemic proportions that God sent occasionally as instruments of judgment upon His people, as well as upon the pagan nations of the ancient world.
Nelson's new illustrated Bible dictionary.

Pestilence - Precedes the Lord’s coming Hab. 3:5

Nelson's quick reference topical Bible index.

Habakkuk 3:5 Plague went before him; pestilence followed his steps.

Here's other cross references:

Deuteronomy 32:24 I will send wasting famine against them, consuming pestilence and deadly plague; I will send against them the fangs of wild beasts, the venom of vipers that glide in the dust.

I also learned that burning coals can refer to burning diseases

interestingly some of the references had to do with judgments sent by God due to the nation coming against Israel.... just as our nation is now doing more and more...

End Times Health Problems

Give diligence

2010-07-26T08:11:00.001-04:00

— 2 Peter 1:5-7 For this very reason, giving all diligence, to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.

If thou wouldest enjoy the eminent grace of the full assurance of faith, under the blessed Spirit’s influence, and assistance, do what the Scripture tells thee, “Give diligence.” Take care that thy faith is of the right kind—that it is not a mere belief of doctrine, but a simple faith, depending on Christ, and on Christ alone. Give diligent heed to thy courage. Plead with God that he would give thee the face of a lion, that thou mayest, with a consciousness of right, go on boldly. Study well the Scriptures, and get knowledge; for a knowledge of doctrine will tend very much to confirm faith. Try to understand God’s Word; let it dwell in thy heart richly.

When thou hast done this, “Add to thy knowledge temperance.” Take heed to thy body: be temperate without. Take heed to thy soul: be temperate within. Get temperance (self-control) of lip, life, heart, and thought. Add to this, by God’s Holy Spirit, patience; ask him to give thee that patience which endureth affliction, which, when it is tried, shall come forth as gold. Array yourself with patience, that you may not murmur nor be depressed in your afflictions. When that grace is won look to godliness. Godliness is something more than religion. Make God’s glory your object in life; live in his sight; dwell close to him; seek for fellowship with him; and thou hast “godliness”; and to that add brotherly love. Have a love to all the saints: and add to that a charity, which openeth its arms to all men, and loves their souls. When you are adorned with these jewels, and just in proportion as you practise these heavenly virtues, will you come to know by clearest evidence “your calling and election.” “Give diligence,” if you would get assurance, for lukewarmness and doubting very naturally go hand in hand.

Spurgeon, C. H. (2006). Morning and evening : Daily readings

Colossians 3:16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.

Come and join us on Fresh-Hope.com!

Re: what is your take on swearing (bible study thread)

2010-07-20T13:51:00.001-04:00

The reason the term rebellion lit up like a Christmas tree for me is because God uses that term a lot to describe sin so I wanted to check and see what I might be able to find out about it, for it surely must be linked to swearing as Steve pointed out. This is actually the first verse that it brought to my mind as it may have yours:

1 Samuel 15:23 For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry.

Proverbs 17:11 An evil man is bent only on rebellion; a merciless official will be sent against him.

An evil man seeketh only rebellion. He wants only to do his thing. Nothing galls him more than the attempted restraint of authorities. His unrestrainable rebelliousness mandates that he be severely dealt with. Encountering him is like encountering a bear robbed of her whelps. He is like an enraged animal when confronted in his rebellion, and a mighty messenger will be sent against him by Yahweh. Verse 13 expresses once again the principle of retribution. This evil man reaps what he has sown. He has dispensed evil, and evil shall not depart from his house. KJV Bible commentary

Isaiah 63:10 Yet they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit. So he turned and became their enemy and he himself fought against them.

Interesting...the above verse is cross referenced with this one which we've seen over and over again: (looks like we're onto something for sure!)

Ephesians 4:29-32 Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

That's the end of chapter 4 and Paul picks it up again immediately in chapter 5:

Ephesians 5:1-4 Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving.

Continuing to look under the heading of rebellion, I was directed to these verses:

Proverbs 12:13-14 An evil man is trapped by his sinful talk, but a righteous man escapes trouble. From the fruit of his lips a man is filled with good things as surely as the work of his hands rewards him.

That one sounds a lot like what Jesus said doesn't it? And then I was directed to this verse which is similar to the one I was talking about:

Mark 7:20-23 He went on: “What comes out of a man is what makes him ‘unclean.’ For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean.’ ”

And that one led me here:

Proverbs 4:23-24 Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. Put away perversity from your mouth; keep corrupt talk far from your lips.

Of course I'm not listing all the scriptures I got or we'd be here all day lol but these are the main one. What I got out of all of them was that as we already know we should guard our hearts and mind carefully, which means being careful about what we allow into them to stay. When we sin, we're allowing sin into our hearts and minds and that's obviously not good. Since we already have a sin nature, God also reminds us over and over that our hearts (feelings) cannot be trusted, so we should always look to God and His Word to discover the truth, not to our feelings.

Jeremiah 17:9-10 The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? “I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.”

These verses about guarding our hearts and minds always remind me of the children's song, "Be careful little eyes what you see". I think there's more wisdom packed into that one little song then we realize. Remember one of the verses is, "be careful little mouth what you say"!

Yes, after having looked through the many references, I think it could be said that any sin is rebellion against God, which of course means that swearing is too. Rebellion also seems to be linked with arrogance which is linked to pride; which makes sense when you think about it. So we're getting deeper into the roots of swearing now and the roots are looking pretty ugly to me. I can only imagine what they must look like to the Lord. I've noticed over the years as I've repented from one sin after another and tried to live my life for the Lord that the root of many of the sins was/is pride of some sort or another.

When I entered the word pride in my bible's search engine, I came to this psalm:

Proverbs 8:13 To fear the Lord is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech.

And I'm sure you all remember these verses:

Proverbs 11:2 When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.

Proverbs 16:18 Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.

So in conclusion it seems as though this sin of cussing has it's roots in rebellion, arrogance and pride. No wonder it's not an easy sin to be rid of! This is going to require a lot of work if we're going to pull this out by the roots! Praise God we know we can count on Him to help us once we've confessed our sin and repented of it. I just love this verse because it shows that the Lord not only forgives us, but He purifies us:

1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

So it looks like we have our work cut out for us now, for as the scriptures say, we've been taught to say no to ungodliness and to be eager to do what is good while we wait for our Lord to return for us.

Titus 2:11-14 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.

what is your take on swearing (bible study thread)

Re: what is your take on swearing (bible study thread)

2010-07-19T14:16:00.001-04:00

I don't think there's anything wrong with just saying you're upset, but swearing allows us to supposedly express ourselves without saying what's really wrong. If we don't swear and don't replace those words with something else, then we have to actually start thinking about why we're feeling what we're feeling. And I have a sneaking suspicion that once we do start doing that, that things won't sneak up on us all of a sudden and burst out when we accidentally sill the milk, if you know what I mean.

This is the list I made for myself to start with

anger
frustration
sudden and unexpected pain,
sudden unexpected fright,
fright in general
hurt-hurt feelings
habit
for shock effect

but I'm going to change it a little bit:

anger
frustration
hurt-hurt feelings

For now I think the above three are the most important ones for me to focus on. I know for me that sometimes those three things actually combine into one angry lump. I think that perhaps I'm using the swearing as a way to hide my feelings on the one hand and yet on the other hand when others aren't able to decode and understand my feelings, even though I haven't said anything, that makes me more upset. Really brilliant of me isn't it? LOL

sudden and unexpected pain,
sudden unexpected fright,

These next two, I'm not real sure yet how to deal with, so I'll need to reflect on what God's Word says and how it applies to this for awhile first. Plus I think i should probably add another one of just plain old "surprise" to it as that kind of fits there and I know I've heard others swear when they're surprised, even pleasantly.... (if others do it, then I probably would too)

fright in general
habit
for shock effect

These last three will each have to be dealt with separately I think and again I'm going to need to reflect on God's Word about these too.

Very good points! The only thing I might disagree with is this:

Quote:

If people were relaxed and calm, would they cuss? Maybe if they hit their finger with a hammer.....
And if someone gives you a big scare, I think the s word is quite normal and very few people can control this reaction.....

Whether or not I disagree would depend on how you're using the word "normal" in this sentence. If you mean it's normal for a worldly person, someone who is not born again, then yes it probably is; but only because they've been conditioned by the world to swear at times like this.

I would imagine that centuries ago before swearing became the "norm", that when people hit their finger with a hammer or were scared suddenly, that they probably screamed rather then swore. That would be the body's "natural" reaction to something like that because of the "flight or fight" response" we all have built into us. Satan has perverted that though and turned our response from screaming to swearing/cussing/ whatever you want to call it, which is ungodly.

Quote:

You've expressed your rebellion in a way that gives you momentary control by "staring down" a situation through what in effect a cursing of what bad has happened.

another very important point regardless of whether or not we're actually cursing someone/something or just saying a vulgar word. It is a form of rebellion. The world would have us believe back in the 60's and 70's that we were rebelling against the older generation, the government, the "establishment", but in fact what everyone was rebelling against was God! This isn't what I say, it's what scripture says.

Thanks so much for pointing that out as I hadn't even thought of that! I'd like to continue with more about this tomorrow.

what is your take on swearing (bible study thread)

Re: what is your take on swearing

2010-07-18T10:46:00.001-04:00

I still do it too Bek, which is why the Lord convicted me of it and why I've decided to completely stop. Years ago I did what you're talking about--replacing the bad words with other words, and that seemed to me to be ok then. Then recently as I said, I caught myself using the bad words again at times, while at other times I would still use the ones I'd replace them with. When the Lord convicted me of it, it caused me to start thinking that perhaps it isn't just the words themselves that are bad, but what's behind the words we're saying. If that's true, then that would seem to me to mean that we should not only work on not saying the words, but in taking care of the attitude/emotions etc that cause us to say them in the first place. Am I making any sense? (I'm still kind of out of it this morning lol)

I think this might be the verse you're referring to though:

Matthew 12:33-37 “Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit. You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”

But if you read that in context you see that the words said, come from what's inside us. That isn't a very comforting thought--at least not to me; that even after many years of doing my best to make sure that I only listened to godly music, of studying His Word daily, and spending time with Him daily, that all of that couldn't "erase" the many more years of sinful living that were stored inside of me. Of course, I know that won't be entirely wiped out until we get our new bodies, but that doesn't mean we should sit around waiting and doing nothing to correct it as much as possible now. Jesus actually talked about this a great deal--(about it being what's on the inside of us that is important, and that's what needs to be cleaned up.)

So what I'm saying is that if it's what's inside of us that's the cause of these "words", then we actually have to attack this on two fronts: First the obvious front which is the words themselves, by stopping to use them; and the Second is by looking inside with the Lord's help to discover what it is inside us that we need to work on with His help.

Here's one place where the Lord talks about this that I think we're all familiar with; it shows that it's not so much the looking that's wrong, it's what is causing him to look--what's inside him:

Matthew 5:27-28 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Here's another one where He's talking to the pharisees and telling them too that it's not just what you do that the world sees that's important, it's what's in your heart, what's inside you that's important:

Matthew 23:25-26 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.

When He tells them to first clean the inside of the cup and dish, He's of course speaking of them cleaning up what's inside themselves first, because if they do that, then they will no longer have to worry about what the world sees, since they will be clean and will therefore automatically bring forth good fruit.

So if we just stop swearing and using bad words, or just change which words we use when we want to swear, we would be trying to make ourselves look good on the outside, just like the pharisees did. We don't want to do that, we want to be real, be ourselves, but not our "old selves". We want to be the people that the Lord saved us to be. Remember, He gave us a new nature, a new "self", so that's the self we want to bring out for the world to see. Paul tells us:

Ephesians 4:22-24 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

He then gives us a number of examples of how our new self is different from our old self and among those examples is this:

Ephesians 4:29-30 Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

Whenever we do things from our flesh or sinful nature it grieves the Holy Spirit because we're not listening to Him. His job is to teach us and guide us so we can grow and become more and more like Jesus. So when we don't listen to Him, it grieves Him. (upsets Him) After telling us all of this, Paul then shows us again the differences between our new selves and our old selves, telling us that we shouldn't allow ourselves to continue to do these type of things.

Ephesians 5:1-4 Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving.

So to make a long story at least a little shorter, that's why I'm trying to list the things that cause me to swear, so that with the Lord's help I can work see what it is inside me that I need to work on so that the "inside" will be clean too.

I sure hope all that made sense!

what is your take on swearing (bible study thread)

Re: Speaking of the world today, what is your take on swearing?

2010-07-16T14:30:00.001-04:00

One thing I was thinking more on was what caused me to cuss. I had already mentioned anger and frustration which seems to be the main thing. Thinking about it more though I came up with, sudden and unexpected pain, sudden unexpected fright, and even fright in general. Then in thinking back on the "anger and frustration" one, I had to include feeling hurt because often under the anger is hurt feelings. Finally the last one kind of shocked me although in my past it probably would have been the very first thing I would have mentioned, and that's "habit". The reason it shocked me was because I thought I'd ended that decades ago, even before I was saved. But the Lord pointed out to me, while it was happening, who it was that I was hearing it from constantly this past year which is part of why I've picked it up again. I was really surprised because as you all know I try very hard to be aware of my thoughts and to stay in control of them. Finally the last one I thought of was "for shock effect".

That too has taught me a lesson though. The lesson is that we can't let our guard down even when we think we've got something licked. Hopefully I won't make that mistake again!

Actually come to think of it, it showed me two lessons because it also showed me just how desensitized the world has gotten us toward this. We're so used to hearing it and reading it on everything from signs to t-shirts and of course in books and hearing it from everyone around us as well as on TV and in movies and even video games that it just goes from one ear right through the other and never stops to register. That's why God tells us to guard our hearts and minds:

Proverbs 4:23 Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.

The word translated "heart" in this verse could probably be better translated, "heart and mind" because it encompasses both since it means more then just mental and emotional capacity but also your values etc. And notice how the Lord says we're to do this "above all else"? That's just how important this is!

Now the reason I wanted to know what usually precipitated cussing for me was so I could be even more on guard against it when I was experiencing those things. So I'm going to list them here again so they're easy to see. Plus that way I can later use them to look up more about them just as I already did for "anger".

anger
frustration
sudden and unexpected pain,
sudden unexpected fright,
fright in general
hurt-hurt feelings
habit
for shock effect

If anyone can think of anything else that causes it, please let me know ok?

Finally, after showing me the verse that tells us what NOT to do yesterday, (I'm going to post these in context so we can think about the context and look at it further next time)

Ephesians 5:1-7 Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a man is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient. Therefore do not be partners with them.

the Lord led me to one that shows us what we are to do:

Colossians 4:5-6 Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

This also reminded me of a verse that jumped out at me the other day too, which reminds us again of how important it is to be in control of our thoughts and words:

2 Peter 3:1 Dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate you to wholesome thinking.

Ok, that's all I can remember for now. I'll be gone tomorrow so I'll have to pick this up on Sunday. Feel free to add to this yourselves though!

what is your take on swearing (bible study thread)

Re: Speaking of the world today, what is your take on swearing?

2010-07-16T14:28:00.001-04:00

True Barbara, and all of that is covered in this verse which should have been the first one I thought of:

Ephesians 5:3-4 But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving.

I would like to add one other thing that hit me last night when I was thinking about this. I actually thought of a whole bunch of things last night, but will write about that in a bit. But it suddenly hit me about 'calling a godly person" to find out about something. While there's nothing wrong with listening to what a godly person has to say, and we certainly should, we should never, ever, consider that their word is the final authority of whether or not something is right or wrong or is what God says about something. I certainly hope no one ever says that about the stuff I say here in the bible study forum or anywhere else for that matter. God and only God should be our final authority. When we want to know "for sure" what God thinks about something, the only place we should to go is to Him in prayer as we search His Word. When we ask others, all we're getting are other people's opinions and that includes me as well.

That's why I started this thread/bible study in the first place. First I thought it would be an interesting subject to see what others had to say. (like calling a friend to see what they think) It wasn't because I disagreed with others that I then copied the thread and turned it into a bible study, it was because even though finding out what others think is interesting and fun, it doesn't do anything toward discovering what's important and that's what God thinks about it. The only way I could determine what God thinks about this was to ask Him and do a bible study on it, so I changed this to a bible study thread and began posting the passages He gave me as I got them.

Whenever I do a bible study here I always post the scriptures and try to post them in context so that others who are reading can follow my train of thought and so they can see for themselves what the scriptures say in context. I no longer post all the scriptures I find in my bible studies (and haven't for years) because I've been told that it's just way too much info by most people. So I try to just post the most relevant ones. On average however, I generally have at the very least double the number of scriptures as the ones I've posted in any study. That's mainly because I like to be very thorough and not leave any stone unturned on whatever subject I'm studying. I guess I'm just naturally curious and have a tendency to want to know everything about everything lol The point is though, that no one should ever assume that because I've posted 8 scriptures that that is all there is about it in the bible. Trust me, there's a LOT more about any topic I've done a study on, then what I've posted. It's there for you to find if you pray and dig, looking for His treasure in His Word.

The other point I wanted to make though was that I'm no better then anyone else here. I'm just a fellow believer searching out God's Will and trusting Him to teach me and guide me in all His ways. I may know the bible a little better then some here, but then there are others that know it better then I do. And while I may know a lot in one area, someone else may know more in another area. That's how we learn and grow together. The very last thing I want to do is appear "self righteous" or "holier then thou". Even in this subject matter I've admitted that I sin in this area and it was the Lord convicting me of that sin that caused me to begin this whole thing. All I want is to learn what the Lord has to say about things so I can do my best to live the way He wants me to. So whatever it is I'm learning from the Lord about, I share with others here so that anyone else that's interested can join in too.

Anyway, I'll post more about what all I got last night a little later.

what is your take on swearing (bible study thread)

Speaking of the world today, what is your take on swearing?

2010-07-16T14:27:00.001-04:00

This is one of the verses I have listed as "example to follow" for it's how I want the Lord to be able to view me someday (I hope)

Malachi 2:6-7 True instruction was in his mouth and nothing false was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and turned many from sin. “For the lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge, and from his mouth men should seek instruction—because he is the messenger of the Lord Almighty.

I didn't realize you had posted in this thread and was just coming here to post about something else I just read that made me think of this. I'm going to continue to post what I find for myself and any others who are convicted about it. I'm not trying to convict anyone myself, that's for the Holy Spirit to do, but since He has convicted me, I do want to continue what I've started. So please don't take offense. That's why I copied the post to the bible study forum.

I'd appreciate it if those of you who disagree would keep your posts on the other thread in end times chat though so that it doesn't disrupt the study portion here ok? As I said, I'm not trying to argue, debate or convict anyone in this thread, I'm just doing what I do with all my studies and sharing what I've learned.

OK, this is part of what I was reading:
1 Corinthians 6:9-11 Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

The word slanderers reminded me of what Jesus said:

Matthew 5:22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.

(Raca means "you fool") This is another area that shows us that it's not just cursing people such as telling them to go to hell that is considered wrong. My commentary says this about it:

Furthermore, becoming angry and assuming a position of superiority over another by calling him a derogatory name (such as the Aram. Raca or You fool!) demonstrates sinfulness of the heart. The Bible knowledge commentary : An exposition of the scriptures

In searching for more information in God's Word about that, I was led to this verse, and having seen it now, I'm ashamed that I didn't think of it right away:

Ephesians 5:3-4 But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving.

The self-centered vices in conduct and speech (vv. 3-4) are the opposite of the self-sacrificing love spoken of in verses 1-2. Since these vices portray selfishness and unconcern for others, a believer should not have even a hint of these sins in his life

Improprieties in speech—obscenity (aischrotēs, “shameless talk and conduct”), foolish talk (mōrologia, lit., “stupid words”), and coarse jesting (eutrapelia, “vulgar, frivolous wit”)—are out of place for Jesus’ followers, because such vices often harm (cf. 4:29),

The Bible knowledge commentary : An exposition of the scriptures

The apostle not only cautions against the gross acts of sin, but against what some may be apt to make light of, and think to be excusable. Neither filthiness (v. 4), by which may be understood all wanton and unseemly gestures and behaviour; nor foolish talking, obscene and lewd discourse, or, more generally, such vain discourse as betrays much folly and indiscretion, and is far from edifying the hearers; nor jesting. The Greek word eutrapelia is the same which Aristotle, in his Ethics, makes a virtue: pleasantness of conversation. And there is no doubt an innocent and inoffensive jesting, which we cannot suppose the apostle here forbids. Some understand him of such scurrilous and abusive reflections as tend to expose others and to make them appear ridiculous. This is bad enough: but the context seems to restrain it to such pleasantry of discourse as is filthy and obscene, which he may also design by that corrupt, or putrid and rotten, communication that he speaks of, ch. 4:29. Of these things he says, They are not convenient. Indeed there is more than inconvenience, even a great deal of mischief, in them. They are so far from being profitable that they pollute and poison the hearers. But the meaning is, Those things do not become Christians, and are very unsuitable to their profession and character. Christians are allowed to be cheerful and pleasant; but they must be merry and wise. The apostle adds, But rather giving of thanks: so far let the Christian’s way of mirth be from that of obscene and profane wit, that he may delight his mind, and make himself cheerful, by a grateful remembrance of God’s goodness and mercy to him, and by blessing and praising him on account of these. Matthew Henry's commentary on the whole Bible

As I said earlier, the things that usually cause me to cuss are when I'm really angry and or frustrated. So I'm going to list some verses about that to think about and I want to think too about what else causes me to cuss....

Ephesians 4:31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.

Psalm 4:4 In your anger do not sin; when you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent.

Proverbs 29:11 A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control.

Proverbs 22:24-25 Do not make friends with a hot-tempered man, do not associate with one easily angered, or you may learn his ways and get yourself ensnared.

Ephesians 4:26-27 “In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.

Proverbs 15:1-4 A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. The tongue of the wise commends knowledge, but the mouth of the fool gushes folly. The eyes of the Lord are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good. The tongue that brings healing is a tree of life, but a deceitful tongue crushes the spirit.

James 1:19-20 My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.

what is your take on swearing (bible study thread)

Re: Things we "should" be thinking about

2010-07-16T11:14:00.001-04:00

Let's see, we could think about nature and how beautiful it is and maybe try and imagine (if we can lol) what heaven might be like--how beautiful it will be etc.

Speaking of imaginations, it seems someone brought that up in the other thread too because unfortunately our imaginations are often sinful or can be. Especially if we use them to imagine ourselves doing or succeeding in something the Lord has forbidden.

We could imagine ourselves in all kinds of normal earthly situations (kind of like a "what if" scenario, only imagine how we would handle various things if we were to do so in a Godly way. Like what if a co worker brought up the subject of sin, how would we handle it--and imagine ourselves doing it in such a way that it would make the Lord proud of us.

Thinking and imagining things isn't bad, as long as were doing it in a godly manner. If you think about it, in the parable of the prodigal son, the son imagines what he will say to his father to try and get his father to take him back. God gave us our minds and our imaginations but sin has corrupted them. We just need to be careful to use them in the manner and for the purpose God intended them to be used in.

Ephesians 3:20-21 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

So using our imaginations for good, to think and work out ways in which we could speak or act in a godly way in various situations would be a good use of our imagination.

Another good use for them would be to imagine ourselves becoming very knowledgeable and wise about God's ways and sharing it with others; or perhaps seeing ourselves overcome various problems or sins in our lives and imagining how that might happen. Imagining ourselves being a godly wife or husband, child or spouse etc. would be other ways to use our imaginations for good.

We might imagine ourselves doing something we really love and enjoy and having that as our job and imagine how we would grow spiritually while doing it; or just imagine ourselves growing spiritually as we do whatever our job is now.

There are millions of things we could imagine that would be godly ways of using our imaginations.

Something Barbara said on another thread reminded me of something that's always good to think about, dwell on, imagine about and even pray about:

And that reminds me of a story about my oldest granddaughter when she was two years old. It was Thanksgiving Day and my daughter was having her first Thanksgiving Dinner at her house so it was very special. We were all sitting at the table and the food smelled wonderful. My daughter began to say the blessing over the meal and Cassandra piped up saying she wanted to say the prayer lol, so Michelle told her she could.

So Cassandra began praying:

Dear God, thank you for our house, for our kitchen and our table and our sink to wash the dishes in, thank you for our dishes and the silverware too; thank you for our couch and for my rocking chair; thank you for my toys (she then named quite a few of them!) thank you for our toilet and the bathtub and the sink and our toothbrushes; thank you for soap and toilet paper and for my mommy's hair brush; thank you for my barrettes,thank you for my hair, and thank you for water to drink and water to wash in; thank you for my daddy's coffee; thank you for my mommy, daddy, grandpa, grandma (and that list went on quite awhile too) and thank you for the vacuum and the broom and sponges to clean up messes; thank you for the TV and the stereo and for music; thank you for clean sheets and pillows and blankets to keep us warn; thank you for our car and the phone and mommy and daddy's jobs, and for our money, and the trees outside; the sun and the beach, the moon and stars at night, the sand, the grass and flowers, for our curtains, our beds, our kitty, and the kitty's food, .....

That little one continued on like this for at least a full five minutes before Michelle tried to stop her and let her know that the food was getting cold! She said she'd be done soon so Michelle let her continue. and continue she did for another full five minutes!

Finally Michelle told her she had to stop lol and she ended her prayer, "In Jesus' Name, Amen!" We all were laughing at first but I had tears in my eyes by the end of it because I had learned more that thanksgiving day from my two year old granddaughter then I ever would have suspected! That little one truly understood what being thankful was all about and understood that all those things she named really were blessings from the Lord. It made me think of these verses right away:

Psalm 8:2 From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise

Matthew 11:25 At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.

Matthew 18:2-4 He called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

I vowed that day to never forget the lesson she taught me. In fact this past Thanksgiving Michelle again had Thanksgiving Dinner at her house with the whole family. Cassandra was 12 then and after Michelle led us in prayer, I reminded Cassandra of her first real Thanksgiving dinner and her prayer that day. I thanked her for all she taught me and told her that I have shared the story with many people since then so really she has taught many about thankfulness and counting our blessings. I pray it's something she will never forget, and that it's something that will help many including me to remember to be thankful for everything we have, because really, we have so much!

I think I'll go count my blessings right now! Being so much older then Cassandra was, I should be able to count them for a very long time!!! (and each and every one of you are a blessing to me!)

Come and join us on Fresh-Hope.com!

Things we "should" be thinking about

2010-07-16T11:11:00.001-04:00

In our bible study on Stress,worry,fear etc & the Christian We were looking at some verses where we are told what kinds of things we should be thinking on instead of worrying and having fearful or depressing thoughts. Barbara suggested that we should have a thread where we could list the good things we could think about to replace the sinful thoughts.

In preparing to start this thread I started reading what the commentaries said about Philippians 4:8 and was shocked to find that they say exactly what we've been talking about in our study! So to help us think up "good thoughts" I'm including these commentaries since they break it down more and that can give us more ideas. Plus they'll show you that I'm not the only one that has realized that this is God's prescription to living in peace and joy

First though, here is the main passage we're working from:

Philippians 4:4-8 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

Here are what a few of the commentaries had to say about this:

Character and conduct begin in the mind. Our actions are affected by the things we dwell on in our thoughts. Paul cautions his readers to concentrate on things that will result in right living and in God’s peace Spirit filled life study Bible.

Finally. In conclusion.
Whatsoever. Whatsoever introduced six adjectives picturing old-fashioned Christian ideas.
True.Resting on reality and aiming at reality.
Honest. Honorable, dignified, worthy of reverence, the combination of gravity and dignity.
Just. Righteous relations between man and man, and man and God. Pure. Stainless, chaste, unsullied.
Lovely. Lovable, endearing, amiable, gracious, charming, pleasing, winsome.
Of good report. Attractive, fair speaking.
If there be any virtue. Mental, moral, and physical excellence.
If there be any praise. Anything praiseworthy, deemed worthy of praise.
Think on these things. Meditate on them with careful reflection, not casually and superficially, but constantly and logically. “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Prov 23:7). Noble thinking produces noble living; high thinking produces high living; and holy thinking produces holy living. All these noble qualities were exemplified in Christ and are produced by the Holy Spirit. KJV Bible commentary.

Right Thinking (Phil. 4:8)

Peace involves the heart and the mind.“Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee: because he trusteth in Thee” (Isa. 26:3). Wrong thinking leads to wrong feeling, and before long the heart and mind are pulled apart and we are strangled by worry. We must realize that thoughts are real and powerful, even though they cannot be seen, weighed, or measured. We must bring “into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5).

“Sow a thought, reap an action.

Sow an action, reap a habit.

Sow a habit, reap a character.

Sow a character, reap a destiny!”

Paul spells out in detail the things we ought to think about as Christians.

Whatever is true.Dr. Walter Cavert reported a survey on worry that indicated that only 8 percent of the things people worried about were legitimate matters of concern! The other 92 percent were either imaginary, never happened, or involved matters over which the people had no control anyway. Satan is the liar (John 8:44), and he wants to corrupt our minds with his lies (2 Cor. 11:3). “Yea, hath God said?” is the way he approaches us, just as he approached Eve (Gen. 3:1ff). The Holy Spirit controls our minds through truth (John 17:17; 1 John 5:6), but the devil tries to control them through lies. Whenever we believe a lie, Satan takes over!

Whatever is honest and just. This means “worthy of respect and right.” There are many things that are not respectable, and Christians should not think about these things. This does not mean we hide our heads in the sand and avoid what is unpleasant and displeasing, but it does mean we do not focus our attention on dishonorable things and permit them to control our thoughts.

Whatever is pure, lovely, and of good report. “Pure” probably refers to moral purity, since the people then, as now, were constantly attacked by temptations to sexual impurity (Eph. 4:17–24; 5:8–12). “Lovely” means “beautiful, attractive.” “Of good report” means “worth talking about, appealing.” The believer must major on the high and noble thoughts, not the base thoughts of this corrupt world.

Whatever possesses virtue and praise. If it has virtue, it will motivate us to do better; and if it has praise, it is worth commending to others. No Christian can afford to waste “mind power” on thoughts that tear him down or that would tear others down if these thoughts were shared.

If you will compare this list to David’s description of the Word of God in Psalm 19:7–9, you will see a parallel. The Christian who fills his heart and mind with God’s Word will have a “built-in radar” for detecting wrong thoughts. “Great peace have they which love Thy Law” (Ps. 119:165). Right thinking is the result of daily meditation on the Word of God.

The Bible exposition commentary. "An exposition of the New Testament comprising the entire 'BE' series"

So, now that you have an idea of what we're talking about, what are some of the things you think we could dwell on that would meet the requirements of what Paul tells us in that passage in Philippians?

Come and join us on Fresh-Hope.com!

The notion of divine control

2010-07-16T11:08:00.001-04:00

The notion of divine control

How much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him? Matthew 7:11.

Jesus is laying down rules of conduct for those who have His Spirit. By the simple argument of these verses He urges us to keep our minds filled with the notion of God’s control behind everything, which means that the disciple must maintain an attitude of perfect trust and an eagerness to ask and to seek.

Notion your mind with the idea that God is there. If once the mind is notioned along that line, then when you are in difficulties it is as easy as breathing to remember—Why, my Father knows all about it!. It is not an effort, it comes naturally when perplexities press. Before, you used to go to this person and that, but now the notion of the Divine control is forming so powerfully in you that you go to God about it. Jesus is laying down the rules of conduct for those who have His Spirit, and it works on this principle—God is my Father, He loves me, I shall never think of anything He will forget, why should I worry?

There are times, says Jesus, when God cannot lift the darkness from you, but trust Him. God will appear like an unkind friend, but He is not; He will appear like an unnatural Father, but He is not; He will appear like an unjust judge, but He is not. Keep the notion of the mind of God behind all things strong and growing. Nothing happens in any particular unless God’s will is behind it, therefore you can rest in perfect confidence in Him. Prayer is not only asking, but an attitude of mind which produces the atmosphere in which asking is perfectly natural. “Ask, and it shall be given you.”

Chambers, O. (1993, c1935). My utmost for his highest : Selections for the year (July 16). Grand Rapids, MI: Discovery House Publishers.

Re: Speaking of the world today, what is your take on swearing?

2010-07-15T11:37:00.001-04:00

What I've been thinking about lately about it is that God calls us to be separate from the world. Often when I'm reading His Word, I can see that His ways are the total opposite of the world's ways, so that no longer surprises me. Often I've discovered things in His Word (like this subject) that I've never really given much thought to, that tell me that He has given it thought. Like so many other things that I "want to do", usually when I saw something like that, my first response was to ignore it. When I could no longer ignore it, my next response was to question each word I used. "Well can I say this then?". Like a little child who's mom has told them that they can't eat cookies before dinner, so they pick at the crumbs and the broken pieces instead. (cause if they're broken you're not "really" eating a cookie ) Now though the Lord has finally been able to convict me entirely and I'm ready to repent and stop eating the broken pieces and the crumbs.

I'm ready to be further separate myself from this world and be the godly woman He's called me to be. Somehow when I read these verses, I can't see that person swearing/cursing etc. for any reason:

1 Peter 2:5 you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

1 Peter 2:11-12 Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

When I've used swear words or cussing in front of others, even as a joke, I've become part of the crowd and I'm accepted as "one of them". Looking back on my life, I can clearly see that now, and I don't want to be one of them anymore. I want to be someone who people can see is always different from them so that they will want what I have that makes me different. (Jesus of course)

You know, like Lulu said, for a long time after we were married, my pet name for Bruce was "jerk". It was a joke between us of course and I never thought too much about it until one day Bruce pointed out to me how bad it sounded to others. Of course I defended it because no one likes hearing they've done something wrong. But after praying I knew he was right so I asked both the Lord and Bruce to forgive me and haven't called him that since. (well I did slip once in a while at first, but you know what I mean)

Now, being a member of God's household, a citizen of heaven and while here an ambassador of Christ, I just don't think I would be being a very good ambassador for Him if I continue to use words in that way. To me, after having read all those verses I posted before, I think that by using words that way, I am both setting a bad example for others, and more importantly am putting my Lord in a bad light since I represent Him.

The hard part for me is determining what I "should say" then. I'm accustomed to taking my thoughts captive and replacing them with God's Truth, but in this case I need to replace them with ordinary words lol, and believe it or not, that's harder for me because that means I have to think about it and can't do it instantly.

So I decided that in instances where I would normally be upset and frustrated and so might say "shoot" (or whatever lol) that if I'm feeling that way because of something I've done/a mistake I've made, etc, then I'll simply say, "Oh no!" or "oh no, I did it again!" That way I won't be using any curse word at all.

Although all the verses I posted have convicted me of this, I think these are the ones that really got me:

James 3:9-12 With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.

1 Thessalonians 5:22 Abstain from all appearance of evil.

James 1:26 If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless.

1 Peter 3:10 For, “Whoever would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech.

Speaking of the world today, what is your take on swearing?