Some time ago I was asked about doing a bible study about cleaning our houses and I thought, why not? I've always tried to clean my house for the Lord based scripture and thought I could share that with the rest of you. When I was a little girl, it was my job to set the table for dinner and I would always set an extra place for Jesus just in case He came. (It drove my mother nuts! 
) That's where it really started for me though. From there I determined to keep my room clean, just in case the Lord should show up "for real".
When I was saved as an adult and began studying His Word, I discovered that I wasn't being really silly by doing those things after all. When the Lord was teaching the Jew's about how to worship Him, and giving them His laws, He also taught them quite a lot about cleanliness and how important it was. Part of what He was trying to teach them was that everything they did and said should be done with Him in mind, which is why He gave them so many rules about cleanliness. They had to think about Him no matter what they were doing at home, at work, or at play or they would wind up "unclean" and unable to worship Him. When you think about it, it's very much like what we're told in Colossians 3:17 —And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. *
The Lord wants to be part of everything in our lives, not just part of the supposed "religious portions" of our lives. He doesn't want what we do for Him to be somehow separate from the rest of our lives. For instance, He wants to be part of it every time we bake a casserole, not just when we're baking one to give to someone in need.
Another thing I learned was that if we wanted something we then needed to take good care of what we already had. I'd been told that if we didn't take care of what the Lord had already given us, why would we then expect Him to give us something more- like a bigger house or nicer car, etc? I was also reminded that the Lord expects us to be grateful for what we already have and because of our gratitude we should take good care of it. That's true in every area of our lives but for me, I applied it especially to my home.
If I didn't take care of the home the Lord had given me, then to me that was showing Him that I didn't appreciate it enough to do so and I certainly didn't want Him to think that!
I remember when I was living in the apartment the Lord had gotten me before we were able to buy our house. I'd prayed for His help to find a home for myself and the children and this was the one He'd brought me to. It was just plain horrible as far as I was concerned. To me it was like living in a slum and I hated it, but it was all I could afford. I was relieved and grateful to have found it though because otherwise we wouldn't have had any place to live. It took me quite awhile to go from hating that apartment to truly appreciating it, but I kept working on myself until I did. I really was grateful that we weren't out on the street so that was where I started. From day one I began cleaning that apartment (it was filthy) until it shone. Once it was clean it didn't look quite so bad. Next, little bit by little bit, I did whatever I could to make it more comfortable for us and make it look nicer, both inside and outside. We didn't have a driveway, all the cars just parked right in front of the building with a street running behind the parking spaces. But at least once a week I was outside sweeping those parking spaces to make it look neater and to keep the dust down inside the house. The neighbors thought I was nuts, but I didn't care. I did it for the Lord to show Him I appreciated what He'd given me. The water was unusable for drinking or bathing, but I managed to buy a water filtering system as that was really a necessity. The lord had His hand in that because the company had never allowed anyone to buy it on credit and just pay a certain amount a month...they never did till they met me anyway. I know that was the Lord's doing though. I painted inside with the help of my children (I'm not good at that but did the best I could). Little by little over the years, with the Lord's help, I turned that nasty apartment into a home.
We'd been living there for 8 years when I finally asked the Lord for a new home and He brought us to the house we have now. it was a dream come true! But all that time in the apartment, I'd kept it clean and took good care of it for Him. Now I do the same in the house He's given us as a way to say thank you to Him There's yet another reason to keep our homes clean though. It's called self control and/or self discipline. When you study the bible, from Genesis to Revelation, the Lord talks about being self disciplined and using self control. In fact, self control is even one of the fruits of the spirit. There were many times and still are, when I don't want to clean my house, but I know that by doing so I'm exercising my muscles of self control and self discipline which the Lord requires of us. In 2 Timothy 1:7 —For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. * we see that when we're saved, God gives us the ability to have self discipline. (depending on the translation you use, that word can be translated either as self discipline or self control and means having an orderly life.) That's a very important characteristic for us to develop for the Lord. (It must be important or He wouldn't give it to us or include it as a fruit of the spirit, right? Like any gift though, it must be used in order for it to grow and be strong. Luckily for us, we have many opportunities every day to exercise this gift. 1 Corinthians 14:40 tells us that everything should be done in an orderly way...meaning using self discipline/self control. In fact, we're warned in 2 Thessalonians 3:6 and other places to keep away from those who don't have self discipline, and are not leading orderly lives. It seems that the Lord wants us to practice self discipline and control in all areas of our lives as this is something that's spoken of in many places throughout the bible. Since we all have homes that need cleaning, that gives us all a very easy way to improve our self control and self discipline. I've always felt it was important to do that since we're told to exercise self discipline at all times.
But I have to admit, for me, I still like cleaning my house in case the Lord should pop in physically to visit...and I remind myself daily that He is here in the house He gave me every day, and I most certainly want to make sure He's comfortable and that He sees I'm taking good care of it for Him. Doing it for that reason seems to make what many consider an onerous chore into something done for love, so it's not so onerous anymore.
That brings me to one other idea I had along ago... the first Christians, like us, really believed, they knew Jesus would be returning soon and that it could be at literally any moment. They were literally looking over their shoulders to see if it might be Him they'd just heard or caught a glimpse of. That's how I try to live too... as if He could pop in at any moment. I don't want Him to find me being lazy or not taking care of what He's given me, or not doing the work He's given me to do. And more then that, I want Him to find me doing it with an attitude of thankfulness.
I'll tell you as secret too. It's something I didn't even realize until my boss pointed it out to me a number of times. It was part of my job to clean the house where my patient lived and she discovered that whenever I was cleaning, I'd be either singing or humming a praise song. 
I was terribly embarrassed when she pointed it out and actually tried to stop because I have a terrible voice when it comes to singing but no matter how I tried, as soon as I'd forget, I'd be singing again! I still do it. I don't know when or why I started doing it, it just seems to be part of how I clean. But I have to admit that I do like doing that when I'm cleaning...it makes it much more enjoyable.
Sometimes people use the story of Mary and Martha to excuse them from keeping their house clean, but that's not at all what Jesus was saying. Martha had her priorites mixed up, true, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't keep our homes clean. If she's been prepared for a possible visit like this, then she wouldn't have had to be overworked and anxious would she? So if she'd shown more self discipline before His visit, things might have gone quite differently for her. Jesus was also trying to tell her another thing the Bible teaches, that there's a time and a place for everything. (do you see the "order" in that?) and that she wasn't seeing what was important for that particular time and place. If her home had been clean and the meal prepared as much as possible in advance, with everything that could be taken care of already done, then she too could have sat at His feet and learned from Him instead of trying to listen as she worked to get things done. Being prepared is something else the Lord teaches us.
I guess the last thing I tend to think about as far as keeping my house clean is that we're all ambassadors of Christ and as His ambassador what other people see when they see me or my house, is going to reflect on how they view Him. I want to make sure that their opinion of Him isn't bad because I don't keep my house clean and therefore give a bad impression.
There's probably much more that could be said about this, but for me these are the things that come to mind right away about it. Let me leave you with this scripture which is all about what we do in our homes and how we live. It too is talking about being self controlled and living an orderly life, so that others won't malign God's Word.
Titus 2:3–5 —Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. *Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, *to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God. * LiveJournal Tags:
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The Lord tells us to have a special "quiet time" with Him daily, and to pray constantly throughout the day. The difference between the two is that during your special time of prayer (often done just before or after bible study time) it's just you and the Lord and your full concentration and attention is on Him, and Him alone. Generally this time is more intimate, a time when you share your heart with the Lord; your most private thoughts, your hopes and fears, wants and needs; and when He shares His heart with you. (It's because He also shares His heart with us during this time that this is often done just before our bible study time, as that's how He speaks to us.)
Then, when you pray constantly throughout the rest of the day, you're doing so as you're doing other things...be it cleaning house, caring for children/grandchildren, working in your garden, shopping, at work, at school, visiting with friends or neighbors, etc. During that time, obviously, it's not just you and the Lord, as all kinds of other stuff is going on around you that you have to pay attention to. So your attention isn't fully on Him, but instead you're simply sharing what's going on in your day with Him.
Both types are needed to develop your relationship with the Lord.
Again, you can relate it to an earthly relationship, same thing goes for that kind too. If you're in love with someone, you want to spend time alone with them, so there's no outside interference; it's just the two of you alone, enjoying each others company, sharing your hopes and fears, and getting to know each other better and better. But we can't be alone with them all the time, so the rest of the time we just chat with them when we can, and it's usually not about personal stuff, but rather about every day things, like "did you take out the trash today?" or, "do you know where the ruler is?", or "would you please shut off that TV!" lol That kind of interaction is needed too though as it helps you continue to know one another better and how you each react during a busy day, and how well you can trust each other to remember things that are important, do the things that are important, etc.
Without both kinds of communication, we're keeping part of ourselves apart from God, a part He wants to share with us and not developing or experiencing the awesome and close relationship we can have with Him. It's like a person who's afraid to have someone love them so they only allow the person to get "so close" and then begin pushing them away. That's what we do wen we don't have both kinds of communication with Him.
It's really a shame too because that's what the Lord has been desiring to have with us since the beginning. It often breaks my heart when I'm studying or reading the old testament to see how very often our Father tried to get the people to have a real relationship with Him, and they just kept refusing. Like after the Exodus when He told Moses to gather all the people together and He would speak to them; but the people said "no!" They were too scared, and not really all that interested. As far as they were concerned, it was just fine with them for God to talk to Moses and then Moses could tell them what He wanted. They weren't interested in talking to Him or hearing from Him themselves. After all, that would make them different just like Moses was! (i always cry when I read that part...I imagine the Father standing with His arms open wide, eager to embrace His children, that He just rescued from slavery, and every one of His children, turned their backs and walked away. 
) That story is in Exodus 19-20; Deuteronomy 5, and Hebrews 12:18–21.
When the Lord talks about "knowing us" or "calling us by name", He's talking about the kind of relationship where everything is shared...both the intimate times of sharing what's in each others heart and the times of just sharing our day with Him. That's similar to what He's talking about when He says to "abide in Him", "live in Him" or "walk in Him." I guess you could say it's the difference between having Him as a well known acquaintance, like you might know a co-worker, and knowing Him intimately, like you would a husband or wife; or the difference between knowing all about Him and really knowing Him; the big difference is between head knowledge and heart knowledge. I think that's part of the reason He uses illustrations of marriage so often when referring to His relationship with Israel or with us; and the illustration of adultery when speaking of those who have abandoned Him for the world.
When we really stop and think about it...what an extraordinary privileged we have! The creator of the universe, the God who formed our bodies and gave us our intelligence and talents etc. is the very same God who came to this earth and gave up His life so that we might spend eternity with Him. All because He loves us - not as some impersonal "group" of homo sapiens, but as individuals! And He loved us even when we were at our very worst, drowning and wallowing in a pit of sin and evil.
Nor does He loves as as we might love a lower life form, like a cat, dog or bird or fish. No matter how much we might love them, we would never literally make them our children and leave our inheritance to them! (not if we had a sound mind anyway - what would they do with a dishwasher, microwave, dishes, vacuum, computer, TV, car, and money???) But God loves us that way! He loves us so much that besides creating us, He quite literally, and legally makes us who have His children! It always reminds me of what John said: 1 John 3:1 —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! * That could just as easily be translated, "what an amazing, fantastic, love the Father has for us" or "what a peculiar, out of this world kind of love the Father has for us", etc. John's run out of words to describe it, just like we do!
And this God who loves us so very much, so far beyond what we can even comprehend, isn't satisfied with just knowing us intimately...He wants us to know Him intimately! That is just truly incredible! Like when He walked in the garden with Adam and Eve every day, talking to them, loving them, teaching them; that's what He wants with each and every one of us. That's why He wants us to spend both private time with Him every day as well as continue to share our day with Him throughout the day. It's incredible!
He wants to walk with us and be with us. He loves us and tells us He will never, ever leave us, and that absolutely nothing can separate us from Him anymore because He is greater and stronger by far then everything and everyone, including us. So He calls us to know His Heart, which is contained in His Word, and tells us that through these two kinds of prayer and knowing His Word, we can really know Him. It's really mind boggling, isn't it? And yet still today, people do the very same thing Israel did. They turn their backs and walk away, saying, they'll just listen to what He's said to someone else instead of hearing from Him themselves; or just walk away and completely ignore Him. It breaks my heart all over again.
As you can probably tell, I think about this alot...I can't help it...the Lord has freely given us such a fantastic, unbelievable privilege of knowing Him intimately, it makes me want to stand up and sing and shout His praises! LiveJournal Tags:
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I did a study on Forgiving awhile ago, but it's quite long so I thought I'd try and condense it for those who don't have time for the longer studies. However, if after reading this, you would like more information, the bible verses about it etc. please go to the above link for it's a very good study...even if all you read is the 1st post, you'll get a lot out of it. To start with, we're to forgive others the way the Lord forgives us. That means we need to go to them and tell them how they sinned and then if they repent, tell them they are forgiven. We also need to let them know that means we won't bring up the sin to them, to others, or even to ourselves again or ever use it against them, for that's how the Lord forgives us. Just knowing this little bit bring us all kinds of questions!
Why should we go to them, shouldn't they be coming to us? Well, yes, they should, but the Lord commands us to go to them just as He commands them to go to us and confess and repent, so ideally both parties should be on their way to each other right away. It rarely works that way though, so the Lord says, we're to go to them if they haven't already come to us. It helps if we understand the Lord's reasons behind His commands. His command to us that He tried to drill into our heads over and over is to love one another, and for unity in the body of Christ, so this is all about reconciliation. For the body of Christ to work the way the Lord intended, there can't be hard feelings between the various members of it. I'm not talking here about the members of a local church, but of the whole body, which is all who've been saved. That bring up another question...what about those who aren't saved? What do we do then? The Lord never forgives us until we repent and then we become saved. Before then we really don't understand about sin, repentance or forgiveness and what it really means. So with the unsaved, we can only offer them a shallow portion of what we give each other when we forgive. But, in so doing, we're at the same time giving them an example of what being saved is all about and it can give us a great opening too to talk to them about the real deal...about salvation in Christ. We can explain to them that we can forgive them for ourselves, but that we can't forgive their actual sin for only God can do that, and for that they need to recognize that they need a Savior, etc. We can explain that when we forgive, it also means we won't bring the sin up to them, ourselves or others ever again or use it against them in any way, just as the Lord does for us when He forgives us and saves us. This can plant many good seeds the Lord can use to bring them into His Kingdom. But, do we have to forgive someone who's not saved? Yes, God still commands us to forgive them. His reasons for this are similar, for we're commanded to love them as well as other believers, though for a different reason. First because we don't know that they won't one day be a believer and our brother or sister in Christ. Only the Lord knows that. Therefore the Lord doesn't want things coming between us and them that might stand in our way if/when they do become a believer. Secondly, He wants us to represent Him to them, so we're literally to be Him to them, act as He would, speak as He would, forgive as He would. Of course this is to hopefully bring them into His Kingdom one day. The Lord knows that because they are unbelievers though that forgiveness and reconciliation won't always be possible. That's why He tells us regarding unbelievers, Romans 12:18 —If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. * Therefore we're to do all we can to live at peace with them.
All of this can be difficult but it seems the most difficult part is that we usually don't "feel like" forgiving them, whether they're saved or not. Yet, the Lord never tells us to do something that's not possible, so how do we deal with this? First we have to realize that our feelings have absolutely nothing to do with it. Seriously, they don't! We often do things we don't feel like. Every morning I used to have to be up no later then 6 so I could be at work by 7. When that alarm clock went off, I sure didn't feel like getting up, but I did, and I surely didn't want to go to work, or feel like it, but again, I did. Day after day. It's the same thing with forgiveness.
I never asked anyone if I'd truly gone to work that day since I hadn't felt like it that morning when I'd awakened, and yet we constantly find ourselves asking if we really forgave someone since we didn't feel like it when we did it and our feelings for them hadn't changed. The answer to that is simple. Of course we forgave them! (assuming we forgave the way the Lord forgives us anyway)
Part of the reason our feelings about the person haven't changed though is usually because we didn't really forgive them the way the Lord does us. We left out the part about not bringing the matter up to them, to others, or even to ourselves again. That's the clincher! And how in the world do we do that???? Again, the Lord tells us how. Obviously the Lord can't and doesn't really "forget" our sins. He knows everything, and if He literally forgot them, then He wouldn't know everything and that contradicts His Word. What He means is that He doesn't think of our sins; He doesn't dwell on them, He doesn't hold them against us, even when we later repeat the same sin again. And that's exactly what He requires us to do. He calls it "taking our thoughts captive and making them obedient to Christ." (2 Corinthians 10:5 ) There is a short teaching about this subject here if you need to know how to do this: Taking Thoughts Captive it does take self discipline, but it's what the Lord expects of us and it will change us to be more like Christ in more ways then I can begin to count here. Basically, what it means is that whenever we find ourselves beginning to think about (or speak about) what happened, we literally stop the thoughts/words before they go any further, reminding ourselves of our promise and that the Lord has done this many times for us. Since we have broken our promise, we then need to ask the Lord's forgiveness. Because of our sin nature, at first we'll find ourselves thinking of it quite often or wanting to think about it anyway, so we'll constantly have to take those thoughts captive and replace them with God's Truth as described in the thread I mentioned. The more we do this, the less often it will happen, until eventually we will find that our feelings will begin to reflect the feelings of our Lord instead of our old sin nature. Eventually those old feelings will be entirely replaced with those of love from our new nature that's like the Lord. This is what makes true forgiveness and reconciliation really possible.
So remember, our feelings, don't matter as far as whether or not we can forgive or have forgiven. They will eventually begin to reflect the truth though the more we keep our thoughts in line with the Lord's when the matter does come to our attention. When we forgive someone, it's a big deal, and something major happens in the spiritual realm and for the person being forgiven as well as for us. Giving or receiving forgiveness is not something that should ever be done lightly or without prayerful thought, which it often seems to be these days. Forgiveness is something we do out of love for our Lord to be obedient to Him; so we offer the offender a gift...not because they earned it by repenting, but because we love the Lord.
It's very different from the world's way of "apology". When people apologize, they don't have to confess any sin or even admit why they're really sorry. They could simply be sorry they got caught or that their reputation might suffer or for other consequences of what they did. They don't have to recognize that God has anything at all to do with it even. They're not promising you anything at all either. That doesn't mean however that we should never say we're sorry, but we should be aware of the difference between the two.
As I said at the start, I realize this doesn't cover anywhere near all the questions concerning forgiveness and forgetting concerning both the saved and unsaved, but I hope it gives at least a glimpse of how the Lord wants us to forgive and why. And of course, I hope it helps others as it has me in my own life. For more information see: Understanding Forgiveness and Forgiving
Taking Thoughts Captive LiveJournal Tags:
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How to find God's Will When You're Experiencing a Problem, Going through a Trial, being tempted, or whatever you may be going through.
Whenever we have a problem we have to deal with, we need to ask ourselves, "how does the Lord want me to handle this?". We may have other questions too such as "why" it's happening, or what we should or shouldn't do about it. To get your answer to those and other questions, you go to your bible to find out how God wants you to handle it. Most importantly though you pray and ask the Lord to guide you as you look through His Word to see how He wants you to respond to your current situation. Why? Because that's how the Lord speaks to us today. While He's perfectly capable of speaking to us with His voice or in other ways, He generally speaks to us through His Word, so when we need to find an answer, that's where we need to go to talk to Him. Otherwise the only answers you're libel to get are a nudging to go to His Word or silence.
I'm going to pretend that the problem is co workers harassing you at work. Another word for someone that's harassing us is persecute:
Persecute means: To oppress or harass with ill-treatment,
To annoy persistently; bother.
to subject to harassing or cruel treatment,
to oppress, torment, frustrate, harass, etc. If you have a "concordance" or "index" in your bible, look up the word, "persecute" If not, you can use an online bible and search for the word on it. Not every verse with that word in it is going to be what we're looking for, but it's a good place to start and it's pretty easy to weed out the ones that aren't going to be helpful.
What you'll want to do is read the ones you think may apply to your situation, but you need to read them "in context" and not just that particular verse. If you only read that verse you'd miss a lot of what God has to say to you about it..
Just to give you some good ideas of words to look up when you're having a problem, going through a trial or something like that, let me give you some common words that are always good to look up during these times. You can also use these words to look up if you don't get enough information on the word you choose to look up first: suffer
enemy trouble
test discipline trial
Or you could look up a word or words that you notice show up a lot in the verses you already found. In the ones I'll list for you, you'll notice the word "perseverance" shows up a lot, so you could look that word up and see what other verses with that word in it say.
Since we're pretending you're being persecuted, I've looked up the word "persecute" in the New Testament, and I've picked out the ones that I think are the most helpful for us.
Remember, when you're doing this on your own, you need to read them in context too so you know how God wants you to respond and why. For that reason, I'm going to include verses that either come before or follow the one with the word persecute in it for you here.
As you read each scripture, you'd ask yourself the following questions:
A. What God is saying to you about how you should handle your situation now,
B. What you should expect or why
C. What He will do for you.
Some of the scriptures won't have all three of those in it, but answer as many of those three questions as you can for each scripture. I've chosen 7 scriptures for our pretend problem. All you have to do is choose scriptures that looked like they might have something to do with what you're going through. I'll post the ones I chose here so you can see why it's important to read them in context. Obviously when you look up the scripture, you'll first read the verse with that word in it, but then look both back before that verse and after that verse to see what's pertinent to your situation now. (Remember, you're looking for the answers to those three questions I posted above as you read the following scriptures) 1. Matthew 5:44–47 44 But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?
2. John 15:20 20 Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. 3. Romans 12:12–21 12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13 Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. 14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. 17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. 20 On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
4. 1 Corinthians 4:11–13 11 To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. 12 We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; 13 when we are slandered, we answer kindly. Up to this moment we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world. 5. 2 Corinthians 12:7–10
7 To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 6. 2 Thessalonians 1:4–10
4 Therefore, among God’s churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring. 5 All this is evidence that God’s judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering. 6 God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you 7 and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. 8 He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power 10 on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you. 7. 2 Timothy 3:12–13 12 In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, 13 while evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
Having answered the 3 questions or as many as you could for each scripture you read, you would now do the following:
1. Make a list of steps that you can take to do what God wants you to do about this.
2. Considering everything you've learned now, write down what you think the Lord may be either trying to teach you or help you practice.
3. Ask the Lord to help you respond to this problem the way He's now shown you that He wants you to.
Now that you are all done, all your questions should be answered, and you now know exactly what the Lord wants your attitude to be and what He wants you to do. The most important part of this entire process though is that we should be talking to the Lord about it asking His guidance before we look up the verses, while we're looking them up and studying them and after we've done so. We need to remember that He's right there with us, guiding us and that most of all, He wants to talk to us through His Word and make it personal to us. This way we not only get our questions answered, and answered correctly, but we also become closer to our Lord. This is how the Lord wants us to get our answers for right after talking about trials, He tells us:
James 1:5–8 (NIV) 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. 6 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. 7 That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.
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The last days for the Church - us - doesn't look too good.
We've talked a lot about false teachers, cults, false prophets etc and how there are so many false teaching these days. We've talked about the great lie and how many unbelievers will be deceived by the antichrist during the tribulation. We often talk about how unbelievers are deceived. But we haven't talked about something that's become quite obvious to me lately.
If you read 2 Timothy 3:1-9 and other scriptures like it that talk about what it will be like during the last days, there's one thing that seems to escape our attention...who is being deceived. It's the Christian's Paul's talking about here, not unbelievers! That's why they'll "have a form of godliness but deny it's power". It's part of why Jesus asks if He will find anyone with faith when He returns. (Luke 18:8) Yes, unbelievers are deceived - but then they've always been deceived. That's nothing new at all and certainly not noteworthy enough to warn us about. What is important enough to warn us about however, is that there will be many deceived Christians during our time.
I'm seeing this myself more and more the closer we get to the end of our age. Why now more-so then before? Simply because the end of the Church age draws near, at which time Satan will finally be allowed the power he so desperately wants. We know that, but we haven’t really thought about what it means to us. We see how Satan’s stepped up his programs and his schemes in every area of life in the news every day and talk about it. But we’re strangely silent about what he’s done to the church over all this time, except the false teachers and teachings.
He’s caused the world to fear death more then ever; to where people don’t like to even think about it much less talk about it. He’s also convinced the vast majority of people that death is the same for everyone – you just have to read one of the numerous near death experience books that have been published lately to learn that. The big things on people’s minds besides money is to look and feel younger no matter your age and no matter what you have to do to attain it. Anything to stave off death awhile longer. Right in line with that comes the world of medicine and all that they offer to help people “look and/or feel younger”. They have a pill for just about everything. And, if you’re one of those folks that don’t like to take medicine or don’t trust it; that’s ok, they’ve got so called “natural supplements” that will do the same thing only better for you!
When people are finally forced to think of death, when they have to attend a funeral, what do they hear? Do they hear a minister speak of the life to come for those who are saved and what will happen to those who aren’t? Very, very rarely! Usually they hear some junk about how the person will be another angel watching over their loved ones, and they’ll all live happily ever after – and that will be said over the worst criminal that has never known Christ except as a swear word!
Why is all of that so important today? Because this is the end. It’s the end of the age of Grace, the age of the Church and most of those who are saved don’t have any idea of what’s going to happen to them next or why! At the most, some might know about the rapture, but that’s about it for most folks. Many Christians seem to have the erroneous idea that everyone will be the same in heaven, no one will have more or less and that God won’t care about anything we’ve done or not done here anyway. All that’s going to be over, right? I’ve even heard Christians ask why they should bother studying the bible when they’ll know it all when they get to heaven anyway! Another erroneous idea from Satan, that we’ll all suddenly know everything. I feel tempted to explain that one as it’s one that’s been widely accepted, and show the scriptures that show this isn’t true, & explain the ones that people think “prove” it, but I’ve done that in a number of studies on the board already and that’s not what this is for, so I’ll refrain from that for now.
God is calling His Church to get ready! He’s been calling to us for quite some time now. I’ve said that over and over here many times. I’ve felt it deep in my soul and in my bones. Many of the things that Satan has beguiled the unsaved with, he’s also used against the Church. The vast majority of Christians, those truly saved, don’t know their bibles. They rarely if ever read them, much less study them. They’re much too busy with what they perceive as “life”…going to work, raising their children, doing the shopping, cleaning the house, and everything else that has to be done every day. In fact, their lives don’t look very different from the lives of their unsaved neighbors. While all those things do need to be taken care of, they should never come before or between us and our time with the Lord.
The bible tells us even in the Old testament that deception will rule during this time, and it tells us why, but really, it's as plain as the noses on our faces. It's because God's children don't know Him or His Word. They say they know Him (have a form of godliness) but they can't know Him or His Will well, if they don't know His Word.
I'm talking about people here in the US and other so called "civilized" countries where His Word is freely available to everyone. I'm not talking about people who live in some bush tribe somewhere that don't know how to read, and have never heard of a bible. God can save them too and they can get to know Him, though not as well as we can who have His Word.
The Lord tells us that from those who've been given much, He will demand much; (Luke 12:48 b) and we've been entrusted with His Word. I don't think there's anything more important then that. Therefore, He says much more will be asked of us. But that doesn't seem to bother most Christians for some reason. I can't for the life of me figure out why. Do they somehow think that the Lord is going to tell them, "Well done good and faithful servant" when they haven't opened His Word and studied it regularly with Him? Or do they think He tells everyone that regardless of whether or not they've obeyed Him? I was going to say they can't be reading the same bible I do if they think that, but then most aren't reading it at all, much less studying it.
Satan has lulled Christians to sleep and somehow gotten them to believe that it's not necessary to study His Word, much less do so daily, even though we’re commanded to do so. (See 2 Timothy 2:15 for starters, after which there are so many more scriptures I’ve never tried to count them all.) They think that if a bushman in the jungle can do without God’s Word, then so can they, but God doesn’t work that way.
I know Satan's scheme to do this included churches like the Catholic church who told the people they shouldn't read it for themselves for so long, but you'd think that since the reformation when Christians died for the privilege of reading God's Word, that lie wouldn't hold any water anymore. I know Satan's scheme has also included telling Christians that they can't understand God's Word by themselves, and that it's hard to read, which is yet more lies. I've seen that Satan is so determined to keep God's children away from His Word, that he uses deception, confusion, and distraction, (three of his favorite tools) not only about God’s Word, but about or with friends, family, and other members of the body of Christ, causing strife, to stop people from getting into God's Word.
If you read 2 Timothy 4, you see again that it's Christians that Paul is talking about, not unbelievers. Christians that don't want to hear the Truth. They don't want to hear God's Word period. Instead they want "self help sermons" on how to get rich and make it in this world. They want something short and easy to read. Quick, simple answers. They're not interested in really digging into God's Truth and studying it. Because they don't really study God's Word, but at most read "proof texts" their favorite authors give them, they're deceived.
So how to Christians become "lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—"? (2 Timothy 3:2–4 ) By not reading and studying God's Word daily. It's that simple.
Amazing isn't it? How simple it really is for someone to turn their life around...study God's Word with Him daily and become more and more like Him; for His Word restores us, renews our minds, replacing Satan’s lies with His Truth, sanctifies us, makes the simple wise, gives us discernment, joy and so much more. And how simple it is as well, to walk about instead with a form of godliness but denying it's power, because we haven't studied His Word.
God is calling His Church to get ready! He’s been calling to us for quite some time now. I’ve said that over and over here many times. I’ve felt it deep in my soul and in my bones. Time was running short and I did my best to try and get people to open their bibles and study. With each passing month and year, it seemed as though there was even more pressure on me to try and get people to study their bibles. There’s a battle going on right now. A battle for the minds and hearts of those who are really saved. Satan doesn’t want anyone to be ready when the Lord calls us to come to Him and he’s putting everything he’s got into stopping us. The Lord is calling us to be ready because He’s coming to get us very, very soon. Time is shorter then ever now. Honestly, it feels like the door is starting to close (or open depending on how you look at it). There’s not much time left. Please Church! Get Ready! Don’t let Satan stop you!!! I beg you! Open that Bible and study it every day with the Lord you will be spending eternity with. No, there’s not much time left, but with the Lord as your teacher, time doesn’t matter. What matters is that we be obedient and do it!
Revelation 19:7–8 —Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. *Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.” (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.) *
John 8:31–32 —So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, *and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” *
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There's one thing I forgot to cover that we're expected to do before we forgive someone. Remember that when we forgive someone, it's not just a nice saying; something actually happens when we forgive. The burden of guilt is actually lifted from the persons shoulders so that we can be reconciled with them. So before we forgive them, we should have prayed about it asking the Lord to give us a forgiving heart and to give us His Words to speak to the person so that true reconciliation can occur. We should never depend on ourselves when we need to forgive someone, but always ask for God's help. We shouldn't wait till the last minute to talk to God about this either. This should be the very first thing we do when we realize that someone has sinned against us. I know I've posted this before, but will post it again here, as I copied a little prayer about this that to me was just perfect to use as a model for my own prayer:
O God, give me a heart of forgiveness, so that I may commune with You in the fullness of fellowship and joy and not experience the chastening that comes when You don’t forgive me because I won’t forgive a brother or sister in Christ. May I remember that for everyone who sins against me I have sinned multiple times against You, and You have always forgiven me. At no time has any of my sin caused me to forfeit my eternal life; therefore, no one else’s sin should cause them to forfeit my love and my mercy toward them. Amen.
We will be talking more about how God will punish us by treating us the same way we treat someone else that we should have forgiven, later.
Ok, what about unbelievers? What do we do about them? Remember, we're to forgive the way God forgives us and since forgiveness always starts with belief and faith in Jesus, unbelievers cannot truly be forgiven. What we need to do now is see what God says about how we are to treat unbelievers. I'm sure you can think of a number of things the Lord tells us about unbelievers, but I want to start with a general statement that defines our attitude toward them: Romans 12:18 —If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. * Of course, the "everyone" in this command includes unbelievers. This verse points out that there may be times when living at peace with others isn't possible and that's most likely when it involves an unbeliever. I love this verse because it again shows us that God doesn't expect us to do the impossible and that what He does expect of us, He enables us to do. This verse lets us know that we need to be realistic about people and realize that we don't live in an ideal world where everyone is going to get along well together all the time. This is something I have to remind our members about in the apologetics forum. It can get pretty rough in there and because we're believers, we tend to automatically expect other people to act with the same morals and values we do. But when you're dealing with an unbeliever, you can't expect that!
Unbelievers are the exact opposite of what we are. We're God centered and growing more God centered, while they're self centered and growing more self centered. When we were saved, the Holy Spirit came to dwell within us and poured out His love in our hearts so that we could love Him and others with His true love and not the worlds false kind. Because we have His love in our hearts, we're able to love others, even unbelievers with His love and that too is something that the Lord increases in us as we continue to grow. But an unbeliever doesn't have God's love in their hearts because they weren't saved and they don't have the Holy Spirit within them. Without that, they cannot love God or other people in ways that are acceptable to God, nor can they understand our values, morals and way of life because they can't understand the Bible and don't really want to. Like God says, they can't please Him. They're incapable of it, just as we once were. That's why God tells us in this verse that He wants us to live at peace with others "if it's possible". He knows that with unbelievers involved in a relationship, that may be difficult at best and at times impossible.
Next God tells us that we are the only one that can be counted on to do right in a relationship with an unbeliever. That makes sense when we realize that the unbeliever is incapable of even understanding our morals and values much less living them.
I know that about now everyone is probably thinking, "but wait, I have a friend that's not saved and they're good people...they don't cheat, lie, steal, or murder and they are good parents to their children etc. I'm sure you do, I know people like that too. There's a big difference in why we act the way we do and why they act the way they do, and that difference is foundational to everything they are and we are. I'm not going to get into this now though as it would take way too long and this isn't what we're studying right now. For the purpose of this study then I would ask you to simply accept what scripture says about unbelievers, and we can certainly look into this more when we're done with this one if you want too.
Let's look at how the world handles it when someone does something the world considers is wrong. Usually if someone does something wrong and they value the relationship with the other person, they'll admit what they did and apologize for it. Remember, I posted a little about apologizing already. Let me quote parts of it here in case you missed it:
Quote:
Now, about "apologizing". Apologizing is the worlds substitute for forgiveness.
Saying your "sorry" and actually repenting of sin are two very different things. Someone can simply be "sorry" they got caught, or sorry they're going to have to pay the consequences of their sin, in fact they may not even believe in God or sin. If they do, they can even just be "sorry" that they're going to be in trouble for not doing what they knew they were supposed to do. They don't hate the sin, they're just sorry about it. All they're doing when they say they're sorry is telling you how they feel. They're not even telling you why they feel that way, which as I just showed could be for many different reasons! They aren't promising anything or doing anything about the sin when they say they're sorry either - as with repentance which means that they hate the sin and won't do it again and then they ask forgiveness and a promise is given that the sin won't be brought up again. Let's look at the difference between godly sorrow and worldly sorrow over a wrongdoing (sin). 2 Corinthians 7:8–11 —Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it—I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while— *yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. *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. * One kind of repentance comes from God and leads to life so there's no regret in having confessed and repented of the sin, but the other kind comes from the world and leads to death. There's two obvious examples of both kinds of repentance, Peter and Judas. Judas repented, was full of regret, the worldly way and killed himself, whereas Peter repented, also full of regret, weeping, and then assuring Jesus of His love accepted His forgiveness and went on determined not to sin that way again.
If we look closely at the two different ways of repenting, we see that one is self centered and one is God centered. The world's way if obviously the self centered one. Unbelievers repent, or "feel badly" that they did something wrong for selfish reasons. They might be sorry they got caught, or sorry they have to pay the consequences of the wrong, or sorry that someone else found out about it, or sorry about what it'll do to their reputation now, or how it might affect their personal life, business life, etc. or what they may have to give up or not get because this happened, or they may be sorry that it will affect their friendship. That sounds close to what we might feel, but it's really not. They're sorry because of the loss to themselves, not because of the hurt to the other person. For the unbeliever, it's all about them. For us, it's all about God. We're sorry because we've hurt our Lord, or displeased Him in some way and desperately want to make it right. As you can see from this, there is simply no way that the unbeliever's repentance is nothing like ours and won't lead to the same good results. So it's up to us to do our best to find a way to settle things so that we can continue to live in peace with them. Before I get into exactly what to do with an unbeliever, let's take care of our own hearts. God says we're to forgive them, so there must be a way we can do so, even though they can't really repent. The way we do this is by forgiving them in our hearts. This is how we are told to deal with a great many sins against us so that we're not constantly running to other people to rebuke them. (I heard that sigh of relief! ) BUT, in the cases of serious sins against us, forgiving them in our hearts does not let us off the hook. We still have to rebuke them and forgive them to their face if they repent. Let me show you what the Bible says about this.
1 Peter 4:8 —Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. * This is actually a quote from Proverbs 17:9 —He who covers over an offense promotes love, but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends. * So the only sins we need to actually confront someone about are those that love can't keep covered up. Or in other words, when it is in the other persons best interest to be told about their sin because if we do not do so it would break our fellowship with them. Just as God doesn't pick on us for every single sin we commit every day, neither should we pick on other people for their sins. We see this in parenting and in marriages too.
All this means then is that when a person sins against us in a way that perhaps hurt our feelings but that we are not going to allow to break our fellowship with them over, we forgive them in our hearts, by going to God in prayer about it. We go to the Lord and tell Him that the person hurt us and we don't want to have any bitterness or resentment in our hearts toward them because of the sin, and ask Him to help us with that. Then we simply tell God that we because we love them, we forgive them for their sin. That's it. It's not forgiveness like we'd grant to someone who has committed a major sin against us, but then they don't need that kind of forgiveness as it's not a big deal. Let me think of an example... Sometimes I say things I don't mean. Especially when I'm in a lot of pain. I tend to snap at my husband then and can get quite mean, using a mean tone of voice, although I don't mean to. I try hard not to let that happen, but sometimes when the pain's really bad and I've been trying to hold myself together for a while for the sake of my grandchildren, when they leave, out of relief that I can now "relax" and take my pills, I'll have let down my guard and will slip up.
Like one night when the kids and grandkids had been here visiting all afternoon and for supper, I was in really bad pain and trying hard not to show how bad it was. I could barely walk. They knew I was in pain...I couldn't hide that and wasn't trying to. I simply didn't want to cry in front of them as that would upset the little ones, and I was about to do so by the time they left. so I walked them to the door as did my husband and once they were outside and out of the range of my voice, I mentally "relaxed" my control. At that moment all I was thinking about was making it back into the living room so I could sit down take my pills and not move for at least an hour.
Bruce said something to me asking why I'd done something earlier. I don't remember what. But whatever it was, instead of calmly telling him why, I acted like he should be able to read my mind and know why, and snapped at him and while I don't remember anymore what I actually said, it was probably something along the lines of, "because I'm stupid, that's why!" implying that the only reason he brought it up was because he thought I'd done something wrong or that I shouldn't have done at all. Of course that wasn't true at all and I knew that and instantly repented; but before I could even say anything, (he was behind me) he came closer to me and gently put his arms around me and ignoring my snide remark, simply said, "your back is really bad now isn't it?", which brought on the tears which then flowed even heavier because of the pain.
That my friends is a beautiful picture of love covering a sin. His love for me, knew that the words I'd spoken weren't from the real me and that I didn't mean them and that I loved him too, so he simply forgave me in his heart and covered my sin with his love. And that's what we're to do with most of the sins that are committed against us. We simply love the person enough that the sin doesn't matter and we tell the Lord we've forgiven them or even ask Him to forgive them as well if we feel that's appropriate. I'll have to cover the way we deal with the unbeliever when they must be confronted tomorrow.
Proverbs 10:12 —Hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers over all wrongs. *
Ephesians 4:32 —Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. *
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. *
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