A place to share thoughts and revelations about life and God's word.
I heard Billy Graham talking about how he would have to get cholera shots before going to some foreign countries. He described how the shot would give him just enough cholera to keep him from getting the “real thing”.
He went on to say that many folks who call themselves Christians are like that. They get just enough religion in them to keep them from getting the Real Thing.
Proverbs 4:19
The way of the wicked is as darkness; they know not at what they stumble.
When you walk in darkness, you know not at which you stumble
Most folks think that they spend time on what they desire.
The reality of the situation is, you build a desire for what you spend time on.
Whatever you give attention to, that is what you are going to desire.
Attend to the Word. Seek the Kingdom of God.
Spend your time and attention on the Word and renew your mind, renew your desires.
Change what you give attention to and your desires, appetites, personality, and entire world view will change.
Up until yesterday, I had always thought that the opposite of love is hate.
It isn’t.
The opposite of love is selfishness. Love is the focus on giving into the lives of others.
Interestingly enough, hate can actually be a component of love. If you love God and people, then you will hate things that hurt God and people.
God is not the author of confusion. We are not given a spirit of fear.
If you are confused then you are trying to figure something out yourself and have crossed the line from attentive concern into “worry”. If you are in fear, then you aren’t trusting God.
When you realize you are confused and in worry, you should stop yourself and cast your cares on Him.
How do you cast your cares on Him?
Casting your cares on Him is not the same as “blowing it off”. Casting your cares on the Lord is taking action in Faith and Trust that God will be there to help you through it. More often than not, a solution will present itself or come into your mind that you would never have considered by yourself.
1. refocus your mind on God, He will keep you in perfect peace
2. pray, ask God for His wisdom in dealing with the situation. He gives wisdom liberally to all who ask
3. praise God, worship God
4. thank God that He is there for you to help you
5. get the focus off of yourself, refocus on loving others
6. seek God and His kingdom first, and everything else will be added to you
7. encourage yourself in the Lord
8. when you know not how you ought to pray, pray in the spirit
1Pe 5:7 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.
1Co 14:33 For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.
Mat 6:33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.
1Jo 4:18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
Rom 8:15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
2Ti 1:7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
Isa 26:3 Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.
Judges 20:22 – And the people the men of Israel encouraged themselves, and set their battle again in array in the place where they put themselves in array the first day.
1 Samuel 30:6 – And David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but David encouraged himself in the LORD his God.
Jude 1:20 – But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost
Romans 8:26 – Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
Philippians 4:6 – Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
There is a choice of either life or death.
You are either of the Father which art in heaven, or a child of the father of lies, satan.
There is no in between. You can either submit yourself to God, and let God reveal to you who He created you to be, or you are wandering around letting the world tell you what you want and who you are.
We only operate at optimum efficiency if we function in the way we were created to function. We can only find satisfaction and peace if we are functioning the way we were designed to function.
Love suffers long
Love is kind
Love does not envy
Love does not promote self
Love is not puffed up
Love does not behave unseemly
Love seeks not its own
Love is not easily provoked
Love thinks no evil
Love does not rejoice in iniquity
Love rejoices in the truth
Love bears all things
Love believes all things
Love hopes all things
Love endures all things
Love never fails
Abide in Faith, Hope, and Love; and most of all, in Love
1Cor 13:4-8,13
1Cor 15:33 – Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.
If you think that listening to, reading, or watching evil communcations has no effect on you, then you are deceived.
Now, don’t go and blame television or the media for your behavior. Don’t blame your gossiping friends or your complaining coworkers for your bad attitudes.
Don’t shift blame and responsiblity for your thoughts and behavior to anyone or anything else.
Now that you know that these things will impact you, you now know you need to take action to minimize that impact.
Even if the evil communications provided the seeds you have a choice in how far they develop.
There is a process in which seeds develop into weeds. They get distributed, planted (exposed but not resisted), germinate (concieve the idea), develop roots (impacts thoughts, overrides your resistance and rationalizes), develop leaves (begins impacting speech and behavior), and finally bear fruit (result in sinful behavior).
The earlier you interrupt this process the better.
First, in the vast majority of cases you have the choice in whether you expose yourself to corrupt seeds. If you are never exposed to it, then you are never tempted by it. The things you see or hear the most will dominate you.
Being that we are in the world, we cannot expect to prevent all exposure. We can still interrupt and reverse the process.
To prevent the seeds from developing into weeds, you must first recognize them as counter to God’s Word. To do this, you must actually know what God has to say about the subject by having spent time in the Word. Once you recognize it as wrong, then remind yourself repeatedly of God’s view on the subject.
Additionally, you must starve out the weeds by not feeding and watering them. Repeated exposure, daydreaming wrong things, or idle conversations go to reenforce and grow the weeds.
(Updated 3 Aug)
Galatians 6:7 – Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
Did you realize that “what goes around, comes around” was a biblical principle?
If you think you can go around sowing contention and strife and not have it come back to you, then you are deceived.
Additionally, whatever you sow will always come back to you multiplied.
If you sow a kernel of corn, you will get several ears worth of corn and thousands of kernals back in return when it comes time for harvest. Same goes for a grain of wheat, you get a header of wheat that has hundreds and thousands of grains just in that one plant.
Different kinds of seeds give different kinds of harvests. Corn and wheat cycle just for one season. Other kinds of seeds, like apple seeds, can result in trees that give multiple harvests over many seasons for the lifetime of the tree.
Be careful what you sow, it will come back to you. If you want to harvest love, you need to sow it.
1Cor 15:33 – Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.
You can turn this around and say it another way:
“If you think you can listen to, read, or watch evil communcations and not be effected, you are deceived.”
Just turn on the television, listen to the radio, or flip through a magazine at the supermarket. Within in 5 minutes you will be exposed to more perversity and obscenity that most folks might have been exposed to in an entire lifetime not 50 years ago.
All around us, every form of media seeks to push the limits and go to another level of extreme in order to get our attention. The reason they have to keep going to extremes to get our attention, is that we get desensitized to what we are repeatedly exposed to. A side effect is that once they sink to a deeper level of depravity or go to another level of extreme, we become desensitized to what once we had an emotional reaction to.
Desensitized simply means that we are no longer sensitive to it, that it no longer provokes the emotional reaction it once did.
Desensitized DOES NOT mean that it no longer has an impact on us. To the contrary, it merely means that our guard is now totally ineffective, and we now let these media messages come pouring into our minds without any check or balance.
Things that were once abhorrent are now the subject of sitcoms that we blithely laugh along with the prerecorded audence to. All the while our minds are being conditioned to accept and even support things that are an abomination before God.
Rom 12:9 Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.
Isa 5:20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!