I sought the LORD, and he heard me
Ps. {34:4} I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.
Isa. {66:1} Thus saith the LORD, The heaven [is] my throne, and the earth [is] my footstool: where [is] the house that ye build unto me? and where [is] the place of my rest? {66:2} For all those [things] hath mine hand made, and all those [things] have been, saith the LORD: but to this [man] will I look, [even] to [him that is] poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.
{66:3} He that killeth an ox [is as if] he slew a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb, [as if] he cut off a dog’s neck; he that offereth an oblation, [as if he offered] swine’s blood; he that burneth incense, [as if] he blessed an idol. Yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations. {66:4} I also will choose their delusions, and will bring their fears upon them; because when I called, none did answer; when I spake, they did not hear: but they did evil before mine eyes, and chose [that] in which I delighted not.
God knows. God understands the depths of selfishess the human heart holds. Everything must be our way. We delight in the things we bring about, of what we believe is our own accord. The delusions we hold are full. Ask, and people well tell you that self-sufficiency is the prize for which we should strive. Self assurance, self love, self adoration, self...self...we are deluded with self. We are told to look inwards to our own powers, find our inner strength, inner peace. We are filled with the idea that we control our own lives and try to tell someone something different and they'll nod and smile, or argue with their logic.
God will use the delusions people hold because He has tried to get them to see that without Him, their Creator they are nothing and they wouldn't believe. He's tried and tried and tried... but consistently people choose to look inward, not outward, to glorify self not God. They think they are doing good but their good is evil. The keep looking to themselves for salvation as if they controlled it, as if they had power to give or take it away. Salvation exists not because we've designed it or reject it, or accept it. Salvation exists and we have to believe it. We can choose to believe it or not, but our choice won't alter it's existence. Yes, we are allowed our delusions because we wouldn't have it any other way. There is no wonder so few will be ready for Christ when He returns. The idea of giving up self for anything is repugnant to us. We've been taught from childhood to think of ourselves first. We call it self-preservation and make it seem as if without thinking of ourselves first we are condemning ourselves. Us first, then others second, and the few who can go beyond that are the oddities. Giving up self and giving us over to God. God first is possible through faith and faith alone, by Christ and His righteousness because we have none of ourselves. By His mercy! By His Grace! By His love! May the Holy Spirit fill us and keep us. May we not suffer under any delusion the devil may bring before us to keep us from the Love of God in Jesus Christ, our Savior. By His Grace may we be delivered of all our fears and may our unbelief be helped and by Jesus' love and mercy, by His power may we have the faith we need to be His completely.
Amen.
8/4/10
Gal 5:16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
Greek Definitions--
Walk-- G4043 peripateo¯ per-ee-pat-eh'-o - figuratively to live, deport oneself
Spirit-- G4151 pneuma pnyoo'-mah - the Holy spirit, spirit (-ual, -ually), mind
Fulfil-- G5055 teleo¯ tel-eh'-o - accomplish, perform
Lust-- G1939 epithumia ep-ee-thoo-mee'-ah - what is forbidden
Flesh-- G4561 sarx sarx - human nature, passions, carnal
If we live in the Holy Spirit, being spiritually minded, we will NOT perform what is forbidden in our human nature, our carnal passions.
Gal 5:17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
Lusteth -- G1937 epithumeo¯ ep-ee-thoo-meh'-o -to set the heart upon
Our carnal human nature sets our heart AGAINST the Spirit.
The Spirit sets our hearts AGAINST our carnal human nature
Our carnal nature is contrary to the Spirit and the Spirit contrary to our carnal nature. To live in the Spirit means NOT living in our carnal human nature. Likewise to live in our carnal human nature means NOT living in the Spirit. We cannot have it both ways! We try though, we really, really do try. We make excuse after excuse for our carnal desires. They are who we are and a leopard cannot change it's spots, right? We are human, born with a human nature subject to things carnal, things that aren't spiritual. It goes against what comes naturally to us, to walk in the Spirit which is unnatural to us. Our natural nature is carnal and we cannot change that. We make the mistake thinking we can change our nature.
We have to LIVE in the Holy Spirit, not just visit the Holy Spirit when it's convenient to us. People just don't get it, and people-- including me because I don't fully understand what it means to LIVE in the Spirit-- struggle with it all. When we are caught up with Christ in the air upon His return to go live with Him forever it will be a reunion, a blessed completion of what is started here and now. We will have been living in the Spirit that He's sent to live with us. We won't be suddenly inspired towards God in that moment, we will have been living in the God called the Holy Spirit. It's an agony for us to live with our human natures constantly at war with things Spiritual. Paul talked of how hard it was and it's so true. But it's a fight we cannot give up on, not for a moment! Satan would have us discouraged that is one of his biggest weapons in this spiritual warfare.
We must LIVE in the Spirit.
We must live so that the Spirit sets our hearts AGAINST our carnal nature.
We cannot let our carnal nature set our hearts against the Spirit.
Our carnal nature with the help of principalities and powers unseen will stop at nothing to set our hearts against God and all things spiritual. By the GRACE of our Lord we must call upon His mercy and His righteousness even when we are at our lowest point because we have to seek GOD first always, no matter what happens in our lives. We must throw ourselves at the feet of our Savior begging for forgiveness seventy-times seven times, endlessly realizing that our self without Him is nothing. We are only truly alive in Him. We are in a WAR! We are! WAKE UP EVERYONE YOU'RE FIGHTING FOR YOUR ETERNAL LIFE! Arm yourself with Spiritual armor! Too many are in this battle without any armor choosing to be defenseless and expecting to be on the winning side. Too many are being mortally wounded without ever realizing their eternal life blood is seeping away.
Please Lord! Please! Let us live so that the SPIRIT we live in sets our hearts constantly against our carnal nature and NOT let our carnal nature set us against the SPIRIT.
By your grace, your mercy, your love now and forever! Thank you! All glory, all praise, and all honor unto You our Savior, our King!
Amen!
8/4/11
Dan 11:30
'...therefore he shall be grieved, and return, and have indignation against the
holy covenant
so shall he do;
he shall even return, and have intelligence with them that forsake the holy
covenant. '
Without a doubt
Constantine introduced a new paganism-- one that had some of the trappings of
Christianity. Pagan religion
mingled with Christianity,
Christianity mingled with paganism- idolatry, the worshipping of gods
other than God, the worshipping of God in a perverted manner- in ways HE NEVER
INTENDED man to worship Him! Man took the pure undefiled religion of our Savior
and twisted it so much it scarcely resembled the true Gospel of Christ, the
Gospel Jesus would have us preach.
Man was NEVER to exalt himself, man was to never say HE was Christ on
earth, man was never to take money and spend it on anything other than helping
other people, man was never to bow down to any idol not even one shaped like the
Savior, not even the Savior's cross. Man was NOT to change God's laws. Man was
not to do so much but all that was lost sight of as man's selfish nature took
over and the 'spirit of the antichrist' reared up more and more among those who
claimed Christ yet weren't really His.
1Jn 4:3 and every spirit which confesseth not
Jesus -is not of God: and this is the spirit of the antichrist, whereof ye have
heard that it cometh; and now it is in the world already.
Confessing Jesus
is believing in all our Savior would have us believe in- in HIS truth and ONLY
HIS TRUTH, not man's truth! We aren't to confess man, we are to confess JESUS
and no other!
As the Roman
Empire moved forward to its inevitable breaking up into smaller kingdoms, this
mingling of Christianity with Paganism was widespread, and the pure
unadulterated truth of our Savior was lost among man's inventions, among
Satan's deception.
Dan 11:30
'...therefore he shall be grieved, and return, and have indignation against the
holy covenant
so shall he do;
he shall even return, and have intelligence with them that forsake the holy
covenant. '
The holy
covenant, God's truths, God's pure truth in His commandments were forsaken. The
holy covenant in its amazing truth, the measure of which we know we sin by
transgressing against those commandments, was perverted and clearly under
Constantine this was very, very true.
Act 20:28 Take heed unto yourselves, and to all
the flock, in the which the Holy Ghost hath made you bishops, to feed the church
of God, which he purchased with his own blood.
Act 20:29 I know that after my departing grievous
wolves shall enter in among you, not sparing the flock;
Act 20:30 and from among your own selves shall
men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.
Paul knew this
would come to pass! The truth of Jesus Christ would be over run by the false
truths, the counterfeit, the perverse, and they would take away MANY! You have to realize that no one
spouting falsehood shouts out that's what they are doing. And those who follow
the ones who speak falsely don't do so believing they are going against God,
they do so believing they are following God but they have allowed themselves to
entertain deception and when we let ourselves slip into the realm of deception
it steals the truth from us and we are lost. We have to hold to the TRUTH found
in Christ and NOTHING ELSE!
Yesterday we
reviewed so much of how Christianity began it's deepening descent into things
Paganism and if one thing was clear- God holds with NO perversion of truth, not
the slightest mingling. When you mingle untruth with truth, that truth is
perverted. You cannot hold up the truth in all it's glory once it's perverted.
When truth is corrupted it is no longer truth. You can't say it has enough truth to
pass as truth- it has to have ALL truth! There is no fudging the truth and
passing it off, not with God. As paganism with it's false worship, with it's
corrupt ways slithered into the truth, people were taken away and lured into
this false religion all the while believing it to be the true church, the true
people of God. Satan works a perfect deception and it's only by the GRACE and
LOVE, the MERCY and RIGHTEOUSNESS, the SACRIFICE of our SAVIOR that we are not
deceived!
Please Lord as we
continue studying Your word, as You continue to reveal Your amazing love to us
through our Savior, please keep us from being deceived! Keep us from all evil!
PLEASE LORD! PLEASE!
In Your love
always!!!!!
AMEN.
Isa. {66:1} Thus saith the LORD, The heaven [is] my throne, and the earth [is] my footstool: where [is] the house that ye build unto me? and where [is] the place of my rest? {66:2} For all those [things] hath mine hand made, and all those [things] have been, saith the LORD: but to this [man] will I look, [even] to [him that is] poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.
{66:3} He that killeth an ox [is as if] he slew a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb, [as if] he cut off a dog’s neck; he that offereth an oblation, [as if he offered] swine’s blood; he that burneth incense, [as if] he blessed an idol. Yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations. {66:4} I also will choose their delusions, and will bring their fears upon them; because when I called, none did answer; when I spake, they did not hear: but they did evil before mine eyes, and chose [that] in which I delighted not.
God knows. God understands the depths of selfishess the human heart holds. Everything must be our way. We delight in the things we bring about, of what we believe is our own accord. The delusions we hold are full. Ask, and people well tell you that self-sufficiency is the prize for which we should strive. Self assurance, self love, self adoration, self...self...we are deluded with self. We are told to look inwards to our own powers, find our inner strength, inner peace. We are filled with the idea that we control our own lives and try to tell someone something different and they'll nod and smile, or argue with their logic.
God will use the delusions people hold because He has tried to get them to see that without Him, their Creator they are nothing and they wouldn't believe. He's tried and tried and tried... but consistently people choose to look inward, not outward, to glorify self not God. They think they are doing good but their good is evil. The keep looking to themselves for salvation as if they controlled it, as if they had power to give or take it away. Salvation exists not because we've designed it or reject it, or accept it. Salvation exists and we have to believe it. We can choose to believe it or not, but our choice won't alter it's existence. Yes, we are allowed our delusions because we wouldn't have it any other way. There is no wonder so few will be ready for Christ when He returns. The idea of giving up self for anything is repugnant to us. We've been taught from childhood to think of ourselves first. We call it self-preservation and make it seem as if without thinking of ourselves first we are condemning ourselves. Us first, then others second, and the few who can go beyond that are the oddities. Giving up self and giving us over to God. God first is possible through faith and faith alone, by Christ and His righteousness because we have none of ourselves. By His mercy! By His Grace! By His love! May the Holy Spirit fill us and keep us. May we not suffer under any delusion the devil may bring before us to keep us from the Love of God in Jesus Christ, our Savior. By His Grace may we be delivered of all our fears and may our unbelief be helped and by Jesus' love and mercy, by His power may we have the faith we need to be His completely.
Amen.
8/4/10
Gal 5:16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
Greek Definitions--
Walk-- G4043 peripateo¯ per-ee-pat-eh'-o - figuratively to live, deport oneself
Spirit-- G4151 pneuma pnyoo'-mah - the Holy spirit, spirit (-ual, -ually), mind
Fulfil-- G5055 teleo¯ tel-eh'-o - accomplish, perform
Lust-- G1939 epithumia ep-ee-thoo-mee'-ah - what is forbidden
Flesh-- G4561 sarx sarx - human nature, passions, carnal
If we live in the Holy Spirit, being spiritually minded, we will NOT perform what is forbidden in our human nature, our carnal passions.
Gal 5:17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
Lusteth -- G1937 epithumeo¯ ep-ee-thoo-meh'-o -to set the heart upon
Our carnal human nature sets our heart AGAINST the Spirit.
The Spirit sets our hearts AGAINST our carnal human nature
Our carnal nature is contrary to the Spirit and the Spirit contrary to our carnal nature. To live in the Spirit means NOT living in our carnal human nature. Likewise to live in our carnal human nature means NOT living in the Spirit. We cannot have it both ways! We try though, we really, really do try. We make excuse after excuse for our carnal desires. They are who we are and a leopard cannot change it's spots, right? We are human, born with a human nature subject to things carnal, things that aren't spiritual. It goes against what comes naturally to us, to walk in the Spirit which is unnatural to us. Our natural nature is carnal and we cannot change that. We make the mistake thinking we can change our nature.
We have to LIVE in the Holy Spirit, not just visit the Holy Spirit when it's convenient to us. People just don't get it, and people-- including me because I don't fully understand what it means to LIVE in the Spirit-- struggle with it all. When we are caught up with Christ in the air upon His return to go live with Him forever it will be a reunion, a blessed completion of what is started here and now. We will have been living in the Spirit that He's sent to live with us. We won't be suddenly inspired towards God in that moment, we will have been living in the God called the Holy Spirit. It's an agony for us to live with our human natures constantly at war with things Spiritual. Paul talked of how hard it was and it's so true. But it's a fight we cannot give up on, not for a moment! Satan would have us discouraged that is one of his biggest weapons in this spiritual warfare.
We must LIVE in the Spirit.
We must live so that the Spirit sets our hearts AGAINST our carnal nature.
We cannot let our carnal nature set our hearts against the Spirit.
Our carnal nature with the help of principalities and powers unseen will stop at nothing to set our hearts against God and all things spiritual. By the GRACE of our Lord we must call upon His mercy and His righteousness even when we are at our lowest point because we have to seek GOD first always, no matter what happens in our lives. We must throw ourselves at the feet of our Savior begging for forgiveness seventy-times seven times, endlessly realizing that our self without Him is nothing. We are only truly alive in Him. We are in a WAR! We are! WAKE UP EVERYONE YOU'RE FIGHTING FOR YOUR ETERNAL LIFE! Arm yourself with Spiritual armor! Too many are in this battle without any armor choosing to be defenseless and expecting to be on the winning side. Too many are being mortally wounded without ever realizing their eternal life blood is seeping away.
Please Lord! Please! Let us live so that the SPIRIT we live in sets our hearts constantly against our carnal nature and NOT let our carnal nature set us against the SPIRIT.
By your grace, your mercy, your love now and forever! Thank you! All glory, all praise, and all honor unto You our Savior, our King!
Amen!
8/4/11
Dan 11:30
'...therefore he shall be grieved, and return, and have indignation against the
holy covenant
so shall he do;
he shall even return, and have intelligence with them that forsake the holy
covenant. '
Without a doubt
Constantine introduced a new paganism-- one that had some of the trappings of
Christianity. Pagan religion
mingled with Christianity,
Christianity mingled with paganism- idolatry, the worshipping of gods
other than God, the worshipping of God in a perverted manner- in ways HE NEVER
INTENDED man to worship Him! Man took the pure undefiled religion of our Savior
and twisted it so much it scarcely resembled the true Gospel of Christ, the
Gospel Jesus would have us preach.
Man was NEVER to exalt himself, man was to never say HE was Christ on
earth, man was never to take money and spend it on anything other than helping
other people, man was never to bow down to any idol not even one shaped like the
Savior, not even the Savior's cross. Man was NOT to change God's laws. Man was
not to do so much but all that was lost sight of as man's selfish nature took
over and the 'spirit of the antichrist' reared up more and more among those who
claimed Christ yet weren't really His.
1Jn 4:3 and every spirit which confesseth not
Jesus -is not of God: and this is the spirit of the antichrist, whereof ye have
heard that it cometh; and now it is in the world already.
Confessing Jesus
is believing in all our Savior would have us believe in- in HIS truth and ONLY
HIS TRUTH, not man's truth! We aren't to confess man, we are to confess JESUS
and no other!
As the Roman
Empire moved forward to its inevitable breaking up into smaller kingdoms, this
mingling of Christianity with Paganism was widespread, and the pure
unadulterated truth of our Savior was lost among man's inventions, among
Satan's deception.
Dan 11:30
'...therefore he shall be grieved, and return, and have indignation against the
holy covenant
so shall he do;
he shall even return, and have intelligence with them that forsake the holy
covenant. '
The holy
covenant, God's truths, God's pure truth in His commandments were forsaken. The
holy covenant in its amazing truth, the measure of which we know we sin by
transgressing against those commandments, was perverted and clearly under
Constantine this was very, very true.
Act 20:28 Take heed unto yourselves, and to all
the flock, in the which the Holy Ghost hath made you bishops, to feed the church
of God, which he purchased with his own blood.
Act 20:29 I know that after my departing grievous
wolves shall enter in among you, not sparing the flock;
Act 20:30 and from among your own selves shall
men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.
Paul knew this
would come to pass! The truth of Jesus Christ would be over run by the false
truths, the counterfeit, the perverse, and they would take away MANY! You have to realize that no one
spouting falsehood shouts out that's what they are doing. And those who follow
the ones who speak falsely don't do so believing they are going against God,
they do so believing they are following God but they have allowed themselves to
entertain deception and when we let ourselves slip into the realm of deception
it steals the truth from us and we are lost. We have to hold to the TRUTH found
in Christ and NOTHING ELSE!
Yesterday we
reviewed so much of how Christianity began it's deepening descent into things
Paganism and if one thing was clear- God holds with NO perversion of truth, not
the slightest mingling. When you mingle untruth with truth, that truth is
perverted. You cannot hold up the truth in all it's glory once it's perverted.
When truth is corrupted it is no longer truth. You can't say it has enough truth to
pass as truth- it has to have ALL truth! There is no fudging the truth and
passing it off, not with God. As paganism with it's false worship, with it's
corrupt ways slithered into the truth, people were taken away and lured into
this false religion all the while believing it to be the true church, the true
people of God. Satan works a perfect deception and it's only by the GRACE and
LOVE, the MERCY and RIGHTEOUSNESS, the SACRIFICE of our SAVIOR that we are not
deceived!
Please Lord as we
continue studying Your word, as You continue to reveal Your amazing love to us
through our Savior, please keep us from being deceived! Keep us from all evil!
PLEASE LORD! PLEASE!
In Your love
always!!!!!
AMEN.