The Tough Reality of it! In His Word 3-18-2024

 

The Tough Reality of it! In His Word 3-18-2024


People sometimes think that becoming a Christian means everything will get easy. There will be no worry, or struggles, no crying, no pain. Well, I want to give you a heads-up today; these things will come but not in the world we live in today! Even so we must attempt to follow the rules that God gave us, when we do His commands in the way which He has given us to do them we can do it! Jesus sent us the Helper, the Holy Spirit, to guide us in the Way. He shows us how to live in peace, love, and hope even during times of worry, struggles or pain. He helps us make it through the rough patches with our heads lifted high looking to Jesus knowing it will indeed get better, in His time and knowing that He will indeed walk with us through it.  We can read about how Jesus stood there with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace. They walked out of it unscathed! That is how the Holy Spirit walks with us through our troubles.

He also wants us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. How do you love yourself? I clean, clothe and feed myself. I care what I eat and don’t allow myself to just eat old moldy bread, so I would not pass that on to my neighbors.

So, who is my neighbor? Not just the Martinez family , but really anyone around me can be my neighbor, and I should treat them with the same kindness as I expect from them.  According to 365 Days in His love by Teresa Wilson ‘Anyone who is in need, or not. Anyone whom we meet , or see, or walk by, or shop near, or talk to. These are our neighbors. The poor, the sick, the hungry, the  homeless, the addict, the rich, the strong, the weak.  Look around you, the rich or poor are your neighbors. Love them, with His love.’

John 15:9 tells us to live on in His love by loving others as God the Father has loved us. He loved us by removing the debt of our sins by giving us Jesus as our sacrifice for them. We do not owe anything for our sins because Jesus took on that debt and paid it in full! We can show mercy, and walk in His mercy in order to show that love to one another.

How ever we read the verse it will tell us to live and love like Jesus did, and does!

Just do it! Get right with God and walk in His truth. Walk in His promises they say! Today I want to tell us all we need to wake up like the scripture below says, our salvation is nearer than when we first believed! We need to walk in a way that people will know we are with Jesus. The love of God needs to exude from within our  body, soul and spirit!

Owe nothing to anyone—except for your obligation to love one another. If you love your neighbor, you will fulfill the requirements of God’s law.  For the commandments say, “You must not commit adultery. You must not murder. You must not steal. You must not covet.” These—and other such commandments—are summed up in this one commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to others, so love fulfills the requirements of God’s law.

This is all the more urgent, for you know how late it is; time is running out. Wake up, for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.  The night is almost gone; the day of salvation will soon be here. So, remove your dark deeds like dirty clothes, and put on the shining armor of right living. Because we belong to the day, we must live decent lives for all to see. Don’t participate in the darkness of wild parties and drunkenness, or in sexual promiscuity and immoral living, or in quarreling and jealousy.  Instead, clothe yourself with the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. And don’t let yourself think about ways to indulge your evil desires. Romans 13:8-14

Stop walking in the world and claiming that you are following God. He will not put you in worldly places, or situations if you are following Him. He does not hand you the beer when you know better than drinking it! Yes I said that!

We need to get real my friends, we need to walk right. We need to talk right, dress right, live right in the eyes of God. He gave us the best model to follow. Why would we want to live as less when He has made us more?

Heavenly Father, help us to walk like You, to talk like You, and to give mercy like You today. Put blinders on us to keep us from the things that would pull us away from you, open our eyes to see Your truth, Your way, and Your light to walk in it and share the love of God with others, in Jesus’ name.

Whose gift is it? In His Word 3-11-2024

 Whose gift is it? In His Word 3-11-2024

May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.

I always thank my God for you and for the gracious gifts he has given you, now that you belong to Christ Jesus. Through him, God has enriched your church in every way—with all of your eloquent words and all of your knowledge. 1 Corinthians 13:3-5

God has given us gifts, specific to our person. He has not grouped many together with the exact same gift at the same time, except maybe for the Holy Spirit that came at Pentecost.

As I studied through the Word, my Bible, I saw many scriptures on God giving gifts, but I see nothing about people deciding whose gift is what. There are spots where the writers have encouraged us to figure out what the gifts are. There are spots where we are to desire better, or more gifts.  There are even places where the Disciples, or Apostles are mentioning the importance of desiring the spiritual gifts. Still, I could not find where anyone was told they had a gift of something that a human gave them the skill or idea. 

Sometimes I have noticed, and this is why I studied it, that  there are people who sometimes try to push someone into a gift they think the person would be good at. But it is not our place to push someone to do what God has not yet told them to do, any more than it is for us to decide they have the gift.

It is the gift of God. He gives them to us, our skills, or our supernatural skills are given to us to use for God’s glory to the benefit of His kingdom and people need to realize that sometimes your gift and my gift are not going to be the same. For instant, there are different types of prayer people; some are group prayer warriors’ others are intercessory prayer people whom God puts the person on their heart and they run with it in prayer. This is not to say we cannot do both, but we need to realize what type or prayer warrior we are to be in God’s plan.  

Its like when we have a gift of teaching, or preaching, we don’t just decide to do it we have to know that it is God giving us the gift. Read the scriptures below.

 

 When Simon saw that the Spirit was given when the apostles laid their hands on people, he offered them money to buy this power. “Let me have this power, too,” he exclaimed, “so that when I lay my hands on people, they will receive the Holy Spirit!”

But Peter replied, “May your money be destroyed with you for thinking God’s gift can be bought! You can have no part in this, for your heart is not right with God.  Repent of your wickedness and pray to the Lord. Perhaps he will forgive your evil thoughts, for I can see that you are full of bitter jealousy and are held captive by sin.”

 “Pray to the Lord for me,” Simon exclaimed, “that these terrible things you’ve said won’t happen to me!” Acts 8:18-24

We cannot just learn a gift and expect to be perfect in it on our own devices either. Like Simon here, we cannot buy God’s blessings, He must give them to us and we will know the difference, He will know the difference, and those we minister to will also know the difference if we try to be someone other than whom God has planned for us to be.

I am sure we all have listened to teaching at some point and wondered how the person got to teach something they did not really know about. When we try to walk in a gift that was not ours to take it is a lot like that. Floundering around trying to get the information out without any guidance by the Holy Spirit will become a hindrance.

If we try to work in hospitality, for instance without knowing we have that calling we may do a good job… for a while. Then we will get burned out and become a complainer. God’s Word tells us not to complain which makes it a sin. I would say we are not walking in our gift from God if we are sinning to do , are we?

We are to walk cheerfully before our God, doing the deeds He puts before us, walking in our callings as He has chosen. Let’s be sure we are prayerfully considering our next step in walking in our calling. Accept God’s gifts and walk in them.

Cheerfully share your home with those who need a meal or a place to stay. God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another. Do you have the gift of speaking? Then speak as though God himself were speaking through you. Do you have the gift of helping others? Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies. Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ. All glory and power to him forever and ever! Amen.1 Peter 4:9-11

Trust in the Lord He will make your path straight!  In Jesus’ name.