English - Short Thoughts and Meditations

SOME CONTRADICTIONS AND TRUTHS ABOUT THE LIVES AND HEARTS OF MEN,

AND SOME THOUGHTS ON THE WORDS OF GOD

(NOTE: ALL THOUGHTS IN THIS PAGE ARE MINE, THOSE GOD BLESSED ME WITH. BUT, THERE ARE SOME IN HERE (VERY FEW) WHICH ARE CHANGED THOUGHTS AND TRUTHS FROM OTHER AUTHORS WHICH TOUCHED ME DEEPLY. I HAVE CHANGED THESE (VERY FEW) TO BEST TELL WHAT WAS GOING ON IN MY OWN HEART. IN THE END, WHAT WILL COUNT IS THE TRUTH AND NOT THE PERSON WHO WROTE IT. TRUTH WILL REMAIN WHILE ALL AUTHORS WILL SOON BE GONE FROM THE EARTH. BUT, TILL THEN, "WE SPEAK WISDOM AMONG THOSE WHO ARE PERFECT; YET, NOT THE WISDOM OF THIS WORLD, NOR OF THE RULERS OF THIS WORLD, THAT COME TO NOTHING...", 1Cor.2:6.

Many say people must come out with holiness and good fruit from the heart. I agree with that. One of the best ways to get that done that way is through examples. One cannot conceive how deep and how well any good example works. It works deep in people and a good example can often do more than a thousand words. Be holy and you shall have holy people around you desiring to be holy from the heart. On the other side, there is no greater and no deeper hardness than the one which strives against fruitful examples. Be an example anyway, because you "make a tree either good or bad", just as Jesus said it must be done.

"...He who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God", John 3:18. Most people stumble over the gospel and entangle themselves in the things they believe by reading from the Word of God and mis the point. This is one of the issues most Christians stumble all over the world: believing in Christ. Let me explain what it really means. We are saved by faith; we are saved by Jesus and there is no one who can be saved from sin unless it is through the power of Jesus. So, by not believing in Jesus the person is already condemned because he shall not get out of his sins. "Behold the Lamb of God who takes sin away from the world". By not believing, people everywhere shall be surely condemned by their sins and by their sinfulness. By believing Him, they shall be able to enter the narrow way and be purged and cleansed along the way. Do you believe that believing in Jesus will cause you to avoid entering and walking the narrow way of cleansing?

"But that He be revealed to Israel, therefore I have come baptizing with water", John 1:31. This verse has a mighty meaning of which few people are aware. In the first place, we should know what it means that Christ is revealed to us. It means we really get to know Him, to touch Him, to hear Him and to confide with Him. In order to do that we must surely go through John the Baptist, so to speak. People came to him confessing their sins and receiving the baptism of repentance. This means that if we really wish to know Christ and experience Him the way He is, we must first bring all our sins to the light, one by one. There is no such thing as getting to know Christ without a thorough confession of all past and present sins.

There many attitudes which can induce people into error concerning what it proves or shows. For example, carelessness may resemble confidence because both are not worried or concerned about certain important things. But, we all know confidence is never careless about what is important. It just knows in whom it trusts.

We read in the parable of Lazarus and the rich man how the rich man in hell would be content with a single drop of water. This shows many things, but, it reveals mainly that judgment, rewards or punishment will always be an eye for an eye for what we have done. Lazarus would be content with a single crumb of bread before. Now, it was the rich man's turn to be content with a single drop of water. The other thing about this is that we all know that a drop of water would never satisfy the rich man in hell. Most people crave after the illusionary 'relief' of their burdens. It carries on like that even in hell. They lie to themselves by not wishing and searching for the real thing and for genuine satisfaction of their real needs. Instead, they keep the lie alive.

"Therefore, be careful that the light in you isn't darkness", Lk.11:35. We know that when earthly light shine on somewhere, one side is light and the other is taken by shade. There is shade only because the sun shines. One side of the earth is lightened because it is turned to the sun and the other side is night because it is in the shade of earth. This is what Jesus must have been warning us about: there must never be any shady spots in us. We also read about heavenly light when it shone upon Paul or even in the mount of transfiguration: it was light all around. It seems there was no shady spot under that light. "Now if your whole body is full of light...". This is the kind of light we should seek, to walk under it because there is a kind of light which causes darkness and shade by bringing it into existence. Earthly light, man's doctrines and churchy ways give people a hiding place and cause them to hide many things beneath the "light" of religion. Be careful and on your guard against it.

We must have heard a lot about Jonah and his doings a long time ago. But, according to Jesus His disobedience has been used by God as a sign to help convert the city he went to. Jesus said that it was a sign to the Ninevites. It means his fame preceded him before he got into Nineve. People may have heard a lot about him before he got there.

"And in the synagogue there was a man who had a spirit of an unclean demon and cried out with a loud voice, saying (...) I know You, who You are, the Holy One of God", Lk.4:34. How many unclean demons walk around in our synagogues today? And how many of them manifest themselves? Demons walk around in churches today and feel at home there. They even play their part in the services and many are not aware of it. Many of those demons also refer to Christ and tell the truth about Him, lust like it happened in that day when Jesus entered that synagogue! Let those who can take this hearken and take heed.

Be careful never to ask or demand from the Lord that a stone be transformed into bread simply because you don't believe Him. Many Christians do that even when they are not aware of it. One would be surprised to know just how many revival Christians do that. And that is why the bread of Life is turned into stones for them. I often hear people say, "How is it possible that so and so hears such a pure gospel and senses the power of God and they are not converted?" This is one of the reasons.

"Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many", Lk.2:34. Right from the start we see that where Jesus appears things are never the same again. They just can't be. Some will fall on the spot and some will rise. The tree is made good or bad and no tree will be the same ever again. Even at the Cross we see one man being risen to heaven and the other one falling down into hell. No words need to be spoken for it to happen. It just happens. It means that if one holds no to sin, he shall fall and if someone forsakes sin, he shall rise.

"And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger", Lk.2:12. Have you ever thought that a normal baby wrapped in swaddling cloths could be a sign to anyone? Let me explain. Angels appeared to half-asleep people, they sang as they do in heaven. Yet, that was not a sign. We find the angels commanding those shepherds back to earth. Even though the angels did not need much more to say or do after that appearance, yet, that something so 'insignificant' and earthly could be the sign is amazing. They abandoned their flocks and what they held very dear to them to look for such a sign. This should teach us something, especially those of us who look for big things and become negligent towards the will of God thinking it is insignificant compared to what we hold dear.

We read how an angel appeared to Zacharias to tell him his prayer had been answered, Lk.1:13. I believe Zacharias had offered many prayers about the same issue or problem and the angel said it was a single prayer. The other thing I am sure about is that Zacharias had, at that stage, already given up praying for the child he wished to have. He was to old by then to pray for it and so was his wife. So, the angel was referring to a prayer offered a while before, which was still on fire before God. Have you ever thought your prayers can be forgotten?

"And instantly he saw again. And he followed Him, glorifying God. And seeing, all the people gave praise to God", Lk.18:43. How many people are able to do the works of God in such a way that all those who follow them glorify God for real and not them or their church? And can their works also cause such an impression on all those present to glorify God as well by giving real glory to Him from the heart? Jesus could receive glory for all His deeds, but, it was the Father who received it when He worked. And He did not tell people to act that way at all. Can you work in such a way that you do not need to repeat yourself again and again to people that "all glory belongs to God" or any other known 'slogan' people often use? Do you find yourself always in the need to 'divert' the the attention from yourself through words? Isn't there a better way where the deeds speak by themselves and where you free yourself from that responsibility of repeating yourself about it all the time? The fact is, everyone who keeps repeating that the glory belongs to the Lord gives the impression he is struggling to show himself he doesn't wish the glory he owns or deserves. Only those to whom things 'belong' give it away to someone else. And, if people part glorifying the Lord it means it has never belonged to you indeed.

"...Stood and prayed thus with himself..." Lk.18:11. We easily miss the main point of these words. This means that one is merely praying to oneself, inspired by self and, sometimes, giving the answers himself to be able to carry on believing a lie. This must be a terrible state of mind where one finds oneself 'praying' to self thinking to be praying to the Lord!

Many, when mocked by others because of holiness, feel strangely uneasy and accused of something they can't really express. The accused or mocked one feels the pressure is upon him and feels as if he is on the wrong side. But, the fact is that the ones that mock, accuse or despise the words that speak deep, the example that talk or the lives that shine life out, those are the ones upon whom the load of responsibility is transferred. This is mainly why they respond by accusing and mocking. Make sure that you know the accused often accuses as a means to find his own false stability along with the peace that the world gives. When Jesus talked against the love towards Mammon, we read that, "The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him", Lk.16:14. They did not ridicule him because He was wrong, but, because they wished to carry on loving money. Ridiculing the only Way was the means to deceive themselves about it. It is not Jesus who should feel bad about being accused or ridiculed. He didn't. He did not feel any guilt by speaking this way; He did not feel bad about the young rich man feeling sad and going away unconverted; He did not feel any remorse by leaving His home or hometown; He did not feel bad because Peter and the other apostles had to leave their families either. Beware because accusations have the power to make the innocent feel guilty about what they have not done and have, also, the power to cause them to receive the exhortations of truth as false accusations.

You can always try to fulfil whatever you promised by remembering it. But, there are a few problems in such a way. One is that you might be thinking to use your own fleshly strength to do so since you are relying mainly on yourself. The other is that memory always fails people for many reasons. One of those reasons might be occupations and cares which have the power to absorb our being completely. Now, if you have promised to be a faithful person or to produce any other good fruit, make sure you know that the only way to fulfil it without a doubt is to gain a heart and a being which shall be faithful even when you have forgotten about the promise you have made. Make sure you get a praying heart before you vow to pray every dawn; or that you live in the real presence of God before you promise to think about Him all the time; or that you get saved from the love of money before you promise to be faithful in your business; or that you are capable to fulfil all conditions to pray effectively before you promise you shall work on having answers to all your prayers. We can mention many other examples, but God can show them to you if you ask Him.

It is true the Lord blesses according to the intentions of man as well. Good works with bad motives won't be blessed at all. But, the reward will be according to the works and not according to the intentions of man. "For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works", Mat.16:27.

The believers of evolution are more fascinated about the idea than believing. People love to explore the unthinkable and muse themselves with the imagination of any non-existing thing or of any other kind of occupations which 'feed' their empty mind. It keeps them busy since people far away from God have nothing to do and nothing important or lasting to think about.

There are many excuses or arguments that people use to be sinful. The unbeliever will say, "There is no God". And that is why he corrupts himself. It is just a way to assure he will carry on in sin. The believer with whom God is will say, "God is not with me" and corrupts himself as well for the same reason. When God is with them and people are able to say God is not with them, it just means they wish after sin and not after Emanuel. The 'believer' with whom God is not pleased, on the other hand, will say and take for granted God accepts his sin and looks over it. He will say "God is love" and will take for granted God understands his sin and will forgive it even if it is not repented from. People will always seek a reason to be sinful when the intention of the heart is not holiness.

If you are capable of pleasing people, you also bear the capacity in you to displease them and, also, to commit all sins associated to it, sins like jealousy, gossiping, bitterness, etc. Let me explain. Pleasing others is selfishness. It is not done because of others and whoever tries to please others does so for the sake of self and not for the sake of others. It is not others' best interest that is chased, but self's. It means that, when there is no return from others, no appreciation, self won't be satisfied with it and won't feel fulfilled. It will, then, seek revenge. In other words, only those who seek to please others have in them the capability to displease them.

Pessimism can be the opposite of hope. Pessimism comes from a bitter heart and it exists only because the heart is bitter or its ways or its carnal foundations are being contradicted in the deepest, unseen parts. Pessimism does not exist because it is truth or because it speaks the truth in some way. It exists only because the heart is bitter. Man believes in himself and the amount of pessimism, often, reveals the amount of trust in the flesh there still exists, (whether unseen or merely not acknowledged) and which is also practised. Because it is practised in daily life, the Spirit of God opposes it at the level of its foundations. Once the Sign which will be contradicted (Lk.2:34) starts to operate, man is made to see from deep within he cannot trust self. For him, it means he cannot trust, especially if he is still carnal in some way. This is where pessimism steps in to dominate the tongue, the thoughts, the talk and the ways of those who are able to kindle trouble in the hearts of all around by contaminating them through many sins associated to bitterness, Heb.12:15. The most common contaminations we shall see in such cases is jealousy (because they do not attain what they see in faithful people); bad thoughts in a general way; unfaithfulness (because of the lack of motivation brought by pessimism); the spreading of the smell of hopelessness and the lack of truthfulness about the Lord and His sovereign power to change things at all times. And because these people do not trust their God in their ways by not acknowledging Him in them from the heart, it shall seem as if their thoughts and beliefs about things are confirmed. But, the truth is God is not establishing their ways because they do not trust Him and that is why it will seem that what they say and believe is true or becomes true. What they hear about God is never confirmed in practical living because they do not acknowledge Him in all their ways. Pessimism is a lie resembling truth.

Daydreaming, even if it is dreaming about the things of the Lord, has two main problems: if things do not happen according to what is dreamed and comes in another shape - even if it comes in a better shape - it can mean disappointment in a fleshly soul. The carnal soul does not reach out beyond what it sees, feels or believes. The other problem is that it makes people unfaithful, since they use up their time in a wrong way when they should be found doing the right thing for the Lord at the right time, it is, during the day which is called today.

If we are holy by living for the Lord, we represent Him here on earth. This is what it means that we pray or do things in the name of the Lord. We are here in His stead, representing Him in His 'absence'. Now, we read a prophecy in David's time, about Jesus, that says, "Ask of Me, and I shall give the nations for Your inheritance; and the uttermost parts of the earth for Your possession", Ps.2:8. Are you doing this in Jesus name, in His place? Are you pleading and asking this as a representative of Jesus?

Many believe they are in a position where they can demand many things from God even out of season, especially if they believe to be fulfilling what God requires of them. The fact is that when we are planted near the waters of Life, we shall bear fruit in the proper season and not in the season we want. The promise is that a tree which is planted near the waters shall bear fruit in its proper season, Ps.1:3. If it were possible for a tree to bring forth fruit out of season, it would be a bad tree. We read in Malachi that it is a curse to receive blessings before its proper time. For example, if we pretend to bear the fruits of the Spirit before meeting up with Him in a real manner, the curse will be hypocrisy. And we may say the same thing about every good gift that can come from the Lord.

There shall always be a great difficulty to serve God and to be faithful to Him if the use of our memory is poor. How can we serve Him without remembering what the Lord has said here and there? Memory is also trained and educated. However, the biggest problem to memory are the thorns and the cares for this world. They make people forgetful beings.

There has always been some confusion about being wise and having knowledge. Knowledge is what we know and being wise is how we apply what we know. They are not the same thing. And there are people who have knowledge and are not wise and vice-versa.

Have you ever apologized for things you shouldn't have been apologizing for? It means there are things you should apologize for and you don't. It just works like that. People are often tempted to cause an impression of humility on others which gives them the ideal hiding place for their sins. Besides pleasing others, those who apologize for things they shouldn't apologize for must know they are keeping back something or trying to hide much. And we should all walk in the light instead of trying to use the ways of light to hide out. "O house of Jacob, come and let us walk In the light of the LORD", Is.2:5.

The more I am blessed with the wisdom and the words of God, the more I realize that Godly things ly in ruins. It is not a fully erected Temple anymore and it is not a beautiful palace which attracts people to it. I wonder where just are the engineers and the workers are to have it raised in its full splendour again.

We all must know that the long term changes or decisions we make are the ones that count before God. It doesn't mean that the short term decisions are not taken into account for us or even for judgment purposes. It just means that what counts is how we end even when the way we start is good and even if we know everybody must start somewhere to end up well. Didn't Judas Iscariot start up well to end badly? Let me speak more about this. Suppose you find yourself sinning in some way and you promptly decide to do away with it. Then, you cut the act quickly off and, because of it, you leave the heart untouched. It means the heart has not been given the chance to change along. You have dealt with it in haste. Sooner or later there shall be temptations on that area or even sin because the heart has not been dealt with due to the haste of dealing against something which has roots. Haste is, often, superficiality. Have you ever dealt with sin as something that has no roots and seem to lie superficially in the surface? If you do that, sin will come back or, if it doesn't come back, despair will because the heart has not been changed along. When you deal with sin, deal with it in a long term instead of dealing with it as those who do it in a haste to have it quickly covered up and forgotten. We need to expose and not to cover up. It is exposure which is able to kill sin just as, supposedly, sunlight killed vampires.

When we bless others, we must be careful enough not to do so because we feel somewhat superior to the person we bless. Usually, a blessing is pronounced by someone who is close or closer to God. But, in order for the blessing to take full effect and to mean something more than empty words, there must be no feeling of superiority in the one who pronounces it and neither a feeling of inferiority in the one who receives it.

We need, quite often, the authority of God, especially when we preach the gospel or speak out the words of the Lord. One of the holes through which authority often licks out is a life which has not matched itself up with the knowledge of God it experiences and with the Truth it has been taken by. If we live less than we know of God, authority will fade away for two reasons: one is that God will not reveal Himself as our friend because He cannot afford to back up whatever we say or do; and the other is that people, by seeing clearly that we live less than we preach, will be inclined to despise us or our words. The other hole from where authority licks out is when we try to match up with God's Life and principles through strength or, we could say, without heart. When it is our heart which is forced to equal the principles, we should know it is not the same as having the principles match up with our hearts. Do you remember what God said about David, that he had a heart according to God? Then we must add principles to our life, because a good heart without principles shall become slack.

People often don't take their own words seriously. That is why many say things before God and do not fulfil them or simply forget about them. The fact is that a request is recorded in the Bible made by Salomon in his sleep, in a dream. If words in our sleep or in our dreams can count before God, how much more what we say while awake! Do we take the words we speak before God and people seriously? Do they count for us as they do for God? Do we know God means business with us and will never play games? "Guard your steps when you go to the house of God, and be more ready to hear than to give the sacrifice of fools. For they do not know that they are doing evil", Ecl.5:1.

In Israel, in David's time, it was believed that to lie down with a virgin was a foolish thing to do. "And as for you, you shall be as one of the fools in Israel", 2Sam.13:13. But, as time went on, this world started to work hard and patiently on causing the impression upon people that it wasn't so bad a deed at all. Now, it is not even considered a crime anymore. Eventually, that foolish idea created roots and it is now assumed it is a good thing to commit sins and that sin is not an act of a fool. Now, in worldly ways, movies and minds we find this perverse idea or ideal so established that people assume it without giving a second thought to it. It is common and natural to sin. The idea that people cannot go on without sin has taken hold of the whole world and of people's minds. Time must come when Christians start assuming again that sin is foolishness and not a mere temptation because it is indeed foolishness. We should assume truth again.

"I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore, choose life, so that both you and your seed may live", Deut.30:19. We see there is life and death before us. Yet, God says "choose life". Let me explain. Dead people cannot choose death because they are already dead. Sin makes them dead. The only thing they can choose is to be revived and to have life in them again. This is why God says "choose life" since they cannot choose death anymore. Life is the only thing people are able to choose since sin has made them literally dead.

"And every one that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bring forth more fruit", John 15:2. Here are two interesting thoughts which we do not always give thought to. One is that God prunes only those who bring forth fruit. Those who don't bring forth fruit are not pruned. The other thought that struck me today again is that God prunes the heart so there can be fruit outside. He doesn't prune the outside so there can be fruit, but the inside. So, we cannot expect God to change circumstances for our delight, but rather to use them according to our inner needs.

We all have things we are right about and things we are wrong about. But, man is always a surprising creature. The thing is, man must believe he is right about everything or else he will fail to trust. It is because he is the one he trusts most. Man's own strength and his confidence in himself is very valuable to him. He will feel lost without it. Now, those things man is right about give him the confidence to carry on in a wrong track as if he is right about it all. The fact that he is indeed right about certain things makes him unconsciously believe he is right about everything else or, at least, makes him put forth or search for an attitude that he cannot be wrong. Man without confidence in himself feels desperate and he doesn't want it to be that way. The flesh demands that he must believe in himself all the time and to argue as if he should always be right all the time.

We know the story of Saul and how he failed to be fully obedient to the Lord's command concerning Amalek and his people, 1Sam.15. It was difficult for him to carry out the right thing to the full. But, it was not so when he did the wrong thing. We read how he killed all the priests of God in one town and killed all that breathed in there, 1Sam.22:18,19. Faithfulness is one of those things we have been created with when God made us according to His image. It is part of us since creation along with many other things. Now, if we are not able to be fully obedient to the Lord, we must know we shall be able to be fully obedient to something else and even to the wrong thing. No one can hinder that happening that way, because it is a law in creation. We have been created as faithful beings. We shall always be faithful to something, whether it is the wrong thing or the Lord. Didn't Paul mention the fact that people in sin have their members fully yielded to it and to the world? They are, so to say, completely faithful to sin. And doesn't James speak out stating there are half-hearted people in the courts of God because they love sin and have not fully repented of it all?

Sometimes, God needs to speak through a dream or during people's sleep because they are too busy to hear Him when they are not asleep. There might be other reasons why God speaks to us during our sleep, though. God can try someone to see whether he or she will yield to sleep or to His voice and to obedience.

Those who do not please people from nature have no conscience of it. If people have conscience of pleasing others, that is when they start working on not pleasing them. That is when they become conscious of it. Sometimes, they even become unpleasant to achieve it. Consciousness of that sin makes people react against it.

The peace of God is not like the world's. It doesn't work the same way and it doesn't come at any cost. I mean that God will not change or adapt for the sake of our peace. If His presence is real and not imaginary, we must be changed beings and not adapted beings if we wish to feel at home in Him. There is no such thing as peace in the presence of God unless we have indeed been changed and transformed by Him. God did not come to make us feel comfortable, but to change us. Once changed, we shall have peace in Him. If we have not been changed, His presence will be a torture to us.

There are many people who are concerned about hearing the voice of God. To a certain extent, it is good that they are concerned about such things. But, I believe we should be concerned about becoming sheep, since Jesus said sheep hear it. Instead of being concerned about the voice, let's become sheep and do all to that end. Besides, there is something better for people who are filled with the Spirit of God and live by Him: they can feel or sense how God feels about certain things because they live close enough to Him. That could be a greater intimacy than hearing His voice.

Many put certain sins in a different category than others. Let me explain. Some have prostitution or pride as a big sin and gossiping as a minor one, even if they consider it sin. And there are, also, sins which those people do not consider sin at all or, at least, not as dangerous a sin. For example, people may consider that love for a own country, its culture or anything about it or its pride for is a good thing. That is what the tribe of Benjamin thought when the rest of Israel asked them to deliver those evil men from their tribe who raped and killed a Levite's woman. Instead of delivering them, the whole tribe of Benjamin gathered as one man to defend evil doers because they belonged to their tribe, Judges 20:13,14. We should be very careful and on the guard against what people call nationality. Our identity is, quite often, something which stands between us and God and many people are not aware that it keeps the answers away from their prayers because they can't see that as lifting or downgrading ourselves before our fellow men. In heaven, all people are alike and our hearts should aim to live as it is done in heaven. "If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God", Col.3:1.

After Moses, God gave Joshua as a leader to Israel. However, God gave no leader after Joshua. It can mean a lot of things, but, the most significant one is that people would now depend on God completely after the way they may have learned from these leaders. They had their chance now "not do according to all that we do here today, each doing whatever is right in his own eyes", Deut.12:8,9.

How many people have committed great mistakes, or even changed the course of their lives by not enquiring from God? And how many did the same by not waiting for a clear answer or until God speaks if they enquired? There will always be a next difficulty if the flesh is kept alive: if one is not too busy, too confident or too proud to enquire from God, one might not be ready to wait for an answer or to pray in such a way that the answer comes.

We are often encouraged by testimonies of other people. And it is so good that the workings of God are able to encourage us, since it enrages many around the world. Yet, we must know we need to have an own story to tell and to be encouraged by the presence of God. His presence should be such a reality to us all, that the Lord Himself is able to take us, encourage us and bear us in His own holy hands. He should, also, to be our encouragement at all times.

It is true lukewarm people are responsible for many a spiritual crime. Many people are not born again because of them, since they do not enter the door of salvation and block the way to others because they gather in front of the narrow door. But, these lukewarm people have another power: they can determine some of the ways or attitudes on warm people. Let me explain. Remember Isaiah who called out and said he had unclean lips and lived among people of unclean lips? Isaiah was warm, yet, he learned the ways of lukewarm Israel, especially the way they spoke. He acted like them. Now, if warm people act as the lukewarm ones, they become the main stumbling blocks to these half hearted people because they do not look different from them. Even though they are warm, lukewarm people can exercise a power which brings a conduct out of them to make them act like hypocrites. That comforts and establishes hypocrisy - even if warm ones are not hypocrites or even if they do not have the intention to act like them at all. This makes warm people the main stumbling block to lukewarm ones, just as lukewarm ones are to cold hearts.

Here is an interesting sequence: "Behold! I have set before you today life and good, and death and evil", Deut.30:15. It is good that goodness does not come before life and we can see that evil doesn't come before death. Goodness follows life and bad things follow the spiritual death on people. The Kingdom of God and His righteousness is to be found first, along with its Life.

We often talk about the glory of God and many people say, "all the glory to God", while keeping that glory secretly for themselves. There are many other reasons why people seek what is not theirs to share. Some people seek or steal glory only to seek attention because they feel lonesome. They want to feel acceptable and work hard on it. Loneliness can make people steal. However, loneliness is solved by having God with us for real and not by seeking glory. His presence is able to deal against that sort of glory seeking, even though there are other sorts. Others seek glory to be self-assuring or assured. They lack confidence in God. We should be able to make a sound diagnosis of the real reason why we seek glory for ourselves or why we talk too much, instead of pushing it aside by saying, "all glory is to God". That makes us sound like hypocrites. We need to come to the point where God can afford to exalt us for the sake of His Kingdom and name. By then, we should be able to live and feel comfortable with His glory because our hearts know all belongs to God indeed, and people see clearly what we know from experience. Let's deal with whatever hinders that to happen or God will never be glorified through us. "You have today said that the Lord is your God (...) and that you will listen to His voice. And the Lord has taken you today to be His peculiar people, as He has promised you, and to make you high above all nations which He has made, in praise and in name and in honour, and that you may be a holy people to the Lord your God", Deut.26:17-19. Does your life speak by itself of the glory of God, even without words? Does your life exalt God and all His doings even when you are not thinking of it or are not aware of it? We cannot do two things at the same time: we cannot fight own pride (which makes us self aware), and exalt God at the same time.

According to the Law of God, a neglecting act which leads to someone's accident or crime is sin. Anyone who is negligent and causes someone to suffer, besides being guilty of negligence, is also responsible or guilty of whatever happens to his neighbour; and if negligence makes someone else's crime easier, the negligent person is a co-criminal.

The Lord told Israel that they should bring an offering according to the previous blessing of God, Deut.16:17. This means the offering would speak loud and clear and everyone around would clearly see how bountiful God's blessing had been. This goes against the doctrines of the so called prosperity preachers who say people must give first them offerings in order to receive back from the Lord. The offering must be according to the blessing of God and it is not the blessing of God which must be according to the offering. They have it the other way round.

When the Lord talks about freedom or liberty, He means us to be free from ourselves and from sin. The worst slave holder is self because it holds self captive. Therefore, once we are taken into our heritage of freedom, we cannot do things there according to an own vision or own opinion because it would mean self shall be in charge again. God has also intended to free us from that - especially from that. "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God", Rom.8:14. The main sad complain God holds against people is that they have wandered into own ways. "You shall not do according to all that we do here today, each doing whatever is right in his own eyes. For you have not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance which the Lord your God gives you", Deut.12:8,9.

"You may not eat the life with the flesh", Deut.12:22. We know how the Lord threw man out of Paradise and cut off his access to the Tree of Life so that sin or the flesh wouldn't eat of it and live forever. God had already separated light from darkness as His first act of creation and, after sin had entered the world, He also separated the flesh from Life as to confirm He doesn't want anything to do with sin or sinfulness which looks godly. And here we come with this symbolical commandment concerning blood (life) and the flesh: they cannot be eaten together. People should either be cold or hot. Everyone who eats from the flesh and from life shall be lukewarm and shall make God sick to the point of nausea or of vomiting. How is it with you? Are you trying to put Life and sin together by eating from both? You may never eat from the bread of life unless you decide to let the world stand along with all sin and flesh.

We read in Deut.2 that God says He has thrown out giants from certain places so the children of Esau and the Moabites could live there. I am sure they never admitted that it had been God doing it for them by destroying extremely sinful nations. They must either have become proud or praised others gods for these achievements. Either way can be taken as forms of idolatry. Whether you praise yourself, your own wisdom or strength or praise other gods so you can look humble, you shall always be guilty of ugly idolatry. You can also be guilty of that sin because by blaming God of those bad things that happen to you or to anyone else. It is just another way of exalting yourself and diminishing the Lord. "You shall have no other gods before Me", the Lord said. Don't be the one you praise for anything that happened.

Many are always in a hurry to get to work in time or to get to any other early business. Perhaps they are in a hurry because they weren't in a hurray to get out of bed.

A complicated mind is nothing less than a mind pressured by distractions and affairs, whether good or bad ones. These distractions press present duties and responsibilities aside and start a war inside the soul of man. By exterminating desires which are not according to God or by dealing diligently with those desires which are Godly but not appropriate for the moment, one will enter into the simplicity of Christ and shall start to enjoy it and to live from it to the full.

Half heartedness in the things of God or double heartedness are liars. The principle behind double heartedness is deceit. It tells people they belong to God since they are not cold. It causes them to put a foot in the grounds of God or of truth while they use the other foot to walk in the world. One foot in the temple comforts them and gives them an unacceptable equilibrium. Only God can see they are not warm since they may have become fools. Half hearted people know they are not cold and, therefore, it becomes hard for them to see they are not warm. They won't be able to realize they are not warm since they don't feel cold. Double heartedness keeps them near the courts of the Lord and grants them a feeling of comfort and of hope in the backslidings which they refuse to acknowledge as such. Another truth concerning double heartedness is that it is a great offense to God since it lives for the devil right in the face of God. These people are not cold enough to go and live for the flesh or the devil somewhere else, far away from the presence of God. They bring unholy things into the Holy of Holies and rub it in the face of God to force His pure skin to take it in, absorb it and accept it from their hand. They believe a God of love would do just that. In case they would go far away and become cold, they would be, in the least, truthful about many things. That's why cold people are better off since they show forth a degree of inner truthfulness within them. Didn't the Lord praise the unjust steward for the wisdom of being, at least, truthful about his whole situation and because of having made the correct diagnosis of his true standings? (Luk.16:8).

Many excuses are put forth by people who are not ready or don't feel ready for something yet. Ignorance causes people to say they can't do something because they are unable to do it. Capability comes through devotion and preparation comes from the Lord before or during the work we must be prepared for. It takes years of faithfulness in smaller things until we become naturally faithful to be entrusted with the greater things of God. If people are not ready or prepared to do something, it should serve as an accusation to them rather than as an excuse. Jesus did not look over any lack of readiness or any lack of preparation, just as He will never ignore ignorance. Lack of wisdom accuses people of not having walked with the Lord of wisdom long enough and lack of readiness confirms people have not been faithful in former smaller things and have not been seeking the Lord during periods of trials, however insignificant they may have seemed to them then. They have not remained in/with the Lord to the end of their trying season. Can the Lord say of you, "You remained with Me since the beginning"? John 15:27, Luk.22:28.

By reading the story of Korah and the two hundred and fifty men who died with him, I was amazed at what God said. He said that the censers were holy because they were brought before the Lord, Num.16:37. It just amazes me because people were rejectable and the censers acceptable. We read many times, in the Bible, that the right order of things is that man be accepted; and we also read how often God said, "Him will I accept". It is people who should be accepted and not the censers. God said that about Job too: "Him will I hear (accept)", Job 42:8. Isn't it amazing? God can even hear a man whose prayer is not yet uttered because it is man who is accepted. The right order of things is that God accepts the man before accepting his prayer or any other thing brought before Him. Are we acceptable sacrifices to the Lord? Can we be accepted? We know there are a few people whose prayers are accepted before them because of the glory of God or even because (for the sake) of the people they pray for; yet, they themselves are rejected. "Many will say to Me in that day, Lord! Lord! Did we not prophesy in Your name, and through Your name throw out demons, and through Your name do many wonderful works? And then I will say to them I never knew you! Depart from Me, those working lawlessness!", Mat 7:22-23. And this piece of Scripture is not talking only about those false prophets who do some wonders or pretend they do them at all.

It is strange that sinners who rebel against God or His ways always try to serve the same God they rejected in a way of their own. It was so with Korah and will still be so in many churches: people will always try to serve on their own and or their own might to live from self-righteousness and to keep it alive for the sake of fleshly stability or fleshly trust. We should know that when we reject the way God established or reject the people He put to lead, we reject God. It is not possible to serve God the way we wish to serve Him. Let us remember that Jesus says "The way it is done in heaven" and puts it above the will of God itself. God does not want the devil or the flesh to serve in His Temple. So shouldn't you want it. Beware, since any person (including yourself) who lack righteousness in some way will surely hold on to some indulgence or foolishness which tries to turn to God in a rebelling way or in a way God considers rebellion. (Rebellion is self-righteousness or self-righteousness is rebellion. Beware of any form of it!) Unless such people hold on to some sort of strange 'righteousness' they will feel at loss and, besides, conscience must be lied to so it may be stilled by force or by double heartedness. Double heartedness is the food of rebellion because it allows people to feel they still swerve around God, His words and His Temple. Religion takes the place of God in their lives to fill the void for them. Religion is stubbornness.

True prayer has many secrets and the reason they are seldom discovered and practised is that these are very simple secrets. Complicated things seem to have a greater hold on people's minds and conducts, and especially on the wholeness of the mind. Discipline is one of these secrets. However, very few people can be disciplined and spontaneously on the burn at the same time. We all know just how true prayer needs genuine fire. And when there is no genuine fire, people establish some sort of strange fire to compensate for the loss of the participation of the Spirit in their prayer life. It is common to see discipline robbing people from their wholeheartedness in the Spirit when it should rather be able to increase it. Another problem is that few people can separate one problem or request from another. They are too eager to solve all at once and seem to be unable to deal through with one problem until God's answer opens way to the other one. And when they are able to deal with one single issue wholeheartedly at a time, they don't seem to be able to let it stand to walk afresh into a new talk with the Lord. For example, if they talk about themselves or about personal spiritual needs wholeheartedly, they seem to lose sight of others spiritual needs after they have done so; and if they wholeheartedly pray to solve others' needs, they seem to neglect their own important ones. I could mention a few more of these secrets and problems in prayer, but, it seems there is always some dispute which robs people from the genuine spirit of simple prayer.

We see God commanding Aaron to sacrifice an animal before entering the presence of the Lord. But, it seems to me Moses did not need to do it. He entered the presence of God without the need of sacrifice. Maybe it was because he was always in the presence of God.

"Do not drink wine nor strong drink (...) even for a distinction between the holy and unholy, and between the unclean and clean", Lev.10:9,10. Even when people are not addicted to wine or any other sinful practice, even if it is only for the setting of an example, even if it is only for the sake of others, one should not touch certain things, even when they might be holy things unto us already. "...So that you may teach...", Lev.10:11

Sometimes we wonder why God has put in His Law given to Moses that people should not eat certain kinds of animals, birds or reptiles. Then we read: "To make a difference between the unclean and the clean", Lev.11:47. We all should know that to distinguish between the clean and the unclean has always been a great issue to God or He wouldn't make that an object of promise through the coming of Christ, Mal.3:18. We can easily conclude from these laws that the peoples living in the Promised Land prior to the Israelites had some religious link to all those prohibited things or God would never have intervened through prohibitions such as these. Israel should set an example and be excluded from falling into those religious traps and beliefs, just as we do nowadays with wine or any other thing people link to sin or to the 'enjoyment' of this present world. There are many reasons why Peter could eat from the birds and animals coming from heaven on the sheet he saw. There was nothing impure about them. People defiled those things through beliefs and idolatries. Besides the work Christ came to do within man, at the time of Peter most of those beliefs had already vanished from the earth. Nowadays' beliefs 'do not eat' many things out of religiosity and by concepts about God which miss the mark. Times have changed and so beliefs and religions. Our external ways should reveal we belong to the Lord. Once they cease to show just that and that we do it for the Lord's sake, then they become useless and empty commands.

Many talk about the crowns they will get in heaven forgetting that crown is a "crown of holiness", as Lev.8:9 says. Have you ever realized that crown will be holiness? Does it fit in your head? Do you look out to bear such a crown? After the Lord, holiness may well be the most precious gift there is for us.

Talking a lot and repeating oneself over and over again concerning what one believes or about what has happened to us in the past might be a hidden sign of lack of surety or even of security. Beware, because we preach the truth only to save others and not to assure us before people whose breath is in their nostrils.

It is indeed true man shall not live by bread alone. But, in the same way we may confirm that man shall not rest by sleep alone, nor quench thirst only by drinking. The needs of the body are not the only things man should look for. They are not even to be compared to the spiritual needs. There is more and better needs which man should care for to be satisfied and whole. The fact is that many people eat and drink to sin and it makes them more hungry for true food. In the same way, we may be assured that much sleeping takes true rest away from any of us. Beware and never try to compensate your spiritual needs by overdoing the doses of physical food, rest or drink.

We all know what adultery is all about. If all of us would stay away from touching even our promised partner before marriage, I am sure adultery would also be turned impossible through a principle which drives our behaviour along with God's blessing. It is a good thing to be pure and one can only continue in purity if pure already since we all reap what we are able to sow.

"No offering which you bring to the LORD shall be made with leaven, for you shall burn no leaven nor any honey in any offering to the LORD made by fire", Lev.2:11. Many people have some fermenting stuff in their heart which they stubbornly ignore to be able to pray to God about certain other things they consider important to them. And here we read it is unacceptable to offer anything to the Lord with leaven. It is better to deal with the leaven first and exterminate it from the heart. Others try to be nice while they pray and they are not the same people when they pray as they usually are. They put honey in their offerings. And God says "you shall put not honey in a burnt offering". It is better to let a prayer stand until we can be ourselves and the heart we have may express itself and be revealed while we pray.

The Lord made Aaron high priest and so his sons after him. The Lord is able to work on people for a certain purpose even before they are born. This is why He can appoint priests in a successive way even before they are born. The blessing of the Lord is capable of creating responsible people through succession. We can see the same thing being promised to David and his sons succeeding him to lead God's people.

Real wisdom and real words, to be heard, do not need noise or anything else pressing it through. Wisdom catches the attention of any heart inclined to it and is best listened to and understood in quietness. "The words of wise men are heard in quiet more than the cry of him that ruleth among fools", Ec.9:17.

The best way to quiet down someone who talks too much, is to give such a person something to think about. Much talking is often synonymous of an empty or of a striving mind. It is very difficult to do two things at once and very few people can talk and think at the same time. "Because much talk comes from dreams and things of no purpose", Ec.5:7. Grant such a person a "purpose" or "thing" to think about and you shall have quietness coming along.

The main secret towards obedience is not authority, good commandments and not even wrath. The secret for obedience is the attainment of an obedient heart which can see itself portrayed in those good commandments it is able to receive directly from God.

"They have turned aside quickly out of the way", Ex.32:8. It is interesting to see what God means or understands by the word "quickly". God was talking about forty days in the desert where people were breathing sand, possibly thirsty, away from the comfort of an own home and much more. (There is another context in which God applies the word "quickly" in Mat.5:25. It just shows when things must be quick, people have it slow and those same people can't wait when God is delaying certain things for a reason). For the people forty days were to many days and for God it was not so long. God says that people "quickly" went astray. They couldn't wait. This stupidity cost them many lives and another forty days by which they had to be proved all over again. We delay things whenever we believe God is taking too long and act accordingly on our own.

There is always that doubt concerning the next generation, especially when revivals or the greater works are experienced and lived close by in the generation before. Will the next generations know God is that real and powerful? The truth about this is that people do not take God as real and powerful by seeing miracles and good or wondrous deeds, but, rather by experiencing God's presence - as long as it is for real. His presence talks by itself. It is His presence which will convince and impress them deeply that He is indeed Lord over all that exists. No preaching will achieve what His presence achieves. "And I will dwell among the children of Israel... And they shall know that I am the Lord and their God", Êx.29:45-46. Let people only work hard on those conditions which will assure God to be present and to feel at home among them and they shall know that He is God indeed.

God said to Moses: "You shall take offerings from every man that gives it willingly with his heart", Ex.25:2. We cannot afford to believe that the modern ways of extorting money from people in churches nowadays encourage free giving and much less voluntary offerings. In fact, people are moved by own interests when deceived by these robbers who use the gospel as their assaulting weapon. Any person who gives voluntarily to a robber has some selfish interest or some king of sinful ignorance which drives him to give to such. People who give to extorting preachers are greedy themselves in some way. They try to deceive God through their giving and try to talk Him into blessing them as if God is not good enough to freely bless them. I do not believe that sort of giving can ever be considered free offerings at all. In fact, that kind of giving is the precise opposite of free giving. Robbing preachers do not only steal from people but extort them from their good senses as well.

A good rule is not always the best option for a living standard or for an exhortation. Wisdom teaches us to apply things which cause works and fruits to emerge. Only if there is no wiser or better thing to do, should the rule be applied even if it is only for the sake of best protection of truth's point of view.

The worst thing that can ever happen to the heart of man is it to believe God approves some evil it is seized by or used to. There is no ground more slippery than the one where people start believing God approves some kind of evil they prefer, love, nourish or keep alive. "Blessed is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves", Rom.14:22.

What worst thing can happen to man than when God says, "I will not again pass by them any more"? Amos 7:8.

A person does not necessarily need to understand before becoming born again and, most probably, not even after. "The Spirit breathes where He desires, and you hear His voice, but you do not know from where He comes, and where He goes; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit", John 3:8. But, as soon as the new birth takes place anyone will understand something wonderful happen for which there are no words or explanations. There shall always be a proof of the truth and of the truthfulness (reality) of God inside man when God has touched him. "He who has received His testimony bears witness that God is true", John 3:33.

There are many diverging and some converging ideas about Jesus. I believe from the bottom of my heart that the more Jesus becomes real to us or reveals Himself as He is in some place, the more diverging ideas will spring out of men's hearts. People will be converging around a false Jesus and diverging around a real, truthful and operating one. It just works that way since people are not used to reality concerning God. They will subside doubts and fears before an illusionary God. Besides, a real God confronts people who are sinful and encourages or stands by in a real way all those who strive towards holiness undividedly. This, alone, will cause controversy on its own already, the more so when people around do not want to change and, yet, want to keep believing in an existing God Whom they do not wish to be real. These will surely say believing in God is to believe in His existence and not to entrust our whole being to Him to be exchanged for real new one. People who do not wish to change and still want to keep a belief in God will converge b y themselves immediately or on the long run concerning their ideal of a false Jesus. Even when in disagreement they shall seek a way to converge and to get along. These will, also and surely, converge as one person against the true sons of the Lord.

It is often said that Jesus wants our all. But, it could be be said with all certainty that for Him it is either all or nothing. It is better to be cold if one is not warm.

"...For the ruler of this world comes, and he has nothing in Me", John 14:30. When the devil comes to us, the best weaponry against him is presented by not having anything in us or any attitude that belongs to him. Let him be ashamed and have reasons to flee from us when we resist him. How shall the world ever know that we indeed love the Father unless the devil himself comes to prove it his way and by himself?

Synchrony between the right time and the right thing to do is, usually, the best way to remember important things or, should I say, not to forget about them.

When we pray, we should be inspired by God's faithfulness and mercy above being worried and presumptuous. By worrying or by being presumptuous, we act like those who wanted to make Jesus King by force. We should never be taken by ways which confuse us concerning God's will at all. By being presumptuous or by worrying, we can't easily know what God's will really is concerning the thing we pray about. In other words, we forsake the way of faith. We should know that worrying or presuming will surely take us to pray about things God does not will or things He wills and we would want it done in some way God does not approve.

"From this time many of His disciples went back into the things behind, and walked no more with Him", John 6:66. To which thing are you tempted to go back? To a past sign to find assurance through it? Whether it is something of the world or something good which is behind, the moment you step back you have ceased to walk through Jesus.

Jesus cannot be made King by force, John 6:15. He will simply slip away to hide Himself discretely. Anyone who uses force to cause Jesus to be king over his life, has something which he does not wish to give up. Such a person is avoiding the ways of God in dealing with the heart. There are things which we need to give up for the sake of Jesus and there are things which we only believe we must give up to please self. By forcing Jesus to be king over one's life, one is neglecting those simple truths and things which will cause Him to come near or into the heart. Cleansing one's heart will surely cause Jesus to come near to fill the void. "Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, sinners; and purify your hearts, double-minded ones", James 4:8. People who force Jesus to be their king by force, generally, are refusing to be saved on God's terms and are working out an own salvation. To make Him king by force means one is trying to jump over the wall into the sheepfold. Making noise and creating heavy emotional backgrounds which will cause people to have a strange faith or to kindle a strange fire can also be seen as trying to make Him king on men's terms.

Many say that if God spoke to them openly they would believe Him or would believe in His existence. But, the Bible says that if one cannot believe the written words of God, one shall neither be able to believe in God had He spoken or had a dead person been resurrected (John 5:47; Luke16:29-31). Did people not already believe it was thunder or an angel when God spoke from heaven? (John 12:29).

No one is able to bar a holy revival, but, only by marring it. Only the used instruments of that revival are capable of marring it. If they sin or take wrong ways to carry out God's will, they will surely have that revival killed away.

The Bible talks about "walking in the Light" instead of talking about "entering the Light". It means Light is in the word already. We must only walk in it revealing all and being fully transparent. "He was the true Light; He enlightens every man coming into the world. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men", John 1:9,4.

All worrying is and shall always be very painful thorns whether the person still feels the pain of them or not.

Whoever does not know what God's will is for his life has only one problem: he wishes God to do what he wishes to accomplish. If it were so, he would surely know what God's will would be.

The doctrines of greedy preachers who love money protect them and supports them. However, truth does not. They preach about prosperity in a way that causes people to give them what they own. For these preachers, preaching is an investment and not obedience. They act as if Jesus is an ignorant and blind person. And we must know that anyone who gives them money is as greedy as the person receives it. Sort seeks sort. Species seek the same species to live together. By showing off their riches, these preachers apparently live what they preach about. But, truth will eventually condemn them. May it happen soon.

In the older times, Paul would say about Satan, "For we are not ignorant of his devices", 2 Cor.2:11. However, in case people were honest and truthful, they would say something like this today: "We ignore his devices and became quite ignorant about him".

If you are one of those people who do not easily believe the devil has a definite plan or strategy to have your whole life destroyed, you are ignoring truth. The devil has that plan to destroy you. Do not close your eyes to any of His plans or devices to ignore them and make sure you remain close to the Lord all the time.

The sort of wisdom that comes from God is malleable and like clay in the hands of the potter when learning; and it is firm and sure when it is teaching and carrying wisdom around.

We should all know that it is very difficult to detain a holy revival where its leaders stand close to the Lord answering to Him for every moment of their lives. However, the devil will try many evils to discredit it before people. One of the ways is to create fake revivals or, as we call it, counter 'revivals'. People from outside will avoid becoming alive because of what they see in these counter 'revivals'. It is the devil working there, surely.

There are a lot of ways to add to God's words. If you find yourself in any emotional state, whatever it may be, you must make sure you believe you are capable of interpreting God's words and ways your own way. Anxiety, happiness or sadness, worrying or careless attitudes, along with any other way people may feel or think can cause them to interpret God's words according to their state of mind. Thay hear the state of mind and not God, applying His holy words to what they think or wish to think.

We have this wrong idea that we need to speak about God or use His name to be able to use it in vain. It is true we can use God's name in vain by speaking. However, it is a huge mistake to believe that is the only way to use His name in vain. "...Lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain", Prov.30:9. Here, we hear the writer say he can use the name of God in vain by stealing even without saying a word. How? If you are a child of God and are able to trust Him, it should be obvious any act of stealing is an outrageous act against the name of God upon you. How many other ways can you think of one can use God's name in vain?

We should never try to divert or avoid the confrontations between good and evil. It is not possible to avoid any of it. It is like a law in nature that evil will always confront goodness and that goodness will work against evil. "An unjust man is a hateful thing to the just; and he who is upright in the way is hateful to the wicked", Prov.29:27. Righteous people often try to avoid this sort of confrontations due to the wisdom they have been able to stand by. However, evil will never avoid such confrontations and will always try to establish itself through an aggressiveness which cannot be hindered. These are the two main reasons why evil gains so much ground. Righteous people should live their lives openly and fearlessly without taking evil into account. Goodness can only be established that way.

Fears can cause people to imagine things. It causes people to see mischief and danger where there is no danger or mischief. Fear makes people suspicious. We should be aware of the dangers of the mind and its consequent feelings. Don't greedy people dream a lot to bring some kind of relief to their greed? Fearing people, also, create their own lions. "The fear of man brings a snare", Prov.29:25.

"A child left to himself brings shame to his mother", Prov.29:15. It shouldn't be necessary to explain this truth. How many mothers and fathers leave their children decide things for themselves as if they have enough life experience to know what course of life they must take? How many mothers and fathers leave their children to their borrowed ideas or twisted ideals? How many children learn only what they feel like learning and do what they feel like doing? Should we leave a ship in a tempestuous high sea to find its own way to land?

One needs to be a liar to believe a lie; an illusion needs a deceived heart to find roots; and it takes a truthful heart to become aware of truth in the lips of anyone. Sort seeks sort. There is a natural attraction and common understanding between alike things or alike beings.

We should never give anything above indifference to foolishness. We cannot give any attention or heed to any of it. Even talking to it or answering it is foolish. "If a wise man contends with a foolish man, whether he rages or laughs, there will be no rest for him", Prov.29:9.

If a bad man does something good, he is still worse than any righteous man who is trapped into some undesired sin. And we know how serious righteous people's sins are! Imagine how serious it is to have a bad man pass for a good one! "He who turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is a hateful thing", Prov.28:9.

"A man who flatters his neighbour spreads a net for his feet", Prov.29:5. How many people take this truth seriously? How many mistake flattering for friendliness? How many are aware that a flattering tongue is a murderer of souls?

"He who trusts in his own heart is a fool; but whoever walks wisely, he shall be delivered", Prov.28:26. This means that those people who walk according to their heart are not wise and they can never be wise as long as they are capable of trusting it.

Greed comes from the heart of man and not from need. Its origin is in the heart. This means that no one is greedy only by being rich and that no poor man is free of any of it. A rich king may, indeed, oppress people to become richer and to take hold of many things he does need. However, any poor man who desires such a man's riches is as greedy as he.

It is often said that promises make debts. I believe it is true to a certain point. However, we must acknowledge that the contents of any promise counts more than any other moral value we may associate to it. I can never make a point of fulfilling the wrong thing, not even when I have promised to do it. Doesn't the Bible say we must deliver ourselves from the snares of our mouth? (Prov.6:1-5). We can go back on any promise. We should choose what to promise and see if there is any virtue in fulfilling it. Fulfilling the wrong kind of promises amounts to sin. Is it good to fulfil a vow made to the devil? Or to fulfil threats spoken in rage? Shouldn't we rather repent of such sins instead of fulfilling them?

No one who is easily tempted to feel wise in his own eyes will receive wisdom from God. To such, real wisdom is not given. It can't be. God shall not grant wisdom to anyone who uses it to glory against truth and for the sake of self.

Have you ever heard about the saying that says the spell turns against the witchdoctor? One way or another, all evil will, eventually, eat up the head of the evildoer. How much more will evildoers suffer by that sort of evil which tries to lure or harm good people! "Whoever causes the righteous man to go astray in an evil way, he himself shall fall into his own pit; but the upright shall inherit good", Prov.28:10.

"Evil men do not understand judgment; but those who seek the Lord understand all things", Prov.28:5. Do you seek understanding and real wisdom? Seek the Lord in such a way that you find Him. Then, understanding will be added unto you. He is our wisdom.

There is no midway about this: "Those who forsake the law praise the wicked; but those who keep the law plead against them", Prov-28:4. Are you really aware of this truth? This assures us that whoever forsakes God and His laws from within the heart will end up approving, defending, agreeing, believing and even praising the wicked or his wickedness. There is no alternative way or consequence awaiting such a foolish behaviour. On the other hand, by keeping the law of God from the heart, we may also be assured there will always be some sort of life and death confrontations between us and the wicked. There is no alternative way. It shall be so indeed, whether it is the wicked who starts the confrontations or whether we speak the truth bound to duty and love.

To bless any lazy man in his sleep; to try to reason with a stubborn, angry man who believes he is always right; to wash with cold water someone who feels cold; or to sing songs of happiness to sad people who choose bitterness above life is always a waste of time. "He who blesses his friend early in the morning with a loud voice, it shall be counted a curse to him", Prov.27:14.

When any person finds real life in the Lord and is able to live it out in full measure, that sort of living is an answer to all evil which easily and promptly manages to say goodness and God do not exist on earth. We should never forget that. "My son, be wise, and make My heart glad, so that I may answer him who shames Me", Prov.27:11. Do you live with the real Jesus? Do you live His real Life out? Have you found it?

"Wrath is cruel, and anger is overwhelming; but who is able to stand before envy?" Prov.27:4. Envy does not have a face. It seldom reveals itself as envy. Therefore, it is very hard to pinpoint it. It is a very subtle and very hypocritical enemy. Envy is, often, a hidden enemy.

As a rule, when things are carried out only because conscience drives people to do them, then those things are seldom carried out in all perfection. We know works exist for the sake of people and not people for the sake of works. Works and providence procedures are meant to perfect people's hearts up along with most ways of people. Therefore, if people are set up only for conscience's sake, there is a lot in them which still needs to be perfected. It may also mean that those kinds of works might repeat themselves until the full perfection of the heart is attained.

"The curse without cause shall not come", Prov.26:2. How many people blame God for things sinners are to be blamed for? How many pregnant teenagers blame the curses and hardships they are mainly responsible for? Should God be blamed for Adam's eating of the fruit of disobedience? Is it God's fault if His own creatures have wandered so far away from Him that they start despising Him or simply ignore Him?

"He who has no rule over his own spirit is like a broken down city without a wall", Prov.25:28. Many associate this verse to a bad temper and alike sins. It is not bad to breed this association. The bad thing is to have this verse associated only to such sinning. In fact, there are many other sins to which this verse can be applied to - if not all sins. Let me explain. If you cannot control your eyes, mouth or ears; whenever you give in to temptation, whether it is to laziness or any other sort of sin; whenever you give in to sadness for less honourable reasons or for selfish reasons; those are also ways to lose control over your spirit and heart. We should never allow our hearts to slip into sin. Sin is deceit trying to look important and fearful.

We know many work hard in order to have things eased up and made available for many others. The farmer works hard so that everyone may have bread at home in an easy way; the pioneers of the gospel have suffered so we may have it all available in an easy way. However, many preach as if everyone else needs to go through the same difficulties they face in order to learn and make wisdom available to others. We cannot force other people to go the way we may have gone, unless it is God's will for them as well. Let's not be deceived by strange feelings of bitterness and of plain ignorance. "And in this is the saying true, One sows and another reaps", John 4:35.

Many take advantage of the gospel and its preaching to shine and rob something from God, whether it is glory or money. They even sing, "Shine, Jesus, shine" so they can be seen, take advantage of situations and be applauded. Evil is deceitful indeed! "For men to search their own glory is not glory", Prov.25:27.

"A righteous man falling down before the wicked is as a troubled fountain, and a corrupt spring", Prov.25:26. There are a lot of ways to give in to or before wickedness: we can be ashamed of truth and of being honest and truthful before a wicked confrontation; we may become impatient and angry as if wickedness means something; we may give in to wickedness by loosing our temper as if God is in favour of the wicked and easily neglects the righteous. In fact, there are a lot of ways to allow wickedness to achieve the purpose of its existence. "Do not allow yourselves to be deceived!"

"An angry countenance drives away a feigning tongue", Prov.25:23. This is one of the main reasons why the wrath of God is something people should be aware of and see. It can cause people to become truthful.

Isn't quietness and peace a fruit of the Spirit? Why should I accept a noisy service and craziness as a service to God?

The best thing you can do for someone - anyone - is to share what you are above sharing what you have. Give most of yourself along with your possessions.

Whoever buys what he cannot afford or spends in what he does not need, is sure to sell what he needs most to pay up for his greed. Only by selling what he has will he be able to pay for what is not needed.

We cannot expect to receive more from God than what we are given or surrendered to Him. The abundance of the Spirit in us shall always be proportional to our surrender to Him and to the existing death to ourselves.

"My son, give Me your heart, and let your eyes watch My ways", Prov.23:26. When the Bible tells us to give our hearts to God, it does not uphold or encourage those liars who go before the altar and say a sinner's prayer, or, should I say, say a liar's prayer. In fact, giving our heart to Jesus means a lot more than that. It means that we accept His way to the end and exchange His ways for ours for always; it means we shall, from then on, seek the influences of the Spirit of God and will always move towards the light to be lighted, move to where we can see well and beyond mistake and where all become visible to all. It also means grace will become our ways instead of force and own-mindedness. There is a lot more we could add here, though.

"He who has a bountiful eye shall be blessed", Prov.22:9. Even Jesus said that the eye is the light of the body and that our eyes must be good. A good eye sees good things and a bad eye sees bad things. Sort seeks sort. It is indeed true that many things depend directly from the way we look upon them. I am not a in favour of the so called positive thinking mode. I believe positive thinking, the way psychologists have it, is a great mistake since it means people should lie to themselves while they could believe in saving truth instead and be above positive for real. I defend the standpoint that we should look out for good things because God has created thousands of them. They are out there. Let our eye be good and we shall be blessed indeed.

Adults burn their fingers one time after the other, even after being warned. (This thought I got from somewhere - I can't remember where). They work on destroying their own lives one time after the other. Yet, they are the ones who beat children up for not walking the right way or for committing childlike mistakes due to their lack of life experience or lack of practical wisdom.

The only truth is this: the only singer that matters to me is myself. I will leave all others receive their praise from their hearers, as they usually do. Should we lie by saying we sing to the Lord and receive the applauses and praises ourselves? Shouldn't we know how to give to God what belongs to Him?

When some bandit or evil person does me wrong or even squeezes me into a corner, I will expect salvation from the Lord. But, never must I expect God to avenge the wrong that has been done to me or to pay me back through some compensations for whatever I may have suffered or lost. "Do not say, I will repay evil; wait on the Lord, and He will save you", Prov.20:22.

Wisdom is a life or a living experience and not studying.

There are things in this world which will always be in opposed fields. As an example, we have sin and saving wisdom, or understanding and iniquity. These can simply never co-exist in the same heart at the same time.

Many become annoyed and wilful against others in a sort of wilful vindication or vengeance. They believe they hurt others by doing so. However, these hurt themselves only, believing, by it, they can kill others through the poison they drink themselves, as someone said. Sin hurts self only. "His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be held with the cords of his sin", Prov.5:22.

When we are still learning, if we are still in the learning stage, it is more important to do well than to do all. If we attempt to do all at this stage we will surely do all wrong. This is why Jesus taught us to pray to do the things of the earth the way everything is done in heaven instead of doing the things of heaven. The way is of greater importance.

"...So you shouldn't ponder on the paths of life..." Prov.5:5,6. One of the main weapons sin or the devil has against the soul of man is to cause him to avoid, neglect or dislike pondering and meditating on the paths of life. The main consequence of stumbling will be a mind which is too busy, to annoyed, too distracted or too entangled to set aside some quality time to ponder on how to be saved from a bad pit, bad heart or from a bad way. Make sure you always find time to experience and understand the ways of life and to be able to ponder on them with easiness, willingness and with the intention to cause your feet and heart to follow it without delay.

"...My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will", John 5:30. You must be assured that every time an own will influences or enhances a deed or word, all judgments will always be cruel, bad or evil, even when those judgements amount to pleasing people and praising them. However, if we indeed seek God's will and not our own, even a hard word will be love and loved by God and, eventually, accepted by people around us.

"Let your eyes look right on, and let your eyelids look straight before you", Prov.4:25. Either false people turn around and around the issues; or those who linger to do the right thing the right way become false. Never avoid being direct and simple, having a simple and unconscious meekness pointing out truth and truthfulness. Sometimes, people tend to receive or give according to what they like or dislike in a person or are influenced in their thoughts and opinions through circumstances around them. Are you honest and do you keep a sober look beholding heaven? Or do you live according to the way you feel under trials or about people around you? And when you need to hear something, do you tune you ears according to the feelings you think you must breed towards the ones speaking to you? If a false one would speak, would you listen because he seems nice? Or would you reject a holy word from a man who, according to your views, seems rude?

"The way of the wicked is as darkness; they know not at what they stumble", Prov.4:19. Just as the wicked may never know what they stumble at, many times, the ones who walk in holiness tend to forget or ignore what or who keeps them alive and holy because they get used to a holy life. Do you often recall what keeps you alive and pure? Or have you been tempted or even subdued by own righteousness lately? Have you become too used to walking with God, so much so that you ceased to take care of your own heart and life the way you ought?

It is a blessing when we have no way out and are solid in God's will and providence. An alternative way is just another way of giving up on God or on the way He intended for us in the beginning. And, many times, people wrongly take an alternative way as a gift of God. Did David kill Saul, or did he rather hold on to the purpose of waiting for God's timing and way to turn him king? What a curse it would be to kill Saul and despise God in the face of his own people! Would you kill Saul or would you rather prefer to remain in God waiting and sticking at His word?

There are street signs in all roads, just as there are the words of God in a Christian's life. However, sometimes people stop to talk about the colour of the traffic sign, how beautiful or ugly it is and such sort of things. People do the same with God's words: they admire it instead of obeying it. This what the Bible describes as perverting or twisting the Scriptures.

Once God makes a promise, He does so because the circumstances or the conditions which will guarantee or assure the sustenance of the promise once it is fulfilled, are not yet met. This is mainly why He promises instead of granting right away. Therefore, we must work hard on all those things which will assure the conditions for the promise to remain and to live on and on to the end. Let me give you one or two examples. Let's suppose God promises you a child as He promised to sterile Sarah. Then, you must work on those things which will assure that the child will live for God, such things as a holy home, a holy relationship between mother and father and all other things which a child born of God will live by. Another example: if God promises you a job or some financial nourishment or backup, make sure you start working right away at becoming free of all greed, concerns, worrying, day-dreaming or whatever else accompanies or sustains the love for money. All unfulfilled promises have things to be worked on. If you have any promise, start working hard right now.

Never underestimate the words of any man who has been through trials and has overcome them. His words make sense to heaven and the flesh does not review itself in them anymore. Sin is not expressed through them any longer and the approval of God is from great to unlimited, depending on how much of His good works there remains to be achieved in the heart.

Thorns may or must be removed. It is possible to have them all out. No worrying or concern should remain if we are closer to the Lord than we are to ourselves.

Legalism is always proof of a withdrawal from God and of a refusal to have our lives fixed on His terms or things done His way. There is always something one refuses to fix God’s way when any kind of alternative way is made up and that is where a legalistic life starts off.

God promised that the descendants of Abraham would inherit the Promised Land. How much are you contributing to make children of faith? Are you adding descendants to that Land? Are you helping God fulfil the promise He has made? Is your whole heart committed to that solemn work?

Long trials work out, perhaps, against superficial needs better than any other kind of danger or hardship. Abraham waited twenty five years for his beloved son; Moses waited forty years to have his people saved from Egypt; David and Joseph waited thirteen years to see what God has promised them. Are you going to keep up the strain and wait on God faithfully until promises are fully fulfilled?

"I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you", Gen.12:3. God would curse those who cursed Abraham mostly because he was a carrier of many a blessing to anyone who would cross his way. We cannot curse any kind of blessing without being cursed ourselves. And God had made him a blessing.

There is some difference between people who are occasionally faithful and those who are occasionally unfaithful. One has a wrong nature or heart which tries to live the right way. The other one has the right kind of heart or nature which tries to live in an unstable way, tempting God to see if it might work out or if he might escape with it because he is faithful. One is an unstable, double-hearted person trying to live in a stable way and the the other one is a stable person trying to live in an unstable way.

The strength of a gossiping tongue is curiosity. Curiosity is a faithful instigator of many sins of a bad tongue. And, many times, people talk about others to find out more about them, just as much as they find or search out things about others' lives to gossip more. "...But they even become gossips and keep busy through curiosity about other people's lives...", 1 Tim.5:13.

Once God operates through some signs, whether they are considered great signs or small ones, there is something wrong with the useful doctrine which states that God does things when we are faithful or holy, even though it might be occasionally true. Let me explain. If it were true, miracles wouldn't be signs but rather rewards and there are both signs as well as rewards for faithfulness and holiness. Any sign should encourage us to become holy above measure. It cannot work the other way round, I mean, that faithfulness should entice us to seek signs. And, along with that, we should avoid creating a mind which believes the sign is the end of the road, the goal, and that after the sign or miracle has taken place, one may relax in unfaithfulness because the goal has already been attained. Avoid believing that sort of lie which tells you God is happy about your spiritual state or He wouldn't have given you the sign. Do not put the cows following the plough. It won't work out. Rather, become an example to the faithful, 1 Tim.4:12.

Jesus promised to answer all our prayers. Therefore, if any prayer is not answered, surely there must be something wrong with either the prayer or the one who prays.

"...Having children in subjection with all modesty..." 1 Tim.3:4. If a modest person keeps children humble, it means children are humble towards a very humble person. How wonderful are such children! How precious they are!

To hand over to feelings the outcome or the making of decisions, to listen to what we may feel to decide about things, is the same as taking a lot of notes (money), throwing it up in the wind and hoping it is an investment.

People hear better someone they consider their equal. They feel the exhortation in a much deeper way when it comes from the mouth of a loving, trusted friend. So, if you are friends to someone, avoid pleasing that person and talk plainly. Make use of circumstances to show forth real love.

Things become responsibility only after they cease to be dreams.

The best way to love my neighbour as myself - the way I serve or care for myself - is to become my neighbour and to take his place. That makes it much easier.

The great majority of people who turn back to the world or into sin, do so because their heart has never changed. “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they were of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out so that it might be revealed that they were not all of us”, 1 John 2:19. They may have changed some habits or even attitudes, but not the heart. To have the heart changed for real one needs to clean up instead of trying hard to change. To live a changed life is what demands perseverance and strength from us and a changed life comes after transformation. Transformation does not require force – it is worked out through cleaning the heart and thorough exposition of all things in the light.

Many implore God for His blessings just to despise them after they have received them. People who have an unsatisfied heart will be as unhappy as when they did not have whatever they desired to have. The point is: you should rather desire what you already have. There is a special reason why God disallows greed or covetousness all together. Did you stop desiring your husband or wife after marriage? Desire whatever you have already. "Be content with such things as you have", Heb.13:5.

Giving coins to someone who has holes in his pockets is the same as God giving something to people who do not have their lives straightened with Him, secured and cleaned up in all their aspects.

We live in the era of confusion of knowledge where people know nothing and, even so, believe they know all because they are still able to interpret things their own way. They tear Jesus' words apart to understand it the way it suits them. That is the main reason why people believe they know a lot. The wrong kind of knowledge is not meek. The other side of such hearts is that they can only trust themselves. If you boast in the knowledge you think you have, you cannot trust the Lord, but able to trust only yourself. "Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding", Prov.3:5. Genuine wisdom and trusting God go hand in hand.

Everyone who glories in himself has the other side of him which assumes good things do not last for long or that goodness is something unusual or unseen in this present age and era. If man did not think that way, he wouldn't take the glory upon himself. "Why do you boast yourself? The mercy of God endures forever", Ps.52:1. The Psalmist has seen this point clearly.

Truth is never helpless. Speak to the point, in the shortest, wisest way possible and never fear the consequences. Then, trust God to cause truth and His words to bring forth fruit, even when hearers hate what they have heard from you.

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear has torment. He who fears has not been perfected in love", 1John 4:18. Many, when they find themselves in fear, believe they must do away with it because of this verse. In fact, by doing so, they are trying to climb over the wall to enter into the sheepfold. Instead, they should do away with lovelessness, which, on its turn, will do away with fear. This verse does not entice people to stop fearing, but rather exhorts them to love since it is love which drives fear away. Those who do not love have many reasons to fear. Love does away with fear automatically and naturally, since conscience and the peace of heart grants people the desire to face God without fear. If you do not love, you should fear. And if you try not to fear without training your own heart to love from deep within in all sincerity, you become a dishonest person. Do not try to get a false peace and never try to get into the sheepfold unless you get in through the proper door.

Faith does not generate the occasion. It is the right moment, the proper timing which is able to generate faith. Outside the proper timing there is no faith at all - only stubbornness.

If we heartily walk in the light in a natural way, if we are transparent people, we shall never choose before whom we will walk in the light. Walking in the light is a way of life, it is not an occasional happening. Walking in the light or being in the light cannot be a choice for certain moments only.

"O Lord, you have persuaded me, and I was persuaded", Jer.20:7. Jeremiah was easily persuaded by God. But, there are those whom God tries to persuade and they just aren't convinced or persuaded by Him at all. Usually, they insist upon their own feelings and thoughts and try to persuade God to their side instead. Trying to tell God what His will must be is as close to tempting God as can be.

"You are my praise", Jer.17:14. For many Jesus is problem and not a praise, especially if they cannot do whatever they wish to do.

The Word of God is not a science in the very sense of the word. The Word is more of a reality than of a science. It aims to experience or the the proper explanation of sound experience. That is why it easily confounds the wise of this world.

Robbers often seek caverns or dens to hide away. Many Christians take God as a safe den and not as a Saviour who saves from sin. They sin and steal and run fast to hide in a den they call God. This is why they start believing they can or should sin after coming to Christ. "Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods whom you do not know; and then come and stand before Me in this house which is called by My name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations?", Jer.7:9-10.

"They have denied the Lord by saying, It is not He", Jer.5:12. It is not needed to deny God openly through a denying statement towards Him, face to face. The only thing it takes to deny Him is to say that something He did is not from Him because it does not suit us to believe it did come from Him. It can also happen by accepting something as His which is not worked by Him.

By reading about sanctification there will be no doubts in us that it means we should become holy. By reading of Justification or righteousness we assume it means us become just and righteous. And when God speaks about purification, we all know He means us to become pure. It would be a very strange sanctification where people are not made holy; and a justification where people are not made just and righteous; or a purification where people are not made pure.

"These have chosen their own ways (...) Therefore, I also will choose their delusions", Is.66:3,4. This is the danger of following our own ways and even more so when we say our ways are God's! We will not have a say in the outcome of our ways and cannot chose the consequences.

To love as we ought is seldom to love as we can. Duty is less than capability. Grace demands more than law. Duty, morality, discipline answer to conscience, whether that conscience is alive or not. Capability is the use of our whole being and not of conscience only. Conscience is only one part of us. And if our being is full of eternal life from within, if it experiences eternal life in the promised measure, our capability increases remarkably. "The love of God which He poured into our hearts..." This relation between duty and capability can also be taken into other areas such as believing and solid trust; awaiting and expecting from God; expectation and genuine hope. Duty is the minimum requirements for a holy life if we are indeed made free in Christ Jesus and are able to move freely in Him. However, duty is not the full measure of the capability of a loving, trusting or hoping heart at all.

Whenever God does not show us anything, whenever He does not say no and neither does He say yes, the best thing we can do is to be still and quiet. Unless we do so, we might be disappointed some time later by realizing God did not say what we supposed He has said. It is especially in those occasions when God is quiet that the heart of man is liable to rely upon itself and its deceitfulness, to speak up for God and to assume it is doing God's will by doing its own. In fact, it tries hard to push God into own will and deceives man into believing God wills it. We shouldn't force God to answer whatever has not started in Him. Man, usually, does that driven by impatience and fear which is worked up by the flesh. Man also feels pressured by circumstances or by people's opinions, by poverty or lust, by greed or even unbelief. Unbelief is a driving force. The heart always feels pressured one way or another when it has not learned to wait and to rely fully on the Lord. God is not responsible for the direction or the way man's own heart drives him. If man dares to follow an own direction or to do something in an own way, man only can answer for not having waited upon God the way he ought to and the amount of time he ought to have waited. When man does not wait on God and adventures himself into own ways believing God will bless them, those ways will soon end up in disappointment and grief. Man must cease to point out to God what He must do and learn to wait fully on what God has promised to him personally.

Not even the wrath of God lasts forever. Why should man believe his wrath will?

"Little children, guard yourselves from idols", 1John 5:21. The worst obstacle of any man or woman are the idols living in the mind, those which are kept alive by suppositions because they are dead. All those idols serve the main idol living there: self. There is no idol or idolatry which does not either server or suit self.

The person who understands truth is not necessarily a converted one, even though many converted one may have a good knowledge of what has been happening. However, just as there are many converted ones who cannot explain or express what has been happening in their hearts, there are also many who have a thorough knowledge of truth gained through studying and reading who never experienced truth for real.

To be able to obey faithfully and thoroughly one needs to hear well too. No obedience consistent and neither can it be considered as obedience when obeyed at random or through guessing. That cannot be seen as obedience at all. If you don't hear, you cannot obey. Many teach obedience in a way that confuses new converts greatly, since obedience should be taught along with hearing and hearing with a sheep's heart. One must have ears to hear before one can be told to obey unconditionally.

It is very hard for a religious man to let religiosity stand because he thinks he has a lot to lose. People near God because of self-interest, believing in a Lord that can achieve all for them. The main reason why they pray or near God is self interest. And we all know God does not answer to selfishness. That is where religiosity is born since people are not moved by a supreme love towards Jesus. Prayers are offered and often repeated over and over again and there are no answers to them because of that. And, by ceasing to be dead and religious, people feel they will lose the expectations they have been working for so hard along the years and which have become the earnest subjects of their prayers. They often say they must keep believing and have faith concerning those things. In fact, they handle self interest as a non-negotiable right they seem to have built along the years of deadness. By becoming alive or, at least, by coming to the door of real salvation, people feel instantly religiosity and deadness is over for them. Along with it, all their self interest and rights are pointed out to die. They just see its death coming. Self interest is the main cause for dead religion, whatever that interest may be. We cannot near God for the things He is able to grant. Unless we come to Him to find Him, we shall not become living beings. "Jesus answered them and said, Truly, truly, I say to you, You seek Me not because you saw the miracles, but because you ate the loaves and were filled. Do not labour for the food that perishes, but for that food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you. For God the Father sealed Him", John 6:26-27. Jesus is food indeed and Him alone should we seek to find.

"You have forgiven the iniquity of Your people; You have covered all their sins", Ps.85:2. I couldn't grasp the full meaning of this verse till I prayed. What did it mean that all sins are covered? How are they covered? Then I understood. It simply means all sins are covered as soon as there is no possibility to fall back on them or as soon as there is no possibility to fall back into the already forgiven sin. God imposed a heavy punishment on Israel for their sins through the Assyrian army and there was no way they would go back to their former life after that. Their sins were, therefore, covered. This is what the Psalmist is trying to put across to us. Genuine conversion grants the gift of forgiveness. And every confession should be able to lead people to that sort of conversion or there will be no sins covered.

The important part is never to end above obstacles or above water, but rather to end the race in full peace with God and through God. This means our first love must at least stay the same if it has not grown.

The widow of Zarephath told Elijah after her son has been brought back from death: "Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the Word of the Lord in your mouth is truth", 1 Kings 17:24. This means a lot. She means the word of God in some people's mouth is a lie. Another thing we may learn from this is: she did not take it for granted Elijah was a man of God, not even after she saw the olive oil and meal multiplying daily. That was not enough to convince her. However, she had been humble enough to be obedient to a man's word about whom she had been in some doubt. She baked the cake for Elijah first putting her son's life at risk. Her obedience had filled the void unbelief left in her. This kind of obedience opened the door for her to be assured about the mouth of Elijah later on and, consequently, about God's word. By obeying, she came across the knowledge and the confirmation of truth. She, now, became assured she was not being deceived by another bubbler or false miracle maker. There were many false prophets at the time. She had more than enough reasons to handle Elijah carefully and to keep him at a certain distance. But, her obedience caused her to make it to the end.

Many think they are special people because they know God and hear from Him. There is nothing special about that, even though the word of the Living God is scarcely dealt out these days. And, if someone's prayers obtain real answers and the evidence of the Life of Christ is clear in such, others will think of such as privileged ones. But, the more I live with the Lord, the more I believe there is nothing extraordinary about that either. In fact, such thoughts offend God greatly. Is it God's fault if people are not used to see Him around or to live in His presence? People should not have become so estranged to the Lord and the Lord to them. The unusual part of this whole matter is that people live far away from the One who should be nearest to them in a constant way. Living far from God as His creation is what is strange about all of this. "Be amazed, O heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid; be completely desolated, says the Lord. For My people have committed two evils; they have forsaken Me, the Fountain of living waters, to hew out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water", Jer.2:12-13. The fact is that any genuine servant of God who is able to hear Him all the time - any time of the day or of the night - lives the normal way. Living so estranged from God that one starts believing that hearing Him is a special occurrence is offensive.

"And you shall eat it in any place, you and your households (...) And you shall bear no sin because of it", Núm.18:31,32. All offerings were meant to be eaten at the place God chose, the Temple. And it should be a feast to God. However, God opened an exception by allowing holy people to eat it anywhere. The only condition was that people who eat it should be holy. They should have no sin. Their feast, speaking of God out loud, should be a practical demonstration of how God really is. Our lives should reveal the reality and the truth about God anywhere we are found.

In the Law of God, the best is required for Him and whatever is left, is meant for us. However, today the best is given to us and whatever is left goes to God - if there is no one else to give it to.

There is only one way for me to be abandoned: that God becomes too weak to help me out.

"A man can receive nothing unless it is given to him from Heaven", John 3:27. Tell me: just how many things did you refuse to accept because you knew they did not come from heaven?

Sin is a product of proud acting. It is a worm trying to look like an irresistible ruler.

"...Not purposing according to the flesh, so that there should be yes and no...", 2Cor.1:17. It is clear, from this word, that changes of mind are, mainly, consequences of not consulting the Lord. "A man's heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps", Prov.16:9. This means God can change man's decisions upside down. We need to consult God and His will along with the way we should carry it out before we decide. It is also true that an unstable heart is unable to remain with the Lord or with whatever God says. An unstable heart swifts its decisions from no to yes even when God has indeed spoken or has been consulted.

Exhibitionism means there is some sort of deceit ruling the heart. To show off, or to impose things which do not work out any other way, creates dead religious beliefs. It is a deadly poison. Exhibitionism is the worst kind of deceit there is, since many people believe in it easily. It can make likenesses of things in heaven. It can imitate and impersonate a life of heaven. Whenever truth is unable to speak by itself through the power of God and through a personal experience of it, people will find in exhibitionism a way out to impose and to lie. Imposing truth upon others can be translated by the wise as something like this: "I do not live what I preach! I am not what I try to look like! I need the arm of the flesh and its strength to resemble the living. I need to show off or impose so people may believe I am a living being".

The interpreters of truth seldom live it out. Whoever finds truth and experiences it in an abundant way does not interpret it - he lives it out. Such people experience what they, quite often, are unable to explain. And, whenever they read Scriptures, they find those explanations they have been looking for understanding what has been going on through them.

Whoever knows little is often self-assured person unable to measure or to see what he or she does not know. Only wise people are able to evaluate or measure what they lack on knowledge. The wise are people who, quite often, say they know very little.

Any bad thought that does not become practice has more of temptation than of sin. On the other hand, any thought that is transformed into behaviour has more of sin than of temptation.

Many tasks at once delay perfection; many alarms confuse guards; many signs kill faith; many advices deviate from the counsel of God.

For anyone to understand inspired truth, he needs to be as inspired as the person who received it from the Lord.

Normally, running means running away from something. If our lives are ordered before God, running away may mean we are avoiding His work over us or in us. Transformation is hard, it is like entering into labour or having birth pains. Don't run away from it, but try to rather face it.

Why would God put us before situations we find unable to solve, accept or perfect up? It is because we must come to the point where we acknowledge or realize there is enough grace to accomplish it!

It is easy to see why so many people are so easily tempted by the devil, even though this cannot be applied to all. The Word says: "Israel has thrown off good; the enemy shall pursue him", Hos.8:3.

Laziness or the absence of it is put to the test mostly when people have nothing to do. When people have nothing to be busy about, the kind of heart they have reveals itself, especially in the area of promptness or laziness, patience or impatience. If you have nothing to do, do you still get out of bed early? Can we see you holding your Bible, reading and understanding it during easy going times? Do you rejoice by having some more time to spend alone with Jesus?

Have you ever seen anyone swimming upstream? "What a weariness", you would say. This is precisely what happens every time an unrighteous person tries to be righteous; or a selfish one tries to be loving for a time; or when a liar tries hard to speak the truth all the time. No one can easily practice righteousness unless he is righteous. This is the main reason why so many people get tired on the Way. Our concentration must be on the way and not on being righteous anymore. Being righteous must not be a goal any longer, but rather a way of life by the time we are able to walk with God.

Let us talk about goals and targets. If you know how to use a bow and arrows and you wish to hit a certain target, do you adjust the arrow or the target? Do you put the arrow in the proper position to heat the target or do you adjust the goal? If you do not adjust targets and do not move them around to be lined up with the direction of your arrows, why, then, do you wish to change God's goals and will for you? Why do you try to adjust truth to your convenience and His objectives to your wishes? Why don't you rather adjust yourself to the best wishes of God?

God cannot motivate us unless our motives are His. And He cannot help us, unless His help is able to drive us towards Him.

To a um twisted person straight things are twisted, justice is unrighteous and to sin is to have pleasure. Such a person has it all twisted, indeed.

There are those who put out the flames so the fire of sin can remain invisible and untouched deep in the heart. By taking care of appearances they find a way to 'protect' the heart from salvation. Oh hypocrisy! The worst kind of it is the kind which we practice towards ourselves. "Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts; and in the hidden part You shall make me to know wisdom", Ps.51:6.

If the devil had been the main source for any of my own sins, then my flesh wouldn't be the one in need to be crucified with Christ.

Praise is usually a sort of emptiness when given to flesh and blood. Real honour is silent while being given or received. Do you tell people how much you receive as a salary? Why, then, would you want to proclaim how much honour or praise you receive?

We read that Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, became dumb for a time because he did not believe an angel's words. Many wish to hear Jesus speak to them. And Jesus is far greater than any angel. I believe some people do not know what they are asking for when they ask Jesus to talk to them. Just imagine what would happen in case Jesus spoke to you and you did not believe Him! "The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren; unto Him ye shall hearken", Deut.18:15. "And it shall be that every soul who will not hear that Prophet shall be destroyed from among the people", Act.3:23.

Every time we see someone living all his moments near the Living God, expressing His wisdom with easiness with perfected enthusiasm, we say: "Oh, I would love to be like that!" That is not what Jesus would expect to hear from someone who would love to be that way at all. To be as that person we shall need to be ourselves and listen to all his words carefully. Rather be willing to hearken to what such a faithful child of God has to say. Be willing to listen instead and to be yourself in the sight of God.

I can distinguish between people, but not differentiate between them. I can assume people are not the same, but never should I dare to value some above the others under any circumstances nor in any practical way.

Those people nearest and the more intimate to us are the ones who grant us more freedom to be ourselves towards them. However, many use this opportunity and this sort of freedom to be mean and disrespecting. This should be the opportunity to care and respect and not to be the opposite. "Only do not use the liberty for an opening to the flesh, but by love serve one another", Gal.5:13.

It is good to attain to the depth of these words: "He acting unjustly, let him still act unjustly. And the filthy, let him be filthy still. And the righteous, let him be righteous still. And the holy, let him be holier still", Rev.22:11. In Daniel, we read something in that line of truth as well. We see through many examples that stand out for us in the Bible that all those who overcome some sort of trial are made ready for the next one and not ready to skip future trials. However, it doesn't work out that way with those who do not overcome a trial. (Let's have in mind that to overcome is not to solve a certain problem which came to try us, but rather to end with Christ and to be spotless, after the trial and whatever happens to the problem). Job was pure in God's eyes (and not in people's eyes). However, he went through the unexpected because he was indeed pure. Joseph also went to prison after clinging to purity. We also read in Rev.2:8-11 about a church which was pure and to which Jesus had no wrong to point out. To that church He said: "Do not at all fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the Devil will cast some of you into prison, so that you may be tried. And you will have tribulation ten days. Be faithful to death...". We do not see Jesus distributing trials to the churches which have fallen back in some way. Those were told to repent and to go back to the starting point. We do not see Jesus warning them that they would be tried. Trials are the privileges of very few. Pure people are tied to become purer. Heaven lies still ahead of them. We may at least take two lessons from this: It means many people have an inner friction resulting from sin and they ascribe it easily to trials to avoid repenting. We know people who need to repent are not tried. They are, at the most, punished by their own ways. And, on the other side, people who overcome because they have kept purity are easily tempted by the idea that they will finally relax because they have overcome. They feel they must have reached the end of their way and are become too hasty and too eager to collect their reward after trials. In fact, people who overcome are just ready for the next step of purification. We must have in mind that these classes of people can assume from own expectations, each in its own way, which are not according to truth. Let pure ones never look back once they have taken up the plough into their hands; and do not allow stained ones to look forward unless they look backwards to find the spot where they have fallen. They need to fix whatever needs to be fixed first and before they can look forward, whatever it takes.

Idealists strain themselves for ideal situations and circumstances. They end up frustrated because there are no ideal situations. And even if there were, it wouldn't last for long because everything works much through cycles. Creation and nature has its own laws to abide by. "That which has been is now; and that which is to be has already been", Ecc.3:15. Harvests repeat themselves, rains come and go and come again. Everything starts all over again at its own season. Even a real Life with Christ starts afresh each day to be as it has never been before. Contrasting idealists, we see the real conquerors in Christ on the opposed side. They are able to achieve what idealists would easily call heroic acts, and, through that, idealists only reveal what they would rather not have come their way. Conquerors are people who find themselves content wherever they go and whatever they do. They look for things to transform through the acting of God and not for ideal circumstances. They know just too well how to gather with Christ and how to do so under any hardship. They also know their rest comes at the end. They never waste a circumstance - they use it fully up for the glorification of God. Conquerors expect to meet unchanged situations, unregenerate people and confrontations because of the truthfulness they carry with joy. Regeneration is their work and they work hard at it. They do not look for ideal things, but to obey the Lord and the truth. Idealists are not like that. They cannot be conquerors at all. They only trust under ideal circumstances and we all know this present world is not the ideal place - it shall never be. Idealists wish to inherit and not to work hard at their present inheritance. They squander whatever God has left to them to be faithful unto. They want changed things and not to change things as they walk on, starting that change at themselves. They cannot stand the idea that today can be a harder day than yesterday. They rejoice according to what happens to them and not in the Lord. They often look back because they cannot endure - they do not wish to endure. There is only one way to find ideal situations and people: we are the ones ready to become ideal and fruitful. Often, unmarried people look for the ideal partner, forgetting they are the ones who need to become ideal. Bosses wish to have the ideal employees disregarding the fact that they are the ones in need to become or to be made ideal. The same must be said about employees who look for ideal bosses - they need to have or to attain to the ideal heart. For all conquerors, all situations are challenges upon their spirit and upon their spiritual enthusiasm. For idealists, such situations work out much like a torture. There are no people so different and so apart from each other than idealists and conquerors.

If depression is a mountain of sins which have not been cleansed, (and it is), then stress is the fight of conscience against them or the load of sin as you try to carry out something else which is not cleansing all your sins one by one.

A deep desire towards the things God has for us is a condition to receive all answers in prayer concerning those things. However, we must have in mind that any deep desire is often what leads to feign a living. Deep desires are often responsible for the creation of appearances which resemble what we deeply desire. For example: people who desire to be holy can easily slip into an apparent holiness because they cannot believe it is possible to be holier than what they are; someone who desires to be rich often acts as a rich person does and does not wish to be seen by others as poor; those who wish to be fluent and expressive will rather change their voice and try to be eloquent instead of gaining the genuine kind of wisdom God has to offer to all those who ask it from Him. We must always bear in mind that appearance is the greatest hindrance to real living, no matter how good that appearance looks like. Appearance is a way to hide those things we believe we are unable to change or those things we do not wish to change at all. As I often say that appearance is not transparency and only transparency is walking in the light. And walking in the light and being transparent is what changes us from deep within. Try to remember that next time you deeply desire something God wishes to grant you. Do not rely on the works of the flesh or on its strength to accomplish what only light and transparency (in the Lord) can accomplish for you.

Every behaviour which is not spontaneous, natural, determined and exclusive is hypocritical. Be yourself.

Usually, no one sees as hypocrites those people who please them. However, God sees all as it is. We should also see things under the light of God and as He sees them.

If you would love to walk on towards truth and you find you can't, especially if the truth you are aiming at is God's and not your own, then your feet must be entangled in something the world has to offer. Entangled feet or legs turn walking very difficult and hard. Do you find it hard to trust at certain difficult moments of your life? And do you become jealous of people who can easily trust the Lord as they walk on? Do you complain easily as God leads you on? (It could work out well if you would complain when He is not leading, but not as He leads). When you make a point of loving your neighbour as yourself, do you find it hard to serve and love them? Do you experience some degree of difficulty hoping, waiting and expecting in the Lord? Are you expectant and happy waiting or do you see yourself as a victim? Whenever you wish to be truthful, do you often lie? Do you need to promise and decide to tell the truth? Or is your truthfulness spontaneous and obvious? Do you feel at home in the presence of God? I will explain why holiness is not so easy for you: you are entangled in worldly stuff and your feet cannot walk according to truth and according to your holy wishes. Your legs and feet do not follow your wishes because you are bound to the world or to some sin. This is the main reason why you stumble as you try to walk and why you are unable to fulfil all your vows. You deny the Lord when the world blinks at you and, consequently, the Lord denies you as you try to be truthful and to walk accordingly. Any smell of worldliness in you turns walking in the Lord hard and, sometimes, impossible.

Jesus stated that whoever does the things of God understands them. Understanding comes through practice and by experiencing the things of God. Practicing leads to understanding. "If anyone desires to do His will, he shall know...", John 7:17. Whoever does things the way they are done in heaven shall never be confused or lost. No living practicing Child of God shall ever be without spiritual understanding. Fulfilling is the only way to gain understanding directly from God. "O that my ways were fixed to keep Your precepts! Then I shall not be confused, when I have respect to all Your Commandments", Ps.l.119:5,6. The best way to misunderstand the things of God is to study them to preach to others or simply to be religious and dead about them.

We don't practice sin so that we can see God all the time, Mat.5:8. "Blessed are they who keep His testimonies, and who seek Him with all the heart. They also do no iniquity; they walk in His ways", Ps.119:2,3. Sin and blindness, sin and not finding are always related. One thing leads to the other. Seeking God to find Him for real implies that we leave sin forever or we won't find Him at all. And we may as well take into consideration that sin is what God says sin is and not what man says it is. Usually, man sees as sin what is done against him and God says sin is what we do. Are you living enough to be able to see the difference?

The great majority of people to whom God gave promises personally end up forgetting what God said simply because they do not commit themselves completely to become wholly dependable on them and do not heartily seek and wait upon their fulfilment and that only. They do not give their hearts over to what God said He would do for them or in them. They do not turn their vision and expectations wholly to the promise and end up forgetting because the painful businesses of daily and corrupted earthly living deviate their mind and attention. We may state the same thing concerning God's commandments: people simply forget about them in their daily life because they do not take heed to fulfil them. By not being committed, people create the occasion to be forgetful. This is what James means by "forgetful hearers". Practical negligence is always responsible for most kinds of forgetfulness.

Believing and having faith only when all is well with us is not faith. "Do not the heathen do the same?" Allow me to ask you: Does God change when things seem hard and when circumstances become dark and unbearable? Why do you bear them then? Don't! Do circumstances change God at all? Loving only those who love you cannot be considered love; believing only when all is well cannot be real faith; being patient only when we carry out those things we love most cannot be considered patience; talking about Jesus only to those we appreciate more cannot be considered spreading the gospel; being happy and joyful only in our own environment cannot be considered happiness at all; being extravagant and liberal when we are full enough to give leftovers away cannot be considered loving. Any sort of heathen could do the same or even do somewhat better!

Many do not reach the rising of the sun because they cannot stand going through the night. Every soul that wishes to see the sun rise, must face the dark passing by; to reach the promised land, especially when we are coming from Egypt, we must go through the driest desert there is because we are not only going through dry sand, but, we are getting out of the only life we know as such; be assured that there is no rest before all work is fully accomplished. I am sure many people do not reach the Morning Star because they kill themselves before it rises in their soul and they use bad thoughts against God to do so as they walk on.

God's desire is that we become living gardens which harbour the Tree of Life in the centre of it and harvest from it. Even if you are found in the desert, and most especially there, you should and can be a living garden. God demands of all of us that we be whatever seems impossible to earthly creatures. And heavenly minded people are no more earthly creatures. Then, it should be easy enough for all of us who are made holy. It is in the most impossible ground where we need to be fertile and abounding. That is what God requires of all of us. "Lord, I knew that you were a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter", Mat.25:24. Didn't God command that man shall have all dominion over the stronger elephants? Did God not say man will exercise dominion over the birds which fly so high up where man can't reach? Man must even have dominion over the fish and he doesn't have enough breath to enter the environment where fish feel at home. Seemingly, God demands impossible things from all of us. God demands that we be gardens where there is no water, no good soil and no shade from the heat or the cold. We should fear this Lord who demands that we have unfeigned joy where only the saddest things happen and who tells us to shine where everything is dark and evil. Can you be so close to God that you can live only out of Him, by Him and inside His reality? If so, it must be easy to be a garden in any kind of desert and under any sort of tempest.

Jesus said that what chokes His words and hinder its fulfilments are the cares of this world and not the power of the devil nor circumstances. The devil, or even circumstances, do not have that kind of power to choke God's word. I believe this illustration of thorns used by Jesus is a most appropriate one. Can you imagine having thorns bothering your skin and your side continually? What shall be left of your mind and heart to think on anything else besides the pain, the thorns and whatever concerns it? Can you think in a continuous way about anything else if you are tormented by thorns? Wouldn't your mind entertain itself only around accusations, pain, bitterness, worries and concerns? Everything you think or do takes nothing else into consideration but those thorns. It is fully consumed and deviated by pain and by painful thoughts. Isn't it? Unless your heart changes, your mind won't think of anything else. The only way to avoid this is to have your heart fully changed and heading towards heaven only. Then, you won't be able to think about anything else besides the joy and the fulfilments of heaven here on earth. It is the inner man which needs to change and not circumstances. Then, you won't forget important things because your mind is not distracted by painful thoughts and by bitterness; you won't easily neglect duties because you are not called to attend unimportant things; you won't lose time with things which lead nowhere. All of these (and much more) happen only because thorns call your attention continually back to it. You really wish to be useful to God? If so, have a full change in the inner man and allow your motives, ways to carry out things and mind be fully changed from deep within. There is nothing that God wishes to do more than to have a man changed that way. And I firmly believe that if you can change men's hearts, you can change the whole world. The concerns of earthly hearts are the main sources for the problems this world is facing today.

Thorns can be a big problem in any life. The only way to avoid being bothered by thorns is to have your heart fully changed instead of trying to change circumstances around you, even though God can change circumstances as well. However, we should not dare to neglect the heart work to try to change what God's providence promised to do itself. Unless circumstances are part of the Kingdom we are to seek, we should allow God to fulfil whatever He promised to fulfil through them.

Have you seen a star lately which came to lead you on the way? If, by any reason, you have lost it, then it is because you headed towards Jerusalem as soon as the star started leading towards Israel. "Oh, Israel! Let's go to Jerusalem!" That is where you started to think on your own and ceased to mind the star the way you should have minded it. No wonder you found the enemy of God in Jerusalem! You shouldn't seek in Jerusalem what can only be found in Bethlehem. Now, Ramah will weep its children again because you thought you knew where God would lead you.

Today I have confirmed something: an impatient person or a person with an ill tempered heart can never be right about something - not even when what that person says makes sense. Even if what he or she says is right, it ceased to be right and blessed the moment impatience stepped in.

If it is so easy to misinterpret or misunderstand those people we know and talk to, how easy, you think, is it to misunderstand God whom people do not know and scarcely hear?

When people have nothing to do (or think they have nothing to do) they usually stay in bed. It would be the same us saying: "Since I have no food, I will eat some poison to have my stomach filled!"

The main secret of how to be heard by people is not to speak according to what the public opinion or the public desires demand from us to speak about. When we hear God and speak accordingly, even those who refuse to hear will hear and be bothered by what we say.

When a woman has birth pains she is ready to give birth. Spiritual mothers and fathers also have strong and unbearable birth pains. When we bring many spiritual children to the light, we may have these birth pains for a long, long time. And if there are no abortions, surely these pains will cease only after children are really born to God and made holy. People will surely be brought to the feet of the Cross one way or another through these pains. Can a baby hinder its own birth?

God said of man: "And let him have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creepers creeping on the earth". We all know man could not have the strength to exercise dominion over an elephant or over the huge animals that lived at the time. How would man exercise dominion over a fowl which flies up very high and very fast? We can only assume dominion is not exercised through force, but through God and wisdom. Man does not have the strength to dominate an elephant, can't fly to dominate a bird, does not have enough breath to dominate the fish under water. However, God determined that man indeed dominates over all of these. We know all is possible through God.

Whoever speaks much listens very little; whoever sends people around obeys very little; and whoever yells a lot at people says very little.

"And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace", James 3:18. This does not mean that the fruit of righteousness is not sown in adversity at all. It means it is sown in peace to those who seek peace. To those who do not seek peace, it shall be sown anyway. However, it shall not be sown in peace because they are not peaceful beings. Let's work hard to maintain our conscience clean and at peace in the presence of God who reveals all.

No joy is truthful, no hope secure, no future promising whenever we wander far from the Lord. There is nothing with worth away from God and Life. It would be a happier thing for us to feel our sorrows, unhappiness and hopelessness away from God. To visit a mourning house would be a happier achievement. "Cleanse your hands, sinners; and purify your hearts, double-minded ones. Be afflicted, and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness", James 4:8-9. And, if this is true, it is also true that no sorrow, no hopelessness, no discouragement is ever truthful if we walk with the Lord in all holiness. They are all lies just as joys away from God are lies. All these sorrows will pass away, all discouragement and all lack of hope are sure lies if we are found in Him. All these will pass away, just as the sun and the earth. But, not so with those who have, experience and perform God's will! They will remain forever, 1 John 2:17.

Teach your own heart and you shall be enabled to teach others. That is morality. Teach others first and you shall not be able to teach your own heart. That is immorality!

Anyone who postpones things; or starts things and does not end them; or does something to avoid doing another; or does not teach his own heart to take to the end whatever is good, but also gives up on anything; or a person who does not exercise faithfulness to his immediate duty for any reason whatsoever; any such person creates a heart in himself which is a curse and will be always a curse in him. Habits which disable people to persevere with and through goodness are curses. A persevering man also makes sure he gives up any wrong thing in whatever stage it is found, whether it is close to its end or still in its beginnings. Persevering people are courageous enough to give up even on own dreams which seem easily attainable and affordable. Are you one of those?

Many people say, sometimes, they are lost as to what or where they should read in the Bible. There are many reasons why people feel lost in that area. However, I will mention only some of them. One reason is that they do not ask or enquire from God for their daily bread, or fail to ask for it in such a way that they will get answers. They do not take the matter seriously enough. The other is that they know more than they are living out. This second problem is a more serious one than we can imagine. It means people are outdated or out ruled. It is very dangerous to know more that we are able to put into practice since it should work the other way round. I mean, because of the communion with the Spirit, we should live more than we are able to explain, know or be aware of. If that is not happening, God cannot reveal where to read since people have not become faithful to what they already know. However, we could also mention that God may not reveal because it might be time to rest and become fit for what is ahead. We are at loss because we may have our seasons the other way round, I mean, we want to read when we should rest and rest when we should be up and reading. There are more reasons why God does not reveal where to read, though. Care to find out by asking knowledge from God.

It is not good to preach about faith to people who do not believe. Preach Jesus. The fact is that only those people who have already become spontaneous and sincere believers may ever benefit from definitions of what faith, love and hope is. In fact, such definitions may be mere confirmations of what has already been happening inside them. Everyone else must see and realize just how faithful God is, how He fulfils all He has spoken, etc. To define virtues to people who are not virtuous is to create hypocrites and never shall it create faithful believers.

"Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, I have given that to you, as I said to Moses", Jos.1:3. When you are really led by God in total, spontaneous and intelligent dependence on Him, whatever happens to you is given to you by God. The providence of God is very active with such people. All holy ones should be able to recognize such things as signs of God's will for them. They should be able to realize they are simply where they should be, especially if they are holy and completely dedicated to God. If they are able to be easily and spontaneously instructed by God, it simply cannot work out any other way because they are simply taken and led by the Lord. If you are holy and faithful I am sure you are where you should be right now. Let all doubts down and fill your mind with ways which can assume the place and the circumstances you may find yourself in today. Refuse to doubt the way John the Baptist doubted when he was imprisoned. Take the land of your mind because it is yours. Has your foot tread upon it? It is yours to take. Make the best of the moment and bring glory to God under such circumstances you may find yourself in today.

The opposite of life is not death only. According to truth, the opposite of life is sin and the opposite of death is holiness lived in the Spirit, as well.

We should know the degree of faithfulness we have during times of abundance shall always be proportional to the spontaneous faithfulness we show forth during the hardest times we may ever face during our lifetime and vice-versa. You cannot expect to be more faithful during the season of fat cows than you have been during the hardest moments of the hungry cows. If you, during those hard times, are spontaneously dedicated to God and to God's work, if you do not fail God during such times and there are no thorns found in your heart during the hardest time you have ever been through, if your heart is found fully in the Lord and there is no bitter thought during it, no resentment, no worrying, surely you are a man fit to have it all. You shall surely be faithful in happiness, in riches and during times of great joy and miracles. Do you remember how Job had been blessed after he went through an unconceivable time of hardships? Are you such a man? Joseph remained close to God and was so apt to interpret God's dreams with great precision on the spot during the harshest period of his life. To interpret those dreams in such a way amounts to having a very close relationship with God. What a relationship he had! That was the man who remained faithful to God and to his work after he became the ruler of the greatest country of the time. All that mattered to Him was his relationship to God. The rest would be mere bricks which would help build that wall of relationship.

For God, there aren't things more difficult than others or easier things than others. There is nothing to Him more difficult or easier than anything else. All amounts to the same thing to Him.

The important thing is not to see many miracles during our lifetime. The important thing is to see all the miracles we were supposed to see. In other words, seeing many miracles does not mean we have seen all we should have seen; and seeing few miracles doesn't mean we haven't seen all those we were meant to see.

Asking the right things without the knowledge that God can answer our requests at any time amounts to complaining about what we believe we should have. And without that confidence it shall never cease to be more than complaints before a holy God. Asking is not complaining. Complaining is asking without that sort of confidence that God can do and that what we have been asking is found within the range of His will.

We submit ourselves to God to remain submitted and not so we will never need to submit again.

No human will become holy and full of virtues through compulsion. Holiness is hard work and it is prepared, worked on, received and shared to make it experience. All virtues work out that way.

People, even when they see sinning is bad, still try to look away from guilt by smiling and by being polite and smooth to it. Try being polite and smooth towards bees! That is the same as trying to hide something which will sting you to death anyway, whatever you do to it. And we know from the Bible that whoever hides sin will not prosper, Prov.28:13.

Whoever still feels hopeful in sin has a false hope. False expectations are responsible for most of those lies sinners tell themselves to avoid repenting. And all those who feel hopeless when they sin are one small step away from taking refuge in Christ Jesus forever. Hopelessness is not always a bad thing.

Turning things real and assuming them as such is the ultimate end of the struggle to believe. God allows man to fight with Him for that purpose: to have man convinced by granting him an assuring answer. Once that answer is out, man should be able to take it in such a way that he spontaneously believes it shall be as God has said. That fight is useful to convince man and not to have God convinced to grant our requests.

Living the kind of life God demands of all of us here on earth should be easiest for weak people who consider themselves only human. Let me explain. An own life is a direct competition to Eternal Life within. The weaker man is, the easier it should be for him to live for and through Christ since holiness is experienced and lived through the Lord. Therefore, the Lord in us is always in direct conflict with whatever makes man strong or self-sustained. People often excuse themselves by saying they are only human. In fact, being weak is a main reason to be holy through Christ and not an impediment. "Let the weak say, I am strong". Why should the weak say such a thing at all? Will you look for strength if you feel strong? Will you look for wisdom if you believe you are already wise? No man feeling capable will seek to be made capable of doing things through the Lord. It is obvious the best candidates to live a holy life are all such who feel weak and unable. They are halfway gone into the reign of Christ already. However, they should not be put down by this vain assumption that weak people should rather give up on the Lord or on His Life, since that is usually what they do. I hope God's grace is enough for you as it had been for Paul, and that you aren't reaching out to strengthen condemned flesh through God.

Jesus told us about the sower that went out sowing his seed and how often the seeds fall around in bad ground. It is amazing how things have changed nowadays! Today, bad people sow a gospel in bad ground and, sometimes, a seed falls in good ground. It works much the other way round nowadays.

Aren't there lost bullets that hit people all over the world? Every time you preach the gospel out of a sound and pure heart have in mind that the gospel works much like lost bullets and hit people whom you never thought about. God works that way quite often.

If it is true that God takes care of our subconscious world to feed it daily and faithfully, it is also true that we become responsible for our conscious world. God will care for our deepest being.

I know one day men will praise me so they can duck away from the responsibility of fixing their lives. They will praise what I say to escape the aim of my words.

The only, just and righteous punishment for sin is eternal death, it is, a state of continual dying without being able to die. The Law of God demands an eye for an eye and the horrors of hell are just the precise opposite in time, in dimension and in greatness of what heaven would be for each condemned one. People have a righteous reward for having rejected eternal life. However, many teachers and theologians assume too easily Jesus paid the price sin deserves. It is not true because, if it were true, Jesus would need to suffer an eternal penalty. Jesus fulfilled the requirements of the Law of Moses and the Law of Moses required as far as what humans assume would be the penalty for transgression. For man only earthly things count and to take man from earth sounds righteous enough to him because man does not see eternity and nor does he see the reach of transgression. The Law demanded an offering for transgression because it helped man assume forgiveness after ceasing from sin. What Jesus did is enough to save man and the aim is to save man and not to pay for transgression. Jesus saves from sin. Man's sins die in him through Jesus and it makes man acceptable to God. His blood mean purification and spotlessness to us all who come to Him. That sort of cleanness is what assures forgiveness for us, Prov.28:13, Is.59:20. He is able to make us free of sin and of ourselves indeed.

When someone steels from his neighbour everyone talks about it because it is bad and abnormal enough. However, if no neighbour steels, no one talks about it because everyone assumes that is the normal thing to do. People talk about others being mean to each other and, when neighbours get along, we have it as a normal behaviour and no one talks about it. Even sinners attest to the fact that a holy being or a holy living is the normal way to live. Holiness is what man accepts as normal behaviour because that is what man has been created for.

"...Neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, says the Lord", Mal.3:11. Are you one of those who ask to have tomorrow's things right away? Did you know that receiving fruit before its proper time is a curse? Are you an impatient being? Do you neglect today's work by stressing your mind and heart with tomorrow's things? However, we must distinguish between not receiving today because there is some sin in us which annoys God and not being the right time for the right thing. There is fruit which must be there all year round and there is certain fruit for certain seasons. Just try to find out if you are out of season or not. Then, it shall be much easier for you to know why God is not giving now what you are pleading for right now.

Many people's faith is a curse. Let me explain. To many, faith amounts to believing in a simple way whatever comes their way. It is true real faith is or should be as easy as breathing. However spontaneous, faith is a certainty of the right thing carried out through the right means. Faith is being sure and assured of some reality God has whispered into us beforehand or any other time. Faith is not believing - it is the ability to believe the right thing the right way and, sometimes, at the right time. Being assured never made people right about what they believe. However, being right about what they believe makes them assured and confident. That is what faith is all about. The proper assurance is faith. The wrong kind of assurance cannot be faith at all. "Now faith is the assurance of things...", Heb.11:1. Faith is to be able to believe truth - it cannot be mere believing. "If you can believe..." Marc.9:23.

Be extremely careful when you expect from the heart that God should come your way. Make sure you expect Him to deliver you from the right things or you shall be disappointed in Him as many have been already. The Jews were oppressed people and hungered for the coming of the Christ. However, there was a problem: Christ comes unto us to deliver us from ourselves and not from our problems. Whenever He comes, he solves the kind of heart we have and not our problems. Seldom does He solve our problems. The Israelis expected the Christ to deliver them the way Moses did a long time before. They did not expect the Christ to deliver them from themselves, from the force of hatred, from all fleshly means they had been so used to. To deliver them from that was to kill away the only source of hope they knew till then. They did not expect the Christ to do the right thing, but rather to perform their thing. "Behold, He comes, says the Lord of Hosts. But who can endure the day of His coming? (...) He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver. And He shall purify the sons and purge them as gold and silver(...) And I will come near you to judgment. And I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those who do not fear Me" Mal.3:1-5. Do you really hunger after Christ? What do you expect Him to do when He comes? From what do you expect Him to rescue you? Make sure you won't be disappointed by His coming into your life in a real way. He came to save you from all your sins - not from your problems. "Why, when I came, was there no man; why, when I called, was there no one to answer?", Is.50:2. Many want God only because they see Him as powerful enough to do what they cannot do themselves concerning earthly things. Most even demand that it be done through a miracle. Do not be disappointed when He starts to do what He came for. There is another thing you should be careful about as well. Maybe the Lord takes you out of some of your problems for a reason He only knows about. Maybe He can't use those problems as instruments for holiness and He solves them for you. If it happens, now is time to avoid believing He came for your problems' sake since you see them solved. It is so easy to believe the wrong thing when He solves some problems for us! It might be one of the reasons why He does not solve most of our problems! The same principle must be held before our our minds in a continual way when it comes to holiness and to holy living. You cannot afford to believe you must become holy so God can perform certain things you wish to be carried out. You cannot afford to believe you must be kind so the Lord can be kind to you in return. Virtues are not the means to achieve certain ends - they are the ends themselves! The means are the miracles and the other things you usually seek to have from God. You cannot become patient to be blessed since patience is the blessing itself. Virtues are the ends and not what you buy things through. Have you been committing the same mistakes the Jews committed a long time ago? What are the means in your life and what are the ends? Have you been changing the order of things lately? Whenever the right order of things is kept from the heart, we shall face any kind of problems with joy because we shall know those problems God allows in our lives mean to achieve some important ends for us. You should try looking at it the other way round. It really works!

The difference between idolatry and truth is that idolatry is a god created by man after his own desires and conveniences. Man has certain ideas or ideals for which he creates a god who he thinks will satisfy them. Through the truth we know man is the one who has been created. We have been created according to God's holy interests and image. We have been made to fulfil all His wishes and purposes. Man's god is man's creation and it is dumb, deaf, and, in case that god is human, it shall be unkind, full of himself and rude. However, man is quite stubborn about his gods and seldom gives up his way to worship the Living One instead. That is why I believe idolatry requires a lot of stubbornness to exist. On the other hand, God's creatures are never deaf or dumb as men's creations are. But, most are dumb towards God.

Dirty water is seldom dirty because of one component only. Usually, we say water is dirty without really knowing what it is dirty from. There is a mixture of things which darkens or poisons water. With people and the hearts of men the same can be said. It is usually a mixture of sins which is globally responsible for the overall and spontaneous behaviour of man on the long run. Behaviour is always a consequence of many things. This means that a sound behaviour from the heart is a mixture of virtues which are imparted into man. Globally, such a man behaves in a holy manner. There is seldom a virtue in a saint which stands out above others because man is holy in the whole or he won't be holy at all. The same can be said about unchanged sinners: we cannot afford to see a certain sin as the root of man's overall behaviour. Sinfulness is a mixture of many things man does away from God. Dirty lives have learned to live their own way because they learned to live with no Shepherd. This is the main reason why sin must be abandoned globally and totally along with its environment. The main curse of sin is the birth of a bad heart which is responsible for a bad behaviour.

Being reigned is not the same as being dominated. Demons dominate and possess a person. Having a King in us means we are softly led and the hard part of it is to be led in a way we would easily deny and not recognize as a way at all. The King we pledged to serve is soft and easy to hear. It is the heart of man which is hard to convince and which is used to be driven the hard way. "Do not be like a mule...", Ps.32:9. God does not use hard driving means to be King over us because He assumes we must be soft and tender towards Him ourselves. Having a King and a Master in me means I have someone who knows me better than I know myself, and who rules me according to my original image of Him. If that image is lost, I should work and doo all I can to have it back. I will answer for my life before Him because I have all in me since creation to be led through His tenderness and love, and have all available in Him right now to accomplish anything a great King usually desires.

There is a kind of life which works for the salvation of others and which strives to be divine. And there is a kind of life which saves others and which is divine. One is earthly and the other is celestial. The life of God in saved ones manifests itself as the Life of heaven and not as a kind of life which looks like heaven's. A divine life does not struggle to be divine because it is divine. The life which struggles to be divine is not divine. It can't be. What really counts is the essence of holiness and not the mere appearance of it. Jesus came to us as One who had no appearance and had nothing in Him which we should desire. Yet, He was and still is holy. It means He acts the same way still. "The kingdom of God is not coming with a visible display. For the kingdom of God is in you", Lk.17:21. That person who struggles to be divine still has certain earthly aspirations and dreams which drive fleshly motivation and earthly means to reach out to them. They will rather have those than work hard on a heart change in prayer. God is not in debt to the flesh and none of His promises are meant to satisfy carnal people or carnal desires. Read the Bible the right way and you will immediately come to that conclusion yourself. If you, perhaps, find yourself still struggling to be holy and to be at peace in the presence of God you must know you must change the kind of life you work through and you must, also, exchange the motives, the means and the goals in you for celestial ones. This is often a double problem and needs a double solution.

"No one calls for justice, nor does anyone plead out of truth", Is.59:4. In another translation this verse says that no one calls for justice out of a truthful heart. It does not mean people do not call for righteousness and justice. There are many who fight for causes of selfishness and sin with the whole heart using any means to win them, even the means of apparent truth. Are you one of them? Some use truthful means to defend a lying heart's causes. Some others are engaged in the causes of truth half heartedly using the weapons of darkness. Is your heart fully set in the causes of God the way it should? Is godliness fully settled in you? Does God feel at home inside your heart? Does your heart feel at home in God? Do you feel at home with truth and do you feel at ease being fully transparent? Or does light annoy you often and makes you uncomfortable? Is your whole heart engaged in the manifestation of truth and righteousness to reveal itself fully through the light? What do you have in mind about righteousness? Do you still believe others are the ones who must be made righteous? The main ground and battle for truth is inside each fighter and not on the outside. "The kingdom of Heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his own field", Mat.13:31. God expects you to be righteous when He talks to you about righteousness. Do not easily assume those words He speaks are meant for a sermon or for someone else to hear them. They are meant for you. Do not try to carry out on the outside what must be fully accomplished inside. Do not let God say you trust yourself. Let it never be said of you! "They trust in vanity and speak lies. They conceive mischief and bring out iniquity (...) Their webs shall not become clothing, nor shall they cover themselves with their works...", Is.59:4,6. These people who do that experience some sort of typical problems, according to this piece of Scripture: 1. "They do not know the way of peace". This means they are constantly in a fighting mood and that there is a continual fight going on inside their hearts. 2."They have made crooked paths for themselves". This is something we should expect, because people do not wish to deny God openly, but only His ways. Their ways become self conceived and self-satisfying and demand the blessing of God. This really happens! This is a triple-sided coin. And it happens in such a way that people are seldom aware that they are doing the wrong thing. What a curse this must be! The way of a dishonest heart is a terrible curse! It is the curse itself. Can there be a greater curse than to make our own ways out and to plan and outline them by ourselves? This will give the impression we are righteous and are defending the right causes. But, God will deny them along with us. "I never knew you". I have always believed that appearance hinders transparency anywhere, anyhow and all the time. Make sure you work on truth; that you work it in yourself and avoid preaching to others to skip putting yourself in the light; and, whenever you do so, make sure you do so with a truthful heart.

God does not have time or respect for a bad temper or for a bad mood. And, usually, respect and attention is what anger or a bad spirit demands most. Just take some time to find the truthfulness of what I am saying here. On the other side, whenever my temper or mood changes, I must know God does not change along with it, because this is what a bad mood usually loves to believe so it can carry on being bad. The other side of any kind of bad mood is the assumption it is not wrong in itself. Self-justification is the other side of a bad temper. And God works assuming my bad mood shouldn't exist at all! He assumes it must be kicked out of me by me right away. And that is why He carries on with His work as always and He expects that sort of action from us as well! Make sure you work on it along with God because any bad mood usually works against whatever it should be doing. And the best way to deal against a bad mood is to stay side by side with God and work on what we should do as we would were we in our best mood or in heaven.

Many assume almost unconsciously that a difficult thing must be accomplished through grace and an easy thing should or can be carried out through self. That is a simple way to feed self and to keep it still alive. The main secret of the gospel is to do all we do through grace, not because of what we do, but rather because of how we do whatever we do. The flesh is fed and kept alive by using other means strange to grace. Things must be done here on earth exactly the same way anything would be done in heaven. The important part is how we do and not what we do. Therefore, you must be aware that, whenever people say they must pray a lot because they are facing something they consider very hard, the other side of them is assuming easy things need not be done through God. Doing an easy thing through the arm of the flesh is like smoking only one cigarette more whenever you are trying to quit the whole of sin. Doing easy things through the flesh amounts to feeding this strange monster, abnormal to creation, which rises up against God within us and against all His knowledge as well as against the knowledge and acknowledgment of Him in us.

So many question what they hear, having certain doubts about whether what they hear comes from God, the devil or the flesh. There is no easy way to solve this problem, though. The only way there is, is to enter into the Sanctuary and to get so near God that we shall, so to speak, see His lips moving and easily recognize His voice and realize who is speaking. You won't solve such doubting problems or moods unless you can make sure. And, to make sure, you must get near. Are you moving around that close to God? Make sure you know that people who try to hear God do so at the cost of getting near Him. It is not your ear which must be tuned only, but the whole of your heart and being. Jesus said that unless you become sheep you won't be able to hear Him the way you should. The main secret is seldom trying hard to hear, but rather becoming sheep from the heart. Those will hear.

We can only be saved from something or some place we are found in. We cannot be saved from hell because we are not in hell yet. The only people who could be saved from hell are those who find themselves already there. I cannot be saved from drowning unless I am found drowning in the water. I cannot be saved from drowning in dry land. Therefore, there is no such thing as being saved from hell. Even the Bible does not speak of us being saved from hell. But, it nevertheless talks about salvation. So, what are we to be saved from? We must be saved from sin and from ourselves. That is the kind of salvation the Bible talks extensively about. "You shall call Him JESUS; because He shall save His people from their sins", Mat.1.21. "You saved my soul from corruption".

When we have extensive knowledge of truth and we are not right with God (whether we realize it or not), God's promises can, even so, seem real to us. It seems the devil doesn't do anything to cause us to doubt such promises at all, especially if we are not clean and spotless before God. And if there is no opposition, there won't be doubts in a self-assured person. The way of error has little or no hindrances. It will serve the devil best if have mirages of water in dry land and become disappointed in God later on. People can look at the promises of God as they would entertain some hallucinations. Such deceiving hallucinations are worked out by mixing the deep desire of reaching out to some kind of promises man would feel pleased with and the mirage of water in the desert they are burned by. "It shall even be as when a hungry one dreams, and behold, he eats, but he wakes and his soul is empty; or as when a thirsty man dreams, and behold, he drinks; but he awakes, and behold, he is faint and his soul is longing. So shall it be with the multitude of all the nations who fight against mount Zion (or fight against their conscience to convince it otherwise!)", Is.29:8. Any man dying of thirst in any sort of desert is always so sure he is seeing water afar off. But, that kind of assuredness won't quench his thirst at all. That is how the promises of God will become deceiving mirages to all those who are found in the desert of sin. God's promises can become deceiving mirages instead of real lakes of water. Those promises can kill or bring to life. They won't ever become indifferent, inactive words at all - they will either kill or bring to life. These promises can become mirages to thirsty souls who refuse to clean up or they can be turned into the real essence of the testimony of God in the heart, or even into a fragrance of truth. However, the inclination of all those who find out they have been seeing mirages from God lately is to start despising or even doubting the Words of God. They will rather do that than comply to the conditions those promises silently demand to be fulfilled in or even through us. God sealed those promises for the clean in the heart and there is nothing that can ever hinder such promises to be fulfilled in their own ground and under their conditions. Are you fulfilling all the conditions God's promises require to be fulfilled in due time? Do you walk and talk with God? Does He answer you for real, or do you talk alone during prayers? Are you pure from the heart? Is God able to gather with you without being ashamed? Do you do all things, even at work, through God or do you still lean on the arm of the flesh so now and then? Do not use the unfulfilment of God's promises as the main excuse to start living out a fleshly life! Rather clean up and do not be so eager to cast away from you the cords of God's promises. "Cleanse your hands, sinners; and purify your hearts, double-minded ones", James 4:8. Maybe you never realized that an uneasy conscience is the main cause for the shipwrecking of real faith and the main strength for a false and feigning one. If you are pure or on the verge of becoming pure and clean through faith, do not fear to believe the same promises dirty people have often been disappointed by. God's word is a stumbling block to such. Nevertheless, it is still God's word and it shall remain so. Make sure you believe that. However, God's word is surely a fountain of real life as well. "And the glowing sand (the mirage) shall become a pool", Is.35:7. And if we talk about God's promises, we may apply the same binding principle on many other crucial truths important to all of us, such as election and being chosen. We have been chosen to be holy. That is the main thing we have been chosen for. Are you holy? Or will you sell your birthright for the sake of some sin? Do you rather choose "to suffer with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of (some) sin"? Heb 11:25. "Therefore, brothers, rather be diligent to make your calling and election sure", 2Ped.1:10.

Be extremely careful when it is the devil or fleshly intuition who is promising things in the name of God and which God would promise under certain conditions or circumstances. It is very dangerous in many ways. One of those dangers is that we can live towards something God has never promised to us personally and we will squander precious time expecting, doing or working on something which will eventually not work out for us. And, when those promises we believed came from God are not fulfilled, we shall easily doubt when it is God who is speaking for real directing us into something else. It shall happen because of the former experiences of unfulfilled promises, especially if we become honest people. If you wish to avoid that, do not allow the flesh to serve in the temple of God. You are that temple. Work it out in you and not outside of you. God can promise only when the flesh is not promising in His name anymore and He can fulfil only when the flesh is not trying to fulfil in His behalf by playing God for fear that it might not receive by waiting on the Lord. Do you remember how believing Abraham refused to conquer by himself the land God promised him? Or how David refused to kill Saul to reach out the the promised throne of Israel, using his own arm and sword? Do not trust the arm of the flesh, not even when it does all things correctly, in a friendly way or even to fulfil a promised end.

Man was the only creature (as far as we know) that has been created according to God's image. However, man is the creature which is further from resembling God today than most creatures on earth. Man does not glorify God at all. Try something. Take your dog and your wife and close them in the boot of your car. Who will yell at you and who will plead to come out? After an hour open it and see for yourself which one is angry at you and which is thankful. Later on, who is going to sleep in another room? I hope you do not do this, but it just shows how far man has wandered from his original heart and image.

One of the reasons we shouldn't judge our neighbour is because there are things we do not understand as God does. Besides, there are many wrong things for us which might not be so wrong for our fellow pilgrims to follow. That is why the greatest struggle we might be in for is the struggle out of our own doctrinal views and aptitudes. We must come out of them without stepping into error. We cannot step into error after coming out of ourselves. However, there are many right things we easily consider wrong and many wrong things we may consider right. May God grant us the vision of that door which leads us out of ourselves to escape for our lives!

"Not walking in craftiness..." 2Cor.4:2. This means not walking according to plan, but rather according to nature. We shouldn't be able to feign our own behaviour or attitudes at all. If we do, it means we are hiding something and hiding is walking in darkness. Rather jump out of feigning and reveal your whole heart.

Sins like jealousy, greed, gossiping, feigning and, to a certain measure, bitterness are character habits and not character roots. These are often habits the body of death left behind in new beings. You need, therefore, to make a point of implanting a strong and careful discipline upon yourself to be on the guard against feeding these character habits. These die only whenever we stop feeding them all together if you are indeed dead with Christ. Do not forget this part of discipline whenever you hand your whole being to the Lord. Bad humour or any such kind of selfishness must be kicked out of you and not merely resisted or withstood. If you do not do that, you shall surely return to death.

As soon as we obey, we shall understand all!

I found I cannot look into the same things for long periods so as to remember and understand them better. So, I felt the option is to see them in a clearer way because important things must be easily recalled. The clearer I see truth, the longer it shall remain fresh within me. Get closer to the Lord to have a better look and so things will be clearer and more visible to you. That is one way to solve many of our forgetfulness in the long run. I have never forgotten any of those things which have been clearly revealed to my soul and expectations. After the vision has become clear, hold on to it to the end, whatever happens. Its fulfilment and implementation depends on what you do to it. Be obedient to the vision of the Lord.

It is better for me when my life is right with God an I think there is something wrong with it than to think my life is right and feel confident when my life is not in order before Him at all.

There are those who watch because of Jesus, I mean, because He is coming to them anytime and from anywhere. However, there are some in a higher stage who watch with Jesus. Are you watching with Jesus?

When someone wants to enjoy the benefits of a Godly life but does not wish to know God Himself, it amounts to plucking off the fruit from a garden without wishing to know its owner. Even humans call it theft. Our ultimate goal must be to know God and not to enjoy the fruit.

It is easy to understand a child when it fears darkness. But, how can we understand an adult who hides from light and lives in darkness all the time?

God trusts only a heart which has the inborn habit of depending on Him all the time to be faithful. God trusts a work in which He has shared or which He has carried out.

The main war of God is not against people who are mean, but rather against the meanness of people itself. However, anyone who holds on to sinfulness will end up destroyed along with sin; and whoever abandons sin shall surely enjoy the Redeemer. "And the Redeemer shall come to those who turn from transgression", Is.59:20.

Helping people is assisting them in what they want to do or something they find hard to carry out. Helping people is not assisting them in what they do not wish to do.

A deceitful heart is the most obvious, the most direct consequence of a separation from God. Our independence from the Lord results in suchlike disasters which we shall never be able to avoid in any way.

Every saved one comes out of Egypt. Have you already come out of the love for novels and any kind of worldliness? Only those who really came out of Egypt can consider themselves free people and saved ones.

"Above it stood the seraphs; each one had six wings; with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew", Is.6:2. It is interesting to see just how these seraphs flew around with their faces covered. They did not miss their way at all! We can assume they had covered their eyes as well. It could only mean they flew around as the Spirit of God led them. Wouldn't you love it to be led that way, even when your eyes were not covered?

Blaming whoever is guilty is not the same thing as saving the guilty. However, let's be aware that saving a guilty one without pointing out sin and guilt with harmonious precision is not possible at all. It is like a doctor analysing a disease thoroughly to grant it a final death blow.

Only fairytales have endings. My story is real and so is my walking with Jesus. I will live forever.

Did you know that searching and finding the wisdom of God applies a death sentence to all sorts of pride? "But the wisdom that is from above is first truly pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy", James 3:17. Many refer to poor people as "humble people". Through that assumption we are tempted to believe that rich people are proud people. And that is not what the Bible says because pride and humility lives in the heart of man and does not consist of external circumstances. It depends mainly on what man is like inside. There are many poor people whose cup runs over with pride. And we also know how humble and how rich Job and David had been. Have you ever felt a deep desire to be really humble and simple? Do not associate it to poverty at all, but rather to the wisdom of God and to a fully surrendered heart, whatever the circumstances are. Try to live out, experience and enjoy the wisdom of God in all its fullness and you will have a deep kind of humility resulting from you!

A friend called my attention upon something that made me think a lot. He talked about the revolution brought by the washing of hands in hospitals after each patient is treated. We know that most infections have been reduced to very low numbers. Then he said: "If the washing of hands made such a difference in hospitals and on contagious diseases how much more would the washing of hearts decrease the infecting of souls of men by sin!"

When man desires something, he undoubtedly considers it a good thing because he desires it. Consequently, if there is any blessing coming from God which man cannot recognize as such, it will seem to be a bad thing to his eyes. If it is not what man wants, then it will seem like a bad thing to him.

Things become important to us only in the day they belong. Outside their proper day they can't be important at all and neither can they be seen as a duty. We need to maintain the overall vision God blesses us with but, we should never confuse one day with another and the work that belongs to each day with some other day's work.

Give your words to the dumb, your legs to the lame, your eyes to the blind, your money to whom is in need, your love to everyone. Never think of receiving back anything at all, not even applause. Do not merely lend your legs, eyes or your sleep. Simply give it away. Have you given your whole self to Jesus that way for real?

My life is a continual management of promises and of my cooperation with God in them in all obedience.

Anyone becomes richer by giving to the meek than by receiving from the proud.

Every time a family member gives himself over to greed or to the love of money, fighting starts at home. "He who is greedy for gain troubles his own house", Prov.15:27. It happens because such people will always choose money above buying food and other essentials; will always prefer to steal from what should be given to God because we all know every rope breaks first where it has its weaker point; such a person will, also, try to dominate other's lives at home to satisfy his own greed for money. However, the worst part of it is that such sins always resemble good management of resources and the children at home learn those attitudes from fathers and mothers more than from anyone else. Children will the first to reflect the most obvious consequences of those attitudes at home. If this the case with you, don't you think it is time to stop with it? Will the outcome of such sinning pay off in the long run?

I am so sure that I will have more hope and greater expectations at the door of death than anyone who doesn't know Jesus will ever have during any special moment of his whole living. I know all things God promised and talked about will be fulfilled then. Don't people get into a plain to go somewhere? The coffin will take me to heaven. What a marvellous thought! Are you that prepared?

The person who hides, ignores, neglects or buries away whatever God granted him to be faithful to, creates a graveyard in his own heart. God will always call upon such a person to answer for the smell of death coming out of him.

The idea that "prayer changes things" is not as true as the one that says that God changes us and we change things. However, none of them is completely right. It is true that God transforms us every time we near Him in prayer with a truthful heart and cry. Transformation is a direct consequence of nearing God. But, we know we near God for the sake of many of those things we seek solutions for. The truth is that those things are transformed by us in God and by God in us. And we are also transformed along, this being the main reason and aim of need created by God. Such wisdom is simply too wonderful to explain. But, if we manage to near God for the sake of God alone, the transformation which occurs in us is purer, more lasting and more adequate to holy beings - even though it might not take place in a quicker way than most half transformations which we see all over the world today.

The person who less accepts advices from others is the one who can easily refer to past experiences which are not experiences anymore. Every time someone's life is not up to date, all references such a person has entice the heart to believe it knows all, knows better and has close to nothing to learn from anyone else. This is the kind of danger Jesus warned us about when He said, "If, therefore, the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!" Mat.6:23.

When anything is robbing the peace of God from your heart in any way, one of two things is happening: you either have some hidden sin in your conscience which you refuse to put in the light and which you excuse off continually; or your relationship to Jesus is falsified, forced, forged and untrue.

The worst enemy of love are those natural preferences we show towards people and which man easily assumes as being love. The worst enemy of sincerity and honesty is the appearance of honesty man often shows off with. The worst enemy of speaking the way we ought is eloquence. We could carry on and find many other worst enemies of all kinds of virtues there are.

Jesus never demanded that we accept Him the way people do it in church nowadays. That doctrine is not biblical. What Jesus demands from us is that we be fully surrendered to Him in all aspects of our living and in all aspects of His will, both His will for us and His universal will for all. I mean that you cannot wish less for others than you are able to wish for yourself. That is the law and the prophets. In fact, the nowadays doctrines of accepting Jesus as they are put before people hinder that kind of surrender which God demands from all of us. I don't have any respect for such deluding doctrines which deceive people into believing they have peace "where there is no peace". It hinders dead people to become living beings.

I cannot set as a goal for myself to do many things or many things at once. My only goal must be to do the best work out of what I need to do right now or today. This kind of discipline and dedication to what belongs to today are the foundations for the days which are still to come. Eternity is an infinite today. Be faithful to what is in your hand to do right now through the blessing of the Lord. That is how you become an eternal being.

God will surely dress me up with a garment of righteousness, just as Jacob gave a colourful garment to his son, Joseph. Jacob made it himself and so will God make mine. I will be righteous and pure and I will wear a colourful garment which will speak of God's love and mercy. My garment will be even more wonderful than the one Joseph had on him. Mine shall not be worn out.

Kindness is not acceptance of evil. Never think that accepting evil is what goodness is all about. That can't be kindness because that is what evil is. Goodness works against evil much like a cancer works against a healthy body. It destroys evil from the inside. And no one will ever cooperate with his own death and no one will ever approve an own death. However, if you ever feel you are a bad, unkind person in any aspect of your whole being, you must walk towards Calvary. And we all know what happens there. Make a point of walking that way freely and willingly. There Christ shall kill you forever, so you shall rise a new being. The kind Life of God is what the Bible often mentions as being the seed which is able to save man from the inside. That kind of seed is corrosive in the heart of evil - it is not kind towards evil at all. That is why John says that the seed is able to preserve us and evil cannot stand against it in the long run. "Everyone who has been born of God does not commit sin, because His seed remains in him, and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God", 1 John 3:9. That seed works as a cancer against any kind of evil - not as a healer.

If, by any reason, all my work burns down or is destroyed, I will feel like having lost a precious son. I would feel like Job felt when he lost all his family to death. May God preserve me from that!

"...Those who delight in the perversities of the wicked...", Prov.2:14. Have you ever wondered if watching worldly movies and novels is wrong for you? Well, here the Bible talks against all those people who stay and watch with pleasure what evil does. Watching worldliness is a kind of lust (of the eyes). "My eyes will behold no evil thing".

If the Bible talks about the "prosperity of the fools", it means that fools are often rich and prosperous. And if that is true, it can't mean that God has left me when I am poor. When Job lost all, it never meant God was against him.

When I owe money to a bank and I ask for another loan from them, it simply means I wont get my loan. Banks do not lend to anyone who hasn't paid them back before. If you owe anything to God or to people, how can you expect God will answer your requests? Will you have the confidence you need in prayer if you haven't been faithful to what God has given you in previous occasions? What do you still owe God? Your life or some of your money, perhaps? Have you given your whole life to God already? Can you trust God in all aspects of your whole living? It belongs to Him in the whole. If you still owe Him anything of it, I am sure you won't near Him with the confidence you need to have.

Greed takes away the life of anyone who touches it. You must choose between greed and being alive. Greed is soul sickness, just as diarrhea is an intestinal disarrangement. Unfortunately, people do not deal with sin the way they deal with some illness. If I have diarrhea I instinctively start figuring out what could be the cause of it or what bad thing could I possibly have eaten. But, when people are spiritually disarranged they don't do that. If you feel impatient and without peace, if you lost control over your heart and soul, if your heart is disarranged, why don't you try to figure out what the cause of that disarrangement is?

"My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent", Prov.1:10. There are many forms of enticement and seduction into sin. The devil can entice directly or lure people into sin indirectly. For example, someone may hit or rob your child and you can react in a wrong way. And afterwards you realize all the devil wanted was to use a reason for you to fall into some sort of sin. We should be careful about all sorts of strategies the devil is able to devise against any of us. "Put on the whole armour of God so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil... For we are not ignorant of his devices", Ef.6:11, 2Cor.2:11.

The deeper the well, the purer and the cleaner the water shall be at the surface. The deeper you immerge into God, the cleaner your life shall be. "Walk with Me and be perfect!" This means the main issue is to walk with the Lord. Perfection will naturally follow.

Never fear to refuse hastening or speeding up the proper time of the Lord for certain things to happen. People usually fear to be delaying things which they are impatient about. Do not fear to deal thoroughly with impatience because the man who refuses to hasten the time of God will also easily refuse to have the proper timing of the Lord postponed or delayed. One thing leads to the other. That is the way a normal heart works. To refuse to hasten the time of the Lord is not the same as postponing things at all. It only means we want the right things to happen in their proper time and place. Today belongs to today. In fact, by trying to quicken or hasten the right time for something often delays it. It means we are busy with trying to hasten things and, by doing so, we cannot be busy with the preparation those things require to be fulfilled and accomplished in us. You must rather choose to be "a prepared people for the Lord" instead of trying to skip or avoid your cooperation with God in whatever means He uses to have you dead and fully crucified and, consequently, resurrected with Christ and prepared forever - prepared for eternity. So, here is this double truth: if you try to hasten things, you will surely delay them; if you refuse to hasten them to rather use your precious and short time for the sake of your own preparation, you will undoubtedly "redeem the time". And the other truth is: if you find yourself busy with hastening times (which means you are filled with impatience and mistrust towards God and His timing), you cannot be busy preparing yourself for when things shall happen and neither can you be filled with God. We cannot do two things at once or serve two masters at the same time. And woe to the servant who is unprepared when the Lord comes with what He has promised!

"Music are organized sounds; philosophy are organized thoughts; science is organized knowledge"; melody is organized beauty. Get organized!

As a rule and by the laws of spirituality, every person who understands something is someone who already practices in some way whatever he or she understands. That is a law of creation. Even Jesus said, "Whoever practices shall know". If you understand sin, it means you practice sin. If you cease to practice sin, you will gradually cease to understand it. The same principle can be applied to all aspects of our lives, whether it is our prayer life, cultural life, language or any other. If you understand English it is because you already practice it in some way, or you would not be able to understand it at all. Therefore, if you understand the ways of holiness, take courage and carry on living as God told you to. Do not be misled by accusations if you already understand and easily accept holiness. Find more of it in a practical way and you shall surely be given more and even better to understand. This is a rule which often causes people to waver to launch themselves into a life of faith and of undisputed trust in the Lord. People often do not understand it before they start practicing it. It is hard and too daring to hand our lives over to the unknown Lord of all. It will often seem too risky because we do not understand a thing about the practical consequences of what we are doing. But, let there be faith! Let there be more people who practice so they will gain good understanding. It will mean more people will have understanding or, at least, people will have more and better understanding. This is the main reason why the fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom. It means people who fear the Lord start practicing out of fear and will gain the consequent understanding through what they do, or by what they are and, most important, of who God really is in or through them. Understanding is the main consequence of practicing.

We may be very busy with the things of God without being busy with God Himself. We may, also, be busy with the things of God while our hearts are consumed by worldly affairs. But, we may just as well be busy with material affairs while our hearts deeply hunger after God and to be with Him only. However, every time you are busy with God Himself, make sure you heart is wholly there and is not divided by anything else but is wholly filled with the Lord. That is what it means to seek Him with the whole of our heart. It means the heart is not divided between Him and something else.

Joseph learned many things during the years he had been a slave. He also unlearned many things. I believe it is more important to unlearn than to learn, even though we do both during heavy trials such as these. However, I believe the most valuable lesson Joseph learned was to do all and nothing but his best without doing it for a reward. He aimed at the reward of God alone. That is why he could rule the whole of Egypt later on. He was "a prepared people for the Lord" and he used his time very well during slavery.

All people who are led by a faith set ablaze by the Spirit of God always break some rules which are always valuable to society, to the religious circles they belong, to their cultural background and even to their communities. Tamar left her widow clothes and put on prostitute garments; Abraham sacrificed his own son and sent the other away without anything but bread and water; David ate the bread which only priests were allowed to eat; David also used the ephod, something which some people were penalized for. We could mention thousands of examples more. This only proves God is not bound to rules, whether good or bad, and much less by absurd rules.

If we put all we are and have into taking hold of Life, we are surely helping Life to get a full hold of us. This is why Paul says, "Lay hold of Eternal Life". However, we must never forget that Life allows us to do so because it seeks to get hold of us in every aspect of our whole living. By doing so we often hasten times because the aim of God is to have "a prepared people" for Him. Then, our spiritual clock will be set according to God's and our heart will beat according to His. However, if this is the case, I mean, if we put all we have into getting hold of that Life which, by having us doing so, also gets hold of us, we must have in mind that we are putting all effort into finding the life we imagine as eternal and constant. I mean that we have our own idea of what that Life is. Therefore, when we seek to get hold of Life with all our might we must add to our efforts an openness of mind which does not mystify or hinder the proper vision of that Life God has for all of us. Our hearts must be open to change its vision about Life without losing on perseverance because of we have a short or wrong idea of what Life really is. When it does not happen that way, we shall surely enter the way of error and the proper ground for fanaticism will be created. Consequently, God will need to pull those weeds of fanaticism out of us later on and through much pain on our part and, also, through much effort of His part.

When I lack comprehension and understanding of God and of my ways in Him, it can be only ascribed to some sort of disobedience somewhere. Spiritual darkness or blindness is always the fruit of some kind of disobedience somewhere, whether it is a direct fruit or fruit in a second or third degree. Do you want light? Just obey the Lord and light will surely be there assuring you. And if you think for a while you might, also, become aware that all religious fanaticism comes from disobedience because people are their own light because they lack the real one. Let's look into it the other way round. If you have much light and enlightenment and your life seems to go nowhere, be assured that you are obedient to God or you wouldn't share in that light at all. Do not be worried and rather wait patiently. You will see that soon your life will be a complete whole and it will then make sense to you and to many others. "If anyone desires to do His will, he shall know...", John 7:17.

The average person has this intuition that we have problems to learn something out of them. Even if it may be occasionally true, the truth is that God wants you to unlearn something through your problems. Problems hinder us to be what we have become as well.

The reason why Jesus seems to be so strong-minded about all our relationships is that He knows that all relationships which do not have Him in the first place will inevitably end up against the rocks of sin and death. Are all your relationships based on that principle of having, honouring and holding on God first and above all? If not, you must assure yourself about how you will end, if it doesn't blow up in your face right now.

The generalized tendency of nowadays Christianity is to have people fully satisfied in a rut of wrong doings and wrong doctrines. All doctrines are conceived to breed that sort of satisfaction in people who live in sin and to praise, talk about and commune with a christ of their own minds. It works directly against the efforts of the Lord to get people out of that rut and have them believe and honour Him instead.

We who wish to be totally committed and faithful to the Lord don't talk much about personal experiences, but rather from personal experiences.

"Do not cease to pray". It means, do not give up before God grants all the requests which mean a lot to Him and to His glory. Unanswered prayers just don't seem to bring unbelief into us. We find we believe more and better as our deepest heart and faith is being reshaped. Hope needs to be sound and above suspicion, just as faith and love. Hope is to expect from God. And by expecting that way, we reject all means by which we are tempted to accept an easy way out or an alternative way of attaining to what we expect to receive from the Lord Himself. Didn't David refuse to kill Saul with his own hands because it was God who would make him king over Israel?

Every time a wife or husband insists or demands from the partner that all things they do should be discussed among them, it means the one who demands does not wish to discuss what he or she does, but only what the other one does. If you complain against your partner on this issue be assured that you are the one who is unwilling to talk about what you do. If you discuss your stuff with your partner, however, so will you partner discuss with you what he or she needs to do. Remember that the Law and the Prophets are fulfilled whenever you do to others whatever you wish to be done to you. And an example is usually a teaching mode and soon the two will be doing the same thing because it seems the right thing to do.

We shouldn't only be motivated by the Lord but also have the same motives He has. God can't motivate us unless our motives are His.

No one is able to trust a man who is suspicious of everyone else or of everything else. Not even a dog can trust a man who is afraid of it. It is a law in nature. The suspicious man judges the lack of faithfulness he sees in others and we know what that means. It means that whoever sees such errors in others in such an unproven way has those sins himself. This is why a suspicious man can't be a reliable person since he himself has an odour of unfaithfulness which he distributes around. This is the explanation and the reason why we can't trust a suspicious man.

Jesus received many blows and many agonizing stings a long time ago. No one stood Him by at the time. Today he receives the same blows in the person of His holy children. However, if each of His children would walk two or three miles every time they were told to walk one, they would be distributing the wonderful fragrance of their Lord and would be glorifying Him. It is always the glory of God which is at stake. His glory is what evil aim at. And God allows it to happen because it may bring Him greater glory just as it can do the opposite. God risks His glory by allowing these confrontations with evil. Sometimes He achieves outstanding results from us. If we walk more than the mile people demand from us, we receive the blow aimed at the Lord. Now we can receive all blows aimed at Him. It is time to do so, just as at Gethsemane was the time for evil to have its way against Jesus.

The main reason why many don't know much about God's time for something to happen is that people easily become proud about what they know. Many are pleased with what they have - many are more with what they know.

Our insistence in proving that we are right about something just shows we may not be right in some aspect of our lives, even when that aspect is not the one we claim to be right about.

Our insisting on providing for ourselves proves that we are refusing to wait on God's provision and on His perfect timing. It may also show that God is about to provide. The closer God's provision is, the more people are inclined to provide for themselves and to become impatient.

We should be able to smell truth out because the truth leaves its fragrance all around. Besides, we have all the means and capacities since creation to find and lodge truth as truth. This is why we won't have any excuse to miss out on the truth.

God is not a hypocrite. He is good to bad ones just as He is good to good ones. He is what He is all the time. He does not depend on what we do to Him or to anyone else to be good to us, unless He chooses to exhort us through our circumstances because we are His Children. Children of the Lord experience the rod more than the average sinner does. However, humans are used by their sinfulness, which is to be good and kind to all those who do them good and to be naturally inclined to be mean towards all the rest, even towards those who are passive and indifferent towards them. Now, because they are like that, they assume that is how God is. And when they think of God as good, they believe it means He will be good towards them. They shall also naturally assume God does them good because they are right with Him. Were they not right with Him, He would be mean towards them in this present life. They conclude that God would never be good to them unless they had been acceptable to Him. They have an unconscious and distorted vision of God and think He is as an average sinner and expect God to act like the average human being would. Do not say you are right with God too quickly, especially not on account of what you receive in daily life. If God is good to you in some way, try to believe it is because He is good towards anyone and not because of you. Do not use the fact that God is good as an excuse not to fix your life right away. Do not easily assume everything is right between you and Him only because He has been good to you in some way. Remember that the Lord won't pull the weeds out of the corn field till Judgment Day. And if God is good, so should we be. "Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same?", Mat.5:46-48.

Every time water boils too quickly we assume there is little water in the pot. And we may not be wrong about it. Whenever there is plenty water, it takes much longer to reach boiling point, unless the water is already somewhat hot. We may state the same thing about faith and spiritual enthusiasm. Many boil in faith and enthusiasm too quickly and too easily. They haven't really thought deeply about many things and about the real character of the Lord. "Some (seeds) fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth. And they sprang up immediately, because they had no deepness of earth", Mat.13:5.

Be careful with those things to which God hasn't said no and about which He keeps quiet. If God hasn't said "no" or "yes", He can still say either of them. Don't make up your mind as to what God's answer shall be, at least not before He can answer you for real. Maybe you are the one hindering that real answer. And if God keeps quiet, it means He can grant you your request as soon as you are "a ready people for the Lord" and as soon as God sees the disposition in you to remain faithful to Him after you receive. God may also delay a "no" for that same reason. Perhaps He doesn't find in you the disposition to receive a "no" as an answer and to believe God has something better for you. You keep battling on and on with the same request only because your heart disposition isn't the best. Will you remain faithful to God if He says "no"? And if He grants you your request, will you?

If it would be possible, it would be much better for any of us to do the wrong thing the right way (through the Lord), than to do the right thing the wrong way. It is worse to use strange fire on the altar of God than to put there the wrong offering. That was the main reason why David refused to kill Saul when he could have done so, even though Saul was destined to die. We should always refuse to save ourselves, to provide for ourselves and to do anything else for ourselves which God is about to do Himself.

When God speaks to the heart of man, it does not mean it is the heart speaking at all. God speaks to the heart and not through the heart. And whenever God speaks, the heart does not speak - it listens in stillness.

Avoid any form of life that does not take into account that there is evil and sin somewhere. Avoid an unprepared life. The prepared life watches knowing it must live God's life without resisting evil. By taking into account evil is out there, it helps us not to pay attention to it when bad things happen because we expected them to withstand us in some way. It doesn't come as a surprise and we carry on living God's life as if nothing happened. A prepared life is not surprised by evil and, therefore, is prepared to carry on doing whatever God has left in its hands to be faithful to right to the end.

Every cause of God is important, but God is more. The same principle is applied to us by the Lord: we are more important to Him than the work we do.

There is no time more confusing than when our goals or motives are being changed.

Whatever is limited is also limiting. Let me explain. Usually people come to God and are satisfied with very little from Him. They have never experienced peace and the little peace or a fragrance of real love they experience is already more than overwhelming to them. Consequently, they start limiting God to their experience because they can't figure out how great God is yet. Little is more than they expected and little is just too big for them. They hold on to a limited view of Him and of His power from then on. They are happy with a fountain when God wishes it to turn into a powerful river. The vision is limited and, consequently, it shall also be limiting the person in daily life because such people do not take into account that there is abundance in God for which they are not able to make provision for. Whatever we receive from the Lord needs to be multiplied and must become according to Him. "Grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, according as His divine power...", 2Pet.1:2.

Every pure man who is in fellowship with Jesus is someone who will always allow God to convince him instead of convincing himself. That is mainly how he avoids being in error about many things. That way he also avoids pressuring God with his own will or with the will of any other man. Faith is to be fully persuaded and fully convinced by God and by His word.

The work of God is mainly what we are and not what we do for Him.

The best vision you may have is the vision of your heart under the Light of God because no one knows himself but through Jesus, even though light and Jesus are the ones who change the heart; the best gift is the ability to fix our lives under that light; and the best revelation we will have as soon as our lives and hearts are spotless and clean.

Any unbeliever or faithless Christian has many sorts of difficult problems to solve. Here is an example. Whenever God says something it is supposed to happen as God said it would. However, the faithless man shall not see it happen even when God has said it. That will make the unbeliever or faithless Christian even more unbelieving since he does not see God's word being fulfilled at all. The right voice disappointed him. Next time he hears God again he might not take it as God speaking. Whatever God says may never be associated with unbelief and lack of faith or God will become a stumbling block.

The more I understand of the Bible, the more I am aware that theologians, Christians and preachers have abandoned the right way. The Biblical truth is thrown into a corner and piled up in the selves of hatred and threats of nowadays Christians, even if they do not admit it. These times are worse than those we read about when the priests found the Book of the Law thrown in dusty places somewhere in the temple of God, 2 Kings 22:8.

There is a wrong way to do the right thing and many try to do the wrong thing the right way. Let me give an example. You can try to do God's will through the arm of the flesh or you can plead to God for His power to carry out your own will. Beware because there are many ways to enter the way of error.

An ignorant person who does not make use of wisdom in his daily life is usually an unbelieving person who also trusts no one. He is always suspicious of everyone else's opinion. The reason for that is very simple: all ignorant people believe they know all because their lack of knowledge does not make them people who can evaluate what they do not know. And because they believe they know all, it so happens that anything they consider new to their knowledge or experience is enough motive to be suspicious about because they do not believe there is still something to know outside their range of experiences, expectations and knowledge.

Let's talk now to people who usually walk with God. Have you ever taken notice that every time you step out of the way of the Lord or out of the relationship with Him (even if you are not aware you are doing sot) temptations become stronger than ever? Have you given some thought to it? Why does it happen that way? I believe that is so because God leaves us at the mercy of the devil and sin since we have abandoned Him.

Timid people are proud people and the daring are humble and often receive from the Lord who "gives grace to the humble". There is a huge association between humility, daring and receiving. If the daring receive, they must be humble people or grace would not be distributed to them at all.

Ruth was a Moabite, a stranger to the people of God and to the ways of God. Yet, she was an example to the very people of God. Isn't it strange? We would think that she could be, at the most, a consolation or a joy to them by equalling them. However, she outstood them. Her virtues and dedication outstood those of the people of God. How shameful!

Samuel was dedicated to the Lord by his mother. However, that dedication wouldn't avail him anything unless the dedication became a personal issue and intervention as well. His mother's dedication of him meant only he could count on God's blessing from birth. He had still to dedicate his heart to God personally so that God could find a dedicated work from him. If someone else dedicates us to God it won't affect our own will at all. Slaves were forced to be slaves and they were seldom dedicated to their owners. No one owns our will and it needs to love he Lord freely and out of itself.

John the Baptist was not only full of the Spirit, but he was famous and spoken about since birth. God prepared everything inside his heart as well as on the outside.

Both Elizabeth and Zachariah, the parents of John the Baptist, have been filled with the Spirit (Luk.1:41,67). Their son needed parents filled with the Spirit so they could raise him and instruct him in the true ways of the Lord through a personal example. It wouldn't be enough to be believers. We all need to be living beings to walk on living ways.

The public opinion seldom matches with the opinion of God. Do you remember how people wanted to name the baby as Zachariah whom God wanted to be John? (Luk.1:59-63).

Have you ever taken some time to think what things are the real hindrances to God's work in us and through us? Think of all the conditionals you put forward when God or your conscience say something. Whenever you are able to put forth a condition so you may do something for the Lord or by the Lord, you must make sure you are not withstanding the Spirit or your own conscience, but are rather cooperating with Him.

Paul and Barnabas had a huge argument in Antioch against the circumcision people who arrived there, Act.15:2. There was nothing strange about it, though. However, the strange part is the church sending Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem to enquire what the apostles had to say about it so that the matter could be settled. Paul and Barnabas were one of the interested parts. Even so, they had been trusted enough to be the ones commissioned for the job. When Paul came to Jerusalem it seems he did not mention anything about the matter and it came out to discussion by itself. Paul was indeed trustworthy and trusted the Lord would cause the matter to be on the discussion table. I don't know about you, but this story calls my heart and attention towards many things. The church trusted Paul and Barnabas to the point of believing their opinion would not be used to influence the apostles in Jerusalem; they trusted in God so much that they knew the trust bestowed upon them by the church would not be in vain; and God worked according to their expectations. It seems Paul did not mention a word about what had taken them there, and yet, the answer they looked for had been granted the way they expected it.

The instinct to hide has started with Adam and Eve. Sin caused people to think of hiding first, even before they have sinned or done anything wrong. That sort of instinct has a life and a power of its own by now. I have seen people hiding or excusing themselves even before they do some sort of good things. Now we have to deal with these new realities of lies which, at the time of Adam, were mere unknown consequences of sin. They are not mere consequences anymore. People need to learn to expose as well as to live with God. In fact, exposing must be the first thing they learn to do. People need to know it is not possible to hide any sin from God and, eventually, from people, no matter how hard they try. They must also know that hiding is useless and is a waste of energy. It is, also, a squandering of precious time. We cannot consider hiding or abstracting oneself from people as a part of personality at all. It isn't. It is a parasite clinging to personality. We cannot become new people and have old habits of hiding and nor may we remain old and change some expressing new habits to avoid a real conversion. All must become new in us, in and out. There is nothing which shouldn't be new in us.

It is very important to know that when we are found under great trials for the sake of God's will, we are always put before a double choice: we may seek God for the sake of our problems or we may decide to seek God for His sake. You must know every trial is an opportunity for you to decide whom you shall serve. What are your motives behind your seeking of God? If you indeed seek to find God for His sake alone, you need to know that your problem will also be surely solved one way or another, one day or another.

"Then, indeed, the churches (...) they were increased with the help of the Holy Spirit", Act.9:31. Let me tell you what this help of the Holy Spirit was. We easily say we have done something with the help of God and much of it is nothing but false humility. Remember when Peter preached and thousands were converted? That was the help of the Holy Spirit! Remember when Philip was taken from one placed to another? That was the help of the Holy Spirit. I am trying to make two points here. One is that people often say they did something or achieved something through the help of the Holy Spirit and any honest person can realize it has been done through the flesh and for fleshly purposes. The other point is that the apostles lived with these great things and described it simply as "the help of the Holy Spirit". They did not describe it any other way and nor did they entice people into emotional sign-seeking or sign-praising. Today these things would be considered great miracles and would create great havoc among people because few people, or even no one, would consider it merely as "the help of the Holy Spirit". Many would even consider it as the goal and not as the means or the help of God. Beware when people are easily flirted and proud, or emotionally active as if "the help of the Holy Spirit" is something strange, unknown and unusual to them. Don't trust such people at all who say emotion is the help of the Holy Spirit.

Make sure your enemies persecute you because of the gospel and not because of you. If people persecute you, let it be because of the truth and not specifically have wronged them in some way. "For what glory is it if you patiently endure while sinning and being buffeted? But if you suffer while doing good, and patiently endure, this is a grace from God", 1 Pet.2:20.

When God frees us from the persecution of our enemies and from the enemies of the gospel, it should feel sweet only because by that we know God is with us. It is not the same as feeling happy and revengeful against our enemies. It is sweet to know God is with us since persecution creates in us many opportunities and situations to doubt.

Any small or weak man always thinks highly of himself. He feels always strong and powerful. The great man, on the other hand, feels small and insignificant or he wouldn't be great. And what makes any man great is not the way he feels, but his active nearness to Jesus and His powerful life. The more I grow towards Jesus at the cost of self, the stronger I will be. However, when man experiences his own death he feels weak and is tempted to feel worthless and tempts God. We should know that the more we lose of ourselves, the greater we shall become in God's own eyes and it won't matter what people say about it. Let's look to find our way towards being small for real instead of looking for greatness. Let's find a type of smallness which can never be faked or only be apparent. Finding smallness for real is the kind of greatness that counts. Let's seek to be small and not great.

Pride or vanity is a feeling of inferiority. Whoever feels unconsciously or ignorantly inferior to others is tempted to make up for the diminishing loss he feels or "experiences" towards others. Feeling proud or presumptuous is a way to make up for the lies people believe easily. We should know we are alike. It doesn't matter how much you strive to be better than others - you will always be like others. It is your mind which tricks you into thinking you can be better than others.

God doesn't give because I am faithful. No. It is I who am in a state of faithfulness which makes it possible for me to receive from the Lord. God isn't good only when He gives - He is always good. It is receiving which is good to me. God is good, whether He gives or takes away.

It is surely true that God does not answer our prayers if our lives or consciences are stained with something, whether it is something we consider great or small. However, we cannot say God grants because we are clean. No. He hears us and we hear Him because we are clean and are found in His presence. Granting our request is something which comes after that. We are heard and spoken to because we are clean. But, being heard is not similar to being granted the request at all. We are heard because we are clean and granted because we have asked under such conditions. We cannot take for granted God will grant anything we want because we are clean. We have, however, the assurance He will hear us when we are clean. Being clean in the heart makes it possible for us to see God and ask Him in a way He shall ponder all our requests.

Any man ashamed of God is always someone who might never be ashamed of sin. This coin has two faces. But, if you happen to be ashamed of God and of sin, choose your way and stop being greedy.

"In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans; In the first year of his reign I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem. And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes", Dan.9:1-3. The whole expression of honesty in prayer is so visible in Daniel on this occasion. He didn’t care whether things promised had to be fulfilled by themselves, or expected to happen soon, as some hypocrites do. He went straight to God holding on to a promise and poured his whole heart and faith before God and was heard.

"And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh" Jud.1:23. God has called us to hatred towards the very garment of fleshly things - not to look away from it! How else will we pull people out of it if we do look back or away from it? Whoever looks away loves himself alone! He fears sin and not God, loves self and not people, preserves self from hell and not holiness within and without. Holiness looks into sin and overcomes anything. Self looks away from filth because it still loves it. Holiness looks into it because it fears it not, at least not anymore! His seed keeps him spotless. Dare to cut your hand off, only when it is able to cause you to stumble. If not, however, use it to exterminate all kinds of sin within you. You cannot hate whatever you are not able to look at. What is the reaction in your heart when you look upon sin? Hatred or fear?

The contents of the heart must be made good first, just as creation was made good and acceptable to God. Once it has happened, the whole of it all must be poured out back unto God anyhow and anyway, using one effort or a thousand.

People who pray are courageous, for they are never thrown down when their eyes are open enough to see things as they are. Negligent people run away from the sight of those horrors which are able to drive heroes to prayer. Did Ezekiel run away from the sight of the valley filled with bones? (Ez.37). When God shows you disgrace, that is meant for you to pray for grace. He shows you the need as it is so you should provide for the solution.

You cannot expect God to hear the voice of your prayers if you do not hear His voice when you pray. If you are able to hear Him, it means He is listening to you as well. Then, how can you expect God to answer you praying if you do not obey what you know He has said as well?

Any real revival starts off only after all sins all fully dealt with and successfully and unconditionally forsaken.

It cannot be regarded as sin to believe God is not with you when He is not and as long as you don't doubt the fact that He is not with you. Sin is, not believing truth.

It is commonly argued that one should feel at home here or there. But I found I need to be at home to feel at home, I need to be loving to feel loving, I need to have joy to feel the joy of it, I need to indeed have the Lord to talk to Him and experience His presence for real to state He is there and with me.

Doubt turns the need of faith visible just as much as unbelief tells us there must be something worth believing in.

What the Lord likes, I like; whatever He does not like, I put it in my heart to despise it utterly anywhere, anyhow, any time - even if I like it!

It takes a proud hearer to hear and listen to a proud prophet. There are false teachers because there are false listeners who wish to hear according to their own deceit. "...They will heap up teachers to themselves according to their own lusts, having itching ears", 2Tim.4:3.

The Lord Jesus was not born on Christmas day, yet He can be born in any heart. If we can celebrate Christmas and God Himself still blesses it, He not being born in that day, how greater a blessing will Jesus carry out in the heart where He has been born.

All teachers who have a deep and sound relationship with God are never alike. One must show and teach different things to people according to their need and, above all, as one is able to put truth forth. Nevertheless, everyone deserves all credit for being a servant of God - as long as they are. Because needs are different, there must be different teachers as well.

Think for yourself: just how pleased and delighted are you when people speak and think well about? Perhaps you are your own idol and, if so, be sure there will always be people who please your idol along with you as well as such who despise it. If you have no idol anymore, who cares who despises it or applauds it? Put a Living God there in your heart.

If even Barnabas was deceived into error by a dissembling attitude, Gal 2:13, how much more will a genuine, perfect life achieve from people!

To walk a most holy life will cause us to spare on time greatly, and people will easily see what it is all about when we talk about God. But, to walk according to the course of this world being a Christian will not redeem on the time of perception, salvation and sanctification on whomever is searching for God - it might delay or even close the way forever.

My little doggie is afraid of thunder and it hides away and seeks comfort because of of its fear when clouds roar far away – it believes it is in danger. When I hold it, it feels safe only till the next thunder noise disturbs its peace again. If I only could get into his little mind to explain clouds roar like that and especially that it has nothing to do with us down here and that they will not reach us since those are noises between clouds and clouds... if I could do the same to sound Christians in search of a deeper Life with God and tell them about a certain roaring, bluffing, lying and blaspheming lion as well who wishes to attract their attention away from God!

Any teacher who does not teach as far as how to be taught and to be fully led by God, is not worthy of his title nor of his reward!

It is an experienced man who most needs exercising. People who do not have holiness installed in them, need to learn it as much as they need to have it and experience it. It is like a computer program: you hear and learn about it, how and what to download; you download, install it and later used it and learn how to make the best of it to create and live on with it that way. Updates will be installed if one needs to do so. "And this will we do, if God permit", Heb 6:3.

Whatever hinders man to reach out unto God, will inevitably hinder God to reach out to man. Whatever makes man reach God, will turn God's face towards man.

"Listen to no man who often fails to listen to God", someone said.

You should never have peace if God is not around you or in you. If God is far from you, if His absence is felt and it strikes you deeply, you should neither try to be at ease nor at rest. It is better to be reprimanded by God because of unbelief, then to be assured by the devil that you are a believer. The only peace which will seal our heavenly passport will be the one we may experience or have in the presence of God. Seek to be there and believe because you have life and it causes you to believe the right way: "Whoever believes, has Eternal Life" already within him.

When you exchange trusting Jesus for Jesus Himself, maybe the world will speedily change around you. People easily relate themselves with trust and not with Jesus.

To delight in God, self must not be there to be delighted upon anymore or there to be still seen as a delight.

When one is not taught of God or not teaching to be taught of God alone, one is breaking a New Covenant, Jer.31:30-34

Anyone able to discern falsity in a false apostle who is keen in preaching, is surely one who will spot Paul in a crowd as Barnabas did.

When people wish after something strongly, it makes them want to believe God will or is speaking to them about that thing. But, God speaks when He does and not when we are wishing to hear Him speak about something. Beware, as well, of your own heart when you are looking for a real answer from God which He will grant: it is not God who is confusing you, but the answer your own heart wishes to have.

If the greatest blessing is to have God in His fullness, even when we have nothing (riches, health of worldly business), the greatest curse must be when we have it all on earth and are not aware of God or the need of Him because we lack nothing, want nothing and don't realize we are too poor, Ps.73.

I didn’t know what to make out of things when God tells us something to do or to pray for and it does not work out. It is like when Jesus told His disciples to go and prepare Him a place to stay somewhere in Samaria and it did not work out, Luk.9:51-53; or when, after having expelled some demons out of an oppressed person, He could not enter the cities He was intending to go to preach to, Luk.8:39.

Disobedience is sin, sometimes it is the very curse for mingling with sin – so it is to obey the wrong thing, which amounts to the same thing. People just cannot get an obedient heart and ear because they do not enter the narrow door because of sin. Sometimes disobedience is sin and, sometimes, sin it is the very curse of sin.

Being bored is being impatient. Being bored can be caused by doing the wrong thing as well. "For if these things are in you and abound, they make you to be neither idle nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ", 2 Pet.1:8. It can be doing the right thing the wrong way, it can be doing the wrong thing the right way. Being bored is sin or caused by sin - even when you are doing nothing.

To love as we should is seldom to love as we can.

It is change of heart which God seeks from us. Hannah wanted a child for herself because she was scorned by others for being unable to have children. She kept the desire for a child burning within her and changed the heart of the request and promised to give the child to God. God says, “an eye for an eye” and by that we understand why Paul said, “for as you have yielded your members as slaves to uncleanness, and to lawless act unto lawless act, even so now yield your members as slaves to righteousness unto holiness”, Rom.6:19. Do not change the request and rather change the heart or you will not fulfil the Law of God. The gospel is a change of heart, an eye for an eye: whatever you would use or do for worldliness, now you use or do for God.

It is so strange that the word of a living God, who said “let there be light” and there is still light to this very day, can be made fruitless – not by the devil, not by opposition of any kind, but by breeding cares for this world, through impatience and concerns about what we shall eat and dress tomorrow or even further ahead!

If you live well without what God takes away from you and stay unhindered close to Him all the way and almost unconsciously, you will live well with whatever He grants you as well. As you can see, it is very important to be satisfied in God and with God all the time. If you are satisfied with Him under heavy trials, you will surely satisfy your soul with living bread even when you are rich. We should be content to live in His abundant Life anyhow, anywhere.

After God has heard any prayer, the amount of prayers concerning the same request just shows how selfish someone is about it all and why God needs to delay it to give you time to separate the chaff of selfishness from the wheat of holiness.

People under a heavy yoke, if they live with God close by and still complain about the yoke because they are more conscious of the yoke than of God and love, will surely either complain against God or deny Him once that yoke is removed. Once they find themselves free of trials they will not be faithful to God because they have not chosen to seek Him and have Him alone under the heaviness of trials and under temptations. The Israelis who complained against Pharaoh are the ones who complained against God in the desert. They died in that desert by the curse of God because they complained against Him and His will. We read that "God knew them" under that yoke in Egypt where they complained, Ex.2:25. Unsatisfied people are always hungry to feed self - if they complain because they do not feed themselves on Pharaoh anymore, they will deny God.

If words are fire already, they need not be put on fire anymore. Many pastors put a lot of trust on the way they preach and scream. However, it is the words which need to have the fire of God, however simple they are. It is one thing to express our whole hearts and God's - it is another to try to gain some credit and consideration by the way we speak.

Jesus came to make us free to do and not to make bound to do. Beware of overdoing when God wants you to do. Freedom may, also, cause ex-slaves to be slothful because they don't know how to deal with something they never experienced before: freedom. Any bondage causes people not know how to do things out of free will and willingly.

God is not merciful towards sin - He is merciful against all sinning and sin. The more God is against sin, the more merciful He is.

Presumption is there because we either do not see God or we have not God to see Him at all.

Everyone thinks to get into a door before it closes, go to a store while its doors are still open. Yet, many just do not go find grace so as to use it in a time of need. Only fools wait till they have to knock at a closed door which will not open again. There is a certain time to go to the store of Grace and there will be a time when even virgins will stay out.

It is not wrong to think mathematics when we do it with the Lord. It is not right to read or think about the Bible when one is doing without God.

People, nowadays, are not rejecting God – they are rejecting Christians, merely.

“Behold the Lamb…” should always become the only words coming from people who wish to cause praise to erupt from everyone else. They should not say “Let’s praise the Lord”, but rather, “Behold the Lamb of God”. They should direct people to the vision. Then praise will be natural and spontaneous.

Unbelief is the fruit of a sin somewhere, just as much as faith - genuine faith - is the fruit of a HOLY Spirit. This is the main mystery of faith: "Having the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience", 1Tim.3:9. Are you unbelieving perhaps? Repent and go back to where you have fallen.

Unbelief is fed by stubbornness and to be stubborn is to be unbelieving and to be unbelieving is to be stubborn. Hence, a believer is obedient from nature by being free from the world and bound to God as He is. To be bound to God as He is not, is to be be bound to oneself and it is as good as being unbelieving.

Every temptation has the power to put you into sin just as it has the power to make you take a stand against it. All temptations have the means, as well, to put you into a useless battle which is already won inside you – beware.

You can measure success in the Christian life by the amount of obedience to God and to His words such a life exercises willingly and faithfully - that kind of obedience that you are mostly unaware of.

If riches are not the things which lead us to Christ, surely, poverty is not what will be able to separate us from Him either. We may assume that any man who is selfishly worried during times of lack, is someone who will easily be tempted to neglect His Lord once his needs are fulfilled. Those are the reactions coming from the same heart put before different situations. If you pray to God because you are poor and find Him, make sure your heart changes before you become rich or blessed materially! We must look beyond being sustained by God and beyond receiving answers to prayers. We must, also, look beyond not being answered and fulfilled. Whoever seeks God because he is poor, will cease to follow Him once He has fulfilled. Whoever is not faithful in the little he has because he uses his mind and time to worry, will never be faithful in greater things that God may grant. This same principle applies itself in all areas of our lives, including marriages or sickness. Make sure you change (or make sure you see the need to change) before or after God has blessed you in some unexpected way. Maybe, He is blessing to work out a need to change in you and you did not understand it that way at all.

We all know we need grace and graceful means to be able to live with God for God. Many people become worked up to discuss things doctrinally about our need to meet God. How will you meet me without knowing me? How will you know Him without meeting Him for real? How would you ever meet God without Him being fully present? And we know to be saved is nothing more than to come to know God as He is.

When we do things for ourselves God’s way, it can’t be selfish at all. Whenever we do things for others or supposedly for God our way, it is selfishness working its way through all the time.

What tires man out is self and not work. Let self die and the yoke of Christ will be lighter than a feather, as natural and as light as nothing else can ever be.

God says we should ask “Where is the Lord” and not say “The Lord is here” unless it is true and real. People in charge of services or of the things of God quite often tell others to believe God is there among them as make them feel safe far from God. “And they that handle the law knew me not: the pastors also transgressed against me. The priests said not, Where is the LORD?” Jer.2:8. True revival starts when we ask “where is the Lord”, looking back to the way He has been with the twelve apostles - Paul including - just as Israel should be inquiring about the Lord that brought them out of Egypt and out of the slavery of sin.

Eve hid things behind leaves simply because she became aware of the things she tried to hide. She was hiding it from herself merely, not from God. But she believed she was hiding from God. Scripture says she was hiding and not hiding from God. It is like a child closing his eyes and believing he is hidden from everyone else. Hiding from God is like trying to hide things from ourselves: it just won't work!

People fight for the opinion of others because they do not want to loose the opinion they may have about themselves. In truth, it is not the opinion of others that really matters to them, but rather the opinion they breed and have concerning whatever they are or believe they are. The opinion of others sustains them in thinking and believing highly of themselves.

Many people hide things for many reasons. Adam and Eve did hide, yes, simply because they were ashamed and felt lost - something they never experienced before and did not know how to handle. But, these days people hide through pride, because of stubbornness and due to that delight of showing to others they are not wrong, trying to win the prize which exists only in their minds. They cannot stand to loose a mere argument. The fact is, people nowadays decline to reveal for more reasons than the ones Adam and Eve had and we should never comply to any of them nor take those as acceptable reasons, especially for us. The fact is that someone who hides is a looser thinking and believing he is gaining something.

I believe a rich man who is holy in and through his money is able to achieve great things, even though he might go through greater hardships and temptations than a poor man who has only self-pity and pride to strive against. One can and may have a holy marriage or no marriage and also be holy. One should be found faithful in or through any gift coming from God, whether it is health or sickness, apostleship or computing - let us do all for the Lord, whatever it may be achieved for Him and through Him.

If you have a living encounter with Jesus you either become like Him or like the devil. The disciples managed to live with Jesus and they turned to be like Him eventually and eternally, while the Pharisees became extremely bad by having Jesus too close by. Jesus' living made trees either good or bad, Mat.12:33. Profound conviction may turn us into most holy beings or into people who stone Steven. No one will ever remain the same after a genuine, real, unmistakable encounter with Jesus or with truth. If that encounter is real, we will either end up as Judas or as Peter and John. Never again will it be the same. If you are praying for real revival, you should expect these things to happen this way because people will suffer real encounters with the Spirit of Jesus. Do not dare to believe all will be well after the way called "Holiness" is opened up in the desert where you live, Is.35:8. Things will be really different among bad people as well as among holy ones. You shall see holiness as you have never imagined it possible and you shall see evil as you have never seen it before. Make sure you don't show yourself surprised when it happens. And, if real bad ones are converted to the Lord, you should also know that, the worst people are, the better they may become because God is really at work. Never be dismayed nor stunned by the realities of the workings of God. The Red sea will open up and it will create a nation for God and another for hell. Make sure you don't become numb when it happens. Do not offend God by being stunned when God is at work. Admiration is unbelief in disguise. Unbelief reacts that way when things happen. It admires because it refuses to change. If you prepare yourself for greater works now, you might not offend God through admiration and by acting surprised when He comes down.

Prayers with no answers or with no concluding outcome (a yes or a no), are not prayers at all.

There are times we believe we are fine and we aren't; there are times we believe we are not fine, but we are well and only do not feel it that way; there are times we are not well feeling fine, and not well feeling bad too. Feeling well when we are well is a perfect feeling - so is feeling bad when we are in a bad state.

There are people who are afraid to do, since they fear to do things without God and there are people who overdo things because they feel they need to appease their consciences by doing. We may rest assured, either way, that there is no man as active and actively engaged in God's will as he who stands up to take his full rest in God continuously. Find your way into the rest of God, that kind of rest which still remains to be found by the people of God all over the world, Heb.4:9.

If we love ourselves, God’s work must be done at our inconvenience. If, however, we love God’s work and God above all, there is nothing to deny because all is denied and replaced for a better love.

If God talks to us we will become either meeker or harder, depending on how we react to Him. One thing is certain: we shall never be the same again. If we hear and obey, we shall change for the better; if we hear and neglect His voice, or disobey it in some way, or obey it partially, we shall become harder, more impatient and more obstinate than we have ever been. No one can avoid it happening that way. Have you ever seen someone becoming more obstinate and yell more than ever? Has that person heard the gospel or has he heard God speak to him recently? The conclusion you may take is: that person has not been obedient. When God speaks to us we may either become like angels or like demons.

Each of Jesus' prayers has been heard by the Father. He has prayed that we be one with the Father and the Father with us, (John 17). Unless we become one with the Father now we will be very lonely people because of that prayer. If you refuse to be one with the Father through ignorance or unwillingness, the fact that you feel lonely proves that prayer has been heard. Now, the choice is yours: you either become one with the Father or remain lonely forever. You cannot stop feeling lonely by trying to have the company of people instead of being one with the Father. Only He fills the gap.

"Through Your Commandments I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way", Ps.119:104. This does not mean obeying the commandments is understanding, but rather that it grants access to understanding. After obedience, understanding and knowledge is easy. "If anyone desires to do His will, he shall know...", John 7:17. However, my hope cannot be set on the fact that I fulfil all but rather on Jesus. He is the one who enables us to fulfil and to understand afterwards.

One of the reasons why people move away from God or draw away from obedience is that they are not instructed by Jesus personally. We may become learned people, church addicts or even theology students. However, none of that can be compared to the personal instruction Jesus promised us. He promised we would receive it individually and from Him personally. "I have not departed from Your judgments; for You have taught me", Sal.119:102. It is very difficult to depart from God when we are taught by Him personally. It is not always necessary to stop going to church or to stop listening to the brothers to be taught by Jesus, unless my hopes are settled in them. Jesus can instruct us anywhere and anyhow.

"For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him", John 3:17. People easily assume they may carry on sinning after they read verses like these. They say Jesus did not come to condemn them and saves from hell and not necessarily from sin. However, we cannot afford to misunderstand this piece of Scripture to suit the flesh. This verse intends to say that we should fix our lives before or when Jesus comes to us. "Behold, I am sending you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the sons, and the heart of the sons to their fathers, that I not come and strike the earth with utter destruction", Mal.4:5-6. Jesus did not come so this would happen. However, the greatest stumbling block in the Universe is Jesus Himself. We should fix our lives immediately, before He comes to us. "And this is the condemnation, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the Light, because their deeds were evil", John 3:19.

We have the responsibility to reach the point where we can easily distinguish between the leading of God and the impulse of emotion; between good-sense and impulsivity; between doing with the heart its feelings and doing because of the heart and its feelings. The sooner we reach that point the better it shall be for anyone of us. We shall avoid being misled by the devil and by ourselves. We shall avoid being misled some other way when God speaks. We cannot reject being led on account of the possibility of being misled; and we cannot refuse to make the best use of good sense only because emotions are part of us. The voice of the Shepherd must become so familiar to us that we should know it better than our own. We need to become eternal, constant beings and distinguish between God and us.

God gave a staff to many pastors and preachers so they can use it to lead the flock and not so that they can lean on it. The same must be said about offerings and tithes. The leaders should know the aim of those offerings are the people in the congregations and not the pastors and leaders. Do you lean on your staff or do you use it for God's glory?

When we are tried and tempted, we should never believe that it would be enough to not fail. Avoiding a fall is good, but not enough. We still need to reveal the Life of our Lord in a continuous way. Not becoming angry is not the same as living in all patience and readiness of the Life God gave us; not stealing is not the same as giving out of a pure heart; not lying is not the same thing as telling the truth. Our aim should always be to live the Lord's life out to the full and not merely staying away from sin. Not sinning is very little for eternal beings which share in the eternal life God grants in this present age. We should rule through the new life and not merely avoid being ruled by sin. We should not expect to be without opposition or enemies before we will live through God. "Rule in the midst of your enemies", Sal.110:2.

You cannot expect God to bless you in those things He does not approve and neither may you ever think God won’t bless the person He approves in whatever He approves. Unfortunately, people start praying to God holding in the heart and desires what God can’t bless. They pray and God doesn’t answer. Once they clean up their motives and their lives, they go to God remembering the previous sinful experiences of unanswered prayers. We must assume everything has changed after we have really changed.

Another unfortunate thing that usually happens to humans is that evil people don’t have evil appearances. They are not used to reveal their hearts and minds. Once we come to the Lord and all becomes new, we have nothing to hide anymore. We shouldn’t be afraid to reveal all in the sincerity of our hearts. "He who practices truth comes to the Light so that his works may be revealed, that they exist, having been worked in God", John 3:21. In practical terms, we should be able to assume truth as truth, lies as lies and evil as evil. None of it should be hidden or helped to be hidden. We cannot afford to be divided between two thoughts anymore, 1 Kings 18:21. If Ball saves, let’s live for him; if only Jesus saves, let’s live for Him alone. We shouldn’t be wavering between sin and God anymore. Let’s take a stand. If sinning is good to people, why should they hide it? And if God is good to them, why hide Him from people?

To Doubt is to disbelieve in a camouflaged way. Perhaps it is a feigning way to believe lies. However, we cannot afford to believe at any cost or just for the sake of believing. We need to know we believe the truth. We need to experience the truth so we can exterminate doubts against truth from its roots. We need to experience it to extinguish any kind of trust in any lies or illusions as well.

Who is there that forgets to drink water? Only those who hate water or those who are not thirsty. And who is there that constrains himself to drink water? Isn't it a sick person or someone who loves to drink something else? Think of it next time you push yourself to read your Bible and to drink from the water of life.

"Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart", Sal.97:11. Many wish to have light to become righteous. However, we read here light is sown for those who become righteous. "If anyone desires to do His will, he shall know ...", John 7:17. We shouldn't forget, as well, that joy is for the upright in heart and not the other way round. I mean, many wish to have joy and not uprightness. Their aim is joy and not the salvation from their sins.

Fear is a kind of excessive confidence in the flesh. Every time people suspect the flesh will not avail them anything, they fear.

"I have found David, My servant; with My holy oil I have anointed him. My hand shall be always with him... If his children forsake My Law, and do not walk in My judgments; if they profane My Precepts, and do not keep My Commandments; then I will visit their wickedness with the rod, and their sin with stripes", Ps.89:20,30. God can let the people go their way when they forsake Him. However, part of His covenant is that He will rather punish than let go. We should be happy and rejoice every time God reprimands us about something. To visit us with stripes is the fulfilment of His covenant.

Sin is an illusion. It it were not, it would get along with truth. (Let's assume truth and reality cannot be separated). Because sin hates truth, we may assume it is based on illusion. Truth is reality and that's where the enmity of sin against it is born. Reality and illusion just don't match. And if sin is an illusion, then truth can't mislead people. It is simply not possible. You may trust it. Make sure, therefore, that the truth you hold on to works and saves - make sure it is practical and real. It must become practical and firm or it can't be truth at all.

Every time the providence or the operation of God grants us something, every single gift He gives to cover our needs means only to reach the heart we have and to assure us of His goodness. It is wrong to believe God does things only to satisfy us or our needs. He doesn't. He aims further and deeper than any of that.

Many times we fear that something bad might happen to truth since so many people despise it, change it and trample on it. It is sad and unfortunate what they do. However, try to picture a piece of gold out there in the streets. People will trample on it, dust will cover it, but it won't be able to change the gold into something cheaper and worthless. Its value will remain and speak for itself. That's how it works with truth. Trampling on it will never change it. However, we cannot say the same about the ones who despise truth themselves, for they shall change for the worse. Truth won't change, but they will. Those who trample truth shall experience in themselves what any enemy of God and of truth experiences in the long run. Their own hearts shall testify against them and start speaking on behalf of truth.

All of us should learn to do all things from the right motives. All it takes is to start doing anything for the right motives. Start doing until you can do it the right way. Even when God ordered Israel to destroy cows and everything the nations owned, He only had Israel's motives in mind. The spoil should never be what motivated Israel to destroy the nations. "I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; my lust shall be satisfied upon them, I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them", Ex.15:9. However, every time Israel's motives against the enemies of God had been right and righteous, God allowed them to take home of the abundance of the spoil and divide it among themselves. David, however, would dedicate to God every piece of gold and silver taken from the nations.

"Yea, God shall wound the head of His enemies, and the hairy crown of him who walks on in his guilt", Ps.68:21. There is a natural enmity between the flesh and the Spirit of God. Sin is responsible for that sort of enmity and has a consequence of guilt and further transgression. It so happens because people walk in their guilt. That's the main reason sinful people along with sin are made enemies of God. They can't stand God if He appears to them in a real way the way He is. Walking in sin and hiding or holding on to our guilt to feel bitter and justified against truth and God shall cause us to be mortally wounded sooner or later. We must do all we can to avoid that happening to us. The sequence of happenings should be reverted and we should walk all the way back to cause our hearts to love God spontaneously and naturally on the long run.

If people do not change, it isn't because their time has not come. It can't be. People do not change because they are not willing to change and ignorance takes over the reigns of their lives. Whenever the gospel knocks at our door, the time to change has come. Whoever does not change then is unwilling and yields rather to lies.

It is much better to finish one single task than to try and carry out many things which we don't finish. It is far better to end one task in perfection than to do many and not perfect them. We should also have in mind that the last bit of any difficult task is the most difficult part of it for many reasons. One of those reasons is that people love to celebrate before the time.

The evidence that I have been forgiven is the change in me which is visible to everyone around. The change in the person who pleads for forgiveness is, also, a sure sign of the presence of the mighty grace of God in the inner parts of the heart.

Pray until you can pray. Ask till you can ask and receive. Be willing until you are willing. Talk till you can say things the right way with fewer words. Listen till you can hear the way you should hear and delight yourself in it. Obey till you can be obedient and willing. Do not wait until you become willing to do something - just start doing it right away! Don't wait till you feel like praying - pray till you can be heard.

"You have given a banner to those who fear You, to lift it up because of the truth", Ps.60:4. It is interesting to know that God does not destroy the evil which chases those who fear God to annihilate them, but rather lifts up a banner where they can run to and be protected. God does not destroy liars for the sake of truth, at least not now. The truth needs to stand out before them. We shouldn't need to fear the bow of evil - we should only fear to be found outside the banner of God. "And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do", Lk.12:4.

If joy is to be real and existing, there must be a converging of motives, life and ways between man and God. Have you ever thought about what a coincidence really is? Well, let's say there must be a 'coincidence' between man's spirit and God's before happiness, glory and joy can be real. This kind of match needs to happen. This is the kind of reconciliation we are talking about if we are to be fully reconciled with God. We converge towards the Lord, we start loving as He loves, do things the way He does them - in fact, we do them through Him so reconciled are we. Have you been that 'coincided' with God lately? Do you meet with God and with God's needs that easily? Are you that coincident? That's what happens to clean people very easily. There is a synchrony, a real converging of minds, spirits and thoughts together with the way it should be done or carried out. Anyway, for that to happen, we must be a "prepared people for the Lord", Lk.1:17. The initiative must be on our side when the Lord is near because there is no better way to converge towards God. When He comes, we must already be willing and converging towards Him. Mercy hands the responsibility over to man so God may find man converging towards Him. Man is the one who must become willing to change and not willing to change God. God is in no need to change. He shall be there for man to stumble over Him. It is man who must change. "Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you", James 4:8.

There is this false joy which people try out by showing something in the outside which is not happening inside them. It is not wrong to reveal the true state of our spirit and heart, especially if we are indeed joyful. But, I believe it is far better to reveal the sadness of our hearts when we are sad, than to reveal a false joy and to lie to people around about us. It is true hypocrites look like truthful people. However, true joy can never be considered as a falsity; and falsity cannot be considered joy since it is just too given and too used to lying.

A son was promised to Abraham and he just wouldn't be born; the promise of a huge nation rested heavy upon Isaac's shoulders and his wife was barren; Samuel anointed David to become king over Israel and it just wouldn't happen, at least not as David expected it would; we could also speak about Joseph, Jacob and even Noah whose ark took about a hundred years to build. There is a pattern in all things God promises before they happen. It always seems as if they shall never be fulfilled. If you see this pattern happening to you remember the that what is happening is according to Scripture. An if it is, be assured things are happening to you the Bible's way. You need to be faithful to the end, until the promise becomes a reality. Its fulfilment is just a question of time.

"According to Your name, O God, so is Your praise to the ends of the earth", Ps.48:10. This is a true statement. Let's try to figure out what it means, though. We should always remember that the genuine praise towards God shall always be according to the reality of the experience people have about Him, of His presence and of His goodness. It shall always be according to the name of the Lord and the reality of His genuine presence. Have you been using God's name in vain lately? Is He a great king around where you walk and talk? Or is it only your words that say He is? Is He great to you for real or is it just your words which say He is great? Does He manifest Himself to you and through you as He really is? God's praise will always be in accordance to what is revealed of Him for real. There is much praise going on which is not according to God's name, but is rather in accordance to what people love to sing and to the way they would like to do it.

"The second greatest revelation man must have from God is the revelation of God's plan and will for his life". This is what a friend of mine told me today. It made so much sense to me. Christ being revealed to man is the greatest revelation.

"Be strong, and He will make your heart stronger", Ps.31:24. Strengthening and strength comes mainly from the fact that I walk close to the Lord. He strengthens the heart in a real way, then. In other words, for one to be strong, one needs to take good care of that relationship and that it is spotless. To have and to keep that relationship, one needs to stay away from any kind of sin. To be strong, therefore, means that we stay clean and spotless all the time.

The best way to avoid having evil people settled down in a congregation is to preach in such a way that they will go away if they do not have plans to get converted. And if they go away, they might come back converted. However, the main reason for having them go away is that God does not work if the leaders are stained with some sin which they refuse to put in the light. The less evil people there is among the members of any congregation, the better and the more God works. Let people be few and pure. They will multiply according to their seed.

Wouldn't it be wonderful? If I touch, God touches? Wouldn't it?

"Trust in the Lord, and do good; you shall dwell in the land, and you shall be fed on truth", Ps.37:3. "...You shall be fed on truth..." How meaningful! Have you been looking for truth lately? Are you fulfilling the conditions to find it? However, never dare to separate truth from reality or it will become just another fantasy. Truth has the means and the power to become real. Dare to fulfil and to have it that way always.

Whoever knows how to wait (on God), surely knows how to receive and to be faithful to it. Every person you doesn't keep hope and expectancy awake and aflame, shall surely waste away whatever he receives - f he receives at all - or shall let greed hide it away somewhere.

Any holy man of God here on this earth of temptation is like a giant being attacked by ants: he just won't become an ant.

It is good when torture and persecution happen only for the sake of the fulfilment of prophecies. It means they do not happen for our correction anymore.

Having grudges is a very bad sin. However, feeling sorry when it it is not pure mercy is just as bad a sin.

Many believe prayer is talking and speaking to the Lord who reads the heart of men. If it were mere talking, what is this that David puts this way: "...Consider my meditation...Listen to the voice of my cry"; "For the Lord has heard the voice of my weeping", Ps.5:1,2;6:8. These voices God hears so easily are not words but sighs. It is like recognising someone's voice whom we would love to hear. It would be like hearing a mere meditation in us.

No one can ever feel inferior to me near me without my own consent and permission. However, I can't say the same thing about people feeling superior to me.

A complete, unconditional surrender which is also a voluntarily one is worth all we can ever desire or even more. It also serves as a proof of how faithful God is indeed. Our kind of surrender is what proves God to be right when people ask from us to descend from our crosses so they might believe.

"Let no one despise you", Titus 2:15. In order that no one despises me when I speak the very words of God as He would speak them Himself, I need to have a life inside, outside and in every aspect of my practical living where God can manifest Himself without being ashamed of doing so. So people may never come to despise me, God needs to be able to present Himself to people as He is wherever I am. "But, I will come to you shortly, if the Lord wills. And I will not know the speech of those who are puffed up, but the power", 1Cor.4:19.

Whoever judges other people easily, surely loves appearances and unrealities. Judging is a kind of conspiracy to hide own sin - it is part of secret power against God and, especially, against walking in the light in a practical way. And appearances cause people to hide better.

Meekness is not being tolerant towards sin at all. In fact, the less tolerant people are towards sin, the meeker they become. People have an idea that meekness is more or less tolerance towards sin. However, the more tolerant we are towards sin, the less meekness we shall experience. If you ever whish to share in the fruit of meekness, which comes from the Holy Spirit of God, you must have an intense hatred towards any kind of sin in you. Truth in the mouth of a genuinely meek person does not hurt, however sharp and accurate it is when it strikes - even when it strikes like lightening. Meekness mixed with truth is like sharpness in a sword: it cuts deeper and better. Truth without meekness is like a blunt knife: it hurts more. And meekness without truth is hypocrisy. We may not change truth because we are blunt, but should rather move closer to the Lord. Then shall truth mean something to people for they shall be cut deep in the heart.

Many use darkness and the dark places to walk on in order to avoid being seen. But, God commands us to walk in the light and not merely to walk on. Walking in darkness is not walking at all. "Walk while you have the Light, lest darkness come upon you. For he who walks in darkness does not know where he goes", John 12:35. It is good that we don't know how to walk when we are found under the darkness caused by any sin. "Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble because he sees the light of the world. But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles because there is no light in him", John 11:9,10.

If there is carnal love, surely there is also carnal faith; carnal hope; carnal meekness which is hardness; and many more carnal things we can think of, as many as there are virtues. Will God ever accept any carnal offer from us? Did He not kill Aaron's sons for putting strange fire on His altar? Why would we believe it shall work differently with anyone of us?

"Return unto me, and I will return unto you, says the LORD of hosts. But you said, Wherein shall we return?", Mal.3:7. Is it possible that the words of God are not feared even when we do not have a clue of what God is trying to say? Shouldn't we fear only because of whom He is? Why would we ever dare to waver, resist or question whatever God says because we don't grasp the reach of Hs words yet? Is His name not enough reason for us to listen and to listen carefully? Can't we believe Him only for the sake of who He is?

"I will be a swift witness against (...) those who do not fear Me...", Mal.3:5. To be a swift witness means, above all, being so efficient that the testimony of God remains for a long, long time with whom it struck. The effect of surprise plays a huge role here as well. To be swift by coming whenever no one expects causes a bigger impression on people than a thousand sermons on the subject. God comes to testify about Himself in a moment people do not expect Him to do so. But, for it to happen regularly that way, men of God need to be extremely holy and fully sanctified. "Because of them I sanctify Myself...", John 17:19.

Mutual trust between God and man will bring peace into man. It will also do away with any kind of wavering or double-heartedness. If we are honest concerning the kind of faith we have, we shall be able to trust God in the same degree that God can trust us. We know that trust in God is directly related to the amount of trust God bestows upon us. Are you faithful? Or, perhaps, have you forgotten that genuine faith is both fruit of the Spirit and, also, a gift of the Spirit? God cannot trust you less or more than you are able to trust Him. Faith for miracles is a gift and honest people believe only according to what God has spoken. Faith is believing a word from God. Any other kind of faith is not faith at all.

Whoever applauds and encourages others is co-author of whatever they do, whether good or bad. And those who oppose good encouragement simply show how much they resent being good themselves. Also, whoever criticises evil and breeds a bitter heart just reveals how bad a person he is or, at least, how bad he wishes he could be.

There are trials and temptations which do not kill people at all. They are like the pit where Joseph was thrown: it had no water in it to drown him. Are you still in the presence of God? Then be sure that trials are like a pit without water and they won't kill you. Remember Job and how his trials never managed to kill him at all? "I have freed Your prisoners out of the pit in which is no water. Turn to the stronghold, prisoners of hope; even today I declare that I will return to you double", Zec.9:11-12.

Forgetting is a human asset. Forgetting can help a lot in many aspects of our faithfulness. Forgetting may be as good or as bad as remembering, depending what one remembers, what one forgets about, and why. By forgetting temporarily or even eternally about certain things, we free some space and resources in us to be used and filled by what we do, whether good or bad. We cannot do two things at once. Let's only try to forget when we need to and remember what needs to be remembered. Remembering evil can be bad.

Conscience does not need force to function the way it ought. In fact, it works much better when not forced. Whoever wants to cause conscience to believe something it already knows, also knows how to try to make it believe something against what it knows. People try to deceive conscience by talking it into something they wish it to approve or, at least, not disapprove. The law of God should remain untouched, and yet, many people try hard to look at it from some other angle which will not be harsh against transgression. To force conscience into something is to lose the much needed spontaneous spirit which is so important for the sake of truth inside. And to be anything less than spontaneous is the way towards error and hypocrisy.

The ways of the Lord, when real to us, are very beautiful and simply wonderful. Imaginations may cause us to think about the things of God as unreal. And the things of God shouldn't be anything but real to us. The ways of the Lord are practical ways. We can never talk about doing anything about them unless they are real. Imagination is good if it is an aid to thinking. But, in as much as it can cause a sane spirit to see truth and reality as it is, it also can cause people who taught their hearts to lie to be mislead concerning the reality of God and of all His works. Are you a real person? Or are you scared away when the things of the Lord work out for real? Fantasies are stubbornness and stubbornness always cries out to be satisfied. It also teaches the mind to avoid being real about certain things it would rather have as unreal. Are you real? Do you take God's things as real or not? Do they work out? Only those who take them as real shall see them as a duty and as a responsibility. No one can ever become responsible towards fantasies or towards unreal things, no matter how hard he tries because we simply know they are fantasies.

Any kind of secret love towards sin causes a heart to be judgmental against others. It so works that a secret love wishes to remain secret and hidden. Judging others is an utility and an ability of a perverse mind because it helps to hide a bad conscience away by the judgments it makes. People easily assume and believe they are concealed behind judging. The mind of the judger tells him no one who judges is guilty of what he judges. But, Jesus says the opposite. He said one judges only because one has similar sins which demand a hiding formula. This is why Jesus promised that whoever judges shall be convicted of the same kind of sins he is able to see in others and use them to hide. And many of those who are driven into a corner concerning their own sins often turn judgements upon themselves. Accusations are, also, ways the mind has to excuse sins or, at least, to maintain the approval from others it seeks to have. However, as soon as the love of Jesus is poured into us abundantly, all kinds of judgments cease, even those which accuse self of something. Clean people are not accused and, consequently, become unable to accuse others as well.

Habits and ways man learns over the years are always a kind of hindrance to a spontaneous good conduct, especially when changes in circumstances linger or take a while to occur as promised. If it is not yet the right time for things to happen according to God's will, people may gain habits and attitudes which are not appropriate for a (future) life with God. Just as happens with obesity, a bad tongue, bitterness, many sins may be a consequence of being bored and of feeling useless. We should be careful if we have long term promises to be fulfilled with us. "And take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts are weighed down with headaches and drinking and anxieties of this life; and that day should suddenly come on you", Luc.21:34. I cannot believe I shall change after things happen. I won't. The kind of heart I have now shall go on with me wherever I go. Let's be careful about getting roots outside the promises and never allow your heart to become addicted to anything, however good it seems to be. Also, do not allow your mind to convince you it is still not time to change. Change now and wait. At least it shows you are not the one hindering the promises of God to be fulfilled. "Though it lingers, wait for it; because it will surely come. It will not tarry", Hab.2:3.

Whenever you talk, you need to make sure your silence wouldn't be better or wouldn't achieve more on the long run. And whenever you keep quiet, make sure your words wouldn't be a better investment after all. Take the honour of God always into consideration. And whenever you need to say what God requires you to say, whether it is because He has given you a word to speak or because the written commandment demands it from you, especially then, do not dare to add apologetic words or attitudes to what you are saying. Neither add bitterness or any feeling to your words which may pervert the good things you were about to achieve by speaking. Those who talk and apologize for having said something and those who are harsh and bitter when talking, have one and the same heart.

Giving leftovers is never the same as giving what we are needing. We shall be rewarded according to what we have left and not according to what we have given. What you keep back is what shall determine whether you shall be rewarded or not. However, there are many who give what they lack just to feel sad or accomplished afterwards, and there are those who are scarcely aware of giving away what they could use for themselves. There will also be people who shall be rewarded having still a lot which they have been unable to give away because the abundance of God was great. It won't change a thing concerning their reward because God can read the heart of man from afar. What counts is the heart that God sees.

"Do not My words do good to him who walks uprightly?" Mic.2:7. To do good to someone or to tell a person what needs to be told doesn't always work a pleasant feeling in the person who receives or in the person who gives. Feelings cannot measure or judge whatever we may have done or not done. God can curse by giving blessings when man is not ready to receive them. And God can grant a lot of good things to His own enemies to uphold His name before their eyes in the day they shall be judged. Giving it to them will also cause them to be careless and unworried till the day they die and face judgment. That is a message Sal.73 teaches us clearly. The enemies of God don't always find a reason to repent under their circumstances.

Answers to all prayers, even if it is a 'no', means that we have a real relationship with God and that we have moved away from a fantasy-relationship.

If you ever learned something from God, you surely have heard His voice already. Maybe you weren't aware of that fact. Now, take it from there and learn how to distinguish it from other disputing voices which have claims upon your heart.

Every reward from the Lord in this present age shall be according to the need of the man who serves faithfully. Let everyone walk faithfully in the ways of the Lord and there shall be no lack and no surplus either. There is something wrong with anyone who receives less than the will of God; and there might also be something wrong with receiving more than needed.

Do not wait until you feel special or until you are special so you may believe you can change the world where you find yourself. Things just don't work that way at all. All it takes to change the whole world around is to have Christ as special to you personally. Hand yourself fully over to the Lord, surrender to His care and love. That is what makes you special anywhere, even to those who start to be against you because you have changed for the better. Neither wait until you change before giving yourself fully over to the Lord. How will you ever change without Him? Besides, Christ trusts a kind of transformation in which He has participated and for which He was responsible.

Let there be said whatever people wish to say, but there is an accuser only where there is someone who defends himself or is defended by someone. When anyone recognizes sin and acknowledges being guilty, surely, accusations shall cease. Confessing our sins also demolishes every accusation and it does not matter who accuses you. Just try to confess instead of protecting yourself and see for yourself what happens. The accuser shall be ashamed. The Saviour, however, shall rejoice over you. But, this does not mean that there needs to be a transgression so accusation takes place. All it takes is to have someone who does not acknowledge guilt. This is why the innocent are innocently accused, since they have no sin to admit or to acknowledge at all.

Every time God doesn't give me something I desire deeply, it is because I am more important to Him than what I want. God chooses often between us and what we should be doing for Him. The choice shall be clear then: He chooses us above anything else. The same works on this side of the field: if I have to choose between Christ and His work, I shall definitely choose Him.

Many may ask: "Why does God tell us to seek for Him if we have been chosen to be the gospel?" This is very easy to answer! First of all, whoever has been chosen to hear the gospel wasn't chosen for his own sake only: he has been chosen to save himself and to take the message further to people who may not have been as chosen as he was. If you, however, have been chosen and do not obey or hear the gospel the way you should, election will mean nothing to you. God shall choose another as He did by choosing David to replace Saul whom He rejected. You have just added unto your condemnation by trusting on your election and not on Jesus. Secondly, we know how things work with people who do not have a real relationship with God: they don't want to have it at all. They shall need to be willing, to desire and to have it with their whole heart the way it is offered. This said, let me ask: which better way is there to cause someone to want and to wish deeply after something he does not desire to have at all? Isn't it by handing the initiative over unto his hands? By having the initiative, unwilling people confront their own kind of (un)willingness directly and with greater success. Seeking for it works against the lack of willingness and makes people willing towards what they did not desire to have. They convert rebellion into willingness by seeking as if it all depended on them. To hand the initiative over unto man is the wisest way to make him willing.

Our faith is as real as the one we have under pressure, temptation and trials. No one has more faith elsewhere or any other way than the one has experiences and shares when under intense trials. Trusting according to circumstances is not trusting at all. If we trust only under the times of fat cows, does it mean that God changed when those cows become slim, greedy and hungry? If God does not change, could it mean my faith is only circumstantial? Or could it mean I look to see according to circumstances and do not look to the Lord as He is? God remains the same under any circumstances. Faith is trust un a person and is not dependable on anything else.

Dying with Christ means me getting out of view and getting into stage at the same time. It seems like a paradox, but it isn't. If I die with Christ I should never be concealed and hidden. Dead people do not have the power to hide away. Then, by being that dead, Christ shall surely be seen as I walk, talk and eat. If I move, Christ reveals Himself and whatever I do, He shall be seen. Getting out of view means Christ is immediately seen when people look to where I sit, walk or say something. But, this needs to be a reality - it needs to be so indeed. And who can avoid that being so if I really died and rose with Him, I mean, if it indeed happened and it is not only a mere doctrine to which I hold on to through the power of force?

When the Lord said to the house of Israel, "look at Me and live", Amos 5:4, Israel was put under a very heavy curse of destruction which had no return. Many bad things were hanging over Israel's head including wars, hunger and things we can't even imagine. By saying "Look at Me and live" God did not mean those curses would be lifted up in case people started living. No. He meant people would become alive under such circumstances. It meant the material part of their world would cease and the soul would be saved of wrath because people had been able to believe in God and to trust Him for their salvation under such heaviness and because of those curses. It happened that way with Daniel: he believed in the Lord while in captivity and not because the curse had been withdrawn or lifted up from him. But, unfortunately, many nurture grudges against people and God under heavy circumstances. That's mainly why the Lord says: "So the understanding ones shall keep silent in that time; for it is an evil time", Amos 5:13. Daniel was hit hard by the hand of God, lost his country, his family and a lot more we do not know about. However, he became an intimate friend of the Lord. It could not be said of Daniel that, "I have bereaved them of children, I have destroyed my people; they returned not from their ways". "Yet the people have not turned unto Him that smote them, neither have they sought the Lord of hosts", Jer.15:7; Is.9:13. Even if God does certain things for the sake of mere trials we are not able to understand, we should hold His loving hand and never breed grudges in us against Him. That's what happened to Job. "Though he slay me... I will maintain my own ways before Him", Job 13:15.

"Seek Me, and you shall live. But do not ... pass through Beer-Sheba", Amos 5:4,5. Many do a lot to linger or to make a longer turn on their way to the Lord to be saved from all sin. They consult this and that first, say goodbye to this sin and that one and are not straight forward and do not go directly to the Lord and away from sin. They linger on the way out of sin. They go by Beer-Sheba first. Do you consult the things you are losing before going to the Lord? Do you look back to them? Why don't you just go to the Lord immediately and get it done? Are you still delaying, avoiding or postponing the unavoidable? You might never find the Lord if you do so.

"Seek good and not evil, that you may live; and so Jehovah, the God of Hosts, shall be with you, as you have spoken", Amos 5:14. Many people say God is with them and it can't be true. In fact, God is nowhere seen near them. We cannot make God be with us because He shall be with us out of His own free will if we comply to certain conditions that make it possible for Him to be with us. Then, we shall be found in God's presence for real. As soon as we are faithful, loving, unfeigned, true and truthful, God shall surely near us and say, "Here I am".

To many, being unfeigned means becoming rude and cruel. They see it that way. But, being unfeigned is being truthful, genuine in speaking and hearing the truth without wavering and with no need to raise our voice above what distance requires as if truth hurts all the time.

When people change their hearts, when they manage to get it right and the way they should, the heart is not changed because they may have changed place, job or circumstances at all. Unless you change right where you are, changing circumstances won't work a change in you. Unless you change now it is not likely that you will change under different circumstances. Wherever you go, the heart you have now shall go along with you.

Hypocrites always praise you, especially when they speak of you in front of you. They believe pleasing people is what love is all about. Moreover, whoever listens to them might even believe what they say. Consequently, hearers easily start to put on a mask which is in accordance to what is said about them. That's how an hypocrite creates another.

There are so many promises in the Bible which God Himself has spoken. They shall all be fulfilled under the conditions they have been promised to. Promises need to meet their respective conditions fully. If people do not comply to those conditions or if circumstances are not fulfilled and accomplished, promises made by the Living God will not become true. When people do not fulfil the spirit and the conditions to which promises are aimed, when promises have not the environment that will sustain them and, also, uphold the glory to God, people's lives and the lives of everyone around them shall suffer great losses. Faith is one of those conditions which must be there in an outstanding measure. But, I believe promises are not the only words God speaks in order to create faith where it should be clearly available and visible. If God pronounces a certain curse and people are able to believe it to despise it instead (just as the second man who heard Joseph's interpretation did); if people do not hold grudges against God or people after a curse is announced to them; if they instead repent and give themselves to God and work to His glory; that kind of faith emerging from a word of a curse is also able to save further and to reach the deepest part of the soul of man. "And the people of Nineveh believed God", Jon.3:5. Faith is to be able to believe whatever God has spoken. It is so important, therefore, that people really believe that whatever overtakes them comes from God. We have examples of this in Amos 4. Here we may also say something about the two sides of the heart of man: whoever would be able to hold on to a grudge against God for a curse He has spoken, would surely feel proud were that a promise instead of a curse.

Many believers become confused because they have so many issues they would like to have it discussed with God and find genuine and resolving answers to them. The confusions come, mainly, from the fact that there are too many issues and doubts in man's own imaginations. If man could just reduce the amount of his own thoughts and "maybe" answers, he would surely be able to think better and to use all his resources in a better way. You may ask: what should I reduce from my mind? There are a lot of things one can stop thinking about to use resources in a better way so doubts and useless thoughts will never multiply. For example, you can stop reasoning about those sealed things God will never discuss with you; you can stop thinking about inquiring God to negotiate on those things God is inflexible about, things like holiness and truth, and comply to it on the spot and unconditionally; you may reduce vain imaginations, religious thoughts which always take a great amount power from you by increasing feigning and lying to self and others about you - (religion is the best or greatest enemy of God); you can stop breeding or cultivating false hopes about many things, since true hopes need to take the place those false hopes fill easily; you may reduce dreams and replace them for realities about the Lord for He is greater than you can ever imagine or conceive in your mind; in fact, you can do a lot more to reduce or even remove hindrances and stumbling blocks from your mind over which busy people stumble and hold on to easily. Our mind and spirit works much like a hard disk of any computer: the less crap there is the better it works and the faster it is able to function to solve real and important issues.

Any clean and spotless Christian will feel as bad in a worldly domain as any dirty Christian would feel near God.

If people in this present world feel encouraged and strengthened through false comforts or a kind of faith which believes amiss, can you imagine just how strong and how strengthened people could feel would their faith be based on truth and on things which really matter? Every person who walks after the "lies which... lead them astray" (Amos 2:4) feels encouraged over nothing and needs nothing more than lies to carry on as always. Yet, such people easily feel encouraged to go on. But, how may times those who have real reasons to remain steadfast on their way give themselves over to discouragement and trivialities common to a passive mind which has given up thinking the right way? Christian, if you are indeed clean and spotless or at least know how to be made clean and spotless, if God is indeed so near your soul that you can believe Him, why would it be harder for you to "take good courage" and to carry on with whatever God left in your hands to be faithful to, than it is for worldly people who have not met the Lord at all? Just try to think about it for a moment. Take some time off just to see the reality of what God means to do through you. He shall indeed accomplish it fully. It is just a question of time and, perhaps, of timing. "Be strong and of good courage", Jos.1:6. These words could mean a lot more than we can imagine about them.

It would be good if every child of God came to a point where the devil, to tempt them, would need to show his face and reveal himself. It would only mean there is no more flesh through which he is able to tempt them anymore. If there is nothing more on earth that man considers worthy, if there is nothing more on earth the devil can tempt man through, then he shall need to show his face and come out of his hiding darkness to tempt. Direct confrontation is the only option left to him. How victorious a stage is that?

We know depression is a mountain of sins which have not been brought to the light by having them all confessed one by one to the Lord, to people we have wronged and without anyone who is able to pray with us. Doctors have many explanations for depression and so do psychologists. But, bring someone in that state of mind to the cross of the Lord with every single known sin and you will see just how marvellous a change shall occur almost instantaneously. However, we must distinguish between frustration and depression. People who only occasionally walk with the Lord are often frustrated people in their ways because their sins hinder them and the Lord to accomplish whatever is needed to be accomplished. Or, perhaps, they want to go a way which the Lord frustrates because He has another way for them.

There are two ways by which we may assume God's things in due time. One of them is, unquestionably, the providences of God. The other is the warmth, the inner assurance, the simple certainty which convinces or simply shows us it shall happen for sure. For this, one needs to indeed have or to be close to have the Spirit in the promised fullness. Faith, then, brings to life right there what we expect. This divine, living experience of knowing about something beyond doubt is what convinces us not only of God's will, but of when it shall take place. It is not us convincing God anymore, but God showing us.

"The seed is rotten under their clods", Joel 1:17. Sin in man is like having rocks and clods heavy on the seeds or on the words of God. Those seeds just do not bring forth what they must. Do you know that your grudges, your pet sins, to much talking, quarrelling, a disputing spirit, complaining and many more sins are heavy upon the fragile seeds of the words of God inside your heart? These words are fragile inside any heart who does not pay attention to them or mixes them with the poison of sin or of self. That is the only reason why the strong words of God become fragile. Can you imagine? Can you conceive in your mind that the words that made the sun and the moon to exist (so powerful they are) are made useless and rendered powerless in people's lives through sin?

It is a shame that when man lacks everything earth can give him, he is left with no joy. It just shows where his hopes had really been settled. It also shows they did not have the important part in them or, at least, they did not have Him in the proper fullness. "The vine is dried up, and the fig tree droops, the pomegranate and the palm tree, and the apple tree; all the trees of the field are dried up, of men and joy has dried up from the sons", Joel 1:12. This is indeed sad to hear. "Though the fig tree shall not blossom, and fruit is not on the vines; the labour of the olive fails, and the fields yield no food. The flock is cut off from the fold, and no herd is in the stalls; yet I will rejoice in Jehovah, I will joy in the God of my salvation", Hab.3:17-18.

Believing we know better or know all when truth is trying to convince us otherwise is an ancestral way of resisting the truth.

We may never be able to believe lies. Many people assume believing is what shall make the difference. Well, believing truth makes the difference because we do not take God for a liar. However, believing is not the same thing as believing truth. If something we believe in is not truthful and genuine, then believing avails us nothing at all. In case you inhale a poisonous gas will it help you by believing it is oxygen? Will it prevent your death? Let us stop lying to ourselves about things because there is real truth and some good evidence about many things which leads to salvation every day. And the only reason why we should believe beforehand something shall surely happen is because we have heard it directly from the mouth of God. We cannot pronounce a word of faith unless God has said something about it. Faith is to believe God's word. Abraham believed after God spoke to him and not before. If God is indeed there to speak, to help, to confide, why would we ever wish to believe at random before God has said anything at all? Would a faith based upon a lie avail us anything? There is nothing impossible for the Lord. We may, also, consult God about certain things, but, to say it will happen before a clear answer to that prayer is given, is foolishness especially if there is a real possibility to receive a real answer from the Lord. Promising only because that is what man wishes to hear or what a prophets wishes to say is what makes a prophet to be false. There is no real benefit in a faith grounded upon a lie. "I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran; I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied", Jer.23:21.

Many state they believe in God while breeding strange motives in their kind of faith. The only reason they believe is to strengthen self-confidence. And self-confidence is not faith at all. In fact, it might be faith's greatest competitor. Faith which lives together with a dirty conscience is not the fruit of the Spirit. The only motives such faith has is the maintenance of sin and the possibility to keep hatching it. That kind of faith is an excuse to carry on sinning as always. It encourages people when they have many reasons to be discouraged from their ways.

God shall answer for His words just as we shall answer for ours. And God shall answer for the words we speak only when those are His words and we fulfil all conditions any holy man must fulfil to speak them out. "Let your speech be always with grace, having been seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one", Col.4:6. "Whoever speaks must speak God's words", 1 Pet.4:11.

If any person lies, I will not believe that person, not even when he speaks the truth. And when I keep lying to myself and to the Lord, shall I ever believe the words of the Bible I speak up and memorized? If I am only pretending; if I promise things and do not fulfil them; if I make vows and do not keep them to the end; how shall I ever believe in the things that go on inside my own heart? It is important to realize we need to be a certain kind of people to be able to believe God's words inside of us because it is in the heart man hears from God most. God does not become a liar simply because I can't believe Him concerning a certain matter. And unless my heart is made one with the Spirit of truth, I will always be striving to believe truth and shall, also, be wavering on account of it. Nevertheless, Jesus commanded us to believe Him and not our hearts.

I believe it is demanded from all of us to end our race fresher and more restful than we have ever been. Usually people are more tired after a race than before it. But, the godly race works the other way round. We have all reasons to end in a much better state of mind, of spirit and of heart than when we have started it. Unfortunately, those who are used to applaud who runs a race will not experience this miracle of being less tired at the end and will not know what it is to feel more comfortable at the last breath. And this race is not an easy one. In fact, it is much harder than any other race we may ever com to know of. We run and do not get tired because we use God's strength and not ours. Had we been using ours we would surely be tired out very quickly. Could you get tired if someone else worked hard in your behalf? Now, are you prepared to race a difficult road where there is no competition and no need to better than others but to have only your best given to the race? Will you run using none of your own strength? We read: "Whoever serves must serve with the strength that God supplies", 1 Pet.4:11. Usually, determination in this present world is linked to pride and to the strength of man. How will you fare in this way using none of those and still be more determined and more willing towards the finishing line?

Man can imitate only what he is able to imagine. If we cease to breed vain imaginations we shall also cease to pretend and if we all stop imagining the things of the Lord to have them for real instead, there would be much less hypocrites working in the fields filled with lost souls.

Whoever gives to others wins the favour of who receives. Can you imagine how much more favour will the giver win by giving away without any kind of selfish motivation concealed behind his giving?

There are many reasons for a heart to be divided concerning the things of God. When God leaves someone alone because of some unconfessed sin or some sin which that person has not parted with, and that person even so tries to live on as a Christian by sticking to the morals which the Law of God impress the human mind with, then it will happen that man shall conceive an alternative way of doing the things of God according to own justice. Strange fire is often used in the altar of God. Man's way shall resemble the right way and the curse shall be that it shall seem right to him. Under such a curse, unless man's strength is involved in whatever he does, things simply shall not happen. The heart is divided because man knows evil and good. Did he know evil only or did he know good only, it would never be possible for him to be divided about the things of the Lord. Eve shouldn't have eaten from that tree. But, man is the only one to be blamed for having a divided heart in him. "Their heart is divided; now they shall be guilty (for it)", Hos.10:2.

Resisting does not last for always, but obedience does.

It is good when we manage to hinder or avoid certain truthful prophecies against us. It shall be credited unto us as righteousness. For example, we read that, "They shall eat unclean things in Assyria", Hos.9:3. However, Daniel contradicted that prophecy since he refused to eat the king's food offered unto idols. He did not eat unclean food at all, Dan.1:8. And was God angry because Daniel made a prophecy not come true? No, God was extremely happy about it not having been fulfilled with him. "...You are greatly beloved", Dan.9:23. Have you been able to counterwork anything that God has spoken against you as a sinner? For example, God did say that when the demon comes back to an empty or clean house, that house shall be made seven times worse. Can you counterwork it? If you can, just dare to have your heart full of the Spirit of God afterwards. God will be happy about you.

Many try to 'mislead' God concerning themselves. In fact, they believe they are tricking God into something. They give to God so that they may receive back. But, we must know that the deal is never accomplished until the receiver receives and not until the giver gives. God did not receive Cain's offerings even though he offered them. There are things God just does not receive from us. There are prayers He does not accept; there are money offerings God does not receive; long Bible studies God does not bless. It so happens because God accepts only the one who gives and not the offering itself. "But the LORD accepteth them not", Hos.8:13. God accepted Job and not so Job's prayers. Because of Job his prayers in behalf of his friends made the difference. "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous one avails much", James 5:16. Unfortunately, there are people who are worse off than Cain because Cain was able to see God did not accept him. Many Christians simply carry on praying and even praising God for something He has not received from them at all. They simply can't see when they are rejected! People deceive themselves easily. "They shall not pour wine to Jehovah, nor shall they be pleasing to Him. Their sacrifices shall be like the bread of sorrows to them; all who eat of them shall be defiled. For their bread is for their soul, it shall not come into the house of Jehovah", Hos.9:4. Are you sacrificing flesh or Spirit to the Lord?

"They have made themselves idols with their silver and their gold, so that they may be cut off", Hos.8:4. An idol is a fantasy. Many people do not consider themselves idolatrous anymore because they have become evangelical Christians. However, they still use their gold, silver or income to buy themselves fantasies of many kinds. They use their money and earnings (which the poor need badly) to buy themselves many things their idolatrous hearts demands from them. Just how many fantasies do you still think about and feed in your mind? Don't you think it strange that John said to people who already parted from idols that they should have no idols in them? "Little children, guard yourselves from idols", it is, from fantasies, 1 John 5:21.

A body without spirit, without life is a corpse. So is any church or any Christian without the Spirit of God.

The power or the persuasion of any of our messages is or should be the genuine manifestation of God through them and not the amount of wisdom shown. God should be able to reveal Himself as we speak, whether we speak wisdom or not. Whatever we do should be filled with power.
Why is it so important that we recognize and realize our own sins? There are many reasons, but let me highlight two of them. One good reason is that no one loves it to be wrong or declared wrong. It shall cause us to do something about it and we shall be blessed if we go about it the right way and not like a mule would go about something it ought to carry out. If done the right way God shall be with us. And if God being with us was the only reason for us to confess, it would be enough. But, there are many more reasons though. Another reason among the many others is that God's name shall not be blasphemed and spoken against so easily in the world. When Christians sin, whatever they say or do does not work out and the world takes notice of it. Bringing sins to the light shall surely hinder God's name to be spoken against because the world shall say "Christians are confessing and now we know why their words didn't worked out". They shall not say "God does not exist" anymore. If they say, however, God shall present Himself to them because Christians' words and works start to work out and to make sense to them.
God does not become unfaithful simply because things do not happen when we expected them to happen. It does not change God if we lack the revelation concerning His timing. He just doesn't change. He has never changed before.
For corruption to be there, there must be someone who pays bribes and someone that receives them. If there lacks one of these the act of corruption is not accomplished, even though the heart exists. There must be fire and wood to breed a flame and these must come together. The man who pays bribes has the same sin and the same heart as the one who receives bribes.
The man or woman whose heart is corruptible has the same kind of heart as the one who corrupts. They are fully reconciled with each other and have hearts which get along. "Can two walk together unless they are agreed?", Amos 3:3. If there is a pastor or preacher who steals money from the pockets of his hearers, there must be hearers who have the same kind of interest and greed in them as their preacher's or pastor's. Preachers who steal from the poor and the rich usually do so by promising a return to the money they extort in the name of God. To say God will give people their money back is to lie to them. These preachers make good use of their hearers' greed, lust and lack of satisfaction to rob or extort them. Preachers who extort and those who are extorted have the same kind of heart in them or they would never combine. These preachers learn how to make the best use of people's sins and they promise things to settle and confirm those sins instead of saving people from them. It is not good to come to Christ to have our sins fed and fattened. Only corrupt people give to corrupt preachers. "They eat up the sin of My people, and they set their heart on their iniquity. And it has become, like people, like priest...", Os.4:8,9.
Many complain about their children being disobedient rebels. They cannot figure out why their own children do not listen to reason at all. There are many motives why this happens, but I believe the main one is what God says in Hos.4:6: "Since you have forgotten the Law of your God, I will also forget your sons, even I". And because we know that for every curse there is a respective or correspondent blessing, we may assume the opposite of what is happening to rebel children is what God intended to work out in them through grace. I mean that for every rebel there is, there could or should be a most obedient child. It is an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth of what should be. What can you expect shall your children be if you remain God's friend forever and whatever happens?
The Lord sees the man who sleeps with a prostitute in a worse moral state than the prostitute herself. "I will not punish your daughters when they fornicate, nor your wives when they commit adultery. For the men themselves go aside with harlots, and they sacrifice with temple prostitutes", Hos.4:14. "Whoever commits adultery with a woman lacks understanding; he who does it destroys his own soul", Prov.6:32.
Sanctification is not abandoning sin. It is consecrating to the Lord the members and the hearts which have already left sin behind all together. Then, the demons shall come and find the house, which they used to tempt, full of God. They shall not come in to settle down there.
God trusts a salvation from sin in which He has participated and which He has worked out. If a sin is abandoned and Jesus was not the one who saved from it, I am sure that person did not stop sinning but only exchanged some sin for another.
Many times, lukewarm Christians are rejected by people and that does not happen only because people do not wish to hear their truth about God. It so happens because people do not wish to hear what they know are fantasies of the minds of worldly or lukewarm believers who are worse off than the coldish people of the world. In case Christians experience real truth and live the reality of the promised abundant life of God, people shall listen to them with joy sooner or later, one way or another.
Jesus promised we would reap whatever we sowed. However serious these words are, most Christians just do not take them in as seriously as they should. We should take the Word of God as a whole and one part as serious as the other. God simply means what He says. We should never love or lift some parts of the Word above others. This relationship between sowing and reaping is a most serious one. Many sow sin and later at night they pray their fields should not bring forth a curse; others pay bribes and pray God will bless it; others steal from God and expect God to be with them when sick, troubled and abandoned. In fact, they sow thorns and expect a bountiful harvest of corn.
Bad people are often hypocrites who try to get along with others by trying to resemble what they are not inside. They manipulate feelings, smiles and whatever is able to cause a good impression or create a good opinion about them. They do so even when there is no need to do that. Whoever does it is a bad person. However, holy people get along by what they really are inside. It cannot work any other way with them. People get along by what they are, more than by what they say.
Screaming and noisy speaking is often the language of another kind of modern hypocrites in church. They are just as noisy in singing to God. And yelling at people means we cannot speak the truth or what we really wish to say without becoming angry and annoyed. We should be able to speak the truth in such a way that no yelling nor apologetic adding should be traced in whatever we say. We cannot speak as if we did not mean what we just said. Speaking the truth is good for all, even for those who speak. No one should need to yell using the truth. There is no need to do that if truths cuts deep.
If Paul had the kind of faith he had, if he exercised it as he did, it was because he had the God he had. Unless God was trustworthy he would never believe God that way at all. Paul simply lived according to the reality of the Lord he served. I also believe Paul would never have such faith were he not fully honest in the views he had about God. God is the same today. We can trust Him the same way Paul did.
"Be reconciled with God...". This is a profound word and we should be open enough to understand its fullest meaning. Do not go slightly over it believing you know what it means. God has His purposes, His ways of doing things, His exact timing both to promise and to fulfil everything He does. To be reconciled with God means we are one with the Lord in all of that. Are you so reconciled with God that His will is the deepest desire of your own heart? Are you so reconciled with God that it is no surprise for you when the Red Sea opens up right in front of you because you expected something to happen more or less that way?
God allows many unthinkable things to happen when Christians move away from Him. And if these ugly people still use God's name (in vain) we should expect much more to happen to them than we can ever think possible. One of these unthinkable things that will happen is that the enemies of God prosper in many ways. "...And because of transgression... he cast the truth to the ground. And he prospered...", Dan.8:12. The enemies of God should not be able to prosper that way. If an enemy of God casts truth down and plays around with it as a toy and even so prospers, Christians are the ones to be blamed for it. There is transgression among them. Such a thing coming from the enemies of truth is unthinkable and is a punishment to Christians' ways and lives. Remember what happened to Herod when he did not honour God? He was eaten by worms. Christians were sound and living in the apostles' time. It is a good thing if God is happy with Christians and the way they live in this present world. If He is not, they shall be overcome by the enemies of God. "Deliver me not over to the will of my enemies...", Sal.27:12. On the other hand, our enemies will be handed over into our hands to be fully converted to God if we live as saints live in heaven and if the will of God is done in us the way it is done there!
Daniel had his visions from God while in Babylon. He had them in the sanctuary of idolatry and harlotry. He did not have them in Jerusalem. What counts is our relationship with God and not the place we are found. All that matters is whether our relationship with God is for real and if, through it, it is our only and natural way to live and to do things.
Here is a terrible thought: we shall give account to the Lord for everything we are and do. Have we been faithful people? Will we be faithful people? Do we walk in the Light, exposing all unto salvation?
Blind people use dark glasses. There are, also, those who use them because of sunlight. The only way one is able to distinguish between them, is by looking at the way they behave themselves.
So we may easily watch and pray, we need to live today's things only today and tomorrow's things tomorrow only. This is one of the conditions we need to fulfil unconditionally so we will be able to watch while praying in the right way, in all perfection and having good results.
The biggest predators of this present life are those weak people who pass for strong ones, the unholy ones who seem to be holy and above everyone else. These learned the ways of life only to imitate it so the wolf inside them would survive and be hidden wearing sheep's adornments.
Every person who is able to live in sin and have an obstinate spirit is someone who is given over to his own ways, own nature and own thoughts. Then, the devil uses those things to degenerate the creature before the eyes of the Creator. Whatever the devil wishes to carry out through these people, he shall because they are fenceless cities open to robbers. They are like a prey at the disposal of the hunter. "...Those at ease, who dwell securely, all of them dwelling without walls, and there are no bars nor gates to them, in order to take a spoil, and to steal a prize", Ez.38:11,12. These people's lives have no walls and the devil comes in whenever he wishes to do so. The worst thing that can ever happen to us is God handing us over to ourselves and to the ways of our hearts. There is no greater curse than that one. "...God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do the things not right", Rom.1:28.
The people to be blamed for others' most hesitations towards important issues are those who understand the gospel, I mean, the so-called Christians. It is they who get wild and fussy about certain truths they should rather live than preach. They promise freedom to all others who may come to agree with them, yet, they show themselves bound to self and to many sorts of sins. In fact, they manage to convince those capable to agree with them and that cannot be said to be God's power convicting people at all. If someone is able to agree with you, he is surely like you or on the verge of becoming like you. You cannot always ascribe it to the convincing power of God. Religious habits and behaviours can never be considered as living truth from which we may live. We need to live freely and almost unconsciously. To change habits, one needs to think a lot and to reason much. But, to change a life within takes something more than that. Nicodemus did not understand how it worked before he came to Jesus. This is why many people go to hell and limp between two or more thoughts when they should make an important once and for all decision against own sins. Most worldly people would be glad did they hear good news from the mouth of pure people. But, in the absence of them, a few are led astray to use God's name in vain and for no other purpose than carrying on sinning. "For you compass sea and the dry land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, you make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves", Mat.23:15.
It is possible to see when someone has been contemplating the Lord and if by reading his Bible he has seen the Lord for sure. Many read their Bible to search for arguments they themselves are not able to experience as real truth. They do so only to become able to argue and to reason with others. And to see just how much or how well a person has contemplated the Lord during that precious time of communion (or what should be a precious time), one needs only to see how much of the glory of God such a person's life or face glows out after contemplation, at work and being himself and himself only. It is not appearances that show how much or how well people have seen the Lord. But, when He becomes clear to the hidden man our whole life changes.
If we see Christ as He is, our inner being starts to change rather rapidly. The worst handicap, however, is that kind of life we thought and conceived in our minds as holy, especially before coming to Christ for real. Perhaps Christ is leading you towards what He has as holiness for you and your mind does not allow you into it because you are heading towards your own idea of it. What you may have imagined concerning a life with God shall be your greatest stumbling block and your worst enemy when nearing Jesus for real. An alternative life is like having another wife which is not yours: one of the wives shall dump you sooner or later. Tell me: if the other woman is polite, beautiful and attractive is it enough reason for you to have her? Shouldn't you live only with the one God united you to, the legitimate one? A parallel life is like having a polite mistress. A parallel life is just another form of adultery. It does not allow you to live spontaneously in all goodness and love. Even your joys will be faked and false. Appearance has no life in itself even if true life appears on the outside as well. Be sure that you cannot have two wives without neglecting one of them. If you care for the other woman or for the other life your own will surely die away from and your own being shall become a stranger to you. You cannot live from appearances. It is impossible. You can only die through appearance and by showing what you aren't.
There are facts, occurrences, and laws in nature (both physical and spiritual) which we may never ignore for a moment. For example: there is a huge similarity between the way sicknesses work out and which sin works. There are viral sicknesses or fatal ones and there are those long term sicknesses which come into existence because people have long term over eating habits or are careless about eating properly and in due time. Sin works much the same way: there are sins which come through temptations (which we may take as viruses which come and go) and there are sins on the long term because we have not been eating properly or feeding on proper spiritual food. We know certain sicknesses are contagious and by sitting around where people sin easily and gladly, temptation shall try to lure us and to swallow us up through smooth talk. That is also a fact. Sickness is transmitted one way or another. However, health is not transmitted from people to people as viruses are. Good health is worked on. Spiritual health is a good, long term work which may never be neglected for a moment. Health is not contagious as sicknesses are. You cannot transmit your health to a sick friend. In the same sense, holiness and purity cannot be transmitted from people to people - it needs to be worked on with patience and without a moment of negligence. "Therefore, my beloved... work out your own salvation with fear and trembling", Php.2:12.
If you can't be alone and quiet it shows you are still immature and childish. Only spiritual maturity is able to see God continually and as He is. "But you, when you pray, enter into your room. And shutting your door, pray to your Father in secret...", Mat.6:6.
The voice of God has very little in common with the way we feel. What we feel or the way we feel is our own voice. The more emotional we are, the more we raise it. We need to know what God feels about certain matters and not what our feelings and preferences have to say about it all. Unless you look away from the way you feel about things, you cannot be made an obedient person at all. And if God feels the same way as you about certain things, it shall be harder for you to discern God's voice from yours. People should stop acting as if they are little gods which God must listen to all the time. Trusting your heart is the way towards foolishness and death. "He who trusts in his own heart is a fool", Prov.28:26. Can you live so near God that you can even sense the way He feels about something?
If it is true that whoever gains his own life looses it, it is also true that we might find ourselves loosing something or even all without realizing we are gaining life due to the sense of loss we experience. And we may also feel satisfied concerning our lives and be losing it in real terms; or we may be losing without realizing we are gaining. It is a shame that faithful people often feel unhappy when things do not work out the way they expected they would. You might be gaining life and despise it because it does not feel pleasant at that moment. Beware! Do no sadden the Spirit through unbelief and lacks of joy. Perhaps the loss we sense is the answer to our prayers.
We do not fix our lives to be able to read our Bibles, but rather read the Bible to fix our lives. The goal or objective is to have life and to be near the Lord all the time and as if we have never experienced any other kind of life before. But, many prepare themselves to read in such a way that it seems the only goal is to have their Bibles read. They exhaust themselves and find their souls in the same condition they have always been after having read a lot from God's word. Reading and studying which does not lead to transformation is worth nothing.
Arrogance is camouflaged weakness and whoever brags about things is trying to hide his own vulnerability. Humility is to be what we are without a second thought about it.
Aversion or lack of disposition is a greater hindrance or stumbling block than disability or incapability. A disabled person has the option of being helped. But, resentment or anger often makes people refuse to follow the way they should. Think of this next time you hand your heart over to a grudge or any kind of thing which deprives your heart and thoughts from serving God. You shall be worse off than a disabled person.
Whenever a sinner insists and repeats things, whatever those things are, it just shows how impatient a person he is. But, when God repeats something, it reveals how patient He is. The more He repeats the greater is the manifestation of His patient character. Man's impatience is often the mirror of his resistance against the Spirit. And where there is smoke it means fire can be extinguished or it can be alighted.
"For not he who commends himself is approved, but he whom the Lord commends", 2Cor.10:18. If this is true, then whoever criticizes himself shall neither be approved, but only those whom the Lord convicts. Whoever commends himself is the person who easily criticizes himself also. And the motives behind these two different and seemingly opposed behaviours are brought by one and the same selfishness.
It is necessary to stay in the life we started to experience in the Lord. Receiving it is never enough. What does this mean? Many have the wrong motives in them when they come to the Lord. I am not talking about those. But, all those who have the right kind of motives, I mean, those who want a job to learn how to be lead by God; those who marry to glorify God through a married life and do no fall in the so-called trap of happiness; they are the ones who easily fall asleep and die away once they believe they have attained the life the Lord demands them to have in them in an abundant way. In fact, once you have that life abundantly, you are at the starting point and not at the end of your race. Why would a student finish his studies if it leads him to sleep late and to breed the idea there is nothing more he needs to do? Real life starts after we have attained life in the fullness God promised. If you are now easily lead by the Lord, if you hear him joyfully and are able to obey Him unconditionally, than you are at the point where you can start living for the Lord. Do not dare to be amazed receiving such a life. Live as if you have never known any other way to live and start living your God out the way it is promised.
The bad man shall always avenge or revenge something and his preferential target is whoever is righteous. His revengeful habits make him apt to destroy the innocent and righteous whose walk is directly responsible for the accusations inside his own conscience. Evil has always personal reasons for taking revengeful measures against anyone. God, however, by revenging has salvation, love and tenderness in mind. However hard it is to believe that, it is indeed true. God's Spirit does not remain with mankind mostly for that reason, simply because He is love. "My spirit shall not always strive with man, in his erring (...) The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them", Gen.6:3;13.
What we are as people is usually the rule according to which we judge others. We look at things and judge them according to our feelings and not according to truth. Many even judge God's deeds according to what they feel at the moment things happen to them. "Yet you say, The way of the Lord is not fair. Hear now, O house of Israel: Is not My way fair? Are your ways not unfair?", Ez.18:25. Because our way is unfair, we think and believe God's ways are unfair. In case our ways were really fair, we would believe otherwise concerning God and His ways towards us.
When somebody lives as he ought before the Lord and has in him the capacity to be kept clean and continually near Him, sin will be a form of treason. You cannot consider yourself a better person than Jude has been or Peter when the cock crowed. "But when the righteous turns away from his righteousness, and commits iniquity, and doeth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doeth, shall he live? All his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned: in his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die", Ez.18:24. A righteous man who sins is a traitor. He denies and betrays the Lord. He should repent from high treason.
"And ... being planted, shall it prosper?", Ez.17:10. This is a good question for you to answer! Facts show that many people who have been spiritually nurtured and cared for do not prosper. Are you one of these?
People shall drink once our cup runs over and not when it is being filled. Preach to yourself when God reveals Himself to you.
The understanding of God's word has more to do with the practicality of the word than with the knowledge of it. To know what it is all about is easy for anyone. We cannot separate understanding from obedience when it comes to God's word, because, according to it, they are the same thing. Most of the time God's words, when read and attained, are a confirmation of what is already happening inside of us and for which we had no former explanation. Memorizing and studying God's word as a worldly student would do to pass exams is, quite often, a stumbling block to the kind of understanding God wishes us to breed and have of His words. Memorizing is good only when it shall serve us in the near future by being reminded by the Holy Spirit when things start to happen according to what we have studied and learned. Then, shall we believe because we shall say "Now I see with my own eyes". "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye has seen You", Job 42:5.
I always say it is not work which wears us down. What tires us most is what we are and not what we do.
Paul said he would forget what was behind to launch all he was to reach the goal set before him. He was referring to the great things God had done and achieved through him, mainly. He knew the past would not count if the present would not consume his full attention. However, sometimes God reminds us of our past sins so we will not feel at ease and so our assurance and security doesn't become superficial and meaningless. Our security and assurance must be deep, easy and simple.
Tears for holiness show we would like to be holy just as it shows we would like to work it out ourselves. Because we want to do it ourselves, we easily cry by facing the impossibility of being holy without Jesus.
Rejected people try harder and will do more to be accepted than any other person and they jump over the wall into the sheepfold. Instead, they should reject and abolish whatever made God reject them.
It is a shame that there are people who are able to hear and understand things and, even so, refuse to hear and obey the way they ought. They easily cause the work of grace to fail. "Son of man, you dwell in the midst of a rebellious house, who have eyes to see and see not. They have ears to hear and hear not, for they are a rebellious house", Ez.12:2.
To be able to hear God's voice clearly, there are a few things which must happen. One of them is that God must indeed speak. Many speak to their own hearts or their hearts and feelings speak to them and they say it was God speaking. The other thing which needs to happen is: the hearts of men must be subdued and must not overpower the wishes of God. Even when our own wishes are like God's, we must take only God into consideration. He is the Shepherd and not the sheep. He is not the disciple. He is not the one who should be listening to us, but hearing from us until He fulfils.
Whenever a person refuses to take hold of God and clings only to the hope and faith others have, such a person is holding back some secret sin or some pet sin which he simply refuses either to see as sin or to give up forever. You may count on it, because this is a true statement. Such a person does not leave the entrance to life, but does not go in either.
"...So that you might have peace in ME...", John 16:33. It is easy to have peace because there is also a false peace which the reality of God slays to pieces. But, if Jesus is real, it is possible to have peace in Him only if we are spotless and clean. It is not possible to have peace in Him unless we are spotless and content with such a kind of life. Dirty consciences have peace outside Jesus and feel quite well there, however unsatisfied the heart might be. And what Jesus promises to all of us is peace while in Him. There is more behind His words than we might ever think about or believe. Allow Jesus to become real in you so you shall know what real peace means. It is not that easy to have peace while in Him.
There are many differences between faithful and unfaithful people, especially concerning faith and what they usually assume in a practical life. Usually, unfaithful people cling strongly to the hope and to the belief that God will conduct their lives. I have never seen an ex-believer assuming it shall not go well with him. But, deep in their hearts they cannot believe what they assume is true. They are always wavering and unstable. Consequently, they do things their own way and carry on believing it was God doing it. Faithful people, on the other hand, believe deep in their hearts their lives shall indeed be conducted, fully blessed and guided by God. They cannot deny the kind of heart they have. However, many of them are unable to assume it openly, they who are the ones who have many reasons to assume practically God shall guide their lives. It would be good that those people who really know it shall go well with their soul, that they assume in a practical way and in all simplicity their life shall be indeed guided. They shall rest and not be wearied down, because they expect from the Lord. That's what waiting in God is all about. Waiting on God is expecting.
"...That He might present it to Himself as the glorious church, without spot or wrinkle or any such things", Eph.5:26-27. To take wrinkles out of something we heat it up or fill it to maximum capacity. Let the church be on fire and fully filled with God and it shall not have wrinkles, no ugliness and no double standards.
Laws exist only because there are transgressors. It is the transgressor who brought the Law into existence. If people's hearts were naturally healthy and pure; if there were no sinners; if people felt naturally at home inside a holy, filled life; if they knew no other kind of life; if they would do the right things and preserve them naturally; then there would be no laws. "...We acknowledge that the law is not made for a righteous one, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane...", 1Tim.1:9-10.
"...I will repay you according to your ways and your abominations that are in your midst..." Ez.7:9. If we take all kinds of abominations from our midst, there is nothing God shall make us accountable for anymore. But, let them cease forever or God shall not spare us at all next time.
It is a common thing to say God is good when He has done something we appreciate. Unfortunately, people think God has changed when He sends some plagues against us. And God does not change. Because people believe God shall give them only what is good due to selfishness and to a great love towards self, once the Lord chastises, they blame God or the devil for it. Consequently, they do not repent and rather reprimand whatever is happening to them. Some even use Jesus' name to do so. By knowing it is possible that the Lord sends plagues so people may either repent or straighten their ways by submitting to Him, we shall be wise if we acknowledge God is good all the time and always, and whatever happens to us. "And the rest of the men who were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the works of their hands", Rev.9:20. We see God promises that one day people shall be wise enough to repent. "Then you shall know that I am Jehovah, when their dead shall be among their idols all around their altars", Ez.6:13. "I will do to them according to their way, and according to their judgments I will judge them; and they shall know that I am the Lord", Ez.7:27.
It is easy to men of fibre to be strong; to those who walk with God to believe; to those filled with the Spirit to be simple and wise. They shall be simple because they use no complicated stuff to do greater things. I challenge you to try to disbelieve seeing Christ clearly through a spotless heart! It is just not possible to be unbelieving. Everything is easy to those whose heart burn with a fire they cannot avoid having in them. They know what they are talking about. They know why they are believing. That kind of faith is the fruit of a real relationship.
Every sin and all demons are always unpredictable. It is up to me to be constant and one-minded in the Lord. I cannot predict where the next threat shall come from. But, there is one thing I can do: I can live a simple, holy life which does not change according to threat or according to what happens. In a windy day any wise woman holds her skirt and not the wind. Lets hold our lives near the Lord instead of trying to calm down the tempests around us.
God pronounced certain judgments and chastisements against Israel, Ez.5. Those who would not believe the words of the prophets would stay in the city under siege and die; those who believed it would happen but could not trust a God who would do such a thing to them, would flee and die. But, what would happen to any such who believed the curse was irreversible and God's words were worthy of being taken into consideration? We know Jeremiah was kept alive and was granted freedom. Some others, God would take out of Jerusalem and protect them along the way. "Come out of her, My people, that you may not be partakers of her sins, and that you may not receive of her plagues", Rev.18:4. There would be two reasons for such to leave town: they would not partake on its sins to learn them; and they would miss the plagues which were unavoidable. We should take this as a lesson: let's not learn the sins of today's preachers who rob the flock in exchange for promises of pleasure and prosperity. Let's leave such false preachers alone! Whoever stays in there shall voluntarily or involuntarily partake of their sins and plagues. These shall surely divide their loyalty between God and the devil.
The men from the East who came to find Jesus were man of word. They were honest and faithful to promises or they would not leave all to go after Jesus. They knew how to be faithful to whatever they thought was good. These faithful men promised Herod they would come back to tell him where and who the Saviour was. However, to that promised they did not remain true. They did not fulfil what they had promised to do and it was holy to do so. They did not sin by breaking that word of promise. They were holy by not fulfilling a word they have given. They did not feel guilty about any of it either. They did not send a word of apology to Herod at all. It took two years for Herod to realize he has been deceived. "We must obey God rather than men", Act.5:29. What would you have done? Would you please God or a earthly king? Would you obey a dream?
"And He said to me, Son of man, stand on your feet, and I will speak to you...", Ez.2:1. This happened quite a few times with the Prophet Ezekiel. We wonder just how many times God needed to repeat the same words when He appeared to him until he could stand before the Lord. God does no like to repeat things. Especially if we are in sin, God deals against us harshly if He has to repeat the conviction over us. But, in this case, it was Ezekiel's religiosity commanding him to bow down when God wished him up to speak to him or to listen carefully. God is not very fond of religion. In fact, I personally believe He hates it because it makes God unreal. We do not know how long it took Ezekiel to be ready and to stand before the Lord every time God appeared to him.
Ezekiel and many others saw the heavens opened and saw many of the things that go on in there. However, none of those men of God have been particularly overwhelmed by the things and signs they saw because they were believers. But, as soon as they saw God, they feared and humbled themselves down. They worshipped the real Lord as soon as they saw Him. It is good that the same happens to us. Many get so startled and impressed because they had a dream or that God spoke to them in some particular way that they talk of nothing else, think no further than the signs they had seen. And, once the Lord appears to them, they are to busy thinking about signs or to blind to see Him as He is.
The proof we have been forgiven is the ability and the capacity to oppose what we have been and to do the opposite joyfully as if we have known no other way of life but the Lord's.
There are many laws in nature which shall never change, at least while the sun and the moon exist. One of these laws is that species reproduces its own species. A dreamer reproduces another dreamer; evil reproduces evil; and goodness brings into life what is like it. Man is a mere consequence of what mankind has been. He thinks as he thinks because of the way he has been thinking. Man daydreams because he has been an unstable daydreamer. But, the Lord is far too real to be only dreamed of. Unless we are able to grasp, accept and multiply realities and to see things as they really are, we have little chance to feel comfortable near God. It is time that we start making sense and that we become real about all the things of God. A friend of mine said: "I have stopped lying to God". Hope you can say the same. It is not God's fault that man sees Him as unreal and mystical. What will you be? A dreamer or a reality man? Joshua did not become overwhelmed by having the Jordan opened up to let the Israelites pass through it. Peter did not jump up and down and neither did he miss the point in his sermon when that lame man started to walk and leap in joy. That was as normal to Peter as would be drinking a cup of water, Act.3:12. Admiration is the first stumbling block a genuine, unfeigned faith faces. Whoever wants signs is not looking to be real about things. Such people simply refuse to become real! May God have mercy on us!
If faith is the certainty of the things we do not usually see, daydreaming and being emotionally influenced can't be hope. These imitations of hope and faith always end up in disappointment. God, however, does not disappoint. "And hope does not make us ashamed", Rom.5:5. If we have real expectations in us burned by God into our perceiving eyes, the moment they become like dreams they lose the ground to be fulfilled. Daydreaming is the door that leads to uncertainty and doubt.
Our soul has ways to suffer which our body is not able to imagine. The soul can suffer much more than the body. Pain in the soul is very difficult to bear. This is why the joys of the Lord inside us are impossible to be described as well. Everything that happens inside our souls is far beyond explanation, if real.
Jesus became flesh like us and not only similar to us. He indeed became like us so we shall be like Him one day. And, because He became like us, we do not need to put up a face or a mood we do not have to reach out to Him. Let's simply be ourselves and be as truthful as can be so we shall be heard by Him when we plead for renewal and salvation from all sins - if that's what you plead Him for, indeed!
When the Lord sends some plagues or evil against people so they might repent and get converted, many are too blind to see the reason behind what He does. In fact, many start to blame this and that, people and circumstances, the boss or the employee, the weather and many other things besides themselves. They should instead hit their chests with their fists. By blaming anything else besides ourselves, we take away that power of persuasions these things carry in them had we believed they came from the Lord. "And the rest of the men who were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the works of their hands...", Rev.9:20,21. Many others have some other tactics: they convince themselves and others the servants of the Lord (by whom the words of repentance is sent out) are not God's servants at all. There is another problem, however, when people believe God sent evil against them: they seldom accept that as mercy and love, but rather as rejection and punishment. Punishment for sin is hell, not plagues. Plagues are corrective punishments. They blame God. "Yet the people have not turned unto him that smote them, neither have they sought the Lord of hosts", Is.9:13. In the midst of the evil sent out by the Lord, there is the word: "Look at Me and live", Amos 5:4. "And men blasphemed God because of the plague ... for the plague was exceedingly great", Rev 16:21. Man in sin always defends and protects his own points of view. Under such circumstances man seldom turns to the Lord to be converted. "I have destroyed my people; they returned not from their ways", Jer.15:7. Those who turn to Him, are wise.
The new nature outside a continual presence of the Lord would always be without peace and without rest. It would feel like a duck in the desert where there is no water. It would feel strangely misplaced, awkward and in a strong unrest. Its comfort would be missing from it. The Spirit is called the Comforter for a reason. "But ... sorrow hath filled your heart. Nevertheless I tell you the truth: It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I go, I will send Him unto you", John 16:6-7. This is so because the new nature searches Him to find Him. The same uneasiness and unrest would be easily spotted in a sinful nature in the presence of God. It just would feel misplaced. The new nature finds rest and peace by finding the presence of God and the old nature settles down and becomes joyful by settling down away from the Lord.
There is one thing to remember when wishing to be able to discern between things: never talk to fast, never think ahead, do not give hunches as to what you cannot see clearly yet. Discernment is to see what is already there. It is not inventing things. Discernment does not guess - it sees. Discernment is not taking sides. Discernment is truth cutting deep or where it needs to cut.
It is not my faith which takes care of me, but Jesus. I trust Him and not my faith. That's why I am safe and why I am able to believe.
There are fish in the water. But, there are people who can swim quite well even if they do not belong to that environment. However well they swim, they can never say water is their element. We can say the same thing about being in God: there are people who can swim quite well in grace, but are not at home in the Lord. We need to be in our environment when in God. We cannot be as strangers in the waters of life.
A victory obtained now explains there has been another victory before this one and on which the present one follows. And the present victory surely guarantees the next one. And before all victories there has been the one at the Cross. Today's victorious life is part of a sequence of victories we have been gathering. One victory follows another and without one, the other would not be possible at all.
We read: "I shall give the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the LORD", Zep.3:9. We know that people who have gained clean lips shall surely and consequently be praising God. No one can avoid that happening. Purity leads to seeing the Lord and by seeing Him we shall marvel. It so happens because people start being honest within themselves and clear-minded. Consequently, they exalt the Lord and uphold Him by becoming honest in their views of Him. However, the reverse of this is not always true. One cannot assuredly say all people who are found praising God have clean lips. "And then will I clearly tell them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity", Mat.7:23.
Whenever someone is unstable in the ways of the Lord, I mean, when such a person is always hesitating between the way of the Lord and his own way of doing things due to the lack of confidence in God's measures; or due to a heavy trust on own abilities or capacities; or due to a secret hope that God will do those things his carnal heart and mind deeply desires after; then God might finally hand that person over to himself and to his own ways forever. Right there, that man or woman ceases to be hesitating to follow the normal course of this world even without giving up being a believer. They become firm and decided people, stern and stubborn and, usually, say they have finally opened their eyes concerning many things. By this they mean to say the servants of God who preached to them before had been deceiving them all along and had caused them inner troubles and uncertainties and that now they have come to certainties and to better conclusions on their own.
Accusations cover up sin. The solemn, clear exposition of all sins, annihilates any kind of sin forever. Putting in the light condemns sin to death and saves the sinner, while accusations condemn the sinner and keep sin alive.
Idolatry is to live as if an idol is God just as it is living as if God is like an idol. Unless God is real in our lives, we shall be guilty of idolatry and religious lies. Evangelical Christians shall be condemned along with many others who worship idols because they treat God as unreal. They do not find Him.
There is much hypocrisy in many prayers. Many people ask God things like this: "Lord, how and when shall you do this or that?" In reality, all they wish to know is whether God shall do it or if the Lord shall carry out their fleshly desires for them.
Many times people wish to know what is still ahead in their future. But, by knowing Christ and by loving Him only and fully, we already know our future: Him.
Whatever we are or do right now we shall certainly do or be afterwards. If we do not trust during a crisis, we shall not be as trusting and as faithful as we ought in times of abundance. Unless our heart changes now, it shall be a similarity of what it should be in some degree. By having circumstances changed, unless the heart has changed along, we shall carry, owning the same kind of heart. The same heart follows inside the same person who changed job because of lacking satisfaction there; the person who moves to another house because of the neighbours; or the person who exchanges his wife or husband for another because of unhappiness in the marriage. It means wherever the person goes, he shall have the same troubles all over again. "Let your way of life be ... content with such things as you have", Heb.13:5. You cannot believe you shall change into a better or different person under different circumstances or in heaven after death unless you have changed on earth. And, if we can count on that, I mean, if we are assuredly the same kind of people whatever the circumstances are, we might easily believe God shall never change either. He shall always be faithful.
When the Bible talks about the devil, it says he does everything out of revenge as if someone else is guilty for the sins he has committed. When the Bible talks about God's revenge, it talks about a righteous way of establishing justice and holiness. God does so out of pure love, for the sake of all that which is good, and the devil for all that which is the opposite of good.
"If man does not turn (...) God has already fitted for him instruments of death", Ps.7:12,13. These weapons of death may be anything anytime. It may even be certain things man sees as good things. God may hand man over to sin and to slippery grounds so that man's way ends unexpectedly and abruptly. These weapons have already been set up long before man was born. Even before we are born, blessing and curses were already there. The law already exists. No one can avoid either being blessed or cursed according to the way one's life is conducted and lived under the eyes of God. Another issue about this, is that death within enters into man in a way man is not aware of. For example: if I inhale oxygen, I am aware of breathing but not of what oxygen does within me. When I sin, death works deep in me in a way I might mistake it for life. For this reason many people see death as life and life as death. It is no wonder many sinners consider themselves as living beings after having sinned. This is one of the deadliest weapons man has to deal with: the deceit of death which any sinner shall easily misinterpret. "He dug a pit and bored it, and has fallen into the ditch which he made", Ps.7:15.
If we do not experience the things of God in a real way and we talk a lot about them, we are talking about what shall condemn us sooner or later. To what avail is it to me to talk about the greater things of the Lord if I do not know Him as I claim to know? What kind of praise shall such a lie be? Unless God's things are made real unto us, we are liars in one degree or another. We need to find Life as it is and not as we suppose it is. And unless we loose ours for the sake of God's, we shall loose it for nothing. Loosing our lives for some other motive is not good. Terrorists do that when they explode themselves.
When man praises man there is always a certain hidden motive behind words. Praise to man is usually stained with interests which self is greedy to fulfil. Anyone who praises man has some kind of interest behind it. Praising man is a lie. And, consequently, when people praise God, many just do so for the sake of words and the way they believe praise ought to be done. They praise God the way they would praise man, having some kind of interest behind their many words. Usually, they handle words as if they shall gain something in return by praising Him. Their praise is not sincere. Is your praise there because you have experienced real things from the Lord, or because you believe you shall be given something back by praising Him? The Psalmist praised God "according to His righteousness", (Ps.7:17) and not according to what he imagined of God. He praised God for real matters and things and his praise had been according to them. We cannot regard such praise as words of interest but rather of real thankfulness and amazement. We cannot praise God as man would do towards a girl saying how beautiful she is so he may gain her attention for some dubious reason. Try never to praise God having something else in mind. Let your praise come out of a pure heart and because of real experiences of real Life. If not, keep quiet. Even fools are praised by being quiet enough.
People in sin feel judged any way and any time. Whatever a holy person does in front them, it shall always be an annoyance. If a holy man talks, the reprobate feels judged; if he keeps quiet, the same shall happen. Whatever a holy man does shall call the attention of the grudges of sin and it shall judge itself. It is self blaming self, yet, the holy man gets the blame for that judgment. Usually, holy people do not have much to talk about in the company of unholy ones because their hearts are so different. One is reigned by grudge and resentment and the other isn't. What shall the subject of conversation be? What shall they talk about? Unless someone changes, there shall not be much to talk about. But, it annoys people who do not want to change for the better.
It is good to desire the good works of God with our whole heart. "Faithful is this word: If anyone reaches out to overseership, he desires a good work", 1Tim.3:1. But, unless it is not desired exclusively, it seldom works out. Suppose someone desires after God's work and, at the same time, desires to build something earthly for some reason or for own glory. It shall be impossible to conciliate both works inside the same heart. Both shall suffer and none of them shall be carried out or accomplished in a perfect way. This is what shall happen to whoever lives for sin and for God at the same time: he shall be limping between two ideas. He shall not live wholly in sin and neither live wholeheartedly for the Lord. It is not possible to live for two masters at the same tima, so distinct they are. There are a lot of things which just shall not work out together.
"There are many who say, 'Who will show us any good?'" Ps.4:6. I hope this shall never be said in front of me. My prayer to the Lord is that no one shall be able to ask this having me nearby.
We have the story of Lazarus and the rich man, Luk.16:19-31. We all know, however, no one enters heaven by being poor and no one goes to hell by being rich. The rich man went to hell for not knowing the Lord as he ought through his riches, and Lazarus for knowing Jesus the way he ought to - he gave his heart to Jesus and not to bitterness. If this is true, we may conclude Lazarus knew God while on earth and the rich man did not. Assuming this is true, we easily see God did not make Lazarus rich and nor did the Lord hinder the rich man to become rich. The so-called doctrines of prosperity have two setbacks here which opposes them. It says we shall be given back by giving to the Lord and the rich man did not give to the Lord and became rich; and Lazarus knew the Lord in a perfect way and was sick and continued a beggar. These prosperity doctrines have no biblical ground on which to stand.
Any person who spends what he has just for the sake of buying or owning has two problems and not one. That person reveals through his spending behaviour how unsatisfied the heart is. If spending could fill the heart, no one would waste money after having spent. The other problem such a person has, is the idolatrous covetousness which rules the heart. Every heart has two sides which should be taken into account. I am so sure someone who wastes money in vain shall save it in times he should spend. The day that person needs to spend it the right way he shall not do so because his covetous heart shall not allow it to happen. Covetousness is idolatry because it causes people to put their trust and hopefulness in a vain thing.
If we have put a request before God, if our prayers are always lighted and aflame before the altar of the Lord, and if those requests are important to the Kingdom, one of two things might happen: we may receive immediately; or it may take a while before it happens as promised and according to the answer. If it takes somewhat longer than what we expected it would, we may never drop our arms down nor our faith and holy expectations. The first temptation in the deep thoughts of man is to assume God shall not give only because it has been somewhat delayed. Maybe it has never been delayed, but is rather awaiting the right time to happen. Would it be easy for you to devote and consecrate to the Lord whatever you have received from Him? If it is not the right time and you despair and give up because God keeps it for some better occasion or heart you need to get, take care not to start believing God shall not grant it. You should also bear in mind that receiving certain things does not always make it easier for us. The responsibility to be faithful is harder work than the one which causes your heart to be expectant and awaiting. It is easier to be hopeful and trusting, because people seldom realize that they need to be faithful through the same kind of faith which made them wait faithfully. Doing can be associated to the flesh and faithfulness is never fleshly. Doing must be of faith and through Jesus. It gathers with Him. Besides, people easily fall asleep when there is nothing more to be awake for or to wait for. People used to be expecting need to change their mind once they have received. The future absence of expectation is not good, since it may easily tempt them away from living in grace and through its means alone in what has been received. Let's put in our hearts and burn our desire through the Spirit to be faithful after having received whatever we have been waiting for. After the joy of having given birth to a child, let's take care of that child. We do not receive to become happy people, but rather to be faithful people.
Someone who cannot wait on God and expect things at their proper time only, is surely someone who shall not be made faithful in what he receives. Would it be easy for you to devote and consecrate to the Lord now whatever you have received from Him?
There is no sin which affects only those who commit it. Sins are like earthquakes and affect many people far from its epicentre. If you are one of those people who still believe your sins shall not affect your friends, your children or any other person around, you have a deceived or a deceiving heart. That's a kind of blindness which affects all such who refuse to look at facts as they really are, in order to see what they would rather wish to see. Many believe they have the freedom to err or some birth given right to sin. Even if the only thing that happens to you is the absence of light or the absence of blessing brought by sin, people shall be poorer because of you. They shall not be blessed through you the way they should. People shall suffer because sin takes blessing away from your life. Anyway, you cannot believe divorce shall affect only those who break that holy covenant; or that stealing does not affect people who have been robbed or that the family of the robber shall not suffer; nor may you believe drugs and addictions will not affect people nearby. And, if all of this is true, then the opposite is surely a fact beyond question as well: there is no virtue, no holiness, no sin confessed openly which shall not mean something to all people around. Just try to do the right thing in a constant basis in front of people and be yourself all the time. You shall see just how much it means to people around you and even to people far away!
"Tell the daughter of Zion, Behold, your King comes to you, meek, and sitting on an ass, even a colt the foal of an ass", Mat.21:5. This verse meant a lot to me today. It was quite meaningful. It made me recall how stubborn I was in my previous lifestyle, being like a stubborn animal which exists to be loaded with heavinesses. Jesus is presently riding me to the New Jerusalem.
The life with God demands from us that it must be us and God alone. If all of us decided to deal with God exclusively all the time and in a continuous way, mankind would get along quite well, having the same kind of purposes, the same kind of loyalty, love and realities. It can't be you and your wife and God or you and your wife will never agree in the overall; or you and your child and God. No, it must be you and God! The Psalmist said, "Whom have I in Heaven? And besides You I desire none on earth" Ps.73:25. When he said that I am sure he was married and had children like any of us. Yet, he came to that wise conclusion.
If you do not bother, I am sure you are negligent. The widow who bothered the judge in the middle of the night was praised by Jesus, Luc.18:1-6. The man who bothered his friend in the middle of the night to have something for his visitors was spoken well by Jesus, Luc.11:5-8. If Jesus praised them, they had done something which deserves heaven's praise. These people did no hide their request as the man who hid his talent and was reproved by God
No one needs to imagine God speaking to him. In fact, as long as people are driven to hear a false voice (or false words) which their need drives them to hear, as long as need, worry, pride or anything else drives people to speak for God, He shall not speak at all. This is one of the problems unbelieving people need to sort out if they want to hear God's voice clearly.
"If say we have not sinned, we deceive ourselves...", 1 John 1:8. Allow me to translate this verse for you: "If we say we have not sinned, we are the kind of person who is easily and usually self deceived". In other words, our mood, our heart is of the kind that deceives itself in many others things as well. It is very easy for a deceitful heart to hold on to illusion, lies or fantasies in all situations, especially about self. This is why a saint cannot say he is not holy either. "And if I should say I do not know Him, I would be a liar like you. But I know Him and I keep His Word", John 8:55.
Freedom is easy to define: it starts at the point where we have no more freedom to sin.
No sin may ever be considered a secret sin or a minor sin. I know there are sins we are not aware of, especially if we are far away from that kind of light which shines to show everything there is as clearly as it is. And there are sins that only the person who has committed them knows about. But, there are no such sins which affect only the the person who commits them. All sins affect everyone around, even those sins which are known only to whom committed them. There is no way to avoid others from being affected by any kind of our sins. We are either a blessing or a curse to people around us. Even the so-called secret sins are dangerous for people around. There is no mid way concerning this issue. The sins we commit at work affect our home and those committed at home affect our work and work place because sin causes us to be without God and without His blessing.
No one is changed by reading the Bible, but only through unconditional obedience to it. It works much like driving: no one is safe by reading and memorizing the street signs, but rather by obeying them.
Prepared or not, everything shall end for all of us sooner or later.
The sinner does not know over what he stumbles. In fact, he quite often upholds and defends whatever causes him to stumble. This means that he lives sin in such a natural and simple way that he is not aware of what is going on in his own life. He cannot describe what is happening to him. Therefore, the knowledge of good and evil is not the ability do describe it thoroughly. On the other hand, we do not need to experience evil to gain its knowledge since we already have it in us. We need to live goodness out the same way, as if there is no evil around. It should be an eye for an eye of the previous life. "For as you have yielded your members as slaves to uncleanness, and to lawless act unto lawless act, even so now yield yourselves to God, as one alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God", Rom.6:13. Many people fall into error because they believe they must go deep into what sin is all about. "But to you I say, and to ... as many as do not have this doctrine, and who have not known the depths of Satan, as they speak...", Rev.2:24.
"And they went after the vain thing, and became vain", 2 Kings 17:15. People become vain even when they believe otherwise concerning themselves. They are without real strength, without the ability and power to mean something to anyone around simply because they live in illusion and sin. They seldom realize they become vain in themselves by touching any vain thing. Be extremely careful and on your guard against futilities and vanities. Everything depends directly from the presence of real grace. By touching vain things God shall surely move away from us.
God became angry against Israel and destroyed them because they "had feared other gods and walked in the statutes of the nations", 2 Kings 17:7,8. It is a serious matter to fear demons and idols, to be afraid of them just as it dangerous to walk their ways. Take care not to walk in the ways of your nation as well, the one you have been born into.
To hear and to be obedient is important to be able to hear again. What we may have heard is much more important to us than what we have not heard yet. Let's stop being concerned about what we have not heard yet and use our resources to be fully obedient first to what we have heard. "If anyone desires to do His will, he shall know...", John 7:17.
If I am able to hear God as He speaks to me, it means He is able to hear me when I pray. One cannot separate one thing from the other. If I cannot hear Him easily, He is not listening to me that willingly either. The degree of difficulty in hearing each other is proportional to the distance my soul is from the Lord and how far away it is deviated from His presence. The further I move away from Him, the harder it shall be both to hear Him and to be heard in prayer. No wonder people scream so much in nowadays' churches all over the world. The greater the noise, the greater the distance between them and the Lord.
Everyone has his brain fully protected by his bone skull. Above that bone there is the skin which gives man his appearance. Without that bone our brain would be unprotected and we would be under serious risks of dying anytime. A person who has been transformed inside and is not fully sanctified, having some of his members or ways still old, incurs into the same kind of dangers of dying anytime spiritually. Unless people are fully sanctified they shall not reach everlasting life at all. The devil will make sure to harm them and hit the new creature they have been made. He shall find a way to harm it seriously, since the spirit of man is unsanctified and unprotected as would our brain under the appearance of mere skin. The devil hates new people that much and he shall never leave them unhurt. The only way one shall ever be able to see the Lord is to be fully sanctified in all aspects of our lives. Unless we are, there is some weak spot where the devil shall hit us with a deadly blow, sooner or later. Have no illusions concerning that. "Follow holiness, without which no one shall see the Lord", Heb.12:14.
I am fully dedicated to the Lord Jesus: I don't want to belong to anyone else nor to anything else. Under this dedication, I am sure to carry God's name around as I walk, talk or work. Whatever I do, the Lord's name shall rest on me all the time. Therefore, if the Lord would not fulfil His word concerning me, I would surely be like a nameless child and no one would associate the Lord to me or me to the Lord. Every normal child has his family name. People would say of me "the so called son of so and so has failed". They would depreciate the Lord along with me. And they would associate God's name when talking about my failures. This is one of the reasons I believe God shall fulfil all He promised concerning me anywhere, anytime. I am not expecting in vain. His name shall be seen as it is and shall be glorified. "The Lord has helped us thus far", 1 Sam.7:12.
Selfishness is the embryo of all sin. Unless something is selfish it cannot be sin. The opposite of love is not hatred, but selfishness. Hatred is one kind of the many types of selfishness there is. There must be some portion of self if something is to be considered a transgression of the Law of Love. Maybe God does not do the things He wishes to do because we would want to use it for ourselves in some way. Let's remember how Hannah got her boy by dedicating it fully to the Lord. She had many reasons to have that boy for herself but she got it only as she gave up on her personal motives. She did not give up the child, but selfishness. Now we know there was a dispute for the child between her and God. We are glad she did not give the child when she had been convicted of selfishness. Maybe we are the ones hindering God to do those things we prize most.
If small or great works amount to the same thing to the Lord, if feeding an ant or opening the Red Sea demands the same effort of Him, why do I need a greater faith to do greater things through Him? What is the great mystery of it all? I am sure it has nothing to do with God, but rather with us. The problem is within man. We are the ones who differentiate between works and works, or wish certain things more than others. If some things are dearer to us than others, we might consider them greater and better works. Our selfish or unselfish involvement in something is what causes the inner fight between believing and unbelief to erupt and to trouble our hearts in some way.
Many people fear it so much to be exposed and lighted that they hide instinctively. They fear to admit something God sees when they hide. Why is it so? I believe it is especially before God people would wish to look better. Just as someone has trouble admitting unfaithfulness to the wife, fiancé or husband, so do people fear to admit they have sinned before God. We easily deceive ourselves and our hearts drive us to hide where God can see us anyway. Will you admit all your sins by name, one by one without omitting a single one of them to be fully saved from each one of them? Unless you do, you surely deceive yourself and allow your heart to deceive you easily. You have a kind of heart which deceives itself generally. Now we can easily understand why the Bible says we are the kind of people who deceives the own heart when hiding sin. "If we say that we have no sin, we (are of the kind of people who) deceive ourselves", 1 John 1:8.
Self salvation is a serious crime. In fact, it is a suicidal crime. What would you make of a doctor who decided to carry out a surgery on himself? What do you believe would happen to him? Even if he could carry it out, imagine what kind of fears he would breed by being too selfishly involved in what he was doing. Can you imagine just how much he would blame himself by failing in some way? We cannot believe there would come something good out of it. It would be an abusive trust in own capacities and a distrust in others' abilities. "For being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God", Rom 10:3. We cannot associate selfishness to salvation in such a degree. I believe the main reason why people do not come near to become saved ones is what they imagine shall be the outcome of self-saving efforts. Many run away from getting saved because of what they imagine salvation is. They turn their backs on salvation because of the idea they have concerning it. But, is that person less suicidal than the one who tries to operate on himself? What difference is there between those who turn their backs to such a wonderful salvation and those who try to save themselves? Let's hand our lives over to Jesus and trust what we consider most precious - our lives - into His hands. It should, also, hinder us to save ourselves. "And blessed is your advice, and blessed are you who have kept me from... delivering myself with my own hand", 1Sam.25:33.
Unbelief demands repetitions quite often. That is why people repeat prayers so much instead of looking for one definite answer to specific prayers. Without that answer prayer is worth nothing and never deals with whatever hinders prayers do be heard by God.
Unbelief believes its way. It has its own way of believing things. The sinner does not like to be seen as a sinner, the unbeliever does all he can to be seen as a believer. He does not want to be seen as an unbeliever, not even by himself. In order to be able to look at real things in a distorted way, the sinner conceives a special way to look at the things of God and maintains them as unreal. Many people conceive a Lord of their own. That's why people often defend themselves by saying "we have our faith!". They indeed have bred a faith of their own which suits their ignorant deceitfulness and which does not give them much trouble - at least not as much as loosing their own lives.
A fully sanctified person has a strong vaccine against sin protecting him right through in all aspects of his life. That person is someone who ceased to please people to please God exclusively. No genuinely sanctified person runs away from sin since sin cannot not touch him. Immunity is just one of the many assets and fruits of grace which breeds along each day of a sanctified life. Such a person does not fear to crash the serpents head under his foot only because it has the most deadly venom in its fangs. "The king of Israel is in your midst; you shall not fear evil any more", Zep.3:15. However, it does not work out that way with an unsanctified life.
Reading the Bible without light or in our own strength is sin and working in a corn field or in computers with or through God is holiness. If we do not desire to die forever, we should consider the possibility of doing all with and through God and to be found gathering with Him. Whatever God does not approve us doing, we shall do alone. And whatever He approves, He shall reject if done on our own.
Paul was someone who, many times, walked around with old clothes, hungry and despised by people. And when God was glorified in such circumstances he seldom changed. "We are made as the filth of the world, the offscouring of all things until now", 1Cor.4:13. We do not see Paul being applauded and neither do we see the disciples thinking that applauding Paul was glorifying God. If it is true that people of the same kind walk together and agree among themselves, we may only conclude that those who applaud their singers or teachers and they who, by turn, receive secretly the applause given them, have the same kind of heart, it is, a heart which deceives itself by believing that's what glorifying God is all about. "Can two walk together unless they are agreed?", Amos 3:3.
Grace reaches where no man can reach and exposes to death anything wrong and to life every good thing. We do no see any doctor carrying out a surgery on himself. It would never be an easy thing to do, however we look at it. Even being a doctor, he shall need to hand his life over to someone else's care and trust. And Jesus does more inside us than a surgery. He changes our whole life inside. This is why we need to entrust our lives to Jesus. He is the Saviour.
The main obstacle in any sinner's way is his way of doing things; his own strength which he knows so well how to use; and his own goals which he tries hard to have God comply to. I have seen people doing what they would never normally do simply because they wish to be otherwise and keep control over what they think. They must be the ones doing something and, if anyone else tries to do as he would, he shall surely do some other way for the sake of being in command. They rather prefer to suffer losses than to have something done in a way they do not have control of. It is hard living a sinner's life.
Faithfulness is not an emotion or a disposition of the heart in certain days: it is a nature which walks on it own, among friends, among enemies and even under heavy trials during which it feels God is absent as Job did. It does not deepen its roots through encouragements; it does not live because of praise; does not die through enmity or criticism; doesn't become better through compensations or prizes; does not become worse by receiving nothing back; it does nothing for any other motive besides being perfect and finishing what it started to do. It is indifferent to gifts and compensations. It lives as it is. If faithfulness does not exist being faithful alone, just being itself and for no reason at all, it cannot be considered faithfulness at all. Will your heart's faithfulness pass the test of the eyes of God?
It is not easy to explain what the life inside a palace is like to somebody who knows only how to live in the drain of sin, just as it not easy to explain to a blind man a life in the light.
I am so sure that anyone of us can live such a life of genuine and real fellowship with the Lord that we shall be living inside great works and many miracles as if it is the most normal life to live; and, in the absence of any of those signs, we shall not even be