Random Questions, Thoughts and Statements

1) How can God forgive you if you feel justified in your sinning; if you truly believe you haven't done anything wrong, even though you have? The same question applies with each other. Until someone is willing to admit their sin, can we truly forgive them? If so, I never understood how. Maybe that is why we first confess. This is an admission of our accountability before one another and before God of taking responsibility of what we have done wrong. It is an agreement with what God says is sin, and not trying to run from it, excuse it or deny it, and it includes feeling sorry for it.

2) I will never give up on God never giving up on me. This is just a declarative statement that came into my head the other day, and it gave me great hope. Deep inside, I truly believe that God will be my constant, come what may, that He is on my side, and that He is true to His Word; that He WILL complete what He started in me, even though it seems that I take many, many detours and progress, as I see it, is slow. But, again, He sees entirely different than I do so much of the time, and I have confidence in His seeing (which I know is true and real) over my seeing. Praise God!

3) I honestly believe that in America, we Christians, are suseptible to blindness to the true riches of the Gospel, and of being "in Christ" because of the prosperity all around us. I believe our minds have been infected unknowingly by this, and they cannot help but process one without the other, without being opened to what the Word says about riches, and without consciously resisting the lure of them in the here and now. Maybe it's because so many of us have abundant provision, and somehow feel guilty about it; because we know there are so many others in the world who are truly oppressed and hungry and we aren't sharing with them, and we know we should. We remember God said for us not to lay up treasures on earth by building barns to store our things in, but we know we have amassed those things regardless, and we are storing up our money (CD's, etc.) anyway. So, we rationalize what we do using the Bible (gotta be like the ant in Proverbs, etc.) when really we don't trust God in continuing to provide for us. On top of that, we include "our prosperity" in the Gospel, saying that He provides and wants prosperity for us, and that if we are under grace, we would be prosperous.  Frankly, I don't see that in the Word at all. I do see the word "prosperous" but in looking it up, it means to flourish. Our souls are truly prosperous and flourishing,  and we truly are rich because of having Christ in us. God OR  Mammon (money)- we must make a choice, and quite trying to combine them, and disgrace the King of glory.

4) The renewing of our minds, by the Word of God is one of the most important elements in maturing in Him. The other is to open yourself up to His inner work, by allowing Him to clean us up inside. The Word of God has been maligned today, by a train of thought that is going around (planted by the devil) that uses that fact that Jesus' coming to the earth was "the Word made flesh." This is true, but shouldn't discount the truths of the written Word, which I believe, it has. Other things, like "listening to the Spirit" and not making sure the written Word backs up what we hear, is another way the enemy is gaining ground in people's minds to have increased distrust in it, and they are increasingly not reading it, and their minds are not being renewed to truth. This makes them subject to further lies of the enemy to distort their minds, and all the while, they think they are getting closer to God and His truth, while they are getting further from Him. This is delusion and deception which leads to blindness. Serious business. I am beginning to understand why God said He would  shorten the days of His return; if He didn't, He said that even the elect would be deceived.