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Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity. (Psalms 37:1) |
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We are entering an age of moral horrors. All that Paul stated about the last days is upon us. Men are lovers of themselves. Immorality, perversion, violence, and covetousness will exceed our worst nightmares. |
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One of the greatest dangers to the disciple is that of fretting. Every form of communication, the newspapers, radio, television, books, magazines, and now the Internet, will keep holding up before us the antics of Satan. This is what Satan desires. He hates to be ignored. |
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The Christian people are a lot like Lot. They are righteous at heart and deeply grieved and vexed over what people are doing. They see the injustice of those who will do anything to amass money no matter whom they harm. They see the cynical politician who would sell out his country if he and his family were promised safe conduct. |
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They see the average person making minimum wage or maybe as much as twelve bucks an hour with no medical benefits (and glad to get it!) when the doctors, lawyers, athletic stars, and heads of corporations make a million dollars or more a year and then lie so they can make even more money. |
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They see the criminals released to molest children, to rape and murder again and again. They see the monster who chops the arms off his victim and then have to listen to his lawyer howl about cruel and unusual punishment. |
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They see the army of militant women who murder their own offspring in the name of "reproductive rights" (but how about the rights of the fetus?). |
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They see the endless jockeying for power in government at all levels while the needs of the constituents are often ignored. |
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They see the United States being remade by people with an agenda that ordinary people do not even understand. |
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The people are sick of it and yet there is little they can do without breaking the law. |
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Things are not going to get better, they are going to get worse. What is a Christian to do? |
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First of all we are not to fret ourselves. Fretting leads to sin. We are not to envy those who by stepping on other people advance themselves in the world. We have been commanded not to fret and we are not to fret. We have been commanded not to be envious of the evildoers and so we are not to be envious of them. |
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We have been commanded to think about things that are lovely and of good report and that is what we are to do. I am not speaking of a stupid, ignorant Pollyanna attitude. I am talking about resisting the devil who is determined we will take our eyes off Jesus and watch him instead. |
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When God commands us to do something we are to do it. If we find we are bound with fretting, envy, or negative thoughts, then we are to come before God in prayer until we get victory over these harmful emotions and attitudes. |
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You are not helping anything by fretting about evil. You are grieving the Lord and everyone around you. They do not enjoy hearing you talking about the young punks or the lesbians or the gays or the liberals or anything else you are stewing on. |
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My father-in-law was a strong Christian but he messed himself up. He let himself get bitter because of the selfishness of the management of the company he was working for. He was a truck driver. |
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God has not called us to publish the works of the devil but to walk with Jesus in the joyous heights of Zion. |
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If you can't handle the garbage in the newspaper or on the television then throw the stuff out. Nobody is making you read the paper or watch the television. |
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Many Christians are sitting on the east bank of the Red Sea watching television so they can make sure the Egyptians are not getting away with anything. |
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When God has something constructive for you to do He will show you exactly how to proceed. In the meantime quit your fretting! |
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For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb. (Psalms 37:2) |
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I remember as a boy the great pronouncements made by Mussolini and Hitler. Where are they now? What happened to all their boasting? Sin catches up to people. |
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Sometimes it seems the wicked will prosper forever. They increase more and more and yet those who know them know of the evil things they do. This continues for years. It appears there is no justice. |
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God has a way of waiting until He sees you have attained the peak of your desires, whether they are good or evil, before He reveals His judgment. Sometimes God waits until after the individual is dead. Some men's sins are revealed beforehand. In other cases they follow after. |
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But be sure of one thing. There is no act of righteousness or wickedness that goes unnoticed by the Lord. He gives both the righteous and the wicked plenty of space until He is certain of their character and intentions. |
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When the wicked individual really turns from his wickedness and begins to practice righteousness, God forgets about his wickedness. He is judged as a righteous person. Rejoice with God over a son who has returned home. |
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When the righteous individual turns from his righteousness and begins to practice wickedness, God forgets about his righteousness. He is judged as a wicked person. |
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No one gets away with anything. If we will cease our judging and trying to avenge ourselves God will avenge us. As long as we are trying to exert our own justice God will not move. We have to let go of the situation. When we hang on to our bitter, vengeful attitude we keep ourselves and the object of our hatred in prison. |
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Turn your problem over to God and let Him vindicate you. He may not bring forth your righteousness today because He is allowing the other fellow time to repent. And this is what you want anyway! |
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The wicked make loud noises now but tomorrow they will be stilled. The most boastful, arrogant of men will crawl like a worm before the Lord Jesus once he sees the reality of the spirit realm. Physical trouble is trivial compared with that which faces the wicked in the next life. |
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There is no death there, no sleep, no unconsciousness, no way of escaping the grotesque creatures they have decided to join. There is no love, no joy, no child's laughter, no saintly mother to make intercession. They have chosen Hell and into Hell they shall go. |
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There is a God in Heaven. He is holy and righteous. His justice is perfect and it always is exercised, although it may be slow coming according to our standard of time. |
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It is not your responsibility to judge the wicked or to pay them back. Commit your way to the Lord. Trust in Him. Let your thoughts be full of peace and joy. Learn to live in the "now." |
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No power of man can change the future. God holds the world in His hands. The nations are viewed as a drop in the bucket. |
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The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein. God gives riches and power to whomever He chooses. Except the Lord build the city they labor in vain who attempt to construct it. Unless the Lord watches over a country the watchman might as well go back to sleep. |
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God watches over Israel, over His elect. He wants them to live in righteousness, peace, and joy. He desires that they sing and dance in the heights of Zion and walk on the high places of Jacob. |
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God intends that you find delight in Him. Maybe your world has just fallen apart. Maybe there is some wicked individual you can accurately blame for your personal disaster. |
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Just know this. If you will go to God until He removes the turmoil from you, you will find His love and peace in the very worst of situations. |
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But if you lift your hand to punish evildoers (apart from the Lord's specific and peaceful guidance) you will accomplish nothing except to destroy your own peace and joy. |
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Leave the wicked with God. He will take care of them in His time. |
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Trust in the LORD, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. (Psalms 37:3) |
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Trusting in the Lord is different from faith. When the Lord gives us faith we have the victory. When we do not have conquering faith we hang on by trust. |
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We trust in the Lord when everything is going the way we think it should and we trust in the Lord when we can't figure out what is happening. |
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We know God is good. We know He is seeking our good. We know He understands our problems and concerns. We are certain He knows very well every detail of every day. |
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Do you care much for yourself? Tell me, how many hairs are there on your head. What? You don't know? Well, God knows. So who cares the most for you? |
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God can be trusted to keep His Word. His promises are a mountain of basalt that cannot be budged. His Word is a lighthouse that guides the storm-tossed, fogbound vessel away from the rocks. |
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We live in a crazy world. The things we have trusted in for years are changing. There are people in power over us we do not trust at all. Our values are being trampled underfoot. |
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One thing does not change, the Bible. It has stood for thousands of years. After man gets through playing God the Bible will remain unchangeable. When personal computers, satellites, and cloning are archaic concepts the Bible will be new, fresh, radical. |
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You want to be part of something eternal? Get hooked up with God. Give your life real significance. |
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Try to do some good each day. Ask God to help you do good. Go into the office or shop and pick out something good to do to somebody. Be a peacemaker. The world is full of troublemakers. Make peace among people and you will be called a son of God. |
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Unless God directs you otherwise, stay where you are and make it work. People move from place to place hoping to find their Utopia. You'll never find it. Pastures only look greener from a distance because you are looking at the grass sideways. |
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You are in this world to learn certain lessons. When you move to another place the angels put your curriculum in their briefcases and move with you. Your lessons continue wherever you are. Only now you have to find a new barber, an auto mechanic you can trust, get a new telephone line and so forth. But the same old lessons continue as before. |
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Stay put! Did you ever eat fruit off a tumbleweed? |
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Trust God, keep on doing good, and dwell in the land. If you do this you will find that God will faithfully keep you. When you lay down at night the Lord will be your security. |
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Terrifying days are ahead. When we go to bed at night we will be filled with fear of what we are facing. Memorize the following verse. We will need it in days to come |
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In peace I will both lie down and sleep, for Thou alone, O Lord, dost make me to dwell in safety. (Psalms 4:8) |
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"You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety." |
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You may crawl into your warm bed at night; you may be in a narrow bunk on a ship; you may be sleeping under a tree in India; you may be on the floor in an overcrowded jail. It is all the same. Evil is always present but so is the Lord if you are trusting Him. |
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You can survive by depending on God's faithfulness. Only the Lord can keep you safe and He shall if you trust in Him, keep on doing good, and stay where God has put you. |
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Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. (Psalms 37:4) |
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Do you delight yourself in the Lord? Or is serving the Lord a pain in the neck? Remember, God opens His hand and satisfies the desires of all of His creatures. Eventually you will get what you truly want so be careful of the desires you have. |
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The Lord loves the person who rejoices and behaves righteously. "I delight to do thy will." Do you delight to do God's will or do you hate doing it? |
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The only truly free, fulfilled, and happy person in the universe is the one whose desires are one with God's desires. |
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When we start out in Christ we have to turn away from many things, situations, and relationships we fervently desire. This is not easy to do but absolutely necessary if we are to make any progress at all in the Christian life. |
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If we keep doing God's will a change takes place in our personality. We find our thirst for righteousness is increasing. Soon it becomes an all- consuming passion a craving to practice righteousness, to do God's will, to be entirely pleasing to the Lord. |
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Little by little God's desires become our desires. We learn by experience that when we go against what we perceive to be God's desire for us we end up wishing we didn't. God knows best and He has our good in mind. |
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If we are intelligent we finally get the point: "If you do what God wants you to do you become a happy camper." |
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And so you begin to pray: "God, put your desires in my heart. Make me want to do exactly what You want me to do nothing else!" |
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You know what? God hears that prayer. He works in you both to will and to do His good pleasure. Your will and God's will for you become identical. Isn't that neat? What release! What freedom! |
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The believer who chooses to maintain his or her own way before the Lord is in a miserable condition. He is bound by his fleshly, soulish desires and follows them. They lead, of course, to increased misery and more fleshly, soulish desires. He not only is laboring under condemnation but is making one unfortunate choice after another. This is the way many believers live maybe most believers! |
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It is so much easier and nicer to delight yourself in the Lord. |
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When you delight yourself in the Lord He gives you the desires of your heart. Many of these desires do not come right away, but they certainly shall come, make no mistake about this. |
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There are two ways to get your desires. One is to take a shortcut. This is what Satan tried to get Jesus to do. The other is to take God's way. |
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The interval of time between your desire and its fulfillment is where the saints are made. The Kingdom comes only through patience. The believer who finally succumbs to his fervent desires, figuring that God doesn't care, or has forgotten, may seize what he wants but it will be ashes in his mouth before long. |
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The believer who refuses to yield but puts his hopes beyond the grave, places his treasures in Heaven, will change from an animal to a king with God. |
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Picture a well-trained dog, starved for three days, confronted with a juicy bone. The trainer watches him drool. Will he advance without the signal? If he does, the training is not complete and the dog may eventually prove to be worthless for any use except as a pet. |
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Is this what you want to be someone's pet? |
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Delight yourself in the Lord and wait for Him. You won't be disappointed. When the desire comes it will be a tree of life and He will add no sorrow with it. |
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Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass. (Psalms 37:5) |
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To commit our way to the Lord is to give every issue to Him for His solution. |
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Things come up in our life that are hard to figure out. We are supposed to go somewhere or do something, and then we hit an obstacle. Now what are we to do? |
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We can keep on hammering away on the closed door. Sometimes we force it open and there in front of us is an empty room. Nothing we desire. God knew this was not what we wanted. |
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When the door you want doesn't open, look around you. There may be another door that is open just a crack. Perhaps this is God's will for you. |
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Brother Dowell used to say, "If you can't get God to go your way why don't you try going God's way?" |
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We see people who are determined to have things their own way. Sometimes you see a wife who has decided what her husband should do or what he should be like. People counsel her to leave him with God. But no, she can't let go. She nags, schemes, manipulates, does everything she can think of to conform her husband to the image she has in mind. But he remains immovable. |
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I mean this goes on for years and years! You would think she would get the point he is not going to change. |
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Much of life is like this. We determine what should be done and we are going to force the Lord and everyone else to do what we think best. |
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Maybe you are in this kind of position. You have been kicking at the door, pounding on it, beseeching God and all your friends, screaming, crying. Did it ever occur to you God might have a different idea? |
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Now the fat's in the fire. Do you want your way or God's way? |
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Friend, let me tell you something. God's way is the best. Unless you just enjoy remaining a spiritual dwarf whose destiny is eternal misery, let go and let God have His wonderful way. |
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You are in the rest of God when you are flowing with the Godhead, when God's thoughts, desires, words, and behaviors are your thoughts, desires, words, and behaviors. Does this sound like anything you want? |
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Then commit your way to the Lord. Pray the prayer of relinquishment, of committal. |
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Isaac means "laughter" they tell me. Do you know why Isaac was able to laugh? Because when someone wanted his well he gave it to them. He kept doing this until people quit bothering him. |
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Why don't you commit your way to the Lord? I'll tell you this: When two people get in an argument the more spiritual gives in. This doesn't mean that you do what is wrong to please someone, it merely means you do not clutch fiercely what you desire. |
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When there is an issue go to God. Remain peaceful and teachable. God will bring about the best possible situation. |
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And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday. (Psalms 37:6) |
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Have you ever been slandered? Have you ever been the subject of hatred, of bitterness, of criticism, of gossip? Has your good been attributed to evil motives? Have you had people wish you were dead so they could take your position? |
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We are called to know the power of Christ's resurrection and to share His sufferings. Slander and criticism are an important part of Christ's sufferings. You have to be a mature Christian before you can successfully handle this kind of test. |
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King David experienced hatred and envy from his son, Absalom; Moses and Aaron from Korah; Jesus from the chief priests and elders. |
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God knows we do enough things wrong that it is not surprising people regard us with raised eyebrows. In this case we are getting what we deserve and should pray and ask God to help us give a better testimony. |
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But when we are following the Lord closely and still are confronted with bitterness and accusations, that is a more difficult challenge. |
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Our adamic nature wants to fight back. We occupy our thoughts with the perversity and meanness of those who slander us. |
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When I was in public-school work as an administrator there was some opposition. When I would come home and start talking about this one and that one my wife would say, "Bob, they're getting to you." We knew the Lord well enough to know that God does not want us focusing on people who in our eyes are evil. |
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This was good preparation for the ministry. |
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Pastors and their wives are often accused unjustly. They are a target for Satan's venom Satan, the accuser of the brothers. |
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Immature congregations are an easy mark for the accuser. He soon finds a way to get them to take sides, to slander, to gossip. The Apostle Paul mentions this tendency and refers to it as immaturity and also as the works of the flesh. |
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Bitterness and division can be found in numerous Christian congregations. Yet we are called to love one another. It would be a lot easier without Satan trying to cause suspicion and hatred all the time. |
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What are you to do when the honeymoon is over and people discover that you didn't come down from Heaven? You do what the Bible says. You commit your way to the Lord. You let Him justify you. This is what Jesus did! |
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The more you try to justify yourself the more people will be sure that "where there's smoke there's fire." |
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And you must never let it "get to you" so that all you are thinking about is those who are criticizing you. |
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My wife and I really work at this. We covenant between us not to mention the names of our critics except in prayer. Otherwise Satan has a field day by keeping us in a stew of bitterness and hatred. |
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If we will look to the Lord He will fence our mind against the evil. He helps us get our thoughts up into the heavens with Him. Soon we find that the negative is gone out of our mind and we are rejoicing in the Lord. |
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God has not called us to fight people but to feed the Lord's sheep. We can feed the sheep only as we ourselves are spiritually and emotionally healthy. We can stay spiritually and emotionally healthy by committing all people and situations to the Lord. |
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Under no circumstances are we to seek to avenge ourselves or even to justify ourselves. |
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I like King David's attitude toward Shimei, the man who cursed David as he fled from Absalom. Abishai offered to cut off Shimei's head. But David said, "It may be that the Lord will look on my distress and will return good to me for his cursing this day." (Solomon took care of this dude later.) |
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David committed his way to the Lord instead of giving Abishai permission to kill Shimei on the spot. |
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Here is a lesson for all of us. When people curse us let us turn to the Lord instead of attempting to justify ourselves. This way we can keep a happy heart like Isaac. God will bring forth our righteousness as the light and our judgment as the noonday if we don't avenge or justify ourselves. |
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Let 'em have the well! I want the birds to keep singing in my heart. |
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How about you? |
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Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass. (Psalms 37:7) |
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To be able to rest in the Lord and to wait patiently for Him this is the mark of Christian maturity as I see it. |
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One cannot possibly enter the Kingdom of God apart from the exercise of considerable patience. We pray, do the will of God, and then wait! wait! wait! |
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Satan tempts us to jump off the gable of the Temple. Satan urges us to come down from the cross. "Come down you loser. Can't you see everyone is prospering except you?" |
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Lately there has been a rash of teaching that we can have what we want now if we will exercise "faith." This teaching is so opposed to the way of God that it is not worth further discussion. |
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We enter the Kingdom of God through much tribulation. Tribulation works patience. Patience works its perfect work in us. |
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God did not put us in this world to be happy but to learn the ways of God. This fact is not widely understood. People seek happiness when they should be seeking the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. One cannot pursue happiness in this world without losing his integrity, without betraying other people, without sinning against God. |
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God wants us to be happy and we shall know the fullness of joy at His right hand. But first we must come to know the Lord. If we would know the Lord we must submit to His rending and tearing of us and then the bandaging and healing. There is no other way to get acquainted with God. |
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When we decide to rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him we find ourselves surrounded with people who are prospering far more than we. Yet they sometimes are bending the rules. We place ourselves at a disadvantage by waiting for God. Others charge ahead "doing God's work." |
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We are not speaking of passivity. Waiting on the Lord is not a passive state in which we flop around waiting for "the Spirit to move us." The person that takes this approach will soon find himself in classic deception, unable to make a clear decision about anything. |
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Rather we are referring to praying and waiting until we are pretty sure we know what God wants. Even then we can be deceived and so we must move cautiously, watching carefully to see what kind of fruit our action is bearing. |
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Joshua's one mistake was not to seek the Lord in what seemed to him to be an obvious decision. There is no such thing as an obvious decision. The Christian who takes something for granted without asking the Lord will soon wish he hadn't. |
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And so here we are, waiting patiently on the Lord while others rush about working the moves, applying the principles of "church growth." |
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Our church is small enough that I know everyone by name, even the little children. This is the best part of being a pastor. How could you do this if you had two thousand people? I expect the Lord would make it work somehow. |
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The Lord said He would build His own Church. Either He will or He won't. |
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I'm betting He will. Others can play church politics if they want to. They can slander, cause division, seek their own glory. They certainly prosper while doing this. |
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But I like a church regardless of its size where there is simple down-home integrity and love. Others can make a big splash but I have decided to rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him. |
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I wonder what He will do! |
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