THE INNER ROOM - "Learn and Grow - to Maturity". Please read the 1st Post.
- Thread starter Bondman
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Ah, yes, that's our Fluffy! Definitely one of a kind - and for whom I truly thank my God!!!
M
Mark_18
Guest
Uhhggg. I understand all of what I've learned here, but why don't I feel it? Why don't I feel safe and satisfied following Him and resisting worldly ways?
hey mark_18
i dont feel anything good either.. and i am guessing others will reply u saying feelings and faith are different.. but only God knows what u re going thru.. or maybe u can give more details of what u're experiencing.
i dont feel anything good either.. and i am guessing others will reply u saying feelings and faith are different.. but only God knows what u re going thru.. or maybe u can give more details of what u're experiencing.
"Dare to Care to Share"
HAPPY SONDAY!
EVERYONE
HAPPY SONDAY!
EVERYONE
Good Morning Mark, think about this...
How do you make Kool-Aid?
1st you will need a large container
2nd you will need some water
3rd you will need some sugar
last but not least you will need the Kool-Aid
Pour the water into the container, add sugar and mix well! When mixed, then stir in the Kool-Aid. What do you have?
God is the water (living water), the sugar is our heart, and WE are the Kool-Aid.
How do you make Kool-Aid?
1st you will need a large container
2nd you will need some water
3rd you will need some sugar
last but not least you will need the Kool-Aid
Pour the water into the container, add sugar and mix well! When mixed, then stir in the Kool-Aid. What do you have?
God is the water (living water), the sugar is our heart, and WE are the Kool-Aid.
Bondman,
how have you been?
Many blessings to you~
Violet
Violet, I just dunno how I managed to miss your lovely post. Thankyou! *he says in a soft voice*
At times like these I usually say, "Struggling manfully onward!!" But probly not true actually, as computers have just about killed us both, i.e., now going into stress breakdown, which is quite serious for people as ill as we are. So... we're needing to reevaluate what we're doing and how to try and relieve some of the dreadful pressure we're under - basically it's MONEY PRESSURE (read: LACK of money pressure). If we we're so poor we'd have solved all of this over 3 months ago!! *sigh*
Anyway, prayer will be appreciated by anyone who cares to uphold us both before the Lord.
THANKS!
- BM and his Lady
PRACTICAL NEW TESTAMENT CHRISTIANITY
MESSAGE #21
HEAD AND HEART
Hi there bg, and hi to you Mark! Please don't despair, man! Hey, will you guys please FORGIVE me for including your quotes in this message. Cos it's SO important!!
This is a very common problem that maybe most of us have experienced, and many still experience.
What it basically boils down to is that we get the truths into our HEAD, but then have trouble getting them to our HEART. Someone has said that the longest distance for the Christian is the 1ft foot between the head and the heart! I had maybe 5 or 6 years struggling with this when first saved. It was NOT nice! My problem was compounded by the fact that I'm a very cerebral person; I think things out; I have to understand. All GOOD of course - but unfortunately not all that helpful to getting from head to heart.
In a sense I spose I had to get to what I'll term 'the end of myself' in order to give up on MY abilities - so that some FAITH could be released into me. Okay, I already trusted God in my head, but just like you say, it didn't seem to translate into knowing that I belonged to God in a personal way, or to helping me living out the Christian life. I encourage you to NEVER give up! To persist. To choose to keep at this till you become the Christian you know you should be and can be - and you will get there!!
Why did I say 'will' with such certainty? Cos referring to a people who have not followed after Him, God then says with wonderful positivity I think:
Deuteronomy Ch 4:19
But if from there you SEEK the Lord your God, you WILL find Him, IF you seek Him with ALL your heart (and mind) and soul and life.
Very important words these (Jesus spoke similar ones in the Gospels): if, that's IF, you seek me with all of you, then comes His PROMISE! - YOU WILL FIND ME!!! I did this in my early twenties and DID find Him, receiving assurance of Salvation by the Holy Spirit and moving on into a wonderful walk with Him leading to this very day. Do I have head-heart problems now? No, I don't. Not for a very long time! So I tell ya that early seeking was well worth it!!
And I think that's what a lot of this is about. God wants SERIOUS people to live and be with Him for all eternity - serious about HIM I mean! So He doesn't make any of this easy:
• it's not easy to get saved (despite what many say)
• it's not necessarily easy to get assurance of salvation
• it's not necessarily easy to get things you've learnt into your heart, and
• it's not easy to actually LIVE the Christian life!
Cos He never intended it to be easy!! Those who teach this are way off what the NT clearly says. So if you're looking for that, then you're going to be disappointed. But IF you truly SEEK for God - and keep on seeking (in the NT, the Greek word for 'seek' that Jesus said is present continuous tense!! - and that's the CORE of all of this) then God's PROMISE will be fulfilled in you! And you'll know with glorious certainty that you are HIS, and much more...
I hope that may have helped a little. Please ask more if you need to.
Much love!
- BM with his Beloved
QUESTIONS WELCOME!
PRACTICAL NEW TESTAMENT CHRISTIANITY
MESSAGE #22
THE QUESTION OF LUST
PART 1 (Part 2 is HERE)
Okay, FIRST. This is different for a mature Christian man who has some Spiritual strength from the Lord, than for a younger Christian who likely hasn't developed a lot of strength as yet.
SECOND. The lust Scripture is:
Matthew Ch 5:28
But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
"If we look at a woman and LUST after her!" Hmm... not easy for us guys, hey! Women have their things really tough; this is the tough one for the Christian male.
THIRD. As for a whole great LOT of Scriptural principles and how we must live them out, this is very much tied up with OUR ATTITUDE! Consider: we can look at a great painting and admire it and say that we absolutely love it. BUT... we probably won't want to steal it, hey! Tho an art thief might.
There's the difference in attitude. I looked, saw beauty; HE looked, and wanted it! So these days, with God's help, I can look at beauty in women without lusting. As an early Christian, let's not beat about the bush on this, I sinned. As most Christian men do (so you're not alone, trust me).
FOURTH. But let's take this a little further. Our lustful eyes, then thoughts, are likely to be centered on things sexual, right. So there's where we must take great care. I can actually look without sinning - but mostly I DON'T do this, cos I'm NOT gonna put myself into needless temptation, AND I'd much sooner "do without" than sin against my Lord, who died for me at great cost so all my sin could be FORGIVEN! Including LUST sin!
FIFTH. Notice very carefully what the LUST OF THE EYES does: COMMITS ADULTERY! Jesus is not messing round here! You lust - you just committed adultery with her!! This is forgivable by Him, but the true Christian DOES NOT WISH TO BE AN ADULTERER!!!
SIXTH. Having done my best to define and explain what lust is: starts out with a wrong ATTITUDE, continues with the eye, and ends up with wrong THOUGHTS, maybe that will have helped you see the way to loving, rather than lusting. If there's lust, then that's bad. We gotta be PURE if we're Christian. And we'd want her to be PURE too, right? So exit LUST! Then you are free to first appreciate her, then enjoy her for who she is, and maybe even get a FRIENDSHIP going (desperately need FRIENDSHIP first - before romantic love comes in and quite blinds your eyes for approx. the next 2 years, by which time you may well discover that you made a bad mistake, too late!!!)
FINALLY. You CANNOT succeed in not lusting WITHOUT God!!! Can't do anything worthwhile without Him - but this one is deadly certain. Try not lusting; try harder; screw yourself up to busting point - you'll fail!! You can only do this with HIS help, via HIS strength in you, via His Holy Spirit: 1. First tell Him you want to stop sinning. 2. Tell Him again, over and over. 3. Ask Him for His help, and keep asking. 4. You'll get this when you want to NOT lust, more than you WANT to lust: at that point His power comes in and helps you to achieve what alone you'll fail at every time.
SUMMARY: 1. Wrong ATTITUDE 2. LOOK at what you shouldn't, WITH the wrong attitude 3. Then come the LUSTFUL THOUGHTS - and you're an adulterer! I'm sure you can see the things to avoid, and with HIS HELP, succeed at! And I can tell you that being an OVERCOMER, and KNOWING that you are, is way beyond wonderful!!!
Bless you as you consider this - and work on it, with the Lord!
- BM and his Lady
QUESTIONS WELCOME!
Good summation, James! Lot fewer words than I took too! *broad grin*
Just gotta do this in/via His strength, not our own, or we fail.
Blessings!
M
Mark_18
Guest
Forgive you? I thank you.
And your reply to James really helped me too. I pray James and I can see everything as his creation and truly desire to see it only that way and treat it accordingly.
So when I'm with friends and they point out a girl, I'm not to smile/ nod/ acknowledge it? Or as long as I'm truly not thinking the same thing he is?
PRACTICAL NEW TESTAMENT CHRISTIANITY
MESSAGE #23
THE QUESTION OF LUST
PART 2 (Part 1 is HERE)
Forgive you? I thank you.
And your reply to James really helped me too. I pray James and I can see everything as his creation and truly desire to see it only that way and treat it accordingly.
So when I'm with friends and they point out a girl, I'm not to smile/ nod/ acknowledge it? Or as long as I'm truly not thinking the same thing he is?
Hmm... it's just the odd year since I was in a situation like that! I don't see any great problem in someone pointing out a dishy chick to you. Like James said: admire the creation, not the flesh. My Lady will even point out to me someone on TV! If it comes to leering at her, as a group of guys can well do, that's not good, but I don't seem much harm in acknowledging, smiling, and agreeing. Provided the latter is done PURELY.
Cos it really is our ATTITUDE in all of this! If that's right, then how we act etc. will follow accordingly. A pretty girl, a pretty lady, wow, that's great. God has done it again, and I rejoice. SAME as when I see a beautiful scene in nature, or on TV some brilliant animal or magnificent bird, we sit there in amazement and say, "Wow Lord, you sure know how to make things beautiful." And He does!
If the word 'attitude' doesn't gel for you, then we could also use something like 'focus'. My life-focus is to honour the Lord in all that I say, all that I do, all that I see, all that I feel, all that I think. That focus helps me with PURITY. Helps keeps my mouth clean, my mind clean, my thoughts on track. And to live this life-focus I keep STRONG in me the fact that life here is but a couple of seconds! Truly!! It starts, it finishes. In no time at all. Then comes E-T-E-R-N-I-T-Y-Y-Y-Y-Y-Y-Y, which we describe as 'forever'. And which is either with God ('oh, yes please!') - or without God (no way! no, no, NO!!!) Hector, people, God is PURE!! I need - and earnestly want - to be that way, so I can live with Him.
Things down here seem SO important. Mostly they're not. They just tangle up our life and we don't get to move forward. The FUTURE - in eternity - THAT'S what's important!
Praying for HIS power to be working powerfully *smile* in us all!
- BM
QUESTIONS WELCOME!
Wisdom
Wow, Bondman, you are sure a blessing! Just purrrrusing the posts tonight cause I can't get any shut-eye. That last reply of yours was so good. I had to print it out to show my husband. He went through so much sexual abuse as a small child, reading bad magazines his dad had lying around, etc. that he decided our son would not have to go through what he had to. So, he always made Jeff cover his eyes when something bad came on TV. To this day, Jeff won't look at women who are scantily clad. Even though Norm and I didn't have morals back then, he didn't want his son to have to struggle with porn or things like he did. He didn't even know how good it was what he was teaching. To this day, even before he accepted Christ, Jeff is a very pure and obedient son and has never taken a drink or been sexually involved. He is a good boy. I thank God for that. He is just as thirsty for the word as I am.
Thanx for giving the advise you gave to these two young men. Most of young men simply and sadly have never been taught this. You are a blessing.
Wow, Bondman, you are sure a blessing! Just purrrrusing the posts tonight cause I can't get any shut-eye. That last reply of yours was so good. I had to print it out to show my husband. He went through so much sexual abuse as a small child, reading bad magazines his dad had lying around, etc. that he decided our son would not have to go through what he had to. So, he always made Jeff cover his eyes when something bad came on TV. To this day, Jeff won't look at women who are scantily clad. Even though Norm and I didn't have morals back then, he didn't want his son to have to struggle with porn or things like he did. He didn't even know how good it was what he was teaching. To this day, even before he accepted Christ, Jeff is a very pure and obedient son and has never taken a drink or been sexually involved. He is a good boy. I thank God for that. He is just as thirsty for the word as I am.
Thanx for giving the advise you gave to these two young men. Most of young men simply and sadly have never been taught this. You are a blessing.
Wow, back atcha, hon! Thanks for your post! It always blows my brain when God does something like this. And Norm sure DID give such excellent teaching and help. As for Jeff and his life - that is just SO wonderful to hear about! Hey, is that a blessing, or is that a blessing!!
Y'know, the number of times I know of son following father and of a daughter following her mother is so, so shocking! I'm not without experience of this in my own lifetime. To me, there's HOPE when we get the message out there that bad stuff of any kind in the sexual area is simply NOT ON! - otherwise nothing but heartache and sadness, or worse, will follow.
I stressed in what I've written that only the Lord can enable us to be PURE in mind, heart, thought. Maybe I didn't stress enough the unbelievable DAMAGE that can ensue in lives - often MANY lives - if we FAIL to get these important areas of our lives right!!! In other words, to make no bones about the fact that this is SERIOUS STUFF. VERY serious stuff!
So I say that the message here is totally and completely clear: guys, GET IT RIGHT! - and DON'T mess up!!!
- BM
Hey, Bondman! Ecellent posts, as usual! But I would like to add something from a woman's point of view. Women can have the same problem with lust.
Especially in this day and age!
Its all like you say, Bondman, its the attitude and the desire to be focused on God and be pure for Him.
Being persistent is seeking His heart and mind, and learning about His ways and His love for us, can lead one to really knowing, REALLY KNOWING how God loves us.
Being persistent is seeking His heart and mind, and learning about His ways and His love for us, can lead one to really knowing, REALLY KNOWING how God loves us.
Hey, Bondman! Ecellent posts, as usual! But I would like to add something from a woman's point of view. Women can have the same problem with lust.Especially in this day and age!Its all like you say, Bondman, its the attitude and the desire to be focused on God and be pure for Him.
Being persistent is seeking His heart and mind, and learning about His ways and His love for us, can lead one to really knowing, REALLY KNOWING how God loves us.
Wow Fluffy, good one - I'm sooo glad you jumped in to give the warning and advice to the fairer sex on this serious matter! I did know women have it today (never did in my day...)
Considering the responses to it, I decided I should upgrade what I wrote to James to 'Message' status, entitled, "THE QUESTION OF LUST". (And to keep them together I may still make it Part 1 and the shorter one below as Part 2).
"Bless you Lord Jesus, for giving excellent queries to two young men who belong to you, so we got this important matter into The Inner Room here! You really, really, really, really are the BESTEST!!!"
- BM and his Lady
PBFWM are "Habits That Help Us Grow Closer to Christ"
Prayer
Bible study
Fellowship
Worship
Ministry
Bible study
Fellowship
Worship
Ministry
For me, Prayer is the most powerful, and I feel that we all should...spend, atleast
15 minutes a day Listening to God
15 minutes a day Talking to God ourselves
15 minutes a day Talking to God about others
15 minutes a day Studying His Word
We should Fellowship with other Christians as often as possible
We should Worship God with every breath we take, &
We must Minister and share our love for God, to every one we come in contact with.
Growth in Christ is infinite!
15 minutes a day Talking to God ourselves
15 minutes a day Talking to God about others
15 minutes a day Studying His Word
We should Fellowship with other Christians as often as possible
We should Worship God with every breath we take, &
We must Minister and share our love for God, to every one we come in contact with.
Growth in Christ is infinite!
- Status