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James 4:4- “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.”

1 John 2:15, 5:19- “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” “And we know that we are of God and the whole world lieth in wickedness.

Titus 2:11-12- “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men. Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world:”



Have you noticed that the world is directly influencing you and who you are?

The world is trying to shape you into who it wants you to be. This influence comes unnoticed often times because we don’t realize what we’re getting into when we get into it. Soon you start becoming what the world wants you to be instead of what God wants you to be. According to James 4:4, when you become a friend of the world, you become an enemy of God. Befriend God, not... [More]

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Isaiah 22:9-11 - “Ye have seen also the breaches of the city of David, that they are many: and ye gathered together the waters of the lower pool. And ye have numbered the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses have ye broken down the fortify the wall. Ye made also a ditch between the two walls for the water of the old pool: but ye have not looked unto the Maker thereof, neither had respect unto Him that fashioned it long ago.”

The children of Israel had danger coming on the horizon. Isaiah was having several visions about how God was going to judge all the surrounding nations that had not been so nice to Judah and Israel, but then he saw that things were not going to be so great for Judah, either.

Soon, the people would sense a battle was nearing, and they would look to make sure they were as secure as possible. They would be busy making sure the walls of the city were strong and even digging a trench to make it that much harder to get to the city.

But none of this would do any good, as scholars believe Isaiah was seeing the... [More]

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Posted at: 01:49 PM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink

Psalm 81

Sometimes we have a way that we expect God to work in our lives. Most times, He doesn’t work in this way. When we trust in Him, He also comes in and takes care of us, it’s just not always the way we thought He would.

I was reminded of this truth when reading Psalm 81. Verse 6 is the LORD speaking the words, “I removed his shoulder from the burden: his hands were delivered from the pots.” This is referring to the children of Israel being delivered from their lives of slavery in Egypt. It just seemed interesting to me that God removed the shoulder from the burden. Normally, when we think of a separation between burden and shoulder, we think of it the other way around, where the burden is lifted from a person’s shoulders. Here in this verse, the shoulder is removed from the burden. I don’t even know if there is a significant difference between these two or not, but it does remind us of a very important truth: God doesn’t always remove the burden. Sometimes God just removes our shoulders from the burden.

In Matthew 11, Jesus faces incredible rejection after doing incredible... [More]

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Psalm 78:9-42

God was great to Israel. They were His chosen people. They were brought out of captivity, led miraculously by clouds and pillars of fire as they journeyed through the desert, ate bread that fell from Heaven, and drank water that mysteriously poured out of rocks. God protected them, sheltered them, and forgave them. Psalm 78 runs down the list of all the incredible things God did for His people. But, there is one common theme of response from the people – they didn’t seem to care. They continued to complain against God and live in their sins as if the Holy One of Israel were not protecting their every step. It’s really incredible to think that these people who had crossed the Red Sea on dry ground and watched their enemies drown behind them could falter in their faith in God. Think of what your faith might be like if you had witnessed those kinds of miraculous events.

Now it’s time for the reality check. You, if you are saved, were once on your way to Hell, because that’s what you deserved. Your sin, as insignificant as you may think it, was pushing you toward your everlasting separation... [More]

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Posted at: 05:28 PM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink

How many times have you felt disappointed in God? Maybe you were praying for healing and had faith in God, but God didn’t answer that prayer. Do you sometimes blame God for the bad circumstances that come up in life? Do you ever wish God would just miraculously intervene in the problems you have? Do you ever wish God would just show Himself to you, and not be so hidden and silent? Sometimes I question God and wonder why He is silent and hidden, and why He allows certain things to happen.

But as I read the Bible, I find God is not silent, hidden, or unfair. God is not silent, He speaks through His Word. Have you ever heard preaching of the Word and felt the Holy Spirit convicting you? Then, God is speaking. Maybe you needed some comfort, so you searched the scriptures and found out the glorious truth that God is the “God of all comfort”(2 Cor. 1:3-4). Then God is speaking. Every time a preacher preaches God’s Word , then God is speaking. God is not silent. Every time you read the Bible you hear the very words of God Himself. Is God hidden? Sometimes I... [More]

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Posted at: 03:05 AM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink

Psalm 57

Several of the Psalms have a theme of being attacked by the all the other people around with God as the only protection. Psalm 57 has this same theme. Verse 6 is especially useful for us today, and I believe it really describes the situation that’s taking place. Verse 6 says, “They have prepared a net for my steps; my soul is bowed down: they have digged a pit before me, into the midst whereof they are fallen themselves.”

Our culture is continually digging new pits to try and trap us who are doing our best to live for God. Why are they doing this? Part of the reason is that people are disturbed that we as Christians can have peace and joy that they can not seem to find. They have fallen into a pit of lust, selfishness, greed, envy, etc. and find that all of those things bring a very short season of pleasure, but never the fulfillment they are actually seeking. So, instead of looking to Jesus and His people to find the true peace, joy, and fulfillment which they are seeking, they would rather remain in their sins and make their lifestyles look like... [More]

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Posted at: 01:40 PM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink

Isn’t it amazing that even we as Christians would rank killing as one of the things we do quite often, and some of us even enjoy it. Obviously I’m not talking about the literal ending of lives, but I’m instead referring to the concept of killing time.

We have all killed time. We have done it at school and work. We’ve done it at a doctor’s office or the DMV. We’ve even done it at home, when we can’t think of much to do or don’t have anything planned. But what’s really the big deal about this? After all, we do need time to ourselves, don’t we? We are supposed to enjoy this life, right?

Both of these last statements are true; we do have to take time for ourselves and we should enjoy life. However, we must watch what we do while we do those things. It’s clear that we shouldn’t do anything that is sinful to please ourselves and enjoy life. But what if we thought more about how much our time matters? Ephesians 5:15, 16 say, “See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” The... [More]

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Posted at: 03:35 PM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink

Why did God create us? I mean God obviously does not need us, so what does He want from us? I think that God wants to get glory and praise, for after all, He totally deserves more than we can give. I also think He wants to have a relationship with someone - someone to shower with His unfailing love. This could be proven by looking at the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who died for us, not because of who we are or what we have done, but because of God’s own characteristics of love and mercy. The Story of the Bible started out with what God wanted, which was an unbroken relationship with someone. The only problem is, God isn’t going to force us to love Him, and therefore, He gave us the free will to choose Him, knowing we would all disappoint Him. Then, sin came in and put a barrier between us and God, thus resulting in God’s pursuit of restoring our relationship to what it was before. Now imagine for a moment you are a Jewish person in 1490 B.C. Your relationship with God is dull at best, considering you have so many rules... [More]

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Posted at: 03:05 AM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink

Have you ever eaten cereal with water? I tried that once, and let me emphasize the word “once.” It was about as disgusting as it sounds. I thought about this time about a week ago when I was about to fix myself a bowl of cereal and discovered we had no more milk. I had really been looking forward to this bowl of cereal, so I was kind of upset to find no milk. Since cereal was not an option, I had to go back to the ole faithful peanut butter and jelly. You can imagine what I started craving about midway through the sandwich. I had water to drink, but water is just not milk.

In I Peter 2:2, he tells the readers to “desire the sincere milk of the Word, that ye may grow thereby.” In the Bible, Paul uses the illustration involving the difference between milk and meat as relates to spiritual matters. Milk is what babies need to help them begin to grow into healthy children. Meat then steps in after they are older to really provide that serious sustenance. However, just because a child grows up doesn’t mean that it’s time to get rid of... [More]

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Posted at: 03:00 PM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink

Hebrews 12: 1,2

Why did Jesus go to the cross? Jesus was God’s Son. He was God in human flesh. He was deserving of all honor and praise. He deserved to be sitting on the right hand of God’s throne. Yet, He chose to endure the most horrible form of capital punishment recorded in history. He was innocent, incapable of wrong. He asked His Father just hours before His death to let the event pass away. He did not want to go through with it. Yet, He went through it all, every bit of the physical, emotional, and spiritual shame that would come with crucifixion. Why did He do it, especially when part of Him really didn’t want to?

Hebrews 12:2 tells us that He endured the cross for the joy that was set before Him. Of course, in these verses Paul is using the illustration of a foot race to show the determination with which we should be living our Christian lives. In a race, there is a clear prize each participant is competing to receive. There’s often a trophy or a cash prize awaiting the winner. Sometimes people press on through the race for the pride of knowing... [More]

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