DEALING WITH OVERSPENDING

I was looking at Oprah yesterday and they had this wonderful series going on called Debt Diet. They dealt with the "root" problem for the reason people live outside of there means and why they feel the need to put on this facade for the world. The problem is when you start putting on a facade for so long that you will eventually start believing it. That’s my own analogy. I believe that at first it will become uncomfortable because you know it’s wrong but than, since you haven’t received any “real” bad consequences from it, you continue to do it. When people see you doing well it makes you feel good. We dictate our value based on how the world feels people with value should look and live. This is what God wanted us to be freed from. We are not of this world we should not think like it. We are confused and we do a bad job of it because it is not in our new nature to live like the world live and feel comfortable in it. It will eventually eat you up. You have to do some bad things to keep up with the act and although you may have fooled yourself for a little while, you will find that you can’t go through to the end with the facade.

So, when we find ourselves in situations that are uncomfortable to us, we hide our feeling. We don’t want to face the problem head on. The thing that really captured my attention on Oprah is that the lady (specialist) kept saying that the money problem is a disease. I don’t like that we call everything a disease because it makes a person feel they are not responsible for it. When I think of disease, I think of something that has struck your body mostly due to heredity but she explained that a disease is a dis ease that keeps you from functioning properly. People use food, sex, drugs and yes money to distance them from the real pain they are suffering from and by doing these things, they don’t have to think about it. They want to feel good.

The problem is…if you don’t face your problems head on, you forget what it is that has caused you so much pain. So you go on with life but you still use the same methods to avoid all pain. You never got to the root of the cause until you start to hurt your family and friends and people all around you. You don’t even know you are hurting them by doing this because you have done it for so long.

How to overcome this is to first, accept who you are. For instance,  if you are a sensitive person who usually cries, well, start doing that again. If there is a problem, then face it, don’t revert back to the old ways of avoiding it. The problem never, ever goes away. Remember that you are a child of God and he gave us the rule book and instruction manual on how to live here on earth. Notice he gave no specifications on how to live in heaven because we would not even be able to comprehend that life. We are not in heaven we are on earth but we know our permanent home is in heaven. We have something to look forward to. Remember also that our main focus is that in all things that we do, we must glorify God!!!

Written 06/17/10

HOLINESS

WHAT IS HOLINESS?

True happiness begins with holiness. Holiness isn't something that is required to only certain Christians; it's a requirement for all Christians. If we want to live our lives as holy people and present our bodies to Christ as a living sacrifice, then we must know what holiness is and what God requires. In Leviticus it teaches us how to appreciate holiness and how to fit it into our lives. Sometimes we find ourselves wanting Jesus to solve all our problems and carry our burdens, but we don’t want Him to fix it by literally taking control our lives because there are certain things that we don't want to give up that we must remove from our life. 1st Peter 1:15,16 God who has CALLED us is holy so we should be in ALL manner of conversation because it is written.

Holiness means: set apart and marked off, that which is different; separateness; apartness; sacredness. To be whole, to be healthy, sanctify, consecrated, sacred, blameless. This is who Christ is coming for when he return!

In the Old Testament, anything that God said is holy had to be treated differently from the common things in life. The Sabbath was holy because God set it apart, from all the other days, for His people. The priests were holy and were set apart to minister to the Lord. The garments that the priest had to wear were holy and could not be duplicated for common use. The tithes were holy and set apart from the other monies or food or whatever they used for tithes. (Today, if we tithe even our time that should be set apart from the common). Marriage is holy and set apart from any other relation. My relationship with my mother is not holy but if I were married, my relationship with my husband would be holy, set apart from every other relationship on earth, and must be treated as such. In Ezra when the Jews married outside, because they were a holy people that are set apart, they had to repent and divorce their wives. I'm not condoning divorce but I am making a point about the seriousness of a marriage being holy. The Bible is set apart from all books and cannot be replaced with any other book. You can read other books but it can't take the place of God's own holy word. And of course the law is holy.

God revealed Himself to us as a Holy God separated from any other false god. His name is so holy that the Jews felt it to be unworthy to write his name down in case we use His name in vain by mistake, so we have YHWH. That shows you how trained they were regarding holiness. Obviously God approved this way or else He would have told them to write his full name down. God is so holy that if we were to come close to holy (naturally without the Holy Spirit) it would lead us to eternal fire! It can only be the holy blood from a holy sacrifice that can set us free from the punishment of sin. There is nothing natural we can do that will make us holy. It is the Holy Christ in us, the dwelling of the Holy Spirit that gives us the Spirit of Christ. And we are known by our fruits. 

 What are the fruits of the Spirit? Gal 5:22 Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is not law. Why, because when we have Christ, the law is written in us so we are not subjects of the law, we are the living example. All these are equal to Love. If you say you love Christ but hate another Christian you are a liar and the truth is not in you! If you say you have a personal relationship with Christ and live in sin, you are a liar and the truth is not in you. Does that mean you never sin? Well you’re not supposed to but no, it doesn't mean that. Before we were saved we daily use to practice sin. We crucify the flesh daily. We should never get comfortable in our Christian walk but daily work on being holy. We as Christians are set apart from the rest of the world.

God hate sin but thank God he loves sinners, for that's how we Christians became saved because he loved us while we were sinners. Don't ever let the devil convince you otherwise. But don't be fooled either, hell has been expanded for the unrepented, unsaved sinners. Ok I lost track I am compelled to write my thoughts but back to holiness.

We have to remember that God has not changed. His laws are perfect and they were placed to set us apart from everyone else. We are not under the law because if we were than Christ death wouldn't be enough to save us because once we repent and confess, that same hour we would have messed everything up. We are guilty of sin known and unknown to us. Just like the laws in the USA. If we break a law we can't say, officer I didn't know that was against the law? Ignorance of the law doesn't set you free. So even though we are not under the law, because we have a better covenant, we have the Holy Spirit that has placed the law in our hearts and is daily teaching us how to obey Him correctly.

Lastly regarding Holiness

There was a wedding and there was mentioned one who did not have on the wedding garment (Jesus Christ) the Lord asked? Where is your garment? Notice that person said nothing. What could they say? Also notice that he was invited. We are all invited to the wedding but only those who wear the garment of holiness will be joined with Christ at the end. Christ died for him and he didn’t want to receive the garment? Well, God told him basically to go to hell. There is no other way to the father but through the Son.

Romas 12:1 And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. NLT 

Written June 03, 2009

ADDING MORE OF GOD

Adding more of God to my daily activities helps me with stress, hurt and sanity. I don’t understand how it works and I can’t explain when it works but I can tell you from experience that it does work. I have hope when everything seems to be going against me. I have boldness to say no to sin. There is a radiant inside of me that won’t allow me to continue to mess up, especially when that sin is a practice conscious sin.  It’s not that I never lose my top or I never sin, but I sin less. I am more conscious of it. It’s funny, when I am weak and want to sin I make sure that I don’t read his word as much because I know his word will convict me and I will have to stop. But, even with that, I still find myself going back to the word and then I am convicted and I stop. I am amazed at how something that is invisible is so real. I can’t tell you what it looks like. I can’t show you proof of this. I can only show by my own actions and even then people may question my loyalty, as far as the reason I changed, it doesn’t bother me. It doesn’t bother me that people don’t understand or don’t believe. I am confident enough where I don’t need people’s approval or understanding to confirm what I know.

I look at atheist and I feel so sorry for them because they can’t experience what I experience and know. I even feel sorry for those who are saved but are not willing to add more of God so that they can make more wise decisions. God does not lead us astray. If you are in his will you can never, ever go wrong. When the Israelites complained, it took them 40 years to go somewhere where it would have taken them 3 days had they not complained but God never left them. They were still protected. There were times when they were punished and some died as a result of their disobedience but like David, I would rather suffer the hands of God who always show his mercy than to be in the hands of the enemy. Only someone who loves God and is confident can say that. An atheist has double the problem because once the enemy is through with them; God will end it by punishing both. God, in the end, will show no mercy to those who do not belong to him. His wrath that he has been so patiently waiting to pour out will be the worst event any human being has ever seen.

It’s amazing to me when I hear people who don’t know God who always want to shout out that God is a loving God and he would never do this or that. They obviously have never read the Old Testament or Revelations. God is love and because he is love he will redeem the saved and punish the unsaved. That is love. His people will live forever and the enemy will suffer forever, that is love. Jesus has not come yet for the second death, which means there is still time for repentance, which is love.

Written 10/02/08 Angela R. Ingram

Happy New Year