Our Daily Time With The Lord

Well, I suppose that's one way of looking at it lol. I think it would be best though if you remind yourself that God made you the way you are and He called it "good".  He also made you the way you are now because it's the best way for you to be at this time.  If it wasn't, you would look differently.  He wants you to trust Him even with your looks, and He wants you to realize how superficial looks are and begin to see things, including your own looks with spiritual eyes instead of with worldly eyes. “So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.” (2 Corinthians 5:16) He wants you to look in that mirror and see the spiritual growth in yourself, the characteristics mentioned in Gal 5:22-23 and other places.  He wants you to look in the mirror and remember that you were made in His image and find your worth and identity in Him, not in this earthly body, for it's nothing.  Our new bodies will be glorious and will show off the glory we will share with Christ and will show off all the spiritual characteristics we've been practicing here in this life.  So look in the mirror and smile and see kindness, etc. Don't pick out all the things you think are wrong, because they are simply symptoms of sin in this world which causes decay and death. But thanks be to God, although we do experience decay, we will never experience death, because we will live forever.  We will simply exchange this worn out body for a new beautiful one and that will happen in less than an instant.  “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” (Psalm 73:26) He's saying though bodily and mental powers fail,  “God is the strength of my heart,” that is, his sure refuge in every danger and from every lying thought. And God will be his forever.There will be no "end", but only ever lasting love and joy with the Lord.

That's good, now let's hear how you did that!




you're very welcome!

What about how you've applied one of your recent applications?  I want to see something about how you have applied one of your recent applications in each post, ok?


Verse 13 is also very important: “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.” (Acts 4:13)  Even their enemies could tell that something supernatural caused the way the disciples spoke and acted. They'd seen and heard these men for the last 3 years, and there was something different about them now...there was a power about them that wasn't there as noticeably before.  When we study His Word with Him daily, we too "are with Jesus" and our words and our lives should show that we've been with Him! 

Good application, but again, I want to see something about how you have applied one of your recent applications in each post, ok?   So you might want to keep a note nearby listing your applications for the last few days or something like that.

Hey guys! I wish you had wonderful and above all blessed Christmas :)
I want to discuss someting with you. I went to visit a cave with stalactites yesterday in a village not really far from here. It was really impressive. But... The person that did the tour was keep on saying that it took billions of years for the stalactites to be formed etc, and that it needs hunderds of years for a stalactite in the size of a die to get formed. I dont believe the earth is here for billions of years, but how to answer in this "proofs"?

Barbara, I posted this for you today: fresh-hope.com/thread/3124/author-salvation


Yes, the scary part is that when we sin against another person, especially someone who's saved, we are also sinning against Christ, which makes it very important for us to curb our mouths. “When you sin against your brothers in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.” (1 Corinthians 8:12)  I have the same problem and seem to be constantly working on that lately since I'm trying to obey the Lord and develop a "gentle" spirit. It came up once again yesterday evening, but of course I didn't realize it again until after the words were out of my mouth.  I can't wait until I start to "get it" before I say anything!  Prayer is out very best weapon though. Well, prayer and scripture.  We have to take our thoughts captive, even if it's after the fact when we've already said something. I guess in a way, starting that way - by not realizing the sin until after we've said something - helps because then we can take the time to find scripture to replace what we said/felt with.  Then eventually we'll be able to think first and speak second.  Last night I decided that it may be best for me to simply say nothing and just smile until I'm able to come up with positive and loving things to say in those kind of situations.  I don't mean that I'm just going to be quiet till I somehow miraculously come up with good things to say, because it just doesn't happen that way.  I'll purposely spend time reflecting on the problem after asking the Lord for help, and try to come up with good things to say.  I'll hold pretend conversations in my imagination where others will be saying bad things as they normally do, and I'll come up with something good.  Then I can imagine how it will all play out. I'll just keep doing that until I'm comfortable with the good things the Lord has helped me come up with and can naturally actually speak them in a real conversation.

It's really neat (to me anyway) how the Lord gave us our imaginations to use to help us work through things and determine how we should speak or behave, and He encourages us to do that, even giving us examples like the prodigal son when he imagined what he'd say to his father and what would happen.  (of course in that story the father didn't react the way the son imagined he would, and instead welcomed him home, but the son did use what he'd imagined in how he spoke to his father)


I see an application in the first verse: “The apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon’s Colonnade.” (Acts 5:12)  We're told and shown constantly that the believers met together daily for fellowship, learning and worshiping God. It should be our desire to do so as well, even if all we can do is meet together on the internet.

No, it's not our place to point out sins to those who are unsaved.  As for those who are saved, we can often "cover their sins with love" and leave it to the Lord to show them.  In fact, He will often choose to use us to reveal their sin to them, not by us actually telling them, but by our words and actions.  For example:  Several people are chatting together about another person they all know, and they're basically putting that person down, and therefore are in fact gossiping about them. They invite you to join them when they see you, and you do.  You hear what they're saying and realize that they are sinning and you don't want to be part of that.  So now you have some choices to make.

1. If these people are all saved, you could announce to them that what they're doing is a sin, and you don't want to be part of it, and walk away.  If you did that, what do you think would happen?  I suspect that as soon as you left, they would instantly turn the conversation away from who they'd been putting down before, and begin to put you down instead, saying that you thought you were so much better than they were, etc.  It wouldn't help anything or anyone because you would have done nothing other than embarrass and humiliate each of them in front of others (which is also a sin).

2.  You could remain with them, being quiet, perhaps even praying in your heart.  Then when one of them tries to draw you into the conversation by asking you what you thought about what they'd said about the person they're gossiping about, you could reply with something that would show them a reason the person might do such a thing.  (this is what I've done in the past)  Let's say they're saying this person goes out and gets drunk every night and they ask you what you think.  You might say something like, "I feel so badly for so and so, as they're having such a horrible time getting over their wife's illness and losing their job."  (assuming of course that those things about their wife and their job are true)  You could then try and redirect the conversation by then asking them what they thought you all might do to help that person.  Or you could redirect the conversation by bringing up a whole new topic - one that's "safe", like "have you seen the tomatoes I'm growing this year?" 

When we do it the second way, the other people are shown their sin without us having to say a word to them about it. We've covered their sin with love, and helped them turn away from the sin (repent) by turning the conversation away from gossip. You've shown by your actions the right way to live as a Christian.  I haven't had to do this for many years now as I'm never in a situation like I used to be when I worked and was around a lot of other people.  But when I used this technique, it worked out well.  However, although the way I wrote it out, makes it look like everything was handled with one or two sentences, it doesn't always work that way.  Once when I did that, one of the women kept trying to keep the gossip session going. She quickly figured out that I wouldn't say anything bad, but tried to find a way to get me to do it anyway, but bringing up things she knew that I was very much against.  (like drinking to get drunk or drugs or abortion etc)  She figured she'd be able to pull me in that way, but it didn't work. 

I no longer remember the exact conversation of course, only that she kept trying  and I kept on either showing reasons why the person who was hurting might do such a thing, or I would say that I knew how they must feel because I'd done the same thing in my past like so many do (figuring they had probably done it as well but not saying they had) and how easy it was to get caught up in it.... or if I was desperate I'd say something like "perhaps they did, but I can't judge them as I've done many things just as bad myself" and then indicate that I had to get back to work.  I remember one time when it was two other women who were gossiping and trying to get me to join in. After my first sentence I could tell that it caused one of them to realize that they shouldn't be speaking that way but she was unsure how to get herself out of the situation. The other woman though simply would not give it up no matter what, even though she could see that her partner wasn't interested in continuing it any longer.  At that point, I simply smiled at them and told them I needed to get back to work and immediately got up and got busy.  (I noticed that the other woman also excused herself for the same reason so I knew I'd done some good anyway)

One thing we do need to remember about the unsaved though is that they will most likely gossip about us after we've done that.  Not necessarily immediately, but we can pretty well be sure that they will in the future, because they won't like that their sin was shown for the evil it is, no matter how gently or how round about we were in doing it. Like we're told:
“They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you.” (1 Peter 4:4) That never bothered me though as I figured it was like a badge of honor, since I knew why they were doing it.  I don't mean that they'll gossip about what we did to stop the gossip, but rather that they'll tell or make up gossip about other stuff about us.



You're very welcome Eva.  You said you were in 2 Corinthians before. I'm just finishing 1 Corinthians 9.  I've really enjoyed reading about how Paul put into action in his life the principals he spoke about in the chapter 8.  He shows us that we're not to base our decisions on what's best for us, but instead on what Jesus wants and what is best for other believers and the Church as a whole. It's shown me too that even in my personal life, what I do reflects on the Church and affects other believers, so I need to be careful of my decisions on how I act and speak.