"Examine yourselves to see if you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is within you? Unless of course, you fail the test."
2 Corinthians 13:5
"and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you,"
1 Thessalonians 4:11
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you devour widows' houses, and for a pretense you make long prayers; therefore you will receive greater condemnation."
Matthew 23:14
7 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?"
Matthew 7:1-3
"The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments,"
1 Corinthians 2:15
28 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
29 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
Mark 12:28-31
Being a Christian for me takes two qualities known as virtues by many. Humility and Integrity. Be who you are. Know who you are. Say who you are. Be capable of seeing your flaws and your shortcomings and be able to admit them to others in such a way that you are not diminishing yourself but instead correcting the course you must take to delight yourself in the Lord. We must be humble servants but not shrinking violets to the world around us. We must help our brothers and sisters in Christ when helping is not a hinderance. What I mean there is we must recognize that all humans here on this earth are on their own spiritual quest. Their own path to God. They experience their own trials and troubles. Their own mistakes.
We must not become a crutch for enabling but instead a guide for what they must do to experience their own growth in a sincere and profound way. Our testimony is our most valuable tool in bringing others to the Spirit and Christ.
When you tell your story of how God has worked a miracle in your life, or how he has blessed you, transformed you, lifted and encouraged you, perhaps even broken and healed you, no one can argue or debate it. You go beyond the realm of knowledge into the realm of relationshipwith God.
You tell in a way so as not to push away, but to bring others in. You express your life and what you have experienced. You explain the moment you came to Christ and why. You explain how at that moment you went from 51 percent flesh to 51 percent spirit. He became more and you became less. You can reference that event to the scripture found in John 3:30. We are all individualized expressions of God here on earth. We are made in his image. Not flesh and bone as some out there may perceive it to be but instead spirit. That is where we must live.
Galatians 5:17 tells us..........For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.
If I am going to give a lesson of what a Christian is then I must give an idea of what one is not. There is no better verse than the one found in Galatians written by Paul. 19Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality,20idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, 21envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.…
When you lose people to their end of life here on earth you go through the loss in your head. You cope with it. You get to a place where you can rationalize the entire thing in the spirit. God made man in his image right? God's image is not flesh, correct? Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. The bible constantly tells us of the conflict between the flesh and the spirit so it is rather obvious if God is spirit then God is surely not flesh. Flesh is merely a container. The lightbulb so to speak that is supposed to emanate it's light upon the world. When it is through, the bulb goes into the trash or is buried so to speak. But that energy. That spirit. That light. That God in all of us never dies. It merely returns to God and it reflects itself in it's purest form........love.......upon all who knew it when it was contained by the flesh that bound it to this world.
I now have entered a spiritual relationship with those whom I loved so much on this side yet now half of us is here and their half is totally in the spirit. That is the blessing. They now know what it means to become less so he (God) can become more.
We who follow Christ, follow God. We who follow God, seek the Spirit within that is the God image in all of us. To know that aspect of who we are is to know all of the people who in spirit now surround us, smiling as the spirit can at our quest for love in our lives to dominate all that we do. Currently I am a spiritual being having a human experience and I am flawed and I am 51 percent flesh. I need to become less and he shall become greater. We all should do as well. Follow Paul and know he was the greatest apostle and he too struggled. If he struggles then surely I we should too. Don't get down. Get right.
