Pride is something that I have had issues with in my own life. Many people think that there is nothing wrong with being proud of what you have accomplished. I’ve been learning that nothing could be further from the truth.

Recently, in a group of stitchers that I belong to, a question was asked, “What is the project that you are most proud of?” I struggled with the wording of the question and finally responded with the project that gave me the most satisfaction. Oddly enough, it was my first such project and, on the whole, was lacking in many ways. However, it introduced me to a hobby that I am still involved with more than four decades later.

Self pride is something that most of us feel pretty much on an on-going basis. Whenever we accomplish something, we are, generally pretty quick to pat ourselves on our own back and take all the glory from the fact that we did something special.

This type of pride, though, is more than just satisfaction. Pride is placing yourself above others. It is seeing that you are better than those who didn’t accomplish what you did.

It’s interesting to me that the world, usually defines pride as a well deserved feeling of enjoyment in the high quality of your work, effort, what have you. In the Bible, self pride is not something that is good in the eyes of God. It is one of the things that will quickly bring an individual down, no matter how highly placed they are.

When you are busy feeling proud of yourself, you forget that pride is something that we don’t usually admire in others. There’s something about it that just sticks in the throats of most other people. They may feel that if they had the same benefits and advantages in life that you had, that they might have done as well or better than you.

Think about it, when you are feeling so proud of yourself, you think your pride is well deserved. When others around you talk about how proud they are of themselves you probably, as most of us do, think they are self-centered and boastful. You are quick to see the faults in others that you are blind to in yourself. It reminds me of when Jesus told us that we had to remove the beam from our own eyes before we try to remove the speck from the eyes of others.

For whatever reason, pride is not an appealing part of an individual. If you think of a famous book, “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen, the Pride part of the title has to do with a young, rich man who takes inordinate pride in his family and his station in life. The village people, in the town where he is visiting, feel that he is stuck up, thinks too much of himself and is not someone that they care to spend time with. He has to learn to be more humble before the individual he professes to love will learn to care for him as well.

The other problem with pride is that somehow, when we are in the midst of it (speaking for myself, at least), it feels as if whatever I am proud of is going to last forever. Around about the time I start getting those feelings, I find myself knocked back down.

If that doesn’t happen, I find that the accomplishment that I was so pleased to do has become something that I no longer care about. Either I have to strive harder or walk away. I’ve done both. To be honest, the best thing I’ve done is to walk away from things that make me feel proud of myself.

There is not a single thing that I have accomplished, in my life, that was done by my own power. God gave me life, he gave me my inspiration and skills, and everything that I have ever done was because of him.

There really isn’t much there for me to be proud of for myself.

If a work honors God, then it is inspired by him. If it doesn’t honor God, then it is inspired by the prince of this world, Satan. It is always one or the other.

Even if we do the work of God, when we start magnifying ourselves as something bigger and better than others, we have lost the blessings of God for that work. We can live godly lives and lose so much blessings because of pride.

It is something that I have struggled with and, will continue to do so. I say that because it is a sin that almost all of us have problems learning to overcome.

I am learning to turn to God when I feel full of myself, when I think I have it all under control, when it seems like life is becoming a tad easier than before. It’s oh, so easy to walk away from God at those times. When we have problems, we run to him. As soon as those problems get better, we start to walk away again.

If you have said you have self pride of something in your life, look closer at what you are really feeling. For Christians, feeling pride and taking all the credit for the thing you are proud of, is something that we need to stop. Give God the honor and glory for both the good and the bad and know that without him, we are nothing.

Luke 18: 9-14

Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others:

“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men — extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’

And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’

I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

We have just celebrated Halloween. The holiday has grown in importance to many people. At the same time, Christmas, the day that we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, has not grown at the same pace.

For most of us, Halloween is a day of fun, with costumes worn by children and lots of candy. Lots of candy. Unless you are a diabetic, there isn’t anything about candy that sounds bad, right?

Actually, for the past seven years, I really haven’t been able to eat candy but I sure enjoy seeing the cute little boys and girls getting dressed up in their costumes.

The last two years, I have only been able to watch from afar. Because of my illness, we can’t have people coming to the door who might be ill. So our days of giving out candy is a thing of the past. I miss that.

I really can’t speak to the origins of Halloween. I haven’t studied it. What I can say is that for a very few, it is actually a religious holiday. It’s the day that they celebrate their ties to their lord and master, who is Satan.

For many, the thought of Satan and demons is nothing but a fairy tale or, at best, an allegorical story told in the Bible. Nothing could be further than the truth.

Satan was once the brightest of the angels. He was created by God and was the highest ranking angel as well. He was beautiful and intelligent. He was powerful. He was so full of his own importance and pride, he thought he was equal to God.

He led a rebellion with a full third of the angels. They wanted to overthrow and defeat God. They wanted to put themselves on the throne of heaven.

Well, that didn’t work out well for that group. It really wasn’t a contest at all. It would be like the craft that you just created trying to become the creator and toss you out. I don’t think my coloring books, cross stitch, or yarn have that kind of strength!

The angels only had the power that God had given them, nothing more and nothing less. When they rebelled, they immediately lost and God cast them down to the void that would one day be the Earth.

God then created the heavens and the Earth and everything in it. Mankind was created to show the angels that a creature who was lower than they were would rebel but ultimately repent and accept God as their savior.

The first man’s sin started the destruction of the creation. The universe was broken. If the son of God had not been sent by the father, the entirety of the creation would have ultimately been torn apart and destroyed.

Jesus did come to the earth. He has been called the second Adam as he, like Adam, was born without a sin nature. That is true of his human side. Jesus was fully human just as we are. The difference was that Jesus was also fully God.

Because of his connection with the father (who lived within him), he was able to live his human life sinlessly. He didn’t give in to the temptations that the rest of us do. They were presented to him, over and over again, but he relied on the strength of God to overcome them.

Even so, he gave up his life as the perfect sacrifice to make an atonement for all of the sins of every man, woman or child from the beginning of creation until the day he comes back for us.

When Jesus died and rose again, Satan and his fellow fallen angels were utterly defeated. They are still ruling the world today in hopes of dragging down more and more of humanity to suffer with them for eternity. Their final defeat is coming.

That will happen when Jesus returns to judge the world. Each persons sins will be made public. Those who never accepted Jesus will be found guilty and thrown in the place that we call Hell. Those who did accept Jesus will find that their sins have been wiped away and that by the sinless blood of Jesus and their name will be recorded in the Book of Life.

So, while I enjoyed watching children playing dress up at Halloween and have sneaked more than my fair share of their candy (though only the ones that my kids didn’t really like), I have also looked at the world full of sin and which is controlled by Satan and his demons.

I will glory in the fact that Jesus has won this battle and that I accepted his gift of salvation. If you are a follower of Jesus, I hope you will do so as well.

If you have never accepted Jesus as your personal savior, I hope you will. We are not promised anything beyond the moment that we are alive. Waiting for tomorrow may be too long of a wait.

Jesus can return at any moment or your life may be over in the blink of an eye. Now is the time for repentance and for accepting the free gift of salvation, love and eternal life that Jesus is offering to you.

Revelation 20:11-15

Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.

More and more, recently, I have been hearing a word that didn’t seem to make much sense. People have been talking about how difficult it was adulting. Even my word-processing software identifies that as a mistake. Suddenly, the fact that you are an adult has become an action and is now a verb. You aren’t an adult, you simply act like one… from time to time. When it is not too hard.

Okay, that must mean that those who are not adults are children. Even worse, maybe they are still stuck in those pretty awful teen-age years when they thought they knew everything about every single thing.

I remember when my children were at that stage. I even look way, way back and remember when I felt that way too. Of course, I was correct! My kids, on the other hand, simply didn’t know what they didn’t know.

Becoming an adult means a lot of things but the one thing that most springs to my mind is learning how to take responsibility on an on-going basis. Once you have acquired this skill, much of the other pluses and minuses of being an adult fall into line.

Do you remember what you thought you would be doing when you were a child? My grandson changes direction pretty often. When he was a tad bit younger, he wanted to be Batman or Spiderman or even a ninja from Ninjago. Now days, he seems to be focusing on actual careers (what, being Batman isn’t a good career path?)

Some weeks he wants to be a photographer and an artist (after taking a lot of pictures with an iPhone.) Recently, he has wanted to be a scientist and an artist. That might be because he received a very cool science projects gift for his sixth birthday.

Interestingly, one thing that has remained constant is that he wants to be an artist. He has skills in this area so, we will see. I did point out to him that his Mommy and his Grandfather were both scientists and artists as well. The eye roll I received was one that only a six year old could easily get away with.

The thing is, we have a lot of dreams even when we are young. Those dreams can change as we grow with experience. At some point in life, we start acting on what we hope to do with our lives.

If you do not grow and learn responsibility, it is difficult to also become the you that you were supposed to be. As long as you act like a child or a sulky teenager, you will never experience the joy of growing in wisdom and living your life in a way that is pleasing to God.

So, adulting isn’t easy. I guess it isn’t. I remember many nights of struggling and wondering how to make ends meet. I worried about my family. I wondered if I could possibly be a good mother based on the poor examples from my own childhood.

The one thing that never crossed my mind was that being an adult was hard. I knew that life was hard. It had been so for most of my life. Being an adult, on my own, sometimes seemed easy in comparison.

Becoming a mother brought all of my life into a new perspective. I was responsible for not only me but for three loving children. Each one so different from the other that trying to herd them in and still encourage each one was a difficult task but one that I mostly enjoyed.

The people who don’t like being an adult may never experience this kind of joy. I knew that my children were a gift from God. I wanted to thank him for that gift by teaching them how to grow and not by abusing them and tearing them down constantly. I can’t say I was that great at being a parent but I did try to do my best.

I sincerely hope that this phase of not wanting to grow up is a passing one. However, I suspect that it is not. For the world to collapse as it one day will, there will have to be a lack of people who will take any form of responsibility to fix it. That is, to look to God and to get down on their knees and ask for his help.

Some days, it seems like those days of non-existent responsibility are here right now.

1 Corinthians 13:11

When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.

I have recently been thinking about when I was in high school. I generally had two types of classes. In one type of class, the teacher would give a talk and then assign a lot of work and really made us study. We also got tested to make sure we knew the subject matter.

In the second type of class, the teacher would get up and talk and didn’t assign much work. We might see a film or watch a program on television. Sometimes the talks and other visual aids were interesting and sometimes, not so much.

At the time, I must admit, I liked the second type of class better. It was much easier to sit back and relax, knowing I wouldn’t have to study to get a good grade.

Looking back, though, I’ve since realized that the first type of class was the one where I still remember what I studied. Having to do the work, listening, reading, and being tested, resulted in my learning the subject at a deep level and one that has stuck with me through the years.

The classes where I listened and maybe even asked a question from time to time, were fun for that moment but did not result in me remembering much more than I liked those easy classes because they were easier.

I started thinking about this because I have been yearning for a true Bible Study class. When I first became a Christian, the churches I went to had services on Sunday and Bible Study for adults on Tuesday or Wednesday evenings.

Somewhere along the line, churches stopped doing serious Bible Studies. Instead, they moved to home groups, life groups, small groups or whatever that particular church calls it. Essentially, they are groups from the congregation that get together and discuss the sermon using suggested questions provided by the church.

While those groups are good and getting to know other Christians at a deeper level is really good, I still miss having a Bible Study.

I can do a study by myself and I do but I would like to have the guidance of a pastor to lead me as I study.

In a sense, sermons are little Bible Studies. The preacher gets up and talks and, if you have time after the service, you can go up and ask a question or two. However, generally speaking, there is very little about this type of service that results in a deep study to understand and remember.

Sermons are a bit like the classes I took that were easy and fun because they didn’t involve a lot of work. Sometimes, when you get convicted of sin by something the pastor has said, maybe the sermon isn’t so much fun. However, it still doesn’t involve work.

I’ve been lobbying for our church to do a old-fashioned Bible Class. On-line, so the pastor can record it and only have to do each chapter once. Sadly, I’ve been brushed aside a bit and told that life groups are Bible studies. I’ve even been mocked a bit by someone but I will continue to stick to my request.

We were talking recently in our small group and another member said he would like to have us study the Bible instead of reading other books or merely following the questions about the prior Sunday’s service. While all I said, was “Yes, I agree”), I felt like standing up and singing the Hallelujah chorus.

Knowing that someone else wants it as well, has emboldened me to write a letter to the senior pastor, which in part, asked for a Bible Study. We’ll see if and how he responds. However, if I don’t get the response that I am hoping for, I will continue to ask as I now have proof that others are hungry for this as well.

As Christians, we are told to study the Bible. It is what teaches about the way we are supposed to live. It also gives us guidance. It helps us when we are tempted by the world around us. It is the Word of God.

Ephesians 6:10-17

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.

In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Has anyone ever accused you of doing something that you didn’t do? Me, too. Probably more times than I can easily remember, though something like that has a way of scalding itself into your memory. More so, sadly, than the times you may have accused someone else or actually been guilty of what someone said about you.

In the situation that I’ve been thinking about recently, someone purchased something from me and then accused me of breaking Copyright Law by selling something illegally.

I had never opened the pattern to see what it contained as it was part of my old stock from when I owned an online store. It turned out the item was a set of original class instructions and not a design at all.

I contacted the designer, explained how I got the pattern and asked her what I could do to make it right. I also contacted the accuser and gave her back her money and asked her to send the pattern back to the designer at my cost.

What ended up happening was something that I never expected. I expected condemnation from the designer but, instead, I got forgiveness and, unfathomably, assistance in my budding career as a designer.

The lady who designed the piece was happy to get her original instructions her class back as she had lost them. They were in another design and that was the one that I had sold.

She and I got to know one another and she began to mentor me and included me in an exclusive designers group which I still belong to to this day.

What I didn’t know about her then but do now, is that she is also a Christian. Our religion was never discussed, instead, she simply acted out her faith.

She forgave me for selling something that was clearly (though internally) marked not for sale. She then lifted me up and set my feet on the path that I was hoping to walk down.

Because of her kindness and her actions, I have tried to offer assistance to others who want to design. It taught me a lot about lovingkindness and what Christ would have us do for others. Not just in the design world but in all walks throughout our life.

There have been other times when people have lied about me. There have been times when individuals have done their best to bring me down in order to bring themselves up. I’m sure there will be even more times in the future when this kind of thing will happen.

It is the sin nature within us that tries to tear down others and to lift ourselves on high.

I was recently reading the Bible and came across various stories where the prophets of ancient time warned about this over and over again. In many cases, those prophets were put to death.

No one wants to hear that they are not the best, though in their hearts they already know it. They want to fool the world into thinking that they are more than they are. They want others to think that their life is the one that should be emulated. They want others to, in a sense, worship them as if they were deities.

That is sin in a nutshell. Man wanting to be God. It doesn’t matter that mankind knows how wretched they are, they still think that they can lift themselves up by their good works and be on par with the Lord.

It is a delusion. It is something that will never, ever happen. Can a pot become a potter? Can a paintbrush paint by itself? We are the created and not the Creator.

But, you might say, we can earn our way to perfection by doing good works. Even some Christians believe that. It is not the case. All of our good works, when done as a way to make ourselves greater than we are, are as worse than nothing before God.

We can never do a single thing, on our own, which will be good enough to please God.

That is not to say that we should not do good things. We should. It should come from a place inside our spirit to help someone else. It should not be done as a way to lift ourselves up.

If you do something for glory here on earth, then you have received your glory here. You will not receive any in heaven. However, if you do good things for others as part of who you are in Christ Jesus and not expect any form of credit, God in heaven will see that and your reward will be in heaven.

I learned a lesson from the situation where I was falsely accused. I learned to help other people even when they have wronged me.

It isn’t always easy to turn the other cheek but Jesus has told us to do so.

Matthew 6:1

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.”

There have been days, recently, that have been discouraging. Whether it be for some emotional or physical reason in my own life or because the news of the day is troubling, those days are hard to live through.

On my own, there would be very few reasons to get up each morning. Once up, I would find little to do. It would be so much easier to just sit and read and let the world revolve around and wait until I can finally simply not get up anymore.

Luckily, those days are few. With each passing week, month and year, they are less and less. The intensity of those unhappy feelings have gone down almost to the point of not existing.

I’ve found that, when I am at my most fragile times, reading the Bible gives me solace and strength. I can’t imagine how difficult life is for those who do not have the word of God to lean on.

I’ve been a Christian since I was 18, or perhaps, since I was five years old and I first gave my heart to Jesus.

In our Bible group recently, we were asked when we had first heard of Jesus (I was four years old) and if our impression of him had changed since then.

At first, I said, of course it had changed. I was a child and now I am much older than a child. I said my initial opinion of him was formed in Sunday school and that what I knew then was that Jesus loved me because the Bible told me so and that Jesus loved all the little children of the world.

After a laugh and a moments reflection, I realized that my opinion of Jesus really hadn’t changed at all.

I still know that Jesus loves me because the Bible tells me so and that he loves all the little children of the world, no matter how old those children are. You see, to God, we are all like little children. Like little children, we go our own way and need his firm hand to guide us.

The Bible tells us that Jesus loved all of us, great and small, rich and poor, and young and old. The one thing that we all have in common is that we are all sinners in need of a savior.

Jesus’ love and sacrifice was the only way we could ever be reconciled to our Father in heaven. He was willing to pay the price for our sin. He gave up his life for us. He didn’t want to die but he knew that it was the only way and so, he willing gave himself up to an agonizing death on the cross.

When days are dark and dreary and the troubles of the world are piling high, there is only one place I can go to and only one person who will love me no matter what I say or do. He will give me comfort through the Holy Spirit and, in reading his Word, I can find reasons to live and to live joyously no matter what this world is doing to drag me down.

There is so much depressing things going on in the world. It is a time when Christians are being discriminated against more and more. There are Christians who are losing their jobs because they won’t renounce their belief in the truth of the Bible.

I read today, that a doctor in England lost his job because of just this type of situation. He was told that his belief in one verse in the Bible put him on par with Holocaust deniers and that his beliefs were like that of the neo-Nazis. All because he believed that God made male and female.

Another individual lost her job because of her belief against gay marriage. She had been quick to note that she loved gay people and, more importantly, God loved not only them but everyone equally.

Sad as it is that this is happening, it is really just the beginning. In certain countries, the persecution is horrific with people being killed. One thinks that in first world countries, this would never happen. Think again. The Bible tells us that just before the end of the age (of the church), that Christians will be persecuted to a degree never seen before.

Think about that for a minute. That means more persecution that in the days when the Romans threw Christians to the lions for a day of entertainment. They would sit in the Coliseum, in Rome, and make a long celebratory day watching people be devoured simply for the sake of their belief in Christ.

So, days worse than that are coming. For those who love Christ, we should see the season that is upon us. Like those two individuals I mentioned earlier, we will either stand by the conviction of our belief in God and take the consequences or deny him to save ourselves the persecution that will follow.

Decide today where you stand so you will be ready when that day is at hand. Do you choose to serve the God of this universe or do you choose to serve the world.

For me, there is no question. No matter the consequences in this life, I stand by the Bible, I stand with Jesus and I bow before God.

Matthew 10:26-33

“Therefore do not fear them. For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known.

Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops. And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.

Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.”

Have you noticed that children seem to run wilder and wilder with each generation that passes by? One wonders how it has gotten to the place that it is today.

A friend remarked that children were running around a grocery store and their parents didn’t stop them or reprove them in any fashion. These are the same kids who spend all day on their smart phones on social media or playing games. I can’t say that I am all that surprised at how they are turning out.

Remember, their parents were probably part of the generation who were given awards for merely showing up rather than for excellence and spent their time on the Internet. Those of that generation had parents who were the first to be obsessed by video games, cable television and VHS/DVD videos.

The generation before that spent much of their free time watching television and demanding everything that was on the commercials of their favorite TV shows.

All of this started around the time this country began rejecting God in their daily lives. First, through the schools and then from all forms of public expression more and more each year. The current move is to censor or even punish those who express their belief in God.

It is ironic to see that Christians are being punished for having faith in God and in his moral code. The people who are doing the punishing say that we all have our own moral codes but somehow the one that is God given is horrible and awful. Does that make sense to anyone?

The rules that God has given us are ones that, if we could only follow them faithfully, would bring about an atmosphere of love, kindness and caring. Is there something about that scenario that screams for censorship or punishment?

God gave us those rules to show us how we would have to live to be up to the standard that would allow us into his presence. He also gave us those rules to show us that, on our own, not one of us would be capable of keeping them. We are simply sinful and will go against his authority throughout our entire life.

However, God saw that from the beginning. Once man used his free-will to sin, God knew that he would have to send his Son to the earth to save us.

Jesus told us that he did not come to break the law of God but rather, to fulfill it. He was the personification of all that was holy of God and, at the same time, all that was human of man.

He told us that we were to follow the commandments of God. We were supposed to follow his code of morals (known today as the Ten Commandments.) He even emphasized the two that were of the utmost importance to God. To love God and to love others as ourselves.

For generations, this moral code was taught to children and the, to their children. This started to fall apart in the twentieth century. First, in Europe and then later, in the United States. At the point we are at today, only a very few families teach their children about the God-given moral code.

Instead, most individuals will say that they have their own code of morals just as they say that they have their own spirituality or that they are simply atheists and that, as we are animals, there doesn’t have to be a moral code.

One can only imagine what this generation of children will grow up believing given that they have, for the most part, never been taught about God. How much further can mankind fall before God allows judgement to fall?

This happened to the Israelites when generation after generation did wrong in the eyes of God. Through his prophets, God warned of impending doom. He gave his people time to repent and turn back to him.

Instead, they chose to disregard or even to kill those prophets. They turned further away from God and turned to false prophets and false gods who promised peace, prosperity and security.

It finally got to the point where God knew that the people would only get worse and worse. He allowed the Babylonians to conquer Israel and turn it into a ruinous heap.

In his lovingkindness, after many years in exile, God allowed the remnant of his people to return to their promised land.

Today, God has also been warning of impending doom. Through the followers of Christ, he has given mankind warnings for millennia of the devastation that will fall on this planet. It will be unlike anything that has ever been seen before. Given how evil mankind has been up to this point, it is almost impossible to believe that we could be worse. But if God says it is so, then it is.

This time, it will not result in exile but in a war that would destroy every inhabitant of the world.

God wants us to repent and turn away from our evil ways and turn to Jesus. He wants us to strive to keep his commandments and, when we fail, he wants us to truly repent, be sorry for what we did and to turn back to him again.

If we don’t, there is no excuse. We will deserve every drop of judgement because we have willfully chosen to remain evil in God’s sight.

Exodus 20:1-17

And God spoke all these words:

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

“You shall have no other gods before me.

“You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.

You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

“You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.

“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns.

For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

“Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

“You shall not murder.

“You shall not commit adultery.

“You shall not steal.

“You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

We are a world that lives for the sake of our feelings. We don’t look at truth or righteousness, merely whether or not something “feels” good or right.

I don’t know about you, but I would prefer someone to tell me they care about me and not that they feel like they care about me.

Feelings can change and change rapidly. I remember having a crush on someone in school. After watching him from afar for more than a year, my feelings changed in a morning when he made an unkind but true comment about me. Actually, what he said was true but he did it in a way that was not kind.

It didn’t matter to me, at the time, that what he said was true. It mattered that he hurt my feelings and so my feelings for him in the time it took to take in what he had said. Looking back, I wish I had paid attention to the truth of his statement and acted on it as I would have saved myself a huge amount of grief in the future.

Instead, I was guided by my feelings. From that point on, my feelings for him turned bitter and hateful. I didn’t miss an opportunity to spread mean words about him and to make fun of him when the occasion arose.

That’s what happens when feelings are in control. We can blow hot and then ice cold in moments.

You might say that is simply being a teenager. To a degree, that is true. However, it seems like more and more adults, these days, are acting like immature children.

They don’t get their way and they turn against those who denied it to them. You don’t agree with them and therefore, you are an enemy.

They may say, I don’t feel like you are a good person. Or, I feel like I am a boy now and not a girl. I feel like the sun won’t rise tomorrow and the world will fall apart within a matter of twelve years.

Their feelings won’t make any of those things true. In fact, truth and what people feel are generally at polar opposites.

Feelings can come and go but truth is forever. Truth is from God and feelings are something that mankind has developed. Anything that man has made is corrupt because mankind is corrupt.

We are a sinful lot. We like to think that we are not. We will think that we are the pinnacle of everything that has ever been. It’s a bit funny, as God actually made us lower than angels. We are far from the pinnacle, in fact, we are at the bottom.

God created mankind to show that individuals with free-will could and would turn to him and repent of their sins and live in accordance with his truth. That doesn’t mean those who follow him won’t stray often but that we will repent again and reach out to him for help.

Angels were made higher than mankind but they were not given the opportunity to repent and return to God. The angels, known as demons, lead by Lucifer rebelled against God and were doomed forever. Honestly, though, it doesn’t appear that those fallen angels wanted to repent. They are still trying to beat God and ascend his throne.

They know that mankind is swayed by their feelings. That is why they offer temptations to us. They want us to do what we feel is right (for us) and not to follow the truth of God’s word.

This is not only something that happens to those who have not accepted Christ as their savior. Most Christians that I have known, like to live by their feelings as well.

They love how certain Christian songs make them feel, whether those songs really speak truth or not. They really like certain Christian books, though often those books are simply things the authors feel and not something from God. The Christians feel like certain pastors are speaking to them, whether or not those pastors are truly Christians or merely charlatans cashing in on those who follow them by telling them things that they want to hear and not truth.

Living by these types of feelings can result in a very difficult time for Christians. If they aren’t hearing the truth of God’s word, whether by song, book, or sermon, then they cannot ever grow.

Their growth as Christians will be stunted. They are like a tree that isn’t given the right type of care (which means allowing harsh weather to test and strengthen it.) That tree will grow for a season but at its heart, it is weak. When the harsh winds of life come blowing, those stunted Christians will be broken and uprooted rather than merely bending to the wind and righting themselves once the storm is past.

It is time for the church (meaning the body of all true Christians) to stop living by their feelings. They need to look beyond the human experience of self-satisfaction and, instead, look at life through God’s eyes. It’s easy to do, God has given us the way. Reading an accurate translation of the Bible, based on a multitude of trusted Biblical scholars (and certainly not a single translator), will point the way to righteous living in the eyes of God.

Stop looking at how you feel about things and start living for truth. God is truth. Start living for God.

Psalms 25:4-5

Show me your ways, Lord, teach me your paths.

Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.

Have you noticed that more and more people seem to lack the ability to own up to their mistakes? It is easier to blame other people, other circumstances or even the weather than it is to stand up and say, I made a mistake.

Why are we so afraid of acknowledging publicly that we are not perfect? We seem to find it easy to find faults in others but not in ourselves.

Maybe we have always been that way but these days, we have the ability and inclination to blame others in a world-wide fashion before we take a moment to think it through.

We’ve become a world-wide society of individuals who take to social media, through Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and whatever else is out there and speak our minds before we have had time to really formulate our thoughts and think through possible repercussions and consequences.

Taking responsibility for mistakes or worse, is never easy. Being responsible is becoming less and less of a thing that people strive for. Why be a responsible person when it is so much easier just to live in the moment and forget about the consequences?

We see this in every part of life. From the highest to the lowest. From the worst to the best individuals.

When you stop taking responsibility for your actions, then, of course, your actions will get worse and worse. We don’t live in a world where people blaming other people for what they themselves have done wrong, results in the one who blames becoming a better person.

People will blame governments and companies and even the weather, for the problems that they see in their lives. In some cases, those governments, companies and, yes, weather, are the main culprits behind a problem. But, in most situations, the individuals are looking for a scapegoat to put all of the blame on for things they have brought upon themselves.

But, let’s look at what is really at the root of it all.

When Adam and Eve first sinned is when shifting responsibility for actions first began. Eve blamed the serpent (that is, Satan) for deceiving her into her sin. Adam blamed Eve for simply handing him the fruit that was forbidden. This set a pattern of ever-decreasing responsibility for sin.

While Eve was deceived, Adam was not. He simply took what he was given even though he knew it was against God’s one rule. Our blaming others for our sins and even our simple mistakes, has grown out of this first encounter with sin.

On our own, we would rather blame others and try to escape our deserved consequences. Worse yet, we now convince ourselves that we are right in what we are doing and want to destroy those who say otherwise.

There are those of us who point fingers of blame at innocents and then demand that they be punished for what we did. There will come a day, in the not so distant future, when we will demand that the innocents die.

To some degree, that is already happening when mothers abort their babies because they are not convenient. Apparently, for many, having sex without adequate protection, was too great a burden. So, instead, the baby in the womb is blamed for coming into being. And their life is forfeited because of it.

It will go beyond that death of unborn babies and will spread across societies. In some societies, women can be murdered for the crime of having been raped. They can be killed for just simply dishonoring some male in their family. The dishonor is in the eyes of the male and doesn’t have to have any basis in truth.

There are those among us who call for the death of someone who doesn’t have the same political party. They have threatened they are out to get the others. When will they learn that having taken the final step and destroying one group that disagrees with or is different from you will only fracture society into more and more disparate groups. And those groups will begin to war with one another.

People are broken, they are fallen, they are sinners. They see everything through the dark glasses of their own sins. Anything that will point out their sin, is their enemy. They would rather have the truth destroyed rather than owning up to their sins.

At some point, God will have done all that he can do to bring the people of this world to repentance. He gave us a way to be saved, through the sacrifice of his son, Jesus. There will be a great many people who will turn their backs on him.

In the end, God will signal the time for the Great Tribulation to begin. He does this out of love because those who are left at that time who have not accepted Jesus and will never do so absent the horrific times of the seven years of the greatest tribulation that has ever been on this planet.

Even then, many will harden their hearts and their necks and will continue to reject him and to blame others. For the sake of the few who will turn to him, God will allow this period of history to unveil.

This is the time when all people will turn on each other. They will blame one another and seek the life of everyone else. If God doesn’t step in and intervene, those who are left would destroy mankind completely.

It all began with one sin and it continues today. That we are seeing more and more people sinning and blaming others seems to point to the end of time coming soon. It may be today, tomorrow, a hundred years from now or more. But, during whatever time is left, people will grow worse and worse and will blame others for more and more.

It is hard, as a Christian, to live through this. It seems so plain to see. You want to point it out to others and have them see and understand it. You should do so, but be aware that in doing so, you may become to individual who is blamed.

Jesus told us that we would be treated as poorly as he was. We are to understand that and glory in the fact that we may become martyrs for his sake.

We must, regardless of the consequences, be willing to let others know that Jesus loves them and died for their sins. He did so to save them for eternity.

Genesis 3:8-13

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

The man said, “The woman you put here with me — she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”

The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

Recently, in the midst of a group of Christians, after I had spoke about some of the things I have to do each day, a fellow Christian turned to me and told me I was needy.

Now, I knew then as well as now, that she was trying to be humorous in her fashion, which she tells everyone is simply snarky. To me, though, snarky means a way of covering for saying things that are purposefully mean-spirited and hurtful.

The thing is, when she said it to me, I responded back seriously and sadly and said, “Yes, I am. I am so needy and I don’t like it. I’ve never been the needy one before. I’ve always been the one to give help and not the one to need help.”

I was sad and unhappy about it and all those in the group could see that. Not that she had mentioned it but that it was actually true.

However, for a few days afterward, I let her words sting me. I try hard not to show my dependence but in that type of group, I let my guard down and let my friends see the side of me that I don’t show too often.

Then, as it always does when she has said her snarky things to me, I let it go and reminded myself that she is the way she is because she is hurting so much herself. She hides behind her style of humor without realizing that in her effort to mask what she is feeling, she is hurting others needlessly.

So, as I said, I had stopped thinking about it until about a week ago. I was in the midst of reading the Bible about an unrelated subject and, suddenly, I was thinking about what it means to be needy.

Before I became a Christian, I never considered myself as needing anyone at all. It was when I came to the end of my own efforts and my life was crumbling, that I turned to Jesus and admitted I could not save myself. I needed him to do it.

Which he did.

But then, I started forgetting about how much I needed him every day. I started relying again on my own efforts. I took way too much pride in how much I could accomplish and how much I could help others. It wasn’t very often, if ever, that I recognized that God was doing these things through me.

I didn’t think about it at the time but a few days ago, I did start thinking about it. Those thoughts of self-reliance, were really thoughts of pride. Pride of that nature is sinful.

It is, once again, man trying to reach to the heavens and become their own God. Who needs God when you can do so much on your own? After all, doesn’t the Bible tell us that God helps those who help themselves?

Actually, it doesn’t. That isn’t at all from the Bible. It is based on ancient Greek mythology. It wasn’t speaking for or about the God who created the heavens but instead, of gods that man made for himself.

God knows that we need him. He tells us so throughout the Scriptures. Without Jesus, we would be doomed for eternity. It is only through his sacrifice that we are saved from eternal hell.

We need him. We need him every single day. I know that I do. From sun up to sun down and even while I am sleeping, I need God to help me.

Not the least of where I need his help is in overcoming the stronghold sin of pride. It manifests itself frequently but I am learning more and more that anything I have truly accomplished was done with and for God.

This is a sin that many of us are guilty of having. We are taught to have pride in what we do. We are also taught to excel. It isn’t very often that we are taught that it is something that God has done with us.

In what I have been going through these past few years, I have come to depend on others continually. I have been learning to do a few things but for most things, as my fellow Christian noted, I am needy. Very, very needy.

And that’s okay. It is a lesson that God is teaching me. Perhaps, I have been too hard-headed to learn about it in any other way.

God also loves and helps the needy. It is when we acknowledge that he is in control and that we are not, that he can begin to do his work in our lives.

He hears us and knows what we need more than we do ourselves. He is a very good Father and will give us what we need in order to grow in faith.

Psalm 86:1-7

Hear me, Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and needy.

Guard my life, for I am faithful to you; save your servant who trusts in you.

You are my God; have mercy on me, Lord, for I call to you all day long.
Bring joy to your servant, Lord, for I put my trust in you.

You, Lord, are forgiving and good, abounding in love to all who call to you.

Hear my prayer, Lord; listen to my cry for mercy.

When I am in distress, I call to you, because you answer me.