Compromise

Tolerance and compromise are not the same. Don’t compromise the things that you believe, but be tolerant of others and their beliefs.

I have known many pastors over the years that were terribly intolerant in the name of resisting compromise, but the loneliness of intolerance eventually drove them to compromise.

The rest of us should not be running off to a church that we may like better. The real question is still the Bible. We are not the customers but rather the workers.

Faithful

Faith can be active or passive. Faith went from me or faith came to me.

I hit the ball is active, the ball hit me is passive. One is me doing and the other is me being done to. These are the examples that my grammar teacher used when teaching what active & passive tenses mean.

Faithful means that you are filled with faith; it also means that God and others can have faith in; or trust you.

E.g. He is so filled with faith in God. My wife is so faithful to me.

Let’s try to be as trustworthy to God and; others, as God is to us, by using our faith in God to make it work. When we catch ourselves less than faithful, we can use faith to get back where we should be.

Reverse the Plow Blade

Difficulties will make us better or worse, there is no middle ground.

In every difficulty God and the devil both have plans.

James 4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Imagine one of those large pointed plow blades that hinge in the middle. Imagine that it could reverse and catch the snow rather than push it apart.

Our difficulties are like that. They will get between and push us apart. They will ruin marriages, families, and friendships if we let the devil get his way, or they will push us together if they are handled God’s way.

This is always!!! Any time the difficulty is getting between; God isn’t getting his way. Oh by the way don’t blame the other person!!!

All sin hurts and all obedience to God helps.

Did Dad Fail Me???

I always thought that my dad failed me. Then I became a Christian and; decided not to fail him.

God showed me what a good man my dad was; once I was willing to see it.

God asks us to love our brother, our neighbour, and our enemy.

Your dad or mom may have had his or her difficulties but you only hurt yourself by being upset.
What a shame it would be if you were no better in the ability to love.

Winning the Lost

The parable of the soils is not about who is saved it is about who is fruitful. It says that we became unfruitful. This means that we were already fruitful. The power of God to win souls is already in us but we became unfruitful. All we have to do is return to it.

Your car was built to go, if it won’t go you don’t start teaching it, you find out why it isn’t working and fix it.

I won many souls before I even knew that there was a plan for getting people saved. I was so excited about knowing God that it was infectious.

So often we are being taught how to do something when the Bible is teaching us to stop preventing it from happing naturally...

Mark 4:19 And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.

If we spent as much time and effort in learning how we became unfruitful as we do in learning how to win the lost we might succeed.

We are fruitful as soon as we are saved but we become unfruitful. I have seen many new Christians win souls their first week saved without taking a soul winning course.

Wanting… really wanting to win the lost is the best endeavor. A person can succeed at almost anything for which they have unlimited enthusiasm.

John 15:4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. 5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. 6 If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. 7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. 8 Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.

Ambush the ambusher.

If you get ambushed by fear or any negative emotion regularly, then prepare a solution and get there before the devil does. There is an opposite for each emotion. For instance…

Fear vs. faith…
Love vs. hate…
Anxiety vs. peace…
Etc.

We can use faith to conquer fear or the devil can use fear to conquer faith.

Get up, look God in the eye and start off with faith every morning before the devil gets his start.

2Ti 1:7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

Abortion

I have never known an aborted person that ever accomplished great things!