JoanG

Caught in a sin means that the person has done something wrong that has become public knowledge. This could be something small or something of a huge error. The person that sinned should be confronted in a very loving way. They need too make amends for their actions if at all possible. they would need to confess their sin to God. and God will have to forgive the person and help them go past it and not dwell on it. the person that talks to the sinner will need to be right with God and able to do so in a loving way.

A person must "kill" their physical urges that are not healthy to their souls. This is the only way that the Spirit can work within them. A person can be called a Christian but still hold on to their worldly views. They go to church at least for Easter and Christmas. They donate to the welfare of the church. However, they live their lives in a worldly manner. These days, people do not live their faith. They do the least amount of work for God. They do not realize that they are hurting themselves and those around them.

The Holy Spirit comes into our hearts and souls. He brings gifts from God to help us become "Christ-like" and to do the work that God has designed us to do. The Holy Spirit plants these seeds of goodness deep within our souls and our hearts. It is up to us to water and nurture these seeds. We need to give them food to grow. We need to be open to it. We need to be willing to allow it to work within us. It needs to be alive and to spread its roots in us. We pray and follow God and Jesus and it grows more. We do good deeds and show that we are practicing the ways of Christ. The gifts of the Spirit grow more and start to take over a life of their own within us. They cause us to shine brighter and to illuminate a love that could only come from God. However, there are those people that call themselves Christians but never show it. They are saved by the skin of their teeth. But they have no grace from God. Their hearts and souls are dead within them. They are of this world. Nothing more.

Nobody is perfect. And little flaws in a person's character can drive people nuts. However, with patience, it will be easy for a person to look the other way. Patience will allow a person to handle little spats without it turning to an argument. They are able to listen to everything a person has to say. It does cut down on a lot of fights within a family.

A person cannot have peace or joy in their hearts if there is no love. Hate will not allow a person to see good in anything. It actually blinds them to everything around them. It causes them to search for all this is wrong. They will search for every reason to criticize everything and everyone. They do not allow God's light to shine in them. Only love can bring peace and joy.

Eternal life begins the moment that we believed that Jesus Christ is the son of God and gave up his life for our sins and we accepted the grace of God into our hearts and souls. Without Christ in our lives, we would be looking forward to eternal death. Our names would not have been written into the book of life. I believe that we have the responsibility to make sure that the word of the Lord is heard by everyone. With the advances of technology, we have many ways to spread the word of God. We can use social media to the best of our ability. We can post the word of God to a lot of people around the world at one time. I can set an example of God in the way that I live and associate with everyone that I meet.

I do not believe that knowing the bible is a substitute for listening to the Father as Jesus did. The bible is nothing more than a guide book. It is not a real experience to hearing the voice of god. I feel that churches do not talk about God's voice because the leaders never learned how to hear God speaking to us. I think that possibly leaders are afraid of this concept because many people would say a message came from God but actually it is nothing more than a person's ego talking. We also have so many issues with mental health that hear the voice of God is to be considered crazy. Meds are handed out like candy for things like this. I truly believe that if we really learned to hear God and follow his every instruction, we would change the whole world. We would end war, hunger and hatred. We would learn to live in harmony with all of the creations. This would include animals, birds and fishes and all natural elements. There would not be any waste. Everything would be used fore the real purposes that it was created. I really feel there would be one central religion. All Christians and all denominations and all religions would come together as one. There would be a unity of all men, women and children.

A special speaker can bring a new message a new way. They can be a breathe of fresh air. They can be a new set of eyes to an age old problem. They can help shine a light on a dark area where everyone has been afraid to tread. They have the ability to be blunt where the regular pastor cannot. They can deliver the hard messages about the congregation themselves. Ministers of itinerant preaching are very special people. These people must be willing to share their message and their faith with people that they do not know on a very personal level. They must have a strong message to deliver because the message is basically what they will always be judged on. They must love to travel. and they must be extroverts even if it is only on the outside. They have to shine for people to take them seriously. They also have some very important reasons to be who they are. They can be called to "fill the pulpit" in an emergency. they can be called to help with a problem between the congregation and the pastor. They can be a new set of eyes when the pastor and congregation hit a brick wall together.

Some Christians are afraid to face opposition. They find that it is easier to stay with the status quo. They refuse to step out of their comfort zone. Persecution can cause a person to grow up faster. It is a challenge that must be faced with little to no preparation. You must be willing to defend your thoughts, beliefs and actions to the very end. This type of challenge will show exactly what a person is made of. Their true colors will come through. It will show where their heart and soul really are. God has given each of us a free will. He does not dictate our actions and our thoughts or even our beliefs. There has to be a reason for us to follow him and to love him. God does not want puppets. He want people to love him because they truly do love him. There has to be opposition for us to succeed. We have to be able to show ourselves what drives us. We cannot be blind followers of anything and that goes for God.

Timothy is to make sure that the church and the faithful of Thessalonica have the back ground and the resources to stay faithful to God and Jesus. They were a new church that was being pressured by outside forces to give up the faith. They were left without a strong figure to set the best possible example for a period of time. Timothy is to be their example and their rock to help them grow and mature into a powerful, faithful group to Christ. he needed to express his own faith. He needed to face his own human limitations. He needed to be able to grow as a leader to these people. He needed to prove himself and his love of God. It was a strong character building exercise. Delegating people to work in different areas of ministry helps to grow stronger and more faithful followers of Christ. People will be able to take a pride in what they do and their excitement will spill over to others around them. There will be a growing excitement in which God will be glorified in many more people.

God gave us a gift by grace as our salvation. This came without any strings attached. However, if we turn our lives around and start living our lives the way that makes God and Jesus proud. They offer us rewards that accumulate in heaven. It could almost be considered a special gift for walking the path that God puts before us. Our actions and our words will tell God and Jesus how much love we have for them. Every little thing that we do to help others is actually a message to God about our love. We should be happy to do the work that God has put before us. It gives us a feeling of light heartedness. There is a warm fuzzy feeling in our souls. This is what should motivate us the most. We should be excited to tell Jesus what we are doing in our daily lives. There should be a pride inside of our soul that we have done our best and that we could bring honor to God with those actions.

The word of God is the guide book by which we should all live by. This is the ultimate on the perfect life. There is a unique power in the words. They have a way of winding themselves into our hearts and souls. The meaning only come alive when God opens our eyes, ears and hearts to them. These are life- changing words. They will cause us to grow and mature and to copy the life of our brother, Jesus.

A father is a very important part of bringing up children. They are the ones that guide and mold the young. They need to show right from wrong. Women are very capable of doing this. As a single mother, I have had to be a role model to my two boys. It is not always easy, but with the help of God anything and everything is possible.

A new disciple needs to be taken care of. They need to learn how to grow in the love of God and they need to learn how to speak the word of God. They need to be taught about grace and sin and forgiveness. Nobody can just start teaching. There needs to be a period of trusted learning. I feel that men can do this nurturing very effectively. True men of the gospel will be very loving and very nurturing. They will see the positive aspects in their actions and continue to follow them.

Unfortunately, I have seen all of these problem flaws in my current congregation. I am not sure how to judge them by greater to least. I have a feeling that more than one of these will guide a person's action at a time. To me, they all go hand in hand. I find that I pray a lot to have myself helped by God and the Holy Spirit to keep me on the right path. I know that there is no gray area with these. There is a very thin line between the positive and the negative. And only by the grace of God can I stand on the positive side.

Personal courage is needed to follow Christ and to go out and preach his word for all to hear. You are not only battling your inner demons; you are also battling evil forces in the world and in other people. You need to stand strong against opposition. In an unhealthy congregation, people are afraid to fight the sinfulness of others. They allow evil to penetrate into all the corners, nooks and crannies of the building. They are afraid to fight this. They do not want to rock the boat of status quo. They are afraid to call those people to the carpet that are spreading this malice. Personally, God had called me to try to speak up and set things right with the congregation that I am in. He has put me up against people to try and reason with them. At times I have felt that I was banging my head against the walls. However, God has lead me to walk away to fill up my spiritual self on Sundays. But this has given me the courage to try and continue the fight in my home congregation.

some Christians feel that once they become Christians, they can do anything they want. They feel that God already knew they were going to do that so they are already forgiven for it. Once your sins are forgiven, live like you want because God will let you into heaven.

The works of dehumanizing others- these would be the sexual sins. The works of insulting God- those sins are the ones that go against the praise and worship of God. The works of losing our true selves- those sins that harden our hearts. The works of personal failure- those sins when we can not control our actions.

There is always an internal struggle between the Holy Spirit and human nature of the flesh. It tells us that if we continue to fight and allow the Holy Spirit to win, we will eventually be able to win the struggle and our human urges will decrease. And it will become easier to allow us to live in the glory of God here on earth. We, as humans, have a sinful nature. We are not perfect. And no matter how hard we might try, we will occasionally fail to withstand the temptation. Our weakness of the flesh will cause the sin.

I have seen Christians that have felt that they were above the laws of the church, the laws of humanity and the laws of common sense. In a church that has a lot of backstabbing and rudeness, the climate is very dark. The air feels like it can suffocate you. There is a sense of hopelessness in a lot of the people. It is a struggle to sit there and even try to listen. A person can feel that their is no God left to hear any prayers. With spirit-led Christians, there is a sense of love and acceptance. People feel very welcome. There is a genuine feeling that fills all their words. They are an example of Christ and his love for everyone.

I feel that people can be lost inwardly and they suffer greatly for it. They pretend to the world that they are okay. They look like they have it all together. They have what looks like the perfect life. But inside, they are really hurting. Jesus knew the heart of this man. He saw how he really was on the inside. Jesus knew this man has a very troubled soul. By Jesus confronting him, Jesus had hoped that this person would try to be better. However, this man might actually love his sinful live.

The Sabbath police hate anything that goes against the status quo. His healings goes against their world right now. They are considered the men of power at that time. If people were to start turning to Jesus, they would lose their positions. I feel that a lot of people have very hard hearts. They do not see the world past their nose. They blindly feel that they are perfect in their ideas and beliefs that they refuse to hear anything new. I feel that they Pharisees have the sin of ego and pride. Their pride got the best of them.

Jesus wanted to see if the man really wanted to be healed. if he was ready to take the next steps in his life to live as a true follower of God. Not everyone is ready to take that step. Some people want to remain as they are and they just want to remain as they are and they just want to be able to live off the pity and on the edges of society. They are comfortable being miserable. Some people need us to pray for a spiritual healing before we can even attempt to pray for a physical healing. They need to be made right with their inner self. Their physical ailments can be caused by depression, or even self loathing.

I feel the man was probably a bit of a user and complainer. He was basically faithless in God but he believed in the waters only. God cares about people even when they turn their back on him. We might feel that we do not really deserve grace. We do not want to really let go of our past hurts. We do not realize that God can love us even when we can not love ourselves. We feel that there has to be a catch somewhere because in this human world, we do not get something for nothing.

At one time, I felt that I had to have the best of everything. I felt that in order to be happy, my kids had to have the best video games and toys out there. I made the mistake of actually feeling that material objects made everyone happy. I used people to get ahead. I lived way outside of my means. I hated to get out of bed everyday. I actually felt that stealing was okay. Because what I felt I deserved was beyond my price range. Yes, I believe that money could **** a person if that is truly what they crave. It made me a horrible person in a lot of ways.