If you love people, you are going to be attacked for speaking truth, no matter how gently you speak it. I've seen it happen, and I've been one of the aggressors myself. In Acts 7, Stephen spoke the truth, and the reaction he immediately got from those listening was, "But they cried out with a loud voice, and covered their ears and rushed at him with one impulse." (57)
Ever seen that happen? People refuse to listen? They ignore what you say, maybe cover their ears in a way, and attack you? In the end they attacked Stephen and, "having fallen to his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!” Having said this, he died." (60)
Expect to be attacked, even by God's own people at times, if you speak the truth. But no matter how vicious, use it as a chance to show Christ's very character—one of mercy, pity, and grace.
"For the entire Law is fulfilled in in this one word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."—Gal 5:14
What about Mary?
How special was marry? Let's look at some points.
1.) All people are born without sin—Mary was not a special ingredient. There is no such thing as a sinful womb.
2.) The title "co-redeemer" is not found anywhere in the Bible. Jesus is the only mediator. Mary never makes an appearance.
3.) The Israelites were condemned for believing in a Queen of heaven.
4.) We are told to honor OUR parents—not other peoples'.
5.) Jesus existed before Mary.
6.) "Hail Mary, full of grace," is not actually in the Bible.
7.) Mary was blessed to be chosen, but it didn't afford her a special status.
8.) God said that John the Baptist (Jesus' cousin) was the greatest human ever born, being greater than Mary, but that the least in the Kingdom of heaven is greater than them.
1.) All children are as sinless as Christ. Jesus Himself did not venerate His mother as being a special womb, and it's because, "The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself." (Eze 18:20). Adam and Eve died because they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Consider how Good speaks of all children. "Moreover your little ones and your children, who you say will be victims, who today have no knowledge of good and evil, they shall go in there; to them I will give it, and they shall possess it." (Deut 1:39)
Little kids have no knowledge of good and evil. They are without sin. In fact, they are considered better than Mary. Jesus called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me." (Mt 18:1-5)
Consider instead what God says about children in the womb. Psa 139:13-14 says, "For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well." How can God create a sinful being? If He knits us together in our mother's womb as David says, and makes us in His image, we are sinless at birth because God does not create sin. To say He predestines people for Hell is to say that God makes us sinful in the beginning, but that's not possible because sin is separate and apart from God. To continue to claim that we have sin from conception is to say the devil creates us ( which He doesn't) or that God only made Adam and Eve and only humans from that point on made people, flesh & spirit (contradicting David's statement). What is sin? It's not a genetic trait, but lawlessness-- that is, the purposeful forsaking of God's laws.
"From men by your hand, O LORD, from men of the world whose portion is in this life. You fill their womb with treasure; they are satisfied with children, and they leave their abundance to their infants." (Isa 17:14) "By the God of your father who will help you, by the Almighty who will bless you with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that crouches beneath, blessings of the breasts and of the womb." (Gen 49:25) Again, children are "blessings of the womb". How could sin exist within a "blessing of heaven above"? In other words, God's blessings are pure and free from sin.
You see, Mary did not have a special womb. She was just blessed herself to be chosen, but even she was considered less than any child in Jesus' eyes.
2.) Christ is the one and only mediator and redeemer. "For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus." (1 Tim 2:5) Only Jesus is ever referred to as an advocate. "My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." (1 John 2:1)
Not all Catholics agree that she is a Co-redeemer of Queen of Heaven. For example, Father Rene Laurentin, the leading expert on Mary, said, “Mary is the model of our faith, but she is not divine. There is no mediation or co-redemption except in Christ. He alone is God.” Catholics have long held varied opinions on Mary, and those opinions still change, as they are not rooted in the Bible. Liguori wrote, “God is also subject to her will." However, Pope John Paul II stepped back and only said Mary “was in a special way close to the Cross of her Son, she also had to have a privileged experience of his Resurrection. In fact, Mary’s role as co-redemptrix did not cease with the glorification of her Son.”
Anyway, those statements aren't in the Bible, and contradict it, so we have to choose one or the other. Christ’s atoning sacrifice alone saves us. (See Isaiah 53:4-6; 2 Cor. 5:21; and 1 Pet. 2:24.)
3.) Having a "Queen of Heaven" actually angered God. In Jer 7:18 God said, "The children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven; and they pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke Me to anger." Again, a "queen" in heaven has never been a concept that makes God happy. Marriage does not exist in heaven. (Mt 22:30)
4.) So you wanted to know why we would not honor Christ's mother, since we are told to honor parents. The command is: ""Honor your father and mother," which is the first commandment with promise: "that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth."" (Ephesians 6:2-3). Notice the use of the word "your." Jesus honored His earthly parents. "Then He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them, but His mother kept all these things in her heart" (Luke 2:51). We do the same when we are subject to our parents as well.
But we make a flawed logical twist by stating that because Jesus honored His parents, then we should honor His parents as well. Because I am honoring my parents, it does not follow that you are commanded to honor my parents as well. Paul said, "Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ" (I Corinthians 11:1). I'm sure Paul honored his parents, but it doesn't follow that all Christians are to honor Paul's parents.
It does cause me to wonder that if we wish to argue that we should honor Mary because Jesus honored his parents, then why do we not argue that we should honor Joseph to the same degree that we claim to honor Mary? While Mary holds an honorable place in history, there is no command in the Bible to give her honor, or to pray to her, or venerate her. Doing so adds to the teachings of God, which creates error and confusion.
5.) Mary did not MAKE Jesus special. In fact, Jesus existed before Mary. In John 8:58, Jesus said, ", “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” Did you ever wonder why Genesis 1:26 says, "Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
Us? Our? It's because God created time, and He is outside of time. Us refers to the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Jesus existed before and outside of Mary. In Judges 13:17-18, the same Angel of Jehovah is recorded. Then Manoah said to the Angel of the Lord, “What is Your name, that when Your words come to pass we may honor You?” And the Angel of the Lord said to him, “Why do you ask My name, seeing it is (wonderful) incomprehensible?”
There are several important things to note about the above Angel of Jehovah.. Earlier in Judges 13:11, when Manoah asked if "the man" was the same one who had earlier appeared to his wife, the angel responded simply, "I AM." This is exactly how Jesus would respond to ID Himself. (Jn 8:58, Mk 14:62, etc.)
Next, this Angel refers to Himself as "Wonderful." This word is also used in Is 9:6 as a prophecy of Jesus. "For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace." All evidence points to this one messenger being Jesus pre-incarnate. Jesus was sinless, but not because of Mary. Mary was just a woman.
So we should focus on Jesus, because, "Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." Mary has no part in deity.
6.) The phrase, "full of grace," in Greek is "plaras karitos," and it occurs in only two places in the New Testament. Neither one is in reference to Mary.
"And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth," (John 1:14).
"And Stephen, full of grace and power, was performing great wonders and signs among the people," (Acts 6:8).
The phrase, "full of grace," does not necessitate sinlessness by virtue of its use. In Stephen's case it signifies that he was "full of the Spirit and of wisdom" along with faith and the Holy Spirit (Acts 6:3, 5) The best translation for Luke 1:28 is actually just, "highly favored." Lots of things can make us highly favored. This was one of those things for Mary.
7.) Mary was blessed to have been chosen to bear the Son in physical form. " But why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" (Luke 1:43) However, it did not afford her a special status. Even, when people would talk about her blessed womb, Jesus always re-directed them to what ACTUALLY makes a person blessed.
"And it happened, as He spoke these things, that a certain woman from the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, “Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts which nursed You!” 28 But He said, “More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” (Luke 11:27-28)
8.) "Truly I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist! Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." (Mt 11:11) God said that John the Baptist (Jesus' cousin) was the greatest human ever born, being greater than Mary, but that the least in the Kingdom of heaven is greater than them.
What will I give up to help one person I love make it to heaven?
I have no greater regret than hurting people in the past. People who were growing spiritually, but fell away after I put my emotions over their eternity, leading to a remembrance of despair instead of integrity. The Kingdom of God is likened to a great pearl, so great that a merchant sold everything to have it. In retrospect I wonder, "What would I have not given to see them in heaven?"
"Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13) If you could ensure someone's eternity, what would you be willing to give to do that? What would I be willing to give up to give someone a good chance? What would I be willing to sacrifice? How far would I be willing to love someone?
How much is heaven worth?
What is heaven worth to you? “The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it." (Mt 13:45-46)
The merchant wasn't content to just admire the pearl—he gave up everything in his life to get it. What sin would you not overcome to get it? What good would you choose not to do? How much is it worth?
Workout partners.
When I'm going on long distance hikes, there are times I'm in incredible pain and just flat-out exhausted. If I didn't have a partner along with me, I'd just sit down, or I'd flat-out turn back. Having a partner in tough times keeps us going.
Spiritually it's the same. Who we surround ourselves with really matters. God says that, "Therefore encourage one another and build one another up," (1 Thess 5:11), and that's exactly what we need. Are your closest companions going to push you to excel spiritually, to remain faithful to a spiritual workout regimen? Will you do it for your friends?
Confessing your sin and praying for one another—a tough struggle!
I used to hide stuff from facebook, because I didn't want my brothers and sisters to know what I was doing. It was shameful. I know of a couple of people who, like I did, lead double lives. They try and hide stuff, too, while keeping the spiritually good stuff—you know, assembly and whatnot—very public. I would have grown much faster if I'd had the guts to practice James 5:16,
"Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much."
Do you have the courage to admit your struggles? Do you know what a relief it is to be able to open up to someone and say, "This is killing me—it hurts so bad and I feel like I just can't!" I got to do that at family camp, and man that was a relief. It builds confidence. Oh, and just as a freebie, if you're praying for someone, you'll be keeping him at the top of your mind.
What will your footnote be?
My dad chased my brother off with a shotgun. We had three SUVs of FBI agents show up once. His marriages number in the double digits. And when I was young, he "faithfully assembled" as a "Christian," and no one was the wiser because of his charisma.
I've heard people say, "Man, stay away from her, the family's messed up and so is she."
2nd Kings records a string of kings who appear as mere footnotes, "Did evil much like his forefathers and then died." "Reigned for a little bit doing evil like those before him and then got whacked." What would you want God to have written about you? "Crazy like her mother, kept sinning, then she died," or, "He was abusive like his father before him, showed up to all the family camps, continued in evil, then he died?"
If your family is dysfunctional, you don't have to be. You can change your footnote, but you have to admit that you're sick, and that your family is. You have to be willing to go through the pain of confrontation and breaking the cycle, of saying, "Mom/dad, I'm sorry, but I'm going to overcome where you have failed." Look at specific problems in your family, like alcohol abuse, abusive language, partnering with non-Christians, etc., and be on high alert for them in your own life. Change them. Don't quit doing bad, but instead start doing good, because "the one practicing righteousness is righteous." (1 John 3:7)
What is your motivation for salvation?
What was your motivation for seeking salvation? Was it to be changed or just to escape the consequence of sin? Do you fully believe that God was telling the truth when He said, "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come?" (2 Corinthians 5:17)
For a long time, my motivation was just to escape the consequence of sin. I resisted the change. Not anymore. Now I want success, and not for myself, but to bring glory to my God, who not only created me, but saved me when I went astray, and at an incalculable cost. I am a new creation, and I will keep the old man in the grave.
Romance and the order of operations—it's simple math!
In relationships, it's better to pick a mate through wisdom rather than emotion. In order to get the right result in math, the order of operations have to be followed. If you add something before accomplishing the multiplying and dividing, the answer just won't be right. It has occurred to me that the order of operations if critical in dating and romance, too.
If we meet someone we really like emotionally, but who isn't saved, it is folly for us to give our emotional core to them. God tells us to, "seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness," and as a part of that, we need to put the spiritual health of the other person BEFORE dating and our emotional desires.
If we don't do that, what we're really doing is setting an immediate example where our own wants are equal or superior to God's desires and plans, and we show that our emotions trump the other person's spiritual eternity. We should make disciples first, showing integrity and sincerity of our beliefs—this will reveal just how much we love God, and will be much more effective at causing faith in those we love.
It's only a struggle if you fight it.
Yes or no: Some people just need to come to their senses! What if you were working for the enemy and didn't even know it? God says that we should be "with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will." (2 Tim 2:25-26)
That's a scary thing! How can we make sure that we're not Satan's unwitting POWs? God explains 3 verses before by saying, "flee from youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart." Embracing unrighteousness—even just by refusing to fight it—can lead to us being held captive by Satan to do his will.
It's not a struggle with sin if you're not fighting it. Flee it. Fight it. Don't be captured by it. And if you have friends who are captive to Satan, fight for their freedom, but don't let them snare you for Satan. :)
The Swiss Cheese Model of Sin and Catastrophe
WARNING: PG-13. Have you ever heard someone say, "I didn't mean to have sex, it just happened?" If you'd like, replaced "sex" with "I didn't mean to get drunk and then drive," or "I didn't mean to lie and then have to tell a bigger lie to cover it up." The concept in all of these is the same: something went from OK to disaster in one step. However, that's very rarely the case.
Look at the attached picture. The Swiss Cheese model of accident causation is a model used in risk analysis and risk management. It shows that we have multiple layers of defenses against accidents, and that multiple failures, when aligned, can spell disaster. This is also true spiritually.
Usually people don't just instantly fornicate. Instead, they like each other. They talk to each other. Then maybe they kiss, talk about sex, start spending time alone together, start taking off clothes, touching sensually, and THEN it happens. That's why God warns us, "But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts." (Romans 13:14) Each of those steps toward sleeping with someone is us allowing a provision for sin, but each is a chance for us to stop sin in its tracks.
James 1 explains it like this: "But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death." (v14-15) Let's use every chance we have to prevent sin!
A deadly process.
"Wait, you drove to see her while you were drunk? Seriously? That's horrible and dangerous, you could hav—" "OH SHUT THE **** UP, I should have known you'd judge me. Like you're perfect. Everyone's driven drunk. It wasn't that bad."
That's from a conversation I had with a Christian in my past. This person had a billion good qualities of stunning magnitude, but refused to address this particularly strong fondness for drinking to excess. Satan has a flowchart to deceive us. First, he hooks us with a sin. But he needs us to think that it's normal to sin. To do that, he gives us friends who do the same things, because bad company corrupts good morals. He wants us not only to practice that sin, but to give approval to those who do; to feel more comfortable letting loose with them than being around the saints. (Rom 1:32) Consider this escalation of thought:
My friends drink, so I'll try it, too. -> You know, everyone drinks a little. -> Everyone likes to let loose and party with friends. -> Everyone gets drunk. Everyone drives drunk. -> Wow, my friends don't criticize me for this! No wonder I hang out with them. They're compassionate. You're not. Get out of my life.
That escalation can occur with anything. Everyone watches porn, right? Everyone cusses, right? Everyone sleeps around, right?
Because we go down that process of thought and are so desensitized toward sin, we fail to have the proper response toward it, whether it is our own sin, or sin in others. We minimize it, justify it, or ignore it and go on our way unaffected by it—or so we think it has no effect. We look at those billion good qualities and feel proud of our spiritual accomplishments and tell ourselves, "This outweighs that sin I'm keeping—that's what grace is for!"
God says, "And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold." (Mt 24:12) Our love for righteousness grows cold. We exchange the truth of God for a lie, and become liars seared in our own consciences. We become dead men walking. Don't let that happen to you. Nip it in the bud.
Do you lack inner peace?
So many people, including Christians, are worn down by the world. They're tired. They have no peace. Their inner man is weary and it can find no rest, but only turmoil and strife. In Christ, we can obtain inner peace, but it requires that we dedicate our lives to righteousness; choosing a little righteousness and a little evil will never give us the fruit of peace we desire. Hebrews 12:11 says,
"All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it."
If you lack inner peace, there is a solution, and it is choosing righteous behavior. Isaiah noted, "The fruit of that righteousness will be peace; its effect will be quietness and confidence forever." (32:17) Don't try to find peace through worldly activities, "for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." (Rom 14:17)
Organ donation.
Organ donation is an amazing thing, but recipients of organs often need to be in fairly good shape to get them. Amazingly, God found us in terrible shape but still gave us an organ donation. He says,
"I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh." (Eze 36:25-26)
We've been given a new heart and a fresh start. If we go back to the same things and lifestyle that made us sick, instead of working to grow stronger, we can risk wasting that new heart. Let's recognize how precious this new heart is and grow stronger every day, taking care of this gracious gift we've been given.
My past will never define me.
For a long time I've tried to figure out why I went from spiritually lazy to spiritually working; from feeling safe in sin to toppling those titans. To this day, I can't really figure it out. I want to. I want to have a magic key to fixing people, to helping them overcome when they're stuck in bad habits. "Poof—you'll never drive drunk again! Poof—you won't be sleeping around anymore! Poof—your explosive anger is gone!"
But I don't. it seems that I didn't change until my heart desired it, and then it was God who caused the growth. And getting someone's heart to change—I am no good at that. I wish I were. But I think I have a solution that works, if I could convince people to try it. Hebrews 10:24-25 says,
"Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near."
For a long time, I hid my facebook, or sections of it, from my brothers and sisters in Christ—I even preemptively blocked them from seeing me, or from seeing lots of my posts. Who wants to show off evil to those who are good? I didn't want to be in anyone's spiritual high beams, because man, I was pretty popular with the world, and that felt good.
My life was a formula designed to cheat God's system: I'd keep my bad behavior, but show up to assembly enough that no one could say that I wasn't a participant. And I'd know a LOT about the Bible, so you couldn't say I could be destroyed for a lack of knowledge. I'd even show up to some functions outside of Sunday and make a good showing of it all. Man, just look at the pictures! I'd be in them. That's my alibi.
But if you ever checked my facebook, you'd see that I was definitely a friend of the world.
In the end, my conscience drove me to the breaking point. It was a little twinge I was ignoring, but it grew and grew. I saw so many saints doing so much good, and I realized that I was trying to slide in to home plate—almost tagged out, but still saved. Saved by a technicality.
But that conscience I mentioned...it got kicked from the backburner into overdrive. I met a girl who wasn't really a Christian, but who was really sweet. She had plenty of worldly habits and thought the world of me—or rather, because of my formulaic way of living, she saw me as ultra-Christlike. I knew the Bible inside out. I didn't cuss or drink. I was great with dirty jokes, but those were just funny...not serious. I was a breath of fresh air. But in that air was an odorless poison.
This girl liked to drink a lot, and it didn't help out her life at all—but I never said anything about her bar habits. I got to know her and her kid, and I started having feelings of attachment for them. For perhaps the second time ever I said, "Ok, this girl isn't on track for heaven...I guess I have to do something." But I wasn't committed. My formula was just that: technical schematics that could never change a person's heart. They were soulless criteria for getting what I wanted, not anything from a heart that ached to serve God ever better.
And because of that, I presented a truth devoid of love. It was like saying, "Here, drink this water, it'll help you live," but all the while, I was an oil slick on top of it, making her sick of the water. If I was such a saint, why did I hide so much on facebook? Why did I put such low priority on studying the Bible? Why did I only assemble the bare minimum—Sunday evening only, because it's shorter?
God says, "By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another," (Jn 13:35), and deep down, all men recognize this. And deep down, the girl recognized me as a fraud. So was she, being a Christian in name only, but it meant that I couldn't reach her. I couldn't cause a desire for her to change. We split ways. She went deeper into drinking and the world, and I went into sadness and despair. I had finally realized that I'd hurt someone—spiritually. Blown a chance to make a disciple of Christ.
It hurt. I decided to start getting involved with the saints. The "assembling" that's mentioned in Hebrews is way more than just Sundays, by the way, because the early church associated daily. In Acts 2:46 we see that Christians met daily. "And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts."
Changing your associates is one of the best way to change YOU. If you're not growing, start being around your brothers and sisters in Christ more—it can lead to explosive growth. I had to start forcing myself to be with my brothers and sisters, to expose myself to the light. When I did, it made me change my bad habits. I had to get rid of them. And the void that was left had to be filled with something—so I started filling it with what my brothers and sisters were doing. I started studying the Bible. I started teaching others. And the more I did, the more I loved it. And the more I saw results, the more I realized God's plan worked. And the more I saw His plan working, the more I worshiped (submitted to Him) in Spirit.
But the thing that sometimes makes me sad is that, even knowing what can work, and what has worked, I can't force anyone to try it. I can't force anyone to desire it. It took the painful realization that I was ultimately a failure—and a failure that put others in spiritual danger—before I woke up. I had to recognize that God was right when He says, "For the time already past is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire of the Gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties and abominable idolatries." (1 Pet 4:3) I had to realize that I'd hurt someone who had cared for me, and for whom I reciprocated that affection.
Even more than that, I had to open myself up to criticism. I couldn't just keep calling people meanies when they called me out. I had to say,
"Let a righteous man strike me—it is a kindness;
let him rebuke me—it is oil for my head;
let my head not refuse it."
(Psalm 141:5)
But perhaps, just perhaps, I can encourage people to wish for the label of, "overwhelming conqueror in all things," to be known as one who topples the titans of sin, who says, "My past will never define me, but this day and every day I shall excel still more." That's my prayer at least. I know that I can encourage. I can be kind. I can be honest. Paul said, "I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth." I can plant. I can water. And I can pray for God to cause the growth.
I praise God every day that He helped me examine myself, and find myself wanting. And I praise Him for helping me grow. In the past. In the present. And boundlessly in the future.
Grace doesn't make sin less dangerous.
Satan wants us to say that we're not ready or not able to break bad habits, and if he can't convince us of that, he does something more insidious: he tries to get us to believe that, "Hey, this sin is fun and that's what grace is for, so it's not that serious! Ain't God great?" DON'T FALL FOR IT! God warns strongly about taking grace (and thus sin) casually, saying,
"Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience? But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God."(Romans 2, in part)
God's love and kindness are great, but if we make light of it, we store up for ourselves wrath and indignation. Let our prayer be to be those who, "by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, [receive] eternal life." (Romans 2:8)
The difference between 1 and 0.
Can a person do God's will if they don't try and make new Christians? Can they glorify God? Jesus said, "He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me, scatters," and, "Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away...My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples."" (Luke 11:23; John 15:2;8)
Did you know that 1/0 is undefined, but it can almost be thought of as "approaching infinity?" That's because 1 is, in a strange way, basically infinitely greater than 0. The difference between 1 and 0 is HUGE! Making just ONE new Christian in your lifetime makes almost an infinite amount of difference.
Let's work with Jesus and prove to be His disciples, bringing God glory by adding new Christians to the Kingdom!
(OTOH, if we just tromp around where Jesus is going, but aren't doing what He's doing, we're more likely to trample things underfoot and scatter the harvest—NOT GOOD!)
Ask for the Spirit, live as Christ.
In Luke 11:13, Jesus said, "how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” Have you considered that before? Did you know that God associates the Holy Spirit with our behavior? In James 4:4-6, He says,
"You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: “He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us?"
We have to desire the Spirit more than the world. We can't have both. What do you pray for?
Respect in relationships.
I once dated a Christian who said she didn't respect me because I'd never be like a certain evangelist who, to this day, is one of the best men either of us have ever been blessed enough to know. Was this a relationship I should have pursued and stayed in?
No. God tells us, "Each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband." (Ephesians 5:33).
If a relationship lacks respect, it's not one to be in. Move on and find someone where both parties are edified and bring glory to God.
What's worship?
I've seen lots of debates which fundamentally occur because of a misunderstanding of "worship." One debate pointed out that singing is an act of worship, so we can't have pitch pipes used during it. In that regard, I looked at 2 Chron 29:28-29 and how it explains worship:
"WHILE the whole assembly worshiped, the singers also sang and the trumpets sounded; all this continued until the burnt offering was finished. Now at the completion of the burnt offerings, the king and all who were present with him bowed down and worshiped."
I noticed that the singing wasn't worship. The trumpeting wasn't worship. The offering wasn't worship. Worship is a physical act of prostration and bowing down—and that is the only physical act of "worship," and God doesn't need it from me. That's why Jesus said in John 4:21-24, "“Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship (bow down/prostrate to) the Father. [...] But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship [prostrate before Him] in spirit and truth.”
Does God want my spiritual reverence and prostration before Him just for an hour? Nope. He wants it 24/7. Does He ever mention having a time or place for me to worship? Nope, that was for the Jews. Bowing down is worshiping, and it's the only worship. Some do it physically, but God wants it spiritually.