Trying to be Good?
Tuesday, November 21, 2017
As my wife and I prepared to walk today I felt impressed that we should listen to the Bible being read, as we walked, but I did not have our CD loaded on to our i-phone.
She told me that we already had an audio Bible on our phones, in E-Sword. So, as we started on our walk, my wife brought the e-sword app up and showed me how we could listen to the KJV of the Bible on her i-phone.
She just randomly selected a portion of scripture and set it to play. The reading was the 2nd Chapter of 1 Corinthians.
As we listened, the Holy Spirit started speaking to me about the reason why so many people, today, do not really understand what the Bible is saying, in plain English, as they read it; let alone understand the hidden Truths, the same as most hearers, in Jesus' day did not understand the parables.
If you do not eat good healthy fruit/food, you can not reproduce good healthy seed, to be planted and grow into new, good healthy plants!
In nature a plant or animal only reproduces that which is the same kind, a copy of itself.
Has the true, pure seed of Jesus Christ been planted in you, reproducing a plant that looks, sounds and thinks like Jesus Christ? Are you a reproduction of Jesus?
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Days of Heaven on Earth Devotional
by A. B. Simpson
Tuesday, November 21, 2017
It is said that a mother found her small boy standing beside a tall sunflower, with his feet stuck in the ground. When she asked, "What in the world are you doing there?" he naively answered, "Why, I am trying to grow to be a man."
His mother laughed heartily at the idea of his being planted in the ground in order to grow like the sunflower. Then, patting him gently on the head, she said, "Why, Harry, that is not the way to grow. You can never grow bigger by trying. just come right in and eat enough good food and have plenty of play and you will soon grow to be a man without trying so hard."
Harry's mother was right. There could not be a better answer to the question: "How do the lilies grow?" than Hannah Whitehall Smith's comment, "They grow without trying."
Our deepest spiritual life is the life of self unconsciousness through which we become united to Christ. We live continually on His life, being nourished, fed and constantly filled with His Spirit and presence and all the fullness of His imparted life.
Scripture
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow —Matthew 6:28
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"(See what sort of love the Father has given to us: that we should be called God's children — and indeed we are! For this reason the world does not know us: because it did not know him.
"Dear friends, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that whenever it is revealed we will be like him, because we will see him just as he is. And everyone who has this hope focused on him purifies himself, just as Jesus is pure)."
"Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; indeed, sin is lawlessness." 1 John 3:1-4
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Are you trying to be good? How many trees or plants have to try to produce the fruit that God created them to produce?
Much of the New Testament speaks to us about how we can know what kind of plant we are.
"IF" the Holy Spirit, "IF" Jesus Christ, is really living in you, your heart and mind, your life will produce the fruit of the Holy Spirit, without trying.
Many of you have grown gardens and know all the ups and downs of producing healthy plants. Sometimes, in the garden, the plants are lush and green. They really look like wonderful plants; but they never produce edible fruit. Why? Maybe it is because of the soil they are planted in or the nutrition, the food, they are being fed.
So it is with the Spiritual Plants! They get a great start, but then what? Some 'try' to produce good fruit, but they will not and can not because of the 'influences' of the soil that they are growing in! The food that they are daily feeding on!
"IF" you are daily feeding on the world's food, the world's influence will be reproduced in your thoughts and actions, your fruit!
"IF" you leave and shut out the world's input, present yourself to the Master Gardener, get grafted into the Vine, Jesus Christ, feed on His Word, and allow the nutritious sap of the Holy Spirit to "daily" flow through, and feed, your spirit, by obedience; you will be transformed into a plant that looks like Jesus. A plant that produces the pure fruit that Jesus produced when He lived here, in the flesh.
Please do not be deceived! If your life produces rotten fruit, there is a reason, and all the trying will not change it. You will simply become a good hypocrite! You will look pretty good on the outside, but you will be empty on the inside. A whitewashed wall, full of dead men's bones.
Please repent, turn around! Plant your mind in the Word of God. Pray for the Holy Spirit to fill you, cleanse you of "all" unrighteousness; daily teach you, as you sit at His feet with the Word!
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"Therefore I exhort you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice — alive, holy, and pleasing to God — which is your reasonable service."
"Do not be conformed to this present world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may test and approve what is the will of God — what is good and well-pleasing and perfect." Romans 12:1-2
"Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him, all that is in the world (the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the arrogance produced by material possessions) is not from the Father, but is from the world.
And the world is passing away with all its desires, but the person who "does" the will of God remains forever." 1 John 2:15-17
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Simpson Devotional
Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson
Days of Heaven on Earth
Thursday, November 30, 2017
When the apostle speaks of the deep things Of God (1 Corinthians 2:10), he means more than deep spiritual truth. There must be something before this. There must be a deep soil and a thorough foundation.
Much of our spiritual teaching fails because the people to whom it is directed are so shallow. Their deeper nature has never been stirred.
The beatitudes begin at the bottom of things-the poor in spirit, the mourners, the hungry hearts. Suffering is essential to profound spiritual life. We need not go to a monastery or a hospital for the leprous to find it. Unless we are born into a different race than Adam's, the first real opportunity for unselfishness will bring into our lives the anguish of crucifixion.
Because men and women have not faced this truth, they know little of suffering and death. We must have deep convictions. Truth must be to us a necessity and principle a part of our very being.
Lord, make me poor in spirit. Help me to be even as Thou wert when on earth-always the lowest and, therefore, highly exalted (Philippians 2:9).
Scripture
In lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves —Philippians 2:3
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Sadly, the humility that is out there, comes across as a false humility. True humility not only sees its own weakness and "esteems others better than themselves" but readily 'repents'; changes the failures into purity, God's Purity!
For one to brag about their sins and failures with no intent of repentance or victory in Jesus Christ, is dealing with pride and false humility!
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This was a shortened intro to what I was impressed to write everything that the Lord laid on my spirit is on the blog at <https://ecommunity.c...faithful-walk/>
