Friend, the Bible encourages us to break free from old thinking and stagnant beliefs.

Many of us believe in legalistic ways and think by doing this, God will be pleased with us.

God gave the Law of the Ten Commandments to Moses and from those Holy Laws, men have added whatever their interpretation of them has been and almost choked the Word of God from us. Many have become bound up in those laws and do not open their hearts to God to have the personal relationship He wants.

Jesus came to free us from those legalistic ways.

All through His ministry while on earth,  He shows the Pharisees the error of their thinking, but most, loving their positions in the temple could not see the true Word of God who stood before them in the flesh, nor could they change their ways of teaching the people. The people's own sin caused them to debase God's Law by their desire to always have what they wanted.  This caused their spiritual leaders to add new law to God's law to try to control sinful behaviour of the people.

Here are the Ten Commandments;

Thou shalt have no other Gods before Me.

Do not make any graven images of anything to worship or bow down to worship an image

Do not take the name of the Lord in vain

Keep the Sabbath day Holy

Honour your Mother and Father

You shall not kill

You shall not commit adultery

You shall not steal

Do not bear false witness against another

Do not covet what others have

Friend, these ten commandments are God's Law for us - but He has made a Way for us to be with Him.  He sent His Son to be the Sacrifice for the sins against the Law that we all have fallen short of.

The Law shows us that we are sinners. 

We cannot keep the Law without the help of Jesus who died so that His Blood would wash away the sin and set us on a Path to reconciliation to God the Father. Belief in Him and the Sacrifice and Resurrection is the requirement of God the Father for our sins to be forgiven and a new life to be embarked upon with the Holy Spirt as a Guide, Mentor, Teacher, Counsellor, Comforter.

Without the Holy Sacrifice, we could not ever be reconciled to God.  Under His Law, we are sinners who would taint Heaven with our unrepentant souls.

No, we have to repent and accept God's Son as our Lord and receive the baptism of the Spirit.

As long as we believe and have faith, His Mercy and Grace is new for us every morning.  He requires we repent of sins immediately we realize and He is Just to forgive.

But, friend, do not deliberately sin.  Refrain from deliberate sin because God knows the heart and sees the unrepentant quality and the desire to do or have whatever the sinful practise is and is able to discern the reasons for the continual sinful behaviour.

We must overcome ingrained sinful attitudes as the Spirit shows them to us.

With the help of the Spirit and Son we can overcome.  A humble heart will overcome.

Friend, Jesus is known as the Divine Giver.

It is His delight to give to us according to His Law.

He cannot break His Law or bend it to suit us, but He does delight in giving all good things to us.

Friend, decide to be a receiver of His Good Gifts.  Speak to Him and tell Him that you believe and want to receive all He has for you.

Decide today to be a good steward of all the gifts He gives to you.  The Gift, of knowledge of Holy inspired thinking, and the Gift to let that knowledge flow through you and be a blessing to others, is a wonderful Gift that helps both you and the receiver of your own blessing.

As you walk this road of blessings you will find gems and jewels along the Way, that are for you and you alone as well. 

Will they be material Gifts?  Sometimes, but they will always have a spiritual value; for this is the currency of Heaven.

Mercy and Grace are Gifts from Jesus as well.  Never forget to thank Him so you may continue to receive.

Friend, I have gone years during my early days as a Christian and later upon meditation have discovered, like a light going on, that a certain turning point in my life or an instance where something came together for me in the natural world that I thought was like a "fluke," was a Gift from God.

All those years not thanking Him!  So be careful and acknowledge the Gift when it comes.

Look back at your life and see if there are instances when you definetly received a Heavenly Gift and have not as yet acknowledged it. 

Friend, it's never too late.  Do it now.  Thank Him for His Mercy and Grace towards you for not knowing and going on without thanks.

And let the flow of blessings to you be opened wide again!

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. 1 Peter 1:14

Friend, the Lord is saying to us each and every moment, the above words from 1Peter.

Our former passions to do what we "felt" were right for us, and what the world says is right for us, are only that - passions to be overcome and let go.

Today worldly thinking people say that one can do whatever one wants - it is their right. 

It's correct that we all have free will to do as we please but the spiritual righteousness that God asks us to have is not of the world.  Some things will never have God's blessing, and we do well to find out what they are and avoid them.

Each one of us is so unique. We are the product of so many things.  Generations of bad thinking, or Godly thinking, diseases of the body and mind, carried forward to us from our ancestors, the placement of our family in society's eyes, wht society has "taught" us, and etc.

A few of us scratch our way out of situations, or miss the bad genes and some of us even discard our Godly upbringings to become who we want to be according to the latest influences of music, books, movies, religions, cultures.

Examine your life to find the good and the bad.  Decide today which things have merit for your spiritual journey and begin to discard the rest.  Ask the Spirit to help you and praise God for bringing you to this place of beginning.

Jesus will lead you out of darkness and into the Light if you let Him.  One step at a time just follow Him and you will arrive in the Light and be blessed in your spirit. 

Strong faith in Him who can do all things, and prayer and thanksgiving for the journey is all you need to overcome the past and move forward in peace and harmony.

Meditation verse...

"By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith."-Hebrews 11:7.

HE APOSTLE COULD NOT AVOID mentioning Noah; for in him faith shone forth eminently. He has placed him in due order of time after Abel and Enoch; but he had also another reason for the arrangement. These three ancient believers are declared in Holy Writ to have pleased God. Of Abel, it is said that God testified of his gifts. Enoch, before his translation, had this testimony, that he pleased God: and Noah "found grace in the eyes of the Lord." Again, it was meet that Noah should follow close upon Enoch, as one of two who are described as having "walked with God." "Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him"; and we read in the sixth chapter of Genesis, verse eight, that Noah also "walked with God." These two spent their lives in such constant communion with the Most High that they could be fully described as walking with God. Oh, that we may, through almighty grace, be so pleasing unto the Lord that we may abide in fellowship with him!

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Friend, The above text from a Charles Spurgeon sermon in the 1880's era speaks of three men who were considered by God to be worthy holy men.

This is something we all should aspire to.  That God would call us worthy. At the end of our life we want our Lord to say, "Well done, good and faithful servant."

We want to have overcome our temptations and triumphed in spirtual victory over trials and tribulations of the flesh and spirit.  We need to have grown from a baby Christian to a man or woman that God could say He walked with and talked with while we sojourned on this earth.

We should have let go of old, ways and thinking, and grown in grace before the Lord - someone worthy of God walking and talking with.  He wants someone of like mind to Him, so He can have a meaningful conversation.

Is that you?

If not, set about with this new spiritual goal in mind.  Decide that you want to be someone God can and will be able to communicate with freely and not have to babysit or cajole into faith and belief.

Be a believer strong and sure, and grow in spiritual matters, friend.

Friend, God calls us and it is up to us to make the choice to be a believer in Him.  

He gives to us the gift of choosing Him.  It is our free will choice.  We can believe or deny His existence.

Both have consequences for our soul, spirit and flesh.

While we live, He is at work revealing Himself to us both when we are awake and asleep.

We will never be able to accuse Him of not caring, not loving, not helping, not showing Himself.

We will see when we stand before Him at the Judgement, that He was there and did do everything in His Power to get us to know He was God. And we will see how we turned our back to Him and lived our life in foolishness and unbelief.

We allow the daily complexities of life to become everything when they should be pushed aside in order to know the One who loves us.

When we choose Him as our God and Saviour we are able to live a more fulfilling life, one that has a spiritual base from where we make all our decisions about life.

We allow His Word to become the crux of the matter and are able to listen to it and find the answers we need for the best outcome to any issue that arises in our daily lives.

When we do this; we please Him; we grow in strength and courage to be the person God wants us to be; we find a Truth and Love like no other; we see the world in the Way God has planned; and we are able to discern right from wrong.

Friend, pride will keep us captive to the evil forces that are at work in this world - having been given this area of influence by Almighty God.

Pride is a killer of faith and belief because it places itself high above God in our lives.

God must be number one in your life.  It is the best place for Him and the safest one for your soul.

Pride must always be told to leave and shunned.

If you have pride, you must begin to govern it and reduce it's influence by prayer,  asking Jesus for help.

He will not deny you in this.

Probably our worst prideful attitude is the one where we think we are correct and "right" all the time no matter what the issue is.

Closely examine your attitude and see if there is pride ingrained in your personality.  Ask the Lord to show you when you are prideful.  The Spirit will convict you and then do your best to stop that type of behaviour or reaction.

Realize that you don't really lose anything by killing pride, but you gain so much in the Kingdom of God when you are able to rid yourself of pride.