THE REPENTANT SINNER ON THE CROSS WITH JESUS

The thought for today, and by the way my BIRTHDAY I am thankful I made it to my 52nd one!!!!!!!!!!!!!

this what I am dwelling on today :

“Beware of thinking of our Lord as only a teacher. If Jesus Christ is only a teacher, then all He can do is frustrate me by setting a standard before me I cannot attain. What is the point of presenting me with such a lofty ideal if I cannot possibly come close to reaching it? I would be happier if I never knew it. What good is there in telling me to be what I can never be—to be ‘pure in heart’ (Matt. 5:8), to do more than my duty, or to be completely devoted to God? I must know Jesus Christ as my Savior before His teaching has any meaning for me other than that of a lofty ideal which only leads to despair. But when I am born again by the Spirit of God, I know that Jesus Christ did not come only to teach—He came to make me what He teaches I should be. The redemption means that Jesus Christ can place within anyone the same nature that ruled His own life, and all the standards God gives us are based on that nature.” The Doorway To The Kingdom by Oswald Chambers in My Utmost For His Highest.

When I read the words of JESUS it stirs something within me, I desire to be like Him , and so I then begin to try...............and then almost just as fast ,I realize I just can not do it! Try as I might I can't seem to be like JESUS, no matter how I desire to be! I think most of us fall in that category, at least I hope most of us do ! Shocking statement , isn't it? It  is probably one of the biggest hindrance's in THE WAY today, folks thinking that they can live and be just like JESUS, and try to force others to do so with all kinds of laws that they try to enforce whether in their homes and families, churches or in the Government, they impose all kinds of laws to make us conform to an IDEAL . And what does that accomplish? All kinds of Law breakers, that is what. We just can not do it no matter how hard we try......Look at our government laws , we know most of them at least are there so that we can live together in a society , and so that we can all get along.....we have laws for instance on regulating speed limits on our Highways, and we have signs posted all over the roads telling us that we can only reach a certain speed limit.........so what happens, many of us will try to comply, but we all know that sooner or later we are speeding down the highway 5 miles over , maybe 10 miles over, just sometimes when we think that we are not being observed........we can't even keep civil laws let alone laws laid down by our GOD. Thank  GOD for  JESUS ! for HE  is the only one who kept the laws in public, but then HE also kept his Fathers laws, in HIS heart............how many of us can do that?

Many religions speak favorably toward JESUS , they have no problems with HIM, they say HE was a good man, a good teacher, even go so far as to say HE  was a good prophet, and many will even say they believe what HE said ( at least some of what HE said) and even go so far as teach some of the stuff HE  said, and try to live HIS  morals. Just how many of these people accomplish this task? No, even they can't live like JESUS. If JESUS was just a man, I know that HE could not keep and do what HE says, but thank God HE was more than just a MAN because if HE wasn't  who HE says HE was, we are all lost in despair for there is no hope for us at all. Many today believe that the problems that exist in the world can be solved if we could all just get along, me too, but how do these folks believe we can accomplish this feat? We can't even keep a measly speed limit all the time let alone keep laws that are imposed so that we all can just get along.   The problems in the world can not be solved by science, for science has proved that for every scientific advance they discover, another problem arises because of it! Over and over again  it is demonstrated to the world that this is so. For every pill that is formulated to help a disease, it , the pill , causes something else, is this not so? Man is so pig headed, and so deceived in thinking that we, mankind can solve any problem that arises, when will we wake up to the fact that we are the problem? It is in our natures, in our most inward parts, we really are doomed to destroy ourselves , and the world if we can not wake up to our NEED. For the problem is nature , it has been passed down from our parents and theirs , from the source, ADAM, and in ADAM  we have been passed down a nature that is the cause of all our ills. The bible declares the in Adam we  all will die.................is this not all our fates? But HALLEUYAH! the answer to our fate is that in JESUS we will all  live!!!!!! How awesome is that!  In the Devotional  THE TRUTH ABOUT GOD , by Thomas Kissinger  , it speaks volumes on this topic:

O WRETCHED MAN THAT I AM

-Romans 7:18 gives us one of the most important revelations in the Bible. It states, … For I know that in me ( that is in my flesh, ) dwells no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not ...

-What a statement! What an honest confession! What a revelation! In fact, this is the revelation of all revelations! This revelation tops the list!

-Understanding this scripture is equivalent to the moment at which a pregnant mother’s water breaks, for then she knows that the baby is on its way and sure to be born. After we come to an understanding that in our flesh dwells no good thing, we are surely on our way to delivering and birthing the very Christ-life. We must know what we are up against. We must identify our enemy. It is US!!! It is our flesh, our carnal mind, and the sin nature that we inherited from Adam. We inherited a corrupt nature that continually comes short of the glory of God. Realizing that our carnal mind is the enemy of God is probably about 98% of the battle ( the other 2% being … realizing that God’s divine nature is our power source, and learning to partake of His divine nature ). Romans 8:6,7 states, … For to be carnally minded IS DEATH; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the CARNAL MIND IS ENMITY AGAINST GOD: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be … This revelation on the surface seems to be very discouraging and could leave us with no hope. It causes a person to say, ... O WRETCHED MAN THAT I AM! WHO SHALL DELIVER ME FROM THE BODY OF THIS DEATH? That is a good question that we must ask ourselves. We must then see ourselves as wretched outside of the life of God, but we are not left without hope. The apostle Paul said that we are to thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Thank Him for what?

-Romans 8:1,2 states, … There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, … vs. 2 … For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus HAS MADE ME FREE FROM THE LAW OF SIN AND DEATH … We are to see ourselves as no longer under condemnation, IN CHRIST, walking after the Spirit, and FREE. Once you know the bad news, that there is no good thing in your flesh, you can have your eyes opened to the GOOD NEWS, which is IN CHRIST JESUS our Lord.

-REJOICE AND BE THANKFUL!-

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Everyone is looking for happiness, and people follow many avenues trying to find it. They look for it in money, parties, self-improvement programs, fancy cars, luxurious homes, or promoting a cause.

That's the wrong list. The right one is found in Matthew 5. Jesus taught us that deep and lasting happiness comes from being right with God. He said we are blessed, or happy, when we are:

Looking for happiness? Follow Jesus' way.
  — Dave Branon

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The word 'blessed' means happy, but actually it means to be FULLY SATISFIED.

Am I fully satisfied? No , I don't believe I have ever felt totally satisfied, and especially in the my earthly walk. Can I truly  feel and be satisfied. Is it ever possible?

Upon thinking if I have ever felt 'satisfied' I would have to come back with another answer than the one above. Yes , come to think about it , I have, and when was that , you might ask?  When I change my thinking and think true thoughts, and what are true thoughts, you might ask? When I align my thinking to who am I , in CHRIST JESUS, and what HE has already done, when I remember that IT IS FINISHED as far as CHRIST and GOD are concerned. The work that JESUS came here to do , was done, and it was SUCCESSFULLY done. What work might that be, you might ask?

In the words of Ray Prizing:

"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me."
 (Galatians 2::20)

First and foremost, the Cross is always identified with Christ, it was His own crucifixion that opened the way, blazed out the path, and gained the victory.  But just because this was wrought  in Christ" does not mean that we are absolved from the process, rather it assures us of the route and the victory.  All that He did was, and is FOR US, in our behalf, to undergird our participation, and to guarantee that the results would be victorious.

"For though He was crucified through weakness, yet He liveth by the power of God."  (2 Corinthians 13:4).  He offered no fleshly resistance to those who came to take Him to His cross, for it was His will to lay His life down. He willed to have the Father's will fulfilled, and self was brought into submission.  Thus did God send "His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin (by being a sacrifice for sin), condemned sin in the flesh."  (Romans 8:3).  It was through His own death He conquered all that pertained to the carnal mind, overcame all passions of the flesh, and the released the outflow of LIFE, the life of the Spirit.

The cross, His death, was but a means to a specific end.  And now our identification with the process is also with a view to an end - not to end in death, but as a transition from the low realms of our "self" into the higher realms of HIS life and glory, to be filled with His fulness.
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Yes It is when I align my thinking to the truth of what CHRIST JESUS did on the cross, and when HE rose from the grave. Yes when I look to HIM I am always SATISFIED , because that is the TRUTH. When I look to my self and what I have done, am doing , or will do in my own human efforts, I can truly say I am not satisfied, but when I look to JESUS and what HE has done for me , all I can say is HALEUYAH!  For in CHRIST JESUS, all the penalties of sin and death, has been SATISFIED  in HIM , in full, and so now I can say IT IS WELL WITH MY SOUL.

So IN CHRIST JESUS I am blessed  because I am poor in spirit because I recognize my total dependence on HIM.

I am blessed  because I recognize that all my life I do hunger and thirst for righteousness, because we are all born hungry and thirsty and the only thing or the only one that can and will and does SATISFY this hunger and thirst is CHRIST JESUS MY LORD.
Because it is His righteousness imparted on and in me by faith in Christ JESUS crucified that satisfies my souls hunger , for in 52 years of life on this wonderful creation of GOD, the earth, I have come to realize that I am , and can never be in right standing with my MAKER , and that , the fact that GOD has imputed right standing to me by Him through faith in CHRIST JESUS , there is nothing I have to do , I know longer have to try to find happiness, and satisfaction in life for I know it is not there to be found, that it is only found in Christ and Him crucified and Him resurrected. Matt. 5:6 states  my paraphrase :' blessed is ME because I do hunger and thirst for righteousness: FOR I WILL BE FILLED!!"

how great is that!!! Halleluyah!

In HIM, Shalom

ENDURA

May 8

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Waiting, who likes to do that? I am not very good at this. You hear of people praying for patience, what exactly do people who pray this prayer ,believe God will give them? What I have found is that a prayer like this will give you many instances and circumstances in your life that will 'cause' you to develop patience. Like , a long line at a check out, in a store, or a long wait in traffic, or in my current circumstance of waiting on the voice  and assurance of my LORD , for the direction and understanding  in the course of my life. These instances that come rushing into our lives, in many ways provide  us with an opportunity  to  develop an attitude of 'abiding in His Presence' , in all the circumstances in our life. For me , these circumstances cause me to constantly realign my focus on my sole purpose in life, which is abiding in Him. Its is hard to trust in something that is not seen, or tangible, I am human, and to trust in guidance from something I can not see, is a constant opportunity for faith in action, in that it takes a lot of faith to believe when life comes at you full force and it does every minute of everyday. I am constantly reminded that in my own self I cannot do this, and that it is only through diligence and force of my will to choose to stay in the spirit of abiding in HIM.

blessings and shalom

endura

   Here is one of the best articles I have read concerning the issue of salvation to those who will never, or who have never heard the Gospel.   

 How can those who never heard about Christ be saved?

                              by Ernest Valea www://comparativereligion.com

This question is a natural outcome when Christians state that Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is the only possibility for human salvation. From the very beginning, we have to emphasize an important aspect when assessing this issue: Such a question can be raised only by those who have heard about Jesus Christ. So none of us belongs to the category of those who never heard about him. Therefore posing this question can be either a way of justifying one's adherence to atheism or to other religions (since the answer is not easy at all), or the way of expressing a genuine interest for understanding how one's Christian faith can be reconciled with the claims of other religions. Whatever the case might be, finding a proper answer to this question is important. Two extremes must be avoided when addressing the salvation of those who have never heard about Christ. First, if humans can be saved only after hearing about him, the multitudes which never had this chance during their lifetime would necessarily be damned to eternal suffering in hell. It is obvious that such a cruelty would not be consistent with his love for us, which sent Christ to die on the cross for our sins. If God is all-loving, all-knowing and all-powerful, he must have a solution for those who have never heard about his final revelation in Jesus Christ. Second, if all other religions were valid ways to God, the Christian claim that Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross is the only possibility for human salvation should be rejected. If humans could have worked out their salvation by carefully following any available known religion, God shouldn’t have admitted the crucifixion of Christ. Christianity would have been a mere extra alternative to reach God to those already existing, and Jesus only one religious teacher among others. However, Jesus himself claimed to be the only possibility for our salvation and reconciliation with God. He said: "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14,6). He commanded his disciples to go and proclaim this truth in the whole world (Matthew 28,18-20; Mark 16,15-16). If other religions were as good as Christianity in attaining salvation, the effort of Christian missionaries would be absurd. Why would so many have sacrificed their lives? Only to proclaim one of the many alternatives to reach God? Therefore we cannot sacrifice the uniqueness of Jesus’ atonement on the altar of modern syncretism. According to Christianity, salvation is provided only as a result of the specific historical deeds of Jesus Christ in his life, death on the cross, resurrection and ascension. What he did is absolutely essential for the salvation of any human being who has ever lived, whether thousands of years BC or nowadays. And no human being is excluded from God's plan of salvation. The Apostle Paul states: "God wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2,4). This is what Christianity holds. But then we face a difficulty: Is possible that only those who have heard about Christ can be saved? Or is salvation also available for those who haven't heard about him? The element which solves this dilemma is the criteria according to which God will judge those who never heard about Christ and grant them salvation. The Bible states that God is holy and will judge humans with justice (Acts 17,31), according to the available measure of revelation they had and their response to it, expressed through their deeds (Romans 2,6), words (Matthew 12,36-37) and thoughts (Hebrews 4,12). The amount of revelation one has determines a consequent measure of responsibility on his behalf (Luke 12,47-48). In the Western world, almost anyone has elementary knowledge about Christianity, and therefore the terms of one's salvation are clear. As for those who never had the chance to hear the Christian message or heard a perverted version of it, it is obvious that their judgment will require other criteria than responding to the historical Jesus Christ. Grace attributed retroactively Surprisingly, in Hebrews 11 we can find a whole list of people who never heard about Christ but still are saved. Before analyzing these cases, we must acknowledge that if salvation depended exclusively on how much information one had about Christ, we would affirm a form of Gnosticism (salvation through attaining the right knowledge of spiritual realities). But God does not limit his grace to those who have enough information of him. The examples mentioned in Hebrews 11 prove that the salvation of those who never heard about Christ depends on two basic requirements: 1) their response to the amount of revelation they had, which is their responsibility; 2) the retroactive conferring of Christ’s sacrifice on the basis of their faith, which is God’s responsibility. Let us see how this works. This text gives many examples of people who lived before Christ and were saved without hearing about him. Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, David and others, are all considered heroes of faith, despite the fact that none of them heard about Christ. Jacob (Genesis 49,10), Moses (Deuteronomy 18,15) and David (Psalm 22) prophesied about his coming, but had a very limited understanding of its meaning. Others like Rahab (Joshua 2,1-21; Hebrews 11,31), Naaman the Syrian (2 Kings 5,1-19; Luke 4,27), Melchizedek (Genesis 14,17-20; 7,2,15-17) and Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses (Exodus 18), were saved although they didn’t even belong to the people of Israel. They responded with faith to the small amount of revelation they had, and as a result God conferred on them retroactively the atoning sacrifice of Christ. Faith is the key element here. Not knowledge saves us, but God, as we respond in faith to his revelation, no matter how limited it might be. Faith means trusting the promises of God and responding to him through effective action (Hebrews 11,1-3). It is not a mere understanding of the doctrine of salvation. Let us notice what these people of the Old Testament were asked to do and how they responded to God's call: Noah was warned about the imminent coming of the flood; his response proved his faith in God’s promise to save him together with his family (Genesis 6-9). Abraham trusted God’s promise that he would be blessed with a son and become the ancestor of a big nation (Genesis 12-22; Hebrews 11,8-19). God proclaimed him righteous because of his faith: "Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness" (Genesis 15,6). Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, the descendants of Abraham, trusted in God and were blessed. Moses trusted that God would free the Jewish nation from Egyptian bondage and lead them into the promised land (Hebrews 11,20-22). Not only people belonging to the chosen people of Israel are said to be saved, but also Gentiles. Melchizedek is a mysterious character who had no family ties with Abraham, but still was called "priest of the God Most High" (Genesis 14,18). He worshiped the same God, and Abraham paid tithes to him. Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, finding out what God had done through the Jewish nation, accepted by faith that the God of Moses was the true god. Rahab, the prostitute (!), risked her life in order to hide the Jewish scouts (Joshua 2,1-21; Hebrews 11,31). This was the effective way she expressed her faith in the true God and therefore was counted among the heroes of faith. Naaman the Syrian (2 Kings 5,1-19; Luke 4,27) banished his pride when he understood who the true God was, proving his faith by the decision to abandon idolatry. None of these people of the Old Testament were saved through their merits, but through the grace of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, retroactively attributed to them. Their faith was the channel through which God granted them salvation. Today he uses the same channel for all people who accept the sacrifice of Christ as the atoning solution for their sins (Hebrews 11,39-40). Although today we have available the final revelation of God through Christ, the object of faith has always been the same - God himself, and the basis of his forgiveness was always Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. Whether one lived before or after Jesus’ crucifixion, God’s forgiveness was always granted through grace and not by one’s own merits, and the proper way of accepting grace was always faith. Salvation for those who never heard about Christ but accept the importance of grace The above considerations do not imply that all those who don’t know anything other than their native religion are rejected by God. There have been many spiritual masters who recognized the necessity of grace and the impossibility of attaining salvation by one's own efforts. Ramanuja and Madhva are brilliant examples in the Hindu tradition, as is Shantideva in Mahayana Buddhism. The spiritual trend called prapatti in Hinduism and the Pure Land school of Buddhism focus on grace as the only solution for attaining liberation. According to them, the whole merit for being saved belongs to the god (in Hinduism) or bodhisattva (in Buddhism) they worship. There are also many cases of tribal religions in which grace plays a key role in salvation. The God who reveals himself in the Bible knows one’s inner attitude and motivation for performing certain religious duties. Any efforts which aim at self-justification are of no value, no matter how impressive they might be. The proper attitude is one of humility and openness towards God's grace, which he offers unconditionally. We have observed this attitude in the prapatti devotional trend of Hinduism, which demands giving up the control of one's personal life to the god Vishnu and leaving to him all responsibility for attaining salvation. The follower of this trend has to acknowledge that he is not good enough to attain liberation by performing rituals and moral obligations. The whole prapatti philosophy can be summarized in the following verse, written by Vedanta Deshika, a 14th century follower of Ramanuja: Lord, I, who am nothing, conform to your will and desist being contrary to it, and with faith and prayer, submit to you the burden of saving my soul (Nyasadashaka 2). The same is the case with the Pure Land School of Mahayana Buddhism, which flourished in Japan. According to its doctrine, the bodhisattva Amida (the Buddha of Infinite Light) is able to save even the most despised sinner by his grace (tariki). Heaven (Amida's Pure Land) can be reached only by his grace, not by human efforts such as meditation or performing good deeds. Such spiritual trends in other religions prove that the Holy Spirit is at work in the world, convincing people of their sin and limitations and turning their hearts toward God's grace. According to the character displayed by the God of the Bible, we can expect that he will save such people, by the grace available for all in Jesus Christ. They will be saved not through their native religions, but despite them, not because they didn't hear about Christ, but despite the fact that they didn't hear about him, as a reward for their humility and recognition of the need for grace. In other words, it is not Vishnu or Amida who saves them, but Christ through his grace, as a result of their need for grace expressed towards Vishnu or Amida. Whether there are many or few people in this category we cannot know. A classic example of how people belonging to cultures foreign to the Judeo-Christian world can still have a revelation of God and meet him is the Magi from the east mentioned in Matthew 2,1-12. Despite the fact that they were astrologers and probably believed that human destiny is shaped by the stars, which is contrary to biblical teaching, they were still granted a special revelation from God regarding his intervention to save humankind from sin. They worshiped Jesus as king of the Jews and brought him gifts worthy of a king. Their coming to Bethlehem was obviously not customary. It was not a rule for the Magi to worship a new king born in Judea. Their visit was rather a surprise for all, and a serious reason for Herod to feel his throne threatened. This example shows that God can use unorthodox methods to reveal himself to those who are completely foreign to his revelation in the Bible. He has sufficient means to do it all over the earth. Again we can notice that the most important factor in defining faith is human response to his revelation. The Magi could have ignored the Bethlehem star. However, their journey proves their faith and this faith brings them to worship the true God. The problem of humanity has never been the lack of revelation, but rather pride and the refusal of grace. People do not respond to the amount of revelation they already have; they know what to do, but refuse to do it. Most of Jesus’ contemporaries rejected him because they refused to believe despite all fulfilled prophecies, miracles, healings and even despite his resurrection. The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16,19-31) is extremely relevant here. People are given everything they need in order to be saved, but if they refuse the available revelation, they are fully responsible for it and cannot be justified at God’s judgment. The crucifixion of Jesus Christ tells us that humans cannot please God by their own efforts and that God’s grace is an absolute necessity for us. One more aspect must be addressed here: If people can be saved without hearing about Christ, does it mean that Christian missions are futile? By no means. There are two important reasons for Christian missions in the world. First, Jesus himself commanded it (Matthew 28,18-20). He is the final revelation of God and his message of salvation has to be proclaimed "to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1,8). That people can be saved without hearing about Christ is only a temporary solution, which operates only until his message will reach all people. Second, all people should share the fullness and blessings of the Christian life, not only in eternity, but also during this present earthly life. Jesus came to redeem our earthly life as well, so that we could start to experience his love now, in a personal relationship with him and also in the Christian community. If the salvation of tribes living in remote areas depended entirely on missionaries’ preaching, a lot of people would suffer eternal damnation in hell only because Christian missionaries didn’t manage to reach their part of the world in time. In many cases the disobedience of Christians to go into remote parts of the world would be responsible for that. Even worse is the case of missionaries that have reached remote parts of the world but didn't preach the "right" Jesus. Remember how the New World was colonized. Christian missions have not always been inspired by love. They haven't always preached the message of love, but one of greed and hypocrisy. Therefore, God could not condemn people to hell only because his so-called followers perverted his message. This wouldn't be at all consistent with God’s perfect justice and love for the lost. God didn’t leave the world without a proper testimony about himself (Acts 14,17) and doesn’t condemn anybody without first revealing his grace. Although this article may not offer an acceptable answer to the question in the title, nobody’s salvation depends on how convincing such an answer could be. The sacrifice of Christ on the cross is and remains the only ground for human salvation. Rejecting it (by those who have heard about him) cannot be justified by the lack of intellectual satisfaction one gets from polemical debates.

In my studies and involvement in other religious thoughts, like in Paganism ,Wicca and Taoism, who do not believe in  a personal evil being or 'satan' but follow the Eastern Religious mindset on this, I found that this belief is OK until you continually  hear of the most wicked and evil of conducts perpetrated by mankind to each other, and the Eastern Philosophy just does not explain it , in my mind.I have also found that in my experience , that bad behavior does not need to be taught, that it is inherit in us, and that good behavior has to be taught, this is played out very well in toddlers, and children , who if according to Taoism for instance states  are born good, and that we are inherently good. I had found that this is just not so.

Another thing, In Pagan and Wicca thought they portray  that Christianity is a dualistic religion with God vs Satan or Jesus vs Satan, which is not true. Yahweh is sovereign, and satan is not His equal, which in true dualist religion they must be equal.

Here is a   segment of a wonderful article on the web.site of http://comparativereligion.com   I found its explanation of evil from different perspectives very informative.

                  The problem of evil in world religions

by Ernest Valea

".....Although Satan is the initiator of evil, humans are responsible for spreading it into our world through sin. Thus we are not innocent victims lacking any responsibility. By misusing the freedom of choice that God has granted us, we became the perpetrators of evil in our world. Although we have real freedom to refuse evil, we don't do it, so evil continues to spread. The reason why God allows this situation and does not extinguish all evil in an instant is that such an act would necessarily involve the damnation of all those who perform it. This would cancel any possibility for them to repent and be reconciled with God. As he takes no pleasure "in the death of the wicked," but rather wants "that they turn from their ways and live" (Ezekiel 33,11), a sudden extinction of evil would contradict his love for mankind. Which one of us would pass the test of God’s holiness if the extinction of evil were performed apart from his love? God’s attitude in tolerating evil in our world is perfectly expressed by Jesus in the Parable of the Weeds (Matthew 13,24-43): The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. The owner's servants came to him and said, "Sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?" "An enemy did this," he replied. The servants asked him, "Do you want us to go and pull them up?" "No," he answered, "because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn" (13,24-30). The explanation to this parable is the following: The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear (37-43). God tolerates "weeds" among "wheat" until a certain moment. His purpose in doing so is that "weeds" could be properly differentiated from "wheat" and pulled up at the right moment. As the parable refers to humans, the people who may be called "weeds" still have the chance of converting and becoming "wheat." This can happen only as long as they can benefit from God’s grace, that is during their earthly lifetime. It is God’s grace that allows evildoers to live, not his lack of justice or power, that they may still have the chance to repent and return to a personal relationship with him. As a result, humans' attitude toward evil should be neither one of resignation, nor of rebellion against God, but of conscious and responsible participation in the world. Evil has an end, as does human suffering. What is required from us while waiting for this end is to fight against evil and suffering, and especially against our sinful nature, which perpetuates both our suffering and that of our neighbors. Jesus descended in the midst of our problems and misery, and he urges for action in imitating him in daily living. Although we are not spared from troubles and many times we do not understand their meaning, we should always remember that Jesus promised his help and power in order to conquer them. He said: I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world" (John 16,33). Therefore there is no contradiction in God's character. God is omnipotent and all-good. Evil is not everlasting. God can stop it, and he will stop it one day forever (Revelation 20,10). It is only sin that prevents us from understanding what evil really is and from doing what we can do in order to stop it spreading around us.

Conclusion

The general pattern in Eastern religions is to consider evil as the effect of spiritual ignorance. The first noble truth proclaimed by the Buddha states that the only reality of human existence is the all-pervading reality of suffering. This perspective is valid for most of the Eastern religious thinkers that followed the period of the Upanishads. The only possibility of escaping suffering is to know the true nature of things and so to escape from the dominion of ignorance, karma and reincarnation. In the dualistic religions, evil is coeternal with good. Matter and embodied existence are evil, and our ignorance keeps us from attaining perfection as angelic beings. According to Christianity, evil is neither created nor a natural or necessary element. It is a parasite state that perpetuates itself by misusing God’s good resources and by following a wrong direction. It is the illness of beings that are no longer in communion with God. Therefore, world religions contradict each other in explaining the meaning of evil."

The Ethanol Scam: One of America's Biggest Political Boondoggles

From Issue 1032

JEFF GOODELL

The great danger of confronting peak oil and global warming isn't that we will sit on our collective asses and do nothing while civilization collapses, but that we will plunge after "solutions" that will make our problems even worse. Like believing we can replace gasoline with ethanol, the much-hyped biofuel that we make from corn. Ethanol, of course, is nothing new. American refiners will produce nearly 6 billion gallons of corn ethanol this year, mostly for use as a gasoline additive to make engines burn cleaner. But in June, the Senate all but announced that America's future is going to be powered by biofuels, mandating the production of 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2022. According to ethanol boosters, this is the beginning of a much larger revolution that could entirely replace our 21-million-barrel-a-day oil addiction. Midwest farmers will get rich, the air will be cleaner, the planet will be cooler, and, best of all, we can tell those greedy sheiks to fuck off. As the king of ethanol hype, Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, put it recently, "Everything about ethanol is good, good, good." This is not just hype -- it's dangerous, delusional bullshit. Ethanol doesn't burn cleaner than gasoline, nor is it cheaper. Our current ethanol production represents only 3.5 percent of our gasoline consumption -- yet it consumes twenty percent of the entire U.S. corn crop, causing the price of corn to double in the last two years and raising the threat of hunger in the Third World. And the increasing acreage devoted to corn for ethanol means less land for other staple crops, giving farmers in South America an incentive to carve fields out of tropical forests that help to cool the planet and stave off global warming. So why bother? Because the whole point of corn ethanol is not to solve America's energy crisis, but to generate one of the great political boondoggles of our time. Corn is already the most subsidized crop in America, raking in a total of $51 billion in federal handouts between 1995 and 2005 -- twice as much as wheat subsidies and four times as much as soybeans. Ethanol itself is propped up by hefty subsidies, including a fifty-one-cent-per-gallon tax allowance for refiners. And a study by the International Institute for Sustainable Development found that ethanol subsidies amount to as much as $1.38 per gallon -- about half of ethanol's wholesale market price. Three factors are driving the ethanol hype. The first is panic: Many energy experts believe that the world's oil supplies have already peaked or will peak within the next decade. The second is election-year politics. With the first vote to be held in Iowa, the largest corn-producing state in the nation, former skeptics like Sens. Hillary Clinton and John McCain now pay tribute to the wonders of ethanol. Earlier this year, Sen. Barack Obama pleased his agricultural backers in Illinois by co-authoring legislation to raise production of biofuels to 60 billion gallons by 2030. A few weeks later, rival Democrat John Edwards, who is staking his campaign on a victory in the Iowa caucus, upped the ante to 65 billion gallons by 2025.

The most seductive myth about ethanol is that it will free us from our dependence on foreign oil. But even if ethanol producers manage to hit the mandate of 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2022, that will replace a paltry 1.5 million barrels of oil per day -- only seven percent of current oil needs. Even if the entire U.S. corn crop were used to make ethanol, the fuel would replace only twelve percent of current gasoline use.

Another misconception is that ethanol is green. In fact, corn production depends on huge amounts of fossil fuel -- not just the diesel needed to plow fields and transport crops, but also the vast quantities of natural gas used to produce fertilizers. Runoff from industrial-scale cornfields also silts up the Mississippi River and creates a vast dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico every summer. What's more, when corn ethanol is burned in vehicles, it is as dirty as conventional gasoline and does little to solve global warming: E85 reduces carbon dioxide emissions by a modest fifteen percent at best, while fueling the destruction of tropical forests.

But the biggest problem with ethanol is that it steals vast swaths of land that might be better used for growing food. In a recent article in Foreign Affairs titled "How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor," University of Minnesota economists C. Ford Runge and Benjamin Senauer point out that filling the gas tank of an SUV with pure ethanol requires more than 450 pounds of corn -- roughly enough calories to feed one person for a year.

Thanks in large part to the ethanol craze, the price of beef, poultry and pork in the United States rose more than three percent during the first five months of this year. In some parts of the country, hog farmers now find it cheaper to fatten their animals on trail mix, french fries and chocolate bars. And since America provides two-thirds of all global corn exports, the impact is being felt around the world. In Mexico, tortilla prices have jumped sixty percent, leading to food riots. In Europe, butter prices have spiked forty percent, and pork prices in China are up twenty percent. By 2025, according to Runge and Senauer, rising food prices caused by the demand for ethanol and other biofuels could cause as many as 600 million more people to go hungry worldwide.

Despite the serious drawbacks of ethanol, some technological visionaries believe that the fuel can be done right. "Corn ethanol is just a platform, the first step in a much larger transition we are undergoing from a hydrocarbon-based economy to a carbohydrate-based economy," says Vinod Khosla, a pioneering venture capitalist in Silicon Valley. Next-generation corn- ethanol plants, he argues, will be much more efficient and environmentally friendly. He points to a company called E3 BioFuels that just opened an ethanol plant in Mead, Nebraska. The facility runs largely on biogas made from cow manure, and feeds leftover grain back to the cows, making it a "closed-loop system" -- one that requires very few fossil fuels to create ethanol.

Khosla is even higher on the prospects for cellulosic ethanol, a biofuel that can be made from almost any plant matter, including wood waste and perennial grasses like miscanthus and switchgrass. Like other high-tech ethanol evangelists, Khosla imagines a future in which such so-called "energy crops" are fed into giant refineries that use genetically engineered enzymes to break down the cellulose in plants and create fuel for a fraction of the cost of today's gasoline. Among other virtues, cellulosic ethanol would not cut into the global food supply (nobody eats miscanthus or switchgrass), and it could significantly cut global-warming pollution. Even more important, it could provide a gateway to a much larger biotech revolution, including synthetic microbes that could one day be engineered to gobble up carbon dioxide or other pollutants.

Unfortunately, no commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plants exist today. In one venture backed by Khosla, a $225 million plant in central Georgia is currently being built to make ethanol out of wood chips. Mitch Mandich, a former Apple Computer executive who is now the CEO of the operation, calls it "the beginning of a real transformation in the way we think about energy in America."

Maybe. But oil-industry engineer Robert Rapier, who has spent years studying cellulosic ethanol, says that the difference between ethanol from corn and ethanol from cellulose is "like the difference between traveling to the moon and traveling to Mars." And even if the engineering hurdles can be overcome, there's still the problem of land use: According to Rapier, replacing fifty percent of our current gasoline consumption with cellulosic ethanol would consume thirteen percent of the land in the United States - about seven times the land currently utilized for corn production.

Increasing the production of cellulosic ethanol will also require solving huge logistical problems, including delivering vast quantities of feedstock to production plants. According to one plant manager in the Midwest, fueling an ethanol plant with switchgrass would require delivering a semi-truckload of the grass every six minutes, twenty-four hours a day. Finally, there is the challenge of wrestling the future away from Big Corn. "It's pretty clear to me that the corn guys will use all their lobbying muscle and political power to stall, thwart and sidetrack this revolution," says economist C. Ford Runge.

In the end, the ethanol boom is another manifestation of America's blind faith that technology will solve all our problems. Thirty years ago, nuclear power was the answer. Then it was hydrogen. Biofuels may work out better, especially if mandates are coupled with tough caps on greenhouse-gas emissions. Still, biofuels are, at best, a huge gamble. They may help cushion the fall when cheap oil vanishes, but if we rely on ethanol to save the day, we could soon find ourselves forced to make a choice between feeding our SUVs and feeding children in the Third World. And we all know how that decision will go.

Here are some thoughts from an article that has assisted me to understand the divine order in the beginning of creation. I have been studing some other things that have been hard to understand in the bible, and in these  various groups , even though I find it interesting and informative, and I learn alot, I realize that no preacher, group, ministry, or teacher have all the 'goods' or all the 'truth' and so I must be discerning in my approach to the things of Yahweh, and must trust completely the guidance of the Spirit to guide me into all truth.One of the areas I had been hung up on was the issue of the role of men and women, what I knew to be true in my spirit , I found was at odds to what most of churchdom proclaimed was in the bible. This teaching below has done much to bring me to liberty with this issue.Shalom in the Messiah 

Equal in Creation
MALE AND FEMALE CREATED TO CO-LABOR WITH GOD

 By Fuchsia Pickett

THE CHURCH HAS LONG MISUNDERSTOOD GOD'S DIVINE PLAN FOR THE GENDERS. HE NEVER INTENDED FOR MAN TO RULE OVER WOMAN.

In my more than 50 years of ministry, I have discovered that because people often study their Bibles through the eyes of their own prejudices, customs and traditions, they tend to read into the Scriptures what they have been taught instead of reading out of them what the Holy Spirit meant when He inspired His servants to write them. This practice leads to much deception in the church. Nowhere is the deception more apparent than in the misunderstanding about God's divine order for the genders.

Many Christians believe that God created man to rule over woman. They cite as proof God's words to Eve after she ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: "Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you" (Gen. 3:16, NKJV). But in making this statement, God was not revealing His divine order for the woman. He was imposing on her the consequences of her fall. He was telling us how a fallen man and woman were going to relate to each other.

Results of the fall of man can never be construed as God's divine order for him. God told Adam he was going to eat by the sweat of his brow (see Gen. 3:19), but that was a consequence of sin rather than God's divine intention for him. God had purposed that Adam and Eve eat of the vegetation in the beautiful garden He had prepared for them and that they have dominion over every living thing.

PRIEST OF THE HOME? Another misconception prevalent in the church is that the man is the priest of the home. But this is not a scriptural concept either. The Scriptures declare that we--male and female--are all priests: "You at a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, holy nation" (I Pet. 2:9).

The New Living translation of the Bible translates royal priesthood as "a kingdom of priests." There is no distinction here between male and female.

REVEALED FAITH: Some of us have difficulty accepting the truth about God's design for the genders because we have not "come to faith." When we read the Scriptures, we don't come in faith with an open heart and mind to hear what the Holy Spirit is saying. Paul explains, Before faith [comes], we [are] kept under the law up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed" (Gal. 3:23, emphasis added).

We can't understand the Word until we have "revealed faith" because tradition, prejudice, culture, denominationalism, pseudo-masculinity and other bondages of the carnal mind hinder us. After revealed faith comes, we are no longer under the law but walk in the grace Jesus brought to us through redemption. Paul tells us, "After that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For [we] are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus" (vv. 25-26, KJV).

He declares that when we come to faith we will see "there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for [we] are all one in Christ Jesus" (v. 28). Faith comprehends God's intentions in creating mankind. But the fall of man has so damaged us that we are unaware of the purpose for which God created man. We the are oblivious to the divine order He intended for man and woman to enjoy.

Until faith comes to our hearts we cannot expect an illumination o the Word of God that gives us understanding of the purposes of God. The Scriptures teach that the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Cor. 2:14, NKJV). No wonder the church, which has not yet come into a proper relationship with the Holy Spirit, is living without a true understanding of God's divine order for mankind!

A basic misunderstanding arises from our definition of "man." The word we translate from the Hebrew as "man" actually has no gender; it is more accurately translated mankind." In mankind--in Adam--was both "male" and "female." Thus when God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him" (Gen. 2:18, KJV), He was announcing His plans to do "surgery" to separate mankind into two sexes.

After God made the woman, He brought her "unto the man" (Gen. 2:22); He didn't put her under him. His purpose was for them to be one.

God ordained that the woman should be a "help meet" for the man. One of the definitions of the Hebrew word for "help meet" is "reflection." That is a beautiful picture of God's divine intention in creating mankind to walk together as one in fellowship with God.

IN ADAM'S IMAGE: Unfortunately, it is not the picture we normally see--because of our fallen nature. When God was about to create Adam, He said, "Let Us make man in Our image according to Our likeness" (Gen. 1:26, NKJV). Then He created him; male and female He created them" (v. 27). So Adam was created in God's image.

But the Bible tells us that after the fall of man, Adam "begot a son in his own likeness, after his image" (Gen. 5:3, emphasis added). This means that Adam's descendants--including us--were born not in the image of God, their heavenly Father, but rather in the image of Adam. We were born with his nature, not God's.

God's eternal plan for us was not thwarted, however, for He had anticipated Adam's failure before the foundation of the world and had prepared a Savior for mankind. John assures us: "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil" (1 John 3:8). That word "destroy" is the Greek word louso, which means "to loose, to undo, outdo and overdo." So Jesus came to undo, outdo and overdo everything the devil has ever done.

When we accept Christ, who is the called the "last Adam," as our Savior, we are restored to the image of God. Restoration is a wonderful reality that promises we will become all God ordained for us to become in His eternal purpose and will experience what mankind would have known if the first pair had walked on with Him and not fallen.

God knew we couldn't change ourselves back into His image, so He designed the costly plan of redemption through the blood of his own Son, Jesus. Jesus was the express image of the Father, sent to live in us by the power of the Holy Spirit until that image takes over our inner natures-our spirits and souls. He begins to change us from glory to glory. When He fills our beings, as He wanted to do before man ever fell, we are going to go home in His image, complete and mature;

By the action of Calvary, we are being changed into Christ's image so male and female can walk together in their own realms of authority. God puts both genders back into Christ, not as male and female, but as mankind, walking with God. Husband and wife, male and female preacher, man and woman leader will walk in the cool of the day with Jesus, who is talking to us, fellowshipping with us, giving us authority and changing us into His image. In the "last Adam," God is restoring what we would have had if Adam had not fallen in the beginning.

RETURNING TO DIVINE ORDER: God ordained that man and woman should walk with Him and be as one, and He would meet the innermost needs of both of them. Divine order is higher than the plight of fallen man. It is far more liberating to men and women than having to live under the doctrine of the curse of a fallen Adam and a fallen Eve.

As God delivers His church from the bondages of tradition and culture--and from fallen man's doctrine of divine order--we will see men and women function together to build godly homes and to fulfill God's purpose for the building of His church. When redemption cleanses us from the desire to rule, man and woman will not be threatened by each other, but will welcome each other's godly counsel.

The Bible gives many examples of women who provided godly leadership. Deborah was appointed by God as a judge, prophetess and general in the army. She was able to tell Barak what God had said to her, and Barak then declared he would not go to battle without her (see Judges. 4:4-8).

I believe in these last days of God's outpouring of His Spirit, many Baraks will say to their Deborahs that they will not go to battle without them. I believe it is the timing of God to restore man and woman back to divine order both in the home and in the kingdom of God. It is the hour for man and woman to come to faith, to stop living under fallen doctrine and to start living according to divine order--male and female walking together as one in Christ, each with his or her own delegated authority.

FUCHSIA PICKETT is the author of numerous books, including How to Search the Scriptures (Creation House). She has earned doctorates in both theology and divinity and teaches at churches and conferences throughout the United States. 

Note: Fuchsia Pickett passed away on January 30, 2004.

A “Fool for Christ”, as the preacher used the term, is someone who is secure enough and devoted enough in their Christian faith that they don’t mind looking foolish and socially unacceptable for the sake of their faith. The term can be a bit difficult to wrap our heads around nowadays, but hearkens back to a day in the early church when living as a Christian meant violating all sorts of social codes and taboos. This might have meant inviting lepers, Samaritans, tax-collectors, prostitutes and adulterers into your home. What fool would do that? A fool for Christ. Or it might mean disobeying some of society’s commands about class and gender and rank. What kind of fool would worship with slaves? A fool for Christ.
….Rev.Thom Belote

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Am I a fool, to believe in a story so bold, so out of this world, so big, and so wonderful, and yet so very simple that even the wisest in this worlds standards can not grasp?  YES. It really takes a fool to believe in this day and age with all the technology, and advances in science, the sophistication that we have going for us in this busy , topsy turvy world that we live in. To believe in a world other than the one we live in, a world of Spirit , how strange is that? To believe that the Creator of this world can and does deal with each of us in a personal manner, what kind of fool would and can believe such a thing?To believe that this same Creator came into this realm and entered a physical body, and went through the same process we all have to go through to enter this world, through the womb of a woman, shocking to think such a thing, isn't it? To believe that such a ELOHIM as this,that would even venture such a thing, to experience the pain and darkness, and joy and delight that one can feel being cut down to size and stuck in a limited body, what foolishness is this?To believe that the Creator of the world would enter into an unmarried women, into the low dredges of society, to be born and placed in a manger, among farm animals, to think that our ELOHIM would do such a thing and for what, what reason would YAHWEH do such a thing as that?

Who can believe " that YAHWEH WAS IN MESSIAH, reconciling the world unto Himself. " [2 Corinthians 5:19]. Yet He, who was "in THE FORM OF ELOHIM, thought it not robbery to be equal with ELOHIM; yet He took upon Himself the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men . . . " [Philippians 2:6-7].

He who "was in the form of ELOHIM, made himself of no reputation; [notice the descent, step by step]  and took upon him the form of a servant,-- and was made in the likeness of men,-- and being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself,-- and became obedient unto death.-- even the death of the cross;" Behold, how low he stooped! Why was it? Only a fool can believe such a thing as this?

What is even more foolishness is to think and even to believe, which goes contrary to most of what 'Traditional Christianity" has ever known or believed or even preached , and even more foolishness to the World's mind and rational thinking is this:.That "   we are not reconciled to YAHWEH by MESSIAH's physical death. No, we are most surely not. Then the death of YAHSHUA, the real, atoning death, was not his death on the literal cross, but the death he entered into when he "was made flesh,"You see, the physical death of YAHSHUA the MESSIAH is only His physical death, such as all of us Humans and all life on earth must enter into, but again like all us humans and all life when we entered this physical realm we all entered upon the death ( unconscious to this aspect of the  reality )of our Spirits...........we are all dead wo/men walking, so to speak,  ."So are we reconciled to YAHWEH by MESSIAH's physical death? No, surely not. Then the death of YAHSHUA, i.e. the real, atoning death, was not his death on the literal cross, but the death he entered into when he "was made flesh,"

Yes it does take a fool to believe such stories as this.

blessings and Shalom

Endura

words in bold print from Ray Prinzing.

"Do we not see God at work in our circumstances? Dark times are allowed and come to us through the sovereignty of God. Are we prepared to let God do what He wants with us? Are we prepared to be separated from the outward, evident blessings of God? Until Jesus Christ is truly our Lord, we each have goals of our own which we serve. Our faith is real, but it is not yet permanent. And God is never in a hurry. If we are willing to wait, we will see God pointing out that we have been interested only in His blessings, instead of in God Himself. The sense of God’s blessings is fundamental

". . . be of good cheer, I have overcome the world" ( John 16:33  . Unyielding spiritual fortitude is what we need." Oswald Chambers

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This has been the hardest lesson for me to learn ,  the sovereignty of GOD, and that GOD is in control, in a believers life, that nothing is an accident, that where ever we may find our self , whether it is our doing or not, that GOD will work it out for our good. Romans 8:28 "And we know that GOD causes all things to work together for good to those who love GODto those who are called according to His purpose."

It is not only in a believers life that this is true, but also to those outside of the faith whom GOD is calling into His family.

That GOD works in our circumstances to bring us to the point that JESUS is indeed being formed in us, is awesome to think about and a little unnerving as well, because it means that a lot of what we hang unto ,one by one will be shown to us by our onward experiences to no longer hold meaning to us, and one by one we will let them fall from their importance in our lives , that is ,if they have been taking the place of GOD in our lives. I have found in my life that things I felt very fond of, or the time I spend doing certain things, no longer hold anything for me, I find I am not interested in doing or having these things anymore, at first I don't realize what is happening and I wonder to myself" why don't I want to do this or that, I use to love doing this , or I use to feel that I had to have or really needed  this or that, am I crazy , what is wrong with me?"

Like for instance I use to love to read Tarot cards, mainly for personal use , I had found they were wonderful at pointing out things unnoticed in my life and showing me why , or what  is happening that I didn 't see. But now I just don't want to read them any more, they don't hold any importance to me any more. It wasn't like I felt that they were evil and I must stop them, no GOD, works within me by His  Spirit showing me I don't need them anymore, that the  Spirit is more than able to bring to my attention what I need to know when I need to know them, awesome when I realize that. Tarot cards are used by those (myself included)whose dependence is on themselves to find the answers, but as a believer I can now rely on the Master of revelation knowledge, to give me the needed gifts of the  Spirit when I need them , and the main purpose of these Spiritual gifts is to serve others , by the Spirit working through me, to meet the needs as they are needed in service to others.

The Sovereignty of GOD means that it is GOD that is Responsible for all things, and I am Accountable for what I do or don't do within the Sovereignty of GOD.

Do I have Free will? Not really if GOD is Sovereign, free will is found in GOD's very nature and we experience this free will by GOD causing us to participate in with Him as I become partakers of His Divine nature. GOD's will is not that He makes me do something against my will but that He brings my will into union with His , so that now I choose to do what He always wanted me to do in the first place, all the while He works circumstances in my life that lead me into conforming into JESUS/YAHSHUA'S image, by bringing me into union with Him so then my will becomes conformed to  His. I begin to see His workings in my life and I begin to do the things that are pleasing to Him outwardly not because of dogma or law, or because I have to because of religious beliefs, but because my spirit is already brand new and I already have a new nature within, and slowly as I walk in the Spirit my life on the outside (the physical) begins to conform to what is already a fact in my spirit. This is all done by the circumstances in my life brought to me by GOD. Sometimes these circumstances are too hard to bear, maybe a death in the family, a great loss of finances, a lost job, an injury, false accusations, disaster strikes, a severe illness, chronic pain,  or great prosperity and health, what ever the case may be, they are not accidents, they are all in the Sovereignty of GOD's will, as hard as that is to comprehend, How can a loving GOD allow this or that? The fact is He does and the only way through these situations is to trust in GOD to do as He promised in Rom 8:28, and lean on these promises the best way I can. This as tough as it is, brings me closer to the purposes of GOD,in my life. I am still trying to understand all of this, sometimes it angers me,sometimes it brings harsh judgement towards GOD, sometimes it causes great doubts and fears to arise in me........but as I continue to endure, and overcome, faith is added to me as I go through my daily trials and tests, sometimes I think that surely GOD there is a better way of doing this, If I was GOD I surely wouldn't do it that way, but thankfully I am not , for GOD knows the endings and the beginnings, of which I am not privy to ,sometimes I fall sometimes I don't, but the Spirit is always there to help me back up to continue to walk on , for S/he who endures wins the prize.

blessings &Shalom

Endura