biting the hand that feeds you

Have you ever hand an animal, that while you were feeding it, munched on your fingers? It was completely accidental, sometimes, but other times it is on purpose. We have the same problem as humans, but instead of having an animal bite us, it is sin.
We are sinful beings. After Adam and Eve ate the fruit in the garden we have been sinful by nature. And we feed that sin. It follows us around like a new puppy and we drop treats for our puppy by giving in to it. We give into sin and we feed it, and in the end, our little puppy is no longer a puppy.
Now our puppy is a rabid dog and it is coming back to eat us. We play with it and now it is coming to get us. It is our fault that we fed it. We let it grow and we nurtured it, but as humans, we like to pass the blame.
We pass it off to anyone, but most of the time it ends up on God. He didn't do it, but we don't like to take responsibility for our actions so we pass the blame along. So God gets blamed and even though He got rid of sin by sending Jesus to die on the cross for us, we kind of negate that fact and blame him anyway.
So, now we have sin, which we fed and is now out to get us, and we have God, who gave his son for us to get rid of sin. And what do we chose? Mostly, we choose sin.
Sin is biting the hand that feeds us but we still continue on feeding and getting bitten. God will heal and help us but we just pile on the blame. There is something not right about this picture. We get sick on purpose and then refuse the antidote.
God wants to help us but first we have to let Him. We have to stop letting sin bite us and get God to help our hands. After being bitten so much, they need it.

Consequences and the right thing

Who really likes consequences? If you put that to a vote with 1 million voters, the vote would be million to none, because no one likes consequences and no one likes to get in trouble. There are consequences for everything though. Even the good things that you do.
If you break the cookie jar by accident and you tell your mom the truth that you broke it, you might still get in trouble because you broke it. You did the right thing by telling the truth but the cookie jar was still broken.
It is the same thing as when you follow God. God might bring prosperity to you and give you all good things but he also might give you bad things. "Consider "His" servant Job."
Job was a righteous man and God blessed him because of it. He lived his life for the glory of the lord and always tried to do the right thing in His eyes. God was very pleased with him. But one day Satan came into the court of angels. He told God that Job would curse Him if he took things away from Job. God knew he wouldn't, so he let Satan do things to Job.
Job was a good man and he was righteous. He walked in the Lord and did right in His eyes. Bad things happened to him though because he was being tested. He cried out to the Lord but he did not curse him. God gave Job consequences even though he was good.
Consequences are not always bad things though. Like in the story of Joseph. After he was sent to prison because of Potiphar's wife, he was still good and God blessed him. Going to jail was a consequence for something he didn't do but it was also a blessing because he eventually became the second in command for the whole kingdom.
No one likes consequences, especially if you didn't do anything wrong. Some people might be sorry that they did the right thing because of the consequences that followed, like Joseph. But is it really worth it? Why not try to change things for the better?
You will always end up in bad situations so you might as well learn from them instead of being sore about them. Two people can go through the exact same thing, but it doesn't mean that they both will come out the same way.

Reputations: Good or bad?

Lots of opinions in the world are based on reputations. Our opinions connect and reflect the different reputations that some people might have. A reputation can define a person but it can also bring others to believe something that is not true about that person.
For example: if there was this person and they were the nicest person on the planet but they have a reputation that says they steal, the majority of the people will not hang around them or be nice to them or pay any attention to the person because they have the reputation of being a thief. They could not be a thief but if their reputation is that of a thief, they will be seen as a thief.
That is one thing about reputations though. They are usually based on the truth of our characters. If you have a reputation of being nice and kind and gentle it is because you are nice and kind and gentle. There are some reputations which are false but the majority of the time they are based on the truth.
That is another thing. Let me ask you a question. What kind of reputation do you have? What kind of reputation do you want to have? Does it reflect your character? If so, is there something that you want to change about you and change your reputation?
God wants us to have a good reputation. One which says us to be kind and gentle and compassionate and caring. God wants us to help people and to put others before ourselves. He did that for us. He put us before himself and before his son. He gave the life of his son for us.
He wants us to have a good reputation and he wants us to reflect his light into this dark world. Our reputations are how this world sees us, so why not want to have a good one?

Mercy and God

Fact: God is the Creator. He is the Creator of the world. He created you and He created me. No one else on earth has the power to create anything. We use the things we already have hear, and we discover news things, but we never actually create anything. Electricity is lightning, and God created lightning. Technology is something that God brought about through people. It wasn't us, it was God working through us.
We don't create things and since we don't how are we supposed to know what is good and what is bad. We didn't create is fully and we don't know it fully. In the beginning we didn't know between good and evil. It was the bite from the fruit in the Garden of Eden which brought us where we are today. With the bite brought sin and with sin brought fear.
Fear is a very powerful emotion. It can bring us to do or feel something that we wouldn't ordinarily feel and it can bring us to be influenced. It says in he bible thatr God did not give the spirit of fear. Fear is not of God but it can and does control us. Other people influence us by using it.
God can take away our fear though. And when He dies, he is being graceful. Some people in this world believe that God owes us certain things in life, but in reality he doesn't. He created us, not the other way around. He loves us even when we don't deserve it. And He loved us so much, he didn't give us somehting that we do deserve. Death.
After the bite, the fall of mankind followed approxomately t minus 30 seconds before. Eve was tempted and she didn't have to go along with it, but she did. She could have just not eaten the fruit the same as Adam could have not eaten the fruit. But since we did, we all need somehting called mercy.
God showed us mercy by dying on the cross for us and he shows it to us everyday. Not because he is obligated to give it but because he loves us enough  to do it. He loves us and shows us mercy and because of gthat it is our job to show mercy to others. it says in Zecharaiah 7: 9 - 10 9 Well, the message hasn't changed. God-of-the-Angel-Armies said then and says now: "'Treat one another justly. Love your neighbors. Be compassionate with each other.10 Don't take advantage of widows, orphans, visitors, and the poor. Don't plot and scheme against one another-that's evil. 
This means we have to love each other and show mercy towars each other just as God does for us. We are to eb compassionate to one another. This is a fact.








                                                                                           

Showing Mercy

Mercy. Mercy is a very important part of our daily society. We are shown mercy meny times in a day and we have the opertunity to show mercy everyday. Most days we just ignore it and sometimes we don't even recognize it. Some times we are "too busy" and other days we are "in a rush." These are all reasons we use not to help the needy people in the world.
The bible said "That which you did not do for them, you did not do for me."  How would it change you opinion and your response if you saw Jesus in need. Would you help him? Lots of poeple would jump up and say yes, but would you really.
In my church, one saturday a month, people go out to the streets of montreal and give to the poor and the homeless. Many have said that it is such a blessing for them. That is showing mercy to them. The rest of the month is used to collect things like food, clothing, hygene kits, and other things that the homeless need. There is always a line up.
This is like what mother Teresa did but to a much smaller extent. Mother Teresa cared for people and she took care of them. She changed the world into a place that cared for people when before they were cast out and shunned. She opened her eyes to the poor and needy and inturn opened ours.
She did a great thing and many are hard pressed to find someone who disagrees with that. She cared for peopel and she helped them and that is what God does for us.
We were the needy and he helped us. He gave his son for us.
The pastor in my church one did a sermon on it. He help up a list with names on it. He said that these were the people that he would give his life for. He names his family and the church and friends and such. Then he held up his empty hand. "This is the list of peopel who I would give my son for" he said. There was no list.
That is how we think. Giving ourselves is one thing but what about a child or sibling. No. But that is what God did. He saw us in need and showed mercy on us. He gave his son for a world full of sinners and in the last moments of Jesus' life he had to turn away from his son because he could not look at the sin that we had.
It is hard when your father who loves you can no longer look at you. That is what happeded to Jesus. He showed mercy for us though. He didn't have to die for us. He could have left us to die just as mother Teresa could have left those peopel to die. But they didn't. They had mercy and not it is our turn to show mercy to the people that need it shown to them.
If God did it for us, are we so petty as to not do it for other?

Fruits and their Trees

The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. All of these come from the same place and with the help of God and the Holy Spirit, as Christians, we try to achieve thee things.
These fruits are important to our growth as Christians and we should be contantly trying to attain them. And just like the fruits that grow on trees, like apples and bananas, we are the trees of these fruits. And just like the trees with the bad fruit are cut, we will face the same.
God is the gardener and we are his trees. He prunes us and takes care of us and watches over us. All this is so we will produce good fruit. The good fruit which we are to produce are the fruits of the spirit.
God  gave us the Spirit to help us in our walk and to be our friend. He is contantly with us and as Jesus said, "I will  be you a with you for the rest of this age." (matthew 28:20)
These fruits are not always easy though. I myself struggle with love, joy, peace, patience, and pretty much all of them. God is helping me though and it also comes down to a choice. A choice of wanting to be joyful and a choice of wanting to be patient. Everythign in life depends on the choices of life that we make.
We are trees and it is our job to produce fruit. The bad trees which produce bad fruit will be cut down and throw into the fire. The bad fruit are the fruit like greed and selfishness. They lead to lives which are empty and full of void. There is no purpose to the lives of the wicked except for wikedness and there is no love in wickedness. Withotu love, life is empty. God is love.

Love: Easy or hard?

When you think of the word love, do you think of it as something easy, or something hard to do? How about to certain people. Do you find it easy to love you sister or brother but hard to love a peer in your class?
When you walk down the street, do you ever wonder about all the other people who are walking too? Do you ever stop to think about the other people that you pass everyday? You don't know these people and to you they are just random peopel who have nothing to do with you and who are just living their lives. But that is what catches you up. They are other people, "Living their lives."
When you think about the word life, do you only think about your life or do you think about life in gheneral, or maybe someone else's life? Many peopel would answer just their own life. This is because the human race is very selfish and conceted. WE only think about the things that can benefit and help ourselves. This is the same with love.
When you are a kid, and someone says "no" to something you want to do, you might just walk up to them, kick them and yell "I hate you!"  You don't really but you are mad. When you get older, you just complain about them on the internet but the principle is still there. That is not loving someone.
To love someone is to be in the same situaton and except it with a smile. You might thank them for consideration, or just smile polietly. Even though things didn't go your way you still have to be nice. This applies to all things.
God tells us to love our enemies. Have you ever had a kid in school that was constantly picking on you? You really wanted to get them back for all thin things they have done to you, but you remember that God wants you to love them and you don't? That is hard to do. It says in the bible that not returning something they did to you is like pile hot coals on their heads, and that revenge belongs to the Lord. He will teach them in his own time, not ours.
We need to love the peopel around us, even the peopel who we don't know. WE can't onlhy love the peopel who are nice to us or who love us because everyone does that. We need to do what God tells us and even love those who persecute us. 

Pigs, Pilate, and the King

Pilate was the man in the bible who had the job of finding out what the prisoners did and then sentencing them. One day, Jesus was brought to him. He talked to Jesus to find out what He had done but Jesus was faultless. Then Pilate asked the peopel what to do.
In isreal there was a tradition at that time which stated that every Passover, the prisoner of the people's choosing would be set free. There also was another murder in prison named barabos. So, according to custom, Pilate went out and asked the people which prisoner they wanted to be freed for the Passover. All the priests and pharisees in the land, wanted Jesus dead so they all got the crowd to ask for Barabos instead of Jesus.
This was Pilate's mistake. In his position he had the right to let Jesus go but because Jesus was a jew Pilate asked the people. It says in the bible that Jesus is "The way, the truth and the light," and in this they trampeled him and put Him to death.
Jesus is with us every moment of everyday because he rose from the dead. Nothin can change that becuase it is a fasct and a truth, but do we really see that in our day and age? We seem to believe that Jesus died and is no longer relevant. We kind of neglect the resurrecction. And usually when we do notice Him, it is usually to say something negative and push Him away. He is the only way to go, and even though it might seem that other direction seem better for the imediate interest, they aren't.
It is like we are searching for something which is hidden, and when we finally find it, we just leave it because "it is not the right color." We neglect the way to go and the One that wants to help us, and then we blame Him for our mistakes. That hardly fair.
It also says in the bible not to throw you prescious pearls to the pigs. Teh pigs will only trample them. Well that is what we are doing. Jesus is the pearl and we are throwing Him to the world. The world is the pigs. We are throwing our only hope to the pigs and then complaining. How would you feel if that happened to you? It is happening to Jesus.

Prices, steep hills, and the right thing

The right thing to do. This is a picture which varies from person to person. If you put two people in the exact same scenario, and they both try and do the same thing, you will notice that they dont both do the same thing. It varies from person to person depending on the person's perspective and how the measure rightness.
Some poeple don't even try to do good and are just content with doing bad but for the most part, humans try and do the right thing depending on how they see it. It is not always an easy thing to do though. The wrong choice always seems easier than the right one. That is mainly because the right choice usually has a price at face value whereas the wrong thing seems inviting but can lead to more trouble along the way. Let me elaborate.
If you are in a situation where you have a friend who invited you to a party and you wanted to invite another friend but the first friend said no and that if you bring your second friend you wouldn't be the friend of the person anymore, there is both a right choice and a wrong choice.  The right choice in my perspective would be to stay with the second friend because if the first friend treats other people like that, are they really a good friend?
You may lose your first friend and that is a hard thing to do but you make a friend in the other person. If you had gone to the party to appease the first friend, what do you think would have happened? You would probablly lose the second friend becuase you left them behind and sooner or later the first friend would probably put you in the same situation again.
This way you keep paying high prices for the friendship of the first friend and soon the price will be too high to pay. Which one would you chose?

pressure and yardsticks

Pressure is a very present force in our society. Pressure comes from all sides and changes our opinions and our perspective on things. If you buy and outfit and our friend doesn't like it, there is pressure to buy somethign your friends do like. This effects everything we do.
If our friend want us to do somethign bad and we know it is bad but they really want us to do it there is a high chance that we will sucumb to their wishes and do the wrong thing. This is wrong and usually a wrong action is left with a bad feeling. It is not only your friends who put the pressure on but also parents and wants, dislikes and friends. Many things can pressure us into doing things.
It says in the bible though "I will not give you more temptation than you can handle." That means that if our friends try and pressure us with God we are always strong enough to over come that. Thjat is what we need to have in order not to do wrong or to succumb to the evil around us. We must fight against the pressure all around us that threatens to take over and go to God and get his point of views.
He is the thing that should be our standards. We should always strive to do the things that are right in his eyes even if it may be the unpopular choice or the one that distances you from you friends. We must always strive to do what is right in His eyes and not in the eyes of the world.
WE must measure oursleves according to His strandards and not the standards that are being forced upon us from all directions.
If you are measureing distance, you use a yardstick, if you are measureing a choice between good and evil, you use God's standards. We must rely on him in everything we do and in all things. He is our yardstick with good and evil and we must use Him, and not fall prey to the stardards, morales, and ideas of teh world around us.