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Awareness Makes us Abound Part 1
There is no way to improve any of our life skills until we are aware of the actions we are taking to create our issues. There are general reasons such as the people we keep company with, where we choose to spend our nights or our environment. This is not an exhaustive list by any means but the point is still the same. General reasons for our life not being as abundant (John 10:10) as God has told us it could be are the “apparent to all” reasons. Anyone can guess these reasons therefore you are already aware of them! If you live in a crime filled neighbourhood I can guess you will either have crimes committed against you or you are committing them. If you keep company with drug addicts I can guess you will become a drug addict too. If you are spending your nights with a man not your husband I can guess you are committing adultery. These are not the deeper truths you need to know to improve your life skills. How did you get to this place in time starting from where you are now?
These issues are the result of the deeper lies causing you to be where you are today. We have done and thought many things up until this point to lead us to where we are. It is these lies we need to become aware of. Sometimes it takes effort to become aware of the lies we believed but I think we have to take the time to discover them. If we do not we will always be in crime, always fall into addiction or adultery and always fall into sin. What is worse than that is we will never see it coming therefore never be able to avoid it. We have buried them so deep only the Holy Spirit can make us aware of our deep lies leading us into sin. The Word of God gives us the way out because it is filled with the truth that can go deep. It is the Life Skills Encyclopedia I use for every lie I found myself believing. Let us go to the Life Skills Encyclopedia for awareness of the lies and to find the escape (1 Corinthians 10:13). When we become aware of the lies we have believed and our behaviour resulting from them we will either abound in foolishness or we will abound in knowledge. The Life Skills Encyclopedia has a lot to say about both. We will only discuss a few therefore I challenge you to search for more in your private time with God.
Abound in Foolishness
If you choose to remain in your lies even after you have become aware of them the Life Skills Encyclopedia has some pretty dire advice for you. Heeding it will change your life, ignoring it will cause you great harm. Proverbs 9:13 tells us “A foolish woman is clamorous; She is simple, and knows nothing.” Foolish women make a lot of noise to draw attention to themselves because this is the only way they know how to get it. Why? They are simple and know nothing about what they need. Knowing not what we need is detrimental to our health because we grab at anything including things that will hurt and destroy us. We will abound in foolishness throughout the whole day.
We are also told that the foolish woman pulls down her own house with her hands (Proverbs 10:14). Imagine taking the time and effort to build your house (figurative) then setting to work tearing it all down with your own bare hands. Destroying everything you have worked for, knowing your actions will destroyed, is painful and causes undo heartache. We don’t wake up in the morning with the intention of destroying yet when we continue to believe lies that is exactly what we do. We believe the lie, wisdom is well beyond us, and therefore we cannot attain it. We then continue to abound in foolishness throughout the whole day.
The last point, our foolishness does not just affect us it has a ripple effect. “For the foolish woman will speak foolishness, and her heart will work iniquity: To practice ungodliness, to utter error against the Lord, to keep the hungry unsatisfied, and he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail.” (Modifications mine, Isaiah 32:6) Our family, friends (Saved and unsaved) and co-workers are watching us act like fools even after we call ourselves “Christian”. Foolish behaviour hurts people by our words and deeds. We set out to hurt people. We are loud and obnoxious tearing down every ounce of good works we have done in the past causing the alienation of the people around us. Abounding in foolishness has made our friends and family think us a fool.
Stop the Foolishness
We need to stop the foolishness by becoming aware of our lies and come to the knowledge of God which is truth which will allow us to avoid our destruction from lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6). Too often today we are subjected to fools who think what they are saying is right, let us not be one. I want that we should live a life filled with abundance but if we spend every day tearing it all down abundance won’t last long. We can have abundance with little and we can have it with a lot. We can be foolish with a little and we can be foolish with a lot. If you are suffering from foolishness stop it now. We were fools before we knew God but now we know Him we need to put foolishness off. Do what you need to do to become aware of it this week (talk to a friend, journal or read the Bible to get revelation about it). Next week we will learn what it takes to abound in knowledge from the Life Skills Encyclopedia.
You can email me at kathleen@thelifeskillsstrategist.com anytime to ask a question or you can post your question in this comment section.
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Is “Right” All?
Right with God
All the reports are pointing to Jesus coming soon so TV is asking Christians if we are ready. Are we right with God? Leola thinks about this and asks her own question, “Am I right with God? What is right with God?” She researched this idea and concludes she IS right with God. She has faith in Jesus Christ. From Romans 1 to Romans 3:20 Paul tells us what being wrong with God is then he says “but now” to show us being right with God is having faith in Jesus Christ. So, her next question is, “Why is the ‘preacher’ preaching to the choir?” Leola remembers Revelation 2 and 3 where Jesus tells His churches about being an overcomer. Is “right with God” and “overcomer” being used interchangeably? The Bible tells us once we are saved we are right with God (Romans 3:21-26) therefore how often do we need to become “right with God”? Biblically speaking salvation makes us right with God so she says out loud, “Yes, I am right with God.”
Leola has confessed Jesus Christ as her Lord and Saviour (Romans 10:9-10). She knows she has eternal life (John 5:24). This is right with God according to Paul. Is she missing something? Is there more? This short speech needs to be preached in the street not in the church. It needs to be spoken to the unsaved not the saved. This “right with God” speech needs to be modified to help the saved preach this to the unsaved. As Leola thinks more about this topic it becomes clearer to her being right with God is His job. He is the one who saves us. He is the one who chooses us. We cannot make ourselves right with God. This is what Paul is telling us in Romans 3. Being right with God is the work of God and not of our own works. Salvation, sanctification, reconciliation, glorification, all of the ‘ations that go with it are all the work of God therefore being right with God is out of her hands. Is there more to what the “right with God” question? She supposes so.
We are definitely in a time of peril. Mankind is in love with itself and thinks it doesn’t need our God. As a matter of fact they cannot see God in what is happening to the land today. Not so in the church. End times preaching is commencing again. The saved are asking each other if we are right with God. Why? Why are we asking each other this question? The saved ARE right with God if they are indeed chosen. We can choose for ourselves to sit in the church building out of obligation or ritual but we cannot choose be chosen by the Father. There are plenty of those people sitting in the church today and until they are chosen they cannot be right with God. They may very well get bitter and become those folks who make their own gospel to lead many astray (Jude). Will this affect the people who are right with God? It will, I suppose, make us question our salvation but that should not be so. No one who is chosen by the Father should question their salvation. If you do question your salvation you are not working out your salvation with Him.
Right Relationship with God
Leola wonders if that is all there is? Why do we have a 2000 page book if this is all there is? There has to be more included in “the right with God” concept being preached today. Her works cannot make her right with God but they do put Leola and every Christian in a “right relationship with God”. Leola is learning that being “right with God” is different from being in a “right relationship with God”. She cannot make herself right with God no matter how hard she works. Salvation is a gift of God through grace and not of our own works (Ephesians 2:8-9). On the other hand having a “right relationship with God” is about overcoming our obstacles and continuing to have faith in Jesus through them all. Leola thinks the people preaching the “right with God” speeches actually mean for us to examine our relationship with God. How can she tell if our relationship with God is right? Sometimes Leola feels lost and disconnected from God then two days later she feel found and completely connected. There is one thing she knows for sure, she is ready to go home. She is torn between going home to be with Jesus and staying for the sake of the people she will help with their life skills. That is the key she teaches and follows. She is ready. Maybe us teachers of the Word should ask, “are you ready for God” rather than are you “right with God”. Leola has been ready for years.
We can tell we are ready for God when we can honestly say, “Jesus come,” and mean it. Jesus tells us in every one of those 2000+ pages He needs to be first in our lives but unfortunately that is much easier read then done. I can tell you from experience once you begin putting Him first life gets much easier to handle, stuff gets easier to relinquish, money gets easier to donate, love gets easier to give away, and the plan gets easier to follow. We begin to see this world is not our home and we long to go home to be with Jesus. If you are ready for Jesus to come you are in a right relationship with God but if you are not you need to begin working out your salvation. Ask the unsaved to see if they need to get ‘right’ with God but ask the saved if they are in a ‘right relationship’ with God. Jesus come!
Meditation Verses: Romans 1-3; Revelation 2-3; Romans 10:9-10; John 5:24; Jude; Ephesians 2:8-9
