Continuing Michael's message, The root of the sin nature is in the same lie that the devil told Eve ... If you disobey God’s only command by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, then you will be like God. Go ahead and take a bite of the forbidden fruit. Your purpose is not about God, it’s about you. Live for your own self and you will be like God knowing good from evil. When Eve took the devil’s bait and doubted the Word of God and the Love of God, she turned her heart from God and toward her selfish sin nature. When we feel as if our so-called rights have been violated, we need to ask ourselves, “why does this upset me?” Is it because my pride has been offended? In the daily decisions of life, why have I become embittered by circumstances and situations?
When Jesus Christ was reviled, He reviled not. You need to learn to recompense to no man evil for evil. You need to seek to bless others from a heart of love.” James Francis wrote and essay called “One Solitary Life” about the life of Jesus ... In an upside-down world, God chooses the foolish things of the world to confound the wisdom of the world. According to this essay: He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant. He grew up in another village, where he worked in a carpenter shop until he was 30. Then, for three years, he was an itinerant preacher. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family or owned a home. He didn't go to college. He never lived in a big city. He never traveled 200 miles from the place where he was born. He did none of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but himself. He was only 33 when the tide of public opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied him. He was turned over to his enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. While he was dying, his executioners gambled for his garments, the only property he had on earth. When he was dead, he was laid in a borrowed grave, through the pity of a friend. Twenty centuries have come and gone, and today he is the central figure of the human race. I am well within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned--put together--have not affected the life of man on this earth as much as that one, solitary life.
If you’re claiming that Jesus is Lord, this is the kind of life God has called you in following the Lord. Every moment of every day, God gives us opportunities to deny our selfish selves and to live for the glory of God in Christ that we may ever live to the praise for the glory of His grace.
Your brother in Christ, Michael
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