Avoiding Bad Spiritual Areas

31 “ ‘Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists, for you will be defiled by them. I am the LORD your God.
You wouldn’t go jump in a radioactive lake would you?  Well, maybe on a dare.  I’m just kidding.  Well, anyway, there are places filled with evil spirits.  It’s places you want to avoid cause I figure it would trap you and magnify whatever evil coming at you and in you.   Don’t you think?
Myself,  I think it would be a challenge to fight sin using method we have discussed, but surely it would be a lot tougher if you’re in some evil spirit zone and they exist in a big way in our modern world.   

Replacement Behaviors

2 Corinthians 5:17 KJV: Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

A problem with being a new Christian is that people are accustomed to the old self where things like drug addiction, sex addiction etc. are something that was a strong part of who they were.  In that case, I would think some replacement behaviors would be highly helpful along with the things Christians need to be doing like praying, reading the Bible, spending alone time with God.

For instance, if you have friends who do drugs, then a good idea would be to dump the friends and start associating with Christian friends.  Also, on top of that, if you feel these drugs have a strong hold on your heart, why not let God be your friend?  Make a point to let him fill that void, even beyond praying, reading the Bible etc. (as we discussed).  Really make God something to focus in on as some close intimate relationship.

 

Sexual Immorality – What’s the big deal?

1 corinthians 6:18-20

“18 Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. 19 Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, 20 for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body”

Well, one problem is we are not to use other human beings as toys.  Do you really love the people you lust after?   If you don’t, well that’s definitely a stumbling block to “abundant life” we have been discussing in many posts.  Well, there’s no way this lust can truly make you happy.

Now, other reasons sexual immorality is bad is because of disease.  I mean, even someone involved in sexual immorality without guilt might still be afraid of AIDS, for instance.

Scandal in the Church

Matthew 18:6

“6 “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. 7 Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble!”

This verse involves people making terrible mistakes which lowers the trust in a church and everything about Christianity, in general.  For instance, how many comments have we heard about how people can’t stand church cause of priest/pastor child molesters and other hypocrites?   Well, it’s understandable.  Nonetheless, though, it is wrong to blame God for it.  In fact, it’s just an excuse.

Anyway, despite “the excuse thing”, God does recognize the damage of all this, so that’s why I believe this verse is in there and the phrase “little ones” isn’t in regard to real children, though that’s ironic, but is a reference to church members.  Church members in their humility are to be as little children.

What is Being Connected to God?

In other posts, we discussed how God approves those who are connected to him, but what is it to be really connected?  Well, it involves holy behavior (not prefect behavior).

Matthew 7:21–23

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ ”

However, though, people often make terrible mistakes. For instance, King David had someone murdered!   Nonetheless, the fact he repented, due to being in God’s household, in God’s flock ((the Shepard idea), he was forgiven.   Well, how would this differ from someone who might be an example of someone commanded to depart from the Lord?  Could it be someone living a double life or changing the Bible into something else?  We can say such people are not really in God’s flock.  They are not really in God’s fellowship.

Never Going Hungry or Thristy

John 6:35

“35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

All this goes back the idea of the abundant life.   People without it are hungry and thirsty, so to speak, because they the life they live is vastly inferior.   It’s not the life God wants for his creation.

John 10:10

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

The Bread of Life

John 6:25-59

25 When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”

26 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. 27 Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”

28 Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”

29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

30 So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’[a]

32 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

34 “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”

35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 36 But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. 37 All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40 For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”

41 At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42 They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”

43 “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. 44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’[b] Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. 46 No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. 47 Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

52 Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

53 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. 57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” 59 He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

This all goes back to the idea of “Apart from me you can do nothing.”.  In other words, the only way to walk in the spirit, to be approved by God, is to stay connected.

John 15:5 “I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in Me and I in Him, the same bringeth forth much fruit, for without Me ye can do nothing.

Note: if you do stay connected, all you will do is grow and produce more fruit.  The fruit would more good works because you would be becoming a stronger Christian.

What You Can Handle

Luke 16:10

“One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much.

God works like a credit score.  You gotta prove you can handle something before what you handle gets bigger.

How to Treat Others

Proverbs 14:31

Whoever oppresses a poor man insults his Maker, but he who is generous to the needy honors him.

It’s not our call to judge people on their situation, but only to make the right choice.  If it’s true there is some deception going on, then God will judge when we have left the situation.