Choices

Gentleness: Can Real Men Co Gentle?

What do you think? Can real men do gentle?

For most of my life, “gentle” described one thing.

Toilet paper.

Toilet paper was supposed to be gentle, and we all know what happens to toilet paper.

I grew up in a blue-collar family. The adults in my life scrapped and fought their way through Depression and war. The values were hard work, self-reliance, sacrifice, and hard work. You made your own breaks and earned your own way. You got what you wanted by working harder than everyone else. If someone stood in your way you shoved them aside.

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Heaven or Earth? The Choice is Simple

Hebrews 9:27-28 NKJV
And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.

I read in a book once that the early church didn’t celebrate birthdays because they found life to be so painful, but rather celebrated deaths because death was the transition from this life into heaven. I know that growing up, our church celebrated funerals and called them graduations. These celebrations were filled with joyous songs because we knew that the person who had died was now in the presence of the Lord, a place we all wanted to be.

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Christians Attitudes/Actions Toward One Another

      John 15:12 – Love one another
      Romans 5:13 – Don’t pass judgment on one another
      Romans 12:5 – Be members of one another
      Romans 12:10 – Honor one another
      Romans 12:16 – Live in harmony with one another

      Romans 14:19 – Build up one another
      Romans 15:5 – Be like-minded toward one another
      Romans 15:7 – Accept one another
      1 Corinthians 12:25 – Care for one another
      Galatians 5:13 – Serve one another in love

      Galatians 5:26 – Don’t provoke or envy one another
      Galatians 6:2 – Bear one another’s burdens
      Ephesians 4:32 – Be kind to one another
      Colossians 3:13 – Bear with each other and forgive one another
      1 Thessalonians 3:12 – Abound in love toward one another

      1 Thessalonians 4:18 – Comfort one another
      Titus 3:3 – Don’t hate one another

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Faith as an Overcomer

For everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. 1 John 5:4

One of the fruits of the new birth, is a faith which not only enables its possessor to overcome the sensual and sinful customs, and the carnal maxims and policies by which the profane world is regulated–but also the lying delusions and errors by which the professing world is fatally deceived.

The only thing which will or can “overcome the world” is a God-given–but self-exercised faith.

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Dealing with an Offensive Husband

Ask Angie: We have been married only 4 months and my husband engages in bash sessions with his family, friends, and grown boys about me and all the details of the marriage we are trying to build.  How can I feel safe, loved, and protected in this?  We are going to counseling…I just don’t think he is willing to see this behavior as abnormal.  I think it is just what his family does.  Negative and tearing us down at every turn.

Marriage Guidance: If any of your friends, family and grown boys have any sense they will surely see right through your husbands criticism. We should never allow what others say about us control our own behavior, even if it is from our loved ones. Many times it is our loved ones that will be the most disagreeable.

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Do You Choose Anger or Trust?

Galatians 5:16-21 NRSV
Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

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It’s All About Choices

Life… it’s all about choices. What to study, where to work, who to marry, what to buy, where to live, what to think, what to do…The list is endless of the possible choices we have to make each and every day of our lives.

The idea of choice is not new. Long before the world was every created, choices were already being made. God always has been. He has always existed (it’s a thought we will never comprehend this side of Heaven.) God, the Great I Am, is the “author” of choices. He’s made trillions of choices – likely even more. Perhaps His like of having choices is why He gave us the option of choosing, ourselves.

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Change Requires Choices

Proverbs 2:1-5 NRSV>
My child, if you accept my words
and treasure up my commandments within you,
making your ear attentive to wisdom
and inclining your heart to understanding;

if you indeed cry out for insight,
and raise your voice for understanding;
if you seek it like silver,
and search for it as for hidden treasures —
then you will understand the fear of the Lord
and find the knowledge of God.

I was having a discussion with a woman online one day. She was explaining that she had this (sinful) compulsion and had dealt with it over and over again. She wasn’t really distressed about it, just simply saying that this was who she was.

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Doctrine & Ethics

Every movement that has ever competed for the loyalty of human beings has done so on the basis of a set of beliefs. Whether the movement is religious or political, philosophical or artistic, the same pattern emerges: A group of ideas, of beliefs, is affirmed to be in the first place true and in the second important. It is impossible to live life to its fullness and avoid encountering claims for our loyalty of one kind or another.

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