Idoltary

I would almost make a presumption that almost everybody in the world knows what guilt is and that they are guilty of something in their life. Who has not told a "white lie" in order to make things look a little cleaner than they actually are? I admit to telling more white lies than I can count and I am only 36 at the moment. And even if you were to argue that you are not guilty of anything, have I got some shocking news for you. According to the Bible, everybody is guilty of sin. In fact, when we are born, we are born into a sinful world and we automatically become part of that sinful world. (Isaiah 53:6 New Living Translation (NLT)

All of us have strayed away like sheep. We have left God's paths to follow our own. Yet the LORD laid on him the guilt and sins of us
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His Word is not in us. (1 John 1:8-10 RSV)

Romans 3:23
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.

And the Bible tells us that if we think we have not sinned that what we are indeed doing is calling God a liar -
1 John 1:10 King James Version
(KJV) If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

What we are guilty of depends on how we were raised, what we were taught to believe in school, at home, and our other places of meeting. But the Bible makes it clear that all sin is equal. There is no one sin greater than another like we as humans class them as, save one special sin. According to the New Testament, Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is the ONLY sin that is not forgivable.

Deuteronomy 28:7
"The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you; they shall come out against you one way, and flee before you seven ways."

Every believer has enemies. In fact, every believer has three enemies: Satan and his hoards, sin, and our own mortal flesh. Notice that I didn't mention other people... precisely because our warfare isn't against other people (for whom Christ also died), but against principalities, powers, and spiritual wickedness (Ephesians 6:12). But we do have enemies and we should be doing battle everyday against those enemies. The wonderful thing is that those enemies are already defeated. In fact, they don't simply skulk away from the direction they came. The Lord routes them in seven different directions! They fly pell mell, unable to even chart a course, due to their fear of the Lord's armies.

Romans 6:16-18 NRSV
Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted, and that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

The Lord has been talking to me a lot lately about how I make decisions. There has been instilled within me a strong Puritan work ethic: God only helps those who help themselves. And while I do believe that Christians are commanded to work and to work hard (and often), I think that my own worldview has been corrupted with the idea of American self-determination.

Romans is an interesting book. Of all the books, this is the one that is the least personal. All of Paul's other epistles are letters written to churches with whom he had personal relationships, but the letter to the church at Rome was written to people he had never met. Thus, Paul takes the time to outline the doctrines of Christianity. In essence, this--even more than the other epistles--is a book of the Bible written to us for this time, a church which Paul never meets and a church which desperately needs the anchor of correct Christian thought and practice.

Deuteronomy 16:13-17 NIV
Celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days after you have gathered the produce of your threshing floor and your winepress. Be joyful at your Feast--you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, and the Levites, the aliens, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns. For seven days celebrate the Feast to the LORD your God at the place the LORD will choose. For the LORD your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and your joy will be complete. Three times a year all your men must appear before the LORD your God at the place he will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Tabernacles. No man should appear before the LORD empty-handed: Each of you must bring a gift in proportion to the way the LORD your God has blessed you.

Lord, dig the earth out of my heart!

You shall not covet. Exodus 20:17

Observe the holiness and perfection of God's law, which forbids the first motions and risings of sin in the heart. The laws of men take hold of actions; but the law of God goes further—it forbids not only sinful actions—but sinful desires. These lusts and desires after the forbidden fruit are sinful.

There are various kinds of slavery in the world, and many classes of victims of this cruel bondage. There is among others, the domestic slave, whose tyrant is her husband--and the scene of her bondage, her home!

His stinginess allows her scanty supplies for bare necessities. His selfishness is so engrossing and exacting, that his demands for his own personal ease and indulgence are incessant, and leave her no time for the consideration of her own comfort. His disposition is so bad, that all her diligence to please are unavailing to give him satisfaction, or to avert the sallies of his irritability, discontent, and complaints.

Welcome to CIR's Workshop:"Satan's Role in Addictions and Dysfunctional Behaviors." This Workshop is presented by noted author Don Umphrey.

note: Members can discuss this workshop in the Message Boards HERE

The traditional symbol of the medical profession, the serpent on a pole, is commonly known as the staff of Asklepios. This was the name of a Greek physician of the eighth or ninth century BC. And it involved one of the most anomalous events in the Bible. Yet the roots of the serpent and pole symbol go back farther, to the Exodus from Egypt around 1200 BC. When the children of Israel were plagued with venomous snakes, Moses was instructed to "……. "Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard (pole); and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live (Num. 21:8, 9)."