A Different World

There is a bad tendency in our world today to look back in history and apply modern philosophy and thinking to the ancient world. It becomes very easy to judge those folks from our safer, easier, and protected perspective. Yet the truth is that they lived in different times and under different circumstances that we couldn’t really understand without being in their shoes. Before we pat ourselves on the back as being different and better, we might need to think more about how we’d be in those circumstances.

I think this is Paul’s point in 1^st Corinthians 10. He tells those hundreds of years later that those in ancient Israel were in a different world, but were still a lot like them. He then goes on to show how they failed to live pleasing to God, warning us to heed the example. He then says, “Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall.

Lots of folks look back and think, " Well, I never do that (Matthew 23:30)! Instead, we need to consider that though the world might be a different place, people are still the same. If they made those mistakes, so can we. The temptation might be wrapped in different paper, but the sin is still the same.

We might think we are better on our high horse, but that just means the fall is going to be that much harder.

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The Gift You Give Yourself

I always hated buying gifts for my Mom. If I got her something like a new set of pans, it was like saying “Here’s something you can use to go make me something to eat”. A gift for her was seemingly a gift for me. There are however gifts you give that benefit you more than the receiver. For example, forgiveness. When you give it, you are giving it to yourself as much as you are giving it to them. Jesus said that when we forgive others it means God is forgiving us our wrongs (Matthew 6:14-15). I once read: “ Heaven is where everyone's forgiven. Hell is where nobody's forgiven. So, when we forgive we pull heaven down into our lives. When we withhold forgiveness, we pull hell up into our lives ” Give yourself something nice today, Forgive.

Until Midnight

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Why Does A Lion Tamer Use a Chair?

Ok, I know you have seen the image. A lion tamer enters in the cage of the beast and forces it to obey his commands using a whip, a gun and a chair. Now you can see how the whip and gun could come in handy but you might be wondering why a chair would intimidate an animal as powerful as a lion? Clyde Beatty taming a lion with a chair It's not that the lion is afraid of the chair -- it's that the lion is confused by the chair. Cats are single-minded, and the points of the chair's four legs bobbing around confuse the lion enough that it loses its train of thought. Casually put, the chair distracts the lion from wanting to claw the lion tamer's face off. The powerful creature could destroy the chair in moment’s notice but instead it is distracted into submission. It’s not too much different than how Satan controls us today. By the power of God we could overcome anything that he would use to subdue us. We can overcome the evil one (1 st John 2:13-14). ...

Ecclesiastes 12:10

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