The unconscious mind must never take the place of our conscious mind. In that unconscious mind Is my life history, weakness and strength, hurts and helps — but also Adam’s history, projected there from hell. I must forget what is past, but also cast down imaginations and high things that exalt themselves against the knowledge of Christ. “Remember, our imaginations determine our self-image.” “The human mind is extremely complicated. Little is understood about the three compartments of the mind: the conscious, subconscious, and unconscious. The unconscious is vast, making up 90 percent of the mind. Largely undefined, the unconscious is open to Satan’s entrapments. Often, Satan projects lies about the images in the unconscious mind to the subconscious, which represents 5 percent of the mind. The subconscious feeds the conscious mind— the remaining 5 percent.” Dr. Carl H. Stevens So we deduce: human weakness can reflect in us wrong…
Category: <span>Healing Cross</span>
In 1 Corinthians 15:10. Paul proclaims: “I am what I am by the grace of God. “There is nothing that will bend a man’s will like the recognition of divine love which is blessedness to come in contact with, and to obey.” “You may try to sway him by motives of advantage and self-interest, and to thunder into his ears the pealing words of duty and right and ‘ought,’ and there is no adequate response.” “You cannot soften a heart by the hammers of the law. You cannot force a man to do right by brandishing before him the whip that punishes doing wrong.” “You cannot sway the will by anything but the heart; and when you can touch the deepest spring it moves the whole mass.” Maclaren biblehub.com “You have seen some ponderous piece of machinery, which resists all attempts of a puny hand laid upon it to make it…
Like a River dam or lock, We must manage the flow of grace. This includes That flow coming into our house, and then the flow going out. This is our stewardship . This is spoken of in 1 Peter 4:10 “As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.” I must first learn how to receive grace, but not in vain. Grace “received” is accepting something which I do not deserve. Can you do it? `Pride can inhibit this action. Many, many speakers, leaders, church members, choir singers, administrators or faculty cannot receive grace. Unsaved folks balk at grace often. The reason? Grace is based never on the receiver, but rests in the open hand of the Giver, God Himself. It all depends on the vicarious atonement of Christ. Precious people look inward and discover…
As we obey the truth, God may allow us to be placed in precarious situations and locales — only to deliver us and reveal His glorious nature. Why does He do this? — so we can see the vast difference between Almighty God and un-mighty man. Here, watch one such occasion: “And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell bound into the burning fiery furnace. Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished and rose up in haste. He declared to his counselors, “Did we not cast three men bound into the fire?” They answered and said to the king, “True, O king.” He answered and said, “But I see four men unbound, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt; and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods.” Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the door of the burning fiery furnace; he declared, “Shadrach, Meshach,…
The Christian life takes guts, but where get we this intestinal fortitude? We gain courage as we wait on the Lord, look diligently at the road ahead, access our transporting integrity, allow it’s righteousness to smooth the way mentally, watch God snatch us away! Proverbs 4:25-27 teaches: “Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you. ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil.”E.S.V. 1 Peter 1:13 then teaches: “Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” E.S.V. Finally Heb 12:15 directs us: “Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many…
My childhood highlighted Easter. Not as ecstatic as Christmas, but carrying its own mixture of excitement, Easter differed from Christmas, much like death opposes birth, accentuating two poles of a man’s existence. Indeed, all the candy and gifts were affected by those Bible stories, most importantly, the one of cruel death. Memories include the emotions and guilt which filled my Childhood as I longed for release. Christmas gave a few days of solace, but Easter did not. The pre-Easter season of Lent featured the imposed fast– abstaining from certain pleasures. It was not yet a voluntary give-up for me. It lasted 40 days. Following that came the hideous picture of suffering death — we didn’t know how much blame we were supposed to assume, but we were told our sins were the reason for Jesus’ death. The Resurrection story did little to undo that mental pain — a basket full of…
In reading, I came across these four definitions: If I have an “Idea” it means: “ the criterion by which we establish the discrepancy Between what is, and what should be,” this we call the idea. If it becomes an “Ideal”: When we understand the idea to be a kind of critical principle, which subjects our actual existence to judgment, and when we accept it as a goal to be attained, so that it becomes an image of what we should be, then the idea becomes an ideal. Utopia? “the ideal is given concrete form… on top of this the hopeful thesis is maintained that our world is actually capable of reaching this state… we are therefore committed to ensure it’s realization.” We speak of this as utopia. Ideology? “an ideal that has become pragmatic.” “The ideal and utopia may not be revered at all because of their intrinsic value,…
I sang a song once, ’twas the joy of my heart. It carried a tear-drop to surface, on folk far apart. A plain song it was, without much buzz, but oil was hidden, ’twas oil of love. With one it brought laughter, with another, gave joy, some thought of heaven, I remembered my boy! My Mother, my Dad too, George and Merrilee, Bill Kraskie and Kevin, again I will see. I visited a place called Auschwitz, where they do a security check still. They must have guards, but not to hurt — no, they resist only liars and haters who try to erase this death-camp from historical record. But I was allowed to see the piles; of shoes, cups, prosthetic devises, eye-glasses, and a room of hair, (human). I saw a chamber, I saw an oven, a chimney; I saw names and faces, pictures of herded people. I read poems.…
Do you often grapple over the many decisions, including non-decisions, that brought you to your present circumstances? Lets try. There was the life changing time when Christ became real, the decision to marry, and the decision to have children. There was the decision for Bible College, moving to another state, finding a new job. These events are on the positive side of planning. Then there was the unforeseen happenings: the departure of a spouse, the death of a child, the loss of a job, the pains of sickness. On top of that are the many unthinkable mistakes, abuses, betrayals, and cowardly opting-outs. These were the lessons, hard to be learned, and may have stolen a large part of our lives. Nevertheless here we are. What are we to think about it all? The Apostle beautifully says: ” But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of…
“God just doesn’t throw a life preserver to a drowning person. He goes to the bottom of the sea and he pulls a corpse from the bottom of the sea, takes him up on the bank and breathes into him the breath of life and makes him alive.” R.C. Sproul “Men will never worship God with a sincere heart, or be roused to fear and obey him with sufficient zeal, until they properly understand how indebted they are to his mercy.” John Calvin “We shall never be clothed with the righteousness of Christ, except we first know assuredly that we have no righteousness of our own.” John Calvin “You contribute nothing to your Salvation except the sin that made it necessary.” Jonathan Edwards “The ultimate test of our spirituality, Is the measure of our amazement at the grace of God.” Martin Lloyd Jones “Faith, repentance and holiness are no less…