Resist the Devil and He Will Flee (Excerpt from "Things I've Learned From the Word")

Peer pressure is something that we will all have to deal with, especially when we are believers and we associate with individuals who are not, or who might not believe on the same level as us. There will be times when our friends or relatives will attempt to get us to do things that we should not be doing, or go places that we should be going, but we have to have strength enough to not allow them to get us to do things that would not be pleasing to God. In essence, we should behave as if God is watching because he always is. 

There was a time in my life when, shortly after my mother had passed away, I had just become a legal adult, and I was trying to figure out life on my own. I had never gotten involved with smoking, drugs or drinking, and everyone close to me knew this. However, one day, someone close to me was smoking marijuana in my presence, and asked me if I wanted to participate. When I stated that I did not wish to, their response to me was that I should try it so that once I was alone in the world, and someone tried to pass off some artificial or harmful marijuana to me, I would be able to know the difference, as if it was a forgone conclusion that at some point, I would become a weed smoker just as they were. Fortunately for me, even though I did not have a relationship with God at that point in my life, I had the strength to refuse that person again, and through the grace of God, I can say that I have still never gotten involved with any substance habits. 

What we need to remember is that if we give in to temptation, or if we simply just say no to the occasion of the temptation, the devil will continue to follow us. If someone attempts to tempt a believer into doing something that goes against their beliefs, there is a difference between saying “no” and meaning “no”. If someone offers a non-smoker a cigarette, the non-smoker can say “no”, but the smoker could interpret that to mean “not right now” or “not today”. However, if the non-smoker replies with “no thanks, I don’t smoke” or “no, smoking can kill you”, then there is no way that the smoker can confuse the response with there being a chance that the non-smoker might smoke in the future. 

The same can be said regarding peer pressure and sex. If a young man is trying to pressure a young girl into having sex, or if a group of people is trying to coerce a person into having sex because ‘everyone else is doing it’, the person being tempted can simply say “no”, but as before, the answer could be interpreted as “not right now”, “not today”, or “not in front of all of you”. However, if the response is something along the lines of “the bible says that sex outside of marriage is a sin, and since my soul matters to God, it matters to me also”, then there is no way that this response could be confused for anything else. The point of this is that we must turn back temptation and live according to the will and the word of God.

Every Day IS a Blessed Day (With Excerpts from "Things I've Learned From the Word")

I recently had a conversation with an individual who, at the end of the conversation, told me to have a blessed day. I wished the same blessing on them and I was glad, as I had written recently, that the person was not afraid to believe in God. But as I walked away from that conversation, I started thinking about how I was already having a blessed day because I was alive and able to talk about having a blessed day.

Every time that we wake up, we have been blessed by God because there are many who go to bed only to have their lives ended while they slept. I tell people that having the ability to walk, talk, think, see, hear, touch and smell means that we are blessed. Even if we can only do some of those things and not all of them, we are blessed to be able to have the functions that we have.

I used to work in an office building and every day, I would attempt to park in approximately the same place, which meant that each day, I would pass by the car of a gentleman who truly inspired me. Each morning, the man would climb out of his van and would position himself into his wheelchair. The man had lost both legs and one of his arms, but he would use his one good arm to get himself into his chair. Aside from the fact that each day, I would marvel at the idea that he had just driven himself to work, I was amazed at his independence. He would put himself into his chair and use the mechanical device on the chair to drive the chair to the building. He would never let me open a door for him and he would never let me push an elevator button for him.

People would see him, and would tell me that the felt sorry for the man, and I would tell them not to because I knew that he had been blessed by God. When people asked how I could say that he had been blessed when he was forced to live with no legs and only one arm, I would say that he was still alive, he did not play the victim and feel sorry for himself, and he made the best use that he could of what he had, and that only a person with strong faith could endure in the face of such hardship. It was like the story of Job; no matter what the devil did to Job, Job did not turn his back on God because he knew that God had not turned his back on Job. This man confirmed for me that God blesses us every day, and that every day that we can discuss having a blessed day IS a blessed day.

Follow Eric E. Jenkins on Twitter @ericejenkins65

The Big Lie (Excerpt from "Things I've Learned From the Word")

Consider for a moment that everything that we have learned from the bible and about the bible is false. Imagine what life would be like if we did not believe in God and if we chose not to follow the Ten Commandments. Our lives might be very different if we didn’t have God. We would not have to worry about what God would do to us if we did not obey the Commandments, so for a moment, consider what life on Earth would be like.

The Sixth Commandment says that we should not commit murder. As we know, murder is against the law, and if we are found guilty of committing murder, we will spend a long time in jail, or we might possibly be sentenced to the death penalty. Aside from this, I know that I would not like to think about the prospect of someone killing or wanting to kill me, so the idea of being a victim of murder is something of which I am not in favor. Also, I have no desire to kill anyone else, and most sensible people do not wish to be murdered, so this is a law that many follow whether or not they believe in God. 

The bible also says that we should not steal or lie, referring to lying as bearing false witness against one’s neighbor. Simply put, no sensible person would want someone to steal their property or to tell lies about them. There have been many people who have gotten in trouble with the law, with their spouses, or on their jobs because someone told a lie that involved them. I have both almost lost a job, and have been punched in the nose because of lies someone else told. I have also had my possessions stolen from me, both by strangers and by people who claimed to be my friends, so I, like everyone else, can attest to the fact that living in a society where people did these things regularly would not be a society in which many would choose to or would prefer to live.

To put this plainly, even if a person chose not to believe in God, if that person was rational and reasonable, that person would not want someone stealing from them, telling lies about them, killing them or sleeping with their spouse while cursing at them constantly, so whether or not they are believers in God, most people obey a majority of the Ten Commandments, and if they are going to obey most of them, they might as well believe in God, live according to the whole word of God, and reap the blessings that God has for those of us who believe. It seems to make sense that if a person lives according to some of the word anyway, that they would want to have the abundant, prosperous life that comes from obeying the rest of the word of God.

We Should Strive to Be Imitators of God (Excerpt from "Things I've Learned From the Word")

Sometimes, there are verses in the bible that simply do not require explanation. If I read Mark 12:30, where it says “and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all of your soul, and with your entire mind, and with all of your strength”, that means that in everything that you are and in everything that you do, you should love God. There is really nothing to explain. If I refer to Psalm 37:4, where it says “Delight yourself in the Lord; And He will give you the desires of your heart”, then the bible is saying that if you place God first in your life, and you do it out of love not out of obligation, then God will reward you with everything that your heart desires. The first verse of Ephesians Chapter 5 is similarly self-explanatory.

Ephesians 5:1 says “therefore, be imitators of God”. While some might know exactly what that verse is referring to, others might ask how they can be imitators of God because God knows everything, sees everything and can do everything. Well, if you read further into the scripture, the bible explains the meaning of that verse.

The second verse of Ephesians Chapter 5 says that we should walk in love, meaning that we should show love for everyone in every situation all the time. Consider this; if a person walks in water, with every step that the person takes, his feet are going to get wet. If a person walks in mud, with every step that the person takes, his feet are going to get dirty. So if a person walks in love, with every step that the person takes, love will flow from his very being. This doesn’t mean that we have to be push overs, but it also doesn’t mean that we walk around looking for a fight. It means that we should be polite, respectful and understanding, and treat people the way that we would want to be treated.

What this means is if someone is nice to us, then we should be nice to them. However, if someone is mean towards us, we should try to understand that they might not know God the same way that we do. In this instance, we would show them some kindness and believe that God can soften their heart, and that God can help them to realize that they are living a life filled with hate and anger.

As we read further into Ephesians 5, the text says that immorality and impurity should not be a part of who we are because, as it says in verse 5, the immoral or impure have no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Verse 6 says that we should let no one deceive us with empty words, for because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience, so therefore we should not be partakers with them.

As we live today, the world would have us to believe that certain things, things that the bible says are sins against God, or that God would be unhappy with, or that violate the Ten Commandments, or that will not allow you into heaven, are acceptable. However, Luke 11:28 says those who hear the word of God and obey it are blessed. That means that God will bless us more if we hear the word AND live according to the word. Romans 12:19 says that the Lord will enact vengeance against those who have wronged us, so we do not have to seek our own revenge when we are wronged. Just as we turn to God when things are difficult for us personally, we should also turn to God when things are difficult socially.

The Best Money Advice I Can Give: Make Sure that You Can Afford to Live Alone

One of the best pieces of advice that I have ever given my children was that many of the problems in relationships stem from money issues. Keeping in mind that I said many and not all, I told my kids that the best way to minimize, and potentially eliminate those money problems is to make sure that they can afford to live on their own. This means that whatever their living situation is, they need to make sure that they can afford everything by themselves.

The idea of being able to afford everything alone seems unreasonable based on today’s economy. However, it also forces people to reach higher in order to have the lives that they want. 

If a single person is able to afford all of their living expenses alone, when they bring a second person into their home, whether it is a roommate or a spouse, as long as the first person’s revenue does not change, the housing will never be compromised. In addition, if the second person is also able to afford all of the living expenses, should either party’s revenue get interrupted, the living expenses can still be covered. 

Consider this; if each person can only afford half of the expenses, hence their reason for living together, and one or the other of them suddenly finds that they are unemployed, the entire household falls apart because the other half of the expenses is suddenly unavailable. On the other hand, if each can afford the total of the expenses yet was only paying for half, they both should have been able to increase their savings. If one or the other is suddenly at a loss of revenue, not only will both have savings to call upon, the employed one’s revenue will also be able to carry the house until the other is able to recover. 

Without having to worry about money, the two people are less likely to fight over money and are likely to be more supportive when one of them falls on hard times. Without the resentment over the feeling that the couple is struggling due to one’s lack of revenue, other smaller fights are likely not to happen. While I cannot guarantee this in every case, know that most fights that couples have are not actually about what the couple is fighting about at the time.

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