Gregory Ebanks @crossdrivenarmy

Advice to my younger self: A lack of self-discipline is sinful, “for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control” (2 Timothy 1:7). “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong” (1 Corinthians 16:13). That’s it. That’s checkmate.

Advice to my younger self: There’s no such thing as aspiring toward “Christ Consciousness” that doesn’t include accepting Him as Lord, repenting from your sins, and spreading His Word. The qualities of His that you want can’t be grafted into your current pattern of living.

Advice to my younger self: The Bible only begins to make sense when you can see the best of human wisdom as nonsense. “If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise” (1 Corinthians 3:18). To be a fool is to be free.

Advice to my younger self: How can you be sure the Bible is the word of God? Law-breaking starts at the level of the heart’s desires. “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28).

Advice to my younger self: “You cannot bear to hear [Jesus’] word” (John 8:43) “because [He] testifies…that [your] works are evil” (John 7:7). His message that the world is overrun with natural born sinners sleepwalking their way into hell is exactly why they hate Him.

Advice to my younger self: The reason you know the Bible is true is because it instructs men to turn away from all the temptations that would entice them to evil. It commands honouring God’s only Son’s sacrifice by unreservedly denying the heart’s deepest natural cravings.

Advice to my younger self: The toughest rubicon to cross is not believing that Jesus is God, but that your current pattern of sinful living must end. “For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure…has no inheritance in the kingdom” (Eph. 5:5).

Advice to my younger self: Spiritual warfare isn’t about reining in your negativity, transcending limiting beliefs, or creating the life of your dreams. It’s about escaping your slavery to sinfulness, which drives you mad, because you can’t stop engaging in self-sabotage.

Advice to my younger self: Taking up your cross through self-denial to follow Christ (Luke 9:23) has nothing to do with reaching your own personal goals, but living by the belief that Jesus is God. For “why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?” (Luke 6:46)

Advice to my younger self: The fruit of a renewed life in Christ is a changed conscience. What does this mean? Your conscience checks you each time you’re about to move out of step with how Jesus would. This is not an experience, feeling, or event, but an active awareness.

Advice to my younger self: The world can’t wrap its head around the heart of Jesus because its people would rather seek vengeance than extend forgiveness. Nothing is more demonic. “Leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay.’” Rom. 12:19

Advice to my younger self: Make no compromises on what you know you shouldn’t be doing, for “what fellowship has light with darkness” (2 Cor. 6:14)? Nothing exposes your love for lawless living like “[calling] evil good and good evil” (Isa. 5:20). You always know what’s wrong.

Advice to my younger self: How can you persist in worrying when you know it’s sinful, because it demonstrates your lack of belief in God? Or justify it when “you shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3) is an explicit command? What you fear is what you worship.

Advice to my younger self: Faith in Jesus eases the mind of all pressures. “Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered” —Hb. 5:8 “Obedient to the point of…death on a cross” —Ph. 2:8 What‘s more revealing of the inner man than how he endures torture?

Advice to my younger self: Get ready for a hard life if you can’t learn to repeatedly forgive and move on, for “anger resides in the lap of fools” (Ecc. 7:9). Letting your offence fester into a smouldering rage will make you like every other ticking time bomb roaming the earth.

“If a thief is found breaking in and is struck so that he dies, there shall be no bloodguilt for him” (Exodus 22:2) How is a law to the contrary anything but an assault on God?

CTV News @CTVNews

3 weeks ago

“If a thief is found breaking in and is struck so that he dies, there shall be no bloodguilt for him” (Exodus 22:2) How is a law to the contrary anything but an assault on God?

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Advice to my younger self: Not getting everything you want IS the blessing. For if you did, you would be powerless to resist becoming everything you profess to hate. “He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income” (Ecc 5:10).

Advice to my younger self: Nations fall when people reject God’s laws. Just rulers are to provide “a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat” (Isaiah 25:4), for “when the righteous increase, the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule, the people groan “( Prov. 29:2).

CP24 @CP24

3 weeks ago

Advice to my younger self: Nations fall when people reject God’s laws. Just rulers are to provide “a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat” (Isaiah 25:4), for “when the righteous increase, the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule, the people groan “( Prov. 29:2).

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Advice to my younger self: If you believe you can speak your desires into reality, what makes you think God can’t? “my word…shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it” (Isaiah 5:11)

Advice to my younger self: Following Christ transforms your life by making you hate sin as He defines it. “By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love” —1 Jn 3:10