For today, One Year Bible Online links here.
Plan ahead and make sure you know how you will pay for it before you start building or buying a house. The same concept can be applied to any large project, make sure that you have figured out how you are going to feed yourself while you are undertaking the project and plan the project before starting work on it.
Are we like the ancient Israelites, who saw the wonders God performed, yet refused to trust Him? Will it take God starting to kill us for the people of the United States to turn to God? And if we do turn to God, will we do so with sincerity, or will we merely give lip service to Him? Trouble is coming for the people of the United States and the rest of the world. There is still time to repent of our sins and turn to God, but we must do so with sincerity.
I prefer the NIV translation of this passage. We have been raised with Christ, so let us set our minds on things above, on the things of heaven. We died with Christ on the cross and our life is now with Him. Just as we are not yet completely raised in our new life in Christ, neither is the death of our sinful nature complete. We need to continue to put to death those things of our sinful nature which live within us. Those things which we need to put to death are sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed. The first four of these are variations on the same thing. These are all perversions of our God given sexuality. Paul lumps greed in with these distortions of sexuality and identifies them all as idolatry. The first four are the idolatry of worshiping ourselves. Greed is the idolatry of worshiping things, whether it is money, or food, or some other possession. In all of these the sin is serving our own pleasure ahead of serving God’s will.
However, it is not enough to put aside and avoid these sins, which are readily seen as the sin they are. In addition to putting to death the idolatry of self contained in those sins, we must also put aside the desire to see others as less than ourselves. That is what the other sins really are, they are the attempt to put others below us. Anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language are all attempts to put others beneath our control, to make them less than ourselves. If we have truly allowed the Holy Spirit to strip off our old selves, we will not lie to one another. We will be honest about both our joys and our sorrows, about our successes and our failures. We will admit our sinfulness to each other and not try to pretend that we have it together.
God has chosen us to be His holy people despite our unworthiness. Our response ought to be: compassion for others who are struggling with sin as we did and are; kindness towards those who are suffering the consequences of their mistakes; humbly recognizing that our mistakes are just as bad as theirs, even if we may have escaped some of the consequences they are experiencing; gentleness and patience in showing others how their sins are causing the problems they see in their lives. Let us always remember that we are no better than anyone else. The sins which God forgave me for are no less terrible than the sins which others need His forgiveness for. Considering that God forgave me for how badly I treated Him, how can I not forgive those who have done me wrong (especially since it may only be that I think they have done me wrong)?
We cannot go wrong if we let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts and actively love those we come into contact with. In all of our actions let us remember that we represent Jesus to those who have not yet met Him.
People twist the word of God to say what they want it to say, then proclaim themselves wise for doing so. They offer aspirin to those suffering from hemorrhagic fever and tell them that all will be well. But all will not be well. There can be no healing from the hurts people are suffering as long as they go on doing the things which have caused their hurt. People habitually lie to one another. They do not seek success through honesty, rather they attempt to take advantage of one another by lies and deception. We will do them no good if we continue to tell them that everything will be alright because God loves them. Everything will NOT be alright if people continue in the path that leads to death. God is willing to forgive, but His forgiveness does us no good if we continue to sin.