From a disciple of Christ

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James 4

1. Where do all the fights and quarrels among you come from? They come from your desires for pleasure, which are constantly fighting within you.
2. You want things, but you cannot have them, so you are ready to kill; you strongly desire things, but you cannot get them, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have what you want because you do not ask God for it.
3. And when you ask, you do not receive it, because your motives are bad; you ask for things to use for your own pleasures.
4. Unfaithful people! Don't you know that to be the world's friend means to be God's enemy? If you want to be the world's friend, you make yourself God's enemy.
5. Don't think that there is no truth in the scripture that says, "The spirit that God placed in us is filled with fierce desires."
6. But the grace that God gives is even stronger. As the scripture says, "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble."
7. So then, submit yourselves to God. Resist the Devil, and he will run away from you.
8. Come near to God, and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners! Purify your hearts, you hypocrites!
9. Be sorrowful, cry, and weep; change your laughter into crying, your joy into gloom!
10. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

NT

To me, there is great wisdom in the teachings of Jesus and His disciples, giving me the aim, the strength, and the goal of spending my time walking with HIM in the spirit. I just wanted to share this, and say I love you all.

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So the want of the one and only God has caused no wars in our history?

</sarcasm>

TTF

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I love it A-glow, Couldn't have said it better myself...no really...
Please feel free to keep going.
You are doing a good job-the world needs more people like you.

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Thank you Crazynutt

This is another blessed passage to help us understand and follow:

The Spirit and Human Nature

Galatians 5
16 What I say is this: let the Spirit direct your lives, and you will not satisfy the desires of the human nature.
17 For what our human nature wants is opposed to what the Spirit wants, and what the Spirit wants is opposed to what our human nature wants. These two are enemies, and this means that you cannot do what you want to do.
18 If the Spirit leads you, then you are not subject to the Law.
19 What human nature does is quite plain. It shows itself in immoral, filthy, and indecent actions;
20 in worship of idols and witchcraft. People become enemies and they fight; they become jealous, angry, and ambitious. They separate into parties and groups;
21 they are envious, get drunk, have orgies, and do other things like these. I warn you now as I have before: those who do these things will not possess the Kingdom of God.
22 But the Spirit produces love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
23 humility, and self-control. There is no law against such things as these.
24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have put to death their human nature with all its passions and desires.
25 The Spirit has given us life; he must also control our lives.
26 We must not be proud or irritate one another or be jealous of one another.

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Ephesians 4
17 In the Lord's name, then, I warn you: do not continue to live like the heathen, whose thoughts are worthless
18 and whose minds are in the dark. They have no part in the life that God gives, for they are completely ignorant and stubborn.
19 They have lost all feeling of shame; they give themselves over to vice and do all sorts of indecent things without restraint.
20 That was not what you learned about Christ!
21 You certainly heard about him, and as his followers you were taught the truth that is in Jesus.
22 So get rid of your old self, which made you live as you used to--the old self that was being destroyed by its deceitful desires.
23 Your hearts and minds must be made completely new,
24 and you must put on the new self, which is created in God's likeness and reveals itself in the true life that is upright and holy.

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Good job I know gods real good job and GOD BLESS YOU!

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Re: From a disciple of Christ

A-glow wrote:

James 4

1. Where do all the fights and quarrels among you come from? They come from your desires for pleasure, which are constantly fighting within you.
2. You want things, but you cannot have them, so you are ready to kill; you strongly desire things, but you cannot get them, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have what you want because you do not ask God for it.
3. And when you ask, you do not receive it, because your motives are bad; you ask for things to use for your own pleasures.
4. Unfaithful people! Don't you know that to be the world's friend means to be God's enemy? If you want to be the world's friend, you make yourself God's enemy.
5. Don't think that there is no truth in the scripture that says, "The spirit that God placed in us is filled with fierce desires."
6. But the grace that God gives is even stronger. As the scripture says, "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble."
7. So then, submit yourselves to God. Resist the Devil, and he will run away from you.
8. Come near to God, and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners! Purify your hearts, you hypocrites!
9. Be sorrowful, cry, and weep; change your laughter into crying, your joy into gloom!
10. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

NT

To me, there is great wisdom in the teachings of Jesus and His disciples, giving me the aim, the strength, and the goal of spending my time walking with HIM in the spirit. I just wanted to share this, and say I love you all.

Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give alms, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
Matthew 6:1-4

From the Revised Standard Version of the Bible

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Portal Star,

Are you suggesting that giving a testimony about God's wisdom and quoting from the Bible is to "practice piety before men"?

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Proverbs 7
1 My child, remember what I say and never forget what I tell you to do.
2 Do what I say, and you will live. Be as careful to follow my teaching as you are to protect your eyes.
3 Keep my teaching with you all the time; write it on your heart.
4 Treat wisdom as your sister, and insight as your closest friend.
5 They will keep you away from other men's wives, from women with seductive words.

Amen

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Derevon wrote:

Portal Star,

Are you suggesting that giving a testimony about God's wisdom and quoting from the Bible is to "practice piety before men"?

You must admit that quite a good deal of the Bible can be open to interpretation.

Take this passage, for example:

4. Unfaithful people! Don't you know that to be the world's friend means to be God's enemy? If you want to be the world's friend, you make yourself God's enemy.

If we are not to be the world's friend, therefore by logical conclusion we are to be the world's enemy. Therefore, according to this passage, it is God's will for us to treat it as an enemy, to treat it with suspicion, to treat it with disdain, to attack it and maybe even destroy it. If you interpret it like that, logically it is Christian to want to pollute the world's environment, in order to destroy it.

9. Be sorrowful, cry, and weep; change your laughter into crying, your joy into gloom!

This can be taken to mean, it is unChristian to be joyful. It is unchristian to laugh, to smile, to not weep.

It is my firm belief that you must question the Bible and all that is within it. You mustn't question it in a way that would allow you to understand it better, to understand what its really saying, for it is all open to interpretation and everything may have double meanings.

Reality is far greater than one man, so one man can never see the entire truth and one viewpoint will never allow you to see all of reality.

(Hm... I like that phrase. I might just make it my signature).

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5. Don't think that there is no truth in the scripture that says, "The spirit that God placed in us is filled with fierce desires."

God does want us to fight, this spirit. War is not always all bad.

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Yeah war can be ok, just so long as nobody gets hurt.

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Jesus Himself said he came NOT to bring Peace...

I'm just saying we are in a WAR always between Good/Evil. So Far I have not Killed anyone.

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Vapid. Simply vapid. The only meaning worth taking away from this passage is that we should embrace humility and goodness while rejecting pride and evil.

Do fighting and quarreling usually arise from want of pleasure? Only if you define pleasure as a drive to self-preservation/fulfill one's needs, which isn't what pleasure is. The Christian Bible is filled with passages of great wisdom, but this isn't one of them.

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True, true. I'm not really a Christian, but if I were, I would say that the only true words of wisdom would be the original Ten Commandments and pretty much anything Jesus said.

You cannot misconstrue "Thou shalt not murder" and "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

(And in a recent program on Channel 4 over in the UK, people were asked to vote for a new Ten Commandments for the modern age. They voted almost unanimously for one, which is the latter of my mentioned quotes).

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I am so sick and tired of this good/evil palava. I am tired of the whole 'let me save ur soul by denouncing ur religion and following mine' school of thought. If every1 could just climb out of their own behinds they might see that we are equipped to feed/clothe/provide jobs, healthcare and a better standard of living for everyone, yes read it again, EVERYONE on the planet. All you need to do is open your minds a little bit and we're good to go. Set an example, no?

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You are not worried about the (even worse) population boom that would cause yelloworld ?

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Good for you A-glow. A few wise words from the Bible and life's worries seem so much smaller.

<sarcasm>

Personally this is my favourite:

Romans 13:2 - Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.

I pity those who resist the authority of the great Lord, they will recieve damnation TO HELL AND BURN FOREVER AND EVER!

Isn't the love of God so great?

<evil laugh>

I prefer beer to scripture, its far less judgemental.

From a disciple of Christ

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