Friends, I submit to you today the
reason for many fights, quarrels, strife, unforgiveness, malice, and hatred:
lusts of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride of life. If we are careful to
observe ourselves, we shall be able to tell how we felt towards another fellow
when we were riddled with these lusts. I am not speaking to those who do not profess
Christ in this post because they cannot please God, but to those who do call on
the name of the Lord. You want to obtain every good thing to satisfy your
flesh, and when you don’t get them you are worried and anxious. You fill your
eyes with the satisfaction of seeing pleasant things and pride yourself in all
your achievements; but when there is competition or another person achieves
more than yourself or acquires more than you have, then you become envious in
your heart. The deceitfulness of these lusts choke the very word of God out of
you, for you cannot serve two masters.
In the pursuit of various lusts,
various people are so consumed to the extent that they cannot pray to the Lord
who is able to give all things. Most cannot pray anymore because they have lost
all faith; not believing in God anymore because He does not give to them what
they lust after. Although most do pray, they do not receive because they ask
with wrong motives. We hear many say “oo, I believe God for this and that”; but
you never receive those things because you ask amiss so that you may consume
them on your lusts. Yes, the various lusts in trying to achieve things like
those who are of the world. An example will be people in various Church
organizations fighting for posts as though it were a public office. Even if it
were a public office, has God not called us to pursue peace with all men as
much as we can? You find believers in various places coveting what others have;
leading them to despise or spread gossips about those who possess what they
want. Also many have become jealous seeing another brother or sister doing well
in the Lord; probably with what they think to be a better ministry than they
have. Some people who have been a believer for a longer period become envious
of a young believer who has zeal for the Lord burning in them; they become this
way because they themselves have lost passion for the Lord, either through
distractions from worldly lusts and pursuits or just laziness in growing. Do
all these lusts not make you hate or despise another; giving you a sense of
pleasure or happiness (even secretly) when you hear that those whom you envy
have stumbled?
Lusts of the flesh, eyes, and pride
of life all work hand in hand to bring people into bondage. One desires to be
looked on highly by others because of their personal achievements, how handsome
or beautiful they look, or status in life. When the attention craved is not
given, they make even more effort in their pursuit for it. In doing so they
begin to pierce themselves with many sorrows; chasing after money like the
world would, dressing themselves up like the world with its fashion and
jewellery (of which the Lord said “whose adorning let it not be that outward
adorning of plaiting the hair, wearing of gold”), chasing careers which ties
their minds to earthly pursuits; where your treasure is, there your heart will
also be. You cannot serve two masters: for either he will hate one, and love
the other; or else he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve
God and mammon.
Ye
adulterers and adulteresses — Who
have broken your faith with God, your rightful spouse. Know ye not that the
friendship or love of the world - The desire of the flesh, the desire of the
eye, and the pride of life, or courting the favour of worldly men, is enmity
against God? Whosoever desires to be a friend of the world - Whosoever seeks
either the happiness or favour of it, does thereby constitute himself an enemy
of God; and can he expect to obtain anything of him? Love not the world,
neither the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love
of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the
flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father,
but is of the world.
My
friends, do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, the Spirit that dwells
in us lusteth to envy? Quench not the Spirit by following after various lusts.
The Spirit and the flesh are contrary to one another. If you follow after the
things which are in the world; its fashion, movies, music, ideas, and way of
life, you will grieve the Spirit. Come out from among them says the Lord; He is
jealous for His own. Jesus Christ did not pay the price on the cross to make
you a church goer, but for you to be saved and set apart for Him.
Humble
yourself and return to God; he gives more grace to the humble. If you are proud
in your heart to think that you will postpone repentance to an appointed time,
He will resist you. How do you know if you will be giving an account to God
tomorrow? It is pride to think that you are guaranteed to see tomorrow. Humble
yourself and cast all your cares unto God. Submit yourself therefore to God,
give yourself over to God and follow Christ; by humbly doing so you shall
resist the devil – the father of pride and envy.
Draw
near to God in prayer; pleading pardon for your sins. He will turn a deaf ear
to the prayers of unrepentant sinners, but He will be near to those who seek
salvation from Him in truth. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; flee every
appearance of evil and cease from doing what is evil. Purify your heart from
every spiritual adultery; riding it of envy, pride, covetousness. Sanctify the
Lord in your heart, and think not that you can serve God and mammons together;
do not be double minded. You cannot serve God while wholeheartedly pursing
worldly pleasures. Abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul.
Let your
unfaithfulness to God bring sadness in your heart, do not rejoice and think
everything is fine with you. Let your heart mourn if you have sinned against
God by pursuing worldly lusts. If you humble yourself in the sight of God and
repent (turn away from your sin), He will lift you up and give you grace to
carry on.
“Wash you, make you
clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do
evil; Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the
fatherless, plead for the widow. Come now, and let us reason together, saith
the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow;
though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient,
ye shall eat the good of the land: But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be
devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.” Isaiah 1:16-20
Scriptures:
1 Peter 2:11
1 Thessalonians 5:19
1 Peter 3:15
1 John 2: 15-16
Matthew 6:24
1 Timothy 6:10
Matthew 13:7,22
Matthew 6:21
Galatians 5:17
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuXYpVHc26c
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