"No one is good--except God alone."
It is very, very important that you read the posts in numerical order.
Scripture quotations are from 1984 NIV of The Holy Bible unless otherwise noted.
The RefTagger Tool uses the NKJV of The Holy Bible for Scripture Quotations.The Source Of Good
You see the most well known Holy Bible verse, John 3:16, everywhere because it is the most important verse; revealing salvation into everlasting life which is real life. That is the only thing that makes life in the flesh worthwhile. I think this verse should be right beside it:
Luke 18:19 "Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good--except God alone."
Consider the significance of this statement. The Lord Jesus Christ was God in the flesh, being conceived by His Heavenly Father in the womb of a virgin; there are no better birth conditions, for a human being, than that. He was very spiritually gifted, even as a child (Luke 2:47), and had all nine Gifts of The Holy Spirit. He had more of The Holy Spirit in Him than anyone. Since The Lord Jesus Christ said this, while being in the best flesh possible with so much of The Holy Spirit in him, then none of us are any good at all. (Romans 7:14-25) Our problem is staying mindful of this thought--staying spiritually focused--at all times. Our ego's cause many problems for us and keeps us from the humility that God seeks in all his servants.
Job 41:11 "Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me."
(See Philippians 2:1-12)
(13) "for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose."
Proverbs 2:6 "For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding."
God, who is Love, owns everything and is the source of all good and wisdom that comes through people. When we quote wisdom from people, God is really the inspiration and true source. I've learned that the best way to compliment people is to give God the glory THROUGH them; this should help keep them humble. Not giving the glory to God is a set up from Satan to pump our egos up. It's all good only when its all God.
Instead of:
"You are very, very talented."
We should say something like:
"God has blessed you with great talent."
We should explain this to those who aren't in a habit of giving or receiving compliments like this, especially the Saints. People are much more likely to do something when they understand why the should do it. We all should strive to be better conduits for God's love by helping each other remain humble.
Mental Vision from The Kingdom of Heaven
When you introduce someone to a branch of knowledge, you are said to father them in regard to that knowledge. (1 Corinthians 4:14-15) As a child in that knowledge, you have to assume that you are being told the truth because you don't know anything yet. As you become more experienced in that branch of knowledge, you grow and develop a better understanding of what is going on. From The Holy Bible, you can also learn how things are supposed to be. When you know the absolutes you develop expectations and you can use terms like "should" and "supposed to." Once you get an understanding or "Vision" of the scheme of things, you have a "picture implanted in your mind" of Proper Human Behavior and of organized physical scenes. (1 Corinthians 14:40) Then you just have to compare what you see with your eyes to The Vision in your mind. If things do not line up, you just have to find a wise way to make the alignment happen. You have to use your judgment about when, on who, and how to make gentle corrections. (Colossians 4:5-6) Love is an action that is done by faith. You know that you believe something when you act on it. (2 Corinthians 4:13) You will do this if you want to live in The Kingdom of Heaven. You answer this question with you heart, by your actions, not with your mouth and your words. Our mouth states our ideals and we live by what is in our hearts. Our flesh is naturally lazy mentally and physically and it is only through God's Holy Spirit that we can do such things. (Philippians 2:13) The Lord also revealed this through me and I don't even put a name on it when I print copies of it:
Leadership initiates action in maintaining a vision, it acts when something is wrong.
LazyShip sees or does nothing when something is wrong.
Leadership needed.
From "Rediscovering The Kingdom" by Myles Munroe pg. 206:
"Our greatest enemy today is neither satan nor sin, because Jesus defeated both at the cross. Power is not the problem, either. We have power. That is why God did not send power to fix our problem. Our greatest enemy today is ignorance. What we don't know is killing us; or at least depriving us of a full and abundant life. The antidote for ignorance is knowledge, so God sent us His Word--His living Word in the person of His Son. Christ came to remove our ignorance about God and His Kingdom and to teach us of our heritage and kinship as children of the Father."
Matthew 16:17-19 "Jesus replied, 'Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of The Kingdom Of Heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.' "
The rock Jesus was speaking of is not Peter himself, it is the mechanism of revelation from our Heavenly Father, that is the rock that Jesus is building his church on. You might hear this nonsense from someone who has not done the necessary work for growth to maturity in Christ, "If it ain't from the King James Bible, then it ain't from God." which is a straight lie. As if the only revelations from God where to the writers of the books that the KJV came from. A person of understanding knows that God is All Powerful and can reveal Wisdom to a Mentally Challenged Child writing with a stick in the dirt if he wanted to. (Man please! :-) ) Also, our first or early attempts at doing things are rough, or crude. (Babies trying to walk, talk, or our early attempts at flying, giant computers, etc,) We get better and more accurate as our understanding grows. This applies to everything which includes translating The Holy Bible from an Ancient Language into English. Someone who refuses to understand this principle is not trying to advance The Kingdom Of Heaven, they are trying to maintain division and confusion in the church.
"Our greatest enemy today is neither satan nor sin, because Jesus defeated both at the cross. Power is not the problem, either. We have power. That is why God did not send power to fix our problem. Our greatest enemy today is ignorance. What we don't know is killing us; or at least depriving us of a full and abundant life. The antidote for ignorance is knowledge, so God sent us His Word--His living Word in the person of His Son. Christ came to remove our ignorance about God and His Kingdom and to teach us of our heritage and kinship as children of the Father."
Matthew 16:17-19 "Jesus replied, 'Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of The Kingdom Of Heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.' "
The rock Jesus was speaking of is not Peter himself, it is the mechanism of revelation from our Heavenly Father, that is the rock that Jesus is building his church on. You might hear this nonsense from someone who has not done the necessary work for growth to maturity in Christ, "If it ain't from the King James Bible, then it ain't from God." which is a straight lie. As if the only revelations from God where to the writers of the books that the KJV came from. A person of understanding knows that God is All Powerful and can reveal Wisdom to a Mentally Challenged Child writing with a stick in the dirt if he wanted to. (Man please! :-) ) Also, our first or early attempts at doing things are rough, or crude. (Babies trying to walk, talk, or our early attempts at flying, giant computers, etc,) We get better and more accurate as our understanding grows. This applies to everything which includes translating The Holy Bible from an Ancient Language into English. Someone who refuses to understand this principle is not trying to advance The Kingdom Of Heaven, they are trying to maintain division and confusion in the church.
Hebrews 5:14 "But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil."
Constant use of what you may ask? Discernment / Judgment which you get from reading, studying, meditating on, understanding, and memorizing principles from The Holy Bible. This is better known as a relationship with God. From "The Road Less Traveled" by M. Scott Peck pg. 111 (which he admits he had help writing in the introduction of the 25th Anniversary Edition):
"Love is not simply giving; it is judicious giving and judicious withholding as well. It is judicious praising and judicious criticizing. It is judicious arguing, struggling, confronting, urging, pushing and pulling in addition to comforting. It is leadership. The word "judicious" means requiring judgment, and judgment requires more than instinct; it requires thoughtful and often painful decision making."
Also, from "Rediscovering The Kingdom" pg. 204:
"No matter the time or the place or the circumstances, God is always working. He deliberately puts us in situations where we can minister to people. God is always working, and as His children, we must always be working also. That's what the Kingdom is all about."
A Wisdom Distribution System
We all are works in progress and all you can do down here is live and learn. Here is an example of one of my many ego problems. You should have seen how quickly I got kicked off The Atheist Forum for life by being way too bold, to the point of extreme arrogance and insolence, (Which I've learned is not good at all.) in the way I posted links to Post #5. At least the forum administrators know where the truth is and I'll be praying for them. I tried going back with a much better attitude, but they got all the computers I use blocked. Hopefully someone else will take a much more humble and wise approach, and I'll return when I buy a new computer if it is the Lord's will. I had a Superiority Complex and I've been humbled by the Lord.
We all struggle with our ego (which stands for Easing God Out or Evil Going On) and God has taught me a very important lesson about our egos from my spiritual growth while working on my job. This dog eat dog, competitive business world has us all chasing more money and power by competing for bonuses and promotions. Friendly competitions inspire us to raise our level of performance while having fun. Dog eat dog or cutthroat competitions stresses us and inspires dislike of our competitors which is not good at all. Coming from a department where the new manager pigeonholed all of my many new ideas for improvements, where I also was very opinionated, I developed a bad attitude of not contributing many new ideas in my new department. "If I contribute all the ideas that greatly improves our service, my Manager is gonna get all the credit and I won't even get Employee Of The Month because our Executive Management doesn't have a clue about what is going on in our department. They should pay me for my ideas about improving their business." (Man please!!) Those with a strong business mind will see nothing wrong with my former terrible attitude. You have to have that kind of attitude to succeed in the business world of Corporate America.
Our ego is the problem that causes us to think about "myself and right now" even at the expense of others, which creates a cutthroat Global Economy. The Kingdom Of Heaven attitude of thinking about "everyone in the system and the future" brings about a whole different Living System or Way Of Life. From The Lord's Prayer:
Matthew 6:9 "Our Father who are in heaven, hallowed be your name, (10) your Kingdom come, you will be done on earth as it is in heaven."
Do you think there is a First National Bank Of Heaven that God uses to get His will done in Heaven? (Man please!!!) This Global Economy Money Matrix that we live in is a trap for our minds that doesn't allow people to see the forest because of the trees. Money does not come from the God of Heaven (Matthew 10:7-15), it comes from the prince/god of this world who is know as Satan. (John 14:30) Satan uses money as a weapon to control people and wreak havoc on this planet. This is also why Jesus said:
Matthew 6:24 "No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money."
Money is a substitute for love, which is God, so you cannot serve both "Love and Money." They are two opposite systems. On every coin and every bill in the United States of America, the sentence "In God We Trust" is printed, which means "In Love We Trust." Satan does not want this country to live up to that ideal because then America would be a light unto the world and destroy his Global Economic System. This is why America is the most violent Industrialized Nation in the world because Satan concentrates on shutting that sentence down. To shut down a country you must shut down the churches, which are supposed to be A Highly Organized System Of Very Effective Wisdom Distribution which will bring about The Kingdom Of Heaven on earth. The System Of Truth is coming so stay tuned.
Back to the ego lesson learned and my former terrible attitude and I'll shut this entry down. The problem with ego thinking is it promotes the self instead of the system. Everyone benefits from being involved in a better system of things. The Lord revealed to me that the ideas for improving systems aren't mine any way, remember Job 41:11 ".... everything under heaven belongs to me." The main point is when the individual superstar's methods and techniques are taken out of the mind of a person or group (Minor Excellence) and is placed into a training system (Major Excellence), everyone involved benefits greatly. The employees who are performing badly can then excel and help land business that would have been lost if the "superstar" was not on the schedule when a high value business prospect visits the company. Also, employee morale and customer service will be improved well after the "superstar" leaves the company or dies and leaves the planet. An improved system leaves a legacy that benefits everyone, customers and employees in the present and the future. People don't care about how the system came about, people just want great service. It is foolish to try to put a monetary value on that kind of legacy. (Employee Of The Month Bonus, Man please!!!) There is field called Servant Leadership that you can Google and read about. Also, in the book "Good To Great" by Jim Collins he talks about Level 5 Leadership which is Servant Leadership that is required at the top to make a company great. Jesus was a Servant Leader and he said:
Matthew 23:11 "The greatest among you will be your servant. (12) For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."
So always keep your ego in check and wisely help others do the same because the truth is:
"No one is good--except God alone."
