vickie petrelis

Being serious about obeying Christ is a serious matter. Do I always obey God? No I don't. Why? because the flesh part of me wants to go along with what the world wants me to obey and it's so easy to be tempted. Look how easy it was for Adam and Eve to disobey God. Once you get even an ounce of doubt into your mind, you start thinking, "will God really hold me accountable this one time?" If we just rely on the love that will help us to obey, then Christ will always be the center of our focus. It's not easy to obey and do what God wants us to do but God already went ahead to prepare the way for us to end up being okay.

Our assurance is Jesus Christ but not only for our sins but for the people of the whole world. For me it reassures me that even though Christ had to put his own life on the line for us and pay the ultimate price of dying so someone else doesn't have to make me well appreciated of his unconditionall love that He really has for us. Without HIm we would be nothing. Just take a minute to close your eyes. Imagine that you're there in the time of Jesus. Following Him and listening to Him preach and watching Him pray. It gives me chills just to know that people actually saw Jesus, and what He was capable of. Having them look into His eyes and know that he was full of truth. To avoid sin we as christians ned to stay focus on his face and look stright into His eyes. Always stay in the word and pray everyday not when things aren't going our way.

Confession is knowing down deep in your heart that something that you did was wrong. In order to feel cleansed inside, we need to confess any wrong doing. Without confessing our sins to God we can not be forgivien. If we stop confessing our sins then the death of Christ was for nothing. A sacrafice needed to be made when Adam and Eve disobeyed God, so instead of killing one of them an animal had to be the one who had to pay the price. That's why in the bible it talks about unclean and clean animals. Christ's blood had to be shed because He was without sin. If it wasn't for His death, could you image where the world would be like today, still looking for that Messiah.

When a Christian continues to walk in darkness (the world), instead of staying on the straight and narrow their life will get further away from God. A true Christian when asking God to forgive them will know it is a lesson learned. We can't just say "Oh God will forgive me" like it's no big deal or then Jesus' death was in vain. Walking in the light stated in vs 7 means that if we want to be like Christ then we need to act like Christ. I mean Christ was rejected so to be like Him, we will get rejected too.

I think we only allow ourselves to show other christians what we want them to see. We don't want to show them that we aren't Spitually filled and how sometimes we don't spend as much time as we say we do studing God's word. In the past three years, I've just came back into God's word. It is a much harder struggle now. I find myself wanting to know more and I'm reading the Bible everyday. When there is something I'm struggling with I continually ask God for guidence. As CHristians, we need to pray for eachother everyday and offer support. When one believer has doubts in a group relationship, the others need to stand strong and allow God to show them they have nothing to fear if they cast all their needs on Him.