Soomee

Hate and unforgiveness sepearte us deom God. Once we are cut off from God then obviously we loose that light which has the ability to reveal us our true condition. Once that happens we are in darkness. Since we cannot see (in a spiritual sense) then that is called spiritual blindness. We need to repent and ask forgiveness from God and people involved. Then belive that Jesus has forgiven all our sins. Asking forgiveness is a tricky one. We need to ask forgiveness from the people in that circle in which the sin was committed. For example if I get angry in my heart with another person then I need to ask forgiveness from God alone. But if sin was committed against human being then I need to ask forgiveness from both God and human being. Once we ask forgiveness then we come back into the light

In my opinion there are basically two things contributes 1. Fear of men 2. Selfish attitude When we fear men's opinion then we build walls and do not openly discuss everything with others. That shows we do not 100% accept others are our brothers and sisters in Christ. This is because we do not fully care for others and wish them good and do not pray for their spiritual well being. Selfishness dominates our life and we need to move away from self-centredness to Christ-centred life where we crucify the "self" and learn to take up the cross. This is a change required "inside" of us. This change can only happen via the word of God and allowing the Holy Spirit to take control of us and change us.

Future generation should be taught the unadulterated truth about God. Satan is so powerful to destroy any such effort. Therefore Pastors and church leaders should take this passing on the knowledge very seriously. Satan can come in any form to deceive by diverting their attention towards other duties and programs in the church. If the pastors are constantly in tough with God and such a passion is there in their heart then according the need of the church God will lead them in prioritising their time among various duties they need to perform. I am sure the highest priority should be given to the teaching and mentoring of the future generation.

When he wrote this Paul somehow felt that his time on earth was coming to an end soon. I am sure Paul would have asked the Lord in his prayers about the whole thing. Paul is the spiritual father to Timothy and obviously Paul knew the dangers of travel those days. In spite of that he was asking Timothy to come means something to think about. I am sure Timothy would have made every effort to go and see Paul. If that was God

I believe the crown of righteousness represents an extra reward given to all born-again Christians who lived in readiness to meet Him in His second coming. They have not reached perfect state as they will be perfected when they are with Christ but they had the correct attitude when they were here. I like to think it as different from

I see that as a race that poses endurance

When you look at the context by reading verse 6, Paul is concerned that he won't be around to help Timothy or advice him very much longer. He knew that his time is running out. So he wants Timothy to know the responsibility he has in terms of God's ministry. Paul warns him of the suffering he will have to endure as any servant of God will face. We must be aware that when we are on the forefront of ministry then we need to encounter huge resistance from the adversary. Our preaching has to be backed by our character. We can preach but if our conduct is not backing up our preaching then it is totally useless.

Paul had spent more than a couple of years in Ephesus and this was almost one of his final letters. I do not think that he lived that long after writing 2 Timothy and Titus. So he must have felt that urgency to write the important matters that matter most. He must have known in his heart that once he leave Ephesus the false teachers will infiltrate the church in Ephesus and confuse the Christians with all their myths and genealogy. To save the church from destruction he felt the need to warn Timothy on those matters. That is why he says in another place "watchout for wolves". These false teachers could not enter the church when Paul was there and once he is gone he felt that there should be another strong person there who could stand firm for the truth. If the elder of the church is not fully equipped with truth then anyone can take the church in a wrong direction compromising the truth with worldly wisdom. Therefore any member of the God's Church should be ever ready to be a witness.

Scripture is the sole authority of a Christian. Our everyday action and preaching should be totally based on that authority. When difficult issues are encountered then the instruction on the scripture should be the final. If we walk in the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit then we will understand the scripture clearly and we will find out the truth and that will equip us for "right-living". If we do not depend on Holy Spirit and try to understand/interpret using our human wisdom alone then we could have trouble. Therefore the secret is the life totally depended on the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

In the case of Prophets, God told them what to write (mostly dictating). But the others, I prefer to think that they were obedient to God and God put the concept in their mind and they used their own words or construct to write and pass those on to us.

We run away or "go hiding" without confronting the issue or people who persecute us. We are interested in "comfort" but God is in our "character". Why do we avoid? Because in our natural it is too much to handle. That shows our lack of faith. We should be aware that God's grace is sufficient for us. Cross is a symbol of suffering for unbelievers but for the believers it is the ultimate victory. Therefore when we are intersted in victory then we need to submit ourselves to His will. "Thy will be done" daily/every moment.

The flesh opposes the spirit. Essentially we are too conscious of what others will think about us than the opinion of God about ourselves. When man's fear or opinion ranks the highest then it is easy to become hypocrites. When our life is not spirit controlled then we can degenerate easily to "religious". Being religious/ form of Godliness gives us a false sense of satisfaction. We also compare ourselves with the other Christians who also put a deceptive front in our churches. But we need to look at Jesus. Also when the Holy Spirit prompts us and corrects us we do not act on those promptings and becomes dull of hearing the Holy Spirit. Sometimes we only correct the outward symptoms not the root cause. It is like applying ointment to the outward wound but not taking the antibiotics to deal with the root cause. I think we need to "work out our salvation with fear and trembling, because God is always at work in you to make you willing and able..." Phil. 2: 12-13.

Not in a fighting spirit but with gentle spirit. We need to be humble but firm not to compromise the truth. Again the truth should be told with grace. Always be in the counsel of the Holy Spirit. If we have a wrong spirit, even if we hide from the others they still can sense the spirit of pride and take their defensive position. If that happens then they will shut their ears for your teachings. Arguments and play of words will not take you too far and no point just depending on our own strength. Paul says that if you talk meekly and courteously then the others will turn away from their wrong ideas and believe what is true.

What point is Paul making with this example? There are believers who can be in different shapes and forms. However God's wish list is that the believers will become golden vessels fit for noble purpose. God will use everybody but we should aim with the help of the Holy Spirit to reach that highest spiritual status. That is Christlike and that is what all of us are predestined to. God can even use Satan or Balaam (OT) to achieve His purposes. Therefore being used by God does not mean a lot. We need to continuously cleanse ourselves with the Grace God provides. In practical terms, how do we "cleanse ourselves" so that we might be useful and ready for the Lord's use? Practical terms: what does it mean to us on a day to day basis? As I understand there are two things in Christianity. One is God is doing and the other one is we have to corporate with him and we need to be disciplined to accept those corrections and act on it. The acting part is ours. We cannot sit doing nothing and then say God will do it. First we should know what to cleanse. When we are in the presence of God all the time then we will be sensitive to His Spirit. When the Spirit shed light on certain areas of our lives then we need to act on it and cleanse ourselves with His help. If we do not act on it then we may not get further revelation. We become dull to further promptings of the Holy Spirit. So there is a part we play in the cleansing process. We may be born again at some stage of our life but if we are not diligent then there is a danger of back sliding. That is why we need to guard ourselves continuously with fear and trembling.

Roman Christians: Persecution, prison and horrific death. Compared to what the Romans Christians had gone through what we face now could be infinitesimal. In some countries Christians still face persecution and death (Orissa, Sri Lanka etc.) but where I live we have such a freedom to practice Christianity. But I fear that material wealth is a great snare for our young people. They get very high salaries as soon as they leave colleges and Universities. This is not helping them at all in their Christian walk. The peer pressure and the emerging immoral western culture, the drugs, alcoholism, free *** (before marriage) steal our young ones away from God. This is the big threat I see around me. But I still believe the God in His sovereignty has answers to these perils. We need to continuously uphold our young ones in our prayer so that a hedge will be formed by God to protect them from all these external forces. We believers have the responsibility to show these people around us through our life that Christ is a living God. He lives within us and thus they should be able to see that in our every dealings with us. We may be the Bible that they could read and come to know God.

This statement reminds me Jer 29:11. I recently heard someone preach on this. A wonderful promise. The almighty is on our side and we do not fear or get discouraged. Our inheritance is

Ultimately we become like Jesus Christ in character. We display all the fruits of the spirit in our lives and hate sin and take up the cross in our life. I like this one

We (believers) need not to lose heart in our sufferings as God is at work in our life all the time. This one reminds me the words in the

Slavery to SIN I agree but slave to God is not exactly showing what relationship God desires with us. For me "slavery" is a bit harsh word. God still gives us the freedom of choice he does not take away that. But we willingly choose to take God's side. We choose the way of the Cross. He does not impose like a dictator. It is natural that our mind has to be filled with either that or this. So if we do not choose God then it is inevitable that our mind will be filled with SIN (conscious or unconscious). It is in us to long for that sort of independent freedom. We can see in the biblical history right from the beginning the human has that desire. It is that desire made Eve to sin. We do not like to consult God but we like to make our own decision. Eve ate the fruit from the tree to gain the knowledge of good and evil. We may ask what is wrong is gaining knowledge. But the problem is that Eve liked the idea of making her own decision without consulting God for everything. Sin of lucifer is almost the same. You can see the chaos that brought about on us. Baiscally we fear for the openion of men. Fear of men is greater than the "fear" of God. Here I refer "fear" in two different sense. "Fear" of God should stem out of love recognising our creator, not as a policeman who will punish us if we disobey the law.

I checked the dictionary meaning of "doctrine": A particular principle, position or policy taught or advocated as a religion could be the one I can apply here. I take the "Good Doctrine" as the one 100% based on the word of God (i.e. based on Christ's and appostles' teaching with the guidance of Holy Spirit). Since our life is governed by our belief system, then we need to be governed by such good doctrine. Therefore we need to be very careful in what goes in and establish our belief system. Satan is the cleverest person. God says that he is cleverer than Daniel. By the way God reckons Daniel is the cleverest person ever lived - spiritual matters. (Not Solomon). So Satan always wants us to misguide and lead us astray where ever he can. Easy way to trap Christians is to approach us via clever doctrines (bad ones) born in the mind of clever people. He can easily disguise them and bring them through those "false" (not easily visible as false ones) prophets (TV platforms). We really have to test everything that we receive these days. Beware Satan will come as an angel of light. My mentor always tells me that we need to have 4 tests: 1) Did Jesus do this? 2)Did Jesus teach this? 3)Did Appostles do this? 4) Did Appostles teach this? If any doctrine that fails in all the above tests then I do not want to tough those doctrines. One of them is the health and wealth doctrine (materialistic base).

If the Sin commands me to become angry and shout at another person who irritates me then I am obeying Satan and not God. So who is my master: SIN. So I am under the slavery of SIN. If I can resist that temptation and do some act of kindness to that person then I am obeying God and I am slave to God. It is a very practical test to find out who is my master not just head knowledge. The bondage to SIN's slavery is broken because Jesus conquered death and stripped the devil of his powers, I will not be defeated. The victory is already mine! As we know even after born again our flesh and mind (not spirit) are sinful. So the obedience allows me to break that bondage to flesh and mind. Many of my deep rooted sinful habits still lurking in me and try to trip me down again and again. I am sincerely asking God to help me to completely get out of it. That way I can the staedy growth and hoping to become like His Son ultimately. (Process of Sanctification)

Obvious ones are our eyes, mouth, hands and of course our minds. The world around us offer us lots of opportunities to offer our body parts to sin. We may have some sickness and we could be praying for healing but when we talk to our friends we may casually saying things like "my father had this decease and my mother had too" like that. In that what we are doing is that we accept that decease and thus showing totally opposite view to what we are praying for. This type of unconcious acts can be possible and hence we need to be quite vigilant and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal our shortcomings promptly. All of us have deep rooted habits that we acquired through our unconverted days. If we do not deal with them by nailing them to the cross deliberately then it will come out when we are not on our gaurd. That could be seen as unconcious and sometimes as deliberate. Because of our ignorance sometimes we align ourselves with other christians who may be involved in (not obvious) sinful activities. Changes: We need to listen to the promtings of the Holy Spirit and immediately act on it. We need to repent and ask God to give us that power to overcome. He will do it. If we do not act on those promtings then we will silence the Holy Spirit eventually and hence we may loose the power to know that we are engaged in unconscious sinful activities. That is a very dangerous situation a beliver can go into!!!

Before our conversion the Sin was controlling our spirit, mind and body (all three). When we became born again (Christian - Owned by Christ) our Spirit now is completely renewed and established that divine relationship with the Holy Spirit. Now the Holy Spirit is its master. But our body and soul still holds the freedom of choice. (Our body and mind can either choose to be obedient to our spirit that has the potential to get the direct command of renewal from the Holy Spirit or still be obedient to our old master - Sin). For our growth towards holiness (sanctification) in body and mind in addition to our spirit we do not let sin to control our body any longer.

Not to assume. Count on that as a promise that it is 100% fulfilled in Christ and it is for me. We have a certainty that we can overcome sin and have victorious life here on this life. With the help of the Holy Spirit we can achieve holiness. We are not left alone we have a helper in our fight against sin and He will do it for us. Only thing is we need to agree with Him and step out in faith.

Nearly 2000 years ago we were redeemed from our bondage to sin by the blood shed by Jesus on the cross. Therefore we are bought back by Christ to be His. Now we are not "married" to Satan (power of sin). Once the "old man" was made dead the marriage contract due to Adam wss made redundant/invalid. Now we are married to Christ (new contract). If we understand this great previlege that we have in Christ then in our life we can apply and exercise the power that we have in Christ with the help of the Holy Spirit. Rom 6:14 says that "sin has no dominion over us" or sin is not our master anymore. Satan will definitely hide this fact from us and make us believe that we do not have the power to overcome sin. When we look at other Christians around us who fail all the time then we also tend to believe Satan's lies. But that is not true. God's words say that we have the previlege of having the help of the Holy Spirit to live a victorious life overcoming sins power. The question is are we making use of this special power we have in Christ or we still live a defeated life that was only available for the people lived in Old Testament times. In other words are we people living in the New Testament time?. If we are unable to overcome our temptation and always failing to same types of sins over and over again then we live like those people who lived before Christ. Let us make use of the previleges that were earned by Christ for you and me and grow further and further learning to say no to sin. It is exciting to think that we can become like Christ one day if we are serious about our Christian life. He will change us once we allow Him to come into our life and that is the promise.