Contentment, a Double Edge Sword

Finding Peace in 
Our Circumstantial Discontentment

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The crowd says, "Follow your heart."

The Cross says, "Follow Me."

Matthew 10:38 NKJ   And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.

We all have problems; some problems worse than others.  Most often our problems are the result of our disobedience of God's will for us in the way we live.  In our disobedience we become discontented and contented at the same time!  It is not amazing that we become contented with the discontentment within ourselves and the life we live.  We often seem to have no clue where to turn and what to do, but just do not want to step out of our comfort zone and try what God wants for us.  Thus, in not knowing how to proceed or knowing solutions and not liking them we succumb to living in our discontented comfort zone.  We just settle into a life of trying to be contented with our discontentment in the way we live life.

However, we have hope in the Holy Spirit.  When the Holy Spirit lives within us, we have our promised Guide and Comforter provided by God with the acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord of our lives.  With the Holy Spirit we should pray for guidance in our lives.  When you pray, you find encouragement in living live when you include this in your petitions: "God, I love you and want nothing else but to live in your Holy Spirit and Walk in Your Way." 

Pray it often everyday.  When you start thinking of your problems, think of Him, immediately, and start praying.  Discern carefully, hold on to what you know is good, then as you feel and know  you  are in His Guidance, Run, Sprint and Leap into your Spiritual Guidance.  

God loves us especially when we acknowledge that we are sinful and we need Him and the Holy Spirit.  We all are living with and one of our most frequent sins, selfishness.  We want what we want, and we want it Now! which seems to be our human condition.  We are sinful and we know it, we are needful of God's love and we know it, we may even desire the guidance of the Holy Spirit, yet we still sin in spite of knowing we shouldn't!   Again, selfishness is the greater part of this disobedience.  We know something is not good for us, yet we still want it.  As much as this is easy to write, we know we need the Holy Spirit, yet it is difficult to properly execute living in the Guidance of the Holy Spirit.... initially.

One thing Jesus taught us was to follow Him, His behavior, and His teachings.  We must follow His behavior as he did Set the Example.  Stuff, many times sorry stuff, seems to have a lock on us despite what we seem to be able to do.  And, it causes us many times to uncontrollably sin.   To get rid of some, if not most of the sorry ‘stuff’ we create in our lives, we just have to do as Jesus did:  We must allow the guidance of the Holy Spirit to control our lives.  Following His Baptism, when He was led into the desert, Jesus was following the lead of the Holy Spirit.  Once there, He recalled what He needed to defend Himself against the devil (evil),  IT WAS SCRIPTURE!  Today, we have scripture to address our every behavior in all parts for our lives!  We must study and use it.

When we turn to God in our times of problems, God is pleased and especially loves us, even if we continue to feel the pull to sin.  Even if we fall into doing what we should not do, He is patient and most happy when we return to Him.  One of the most Glorious behaviors on God’s plan is this:   What He most desires to do in our lives is to forgive us!  We have to keep trying to pull away from our sinful ways and  Yes! it is hard.  But, with continued prayers everyday, and in with our sincere humbleness, the prayers will be authentic.  The fact is, Prayer works in our lives! But remember, prayers work in God’s time, not in our planned time.  We have to be patient too with ourselves but also remember that God's patience and forgiveness is not a license to sin.

Praise God, that through our thinking and praying in Him, we become more faithful as we seek His Guidance because we see the blessings of our faithfulness.  There is no problem, no decision we make that should not be preceded by prayer.   

My biggest failures in life came when I did not pray, and my greatest success came on the heels of prayer. In our prayers God takes us in our sorrowful mire and  prepares us to help ourselves and others.  If we allow ourselves to be taught, He will teach us through our mistakes and problems.

Do not be content with where you are.  Instead, strive to reach and live where you should be- content with the Holy Spirit filling and guiding your life..  As St. Paul advised, Focus in our every situation and be thankful.  Disobedience brings discontentment.  But sometimes we are comfortable to live in contentment with our discontentment and most probably because we are afraid to step out of our ordinary lives into Extraordinary lives.  Do not be content with your discontentment in your disobedience to God.  Pray for your contentment to come to you only by living in Christ and the Holy Spirit.

God is ahead of us in everything we do, preparing solutions  as we are in a battle everyday with the evil around us.  We are pulled by: our job, by a crowd of discontented people telling us how to live, by TV commercials telling what to wear, eat, drink, and live with.  Situation comedies demonstrate the easiness found in ordinary sinful pleasures, or feelings of helplessness and/or a lack of confidence; but never is there contentment in those behaviors.  Giving in to our pleasures do not satisfy the inner cravings of our soul.  We cannot win those and other battles alone.  We need Him, our Highest Authority in each and every moment of our lives to help us keep our focus .... on Him.

As you come to know that you are living in His will, then follow your heart Purified by the Holy Spirit.  You will initially be in awe of what God leads you to do.  Then, as you continue to live in His will, constantly discerning what it is that God wants you to do; follow those desires and unhesitatingly jump into Faith and Follow the pureness of the Holy Spirit just aching to lead you in the ways of Jesus that God would have you live.

Then, you will find peace of mind in your life and real contentment regardless of your life's situation.  Then, and only then, do you really come to understand what St. Paul told the Thessalonians, "Pray Always; Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will through Jesus Christ. "

Thanks Be to God.

© Lonnie Coggins

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© Lonnie Coggins

ldcoggins@gmail.com

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lonnie 

Publication  0103

101110

10 Reasons we Rebel against God

10 Reasons                     Return to Main Menu

We Rebel against God  

 

There are many avenues that we Rebel against God, and in most of them, we might not realize we are rebelling.  It is so easy to go our own way to do what we should not do, forget about what we should do, and just do what we want.  

Hope I do not step on toes here, but it is easy to buy 'stuff' we do not really need, but we buy we like it better than what we have, that is still quite usable -- a bigger car, a bigger house, a bigger boat or camper just to name a few.  Or, newer things like a digital TV when the old Tube monster still works as good as ever.   Sometimes we try to rationalize the bigger purchase, but still know we could get by with less and something not so expensive.  

How much good could we do with the difference in price between what we want and what we can truly justify.  A good example of this, we buy a 40 inch TV when the clerk tells us a 32 inch will do just fine for your room size.  Say it is a $100 difference in price.  That $100 could do a lot of good helping someone else.

You may have experienced better examples than this, tell me of them in the comment section below.

The secular world will tell us

"Do it your way".... when
God is telling us to do it His way,
Through Jesus, He says: "I am the way.."
and we have the Holy Spirit to show us the Way!

It is unfortunate that in the days of mankind, 
       His way is far too often the "Road less Traveled".

I share but 10 ideas 

Why we Rebel against God.

1.     We doubt God in our having too much self-confidence (*1).

2.     We believe our Judgment is Better with never praying about our judgment or even asking opinions of others. 

Many leaders do this.  

They do not share leadership.  

They are a boss rather than a leader, and worse
     many think bossing is leadership.

Many 'leaders' feel: 
       It is only their way our you take the highway.
In our rebellion, we just like our selfishness, and that creates a barrier in our relationship with God.

3.     We believe God has Let us Down. 

Here, we did not ask for just our needs, but too often
    too much for our wants.  We are too Self-Focused!

We pray for our wants, and this sets us up for great disappointment in our relationship with God.
God is in the needs business not the wants business.

4.     We think we know better. 

We fail to pray and/or even ask for other opinions.

Boy, does this get us in trouble.

5.     We just want things our way. 

Another trouble maker!  

We plan. 
   We make a mess of our plans.
       We create a big mess, then pray, 
"God bless my mess."

 6.     We just get tired of being told what to do, where to do it, when to do it, and how to do it.
Then, we insist on knowing why we have to do it. 

In our impatience, we come to believe that we know better than God in what to do with our lives.

 7.     We would just rather live our way and suffer through

the familiar pain we know, rather than 
live in God’s Way, accept his help to heal our pain, and in patience allow Him to guide us in His Way.

8.     We just want to have selfish fun.   The irony comes when we learn that real fun comes more in helping others than in helping ourselves to our selfish idea of fun.

9.     We do not trust God because of unfulfilled prayers, we believe and still suffer, and sometimes our life just seems unjustly out of control.|  Again, this is a function of praying for wants and not needs.  The greatest mistake of our generation.

 10.  We feel God has left us when in fact, 

              it is us who have moved and turned away.

Add to the list below in the comments  section.

Many Times we do not even realize we are in rebellion against God.  In our greed, living in our desires, and  ignoring that inner conscience that tries to lead us in God's way, we slide into Sin without even realizing the sin we are in.  In the following writing you will read of some of these"Sneaky 'little' Sins" that slip into our lives.

How many of these little sins have captured your life?

Click here for>>>   Sneaky 'little' Sins

The Hope for Our Sin >>>>
            Prayer Life-  Why did Jesus Pray -so often

Click here for >>>
                 Behaviors Separating us From God     

Behaviors God Desires From Us

Click here for
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© Lonnie Coggins

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You can print the message including this sharing message only for your friends and for non-profit.  You will have to copy and paste the message to a word processing document.   After you copy and paste add the following at the end of the message:

© Lonnie Coggins

ldcoggins@gmail.com

If you desire to use any of these messages in a For-Profit manner you must contact me (email) for permission.  Typically, I will most likely give permission.

Please email me if you find any broken links in this message.

lonnie 

Publication  0102

Notes:
*1  Self-Confidence is a Slippery Slope, click here for my experience of seeing it evaporate:
                Losing Confidence in Self at the Height of Success


m1910  2118



intro:

There are many reasons we rebel and sin against God, here are but ten.  If I remind you of your behavior, do not feel too bad.  Just correct your behavior, ask God for forgiveness and move on to better behaviors.  Our God is in the business of Forgivenss.  Click below for the message:

http://lonnieadailythought.blogspot.com/2011/07/10-reasons-we-rebel-against-god.html

Finding Real Life Through Prayer, Part 2

Breathing is not Life,                            Return to Main Menu
Life is Believing...                 Click here for Part 1

Why we need a prayerful life through the Holy Spirit.

Part 2                               Click here for Part 1

One of the Glories of God in creating this world is that He gave mankind the ability to choose.  The issue with our capability of choosing is that with the help of  common cultural thinking influencing our lives through media, internet, friends, and TV, we desire to choose the fun and easy way of living emboldened by our self-centered and self-focused selfishness.

With our acceptance of Jesus, the Holy Spirit comes to guide our lives and begins the God given ability to overcome the negative influences of our world.  It can be a most powerful moment when we accept Jesus and we truly feel changed.  We may feel the power of the Holy Spirit in that moment, but for that feeling of the Spirit to continue in our lives, we must engage in an active learning and growing process through Godly fellowship and Bible Study but most importantly- through our prayers.  

On our own, even without inspiration, people can accept Jesus by faith, but it is through the Holy Spirit we see and more greatly feel God's activity in our lives.  It is in and through the Holy Spirit filling our lives that our faith in Jesus grows.  As the Holy Spirit is in us, it is as a tree putting down its roots and spreading its gifting branches over every aspect of our lives.  From that tree of the Holy Spirit filling our lives we receive abundant Grace in the gifts of the Spirit for our daily living.  But, it is our prayers daily to God, that in God's Grace and Blessings we feel more of the power of the Holy Spirit growing in us (Luke 11:8-13).   God does not want us to live half filled, short changed, or with Spiritual crumbs!  He wants us to be spiritually charged to fully appreciate His work in our lives.    Therefore, it is IN our faith that we pray in our communications with God, but it is THROUGH our prayers God most assuredly builds our faith through the Holy Spirit!  Our Faith withers when left unattended, un-nurtured by prayer, unsupported by Godly fellowship, and pushed aside by our selfish desires.   But, Godly faith flourishes through prayer and the activity of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  Where we are weak the Holy Spirit intercedes, and most especially in our prayers! (Romans 8:26)

Jesus demonstrated the need for pray as recorded in the Gospels (especially Luke) and as found in the writings of Paul.   From the Gospel of Luke, we read an emphasis on prayer and  Jesus was often in prayer at/around important events and when teaching His disciples about prayer.  

Luke open His Gospel with people praying as Zachariah receives the news that his wife Elizabeth will have a child, and with people in prayer and praising God he ends the last chapter (Luke 24:53)  (*1).

Jesus opens and closes his ministry praying, praying as His baptism is completed and the Holy Spirit anoints Him (Luke 3:21-22); likewise at the end of his ministry, praying when he is on the cross, uttering prayers to God, forgiving His enemies (Luke 23:34),  and committing His Spirit to Abba God (Luke 23:46) (*1).   

Jesus prayed when under stress of the crowds demanding his time and compassion as found in Luke 5 in healing the leper (Luke 5:12-16).  Jesus in talking to, questioning, and teaching His disciples, we see Jesus in Prayer.  In Luke 9:18-21 Jesus questions His disciples about what the people are saying and what they (His disciples) believe about Him.  Peter confesses Him to be the Christ and then Jesus directs them to tell no one.  Jesus had a plan for his time on earth and it was important, perhaps stressful, He understood the growth in faith of His disciples, He understood the need for prayers not only in His life, but too, the life of His disciples and believers.

There are several other times Jesus was in prayer for Peter, others, His disciples, and Himself and most notably by Himself, when choosing the twelve (Luke 6:12), the Transfiguration (Luke 9:28-29), intercession for Peter (Luke 22:32), and Gethsemane (Luke 22:39-46).  Also, we find Jesus in prayer in Luke 10:21-24, Luke 11:2-4, Luke 11: 5-13, Luke 18:1-8, and teaching us to be watchful (Luke 21:36) (*1) .  Clearly, from this and other Gospel examples, prayer was essential to the life of Jesus.

The sum of the many events reported about Jesus' earthly life verified by His resurrection leads us to understand that to be the people of God and live life as God intends, we must look to the example of Jesus.  What was important to Jesus must be important to us, and prayer was an integral, most important aspect of His relationship with God.  Luke begins and ends his Gospel with prayers, Jesus begins and ends His ministry in prayer, and similarly our real belief expanding our relationship with God begins, continues, grows, and thrives with, in, and through our prayers.  

Our lives and our relationship with God will be measured by Jesus (John 14:6 ).  In seeking Jesus as our example in living life we should desire the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts and lives, just as did Jesus.  To fill our hearts with the Holy Spirit, we must pray, and pray, and pray, often, everyday.  In this, God will then fill our live's in remarkable, breath taking ways through the work of the Holy Spirit filling our lives.

Thanks be to God

Click here to return to Part 1

Click here to Return to Main Menu

=======================

An interesting note about scripture:

According to Lee Stroble in "A Case for Christ" (*2) there are over 24,000 separate manuscripts of some portion of the New Testament from ancient times and as copied down through the centuries.  This is quite astonishing when your consider other important manuscripts from ancient times. There are just 650 manuscripts of Homer's "Iliad", only one manuscript of "Annals of Imperial Rome" written by Tacitus about 116 AD, and nine manuscripts from Josephus' "The Jewish Wars", written in the first century.  According to the foremost scholars of these manuscripts, the manuscripts of the New Testament are concurrent in meaning 99.5 percent of the time.




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© Lonnie Coggins

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You can print the message including this sharing message only for your friends and for non-profit.  You will have to copy and paste the message to a word processing document.   After you copy and paste add the following at the end of the message:

© Lonnie Coggins

ldcoggins@gmail.com

If you desire to use any of these messages in a For-Profit manner you must contact me (email) for permission.  Typically, I will most likely give permission.

Please email me if you find any broken links in this message.

lonnie 

Publication  0101

REFERENCES
*1  references herein to the Gospel of Luke provided by:
Green T, "A Study of Prayer in the Gospel of Luke", http://www.biblicaltheology.com/Research/GreenTM01.pdf, 
tmattgreen@gmail.com


*2 Strobel L, "The Case for Christ", Zondervan, 1998
Chapter 3, sections: "A Mountain of Manuscripts", "The Wealth of Evidence"

Finding Real Life Through Prayer

Breathing is not Life,                            Return to Main Menu
Life is Believing...                     Click here for Part 2

Why we need a prayerful life through the Holy Spirit.

A common thought  supposedly from the movie "Hitch" and found on the internet, Facebook, and other websites is:

"Life is not measured by how many breaths you take, but about the moments that take your breath away."

That sounds nice, but generally, nothing could be further from the truth!  I have flown close to awe inspiring mountain peaks that somewhat took my breath away; flying for hours and seeing nothing but water and sky, I have seen the vastness of the Pacific ocean and the magnificence of the night sky uncluttered with man-made light.  I have viewed the the carvings of the Grand Canyon, the delicate moment of a bird landing on a limb and many other sights that showed breath taking moments of nature.  I have flown in combat with many "breath away" moments where life itself hung in the balance.  None of these did anything about appreciating or "measuring" life when compared to knowing God's love in my life.  

Do not think I am a cynic, nature, God's created nature is beautiful and combat brings life into a most real perspective few people understand.  But feeling the Love of God and the Power of the Holy Spirit in living life is what makes Life measurable,  breathing remarkable, living incredible,  and yes- at times, it truly takes my breath away.

All people believe in something if nothing more than themselves and whatever living they can create for themselves.  Most people believe in a higher power commonly referred to as God, but still live in shadows of a world they create for themselves.  

Some people believe in God and accept Jesus as the Son of God and believe He was crucified, died, was buried and rose three days later and these people still live in whatever world they can create for themselves.  

Finally, there are many of us 
who in accepting Jesus as the Son of God, believe 

He was crucified, died, was buried, and rose three days later.  

Then we pursue

     Living Life NOT in what we create for ourselves 

but live in 

Knowing Life is Believing and Living
 in the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit comes to us, resides in us
 in and by our faith in Jesus Christ!  And 

the Holy Spirit  is 

Growing us Spiritually through Its Guidance

which then

Leads to living life In Jesus Christ as God intendeds for us.  

      Real measurable life is 
living God focused as defined through the Holy Spirit daily guiding and focusing our lives on God's will for our lives 
     rather than 
a life enslaved to selfishness defined through our self-centered desires controlling our self-focused lives.

Life is truly a journey, a difficult journey regardless of living in and through the Holy Spirit or not.  

The difference is by living our lives through the guidance of the Holy Spirit there develops in us 

a greater faith in Jesus, 

a hope for the future, and 

a love for God in our life 

that we do not feel, have, or completely experience otherwise. 

 In the daily sometimes drone of a busy exhausting life, it is so very easy to forget to whom we belong, who gave us life, 

and let slip away our greatest source of strength we have, 

the Godly Guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Through the Holy Spirit in and through our lives,

 we do not just survive but truly thrive in our daily living.

But, what does it take for us to allow the Holy Spirit to more fully grow Spiritual Maturity in our faith?  Jesus' leadership example provides the answer!

Click here for Part 2,  
        Finding Real Life Through Prayer

Thanks be to God


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© Lonnie Coggins

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Sharing these messages

You are welcome to share these messages.  You can send the links to your friends,  copy and insert the link on FB or Christian.com or you can print the message and share it with your friends.

You can print the message including this sharing message only for your friends and for non-profit.  You will have to copy and paste the message to a word processing document.   After you copy and paste add the following at the end of the message:

© Lonnie Coggins

ldcoggins@gmail.com

If you desire to use any of these messages in a For-Profit manner you must contact me (email) for permission.  Typically, I will most likely give permission.

Please email me if you find any broken links in this message.

lonnie 

Publication  0100