BE HONEST AND DIRECT.

BE HONEST AND DIRECT.

 

Some of you might say: “I do not lie, so everything must be ok then?” I believe that lying is so much more than we think about and the “bag of lies” contains so much more than we naturally see.  Jesus calls Himself for the Truth. In addition to that, He was very direct. He called a spade for a spade and those who were religious didn’t like Him. He was so direct that He called sins for sins and He revealed the secret things in their hearts.

Most of us want to give the world around us a positive picture of ourselves. We do not like to show ourselves to anybody before we are washed, dressed, combed our hair and we women might want to put on some make-up. I recently sat in a decent night-gown, but without make-up talking to my daughters on skype. Since one of my daughter was at work, a spiritual leader came and wanted to greet me. We had never met. I had no masque I could hide behind. Maybe that was just as well? He met me as I am. A lot of people use a lot of energy to hide their negative tendencies. We have a lot of defense-mechanisms and we use them frequently to hide what we do not want others to see. I do not talk primarily about our outward appearance, but what we find on the inside.

If we had identified more with our born-again spirit, we would not need to defend ourselves.

What do I mean by saying so? I have earlier explained that the spirit of Jesus moved into our spirit when we received Him as our Savior and what is born of God, is perfect. We do not need to defend Him. We must more and more look at Jesus and not our mistakes and short-comings. He has given us everything we need. When we focus on Him, we will become more like Him.

In the Body od Christ there are lot of slander and we talk about other Christians, our sisters and brothers. Sometimes we do so in honest concern and with a desire to pray, but most often we talk about instead of to somebody. I know people that have been irritated for years by somebody without dealing with the issue. They talk about it, but they do not do anything about it. I do not want to lend my ears to that. Why do not people go to each other and make peace? I believe that fear is behind that. Maybe they are afraid that the person will become angry or dislike them. Are they afraid of losing the person? In the case I am thinking about, they would be very happy if they didn’t have to be with the person. The Bible calls fear for a demon.

          It is the devil stopping us from being honest and direct.

 

If we continue to feel bad about a person, we haven’t forgiven from the depth of our heart. What is forgiven, doesn’t need to be talked about. I want to show you two places from the Bible. The first is from Matthew 5:23. It says that if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, you should leave your gift and be reconciled with your brother. (or sister) In this case it is not depending on your own emotions, but that of another. I know that there are times when a person doesn’t want to be reconciled, but we should at least do our part. We can ask the Lord to see the other person through His “eye-glasses”. The other Scripture is from Mark 11:25. It says that we must forgive those hurting us. If we do not do that, our Father in heaven will not forgive us. I do not dare to come into that situation. To forgive does not mean that the other person is right, but one forgives in spite of the wrong-doings.

We Christians have a tendency to talk in riddles, but we expect the other person to understand what we mean. Most of the times it creates a misunderstanding instead. I think we should come with questions if we are uncertain of the message. We should not come with accusations, but question that can make the riddle clear. The devil loves misinterpretations and hurt people. He uses unclear conversations to create bad relationships. He doesn’t want Christians to love one another. Why do we give him an opportunity to destroy?

Many Christians come with half-truths, white lies or real black ones. I do not believe that white lies exist. You either speak the truth or you lie. One is often lying to cover one’s own mistakes and wrong-doings. I put all of this in the category of sin and it destroys one’s relationship to both God and people. The devil is called the father of lies and we must keep far away from lying.

The truth is setting us free!

It is not primarily freedom in driving out demons, but in the truth.

 

LET US GET RID OF WOOLLY AND FALSE SPEAKING IN THE BODY OF CHRIST! THE HOLY SPIRIT WILL HELP YOU.

Mother Else