Making Marriage Work by Joyce Meyer

Maybe Some of It Was My Fault Part 2

Holy life begins with getting rid of selfishness in your life. The paradox of happiness is that it comes when you forget about yourself and live to help somebody else. If we don’t have righteousness, peace, and joy, then we have missed the kingdom. Prosperity, healing, success, and promotions on our jobs are all kingdom benefits that God wants us to have. He shows us in the Bible how to get them. (Romans 14:17) (Matthew 6:33)

So our priorities need to stay in line with God’s Word. We need to go to God not for what He can do for us, but for Who He is and because we need Him to survive every day. The kingdom of God is the realm within us. It is learning a response to daily life that differs from how the world responds, and we need to pay more attention to this inner life we have available to us through Christ. We get too concerned with what everybody else things of us, but we need to be more concerned with what kind of thoughts we have.

If you are unhappy, examine yourself and ask,

What’s going on in me that is not pleasing to God?

What attitudes do I have that stink in the nostrils of God?

Am I jealous, bitter, or resentful?

HOw many people am I offended with?

How many people do I have unforgiveness against?

How many people do I hate?

How many people am I jealous of?

As I typed those questions I felt the guilt come upon me. If your heart is not full of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy ghost; happiness wont be found anywhere, or through anyone. It’s not your circumstances that make you unhappy; it’s not having things right on the inside of your heart. Jesus says we can have peace in the midst of the storm. (Matthew 8:26). When Peter said we can have joy unspeakable and full of glory (1 Peter 1:8) he was in the midst of persecution from Nero’s reign in Rome. Paul repeatedly spoke of his joy saying in all his troubles his joy knew no bounds. (2 Corinthians 7:4)

Dear God, I did not become a Christian so I could trade in my worldly misery for a Christian misery. Something is wrong. – Jerry Savelle.

The only way we will see changes is to learn what God’s Word says and, whether you feel like it or not, start doing what it says consistently day, after day. Improvements to your present conditions come from getting alone with God, confronting the devil yourself, and gaining victories that no devil in hell can take away from you. You must know who you are in Christ and seek peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.

When you can’t deliver yourself, and you can’t encourage yourself, you can still go encourage someone else. Sometimes when you can’t believe God for the mess you are in, you can encourage someone else to believe God. And as you share with them, your encourage yourself to believe God as well. Always remember that what you make happen for someone else, God will make happen for you.

You can have all kind of methods to make things happen but without the power flowing through that method it can become empty, dead works that wear you out and get your burned out with Christianity. Jesus’s didn’t come to teach us about rules, regulations, and method. He came to teach us how to have a personal relationship with the Almighty God and then with others.

How To Be Rid Of Strife

James 4 talks about strife. What leads to strife? Jealousy and unfulfilled desires lead to strife. Strife gets started because of all the stuff we want that we don’t know how to get. So why don’t we get the things we want? First of all , we are trying to do it ourselves instead of asking God and the result is strife in our life. Secondly, we do ask God for it, but our motive is wrong. he can’t reward our wrong motives. There is a purification process that has to go on in our life. We just have to ask God, and He will give it to us in His way and in His time. I think that is what the problem is. We want it NOW and if we don’t get it soon, we probably wont get it mentality.

Try praying this:

God, help me to stay in Your will. I don’t want anything that You don’t want me to have. if it’s not You, God, slam the door in my face.

We do not need to be afraid to walk in the light of God’s truth. Light exposes every bug and every rat in the room, and when you turn the light on, they all start running for some corner to hide in. We don’t know what is in us until we are tested. We don’t know what kind of endurance, steadfastness, or faithfulness we have until its been tried. We don’t know anything about being faithful to our spouse until that spouse is failing to do a few things we want them to do.

Next Chapter: Chapter 7

Genesis 3 – The Fall

With all the amazing stuff that happened in the last chapter as we all know it can all fall down just as fast! One decision changed life for everyone.

The Serpent

Now enters the serpent slithering into this perfect Eden trying to stir up some trouble. He slithered on over to the woman…. why God did it have to be the woman to make the bad decision? Does this mean our nature is to be easily fooled? Anyways the serpent asked the woman in a deceitful way, “You can eat from any tree here??” How many people think he knew exactly what the answer was?

² The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, ³ but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’

“But God did say…..” Does that sound a little like an afterthought? Pretty sure God specifically made it clear and serious that if they ate from this tree they would die! That seems like something that is more important than you can eat from the trees. This reminds me of us parents telling the children you can do this, but if you don’t do this there will be consequences… What do you think they caught out of that? They can do this! They pick up the first part of the sentence and when they heard what they want they stop listening. The consequences are not as important to them as getting to do what they want.

Curiosity killed the Cat

Or in this case curiosity caused mankind to have hard labor and work the land and not live forever! Back to the serpent; we know the devil knows our weaknesses and this serpent was using curiosity to get what he wanted. What he wanted is for Eve to fail to prove to God that the devil has power.

In Verse 4; the serpent uses the phrase “You will not surely die?” Like God didn’t really mean you would die, He just doesn’t want you to become wise like Him! Like the real reason God said do not eat from this tree was pride, and selfishness….. How many times do we fall for this line in our life about anyone? That is why we are trained in the Word to know the truth and spot these traps.

The Road to Hell is Paved in Good Intentions

Yeah we have all heard that one! The serpent offers the woman much to think about. She looks at the tree’s fruit….looks yummy and she could use that wisdom to help her husband and God! Sound familiar? We always try to help God when God is in control. So, yes she ate the fruit and to make things worse she said hey Adam have some fruit! She didnt say hey Adam I got this from the forbidden tree want to sin with me!?!?!?

⁷ Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Does this mean they were walking around blind with no sight? Of course not; this eye opening was spiritual. Their innocence was lifted; and they now felt their flesh so they covered themselves ashamed.

Here comes Trouble

Isn’t that how it happens? You sin and then oh no….He’s right behind me huh? God is never absent from you. You cannot hide anything from Him. Adam and Eve did not know this I guess because they literally hid. When God called out to them; Adam replied they hid because they are naked. Like being caught with your hand in the cookie jar.

God asked Adam did you eat from the tree? Adam passes blame to Eve..although in this case I do believe the woman is guilty. Can you imagine the look on God’s face…like the look from a disappointed parent; “What have you done!?” Now what do you think she did!? Pass the blame again; the serpent made me do it!! I understand passing the blame, but when was any repentance?

Let the Curse Begin

The serpent was cursed.

“Because you have done this, Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. ¹⁵ And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring^[a] and hers; he will crush^[b] your head, and you will strike his heel.”

Yikes! I dont even want to look up what all that means! Not good.

The woman was cursed.

¹⁶ To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”

Nice Eve..Well I could write a long time about how Eve basically messed up our lives, but I wont. I do have a question; because Woman was easily tricked, is that the reason God set man to rule over us?

Adam’s turn!

“Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. ¹⁸ It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. ¹⁹ By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”

Harsh; “because you listened to your wife” I bet this doesn’t settle with some men too well. Aren’t we supposed to listen to each other in a marriage, but look what Eve caused Adam? There has got to be books on this passage alone!

After all this craziness woman finally gets her name. What had Adam been calling her all this time; woman? She was called Eve because she would become the mother of all the living. God made garments and covered them. See even though they had sinned God still supplied their needs. They also had consequences and one was they would not be allowed to stay in the garden of eden or eat out of the tree to live forever.

God then locked that place up like fort Knox or area 51!

placed on the east side^[e]of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

So my final thought on this chapter is to listen to ALL of God’s commandments not just the ones that suit us or we are still sinning and the consequences will come to us. We cannot hide from our Lord God because He is always with us.

Here’s some funny stuff to brighten the mood lol

Extraordinary Jeni

jealous

How to live a Holy Life.