Diy fall decor ball jar or mason jar layered with coffee beans, then candy corn, and repeat. It smells divine. Then, I put a candle in it and used tulle ribbon to put over the top for the smell.
I can still remember what I was wearing in 2nd grade on this very day 26 years ago. I remember being so excited to have a baby sister and so nervous! Happy birthday to my baby girl and my best friend. We are so opposite in personality. She is sort of like a guy and we would worry about her because she didn't cry (and if she does cry my claws come out because someone has ticked her off...still enough age gap to be a mama bear) lgrowing up but she is so loyal like a golden retriever. She is a beauty queen and we are both fashionistas in our own right even if she is bling and I'm boho and we still agree to disagree on shoe taste! The first time she walked was on my birthday when she saw a boy. She didn't walk though she ran! She was the queen in our home. She pointed to something and we did it! She was my snuggle
I am the daughter of the King...this world is not my home He is coming for me. He is life and the length of my days...no matter how the enemy has messed with me, he will not get the victory. So until my faith is made sight I will fix my gaze on the Ancient of Days and not let go until He blesses me. 
I bought some lace dresses at the thrift store and was going to make garland for a wedding but I don't think anyone was catching the vision but me. Lol.
People are so full of themselves, so full of self love, so distracted, that they have no room for a heart for God or a heart for you. The problem isn't always that oh they don't love themselves. They love themselves alright. Too much to detect or hate their own sin or be able to turn their pointing finger in on themselves or humble themselves. It's called pride and rebellion. When you harden your heart you hide and your life becomes full of secrecy and shame. It then takes more sin to wet your appetite and more blaming others instead of getting on your face and humbling yourself. The thing is, when you deceive others you are being deceived and if you live long in that land you self-destruct but you also believe your own lies. So, I say this to say...some of you have had someone's finger pointed at you blaming you for their actions (when you are not responsible for how someone else acts and can't control anyone else) and telling you that if only _____________ (you fill in the blank) YOU would change then they would do XYZ. Take that load of condemnation off of you my friend. If you notice that after years and even decades the only one who has changed is you...well then maybe you aren't the problem. We are all sinful at best but all you can do is humble yourself and seek His face and ask Him to change you and take steps to obey. Deformed desires won't change apart from a renewed mind from the word. We were created to be filled and we can't quit an addiction or habit or sin without having a new heart and new mind that comes through the word of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. Stand your ground and keep short accounts with sin in your own life. Maybe you need to fess up like I just did before God and clean house spiritually speaking. Whatever you do...don't have ears that are too dull to hear. Turn off the noise. Lean in. When you seek Him you will find Him when you seek Him with all of your heart. Don't waste your life either pining away for the affections of others that are so in love with themselves that they don't have anything to give. Love comes from God and you have to get it from Him to give it. Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts against Him. He can be trusted and if He is for you then who can be against you? It will be intentional and radical to seek Him and go against the world system but His love is better than life and better is one day in His courts then a thousand days elsewhere. The stakes are high, the devil and his cohorts have an agenda for you and your family...but he can't stand against the LORD. He must and will be defeated. The day is drawing near. Don't fold.
I was so tired today that I puked. Lol. But really. My heart aches for those who are single trying to just make it through the day with young ones or teenagers, or those that never feel like they can meet the proverbial bar of expectation before it gets raised a little higher. Those who are lonely or have health challenges and feel condemnation for feeling the way they feel. For those who feel that there must indeed be something wrong with them...and almost drown in a sea of insecurity. My friends who are suffering loss and divorce. To anyone who just barely made it through the day and wondered if there was more to life than this?? To the man or woman wondering if their life matters. Or the one who may be punishing themselves for things that they have already confessed and maybe long repented of but still feel branded by their guilt and shame and seek to medicate the reproach they feel in an unhealthy way. I pray that you will lean in tonight, if you are a believer in Christ and press in to our Saviors chest and let Him give you rest for your weary soul. I so wish I could share the neatest thing I learned in psalm 12 so perhaps ill blog on it but whoever you are, wherever you are, we serve a merciful Savior and He will carry you and tend to you. Lay your heavy burdens down with the One who flung stars into space by His word, and the One who holds the mountains in his hand. Maybe you can just open your bible and turn to Him and take comfort in the psalms. May He revive and refresh you and me for His great Name. Life is hard and requires faith but let's have some faith even if we are wrong about all of the outcomes...believing that no matter what He is worth it! He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young. (Isaiah 40:11 NIV)
I just wonder if Solomon thought of this seeing his dad on his deathbed not being able to keep warm. A man that was deeply flawed but believed God and received such mercy, yet a valiant hero maybe in Solomon's eyes. David, at the end...once so strong...now so frail (I'm choking up) and Solomon's (son of david and bathsheba) tenure was one of peace but he was a playboy nonetheless...and as he pens what would indeed be some of his final words in Ecclesiastes (after possessing everything a man could want and seeing it was a chasing after the wind)..I wonder if the thought of his dad and what really matters in life. His servants advised him, “A young virgin must be found for our master, the king, to take care of the king’s needs and serve as his nurse. She can also sleep with you and keep our master, the king, warm.” (1 Kings 1:2 NET)
And then his words: Two people are better than one, because they can reap more benefit from their labor. For if they fall, one will help his companion up, but pity the person who falls down and has no one to help him up. Furthermore, if two lie down together, they can keep each other warm, but how can one person keep warm by himself? Although an assailant may overpower one person, two can withstand him. Moreover, a three-stranded cord is not quickly broken. (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 NET)
The Lord being our life not a number on a list and loving others out of the love He gives us...
I pray we don't have to look back on a life that is wasted with deep regret because we were chasing what was so empty.
I receive a lot of prayer requests (which is why Morgan is banned from my phone as I want them to stay private) and one thing I've always encouraged is that no matter what you've done, no matter how far you feel you've fallen, what a travesty and tragedy it would be for you just to drop out of corporate worship but moreover how tragic to just put His word down. What you need more than anything is to pick it up. Go to the psalms. You won't find anyone who has blown it, had to utterly depend on God, or had such height and depth of emotion then the man after Gods own heart, David, who penned much of the psalms under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. No matter what he did (murder, adultery, taking a forbidden census and having so much bloodshed on his hands, past victories, failures, betrayal, loss) he believed God would take him back and wanted him back. That's the deal breaker. Do we sin so grace may abound? Heck NO! But did The Lord pay for your sins past, present, and future before you were ever born? Yes! They were nailed to the cross. Do we still face consequences...yes but The Lord still doesn't treat us as our sins deserve. I've seen people light a match to their own flame and medicate with alcohol or drugs until they all but self-destruct. If The Lord allows the enemy to sift you like wheat let Him as something in you needs to die so you may fully live. But as long as you have breath 1) LIFT UP...cry out and stretch your hands up for The Lord to deliver you. 2) GET UP! Strengthen your weak knees so that the lame behind you may walk and endure that discipline as The Lord disciplines is for our good and because we are His (Hebrews 12). 3) WAKE UP! Stay alert. Know where you are weak and where the enemy gets a foothold. Make a plan. But seek not to medicate (I'm not talking about people who truly need medicine for certain things...I'm talking about trying to drown your sorrows or guilt from not repenting with some sort of substance. Run to the word to medicate and take comfort. 4) PICK UP!! Pick up the word of God. We are without excuse and we are to know the truth and abide in it and the truth will set is free. It's not words on a page. 5) OWN UP! confess and own your sin before God. He already knows. He is big enough to handle us spilling our hearts out and urges us too. Also, remember that the Lord is after relationship. He would rather you know Him then you just get delivered to live for yourself. Some of the places of bondage in your life probably didn't just Happen over night and may require some time of critical care with the LORD so your gaping wounds can become scars or even tattoos. Don't forget what He has brought you from or how incapable you are apart from Him and how capable you are of any amount of sin. All of us are sinners and on equal ground at the cross. If you start to get proud GET DOWN and humble yourself. Then, 6) DON'T SHUT UP! Turn back like Peter after he denied Christ what did The Lord pray for him as he knew satan had asked permission to sift him like wheat? That after that he would turn back and strengthen the brethren. People behind you need to know (and maybe not in detail) that if you can blow it and experience full redemption that they can to. The Lord is not finished with you if you still have breath. COME LET US RETURN. “Come, let us return to the Lord; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him. Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.” (Hosea 6:1-3 ESV)
In reading this in relationship to God...I thought what a word it is to those in relationships and ESP if you are single. You are not cheap! Do not give what is precious and costly to someone who wants the benefits of a relationship with no responsibility or sacrifice. That's not the way we should roll. And speaking of rolling...when we decide to do it our way, The Lord is redemptive yes, but the stone we roll (whatever it may be that is forbidden) will indeed roll back on us and be the death of us.
I'm so convinced that a lot of people that say they are believers, yet don't have any demonstration of Christ in their life, yet can show devotion to so many things (work, football, hobbies...and the list could go on even with really good things) but say their faith is private or they aren't demonstrative...that just like the following verse they have not really spent the time to know Him and to taste and see that He is good. If they had, they wouldn't be able to settle for mediocre. Of course we can all fall into lethargy in our walk but are we ok with that kind of apathy? A lot of us are content to settle for less than Gods best. Also, we were all created to worship. It is in our DNA. You don't have to be a hand lifter at church during praise...God looks on the heart. I've seen people who say they aren't demonstrative scream, yell, jump up and down, be ticked at the opposing football team all in a game. We are called to worship and we have an unseen battle, a very real unseen opponent, a team that is eternal, some cheering on we need to do for others in the faith that we need to pass the baton too...yet we get so distracted and caught up that we deafen ourselves to what really matters. I'm not saying don't have hobbies and don't cheer at a game...I'm saying that if you walk with God there should be a demonstration of that. Our faith in Christ and our call in scripture is not a private matter. You can't keep it to yourself and hold to His word being true that we are called to preach the good news, to always be ready to give a reason for the hope we have, and to keep our lamps burning as we hasten His return. Praying God will move in our hearts and lives. That He will give us hearts and minds that love Him with every ounce of us. And that this generation would commend His works to the next. That we would tell of His wonderful deeds and His faithfulness to all who fear Him. I have heard a thousand times that our problem in America is taking God out of schools. Friends God is not in a lot of our homes is the problem. We don't drop our kids off at school or church to teach them about Jesus. We are to teach them diligently.
That entire generation passed away; a new generation grew up that had not personally experienced the Lord ’s presence or seen what he had done for Israel. (Judges 2:10 NET)
In our own sin and rebellion or in dealing with someone else's sin and rebellion we can sometimes be shocked at how far we have fallen or someone that we loved or looked up too. The chief root of our sin is pride and then I would not stop there. One thing that scares me to death is people who come to the knowledge of salvation, yet they never go on to maturity in Christ and truly knowing them for themselves. That others might know Him is my passion. To know Him is to love Him and be satisfied in Him. Yet if we don't seek Him we are going to be the dog returning to her vomit as the fool returns to folly. We will begin to cherish sin and have calloused hearts and since we are created with a need to be filled, we too will go after other little gods in an attempt to fill that void. We will rationalize and become deluded in our thinking...all the while destroying ourself and others because we wouldn't hear and wouldn't drink from the well of living water. Yet God in His mercy longs for any prodigal to come home and He longs to redeem your life from the pit for His glory and out of His great grace and mercy. Yet in Romans we hear of Him giving some over to a debased mind because they loved created things instead of the Creator who is to forever be praised. So today, I beg you...if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts against Him. It's not too late to turn around. He does not treat us as our sins deserve and also be aware that the mess we got ourselves into...we didn't get into overnight and to be free we will have to cease cooperating with the flesh, the devil and this world order. We will have to get to know the Healer and let Us become consumed by Him until nothing else will do. Lots wife had opportunity to leave sodom and Gomorrah and in the Hebrew when she looked back and we know she was turned into a pillar of salt...she looked back with a gazing and longing affection on that which would bring her destruction. She loved that place and all it had to offer and she was destroyed by it. You and I must choose. Run like crazy from the things that are devoted to destruction that might bring about your destruction. It really does matter. Eternity is at stake.
I'm always amazed over how greedy some people are. I'm not sure why it catches me off guard but it's the people who will shop for you at the dollar general but expect their gifts to come from Sax fifth avenue. Or people who say they care about The Lord or others yet faith without deeds is dead and it's one thing to say you are and another thing to demonstrate it. I've also noticed how quick people are to take advantage of givers...but that can be left up to Jesus. I've prayed for years now that The Lord would teach me to number my days aright that I may gain a heart of wisdom and I'm no stranger to trial or suffering and this is not a pity party status but it's a clear reminder in the suffering that we brought nothing into this world and can take nothing out of it. It's all The Lords and we could never give Him anything to repay Him but I do want my life to be a living sacrifice for as long as I have breath. I'm also so thankful for the people in my life that aren't just about words but are about actions. Friends that stick closer than a brother. Words are meaningless if there is no demonstration as we always are going to be demonstrative toward who or what we care about!!! Take it to the bank!!! When people tell me they are not demonstrative about God, yet can jump up and down and scream at a football game...they are demonstrative as we were created by a God full of emotion and demonstration of His love...it's that they just aren't demonstrative about Him because He isn't that big of a deal to them. I'm not talking about hand lifting in public but a demonstration of love and devotion toward the Giver of life. I love Paul's words here: 1 Corinthians 2:3And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. 4And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: 5That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
And this in James: James 2:18
But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.
I've been through a lot in my brief tenure here thus far but I can truly say that whatever the enemy has meant for evil, God has meant for my good. It's not words on a page. I've suffered in a lot of private ways and yet I'm thankful because it helps me to share in the sufferings of others. Tonight my heart is heavy over the woman who has tried and tried to have a child and to no avail, the woman whose life hasn't turned out how she thought, the woman whose mother is no longer living, the woman who is estranged from her children, the woman who has been disrespected by her husband as a mother and neglected, the woman who feels such a sense of inadequacy in comparison to the other mothers, the woman who hasn't really had a mom that cared about her, the woman that has miscarried, the woman like myself with a child they had to bury, the woman with regret, the woman who feels deep shame over an abortion and I pray she will understand the forgiveness and redemption there is in Christ, the woman who knows she should just keep believing and have some more faith but is weary...take courage. Mother's Day...it's a mixed bag of emotions. Some days I'm like why are these kids calling me mom? Each time I found out I was pregnant I cried my eyes out. I told God I wasn't fit to raise a child. I would come undone. Yet having those babies has kept me humble and made me see my need for Him in so many ways. I've yet to find that book with the formula on raising them but the only perfect one I know is the scriptures. Loving The Lord and walking in truth are the only things that allow me to love or live before my two. Yet whatever situation you are in please pour out your heart like water in the presence of The Lord. He already knows your pain or your joy and please walk by faith even if you are wrong until you breathe your last breath. Whether you need resurrected relationships or Him to raise the cold dead person in you, whether you are praying for a man, praying for a child, keep knocking, seeking, and asking in His name. That will mean you'll have to get in His word. And from a woman (who thinks she's 18 and can't understand why people call her ma'am) to women may your spiritual offspring be blessed...even if it's not a child you have birthed and may Jesus hold you and comfort you if your mom never did. May He be everything to your precious self. And for those who feel you'll never measure up? Will you get in the psalms and let Him be the lifter of your head as you take all you've learned and row into the future...
I'm reminded tonight that none of us are righteous. No! Not one! Yet I saw the following verse on my computer screen (I've forgotten how to work a laptop lol): "Then Peter started speaking: "I now truly understand that God does not show favoritism in dealing with people," acts 10:34. I wonder how hard a lesson those words were for Peter. It's easy to forget the quarry from which you've been mined from and think you and Jesus have something going on and become all pious and better than everyone else which sets you up for a dangerous fall. I wonder if he remembered how much he had been forgiven of when the Gentiles were coming to faith in our "Jewish Messiah". After all he was one of the 12. He was privy to great intimacy and fellowship...yet because of the death, burial and resurrection those of us who receive Christ also receive the Holy Spirit as a deposit and guarantee of what's to come. His death didn't make sense even to the 3 in His inner circle...yet I wonder if it all came together when the Gentiles were coming to Christ? I wonder if it bolstered his faith to see that what he couldn't see before clearly came to pass, because God is truth and Not a Word of His will pass away until it is fulfilled. So thankful that The Lord reinstates Peter after blowing it BIG TIME!!! The very one that said he would never deny Him...he would even go and die with Jesus yet denied Him with His words and actions. Even more thankful that He uses the life of this rough and tough fisherman to be a big mouth for Jesus and to feed His sheep! He wasn't finished with Peter and Peter absolutely (according to Jerome) went to His death hung upside down on a cross not counting himself worthy to even die in the same manner in which Christ did. Lord, please remove the scales from our eyes, the deceit in our hearts and let us put aside the sin that so easily entangles us and be men and women focused on Christ. Let us walk in a manner worthy and be filled with Your spirit, not gratifying the desires of the flesh. In Jesus Name.
I love how The Lord still rolls away our reproach. Some of us are wearing our reproach like scarlet letters and need The Lord to roll our reproach away from us. I don't know what it is for you...but I pray you will come to your own Gilgal with The Lord. Today I broke out Blair's playpen and he was so excited for a moment. He was grinning as he leaned back. It's been a while since he's been in it and he forgot that it was a land of slavery or baby jail. Lol. That's just like us. We forget how Egypt really was and as a dog returns to her vomit we try to return to the things that were/are devoted to destruction
thinking it was better only to be trapped and imprisoned by sins slavery. We, like Blair, need to cry out to our Father and lift our hands to the sky as we call on the Only One that can deliver us and make us to cross over to our Jordan. Let us not miss our calling.
Thanks to Alan Matthew I had some photos taken! It was for my birthday but I kept waiting for a tan that never came.
More on the up do furniture. The brown is before and this was my moms coffee table. It was a tad beat up!
Here is a shelf I am almost finished with. I put a lot into this one as far as wood stenciling and etc.
I also added some wood to the top.
I love a word fitly spoken (proverbs 25:11) and this morning I was studying in Jonah and loved how timely it was that The Lord landed me to study about the 3 days Jonah spent in the belly of the great fish and how He compared His three days to that same sign that happened to Jonah. Yet more interestingly it was God that provided the large fish to swallow him. I've read and read and different commentators disagree but since it's in the scripts, and Jesus references it, ill take it to the spiritual bank. I had not planned on looking up the Hebrew word for "provided" but as it stared me in the face I saw "manah" and it hit me in a personal way. God rained down manna for the Israelites to eat and they had to go out and gather it in proportion to their need. In the same way, He has given us everything we need for life and godliness through His word as followers of Christ but we have to get up and gather that daily bread. The manna of His word and the bread of His presence. I talk to so many people who have very real issues or are stuck in a stronghold of sin but they don't want to do the work it takes to be free (we didn't get into a lot of dysfunction overnight and while He can deliver us in an instant, it usually takes time and relationship with the Lord through His word) The Lord has performed major heart surgeries on me and He never once called in an anesthesiologist because He is not after behavioral modification but after heart transformation. It's not so much about our healing as it is about knowing and believing our Healer. He died so we might live and live life more abundantly. I beg you if you are stuck that you will taste freedom and follow hard after Jesus. I'm proof that His word works. It works for you and it works for me but it scares me so much over how many people will just settle for what it cheap and live in a land of slavery when God has a place for you that even in suffering, bears much fruit...will you and I keep returning to our vomit or land of slavery? Or will we let the chains fall where they may and allow Him to bring beauty from the ashes? A garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair? Once you taste and see that He is good there will never be satisfaction in what is temporary or a substitute. I'm speaking of the God of the bible not the one being pedaled by so many. He can resurrect the dead in you and in your life. I know.
I would love to slap the ever loving crap out of whoever coined the phrase: "children are to be seen and not heard!" That had to originate from the devil himself. Maybe that's a reason that people with that ideology think it's ok to terminate an unborn baby...they can't speak for themselves. I also wonder if people who had parents that felt that way toward them made them feel like they never could express their feelings whether they were good or bad? Then, these people became adults and maybe married someone who treats them the same because that's what they were used to. Maybe they feel like they are never really heard and can't have healthy conflict because their feelings are never treated as valid so they stuff things down until they explode. Jesus calls us to seek peace and pursue it. It doesn't mean we "keep the peace" but that we make peace. Keeping the peace can turn to walking on eggshells as to not set the other person off. That's not peace. Peace is not the absence of conflict. Pursuing peace may mean taking some risks to break the cycle of catering to a selfish person who doesn't allow your relationship fertile soil to grow. You may have to pull some stuff up by the root and address the seriousness of your estate which isn't without a price or pain. You may have to rock the boat to have that peace. I love when the disciples and others were rebuking Children from coming to Jesus as if they were less important and Jesus straightened that junk out quick and told them to let the little children come to Him and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. If you grew up in the environment I'm speaking of and find yourself still in that...remember Jesus will hear you and He cares about how you are treated and were treated but own up to your part of the vicious cycle since you can't change anyone else and pour out your heart to Him and let God make the rough places smooth and get off the whole walking on eggshells. That's not freedom. That's called suffocation. It may mean for some a break in relationship or tougher boundaries but whoever you are please know that if you call out to the God of the Universe, the One who spoke and the world came to be, the One who has always been and never had a beginning, the One who made a way for you and me to be right with Him through the blood of the Lamb, Jesus...He stoops down from on high and He hears and He listens and He gives you dignity. We deserve nothing from Him and He is so gracious to us. He is the BIG deal and He gets you. You don't have to explain your back story to Him. He is there in your yesterday, today, and tomorrow. He not only wants you to be seen as you shine for Him...He wants you to be heard. He will perfect that which concerns you and me. May we have the faith of a little child!
I was reading and thinking of the inflection that must have been in Paul's voice in the following passage. With a media saturated culture and churches that compromise the word of God for fear of losing money, we have become so desensitized to sexual sin. With shows like Jerry Springer and magazines that glorify sex and sexual immortality, we don't mourn over it, we make sport at it. I challenge those who are believers to turn off any movies that have unrealistic romance stories or even a hint of immorality, put down any books that would appeal to the lust of your flesh, set up filters on your Internet for protection, do not set your eyes on any vile thing, flee from immorality: it is your way of escape! Detox yourself. Draw a dad-gum line in the sand! Your eyes are a lamp unto your soul! Only let the good in and hate what is evil. It is the pure in heart who shall see God. If you aren't serious about protecting yourself you are bowing to this in some way. What if our churches in the West actually did church discipline like the bible says? That would put the fear in us alright...the fear of God that keeps us from sin. But it won't happen because it would separate the wheat from the chaff and cutdown on building funds and attendance. I don't know how extreme you need to be but cut off anything that is causing you to be entangled in sin. Once your lust is turned up you don't make clear decisions. No one makes you sin and sadly so many aren't serious about living for Christ. Eternity is at stake here. If there is no fruit of Christ in your life and you are just a self proclaimed sex addict then 1) you aren't a believer 2) Jesus isn't going to deliver someone who doesn't cry out for deliverance. He is not powerless to save but many don't want to get well and have accepted defeat. It's work to be free from past sin and esp sexual sin. It takes work to re-wallpaper your mind and allow God to change the desires of your heart. His word works and He changes. I am proof!!!
My reading for tonight. It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father's wife. And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. "Purge the evil person from among you." (1 Corinthians 5:1-13 ESV)I also meant to add before anyone starts doubting their salvation: you have to follow Christ meaning be a learner of Him to know Him. Then to know Him is to love Him. To love Him should bring about obedience. The work of sanctification and becoming more like Christ doesn't happen over night. Until we lay these bodies down we will struggle with sin. Yet our position is that we are no longer slaves to sin. Sin should not have mastery over us. Where there are areas of long standing sin in your life and mine... They need the balm of His word. Start in the psalms if you need a place. Then go to the New Testament. I'm a huge Old Testament dweller also because everything that was written down in the Old Testament is to teach us. If you are struggling with salvation settle the matter. Commit yourself to Him and there is no magical prayer but accept that He is the way the truth and the Life and that He died on the cross to make you right with God and save you from the wrath of God by taking on Gods wrath because the law could never make you right with Him. It was only the sinless life of Christ and His death on the cross and resurrection from the grave. Seek to know Him. He is not words on a page but LIFE! That doesn't mean you won't sin.
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