1. Dealing With Failure More about Jesus Seminar #9 - Guide To see the 26 Video seminars complete links list, visit http://nfltrashtalk.com/peaceful-resources/ God doesn't want anyone to be lost, but that doesn't mean that He's going to save everyone. However, God is too fair to allow someones eternal destiny to be decided by another person. I agree wholeheartedly with Morris when he says that there are going to be a whole lot more people saved then we could ever have imagined! Matthew 7:13-14 (KJV) Enter ye in at the strait [narrow] gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leads to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: 14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leads unto life, and few there be that find it. So Morris says, Notice, it doesn't specify WHAT LIFE? It doesn't say eternal life, although I have always assumed that's what it meant. Eternal life is certainly what is being talked about in Luke 13 below, because it clearly specifies those who will be saved, but could it be talking here about the more 'abundant life', the life that we can live while still on this earth? Is it referencing both? Lu 13:23 (KJV) Then said one unto him, Lord, are there few that be saved? 2. And he said unto them, 24 "Strive to enter in by the narrow door, for many, I tell you, will seek to enter in, and will not be able. (WEB) Why will they not be able to enter if they are seeking? Verse 25 has the answer... Lu 13:25 (WEB) When once the master of the house has risen up, and has shut the door, and you begin to stand outside, and to knock at the door, saying, 'Lord, Lord, open to us!' then he will answer and tell you, 'I don't know you or where you come from.' Once probation ('the door') has closed and Jesus is coming back, many will will expect that they should be saved, but then the truth will be made clear... They never actually had a relationship with God, they were just USING 'RELIGION' for whatever they could gain in this life, from their association with the concept, but never had a life saving relationship with the Author and Finisher of our faith. What is the Abundant life? The Surrendered Life? Is it the Spiritual Abundance gained only through the surrendered life, now being lived in that constant, loving relationship with God? I'm betting my life it's abundant enough for all of us! It's what I'll continue to concentrate on, but then Morris asks the question, Will there be people saved who've never discovered the 'Abundant Life'? Then he asks what about where it describes those who are saved as a multitude that no one can number, but it never describes those who are lost that way. 3. Morris believes that when Jesus comes back the 3rd time, with all the saints and the City of God, & the wicked are all raised, that there will be more people in the city who have been saved than there will be wicked people left on earth. God's people will be in the majority! And why does he believe that? Because the sacrifice of Gods Son is too high a price to pay for it to be anything other than an enormous success! AMEN, Brother! That's also the reason why God waits. He's waiting for one more person to add to the reward that Jesus receives for His Supreme Sacrifice! How does it make you feel to realize that YOU could be one of the rewards that Jesus will receive on that day? Rev 11:18 When the people can destroy the earth, or when the destruction of the earth is inevitable, God will return to destroy those who destroy the earth. Do weapons of mass destruction ring a bell for anyone? Man's careless use of the planet is a constant unstoppable mission of destruction, no doubt. 2 Peter 3:9 (WEB) The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some count slowness; but is patient with us, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Mt 5:48 (KJV) Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. 4. Mt 5:48 (WEB) Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. When you are covered by the robe of Christs Righteousness you are perfect, as He is perfect! He means here that we need to show Gods love equally (perfectly) to EVERYONE just like God loves everyone, and so should we. Jesus had just finished explaining that unlike what they had been taught in the past, they are not to hate their enemies but to love them. Then He makes the point that if God sends rain to water their enemies gardens right along with theirs, then God is showing their enemies love as well. That's how we are to be 'perfect as God is perfect', by sharing His Perfect Love equally to all mankind. I'm thinking if we're sharing it we'll be living it aye? Share the Love Perfectly Folks! That sounds like a big job right there! An impossible task. Disheartening in its futility. 2Co 7:1 (KJV) Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. 5. There are several text that are similar to this. Matt 5:48 above, &... 1John 3:3 (KJV) And every man that hath this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure. It's texts like these that make us feel what Paul was feeling when he described it in a letter to the Christians in Rome. So, there is the dilemma. Be Perfect Big Time Perfect Like God is Perfect, type of perfect... Vs. Failure! 6. Now don't forget what the core issue of sin is! Sin is living life apart from God. Sin is separating yourselves from God. In essence you are saying to God that you don't need or want Him in your life, that He is useless to you, & that there are many more important things in your life than Him, & so that's why you simply don't have time for Him. Or, you could be in that place where I used to be. It's that place where I was feeling what Paul was feeling. The place called despair is a place that has no hope, and so I'd given up trying since it had become obvious to me that it is impossible for ME to please God! I had arrived at a place where the devil wanted me to stay. So how do we get past the dilemma? Can we get beyond this constant struggle? If we can, then what's the secret to success? This definition makes all the difference in the world as we deal with failure, or victory and obedience while we seek the perfect life. Perfection, Overcoming, Sanctification, whatever you want to call it, it is all involved in this struggle. 7. This clearly simplifies the issue of sin. ANYTHING GOOD OR BAD IS SIN IF IT IS DONE OUTSIDE OF A RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD What is FAITH? TRUST! What, or Who do you place your trust in, or do you have NO faith in anything, and so you trust no one? So, I can be living a life that appears to be perfect, & it seems I'm following all the guidelines for the performance of perfection, and I'm treating my 'neighbors' well, but if I'm living & doing it apart from God it is all sinful, filthy rags. The do it yourself religion. This is why the pharisees looked good, but in truth they were living in sin. God hates sin but loves the sinner. God accepts you just the way you are, but He loves you too much to leave you that way! 8. There is nothing you can do to make God love you any more than He does, and there is nothing you can do to make Him love you less. Your performance has no bearing on His love for you. God is looking for friends, and He doesn't care where you are in this life or what you have done, because He knows that IF you will spend time with Him in a daily relationship that continues from day to day that He will make the changes in your life that need to be made! HE WILL MAKE THE CHANGES, you don't have to. You just need to become His friend! JUST 'COME TO ME'! There are people who were once in a relationship with Jesus, but who became discouraged with their apparent lack of progress toward perfection, because of some 'nagging sin' that seems to hang on in their life. They leave their relationship with Jesus out of frustration over what they think is their failure to please God, even though it ISN'T God who is condemning them. 9. It's the devil, the accuser of the Brethren, who is continually throwing their failures up in front of them with the intention of separating them from the life saving relationship that they have with Jesus. ~ IGNORE THE devil & IGNORE YOUR SINS! ~ THAT'S WHAT I'VE BEEN DOING, & THAT'S WHAT'S WORKING IN MY LIFE! I tried to not sin, and couldn't. Now, I no longer even attempt to stop sinning, and instead I leave my sins at Jesus feet and I let Him deal with them. So, how does that work in real life? (Hang in there and I'll tell ya later. ;o) Our Battle is against spiritual wickedness in high places. (KJV) 10. Get Real! Who do they think they're kidding? I wasn't born yesterday. I tried that and it didn't work. That has been the problem all along! How am I supposed to do battle with a power much greater than I am? Morris is going to be talking about exactly that (James 4:7 text) in seminar #10, The devil's Favorite Texts. The only way we are going to be able to battle against the evil spirits is to call on The Holy Spirits who are much more powerful than the evil ones! Lee tells the story about the devil possessed woman and the kick boxer here, @ the 28 minute mark. IF, there is absolutely no way we can win in a battle against spiritual powers like the devil and his fellow angels, then why is James telling us that if we resist the devil he will flee? It sounds like we will win! Most people who read this text think like I used to. They think it means if I just get tougher, & don't be so soft, toughen up, grit my teeth and bare down harder, get more grit, and apply more pressure that eventually, if I hold out long enough I will BEAT THE devil. That doesn't work! I never was one of those people with the power to resist sin. I was one of those who jumped in feet first the minute someone else said, Hey, come on in, the water's fine, It's always long after you leap that you discover you are in way over your head, and that the walls on the pool aren't just smooth as silk, they're a 100 feet tall. You always have plenty of people around you who are also in over their heads, and the old saying that misery loves company is true. 11. It's never until we realized we're hopelessly drowning that we know we had better get help from somewhere. But that's when the big problem surfaces. Those of us who were raised in the knowledge of God, and of His Son Jesus the risen Savior, have turned our backs on that knowledge while maintaining the idea that it is impossible to accomplish the goal of perfection. So where do WE turn for help? Believe it or not, the ONLY way WE will turn to GOD for help is IF we find out the truth about WHO is doing the work. If WE have to go back to the old struggle of fencing with the devil then forget about it. No one is interested in that guilt trip! That's an enormous reason why so many people chose to maintain their addictions to things that help us to forget the guilt, like drugs and alcohol do. Guilt certainly kept me on that path for many decades, and if I had continued to equate guilt with God, I most likely would still be there, or dead. But Thank God For the truth! The truth has set me free! Praise God! He's coming For Me! Excuse me for the tears, but like yours, they are tears of great joy! If we are going to have to deal with our guilt & failures, then we're going to need to know that the Most Powerful Spirit there is 12. HE will be The One doing all the work fighting all the battles & eradicating the imperfections for us, & For that, I will be forever grateful! Only GOD Can eliminate sin. Perhaps it is more difficult for those who do have a lot of grit or backbone to actually let go & let God do it for them like He told us he would. Sorry folks, but YOU can't beat the devil, so don't even try! But fortunately we have access to the God of the universe who has promised to handle all that for all of His Friends, and so Can we be friends?, is what He is always asking. It's the same thing I ask of Him every morning! If all of the Christians who have abandoned their beliefs due to discouragement over their inability to KEEP THE RULES, If they were to realize the truth about the God who made the rules, 13. THEN THEY ALL WOULD BE SAVED! The truth shall set you free! Wow, that sounds hopeless! God looks on the heart and that's what He see's! So, more bad news... does the bad news ever end? Even the Good Deeds people are filthy bad. 14. Well now that pretty much covers everyone who has ever lived on the planet That certainly explains why the New Years Resolutions never panned out! But wait a minute, doesn't it say somewhere that God Helps Those Who Help Themselves? 15. Don't we have a part to play? Isn't there something that we are supposed to be doing? Yep, & we had better be certain we know exactly what it is because it is ALL that WE CAN DO! WOW We can Abide! That's IT? But what about the fight, the battles with the devil, the good fight of faith, the resisting, what about all that? God does all the fighting. But what's the good fight of faith? What's Faith? It's Trust! That's what you get when you spend time with Jesus, trust in Him! That's what Abiding in Jesus means. Spending time every day building a friendship of trust. Having Faith that HE is Doing exactly what HE Promised us HE would Do! Staying WITH HIM everyday. Trusting In His Friendship! Abiding In His Saving Grace. Staying in that Saving Friendship that empowers us to share That Good News, News that we did not have before we discovered the Truth About GOD & sin! GOD IS the only one who can eradicate sin at ANY LEVEL. 16. This is very good news to me since I tried my best at one point in my life to accomplish that, but I failed miserably! There is one battle being waged by the devil and ONLY ONE! The devil does not want you to be friends with God, because he knows that if you are, then he has no power over your final destination. He knows that with Gods presence in your life he has lost emphatically! He knows that he is no match for the power of God in your life & his focus will be entirely upon distracting you from that saving relationship in every possible way that he can come up with. I guarantee you that the devil has perfected his craft, and you have to look no further than the world wide web to discover the tip of the iceberg! The devil is trying to steal your time away from God. There are more ways to waste time on the internet then on every other device ever devised by man, COMBINED. The devil is in a battle for the time you spend with God first thing every morning! He has perfected his craft just in time for the final battle for the souls of Man, but two can play this game! We also can talk to a person in China about Jesus, through the Google translator, and it will translate from English to Chinese (and many other languages) well enough for it to be understood. As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be! Before the Tower of Babel the world all understood what everyone else was saying folks. The world is close to being back there. Could this message of the Kingdom move throughout the ENTIRE WORLD in just ONE day? It sure could! And it could continue to repeat itself automatically every day thereafter until Jesus is seen in the clouds of Glory! 17. God has nothing more to prove to the Universe. He's just waiting for a bunch more people to make the lifesaving discovery that I have made. He's looking for Millions more treasures to lay their crowns at the feet of His Son Jesus. I can understand the delay. That Sacrifice was an amazing thing God & His Son did for all of mankind! The Good Fight of Faith is in maintaining your life-saving relationship with GOD. That is the only way that HE can do anything in your life. You Christ = Nothing. You + Christ = Infinity, everything. 18. So, the devils entire focus is on getting you out of that daily, constantly growing, endless, full-time relationship with God. Why? Because he knows that Without God, YOU CAN DO NOTHING! So WHO is doing the work? GOD IS! So if without Him I can do nothing but with Him I can do everything then the ONLY THING I CAN DO IS TO GET WITH GOD & STAY THERE! Our fight is against the devil stealing even the least little bit of time. Blow OFF everything that he attempts to do to interfere with your quality time with God. The devil doesn't care if you're naughty or nice. He just wants to make sure that you don't have any TIME for Jesus since everything you do apart from God is worthless. By spending time with Jesus you become more like him. If you are focusing on your sins, then you are NOT focusing on Jesus. Behaviorism is a viscous circle that keeps you from a successful Christian experience. The devil throws your failures up in front of you to discourage you. He want's you to focus on them instead of on Jesus, and then you will eventually become discouraged and give up! 19. Jesus isn't commanding anyone to go forth bearing much fruit, But He is saying that we can't bear any fruit unless we abide in him. You'd think that eleven times in seven verses would be enough for me to have caught the significance many years ago! One time for every original disciple who managed to abide to the end, and in a perfect # of verses (7). A Christ like life is the result of a connection (abiding) to Christ. 20. Who is doing the work, and what is He promising here? By when is He saying that He'll get it done? Does he ask us to check on HIS progress? Does He ask us to inspect the fruit? Does He ask us to question Him about what He's doing with this thing or that, or to worry about anything at all? No. Nothing is expected of us to do other than to abide in him. If I am even looking at the sins in my life & wondering why they are still there, then I am judging God! Think about it! If God says that He is responsible for the changes in our lives then what in the world are we doing even thinking about our faults and failures? I certainly shouldn't be trying to correct them. All that I should be concentrating on is my growing relationship with HIM, and let Him worry about what fruit is growing, how much & when! Those are all details that simply get me into trouble! Those are all details that the devil uses to shift my focus off of God! NOW do you all understand why I could care less about any imperfections in my life? Merry Christ's Life! Life with Christ is a Very Merry Occasion every day. Peace with God. Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine! Maybe I'll share with you sometime a few of the conversations I've had with God out on the deck, while smoking my pipe tobacco! It just so happens that Jesus decided not to renew my pouch of tobacco when I ran out the last time. That was several months ago I guess, but really not sure how long it's been. Needless to say, I haven't been visiting the fish pond out back quite as often as I used to, but I never did quit smoking. I don't see any tobacco showing up out on the deck table so I don't light it up anymore, but I never did quit smoking! 2funny aye? The same basic thing happened with what used to be a daily consumption of alcohol. It never seems to show up around here anymore, so I'm not drinking that either, but I never quit drinking. Lol 21. I just stick with Jesus every day all day and He has done everything He said He would so far. I'm not going to try and judge God and His decisions He makes in my life. That's what I believe is meant by fighting the good fight of faith. Too many times we judge how WE think God is doing on His work in someone else s life (like our kids) by what their visible faults are. Is Jesus enough? ~ Jesus ~ ~ has been ALL ~ ~ that I've needed, ever ~ ~ since I discovered, that all He ~ ~ needs from me is my friendship ~ ~ Much Love ~ Is Jesus enough? ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ vvvvvvvvvvvvvvv ~ BET YOUR LIFE ~ ~ The Promises of God are ALL true! ~ ~ Click Here to see what He'll do for You! ~ Share IF U like this Resource @ the 45 minute mark Lee tells the story about the young couple who were farmers who came to Jesus, and how He changed their lives. To see the 26 Video seminars complete links list, visit http://nfltrashtalk.com/peaceful-resources/