Parky60 Loc: People's Republic of Illinois

Recently, after seeing a “Christian” book entitled How to Get Everything You Want, I was reminded of God’s call to contentment. The Apostle Paul testified to living out God’s expectation for his creatures. He wrote, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation” (Phil.4:11-12).

God’s call for his people is not to utilize him or anything else to “get everything you want,” for that desire, if fed, will dominate our lives. Scripture says, “Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income” (Eccl.5:10). From the beginning God has commanded that we keep our desires in check. It was the archetypal sin and continues to ruin many lives (1Tim.6:9). The tenth commandment to resist all temptations to covet should be evidence enough (Ex.20:17). The goal then is to want less. Ideally, it is to only have one desire! Oh that there were more modern Asaphs to write true Christian books which we could entitle, Earth Has Nothing I Desire Besides God (Ps.73:25).

His words and his values are desperately needed in an age that fails to detect the “loves” that God labels “the root of all kinds of evil” (1Tim.6:10). The New Testament teaches that compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ everything else is just garnish. God may temporarily bless your earthly plate with a few side dishes, and if so enjoy them. But when the garnish is providentially removed, no real problem. God is the main dish. He is “our portion forever” (Ps.73:26). We can do all things through Christ who gives us strength (Phil.4:13).

Zemirah Loc: Sojourner En Route...

Self control has indeed eluded the free will of man, beginning in the Garden with Eve - and then Adam.

Because our Creator God did not desire the love and worship of mindless robots, we were given by our Lord the great gift of free will, that we might accept or reject Him.

He gave us the ability to choose in this world: either Life or Death, self-determining our personal destination in the eternal world to come (Deuteronomy 30:15–20).

The goal of Christianity is to know and worship God, through faith in Jesus Christ's once-for-all propitiatory atonement, through prayer and the exploration and proclamation of the depths of Scripture - the gospel, the fulfillment of Christ's Great Commission to His universal spiritual body - His called-out church (Matthew 28:18-20).

It should be every Christian's fervent hope and prayer that we will discontinue following in the footsteps of ancient previously great nations who, after choosing sin and rebellion against God, died spiritually, and in so doing, forfeited for all time their potential for serving either God or man.

The Satanically inspired, tyrannical, totalitarian, controlling ideology of the Left has shaped the US fascism of their past and present from their defeat in the Civil War - all the way through to those who are now, inexplicably, in power in Washington D.C. engaged in a feverish attempt to rapidly dismantle and destroy this once godly nation as they pursue a figment of their own imagination, - a man-made utopian pipe dream that will never exist - for man left to his own devices, does not and cannot become progressively more godlike, as they choose to believe (Psalm 100:3).

Studying the recorded history of mankind upon the earth, the great cultures of the past, i.e., Greek, then Rome - as well as our own, informs us of the inherent dangers of the self-aggrandizing progressive ideology of those who become arrogant to the point of turning their back upon God, adopting instead, the belief that it is mankind alone who wields the power to built a nation, and entertaining the fool's belief that they can supplant Him (Jeremiah 25:9-12; Job 12:22-24) .

After having become hypnotized, then immobilized by giving credit to the doctrines of demons, each culture has succumbed to a self-satisfying fantasy of intrinsic selfism: self-realization, self-actualization, self-love, self indulgence, resulting in the self-delusion of our own self-righteousness (Romans 12:3).

May we, in all humility thankfully acknowledge the one true God who directed the creation of our world and the formation of our nation.

In order to reinstate God's biblical principles, and defeat the seductive spiritual evil which many of our citizens "we the people," and the government of our nation have embraced, we must now seek His forgiveness, guidance and assistance in our spiritual fight to regain the knowledge and application of His virtues which we have so pliantly and willingly forsaken.

Living Biblically under God and Spiritually in Christ, is the only weapon that will ever defeat Satan, and the only possible means of living as a free people.