LOOKING AT LIFE
THROUGH THE BLOOD OF JESUS
January 14, 2001 am
MF Blume
Joshua 2:1-19 And Joshua the son
of Nun sent out of Shittim two men to spy secretly, saying, Go view the
land, even Jericho. And they went, and came into an harlot's house, named
Rahab, and lodged there. And it was told the king of Jericho, saying,
Behold, there came men in hither to night of the children of Israel to
search out the country. And the king of Jericho sent unto Rahab, saying,
Bring forth the men that are come to thee, which are entered into thine
house: for they be come to search out all the country. And the woman took
the two men, and hid them, and said thus, There came men unto me, but I
wist not whence they were: And it came to pass about the time of shutting
of the gate, when it was dark, that the men went out: whither the men went
I wot not: pursue after them quickly; for ye shall overtake them. But she
had brought them up to the roof of the house, and hid them with the stalks
of flax, which she had laid in order upon the roof. And the men pursued
after them the way to Jordan unto the fords: and as soon as they which
pursued after them were gone out, they shut the gate. And before they were
laid down, she came up unto them upon the roof; And she said unto the men,
I know that the LORD hath given you the land, and that your terror is fallen
upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land faint because of you.
For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red sea for you,
when ye came out of Egypt; and what ye did unto the two kings of the Amorites,
that were on the other side Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom ye utterly destroyed.
And as soon as we had heard these things, our hearts did melt, neither
did there remain any more courage in any man, because of you: for the LORD
your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath. Now therefore,
I pray you, swear unto me by the LORD, since I have shewed you kindness,
that ye will also shew kindness unto my father's house, and give me a true
token: And that ye will save alive my father, and my mother, and
my brethren, and my sisters, and all that they have, and deliver our lives
from death. And the men answered her, Our life for yours, if ye utter
not this our business. And it shall be, when the LORD hath given us the
land, that we will deal kindly and truly with thee. Then she let them down
by a cord through the window: for her house was upon the town wall, and
she dwelt upon the wall. And she said unto them, Get you to
the mountain, lest the pursuers meet you; and hide yourselves there three
days, until the pursuers be returned: and afterward may ye go your way.
And the men said unto her, We will be blameless of this thine oath which
thou hast made us swear. Behold, when we come into the land, thou
shalt bind this line of scarlet thread
in the window which thou didst let us down by: and thou shalt bring thy
father, and thy mother, and thy brethren, and all thy father's household,
home unto thee. And it shall be, that whosoever shall go out of the doors
of thy house into the street, his blood shall be upon his head, and we
will be guiltless: and whosoever shall be with thee in the house,
his blood shall be on our head, if any hand be upon him.
This is a familiar story of the time when the Exodus journey was coming
to a completion.
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A woman who had lived the life of a harlot, a prostitute, was going to
be saved.
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Her willingness to take in the two spies, despite risking her life to do
so, because of her fear and respect for God, caused them to inform her
that there was a way in which she could be saved.
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Jericho was going to come down.
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God instructed Israel to march around it six days and on the seventh to
blast trumpets and shout in victory, and God would cause the walls to fall.
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The key to Rahab’s salvation would be in her obedience of stringing a scarlet
thread up in her window.
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The colour scarlet should always point us to the blood of Jesus Christ.
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Thursday nights we have been studying Hebrews and how the reference to
the Blood of Jesus entails everything to do with the death of Christ...
why He had to die, God’s love for us in saving us through that death, the
idea that God Himself became a man who could die as us and in our places,
because we all had to die due to sin.
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The scarlet thread likewise refers to everything about the blood of Jesus
that there possibly is to understand.
The amazing thing about her salvation was that her house was atop the very
walls that were specifically said to have been thrown down on the seventh
day of Israel’s march around the city.
Joshua 2:15 Then she let them down
by a cord through the window: for her house was upon the town wall, and
she dwelt upon the wall.
Joshua 6:20 So the people shouted when the
priests blew with the trumpets: and it came to pass, when the people heard
the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that
the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every
man straight before him, and they took the city.
Not only did she have faith to hide the spies against the threat of death,
in order to save her life, but she had to look down at the wall that she
was living on top of, and believe that though the rest of the wall would
fall, her house would be saved by simply putting a red thread in her window.
The thread was placed in her WINDOW.
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What is a window?
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It is the means by which light enters into your house.
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It is the means by which you see the outside from within your house.
God is trying to tell us something here in this story.
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He inspired these men to tell the harlot to put this thread in her window
for a distinct purpose hundreds and hundreds of years later, after the
Church would come into existence, that Christians might be able to study
this and apply it to their lives and likewise enjoy freedom.
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Let us let the Spirit teach us the lesson today.
Every one of us can say that we lived lives in which, somewhere along the
way, we were violated and abused.
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Some in very different ways than others, but all of us suffered in some
manner in a world of sin like we live in.
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And as a harlot is violated over and over again and actually makes a life
out of that, people are born into the sin of this world and have learned
to live in sin and expect violation.
Even after we are saved, our lives can continue to be violated and abused.
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Sometimes fellow christians are the worse offenders, and that is when it
hurts the most.
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Yet God is not ignorant of any of this.
Canaan represents the fullness of Christ.
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As Israel was on their way to the Promised land of Canaan, we read Paul
say that we are to come to the fullness of the stature of Christ (Eph.
4:13).
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Verse 11 speaks of how God called preachers and teachers, etc., to help
the church grow.
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And verse 13 says...
Ephesians 4:13 Till we all come in the
unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect
man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:
What I am going to teach today is not only truth for the Christian to be
able to deal with things in life and mature in God, but it is good news
to the sinner who needs to hear what difference Christ makes in your life
after He saves you.
So we have a people of God and a harlot, now, coming into the land of
Promise where God would have them set up the temple and enjoy a kingdom
of God with all enemies conquered.
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And this Harlot is told that she can join them and enjoy the Kingdom of
God — enjoy the citizenship of being one of His people, and receive His
blessings — if she ties this red thread in her window.
There is a place that God has for us in the Spirit — a state of living
— in which He will bless us.
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Troubles will still go on all around us as they always will in this life
and this world.
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But there is a sort of Rest in knowing God is with you and He is going
to have everything work towards your good.
You know, the Bible speaks of a rest for the people of God.
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That does not mean that you simply laze around and twiddle your thumbs
until Jesus comes.
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It is a rest in the work of God to put you where you need to be in His
eyes.
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And once you are satisfied with His work, you can then proceed to do many,
many things in the Kingdom.
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Its not the kind of rest wherein you simply rest from every effort to do
anything.
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You rest from the efforts to produce in you what only God can produce.
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You realize He is the only one who can produce in you what He wants.
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But you will be very busy working for Him in this world and being used
by Him.
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And such work is hindered by so many thoughts of the enemy of error, and
this is what we are dealing with today.
Regardless of your past, like this harlot, you can leave it all and come
into salvation with God.
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And once you take this into your life and obey the Gospel, just as Peter
preached the Gospel in Acts 2 and informed the people how to apply that
to themselves by way of repentance, baptism into His death in the name
of Jesus Christ by water immersion, and Spirit infilling (Acts 2:38), this
scarlet thread needs to be put up across your window.
But you need to keep in mind that you are serving God.
Hebrews 10:29 Of how much sorer
punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under
foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith
he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit
of grace?
Live right before God.
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Refrain yourself from what you know is wrong.
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Remember that you chose the blood to be applied to your life, so live in
suitability to that blood.
Mike Almon told me about some studies in university he learned and how
that psychologists speak of a PERCEPTUAL GRID.
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This is a kind of mental screen that is in the minds of people and was
put there by upbringing or ingrained there through past circles of influence
we have experienced.
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And everything that we see or hear passes through this perceptual grid
and is translated into something that often is completely removed from
the intended purpose of what we hear or see.
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For example, there are people who insist that Father and Son in the Bible
refer to two separate persons who make up the one God along with a third
person called the Holy Ghost.
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Now the Bible does distinguish Father and Son, but nowhere does it say
that the Father and the Son are two different persons.
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People will swear up and down that the Bible clearly shows two different
persons just because the Bible shows the Son, for example, praying to the
Father.
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But nowhere does the Bible call them two persons.
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Their perceptual grid made them think of God being two persons due to their
ingrained teaching that such is the case.
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Why cannot God be one person and simultaneously manifest as Father in creation
and in begetting the Son, and as Son through incarnating Himself as a man
in order to die as every human being and save them from sins?
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Why does Father and Son necessarily have to be two persons?
A perceptual grid will cause people to also take ordinary things of life,
such as a discussion with somebody, and assume people are concocting a
conspiracy against them, as they reinterpret every word to be an intended
attack in some manner against them.
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The words were never intended to mean anything critical of one’s character,
but yet that person translates everything that is said into statements
that were made to degrade.
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Someone says that you look nice today, and you assume they mean you always
looked bad every other time they saw you.
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And when you ask them if that means you always looked bad other times,
they say “No, its just a complement today.”
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And you respond saying “Oh, you really do not mean that I look nice.
You just are flattering me.”
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And the person says, “No, that is not what I mean at all. I just wanted
to tell you that you look nice with that red shirt.”
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“Oh, you mean you hate all the other colours I wear.”
That is rather humourous, but it shows how that somehow these people assume
so much bad about what another is saying, that they twist and wring discussions
all out of proper proportion into monstrous schemes against them.
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If someone happens to look at them, and not smile because they are thinking
about what they have to face when they get home, and are simply staring
blankly a stare that just happened to be in this person’s direction, this
person thinks they hate them, just as they imagined.
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Someone fails to shake hands and the person translates that also as a proof
of how they are hated.
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And all these things pass through their perceptual grid and are translated
into things that are so off the wall for reality.
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And they constantly live in lives that are miserable and bitter.
Your perceptual grid is standing in the very means by which you hear and
see everything.
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Its there and it filters everything that shines into your life.
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Like a stained glass window, it tints everything you perceive into colours
that are not actually part of that element you are looking at.
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It throws a colour onto it.
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We need to do what this harlot did.
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She was told to put a scarlet thread up in her window.
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We need to put the truths of the Bible regarding the cross and Jesus’ death
up in our windows, and filter everything through a perceptual grid of the
Gospel!
When people actually do work against you and say words that are meant to
offend, you need to translate it all through the blood of Jesus into thoughts
such as...
Yes, I may have that weak area in my life.
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And I was wrong to do such and such a thing.
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But I am God’s child, and He is still working on me.
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I may be shortcoming in that area of my life, but God is not through with
me yet.
James Cleveland wrote this song.
Please be patient with me, God is not through with me yet.
Please be patient with me, God is not through with me yet.
When he gets through with me, I shall come forth just like pure
gold.
He wrote:
If you should see me -- that I am not talking right.
If you should see me -- that I’m not walking right.
Please be a little patient with me.
God is not through with me yet.
When he gets through with me I will be what He wants me to be.
This kind of thinking shows that the believer takes criticism, agrees
with it, but doesn’t allow others to upset them, because they know what
the blood of Jesus did in their lives.
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They know that when you are a Christian that you are growing into the fullness
of the stature of Jesus Christ.
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When you are born again, you know that infants are born and you are therefore
in need of growth.
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Babies trip and fall, and you know that the parents love the child and
help them walk.
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So with all that in mind you translate what that person said by truths
so that you are not offended by it.
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You see it all through the blood.
Even the devil will try to lie to us and put thoughts in our minds that
are meant to condemn us.
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But if we have the truths of the blood in our understandings, truths of
the work of God for us through the cross, then we pass those lies through
the perceptual grid of the cross, and realize that anything that condemns
us is not of God.
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And we remember this scripture:
Romans 8:33-34 Who shall lay any thing
to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he
that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again,
who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for
us.
Who does this devil think he is?
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Here the devil is condemning us and that person is condemning us, but we
read in the WORD that Christ is making intercession for us right at the
right hand of God.
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And anybody who is working upon us against what Christ is trying to accomplish
for us, is going to stand before God one day and explain why they tried
working against what Christ was working for in our lives.
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I would not want to be in the shoes of those who condemn me or any other
believer.
And when we see somebody do something that we would normally assume to
be against us, even when it may not be, we remember that so long as we
are not able to read minds we cannot know for sure.
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So when we do not know for sure, then we hope for the best.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 Charity suffereth
long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself,
is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own,
is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity,
but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth
all things, endureth all things.
We need to mature in love and not think evil and translate everything somebody
says to us in a negative way.
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We need to believe all things and hope all things.
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Hope for the best.
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Don’t be so negative when you are not able to read a person’s mind and
start to imagine why they said what they did.
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Hope for the best.
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That is how you will receive things that pass through the grid of the love
of God.
Lets see everything through the blood of Jesus, with the knowledge of what
Jesus did for us as believers.
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Don’t let people’s criticisms of you get you down.
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Who are they anyway?
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You know the scriptures:
Romans 14:4 Who art thou that judgest
another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he
shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand.
You know that God’s word says it is foolishness to always be trying to
correct others in their Christian lives.
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You know that we are supposed to let God be judge.
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And don’t lower yourself to letting those words from people discourage
you.
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You put too much stock in what people think when you let them discourage
you.
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Get satisfied in what God thinks alone.
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Be serious, and be honest with yourself, and realize that God will judge
you.
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He is good at it because He reads our minds and knows our intentions.
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No matter what we sounded like to people, we know what we intended to mean,
so don’t let their insults bother you.
Some are so concerned that people know what they truly meant or intended.
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We do something or say something and its misunderstood and talked all around.
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And we know we did not mean anything similar to what is being said, and
it drives us batty that these people do not know the truth.
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So what if they do not know the truth?
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God knows.
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Be content that He knows.
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He is the only one who really counts in such matters.
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Its nice to be able to explain to someone your actual intentions when they
misconstrue them, but if you can’t, don’t go insane over it.
The abuse of the harlot was going to cease.
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Her life was going to change.
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She put a scarlet thread in her window, and everything she saw had that
thread of red through it all.
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All the light that came in her home had that thread of red through it all.
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The thread that held up a house on a wall that fell to bits!
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You lives will change, too, and you will enjoy a rest in what God did for
you on the cross, if you will only get this message into your heart and
put it in the windows of your lives, into the avenue that everything passes
through before it settles in your brains.
The people who run us down have the problems.
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Why let ourselves get messed up with that?
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And you might have took it wrong, anyway!
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Give people the benefit of the doubt!
Sister Mean taught me that when we see problems, think of the person’s
past.
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Think of their circumstances in which they live.
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Put yourself in their shoes.
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You might just realize that the person did not mean anything against you,
so much as they are actually reacting due to the real problem in their
lives, which is something totally alien to you to begin with.
But the most important thing to know is that all your upsetting episodes
are due to not seeing life through the blood.
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When you are satisfied with God’s work in your salvation, then you will
enter a rest, knowing He did a complete job.
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You need to learn what the Bible says about what He did for you in order
to think that way.
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And all the hindering hang-ups and misconstrued thoughts that have held
you back from doing God’s will freely, will be dealt with.
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All such spiritually immature hang-ups will hinder us from finding rest
in the work of the cross, and will keep us down and out and discouraged.
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Something else will be sure to upset us.
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Stop trying to deal with every little problem that comes your way and trying
to solve every misunderstanding.
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Deal with the root of the problem which is how you react to everything.
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See everything through the blood.
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Keep the work of Calvary in your mind and learn all the ramifications of
how that affects you today.
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And enjoy God’s blessings!
Oh, you may still have financial burdens and may be persecuted.
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But you at are rest or satisfied in your soul since you know everything
is alright in God’s eyes.
You need to see life through the blood.