Pt. 1 pain and pleasure

James 4:1 "What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members?"

This verse can apply to the church community and to the individual as well. Someone does something another doesnt think is right, whatever its, and conflict starts and churches split and people leave the church......extreme cases, none the less a quarrel starts. Whatever the application whithin the community this verse is true.

I want to focus on the this verse in concern with the individual. I want to stress this study concerns the christian but everyone is urged to respond with what they think, but the application of this study is for believers.

Our pleasure is what causes the source of our quarrels within our body. 1Peter 2:11 "Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul." Peter here states this differently and also says to stay away form "fleshly lusts" or pleasures, because it wages war with the soul/spirit. Our members are are the parts of our body : arm, hands, mind, and so on. The desires of our mind and body to have sex, drink, use tobaco, lie, cheat and whatever else goes aginst our spirit.

In my ethics class, i have learned that sometims doing the right thing feels wrong (continent). such things as not having sex when someone of the other sex is urging you to do it and you don't. Sometims it will feel wrong to live right, causing a war of flesh aginst soul/spirit.

1Peter 3: 17 "For it is better, if God should will it so, that you suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing what is wrong." When our flesh goes aginst our spirit, we feel bad a suffer for doing what is right rather than for what is wrong. 1Peter 4:1 "Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose, because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin"

3 part study james

3 part study
im going to do a 3 part study on James 4:1-3. check it out if ya want

disciple

If you study the bible, you will find that Jesus was a Rabbi and that he chose his disciples and then told his disciples to make everyone disciples of christ. Jesus is our rabbi. Back in the day when a rabbi chose his disciples, he would interview each student who had already put in 12 years of studying and memorizing the old testament, the cream of the crop. The rabbi interviews these prime students to not only see if they can learn the exact teachings of the rabbi but if the student could also live out the teachings exactly as the rabbi did. To be a disciple is an awsome thing. So, when jesus pick his disciples he saw the potential in them to live a life exactly how he lived. This is our call too, to be discipls of christ. If you believe you have accepted the holy spirit in to your life, or have your life to christ, he chose you to be his disciple, he belives you can live a life like he did, he wants to help and teach. But if you are a disciple of Jesus, he already believes you can do it, there is no doubt in his mind.

eternal now

Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. (John 17:3)

A popular misconception among christians today is that "eternity" or "eternal life" is something we recieve after we die. In the verse above Jesus is praying and says that tihis "eternal life", "eternity" begins as soon as we come to know God and Jesus. 1Corinthians 2:11 says "For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God". So the way to come to know God is through his spirt. As most christians know, the spirt ascended awsomely on the day of penticost so as to live inside of each person so that we can know God, but only if we accept him. "Getting saved", a common term used when someone accepts God. The only problem with using this term is that it seperates and makes us think differently about people, thats for another blog entry thingy. but most christians accept this idea of being saved or babtized into the family of God. My proposition is the same as the verse up top........when we come to know God, that is eternal life. This is an awsome idea, rather than something to obtain after we die, its something we already have. Amen