Tag: temptation

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Daily Manna

APPETITE : THE MOST POPULAR KILLER TEMPTATION (Part 4)

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:

APPETITE : THE MOST POPULAR KILLER TEMPTATION (Part 4)

We can never defeat whatever “enemy” there are “out there” or within us unless we know it is an enemy, then know how to defeat it according to “the truth as it is in Jesus.” Everything else will fail, miserably and terminally.

I only became acutely aware of this “enemy” that has been “hiding in plain sight” all these time because of “unnumbered schemes” which include failure to “call it out” by calling sin by its right name, without any sugar-coating of hesitation.

God’s last-day messenger stated it not bluntly but in the love of the light of truth: “INTEMPERANCE OF ANY KIND IS THE WORST SIN OF SELFISHNESS.” Now read on:

“The race is groaning under a weight of accumulated woe [see Rom. 8:19-22], because of the sins of former generations. And yet with SCARCELY a thought or care, men and women of the present generation indulge intemperance by SURFEITING [partying|feasting] AND DRUNKENNESS, and thereby leave as a LEGACY for next generation, disease and enfeebled intellect, and polluted morals.

“Intemperance of ANY KIND is the worst form of selfishness. Those who TRULY fear God and keep His commandments look upon these things IN THE LIGHT OF REASON AND RELIGION.

“How can any man or woman of the present generation KEEP THE LAW OF GOD, which requires man to ‘love his neighbor AS HIMSELF,’ and indulge intemperate appetite, which benumbs [his] the brain, weakens [his] intellect, and fills [his] the body of disease?

Intemperance inflames the passions and gives loose rein to LUST. And REASON and CONSCIENCE are BLINDED by lower passions [opposite of enlightened by loftier convictions and ambitions].” – Vol. 4, Testimonies for the Church, p. 37.

So we got a more profound meaning of what it means “to love our neighbors as OURSELVES,” a summary of the last six of Decalogue defining our duty to man, after God. Again, “spiritual things are spiritually discerned” and treasured.

Those who sadly choose to cherish a “carnal mind” instead of the “mind of Christ” only because it appears to allow for “enjoyable intemperance” and other “works of the flesh”’will become intolerant towards the unpopular truth and “at enmity” with those who faithfully present and courageously defend the present, testing truth in word and deed. So wisely “Choose ye this day.”

(To be continued). Bless all. NMF

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Daily Manna

APPETITE: THE KILLER TEMPTATION (Part 3)

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:

APPETITE: THE KILLER TEMPTATION (Part 3)

Temperance (or Biblical self-control and self-mastery in all that we eat, drink, think, imagine, say, and do to our whole body, which the Creator and Redeemer claims is His purchased possession and His “temple,” is the last but not of the list of nine “fruit(s) of the Spirit” listed in Gal. 5: 22-24.

This is a master check list to determine whether we are actually “walking after the Spirit” and doing “the righteous things of the Spirit” and not “after the flesh, doing the things of the flesh” (Rom. 8: 1-10; Gal. 5: 16-21).

Those who persist in indulging, excusing and justifying the latter with whatever twisted and perverted brainchild doctrines and popular reasonings have only themselves to blame when the day of reckoning, “time of visitation” and their turn “to stand before the judgment seat of Christ” “for all that has been done to their body” and on others they influenced and corrupted, starting with their biological and spiritual family members (Rom. 10: 12, 14) and all who they have “influenced.”4T 30.

“A continual transgression of NATURE’S LAWS [the other work of rebuilding and repairing the wall and breach] is a CONTINUAL TRANSGRESSION OF THE LAW OF GOD. The present weight of anguish and suffering which we see everywhere [beginning in our very own “backyards”] the present deformity, decrepitude, disease, and imbecility now FLOODING the world [don’t blame-game the WHO and the nation’s public health authorities for “charity begins at home,” the basic unit of human society], make it, IN COMPARISON TO WHAT IT MIGHT BE AND WHAT GOD DESIGNED IT SHOULD BE [in the plan of redemption of the genuine, not counterfeit Gospel,] a LAZAR HOUSE; and the present generation [that’s why the need for ‘present truth’] are feeble in MENTAL, MORAL, AND PHYSiCAL POWER.

All this misery has accumulated from generation to generation [perpetrated via the institutions of culture, tradition, and false religion] because fallen man will BREAK THE LAW OF GOD. Sins of the GREATEST MAGNITUDE are committed through the INDULGENCE OF PERVERTED APPETITE.” – E. G. White, Vol. 4, Testimonies for the Church, p. 30.

These are the antitypical works to be “finished up” in the spiritual rebuilding and repairing the breach on the wall.” This is the “magnification” of the law of God. We are either builders or destroyers. “Choose ye this day.”

(To be continued). Bless all, NMF

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Daily Manna Devotionals

APPETITE : THE KILLER TEMPTATION (Part 2)

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:

APPETITE : THE KILLER TEMPTATION (Part 2)

Temptation is not sin; yielding to it, is. Appetite, desire, and passion are not evil in and of themselves. However, when these are uncontrolled by a carnal mind, unconverted heart, and a compromised conscience, they are the very hotbeds of activity where Satan and his agencies, demons and human beings, bag their greatest success and victims, both willing of duped or coerced.

Appetite, according to Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 5th edition, 1942, means: “To strive for; long for.
1. An inherent or habitual desire of body or mind; craving.
2. Desire for or relish of, food or drink. Synonyms: Longing, hunger, passion.” Now this:

“[See first part]. All these weight of woe and accumulated woe and suffering can be TRACED TO the indulgence of appetite and passion. LUXURIOUS LIVING and the use of wine corrupt the BLOOD, inflame the PASSIONS, and produce DISEASES of every kind. But the EVIL does not end here. PARENTS leave maladies as a LEGACY to their children.

“As a rule, every INTEMPERATE man/woman who rears children TRANSMITS his inclinations to and evil tendencies to his offspring. [“Like father like son; like mother like daughter”]; he gives them disease from his own inflamed and corrupted BLOOD. [Remember, ‘life is in the blood,’ Lev. 17:11].

LiCENTIOUSNESS, DISEASE, IMBECILITY are transmitted as an INHERITANCE OF WOE from father to son [from mother to daughter] FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION, and this brings anguish and suffering to the WORLD, and is no less a REPETITION of the fall of man!” – Vol. 4, Testimonies for the Church, p. 30.

Mankind, and the churches, in general, have not learned, refusing to honestly and thoroughly trace from cause to effect. That is why God, in both in the Old and New Testament times always has a “returning remnant” and a faithful minority who are “rebuilding the walls and repairing the breach” of the moral and physical laws of God’s spiritual kingdom on earth, as their “fitness” preparation for the eternal kingdom of glory.

It is my fervent hope, prayer, desire, and work to help prepare myself and others, who are willing, to be part of this “Lord’s army” and “little flock.”

(To be continued). Bless all, NMF

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Daily Manna Devotionals

APPETITE—THE FIRST TEST OF SINLESS MAN IN EDEN AND THE INCARNATE ‘SON OF MAN’ IN THE WILDERNESS OF TEMPTATION

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:

APPETITE—THE FIRST TEST OF SINLESS MAN IN EDEN AND THE INCARNATE ‘SON OF MAN’ IN THE WILDERNESS OF TEMPTATION

Read and compare Gen. 3:1-24 and Matt. 4:1-11, KJV.

“Christ paid a dear price for man’s redemption. In the wilderness of temptation He suffered the keenest pangs of hunger; and while He was emaciated with fasting [40 days/nights without food and water], Satan was at hand with manifold temptations to assail the Son of God, to take advantage of His WEAKNESS and overcome Him, and thus THWART the plan of salvation.

But Christ was STEADFAST. He OVERCAME in behalf of the race, that He might RESCUE them for the DEGRADATION of the Fall. Christ’s experience is for our benefit. HIS EXAMPLE IN OVERCOMING APPETITE POINTS OUT THE WAY [‘This is the way, walk ye in it.’] FOR THOSE WOULD BE HIS FOLLOWERS AND FINALLY SIT WITH HIM ON HIS THRONE.

“Christ suffered hunger in the fullest sense. Mankind generally has all that is needed to sustain life. And yes, like our first parents, they desire that which God would WITHHOLD because it is not best for them.

Christ suffered hunger for NECESSARY FOOD and resisted the temptation of Satan upon the point of APPETITE. INDULGENCE [self-pleasing] of intemperate appetite CREATES in fallen man UNNATURAL desires for the things which will EVENTUALLY prove his ruin.

“Man came from the hand of God PERFECT in every faculty of mind and body, in perfect soundness, therefore in PERFECT HEALTH. It took more than TWO THOUSAND YEARS of indulgence of appetite and lustful passions to create such a state of things in the human organism as would lessen VITAL force.

“Through successive generation the TENDENCY was more swiftly downward [Evolution teaches the exact opposite, contradicting the actual condition of mankind and the earth today, “as it was in the days of Noah”!].

Indulgence of appetite and passion COMBINED led to EXCESS, VIOLENCE, DEBAUCHERY AND ABOMINATION of every kind, weakened the energies and brought upon the race DISEASE of every type, until the vigor and glory of the FIRST GENERATION from Adam, man began to show signs of DECAY.
Successive generations AFTER the Flood degenerated MORE rapidly.” – E. G. White, Vol. 4, Testimonies for the Church, p. 29.

(To be continued). Review Genesis 6, 7 and Matt. 24: 37-39. Then, let all “examine himself and prove whether we are really in the faith” “of Jesus,” our Example.
Bless all, NMF

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Devotionals

TRUST wholly in the Almighty God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob

September 30, 2020

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:

TRUST wholly in the Almighty God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob

“His grace is SUFFICIENT for all our trials, and although they are GREATER NOW than ever before, yet if we trust WHOLLY in God, we can overcome every temptation, and through His grace come off as VICTORIOUS [daily, one day at a time].” (E. G. White, God’s Amazing Grace, p. 59).

Let all encourage one another to overcome as Jesus overcame and be part of the saints identified in Revelation as “they that overcome the beast and image” “by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony.” God bless all, NMF 

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Devotionals

FIRST, THE WILDERNESS OF TEMPTATION, GETHSEMANE, THEN CALVARY

August 20, 2020

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:

FIRST, THE WILDERNESS OF TEMPTATION, GETHSEMANE, THEN CALVARY (a wilderness, a garden, then a lonely hill)

“Satan had once challenged God, accusing [the patriarch] Job for serving Him for ULTERIOR [self-serving, self-promoting] motives. ‘Doth Job serve God for nought (nothing)?’ he had sneeringly asked.

Job 1:9.

“To show the falsity of Satan’s ACCUSATIONS, he was permitted [by God] to test Job. Satan applies every possible torture, but Job did not sin. At last Satan retired defeated. Job had STOOD THE TEST and proved Satan’s accusation false. ‘Though He slay me yet will I TRUST Him,’ he exclaimed. Job 13:15.”

Continue reading “FIRST, THE WILDERNESS OF TEMPTATION, GETHSEMANE, THEN CALVARY”
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Devotionals

THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT “Thou shalt not commit adultery.”

June 8 2020

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:

THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT.  “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Exo.20:14.

Jesus magnified this law by declaring: “You have heard that it was said to those of old ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever LOOKS at a woman to lust for her has ALREADY committed adultery with her in HIS HEART.” Matt. 5: 26,27, NKJV.

“When the thoughts of evil is loved and cherished, HOWEVER SECRETLY, said Jesus, it shows that sin STILL reigns in the heart. The soul is still in the gall of bitterness and in the BOND[AGE] of iniquity.

Continue reading “THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT “Thou shalt not commit adultery.””
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Devotionals

BEWARE OF OUR OLD SUPERSTITIONS & FEARS

June 5, 2020

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:

BEWARE OF OUR OLD SUPERSTITIONS & FEARS

As the Israelites impatiently waited for Moses (reminding us of how impatiently the first king of Israel, Saul, waited for prophet Samuel, and committed his first apostasy), something happened that lead worst things:

“Feeling their HELPLESSNESS in the absence  of their leader, they RETURNED  to their OLD SUPERSTITIONS.

“The ‘mixed multitude’ had been the first to INDULGE murmurings and impatience, and they were the LEADERS in the APOSTASY that followed.

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