Joan Boney ... apostle/prophet
The Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays are extremely fleshly and have a power over the flesh which for us can produce unnecessary trouble unless we are alert and sober in thinking.
There is so much before us on television showing what we are supposed to be on this earth to have a full life. It is easy for wrong thinking to creep in giving us some vain imagination concerning doing something that can seem right but have wrong consequences.
This is what God used this year to sober me up.
Col. 3 ... 1 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. 2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. 3 For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
The life of the worldly people is on this present earth.
But my life is not on this present earth with them. I'm dead with Christ and my life is hid from their view. My life is even hid from my own view when compared with the fun and celebration the people have here during these festive months. It doesn't seem I have a life, but I do. It is just remembering that my life is in Christ, not in the activities of this world.
Do not underestimate the power of the flesh during this season for the pull of the pleasures of this world can be very strong for the next few weeks.
If you find you have slipped into a little depression then realize you have let the influence of the world get to you.
When we belong to God, we are new creatures. The old man is now dead to this world. We keep the flesh crucified by refusing to allow it to reign as it would desire to do, and by focusing on the concept that we are buried with Christ now, dead to this world. We are now in Christ. Our life is in HIM. As a woman's life is in her husband, our life is in Christ.
Romans 6 ... 3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? 4Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. 5For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: 6Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. 7For he that is dead is freed from sin. 8Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: 9Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. 10For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. 11Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. 12Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. 13Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. 14For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.
The Bible is our guide. God did not tell us to celebrate the birth of Christ as the world (who knows not the Spirit) tries to do. All these celebrations are without the Spirit of God. They are born of the flesh of man and have a puffed up vision attached to them. And no matter how hard humans try to live up to that vision it falls short and there is a little let down.
It just won't work for it is not authored by God but has been set up by man.
Remember, we are dead to this world ... our life is hid in HIM.