Joan Boney ... apostle/prophet
James 1:26 If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.
***
Sometimes we will start to say something and feel a "check" in our Spirit. It is good to restrain ourselves from speaking when that happens.
But if we have evil in our hearts, that is what will come out of our mouths.
So we have to work, through God, to keep our hearts clean after we are born again for pollutions of the thinking of men of this present world and thoughts coming from devil can cause us to be defiled.
Proverbs 4:23 Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.
The ways of the flesh, the world, TV, secular books, often present concepts directly opposite to the ways of God.
Some TV shows are so steeped in the goodness of man that we can forget what God has to say about man.
Genesis 6:5 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Revelation 5:4 And I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look thereon.
II Timothy 3:13 But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.
When I see a TV show, I would rather see men for what they are than to see them as good people for I know by the Bible what humans really are. (I know what I am except for God controlling me through HIS Word.)
That righteousness we seek will not be a part of this present earth but is the new heaven and the new earth.
II Peter 3:13 Nevertheless we, according to HIS promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
Until then, we have to keep our own flesh under the control of the Spirit of God and to refuse to allow it to rise up in us through our tongue. We put our tongue to death by the Spirit of God who dwells in us.
Colossians 3:5-8 Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: For which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience: In the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them. But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth.
***
When I see a football player kneeling in the end zone in prayer, I grieve.
I know such things as this are men trying to show other men their own righteousness.
But when I see a football player whacking another football player, I know this is real, the flesh of man, not trying to be good in himself, for the flesh of man has no good in him.
These are truths I know by the Bible.
So to look for the men of this earth to be good and righteous is to deceive myself.
***
Paul said to Timothy:
I Timothy 4:13 Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.
This I do daily.
***
But I also see TV programs and I read secular books... but when I see them portraying the goodness of man then I am troubled, for I know this is not true.
Only by God is man good.
And those religious things shown on TV are religion by the image of man and are not real but are only religion in the eyes of man.
And when man praises man, I look for evil because I know when you follow God, man persecutes you and calls you evil.
And often God will remind me of a scripture to set me straight when I see TV or read a secular book.
*****