2 That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God.
3 For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries:
7 But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.
***
Comments by Joan Boney:
The apostle Peter told us how we should live as we wait for the coming of Jesus:
II Peter 3
11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,
12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
13 Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
14 Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of Him in peace, without spot, and blameless.
***
Comments by Joan Boney:
When a person is "wise in his own eyes," I cannot live in peace with that person.
I cannot live in peace when a person is a scoffer.
And when a person lacks basic common sense and goes about everything the hard way, without prayer, I cannot live in peace with that person.
I have experienced each of the above and these people trouble me and I have learned to walk away and not to try to be with them.
To live in peace and to set ourselves deliberately to live in peace, avoiding things and people who trouble us, is for us a way of life in these end time days.
Be sober: keep a clear mind so we can be watchful and continue in God's way to the end, is the important thing for us.
To do this takes a deliberate avoidance of troubling people and troubling things, like TV shows or shopping experiences or activities.
***
I have a Church of Christ cousin that I cannot be around. She has the appearance of godliness and lives a very moral life, but her way is not the way of God. for she lives in trouble and concern and when you are around her she casts her cares on you and troubles you.
She has shown me that she will not do the following:
Philippians 4:6 Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
Therefore I have not tried to communicate with her for approximately a year.
***
Dream: July 9, 2020
Vicious, dirty cats got into my house. I had a wooden cane and guided them out the door. Then I turned around and these cats were back in my house. Two women were leaving the door open and the cats were coming back in through the open door. I realized I was one of the women leaving the door open so they could get back in. Don't open doors.
We open doors by calling them by phone and by asking them how they are doing. We know how they are doing when they reject the word of God and will not do the specific scriptures that they can be helped. We are just wanting that fleshly association with those people who trouble us. And each time we reach out to them, we are troubled again, to no avail.
The apostle Paul says: They are "Silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." (II Tim. 3:6-7)
They run from church meeting to church meeting but they fail to do the word of God.
This is what we must do concerning such people:
During the past few months, God has been teaching me to just walk away from them after I have warned them and they will not receive the godly warning.
It is amazing how much peace we can live in when we do this instruction of Titus 3:10-11.
But along the way, our own flesh and devils will try to get us to contact them again and to see "how" they are doing. Our flesh desires that flesh of the other person, especially that of relatives. We can deceive ourselves in this matter unless we keep scripture such as Titus 3:10-11 in front of us and choose to go that way.
The apostle Paul also tells us to withdraw from such persons in another scripture:
II Timothy 3
1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
They say they are Christians and they attend church: (Having a form of godliness.) But they deny the power of God, failing to call on God and failing to receive from God, thereby living in their troubles rather than settling their troubles with God. "from such turn away."
You will not be able to live with them in peace as we have to do as we wait for Jesus.
Instead select to be around those persons who do not trouble you.
God put me in the home of Pam Padgett. She never troubles me. We are the same Spirit. It is amazing. When we are both led by the Spirit of God and one of us gets "off" a little, it isn't very long before God straightens us out again and we go forward in the peace of God.
We can't do that with unbelievers. (Most who say they are Christians are unbelievers and live in secular, defeated ways and such will always trouble those who overcome through God.)
A woman in our little church group has for many years tried to associate with her Baptist relatives. She shares things of God with them and they never receive those scriptures. Finally she decided, after meditating in such scriptures as Titus 3:10-11 and I Peter 4:1-2, that she cannot continue doing this and she must avoid them. When an aunt tried recently to call, she just didn't answer the phone and didn't return the call.
When we begin to meditate in scripture, that scripture rises up in us and overcomes our own flesh and causes us to do the will of God according to scripture.
Paul says: "I can do all things through Christ (The Word) which strengtheneth me."
"Christ" is THE WORD, the scriptures. When we have a scripture leading us and we keep that scripture before us day and night, that scripture gives us the power to put down our own fleshly ways in order to do the instruction of that scripture, when we keep the scripture before us day and night.
If we go in the flesh we will fail.
***
I had a friend that I cared about as a daughter. But she was a "scorn filled" woman. She loved to tell me what other people had done wrong. She didn't do this as a teaching example. She just delighted in her own mind and felt the other people to be inferior and cited their shocking ways by saying things like, "Can you believe they did that?"
Psalm 1
2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in His law doth he meditate day and night.
Also this woman rejected scripture when I presented verses to her and she continued in her own way which was idolatry at her church which she faithful attended.
I had to separate myself from her and avoid her and resist opening door to her where she could come back into my life. no emails, no phone calls, no openings to her to enter into "my house" where she would trouble me.
Just do the scripture which separates me from the unruly church goer. And resist the temptation brought by my own flesh and by devils to contact her and speak again with her.
Concerning this woman, God said to me: "If she comes saying she did such & such because of a specific scripture, pay attention." That has not happened.
***
And there is a church goer who lacks common sense. That type of person wants to follow me and to have me pray while she fails to pray in faith, believing in God. She knows God hears me but she isn't sure God hears her.
I John 5
15 And if we know that HE hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of HIM.
When God withholds understanding from a person who says he is a Christian, it is serious.
All who are Christians have direct access to God through Jesus, The Word. If they cannot believe the Word, we can't help them.
Understanding is from God.
Some who think themselves to be Christian are actually turned over by God to a reprobate mind to do those things "which are not convenient."
Romans 1
28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
We can't follow God with them, and they do often come into churches ... but they trouble the real people of God.
They often seem weak but they are likely reprobate because they would not do the scripture when they had an opportunity to do them.
Hebrews 3
19 So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.
II Timothy 3
***
God gives wisdom and understanding.
We cannot give them such. Only God can do that. If God chooses to give HIS wisdom to them, then let them return to us but we cannot return to them.
We must live in peace and we cannot do that with them.
*****