Joan Boney ... apostle/prophet
We are not kept by a church or a preacher or another human or even by our tying to learn.
We are kept by The Word of God, by The Word God speaks to our hearts and to our minds.
God just puts HIS Word directly into our minds to deliver us when we are about to go the wrong way so we can consider what HE says to us and we can control our own flesh by HIS Word.
Salvation is of God, by HIS will.
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We grow in Christ when we do what HE tells us by HIS Spirit.
We are changed when we are born again and then we continue throughout our life to change into the image of Christ as the Holy Spirit brings us HIS Word and we choose to conform to that Word.
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As long as we live on this earth, we change and continue to live in HIM as we choose to go in the way of The Word that God puts into our mind by HIS Spirit.
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It is not a matter of saving ourselves by learning as humans would learn in a class in school where they have to do it themselves.
Rather we learn to trust in God that HE will keep us and show us HIS way.
We read the Bible, but we learn and are kept by that which God brings to our mind.
Until you learn to go this way, you will be trusting in yourself while you think you are trusting in God. Instead as a little child is dependent upon his father, we learn a life where we depend on God.
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An interesting example: Recently Pam Padgett did a small remodel job at her house. She began the project by praying. But then she took over and tried to figure it out by her own thinking. She purchased a computer software package which allowed her to lay out rooms on the computer and see what they would be like. (I'm sure this was great fun to do.) One good thing did result from this program. Pam had wanted to remodel her kitchen and when she put her ideas on screen on her computer she found she didn't like her ideas for her kitchen.
But Pam had a blockage that she didn't know about and that was causing the confusion that was to come as she tried to do the project.
She got so mixed up along the way. And was sometimes even terrified over the thought of making a mistake.
One morning, she had prayed and told God she really had to know what to do about where to install the new shower.
Without talking to Pam and without knowing she was praying, that same afternoon, I heard: "Put the shower in the little bathroom."
Pam was wanting to move the laundry room to the space where the little bathroom is and then put the little bathroom where the laundry room had been.
This became very confusing.
After I finally delivered the exact word I had heard, it simplified everything.
And something came out which had been hidden inside Pam.
It turns out Pam had taken in some negative words concerning the placement of the little bathroom, thinking it needed to be more hidden and private. But God cleared this up by reminding her of the house she wanted to buy. In that house the 1/2 bath was in exactly the same location as her current 1/2 bath and she had no problem with the location.
We can take destructive ideas into our minds so easily ... and later those wrong thoughts can wreck destruction and even keep us from the way we should go.
But even in this, God is stronger and can straighten out our thinking and set us upon the path that is best for us.
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God keeps us by the Word HE brings by HIS Spirit. That Word from God in the matter at hand is not always a scripture. Often it is just a concept which opens our eyes to see what to do.
I struggled with a defective TV for more than a year.
One day, as I was trying once more to tune the TV, the following WORD came to my mind: "You do not have to put up with that."
Then I realized I could resolve the problem by buying another TV, which I did immediately. I just had the installer of the new TV carry the old TV away from my house. I did not fret over what to do with the old TV.
When you have the WORD on the way to go, you just go that way.
James 3
13-17
But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth.
This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.
For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.
But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.
(By these characteristics we are assured of the wisdom that is from God.)
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