Job 7:13-15 When I say, My bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaints; Then thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions: So that my soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than my life.

No one should ever practice child abuse but this is an ugly world and there are those who do just that. In this spiritual life child abuse would be using scare tactics to control and manipulate new Christians. There are harsh words in the bible which can be used to scare young Christians.

Ephesians 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

It sure feels like we are wrestling against flesh and blood when people use fear tactics to control us. The real enemy is Satan and these controlling manipulative people are doing his dirty work. Cut off the head and the body will follow.

John 8:44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

When Jesus was tempted of the devil He combated those lies with truth, quoting scripture. In order to combat these child abusers you need to know the truth and who better to share truth with you than the Spirit of Truth. Perhaps the hardest and most essential lesson you will ever learn is in how to hear the Holy Spirit.

John 3:8 The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

What was that?

1 Corinthians 16:14 (ESV) Let all that you do be done in love.

The word love here is translated from the Greek word agape which is the love of God, perfect in all its performance. The key here is performance as the verse indicates “in all things that you do”.

Is your motivation in everything you do because God loves you? Is your motivation to prove to God that you love Him? In many ways I see those motivations as emotional responses of a live lived in the past. My mother loved me and I wanted to show her I loved her. Whatever she asked of me I did because I wanted to prove myself to her. When it came to other things she was not a consideration. I acted out by my own nature, who I was inside without her.

Now God dwells in our hearts by faith. Do you think our God can dwell in our hearts without knowing how we truly feel? My actions now cannot be to show God what He already knows but to show others that the God of love dwells in me by allowing Him to love them in ways I myself cannot. That can only happen if I have changed, not doing the agape thing by motivation but because that is now who I am inside.

Those charismatics that I once worship with were always telling me “I love you with the love of God.” When they said that all I could hear was “I don’t have any love of my own for you.” If they truly love me with agape love, then their deeds would speak about that love and words would not be necessary.

1 John 3:18 (ESV) Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.