1 John 2:16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.

Nothing breeds contempt for God more than success. Only in this passage are the words “pride of life” put together. Why is that?

We reach out to the hurting, those who need help, those that feel the pain of a life that is not successful. We do so because we have been there where they are and we found a way out of our despair. Those with “pride of life” look to nothing but their own success, their own satisfaction, their own desires.

When we were lost sinners those successful people turned a blind eye to us because we had nothing they wanted, they were users, not givers. This is why our witness is strongest with those that suffered as we suffered. Our experiences are not uncommon but most of us do not live our lives pointing out what we were that is not evident in the life we live now. The life we live now has to speak for itself.

For example, I post these devotionals on facebook, X and hiscup.net and I post nothing there but these articles. In facebook I belong to different groups, family, high school mates, and special interest groups. I am not different in those groups, I just do not flood the group with the gospel. Anyone in those other groups are free to check my profile and see what I post. Some follow, some do not.

I’ve heard that a zealot cannot change his mind and will not change the subject. That really wears on people and they stop listening. I have other interests and opinions but I only share those where it is appropriate. I blend in without changing who I am.

My example from Jesus is in how He could be with sinners without changing. He did not call them out for their sins and shielded them from the Pharisees of that time. A shield does not mean a behavior is acceptable, only that He was willing to keep them from the pain inflicted by others.

John 3:17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

In order to seek approval from God, one must first see there is a God and secondly that He loves them. Jesus showed them He is love and that was attractive.

Show the love and then they will want to know how we got there.

The path of the righteous walks with Jesus.

Genesis 5:3 When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.

Colossians 1:22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him,

We are created beings, there was no DNA from God that made us what we are, elementary components, with iron based blood.

Genesis 2:7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

We cannot birth anything but what we are, what is in our DNA. God did not create us using His DNA for God is Spirit. How we get to be with God again, because the first Adam was with God, is not because of our DNA. It is done by reconciliation, what God has done to solve our absence in this relationship that our DNA cannot give us at birth.

To explain that perhaps this singular example will explain part of it. My father suffered PTSD before I was born. He did not pass it down to me at birth. I have PTSD only because of the choices I have made in my life. I chose to go to war. The choices we make determine the consequences we encounter. Some are good, many are bad.

Now God set in place an option for reconciliation to solve this dilemma of spiritual death that we were born with. The problem lies within the character of God called justice. God cannot accept injustice and the consequences must be accepted. Since we cannot reconcile our sins to God’s satisfaction, He made a way to pay for our sins without us suffering the consequences.

Romans 8:1-4 English Standard Version

Life in the Spirit

1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

God made a way for us to enter into a life with Christ, who reconciled sin for us. We have to choose to place our faith in Christ.That is a conscious choice, a free will choice, that allows us to live a new life, because in Christ we have already died to sin.

Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,