He was IMPRISONED In IRAN for Being A CHRISTIAN (MUST WATCH!)

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and Learns the Shocking Truth About Salvation! — NDE (Near Death Experience)

Jesus did not elevate those who taught the doctrine of men:
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. 
Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men,
but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. Matthew 23:27-28

These people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.
This is a repeated admonition from Isaiah.
These religious-types who exalt themselves have been around a while.
They miss it.
They appear to be holy and to want to serve the Lord.
Their focus? Themselves and their righteousness. They love to be honored.
A true teacher, who walks with Jesus and understands the heart of God,
leads others to their own relationship with Jesus
and helps strengthen their walk and their knowledge of Him and His word.
These people who lead others to themselves and their knowledge
are fakes and phonies. False christs and false prophets.
The Christian church is filled with them. They are detestable to God.
This people draweth nigh unto Me with their mouth,
and honoureth Me with their lips; but their heart is far from Me. Matthew 15:8

Man’s doctrine is not truly following the Lord. It is following man’s doctrine.
How do you know the difference?
What is the teacher teaching?
What does he or she circle back to?
Is it the word?
You must know the word to know whether or not it is the word.
And even then, Satan can twist the word by his religious spirits.

Jesus explained what the leaven means.
How is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees?
Then understood they how that he bade them not
beware of the leaven of bread,
but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. Matthew 16:12-13

Immediately following these scriptures,
Jesus asked Peter who he thought He was.
When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? 
And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. 
He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? 
And Simon Peter answered and said,
Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Matthew 16:14-16
This is a further explanation of what the Lord was trying to teach His disciples.
He wanted them to know Him:
That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection,
and the fellowship of His sufferings,
being made conformable unto His death; Philippians 3:10
No man can teach any of us that. The Holy Spirit has to open our eyes.
While men can quote the scripture, each of us has to hear from the Lord
and be shown who He is, otherwise,
we will not understand that He is the risen Savior who died to take away our sins. The Savior who stands between us and God and mediates on our behalf.
Some people will never understand.
Man’s doctrine is not going to teach you that.
His word, combined with the revelation of the Holy Spirit will teach you that.

Those who walk about deciding what is holy and unholy,
who tell that the precepts of men are the way to the Father. That is hypocrisy.

The goodness of God leads to repentance,
not the heavy shackles of those who think they have figured out the law
and its meaning contrary to grace.
Grace triumphs over Judgment.
For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy;
and mercy rejoiceth against judgment. James 2:13

Too easy, right?
If you don’t know what to do, ask God for wisdom.
He will give you wisdom. It’s a promise, a surety.
God gives generously to all who ask Him for wisdom.
You can ask God and He will honor that request, you will not be ashamed.
He will give you wisdom in any situation, in any crisis, any time you ask.
It is not the same as asking a godly person, even a pastor or a preacher.
God did not say ask your friend or your parent or your pastor or your teacher.
Ask God if you lack wisdom and He will give you His wisdom.
If you ask a trusted person, you will get their limited wisdom.
No human is all-knowing as is Jesus.
Ask God if you lack wisdom.
He will not hold back. He will give you what you ask for. His wisdom.

Solomon received much wisdom all at once.
This scripture is telling us, as we ask, in any given situation, any time, even in the midst of the storm, the conversation you are having, the crisis you are involved in, to ask God and He will give you His wisdom.

Any decision you need to make.
Any time you are not sure about something.
Ask God.
He will respond with His wisdom which is greater than any other method of gaining wisdom. Simply ask God.
It is a humble act to go before God to ask Him for His wisdom:

Prayer:
I am coming before You since you are the most wise God, Maker of Heaven and Earth. You know how I am to move forward in this situation or perhaps even wait. I am trusting You to give me Your wisdom, in Jesus’ Mighty Name, Amen.

We are to occupy until Jesus returns.
Whatever that means for you, make your time count.
Our efforts for Jesus will be all that matters.

Seek the Lord for plans.
We need His wisdom now. Without it, we will be lost.
If we look back on history,
there were many persons before us who encountered difficult times.
These are ours and God will see us through.
He will help guide us and will support us in whatever He asks us to do.

The instructions have always been the same.
Stay close to the Lord
Let His word be a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.
He will fight for us, He will never fail us nor forsake us.
If we are given the honor to become a martyr,
He will give us the strength we need to endure.

Lord, help us to abide in You as we see the day drawing near.

And ye shall be hated of all men for My name’s sake:
but he that endureth to the end shall be saved. Matthew 10:22

God had ways to help His people remember Him. He told Moses to have the people make blue fringe on their garments so they would remember His commands. He told them to wear frontlets on their forehead so they would remember. God told His people to tell of all the things He had done in all their generations so they didn’t forget Who God was. They needed God every day for food and water. He put a pillar of fire by night and a cloud by day for them to follow. They still forgot about Him sometimes.

It can be easy to forget God for a moment, which can be for longer if allowed to go on. One step toward sin, and things can go awry quickly. Jesus said, Watch and pray. The world itself can be a god or an idol. Loving the world is idolatry.

That I may take the house of Israel in their own heart,
because they are all estranged from Me through their idols.
Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord God;
Repent, and turn yourselves from your idols;
and turn away your faces from all your abominations. Ezekiel 14:5-6

When we do not put God first, we are being unfaithful to God. Our God is a Jealous God. He demands first place. If you wish to serve Him, don’t do it half-way. When Jesus is not the most important of everything in our lives, we are only partially surviving Him. He is worthy of all of our attention and affection.

It is so hard to like some people
Jesus never told us we had to like people
He showed us to be kind, forgiving, loving, but liking, nah.
Some people are not likeable. They don’t even try to be.

The same goes for you: not everyone will like you.

Some people don’t like us. That does not help anything to know that
because it is difficult for us to understand how they feel.
But when we don’t like someone, it can be rough.

Keep a check in your heart and try not to focus on your dislike,
making your list of wrongs, as we are instructed not to do in 1 Corinthians 13.

Help us, O help us, Lord.

Some people like everyone, pretty much.
The annoying things don’t bother them as much.
There are some people who just talk about things we have no interest in,
things we find distasteful.
Some of us have been sheltered
and have had a smaller people experience than others,
due to life choices or circumstances of where they live,
where they work and their life experiences.

People who have not had solid people in their lives,
especially when they were growing up, can be less adaptable to people in life.
They may have never learned how to overlook things
or maybe they have been in the habit of criticizing.
Criticizing doesn’t help much.
It tends to makes things worse, makes it harder to be kind or gracious.
When we aren’t supposed to make a list of wrongs,
criticizing makes us concentrate on those things that irritate us.
Sharing our irritations with others so they can commiserate with us…
It’s all bad. We shouldn’t do any of it.

Help us, O help us, Lord.

Those of us who have grace and kindness are going to please the Lord.
Help us to have more grace and kindness even when people try our limits.
The battles are getting worse, harder, more darkness is in the world,
and then if we combine that with our flesh and do not demonstrate the love God asks of us, we are missing it.

People will be people. Let God’s word rise above our lofty thoughts.

I leave you with this:

And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another,
even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you. Ephesians 4:32

When I was first a Christian, I was still vexed by much darkness as I had been involved with new age and other darkness. I learned very quickly if I read the Holy Bible out loud, or even to myself, I seemed to be at peace. It made no difference where I read, anywhere was powerful. Jesus calmed the storms.

As our world gets more filled with dark things that are not of God, things that are from men or other areas, such as the occult, the waves of deception, keeping His word on our minds will help us stay focused on the good and the beneficial things.

Memorize His word. Memorize individual scriptures and whole chapters and psalms. Find a way to hide His word in your heart. This has to be a priority. We have access to the Holy Bible now while it is day. The night is coming when no man can work. but there is no guarantee we always will have God’s Word as readily available as it is now. Some would even like the Bible to be considered hate speech.

Even now, we cannot read the bible whenever we want. We need to know some of it by heart so that in those moments when we need to hear God’s word, it is easily accessible to us.

I always wanted to be the son that said yes and did what the Lord asked:
Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send,
and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me. Isaiah 6:8

Procrastinator by nature? Possibly. Fleshly nature more likely.
Sometimes it takes a little time to get on board with the Lord, fully.
More prayer is needed to receive His strength
and to realize the importance of His request.

Some commands are for all of us,
and then there are specific things that He asks of each of us.
Some of the most difficult commands are the hardest ones
and there is no way to escape them in any given situation.
Such as love your enemies or forgive from the bottom of your heart.

Those seem to come up over and over
and we are reminded that being obedient is better than sacrifice.
Fast all you want and pray all you want and help all the people you want,
but if you choose to ignore basic commands, such as,
love your neighbor as yourself, you are missing it.

When He prompts you to do something, make it a priority.
Somehow, the other things will fall into place, or not.
it might be some of those other things, that are valued so highly,
might not be where Jesus wants us to spend our time and attention.

Whether you delay your obedience
or make every effort to keep His requests first on your list,
do what He tells you to do and value His thoughts above your own.
Take your position of humanness.
His kingdom is so different than how we would build a kingdom.
His Kingdom is perfect as is He.
And we please Him when we obey what He asks of us.

And Samuel said, Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings
and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, 
and to hearken than the fat of rams. 1 Samuel 15:22