. . . but our flesh is weak (Matthew 26:41)! Humanly speaking, no matter how hard we try not to, we still sin. <\/p>\n
God addresses this inherent weakness of humanity in Deuteronomy 5:29: "Oh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear Me and always keep all My commandments that it might be well with them and with their children forever!"<\/p>\n
In the Bible we see that human beings have a heart problem. Becoming godly in our thoughts, attitudes and actions is beyond the comprehension and ability of men and women without an additional ingredient – God's Spirit. <\/p>\n
The coming of the holy spirit dramatically changed the lives of the early Christians. The same spirit is available to us today.<\/p>\n
God's spirit combines with our human spirit and provides an additional dimension of knowledge and strength that we do not have on our own.<\/p>\n
"The spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the spirit of God" (1 Corinthians 2:10-11).<\/p>\n
What change does that spirit make possible in our thinking? "We have the mind of Christ" (verse 16).<\/p>\n
God's way of thinking produces peace, happiness and concern for others. Jesus complimented a lawyer who correctly quoted the essence of God's law: "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind" and "[love] your neighbor as yourself" (Luke 10:27). <\/p>\n
God's gift of the holy spirit on Pentecost makes it possible for the church to express God's commandments of love.. <\/p>\n
With these thoughts I wish us all a wonderful Feast of Pentecost!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
. . . but our flesh is weak (Matthew 26:41)! Humanly speaking, no matter how hard we try not to, we still sin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sabbath-thoughts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucog.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucog.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucog.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucog.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucog.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ucog.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucog.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucog.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucog.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}