Monday's Message, "THE NATURE OF THE DOVE"

Good Evening to All!

This post is part of Serve One Another in Love's "Monday Message"

I truthfully couldn't make up my mind what to post on. I enjoy the Sunday School Lessons and the Worship Services. Maybe I can break this into two parts and talk about both. I really enjoyed our Sunday School Lesson because our Pastor got down to the nitty-gritty and ask us some questions that, I don't know about anyone else that was there, but it made me stop and examine my attitudes.

"The Nature of the Dove"

Text: James 3:17: But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. This is why the Dove is a symbol of the Spirit of God.

Our Pastor explained how after the flood, Noah sent out a raven first to see if the waters were going down, but the raven never returned. The reason for this is because he found food and rest by hopping from the corpses floating in the water. The raven is a known scavenger and also a symbol of darkness. The dove, however, is to birds as the lamb is to animals. This bird equates to gentleness.

I have said all of the above to get to this point. The symbol of the Holy Ghost is a dove. Which included the attributes of the fruits of the Spirit, "love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. When we receive the Holy Ghost, the "old man is cast off" and a new creature is "born". (paraphrasing). The thing is, too many people think just because they received the Holy Ghost, these things will be automatic. They are not. A person can receive the Holy Ghost, and remain the same. This happens because we have to cultivate the Holy Ghost attributes. God gave us free will, so if we let our flesh over-ride the unction of the Holy Ghost then we will remain the same. This is NOT A GOOD THING. We need to nurture our new man. Read our Bible, study to see what God truly wants us to be like. Let Him mold us. Tell Him not my will, but THY's will be done, and then follow through. Start practicing on implementing the attributes in our lives.

We have to change to be able to fellowship with God. Just like His Word says that NO SIN is allowed in Heaven, He cannot live where there is sin. Therefore, we must change what's in our hearts so that He can in-dwell us and live within us.

My Pastor also asked us a question: "What are some things that can destroy the 'Peace of God' in our life"? Of course we all started naming things off, but after the first couple, someone mentioned "pride". That's a biggie that encompasses a lot of things, some of which we may not even realize as being bad.

Pride is more than just being "boastful". There is also good pride ( pride in Serving the Lord and giving Him the glory for everything you do) and there is bad pride. This kind of pride will "send you where you don't want to go". This type of pride can separate you from God for ever. What "some people" call being self-sufficient, to God is pride. NO one but NO one is self-sufficient. Believing we can make our way "all on our own" will get us nothing but heartache.

I've had people tell me "I worked hard to get where I am". I did this and I did that! Boy! Does that get to me! God gave you the brains to get there! He provided the opportunity for your schooling, He provided the opening for the job! Get over yourself!

Getting upset because you don't get "credit" for everything you do, is also a type of pride. In everything you do, do it in the name of the Lord.

God is behind all that is good, yet we tend to forget that. Kind of like the "big bang theory" it just happened! No such thing as the big bang theory, or if there was, God made it happen! LOL! I choose to believe God's Word about how the earth was formed, thank you very much.

Needless to say, we spent the majority of the Sunday school time talking about pride. He plans on continuing the rest of the lesson next week.

The Worship service was awesome. That is why I decided to change my prayer at the top of my blog for a while.

For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.

He created us. He breathed His breath into us to give us life. Without Him we cannot move, think, or do anything else.

If we are not in focus with God, then everything else in our life will be out of sync.

In Exodus it talks about the extent of the love for God the people had. From the sounds of it, they wanted all the good things that God had to offer, but when it came to showing Him love and living for Him, that is where it stopped. the picture to the side reminds me of the "old saying" when the cat's away the mice will play. When Moses and Joshua went up Mount Sinai to see God, they were gone for 40 days. During that time, the people became restless and started to fall back to the ways of when they were in Egypt, worshipping an idol. In a sense we tend to do the same thing. Not with golden idols of course, but it other ways. For example, if we don't go to church regularly then we tend to start making excuses why not to go. We need church to learn about the ways of God, and to keep our thoughts upon Him, because the "world" has a tendency to try and crowd Him out of our lives by doing its best to "replace Him with other "stuff". We need to do something with God In mind EVERY DAY and remember God sees everything we do, just as He saw what the Israelites were doing.

We need to stop and re-evaluate our own lives and way of thinking about this subject. How much love are We actually willing to show God? Saying it is not showing Him love. Only our actions will show Him how much we care for Him. We can go to church seven days a week, but if our Christian attitudes stay in church, then that is not showing love. I remember a verse which talks about "doing for the least of them", is doing for Christ. That is love, studying His Word, that is showing that you care enough to learn about Him. That is love. Being humble to God, that is love. Being infilled with the Holy Ghost and showing forth the fruit of the Spirit, that is showing love for Him.

I learn so much every service I go to. Whenever I hear someone say, "I didn't get anything out of the service", I always tell them, "you must not have been listening with your heart".

The Answers to the Bible Challenge are as follows:
1. d) swifter than leopards (Habakkuk 1:8)
2. d) Micah (Micah 5:2)
3. a) Isaiah (Isaiah 7:14)
4. b) Habakkuk (Habakkuk 2:1)
5. a) Isaiah (21:9)
6. a) Hosea (Hosea 1:2)
7. b) love his wife (Hosea 3:1)
8. c) Christ's entry into Jerusalem on a donkey (Zechariah 9:9)
9. fire (Matthew 3:11)
10. d) Revelation (Revelation 6:1-8)

Good Night and May God Bless!