It’s been shown by neuroscience that only strong reinforcement of learning, the fancy term for homework, lol, does the job. For instance, one expert said 90 percent of language learners don’t get fluency because they don’t practice practical sentences and I’m making the highly probable statement that people lose at math because they don’t do enough problems!

 

But how does that connect to our Christian Walk? Well, Jesus mentioned that following his example produces fruit unto salvation. He also suggests only doers of the law are justified, after saying phony Christians are turned away brutally at judgement (“I never knew you “) and also there is The Parable of the Talents, where the same main idea is expressed, the idea that you hadn’t been an active disciple, or at least, active enough to meet the standard.

 

But the target word here is “active”, much as a language learner should struggle with practical sentences or a math student should do 30 math problems a day.

From my own thoughts now, I was thinking how you can’t truly follow Christ and worldly things.

In fact, someone not following Christ, in a true sense, is a fake believer or someone who doesn’t claim to be a believer, and the fake believers are pointed out often in Scripture.

Jesus spoke of God saying “I never knew you.”, of how people’s righteousness should exceed that of the religious teacher’s of his time, and God, himself, spoke to an Old Testament prophet saying “I am honored with lips, but hearts are far from me “.

But what is the way to the true faith?  Well, from The Parable of the Sower, it is said that some seed fell on good soil, not the thorns of worldly lust, and not on shallow soil where deep roots could not grow, where, even those with more noble intentions than materialistic sellouts, for instance, could still not survive discomfort (persecution etc ).

But it’s useful to know that we throw our own seed. We determine our spiritual lives and whether it lands on prime farmland or not.

Therefore, we can say that a lack of knowledge and/or an unwillingness to follow the knowledge, destroys our Christian Walk.

No doubt some people work hard in life, maybe they even work hard without resorting to what many see as wickedness, but yet there is no God behind the scenes.  In fact, it’s just the people doing all the work.

 

But what is wrong with that?  Well, I see with people like that an emptiness.  I see also there might be bad things going on with them, that I don’t know about, perhaps curses that exist despite the prosperity.  I mean, do we know all that goes on with people?

 

So my conclusion is that work effort, because it’s the adult thing to do, is not a good path, unless it’s somehow some preparation for work effort because God motivated it.  Nonetheless, I might be wrong about that.  Well, how do you all feel about it?  Feel free to say in the comments or in the forum discussion about this post.

 

Now there is another type of prosperity without God, and this resorts to what most people see as in your face wickedness.  In that case, we can say that such people are storing up wrath as explained in Paul’s writings in the New Testament.  In fact, they are just using up an evil credit card, so to speak and payments will have to eventually be made.   And some of these people, have worked hard, but it’s all for evil causes.

 

But even another thought is that perhaps the people without in-your face wickedness are also storing up wrath, because ultimately, living without God is also wickedness, but I do think God sees it differently as far as motivation.

 

The final thought on this post is that despite what’s said, because so much churches are corrupted, it’s often difficult to reach sinners, so would it be no shock if many lead godless lives?   But the level of responsibility, though, is something for only God to truly judge, it’s beyond the scope of what I could say.

 

Good times create weak people, weak people create bad times, bad times create strong people, strong people create good times.

No doubt this cycle is seen in the Bible, The Book of Mormon and countless lives of people.  I’m not sure how many lives operate like this, maybe all of them do, I’m not sure, but it would be a lot.

 

But the question is: “How can we keep good times from spoiling us, so to make us weak and lead to bad times?“.  That’s a question people ask in their minds while reading scripture.  I mean, it seems like it’s the main way Satan leads God’s People away from God.   But again, “How can people keep their guard up when times are good?“.

 

Well, one way would definitely be keeping in remembrance the bad times.  For instance, the Israelites were once slaves and oppressed in Egypt, so religious leaders in the future would keep bringing that up, but apparently it wasn’t enough to prevent the fall of the Northern and Southern Kingdoms of Israel, but we have to say the prophets at least tried.

 

But sometimes, prophets win.  In the case of Nineveh, the people repented and God changed his mind.  He didn’t judge Nineveh.  But it was never told why people were repentant there, but not in the case of the Southern and Northern Kingdoms, whose areas were eventually conquered by foreign armies.  I suppose it’s because people were so spoiled that nothing could reach them.  They would have become like the seed that was choked by thorns in  Jesus’ Parable of the Sower.

The old saying says “You shouldn’t being a knife to a gun fight.”. And in fact, Satan has a gun fight ready, or worse.  But how can you prepare for a spiritual gun fight, or worse?

 

Well, the key to prepare is to Walk in the Light. In other words, your life must be lead by The Holy Ghost; it must be holy.

 

But being holy isn’t being perfect or holier-than-thou.  In fact, it’s a very natural way to live,big you simply submit to The Holy Ghost daily

 

Yeah, Jesus loves us, but who loves him?  And how do you love him? You love him by obeying his moral commands.  It’s not about lip-service, but real action.

John 14:15

“If you [really] love Me, you will keep and obey My commandments.”

 

But the emphasis of this article is about who loves him?  He has said he loves us first, but we need to reciprocate the love.

1 John 4: 19

“We love Him, because He first loved us.”

 

Well, to relate this to real life, I’d say showing you love someone would involve action.  Let’s say you have a romantic partner.  It’s known that the 5 love languages, so to speak, all involve doing things except the 1st one.  It only involves words, but words can be cheap.  I mean, look at the world, everything is based on trust: your credit, your romantic life (as we are mentioning now), your employment record etc..  So, in that case, it’s easy to see why God wants to trust us, and his trusting us is how we show we love him.

 

But why might people not want to show God love effectively?  Well,  the problem is they don’t love God enough.  But what could be causing that?

Well two reasons are: love of the worldly things,  inability to view God as just and deserving of worship.  But note that inability of seeing God as just and deserving of worship CAN cause a love of worldly things as you without respect for God, one drifts to idols.

But viewing God as unjust is just a reasonable answer to how the Church people go to portrays God.

Matthew 23:13

¹³ “But woe (judgment is coming) to you, [self-righteous] scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven in front of people; for you do not enter yourselves, nor do you allow those who are [in the process of] entering to do so.