After we accept Christ God works on us and teaches us, gives us lessons to complete or learn from.

God teaches us about the bad things that should not be in our lives but we were once not aware of that before due to living the old ways, the old life. The idea is to show us the difference of the old life and the loving new life that God offers us – remember it is all up to us to choose. Now under the guidance of evil we had no choices, we just accepted that life as normal. We didn’t think that God’s ways were a choice in the past because we didn’t understand Jesus Christ. His ministry wasn’t something that we were interested in.

When your old friends put down verbally God, do realise that they are as you once were and somehow God will hopefully get through to them just as He has done for you and helped you grow. Just see your old friends like that and you can still have sympathy for them and offer them help if they choose to change – otherwise they have their own life to live – that is their choice. Respect them for that as you expect them to respect you for your new life in God’s loving arms.

By now God has shown us growth in our lives. We have learnt that luck does not exist and that everything happens for a reason. Coincidences are simply God trying to tell us something, guide us or show us something, or lead people to us etc.

Ecclesiastes Chapter 7, verses 5: It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise, than for a man to hear the song of fools.

You have been taught wisdom from God Himself. The wise followers of God may correct you, and we should lower our pride and listen to the words of those that have helped us in a wise manner. The songs of fools could easily be taken as those who just sing along with any new tune that comes along as long as it suits their weaknesses. If we agree with our weaknesses then we can enjoy them and have no guilt. God is telling us to listen to the wise and change our ways.

The lessons that God gives us are designed to give the world strong courageous followers of God’s ways. It is those with the courage to stand alone and stand up for God who are truly grateful for God’s wonderful teachings and work in their life. With these children God will be mightily pleased.

There will come a time for you (we all must go through this) when God will step back and you will find that you are with your old friends. The people who used to influence you in the days before you learned of God, and they will try to guide you. You may be in surroundings that tempted you in the past, and have temptations all around for you to consider – temptations that God has clearly shown you to be evil or wrong. Now if they are your old friends then they will do as they did before and they will lead you into trouble – the thing here is that with all of God’s wise teachings and lessons behind you, will you take the advice of your old friends, this includes family members, or have you matured and learned your life-lessons, the ones that God has taught you?

1 John Chapter 2. verse 15 – 17: Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

The world in the above verse is the sinful nature of the world’s people, your old friends who do not follow God. They will try to lead you astray. You have been tried and tested, and now God believes that it is time for you to show Him that He can trust you with more and your life will truly grow. God cannot give blessings to people who have weaknesses and refuse to follow God. That is just passing the blessings on to evil. An example is if you cannot control your finances properly, you are a bad spender. If God blesses you with lots of money you will allow yourself to be ripped-off and some crook will gain from God’s blessings. It cannot be done that way, first you have to learn and then make that lesson a part of your life – God’s ways must be solid in your life. No person should be able to take you away from God’s love, that can only happen if your faith is not true.

Romans Chapter 12, verse 1-2: I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

So if you re now in this position and have all those old influences and old temptations there in front of you, are you going to take a bite of that sinful life and repeat the past? Now you may have changed your style and choices, but as long as you are accepting the temptations of the past then you will repeat the old ways, but just in a different way. Or are you going to show God that you are not a fool after all the love that He has shown you and given you, and all the blessings God gave you when you were down? Old habits are hard to break, but God has shown you how to break them. Are you preferring to hold on to those old familiar habits and go back to the old ways, the old sins? Because if you do you will then wonder why life has become as miserable as it once was before you found God!

John Chapter 15, verse 17-19: These things I command you, that ye love one another. If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.

The world (people of the past) cannot understand God’s ways and they struggle with the teachings that you have come to love. Those teachings have saved you from shame and the old ways – they now bring you promise – you never had promise under the old life, but now you have so much more under the guidance of God. The people of the world, are what we today call society. They cannot understand the group of people who have come to know the love of Christ. Some are very hateful, others may laugh at us, some may curse us. Some taunt us until we give in and do as they say. In this case stand with God and don’t give in.

The book of James states this: James Chapter 1, verse 2: My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;

James wants us to know that when temptations come our way to be happy because if we get past those temptations and show God that He can trust this worthy child who stood alone and strong against all the ways and people of the past, that we have grown in grace, forgiveness, and we are learning what love really means. Wow, imagine that. A life of harsh sin, lusts etc and now we are coming to understand what real love is, and when we do that we can then enjoy real love and know the difference between lust and love and clearly define love and put aside the lusts of our old friends and their ways.

Pray for those of the past, forgive them. If you become like them again realise this, that you can never say that you didn’t know, because you did, because God showed you. He taught you. He then finally stood back to see what choices you would make and whether you are “willing” to cast aside the ways of the past for the wonderful blessings of the future with God as your protector and guide. How strong is your faith in God and your future with God?

Ephesians Chapter 6, verse 14-17: Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:

The Truth of real-life, not the wild imaginings of society and governments, but the Truth which you are coming to know with each passing day and cut a decisive line between your past and the future. The past being the old ways and old friends, and the future being your new life living in God’s ways. This means new people in your life and a will to be a good loving person who is willing to teach others from what you have learned from your past under the guidance of Satan. God will not be pleased if you “is on the fence” and want to serve two masters, that is wrong.

Luke Chapter 16, verse 13: No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

We need to have the courage to say a strong, “No!” to the past and welcome the future. If we don’t then the lessons learned are being willingly cast off by you, and you are turning your back on God’s teachings, to go back to the old ways. If we accept the old ways then we have nobody to blame for the payment of the old ways becoming apart of our life once again. We must start a fresh, be courageous and deal with he past as it should be dealt with.

There is fruit, love, happiness, and many other good things that come with being a follower of God. When God does step back in your life and you find that old familiar life around you, know this for sure, that God knows that you can toss the past totally away. You have been tested and tried, but are you willing to throw all the past away, now that is the real question. Be wise, God has given you a second chance at life, take it!

Written by James M Sandbrook.
First Published – 9th of October 2011.
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