Jesus Foretells His Death \u2013 (John 12:27-35)<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\nSome hearts are just way too hardened.\u00a0 They don’t even realize how much they hurt or harm others in their controlling.\u00a0 Well, that’s evil at work in the hearts and minds of people.\u00a0 That gives meaning to what Jesus said before He died on the cross “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”<\/p>\n
And then God also made me realize that it’s not yet time for them to change, but for ME to change – for me to learn to have more patience, to learn to forgive them from my heart, and learn to pray and love your enemies.\u00a0 That was the lesson for me.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
And we all need to remember, that the sufferings we face as followers of Christ is not exclusive to us – Christians in the past have gone through the same, far worse torture and trauma, that eventually led to their brutal deaths.\u00a0 But God’s Word lives on, as they are taught and passed on from generation to generation.<\/p>\n
God does not change.\u00a0 He is the same before, He is the same now – Ruler of All, God of this Universe.\u00a0 And He gave us tips and instructions on how to live, and what to do, how to think, how to pray, how to teach each other, how to love and care and pray for one another.\u00a0 It’s in the Bible and it is in our realizations as we hear His voice and guidance.<\/p>\n
We are not battling against people, but the evil in people.\u00a0 We hate the sin, but not the sinner.\u00a0 But we have to keep our faith and our focus on the One who loves us, saves us, nurtures us and guides us.\u00a0 On our part – it’s an action, to “PUT ON” the Full Armor of God.\u00a0 And here it is from the bible, written by the apostle Paul, while in prison, to the Christians in Ephesus:<\/p>\n
The Armor of God<\/p>\n
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.<\/p>\n
11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.<\/p>\n
12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.<\/p>\n
13 Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.<\/p>\n
14 Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness,<\/p>\n
15 and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace;<\/p>\n
16 in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.<\/p>\n
17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.<\/p>\n
18 With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints,<\/p>\n
19 and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel,<\/p>\n
20 for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.” –Ephesians 6:10-20 (NASB)<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I didn’t know about this before I became a Christian.\u00a0 Another Christian had to explain to me about “spiritual warfare”.\u00a0 That time, I thought, it was just me with some family issues and personal issues.\u00a0 Until I started recognizing patterns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,8,4,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian","category-christian-life","category-full-armor-of-god","category-questions-and-answers","category-start-knowing-believing-and-following-christ"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianlifegroups.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianlifegroups.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianlifegroups.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianlifegroups.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianlifegroups.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianlifegroups.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1334,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianlifegroups.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421\/revisions\/1334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianlifegroups.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianlifegroups.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianlifegroups.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}