THE HEART HAS TWO SIDES, LIKE A COIN

We need patience and wisdom to deal thoroughly with our own hearts as well as with the lives of other people around us. "In your patience, possess your souls", Lk.21:19. The intention of this writing is to help counsellors and to help all those people who hunger to be spotless before and through the Lord Jesus. The tool I am trying to build up in the minds who acknowledge this as true knowledge, is the realization that one sin is seldom found on its own or found alone. It is a very simple task to build up that tool in our enlightened minds. The idea of the two sides of each human heart needs to take hold of the way we think about the human heart. We need to have this idea to have a better discernment and have a clearer vision of the fruit both of sin and of righteousness in us, because both are fruitful. We need to know how it all works and functions in the human heart.

One always needs to deal from the right and from the left simultaneously. For example, we cannot deal with fanaticism in the heart if we do not deal with the parallel and impatient desire to skip those means which, if fulfilled and obeyed thoroughly, are able to secure the ends we seek to have. Fanaticism is jumping over the wall into the sheepfold to skip the work of the Shepherd at the door. It is a refusal to go through the shame "outside the gate" and, even so, get into heaven or into the blessing of abundant and eternal life on earth, Heb.13:12,13. And, after it becomes clear to us that the heart habit of being fanatic and to handle all in a fanatic way will live on its own after it is conceived and backed up by something else, we need to realize that we need to deal with what brought or still brings it about. "When lust has conceived, it brings forth sin. And sin, when it is fully formed, brings forth death", James 1:15. I solemnly believe every heart has its two respective sides and that we need to work on both sides or God and patience in us will not "have its full work". And if we realize that the work of God on earth is the transformation of the heart, we also need to realize that transformation is hard, wise and a complete work. Any works of God which are not brought to the end will not be considered work at all. May the Lord find you, at the end, as innocent as He found Daniel in the lion den.

I will try to use some examples of how I believe it works by pointing out some related truths and findings about the heart of man in a general way, even though there endless relations between sin and sin, and between holiness and holiness which we cannot ignore in any way. May God bless you with these and with some more you will realize on your own after having this idea of the two sides of your heart fully built and clearly outlined in you and worked on by God. It will, eventually, avoid many errors and mistaken ways in church because any half truth is worse than a lie. May God breathe softly upon His fire and cause it to burn and to be continuously aflame in your daily routine, in your awareness and in your whole life. Let us now "pierce even to the divide apart soul from spirit, and the joints from marrow, and let us discern clearly more of the thoughts and intents of the heart" and the way man thinks and why he believes as he does.

1. The friendliness of any hypocrite is touching and it catches attention very easily; so does the seriousness of any humble, simple man. Yet, just as much as you might feel attracted to the claws of any type of hypocrisy because of its apparent friendliness, you fear to near any humble man because he is looks stern and his looks are sincere and cutting. In both cases never listen to your heart at first, for there is no friendlier person than a humble man, just as there is no hardness as the one hidden within all kinds of smiling hypocrites.

2. The doors to peace are, often, at the right kind of doubts and at the right kind of certainties; the storms of the soul are often the consequence of the wrong kind of assurances and the wrong kind of doubts. Just as much as the wrong assurances are sinful, the right kinds of doubts are faith.

3. Temptation is either the opposite of what you are or the opposite of what you should be. It seldom is what you are, for then it would be a way of life and no longer a temptation.

4. Someone who craves after something is one who will never become satisfied, not even by getting whatever he wishes to have. Anyone who has no cravings is always satisfied.

5. An enemy is someone who will help your enemy against you; a friend is one who will help your enemy to fix his life with God to get along with you. The one who helps you against your enemy is never your real friend because he is not seeking your welfare and peace. He should rather help you fixing your life with whomever has something against you.

6. Every tongue has as many muscles to keep bubbling as it has to refrain itself. But, its starting engine is in the heart and its on/off button is settled in common, peaceful thinking. Since a big talker has no peace, he cannot find the button to turn himself off very easily – someone else has to do it for him, sometimes. This means that those who talk a lot lack peace of heart, mind and conscience.

7. Any tongue which knows and experiences temptations to say the wrong things also knows what is the right thing to do. If a holy tongue would never be tempted to do the wrong thing, I mean, to be quiet when it must talk or to talk when it must be quiet, how else would it know what, how or when to do what is right to do? The contrast temptation grants opens the door towards holiness if we are doing it in and through the Lord. By having grace abounding in us and by having settlement with obedience to the Lord, temptation shows us what to do and what not to do. We should not be worried about being tempted if we are on the way to real holiness. Most of the time temptations contrast the way out for us. Let's rejoice under these trials. During a storm it is easier to spot a shelter because it stands out.

8. It is true to say temptation has the power to cause us to fall down. But, it also has the capability to cause us to climb the next step on the ladder towards holiness and assurance. It is true that, without temptation, there would be no demons, but, in this present world, there would be no real saints without them either.

9. A tongue which is still at the right time is one which is tempted to stay passively aside when it has to talk and say fitting things. All virtues have their sinful counterpart. Beware of them.

10. Any mouth that flatters is surely one that will also criticize easily. The heart which leads the mouth to flatter shall easily lead to criticism as well. Every person who cultivates or breeds a heart which pleases people has the means and the heart to displease them as well. Only those who are able to please people and are conformed to the ways of this world have the freedom and the hidden desire in them to be mean and revengeful. Someone who pleases people is, in fact, pleasing himself. If self is not pleased in return, the heart shall, then, easily seek revenge and shall be on its way to be mean. Unless you have a heart which pleases people, you cannot be unpleasant. If you cannot be unpleasant, you shall not please people. If you have not a mouth which flatters, you cannot have a critical mouth. And, who flatters people shall, consequently, try to flatter God instead of praising Him. Those are the people who are able to become bitter against God also. Flattering and criticism are always found together. They never work out before God. "Would you speak unrighteously ... and talk deceitfully for Him? Will you lift up His person, or contend...? He will surely blame you, if you secretly lift up persons", Job 13:7-8,10. Job's friends had been guilty of lifting God's person to prove Job had sinned. And they couldn't prove anything by those means.

11. There is no pride that is not built upon a feeling of inferiority. Let me explain. When people feel inferior, their nature counteracts to find something to be proud about. The same happens with guilt or against anything that speaks the truth concerning the heart of man. If someone feels guilty and does not acknowledge it, he shall instinctively seek something to feel justified about. That is how it works. So, when dealing with pride, guilt or any other visible sin, make sure you deal with the roots of it as well - with the other (invisible) side of it. Man feels proud because he lives in an inferior state than he is as a created being. It means God created him in a way and he lives in another. And once people are filled with God and become proud afterwards, it means they still think they live in an inferior way or under the old rule. This is why many need to realize and believe all has become new - if it has indeed. Man's constitution since creation doesn't match with what he experiences in daily, sinful living. And man cannot reach out to his origin because he does not reach out to grace and to the graceful means to get back there. (This is why God calls upon people to "come back". It means they have left something precious and must come back). To reach out to grace is against the way of pride and boasting. Pride would straight out do it some other way. This also explains why the smallest shall be the greatest, since the greatest has nothing to feel proud about and nothing in him that instigates his being to seek refuge or assurance in pride. The greatest (smallest) is a fulfilled being in God and he lives up to what he is as a created being. Man is a creation and he shall never avoid what he is. The lack of peace and the lack of satisfaction comes from the fact that he does not live up to what he is as creation and neither does he live with the Creator. Than, he seeks 'refuge' in proud feelings, in self justification and in many other nowadays sins. Think of Jezebel and why she had "painted her face and adorned her head". She was ugly inside, she felt that way (because conscience does not lie) and had to make up for it or, should I say, build up against it. Her filth and conscious torment of inferiority made her seek some sort of compensation or refuge in pride. A sinner is a miserable being indeed and his misery causes him to reject grace and its powerful means to change.

12. Anyone saying good things about you is one who may say some bad things about you as well, especially if you do not please the flatterer back as a reward for the good he thinks he has done to you. Beware of flatterers and do not trust them at all. Treat them as you would treat anyone you know would easily spread news around about other people. People who flatter are the most unusual gossipers.

13. Inner death, which is brought by sin, easily believes it is alive; real inner life easily doubts the life it has when it sees death boasting openly. Beware of these things, since they are, both, able to mislead. When death assumes it is alive and lives on as if it is indeed so, living ones shall be tempted to doubt what they have in them. Death shall never say it is dead and sheep are often quiet about their reality - even towards themselves. Everyone will rather believe what he sees or hears. Dead people also become evangelical to better assume a posture of living ones. And these indeed show off quite a lot! They boast of being alive and upright! Beware, because every heart has its two sides. It is a law of nature. Sheep are quiet and do not boast while wolves howl quite a lot.

14. Someone who boasts easily is someone who will despair once troubles arrive; and, anyone living quietly and trusting during troubled seasons, is one who is humble enough to stay close to God when all goes well with him. Prosperity is not a stumbling block to any such. Nevertheless, just as much as any boasting heart is tempted to near the fountain of confidence a humble or humbled man drinks from in his hidden places by using his peculiar and unknown (unseen) ways, so shall the humble man be tempted by what is able to rob him of Eternal (constant, permanent, without ups and downs) Life which is within him. Arrogance is camouflaged weakness and hidden vulnerability. And arrogance lives on in such a natural way that it even amazes enlightened people. On the other hand, everyone who is humble and simple in riches or during times of abundance, as Joseph had been during the seven years of fat cows, shall not dishonour God in times of trouble. Joseph did not dishonour God in prison because he was of the kind that would not dishonour God in any way. If you are faithful during a season of fat cows, so shall you be when those cows become slim, hungry and troublesome. Arrogance shows off because it lacks what it boasts about, while peaceful and trusting people show nothing off due to the reality of the assurance of being well beyond question. And, because humble people are transparent - humility is to be what you are - and because arrogance shows off quite easily what it is not, the peace of the humble shall be a temptation to the proud and the arrogance of the proud shall become a temptation to the humble. Whoever wins this battle properly shall be rewarded by the Lord accordingly.

15. If one settles himself down where he is well received (against God’s holy will), he is surely of the kind to avoid and run away from persecution if it comes his way. As someone said, Jesus did not make haste where He was not well received and did not linger where He was well accepted and praised. Let us rather be as Jesus and do as He did. 

16. To be able to believe only when all goes well is the ability to believe (before receiving) when something is greedily sought after; if we, however, believe naturally and work normally on when all goes wrong, if evil cannot distract us from our work, not even riches can move us from a humble trust in God because there is no more greed in us. A false kind of faith which believes only when all is well with us means a greedy heart is hiding somewhere and remains unseen in the darkness of the soul. Also, greed makes people restless, selfish or irresponsible after they have received something. Let's remember God rested after He accomplished all He wanted.

17. A tongue that says the wrong things at the right time is also a tongue which is able to say the right things at the wrong time. Make sure you take time to learn how to synchronize your mouth and heart with the Lord’s leadings – that’s all you need to do for now. If you do not do so, you shall surely gather, but not with the Lord. Fear to err also causes us to speak or to be quiet at the wrong times. Let us not be religious people anymore, but rather living ones, such as have no rules in that sort of freedom which lives in full harmony with the Lord, I mean, when that kind of life is real. (If the Eternal, constant Life is not real in you and you try to live it out in some hypocritical way, you shall surely fall. Religious people disperse the sheep and scatter them around. Living ones take advantage of the need they see and as light shows it out, assures them and makes clear to them. Light shows what exists. That's the function of light. This is why hypocritical people do not live well with light. If they see reality, they will be annoyed or, at least, unsure. Living ones rejoice with light).

18. The heart that demands is the heart which refuses a gift because of pride.

19. A man who is unable to believe truth will believe a lie easily. An unbeliever is not unbelieving towards lies. Any proud man is as able to receive a lie just as he is able to refuse a truth. A liar does not find it easy to believe truth, and, if he does, he shall do so through a lying heart which shall cause him to stumble because the truth he tries to hold on to is not applicable to his heart. It does not match with truth. If truth is invisible (because a blind man does not see the sun nor is he able to use its light), no one can avoid breeding mistrust towards it when it is spoken or shown. And no liar can avoid feeling attracted towards lies and towards the illusions of this world. If lies knock at his door he shall open promptly; and if it is truth that knocks, he shall feel prompted to reject it instinctively. That's the kind of heart he gets from sin as a salary from inner death. Such people love to be drawn to cheap novels and away from the true stories of the Bible. Death reigns and that is what shall happen. They seek to have it that way. On the other hand, a man who easily believes and accepts truth as truth shall not believe any kind of lie that easily. Every heart has its two respective sides. It is a law of nature. Do not fear if you have a truthful heart and live close to the Lord. Lies shall become disgusting to you. You can accept or yield to them only on own risk and by against the resistance of your conscience.

20. If one is able to trust when in God, surely enough that person will doubt very easily when not in God and both things are faith, for faith is to believe truth and to be reactive to it instinctively. A truthful man who finds himself away from the Lord for some reason shall be doubtful towards the ground he steps into. Doubts shall assault him then. On the other hand, any man who does not easily believe when he is in God will easily believe when he is not in God. Both are doubt. Faith reacts to vivid facts while doubt reacts negatively towards them and rather reacts positively towards dead lies and lifelessness. Find a child of the Kingdom away from the Lord and see just how unstable and unsure he becomes there! He shall be as unsure and as unstable as a child of darkness near God. Being unstable near the Lord is not the same thing as being unstable far from God. Even though the salary for both is the same, next time we see someone "unstable in his ways", let us make sure we know why that heart is wavering and troubled. Many kinds of doubts are deriving directly from faith, they are direct consequences of faith, while many others are sinful and hateful. Someone who is wavering and doubtful near God and His reality feels secure on his own. Someone wavering far from the Lord feels at peace and secure nested in His arms.

21. It takes a humble man to receive from a good hand and a proud man to demand from a good hand. And just as a humble man will feel awkward enough to receive from a proud hand, the proud man will most easily receive from whoever looks like him. Pride shall take it from a simple, humble man by demanding it from him. It has to find a way to despise the humble and to be hateful and nasty towards humility.

22. The greedy will eagerly give to receive something back, even if it is mere attention of some kind they receive or expect to receive; but he will be restrained from giving if there is nothing coming back his way. To say greedy people do not give is to be far from the truth. The vile person is often seen as liberal and the greedy as generous, Is.32:5. On the other hand, the loving person will think twice to give away if and when there is a return to his gifts and will more easily give away when there is no return to it. However, the perfect man will give any time, any way, because to receive or not to receive amounts to the same thing to him. The greedy man will always think about whether he should give something or not. His actions depend on what he believes will be the compensations. Perfect people do the right thing because it is right to do so. They are not set back or influenced by rewards, gifts or by the absence of them. They always do whatever is right to do.

23. Any worldly Christian will believe if the promise is an illusion and will disbelieve if the promise comes from God and is real. A sound Christian will easily doubt if the promise is an illusion of some kind, and will easily believe if it really comes from his Lord. An unbeliever believes according to his desires and lusts. Not all desires are lustful. A believer, through his purity, believes whatever is truthfully spoken and brought to his mind by God. It is the kind of heart which is able to believe when it is true or not to believe when it is a lie. To say believers believe all the time and to say unbelievers have difficulty believing anything is to be far from truth. The ability to believe truth or lies depends on the kind of heart we have. Jesus mentioned those who "can believe", Mar.9:23. Faith is to believe what is true and God is true. Unbelief is the aptitude to believe lies. Unbelief is able to believe lies. Unbelievers act as if faith is some kind of trading coin which is easily exchanged for what they wish to have. However, faith is rewarded only because it sees truth as it is. Faith faces and sees clearly - it is not exchanging something. It takes hold of what it sees as a gift of grace. Faith is humble enough to receive from the kind hand of the Lord.

24. As was said, a simple, pure believer will enter into a doubting mood if what he holds on to or touches is some kind of illusion. The believer needs to go through a huge struggle before he can believe any type of lie. The unbeliever needs that fight when he beholds truth and the reality of God. Both need to experience a change before being able to believe what is not according to their nature. What happens to the unbeliever is what "fighting with God" is all about. This is why Jesus mentioned that "and everyone makes his way into the Kingdom of God by force (by pressing into it)", Lk.16:16. No unbeliever should give up or despair until his faith is genuine and is able to prevail to grant him full peace within. The believer should never enter that awful fight which enables him to believe a lie. Let the believer rather give up the struggle so he should live forever. Jesus died so those who believe "should not die", John 3:16. They can die if they embrace a snaky lie. That's not what Jesus died for. He died so they should never die. It means they can die and that is not what He died for. Let them be aware of that possibility. Lies kill people within and without.

25. Truth will make sense to a sound heart, just as much as illusions and lies will make sense to a corrupting or corrupted one; no illusion will ever make sense to any sound heart, just as truth will appear something to be questioned by a lying heart. Any lying heart is supported by the kind of life which is settled away from God. This why a truthful man always surprises liars through the assumptions and standpoints he is able to make. A truthful life is not mere ideology. To a lying life even truth becomes an ideology. Sometimes, it becomes an ideal, but, never a normal life. It is not easy for a liar to see why or how a truthful man believes as he does. It is also very hard for a truthful man to understand why a liar believes and takes hold of lies to try to survive. Lying people are not surviving people - they are dead people.

26. Whoever pleases people is always hypocritical in some way. Such say they love people, but, they should instead say they please others so they can be loved or pleased back. They are loving towards those they know shall love them back. "Don't the gentiles do the same?" A sinner loves himself and whatever he does amounts to being loved and accepted. Pleasing others is loving self. This is the other side of it. Whoever pleases other people has some kind of interest in what he does. Such people are capable of being nasty when they do not receive what they have been looking for.

27. A hypocrite is like an adulterous man: he has another life which he cares for and is not his, just as an adulterous man has another wife for whom he cares better. A parallel life is not always a bad life in appearance. The other woman might be beautiful, polite and well educated. If the other wife is beautiful, polite and does not curse is that enough reason to have her instead and to abandon or neglect the one which is yours? The fact is that if you care for the other life you shall surely neglect yours. And when you hear a sermon or a truth which is very helpful to change, establish, comfort or clean a life, then you shall easily apply that truth to the other life and not to the life which is indeed yours. The other life should be dead or dying and not cared for or nourished. This is why the last times will be difficult, because knowledge has gone to and fro and is easily applied to the other life. Your true heart shall be continuously neglected and die of hunger because you treat better the parallel life. Every time you hide behind what you think you are or behind what you think you should be, remember that your genuine life shall surely dry away and that doing so is the opposite of walking in the light and of being yourself openly. Being you is what humility is all about. By feeding the other life, humility will die away from you and pride shall be your only way out - even if the hypocrisy covers up pride easily.  The other life is an expert in covering things up by working and planning behaviours. Her instinct and intention is to cover up and to be pleased with the image it tries to maintain and keep updated. You cannot fix, change, transform or expose your own life and heart if you do not abandon the other one. One of the lives will surely need to die. You cannot care for both. The choice concerning which of them shall die and dry up is yours.

28. Any man who tells lies, is surely one who disbelieves truth; any truthful person is one who will undoubtedly and easily disbelieve any kind of lie or any kind of lying spirit, even when that lying spirit tells the truth for some dubious reason. There is an unseen understanding and language between people who are alike or are not alike in some way and they understand each other or differ from each other more by whatever they are than by what they say to each other. Usually, people try to get along by being hypocritical and try to stay away from those with whom they do not agree by being mean. Being mean is just the other side of being hypocritical. The best way to cause the scornful and the ungodly not to sit around your table is to be yourself without second intentions (and because you are a holy man or woman). It will drive the ungodly to be themselves as well and they hate it to be that way. Usually, people's dealings with others are adaptations to and influences of what others show they are. People find a way to be like you to be able to communicate with you or even to please you when they wish to get along with you. When you are yourself, the ungodly shall be drawn and tempted to be or do the same. And they shall hate it to do so because they live as if they have a lot to hide, even when they do not need to hide. Then, you shall never need to move away from the ungodly, since they shall be either convicted and converted, or shall feel so uncomfortable they shall move away from you. "Can two walk together unless they are agreed?" Amos 3:3. Simply be what you are just as God is what He is. "I am what I am". Do not dare to be or to look ashamed of righteousness, of Jesus and of what He is before the ungodly right where you are. That's the only way to be able to help those who often lie to themselves about themselves and others through words and behaviour in order to be able to seek for and to stick to illusions. "Therefore, whoever shall be ashamed of Me and of My Words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man shall also be ashamed of him", Mar.8:38.

29. A hypocrite feels a need or a craving lust which compels him to justify himself and his feelings all the time. He believes he needs to put up a frame to be nice to people because his own being tells him he is ugly inside. Unless he puts it on him, he cannot feel comfortable or feel that he is being nice and friendly. He is not in a state of heart to believe one can be nice without putting up a 'holy' mask. The hypocrite always plans and premeditates his behaviour and teaches his children that is what one ought to do all the time. He believes that it is his duty to do so. He fears to be seen as he is; he fears to do something which will reveal his inner true self. He comes to a point where he does all things that way instinctively. This is why a hypocrite easily states those who are 'kind' to him are hypocrites. He sees himself in other's behaviours. Therefore, whenever a hypocrite wishes to stay away from anyone he does not like having around, he makes plans to shun that person off him. He does not take into consideration the possibility of being frank by simply telling the one he dislikes to keep away from him. Because he believes he cannot be friendly and kind without feigning, he shall believe he cannot confront or state the truth to anyone without being annoyed and nasty. That's the other side of a hypocrite: he yells at people. He needs to show he is angry to feel fully justified in what he does. The hypocrite is not plain and sincere in friendliness and neither is he when being frank. And because he is not plain towards those he hates or dislikes, he shall become mean if he needs to come to a point where he has to tell them frankly how he hates or dislikes them. The other side of a man, who is friendly in a hypocritical way, is to be mean in a hypocritical way as well. Only those who please people are able to be unpleasant and mean to them. If you do not please people, you are not able to be unpleasant to them either. Let people be annoyed because of what they are and not because of what you are. "If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of God and of glory rests on you. Truly according to them, He is blasphemed, but according to you He is glorified. But let none of you suffer as (an evildoer)... ", 1Pet.4:14,15.

30. Someone who lies well or easily is always someone who will state the truth in such a way that people will immediately doubt whatever he says, for his voice trembles as he speaks the truth. On the other hand, whenever a truthful man tells a lie, an earthquake is heard in the background of his voice and the sting in his conscience will be sensed miles away. A truthful man is not experienced in lying and the liar cannot tell the truth in simplicity. A liar to be believed when he tells the truth needs necessarily to speak the way he usually speaks when he lies, I mean, by adding a lot unto his words. If you see someone adding words to words to be justified, be assured that he either is or was a liar.

31. If you add anything to truth, it shows you are not fully convinced of it and liars add a lot to what they say for that reason. Those who add to truth show they do not believe it. Truth is simple and to the point; lying is not. Liars add a lot to lies so they may seem all the more truthful and convinced. However, truth does not need compliments and us adding unto any part of it. "But let your word be, Yes, yes; No, no. For whatever is more than these comes from evil", Mat.5:37. Why, do you think, did Salomon say whoever added to God's words would be taken as a liar? Adding to words is what liars often do. Adding is the most common behaviour of liars. They often do it to be convincing. Only evil instincts and evil habits act that way. It indeed comes from evil to add unto yes or unto no.

32. When someone feels guilty at random, not necessarily about a specific or a specified sin, it can never serve as real conviction of sin. Isaiah felt convicted and mentioned the localization of his main sins: his tongue which learned along with the people around him, Is.6:5-7. Guilt without truthfulness, guilt through illusion, can be taken as accusations serving distractions from real issues, but never as real sin and truth about us. Anyone feeling guilty of what he is not - usually people feel so when looking for what is wrong with them to find a reason why the Lord does not give them something they want badly - is surely someone who will also duck away from whatever he really can be responsible for. We may assume, as well, that whoever is able to see his real sins is someone who will never be able to see the point in unreal or surreal guilt. He knows what the difference is because it is no little thing to be convicted of sin! To feel guilty for nothing is milder and can serve as a cover up for real sins. It is a kind of trap the devil uses often to distract people away from their real guilt. Even if you don't do it intentionally, the devil knows it might work out with you as a distraction of some kind. I believe when people cannot specify sins when feeling guilty, they are looking away from real guilt. And, if they are not, at least they still uphold and maintain the old habit of hiding things. Can you specify the wrong you have done or thought about? Many search for sins that way because they know they shall not find any in the area they are looking for them. The heart of man is indeed treacherous. Remember that the Bible says "He who covers up his sin shall not prosper", Prov.28:13, and guilt might be a hideout for real sin. Only those who face real conviction shall be able to avoid inner false accusations and, consequently, find grace. False accusations will always be there, but saints have the ability built by grace to be indifferent to them. They see them as mere distractions.

33. If you are able to avoid someone because you dislike such a person, you are someone who pleases people. When you displease certain people, you please those you like as well. In both cases, you are unaware of God's equal love or equal wrath towards all people around. God does not prefer or reject people because of the way you feel about them. You are double-hearted. The conclusion is, the more double-hearted you are, the less simple you are and if you displease people you dislike, you please those you like and you cannot please God since you are pleasing no one but yourself. No one can serve two masters: either please yourself or please God, be at peace with your own ways or with God. And if you please people, remember that wounds end up hurting and soon those whom you please shall deeply disappoint you because they are not God. You shall, then, be unpleasant towards them because the expectations you had have been defrauded or, at least, remained unfulfilled.

34. When you are avoiding a servant of God because you do not appreciate some of his ways, or if you criticise him in your heart because of certain of his non-important manners, you will surely avoid the back bone of the whole of his message. In the same way, if you are accepting some of the ways of a servant of Satan in disguise because you believe they are cute, friendly or nice behaviours, you will surely swallow the poison he has hidden deeply within him as well. You shall drink of his poison. The fact is that, if you do one, you shall be able to do the other. If you avoid the chaff of a holy or of an unholy man, it is because you deeply resent the corn that chaff carries. This is why any holy man feels awkward if he corresponds to the ungodly's smiles. A holy man has a kind of love which does not have the need to depend on what others feel, think or do to be as he should always be. The point here is: if you reject a holy man who preaches, it is likely you shall accept an unholy one when he preaches. 

35. If one resents truth, one is likely to rejoice over or through a lie. If one resents a lie, one is likely to rejoice over a truth. "Love... rejoices in the truth", 1Cor.13:6. Only the lack of peace the ungodly has as a share of God's decree (Is.57:21) shall hinder him to feel happy and at peace as he lies. Were there no such eternal decree, the ungodly would feel and experience full happiness in lying. Let's praise God He cut off the access to the Tree of Life in Adam's time, Gen.3:24. That is the main reason why the ungodly always feel unfulfilled, unhappy, greedy and bitter. Because of that sin now leads to death and it cannot live eternally. It might live, at the most, during a short period of time and during that period it won't be able to experience real, eternal, constant life within it at all.

36. Whoever is easily annoyed with unimportant things, whoever makes a fuss over small, insignificant matters shall surely not be available to hear and think truth. This is one of the reasons Jesus said we must hate our own life and that life's way to do things. Evil and goodness are found deeper than the minor visible discussions man easily makes. Therefore, if you care about this life, you won't be available for truth and you won't be "a ready people prepared for the Lord" when He comes to teach you about some important and crucial matters (Luk.1:17). And if the chaff of the corn annoys you, make sure you know how to select and separate it from the corn or you shall throw both out. Then, choose to eat the corn. Don't be a chaff-busy-man and look beyond it and deeper than the usual spirit of discussion.

37. If I feel well or at home with the least on earth in a most natural way without feeling superior to him in any aspect at all, I will surely be able to feel at home in the presence of the greatest person there is. When I feel superior to the least, I will always feel inferior to the greatest. This is a law of nature no one can avoid. Whoever feels equal to the least shall easily feel at home with the greatest and shall be at ease with the highest person in the universe.

38. Every person who deviates his heart or vision from a good conduct or from a proper life cannot avoid looking and desiring a bad one. There is no midway concerning this issue. Only a fool is able to explain why he shall desire a bad conduct over a good one, anyway! But, it only takes a glimpse away from a practical proper life to start desiring sin. "And if you do not do well, sin crouches at the door; and its desire is for you...", Gen.4:7.

39. Those people who easily presume they can do everything are the ones who will first give up and first say they cannot do what they believed they would be able to do. Many times, those who presume and trust on own abilities are the ones who do nothing, because they only dream about things and live in a fancy world which is not practical. On the other hand, those who face their lack of ability or lack of power are the ones who shall first attempt to do what they believed they were unable to do because they look for the ability and the power to carry it out outside them by facing impossibilities. Presumptuous people will never say, "I cannot do this", unless they can do it! If they can do it, they shall say they can't and, if they can't do it, they shall believe they can. Proud people never live according to truth and reality. They might, at the most, agree with truth when it is not real or practical in or for them.

40. Humble people shall never believe they are to great to carry out humble and small tasks. These are the ones who are fit to do greater things than they ever imagined. Therefore, never avoid a small, insignificant duty, especially when God is leading and you find yourself in need to learn faithfulness. If you believe you are too great to do a small thing, you are not fit to do the greater works of God. It just works that way.

41. Whoever feels down and discouraged every time he thinks he is useless or small is the same person who is eager to be exalted. These look for exaltation and are made happy when honoured. Discouraged people seek attention and exaltation. That is just the other side of them. This is why I believe that giving up is self-defence - it is blackmailing God and it is a self-protection against dying with Christ. They are protecting self from a sure, unavoidable death when God is at work in them and, also, through providences and consequences of holiness outside. They would rather feed self. Giving up is a way to avoid providence's arrows to kill self for good. If God is trying to exterminate self and we come to the point of giving up, we can translate that to some plain, understandable language which goes like this: "Lord, I do not wish to be killed! I don't want to die! It is enough!" Giving up is resisting the Spirit and going against God's providences against self. Discouraged people have a need to be humbled and it cries up to heaven. Everyone who wishes himself exalted shall be humbled. It just cannot work out any other way.

42. Anyone who is apt to blame or blame himself is of the kind that will also excuse something easily and sweep it off his shoulders. The heart which blames itself may easily refuse to be corrected and shall also excuse own sins and be apologetic towards faults and errors. These blame because they came to a point where they must acknowledge and have no way to look good anymore. They ran out of options. That's why they blame themselves: they can't be good! Pushing things to the light and experiencing peace while doing so is not the same as feeling bad because we weren't as good as we wished we would be. These often confuse blaming for conviction and believe that being apologetic and forgetful towards sin is what mercy is all about. Mercy corrects - it does not excuse, nor does it look over things easily. Mercy searches wrongdoing out to be able to correct it through its peculiar, effective and loving way. Mercy does not leave a stone unturned if it finds an open door to save from sin and to correct.

43. Everyone who has a wrong kind of annoyance against evil doers is always someone who will envy their success as well, Prov.24:19. It is the same heart having two sides, just like coins.

44. Any person impatient or eager to change place, situation or work because of a lack of satisfaction for which God is not responsible is someone who has an unsatisfied heart within him - he just won't be happy anywhere he goes because the same unsatisfied heart he has shall be carried along wherever he goes. A change of circumstances shall not be able to work a change in the heart. We cannot look for a change of circumstances if we can't be satisfied with God right where we are. We should look, right there, to change our hearts instead and, after that, change place or circumstances for the sake of God's will and not for the sake of the lack of satisfaction we may experience. Never try to change work or place before you are satisfied where you are. "My son, fear God and do not fellowship with those who are given to changes", Prov.24:21. Remember that, wherever you go, the heart you have will go along. Why don't you carry a changed heart in you instead?

45. Every hasty person has all in him to be late and delayed because a hasty person seldom concludes work, and undone work shall keep calling his attention back. Most of the time, hasty people have delayed things for a better occasion and that's why they always make haste. The best way to cease to be hasty is to finish tasks and to carry them out to the end.

46. Every heart which is easily quietened and at peace in the presence of God shall always feel uneasy, uncomfortable and without peace away from the Lord. There is a lack of peace which is holy. On the other side, every heart which is at ease far from God shall be in turmoil near Him. You just cannot avoid it being that way. Therefore, there is a kind of peace which is evil.

47. Whoever refuses to acknowledge he is wrong when he is wrong and whoever acknowledges easily he is right when he is right are people who might be at the same starting point because being right is good to start off towards the rest of the way but it is not the end of the way; and being wrong is just a small step away from being right if ones dares to look at the Lord for guidance and a permanent way. Any person who refuses to acknowledge he is wrong, usually does so because he has seen how wrong he is. The reaction he has of not acknowledging is often a consequence of having been enlightened. Those who acknowledge they are right cannot believe they are far better than those who are wrong, especially if God is at work. Both can still grieve the Spirit and both can become more pleasant to the Lord. Besides, if those who are right are too conscious of being right, it may cause a disputing heart to rise up from within them. Also, whoever is right now can easily slip away and be wrong by trusting own righteousness. And those who start beating their chest may easily be redirected to the door of heaven even if they have started off very bad. Many last ones shall be first. And we cannot know what a person does or acknowledges in secret when no one is congratulating, bothering or withstanding him.

48. If you easily and promptly criticize whoever is wrong about something, you shall have a consequent mood hidden inside your heart which shall envy were that person right. Rather make use of what God grants through others and make the best use of instructions whether it comes from people or not - even if they are babies or lowly in Christ.

49. This coin also has its two respective sides: if you recognize and acknowledge your sins and errors easily and openly, if you indeed walk in the light that way, it shall be very easy for you to be right and securely guided. It is impossible to be misled if you indeed walk and remain walking in the light. The easier it is for you to see or to face an own error in the Light, the happier you shall be to be able to straighten your ways that way; the easier it shall be to be right and in full peace with the decisions you make in the Lord; and the easier it shall be to ignore misleading temptations. The person who finds it difficult to acknowledge own errors easily slips to wrong decisions and wrong ways with confidence. That is the other side of not walking in the Light. That person shall easily feel confident in slippery grounds and shall doubt in solid ground. That's the curse he gains from not walking in the light, showing all.

50. To walk with or through God means we are with God and that God is with us as well. These are two different things and it works together. And it needs to be real also. But, for us to walk with God means we are one with Him and His will; and for Him to be with us means we have a heart according to His will and best wishes for us and that is more than only wishing to have such a heart. But, everyone who believes amiss when stating to be with God or God with him, (I mean, if it is not true that God is with him), shall surely believe God is not with him when He really is. The heart which believes lies shall hold on to what is not true whatever the cost. If God is knocking at the door of a sinner and seeing he is not used to have God around in a real way, he needs to take a stand against himself and to deny his own way of life, beliefs and whatever he is able to make him suppose things or not to take reality into account. Let's not be like Samson. The Philistines came and he still believed God was with him when He had already left him. He did not conceive the idea of God leaving him to the enemies of God. He took it for granted he was a believer and forgot the Lord does not please people. His fall was great.

51. An obstinate and stubborn man does not persist or persevere towards proper life. But, he shall persevere into death and loves to be headed towards destruction. It annoys him to be heading any other way. A humble spirit, however, easily gives up on wrongdoing. To say those who persevere do not give up in anything is to be far from truth. In fact, they are able to persevere especially because they give up certain things easily. And to say the stubborn does not end in discouragement is also to believe amiss. People also think that to give up is a sign of weakness. But, it shall depend what you give up and what you don't give up. Giving up a parallel life to the Lord's is synonymous to strength and perseverance. A parallel life is like having another woman: soon you shall lose your own wife because of her. And in order to hold on to proper life you need to give up the one which is not yours. Giving one of them up means holding on to the other. Perseverance or stubbornness is defined by what you hold on to and by what you give up. Persevering people always give up on certain things. Unless they give up hindrances, they shall never be able to persevere in the Lord.

52. Whoever has little to do is often the one who gets behind schedule and people who have a lot to do are the ones who are more easily in time and up to date. It just works that way. People who have little to do seldom work out a program or a work schedule and those who work hard are often disciplined and organized people who have too little time to wander and for dispersing thoughts. Therefore, people who have little to do (in case that's God's will for them in some way), have harder inner work to be unconditionally faithful and to keep a faithful heart constantly updated and renewed.

53. It is easier for God to correct an error in us done in the sincerity or our hearts than to correct something we did well through falsity and wrong motives.

54. Whoever has a heart to finish all the works God entrusted into his hands has a heart to give up the old life. Whoever has a heart to carry on with his own works, thoughts, ways of doing things and manners has a heart to give up on God's ways and works. Let only the occasion be provided and both things will happen, each on its own way. Do not feel bad to give up on certain things you believe are not sinful. Peter gave up fishing and there is nothing wrong with trying to feed a family.

55. Whoever is able to despair awaiting the fulfilment of any truthful promise is someone who has a kind of heart which is able or capable to rejoice extemporaneously and for no reason at all. Such people are usually misled as to the fulfilments of what God has promised because the devil sees that door open to tempt and mislead them using their greedy or stained hopes. Let hope never be mixed with selfishness. False fulfilments can kill believers very easily through disappointment or abandonment of the truth. Despair opens the door to false fulfilments of the word and false fulfilments lead to even further despair. And that shall delay even more what we despair for. Let's get rid of false fulfilments and of being out of the timing of God. Then shall we be fully able to fulfil one of the few conditions we need in us to be able to redeem the time. Pray that today's things happen today and tomorrow's happen only tomorrow.

56. There is such a thing as the time of God and it can be now or later. The time of God can pass us by as well. Whoever is not fully reconciled with the timings of God has own desires which demand fulfilment from God. But, that is not the only problem such people have. In fact, if you do not think it important to beat along with God's clock you shall not only despair when it is not the right time for something to happen, but you shall also be able to miss whatever God meant for you right now. These are the two sides of this issue. The fact is that all those who are not fully committed to God's ways and steps for today as He walks on, live outside today's things by trying to reach out to those they can't have yet. You cannot live tomorrow and today at the same time. By trying to live one of them you shall necessarily neglect the other. No one can serve two masters or different timings at once. Impatient people often forget there is a task which demands full attention right now, I mean, every time they reach to what cannot happen right away there is something else they should be doing. "Blessed is that servant when his Lord comes, finds him doing", Lk.12:43. By reaching out to tomorrow, you neglect the day which is called today. To neglect today's works and tasks assures you tomorrow shall be just as neglected as today has been because you shall have the same heart tomorrow that you breed today. What makes you think you shall be a different kind of person tomorrow if you do not change that habit right now? Tomorrow will be like today as well. Reaching out to tomorrow is a habit which shall live on with you unless you kill it now and ever. You cannot hope to change then unless you are willing to change your ways right now. The kind of heart you have now shall go on with you into tomorrow. And by living today out to the full, tomorrow will be a likewise solid day because that's the kind of heart you have worked on. You shall also be a solid and strong person governed by simplicity and a good kind of awareness and readiness. Perhaps that kind of awareness and readiness is what watching is all about.

57. "For not he who commends himself is approved, but he whom the Lord commends", 2Cor.10:18. If this is true, then whoever criticizes himself shall neither be approved or rejected by it but only those whom the Lord convicts. Whoever commends himself is the person who easily criticizes himself as well. And the motives behind these two different and seemingly opposed behaviours are one and the same. All kinds of criticism uphold self - even bitterness against self. Ask yourself why one would commend himself greedily and then you shall know why such a person also criticizes and blames himself greedily. He criticises himself because he has done something which hinders him being commended or praised. Criticisms are excuses and justifications. They don't look like it, but they are. This is the other side of this truth.

58. All those who are not able to trust Jesus and His forgiveness when they have sinned, have another side of them which is likewise deadly: they are able to trust own righteousness and own capacities. Had they what they imagine holiness is, they would trust. We cannot say which of the two is more deadly to eternal life within. The fact is that whoever trusts easily and gives himself over to Jesus and to His capabilities to regenerate from any kind of sin and to restore an evil heart from scrap is the one who shall not be consciously able to trust his own righteousness once he has been turned righteous and pure. "The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression (...) When I shall say to the righteous that he shall surely live; if he trusts in his own righteousness and commits iniquity, all his righteousnesses shall not be remembered; but for his iniquity that he has committed, he shall die for it; Again, when I say to the wicked, You shall surely die; if he turns from his sin (...) then he shall surely live; he shall not die", Ez.33:12,14.

59. Christians outside God's (and there are many such) will usually believe they are pleasing to God. In case they did not believe it, they would be bitter people because they love what they do outside God's will. These seek their own desires and mistake it for God's will for them. They believe a good God shall grant them what makes them happy. The two sides of this alien experience is that people either seek to do God's will their way and like it is done in heaven (so they are able to avoid denial to some extent); or they try hard to have God do what they want. Either way, they seek to be pleased or they use God and God's name in vain and for own purposes.

60. Anyone who obtained that kind of freedom to follow someone else's opinion because it comes from God, has also the same freedom to withstand anyone else's wrong opinion because he doesn't please people and not even himself. Freedom to obey has the other side: freedom from self. It means times of slavery are over and the owner and boss (the flesh) is not ruling over you anymore. And if we are free from self, we cannot please people unless it is done through ignorance. But, whoever is not made free enough to hear anyone's Godly opinion, will also hear when it is not God's opinion since that heart is set and prepared to please people, self and the flesh. No wonder what we need is a heart change and not a change of opinion. Just as the heart has been prepared to become fleshly along the years, people need to meet up with Jesus and prepare their estranged hearts to obedience.

61. If you easily accept that someone destroys your life for you through words or anything else, you will also reject wholeheartedly that someone comes to build it up using some heavenly bricks or even by sharing some truth. Even if you listen to what is being shared with you, the moment it starts to get into changing you, you shall be annoyed and tempted to reject it. Make sure, therefore, you stop pleasing people.

62. Anyone obeying God naturally will disobey just as naturally whatever is not from the Lord. In other words, if you wish to have a natural setback against everything that does not come from the Lord or that comes from the flesh, try a life which obeys God as if there has never been any other kind of life and as if you have never known any other way to live. Remember that it is the knowledge of good and bad in one single mind which causes people to be double hearted. Eve shouldn't have eaten from that tree. But, because she did, we need to consider ourselves dead to any kind of sin or parallel life if Jesus indeed dwells in us abundantly and if we are indeed dead. If we are dead, we need to consider ourselves so. We need to take hold of what is true. Anyway, sheep know how to discern because they are naturally obedient. Anyone forcing obedience down upon himself because he is not right with God will never be able to obey Him in a natural way because such a person learns an alternative way of obedience progressively and day by day. The greatest danger, however, is that the way he learns seems right to self and seems right to those who might be able to correct him would they be able to see how wrongly directed or wrongly set he is. If you can't obey God naturally, you will either be obedient to the wrong thing in a most natural way or try to be obedient to God by force. And that cannot be considered as obedience at all. You should rather be cold or hot. "Oh Lord, You do not desire sacrifice...". True obedience knows precisely what, why and how to do. And it shall also be able to know when to do or, at least, when not to do and how not to go about things. Seek a change of heart.

63. Whenever you find yourself fearing to enter, to surrender or to hand yourself over to God's will putting forth conditions to do so, you need to take notice you also fear to get out of your own way of life or own wishes. If you cannot trust God you can trust yourself. Make sure you tackle the problem from its both sides or it shall bother you again and again, each time with greater strength. Make sure to get to the roots of these two problems. Mistrust is a deep confidence in self. If you believe in God, you shall not believe in yourself; and if you believe in own stuff you cannot believe in God for real and you shall always be wavering between two thoughts and two ways. Choose today whom you will serve.

64. If you are lukewarm in sinning, (suppose you tolerate some kind of sins even when you do not practice them), you surely are lukewarm towards God also. If you are hot towards God, you shall be dead cold towards sin - any kind of sin. It just cannot work out any other way at all. Hot towards sin makes you cold towards God and by being lukewarm towards sin makes you lukewarm towards God. You should be freezing cold and ruthless towards sin. Find out how.

65. Daydreaming has a double problem: it causes you to rather believe lies and be disbelieving towards truth. And, in case you are able to believe truth as well, I mean, believe it along with whatever lies comes your way, you shall handle truth as you would handle a lie. People are never serious towards what they know are lies. Once truth comes their way, they have a habit of not being serious about things in an overall sense. This is the other side of a lying life, the obvious consequence of believing lies: it makes people superficial and careless because a superficial heart has been moulded along the way. People just know they are holding lies in their hands and hearts and handle it as non-important issues. By starting to believe truth and to give our hearts over to it, we also need to change our ways from bottom to top because we cannot afford to handle truth as lies are handled.

66. Undoubtedly, what God intends to achieve through any kind of words coming from Him is faith and that we believe Him unconditionally (because He is indeed truthful). For that purpose God pronounces both curses and promises. If people believe the word of God in a form of a curse or if they believe a promise, that is the kind of faith which is able to save. We should never waver to put truth forth as clear as it is, whatever that truth is - whether it is a promise or a curse. Think of it: why would God pronounce a curse beforehand or even a promise? Why doesn't He rather do it at the right time without promising or letting people know beforehand? And it is right here where this truth concerning the two sides of any man's heart is more clearly revealed: resentment and pride. If God pronounces any curse to a man and he resents it and chooses rather to breed a grudge against the Lord or the Lord's words because he wants a reason to carry on sinning as always, that man would not be fit to receive a promise or blessing from the Lord either because he would become proud by it. Let me explain. The man that resents a word of a pronounced curse coming from the Lord and does not rather believe it, is the kind of man who would become proud through the fulfilment of any kind of promise. Any man who chooses not to have faith instead through a word of a curse, has a heart which would become easily proud and content with himself would a promise be fulfilled at that stage or at any other stage before the heart is fixed. This is why most promises are announced in advance as well. It grants the Lord (and people) enough time to prepare the heart to receive in humility and faithfulness whatever He promised. God needs to prepare the vessel and, therefore, pronounces any promise a while before it can happen for real. Man should hold fast to it until he is a prepared, humble and joyful vessel capable of receiving whatever God promised as if he always had lived with it - as if he had always been in possession of it and has never lived any other kind of life before. The promising beforehand happens because it is not as easy to add the word, "Humble yourself" to a promise as it is to add it to an announced curse. When a curse is announced beforehand and man believes, he shall be saved. "And the people of Nineveh believed God" when a curse has been uttered against them, Jon.3:5. It saved them because they believed.

67. There are two stages in the Christian experience which are somewhat similar: one is when we still breeds some kind of secret love towards sin, and the other is when we secretly abhor sin. These people look alike. And it here, again, that we see that the two sides of a normal heart is what makes us take some more accurate notes and conclusions about it all. When people secretly love sin, they strongly believe they hate sin because the devil does not dare to work accusations inside them. Accusations would lead them to believe they love sin. And people at this stage easily rush on making certain bitter judgments on the sins of others because they have those sins themselves and the experience of those sins are known to them. But, when they come to a stage where they already hate sin secretly, I mean, without being aware that they abhor it, people usually believe they are in love with sin in some way because the accusations are made alive by the lying devil or through temptations. This is a bad moment, but it teaches the accused ones to be merciful and to cease to judge others if they still refuse to have sin as acceptable. By accepting sin, one does not become merciful, but, co-sinner. Mercy is to show forth and to put forth the power which frees people from such bondage. This means that those who say they have sin because of false accusations, have a secret hatred towards sin and those who have a secret love for sin say they have it not. Another difference between these two kinds of people is that one easily takes temptations for sin and the other assumes their sins are still mere temptations.

68. Whoever is unable to heartily trust his own understanding on important things, shall surely be the most convicted person on earth when it is God's own judgment which he has heard or seen. But, on the other hand, any such who trusts self (aware or unaware of it), shall constantly breed a mistrust towards the things of God and the wisdom of the Lord. This is why many of those who trust self takes the leadings of God as trials and the others seem they are not tried.

69. There is another dangerous side on people who cannot or will not separate truth from truth and lie from lie. By distinguishing between things discernment is exercised and strengthened. But, by not separating truths from truths one throws all discernment out. The most dangerous side of people who do not discern is that they throw truth out the window to accept lies in a bundle very easily. Truths are thrown out because people will not face them for one reason or another. And lies are accepted because they comfort the the flesh, a situation and uphold a pile of mixed-up things. All wisdom, all science and every kind of knowledge separates things from things to better understand and better use it. Medical knowledge separates genes from genes and bacteria from bacteria to better distinguish between them. We can ascribe the phenomenal improvement on medical knowledge and general health of people to dedicated and uncompromising research. It also works that way with truth and reality. Where people do research and separate truth from truth and lie from lie to see the whole of it in a better way, there shall be spiritual health. Sickness and most illnesses prosper where that is not done because it is the environment of illnesses, both spiritual and physical ones.

70. Whoever justifies himself has a hand which throws stones at others easily or already has stones in it to throw at people (even if he doesn't end up throwing them). Sometimes the stones are ready even before people say anything. The person who justifies himself will just as easily throw stones to the accusers or even to other people who are not accusing at all. All it takes to throw stones at someone is an accusing conscience. Self-accused people need to find a motive to feel justified. Self-justification is a compensation which balances the mind against self-accusations. Usually, the mind feels satisfied when the one who hurts it repairs the damage done. Therefore, if self justifies after self has accused, it sort of satisfies the mind and gives it some false peace. A mind which justifies itself is a mind which believes it shall be accused of something or is already being accused by conscience supposing accusations are coming from the outside. By throwing stones at others, accused people believe the general attention is diverted away from own sins. This explains why Jesus said, "Those who have no sin, let them throw the first stone". The Lord redirects people's attention back to themselves. Jesus says those same words to everyone who has a heart ready to justify itself. Self-justification is nothing less than the spirit which throws stones even before it is accused of something, I mean, it serves as a way to prevent being condemned, even before accusations are out there. Sometimes it is used as a way not to be condemned and so that someone else might feel condemned instead. People are already defensive before anything is said about them. Self-justification is a habit guilty people often cultivate in them. It is a form of greed which demands satisfaction. After Jesus has made us innocent and free, we should leave those habits and ways all together. The old life is not lived the same way the new one is lived out. There is no reason for us to defend ourselves anymore - not even if we are really guilty about something. When people are guilty and confess or admit they have sinned, they shall indeed be justified and not only feel justified. And all those who used to believed in lies easily shall have some difficulty believing and acknowledging truth. But, justification and being made a righteous person does not work the same way self-justification does, which often tries to hide behind other's sins. To self-justification anything serves as a means to hide or to feel hidden and concealed. Self-justification is the opposite of walking in the light. We are not guilty anymore if Jesus has indeed cleared our sins and if He has been given the freedom or the liberty to cleanse our hearts fully. Why should we defend ourselves any longer? Defending from what?

71. There are two issues which also have their respective two sides: patience and impatience. Impatience makes people dream about things because through daydreaming they experience in them what God cannot give right now or not give at all for more than one reason. Patience can expect things at the right moment and enables us to prepare ourselves to receive them the moment they come. Patience causes daydreaming to cease, but it is not all it does. In fact, it frees us to prepare ourselves conveniently for what is surely coming. And to be prepared means that when things arrive they shall not change us for the worst. We are prepared and ready to be faithful to it, just as good managers shall be after they have finished their preparation and studies. Did Joseph become ugly or different after he became king over Egypt? Daydreaming is also a kind of stubbornness. Reality about the greater things of God opens the door to obedience because it allows man to use his time to prepare himself. If people only dream about such things which could or can become real, once reality comes they reject it because they do not know it that way; and since they do not experience them the way they imagined it to be, I mean, the way their mind conceived it to be they shall reject it as deceitful. And by rejecting I mean any kind of reaction to it which is not joyous reception of what has been expected to happen one way or another. By rejection I mean becoming scared about the reality of it all or even becoming annoyed because it does not allow us to live a parallel life as daydreaming did. Let's us never forget that people who dream about things live a continuous parallel life and never take God's things as real and practical. And that is one of the reasons they do not prepare the way. Another reason why people do not prepare is to think highly of self, to see it as prepared. Daydreaming takes God for a liar or, at least, for an enemy of the way we imagined things. He shall always be an uninvited guest to daydreaming. No owner should feel like a guest where he belongs - much less an uninvited guest!

72. Let's talk now about remembering and forgetting. Many believe forgetting is bad and remembering is good. It can be true. However, we may never forget that remembering and forgetting are human assets and that forgetting good things is as bad as remembering evil. Remembering and forgetting are good faculties of man and both can be used in a wrong or even foolish way. Forgetting about things frees some space in our minds and liberates our souls to think, reason, imagine or meditate on those things which need to be thought about at certain stages of our lives. There is forgetting temporarily and there is forgetting for always and the same principle can be applied to remembering. Forgetting is not sin because God created us with that faculty. However, let's have in mind that our mind should also be so free to remember about things and that remembering them should be a natural occurrence in us every day. Busy, worried minds allow very little room for spontaneous remembering. Slack, lazy minds refuse to remember for fear to be disturbed. Now, how is this practically applied to this truthful idea of the two sides of the heart of man? There should be such a relationship between remembering and forgetting that they should be considered partners and not enemies. Forgetting helps us remember and remembering helps forget. However, there is this wrong application of this partnership. By remembering the wrong things, we shall forget about what we should remember; and by forgetting what we should remember causes us to recall, dream, imagine and conceive what we should never allow into our minds. On the other hand, forgetting what we should lay aside for a while or even forever, makes us remember and recall what is good and opportune to think about. For example, if we recall or remember our sins when we have never confessed them by name, it can cause us to push them further into the light and clear our consciences of them in such a way that we become free to contemplate the Lord only. It is a good thing to remember them if we have never confessed them at all. On the other hand, by forgetting those sins when we ought to recall them and to remember for the purpose of pushing them into the light, shall cause us to sin again and again because we shall not see the Lord. We shall 'remember' to sin if we do not cleanse our souls from every stain. And there is the other side of this: recalling or forgetting sins when we are already forgiven. Remembering them then, unless it is remembered for the sake of the will of God and for the sake of thankfulness, shall surely cause us to wipe the Lord out of our minds and awareness. It brings confusions into us to recall dead evil back into a cleared conscience, unless the assurance and the unawareness of having been forgiven is of the kind that cannot be disturbed. Io recall forgiven sins and pay attention to them is the same as trying to live an unreality. To forget those sins, then, has the opposite effect of remembering unforgiven ones and our reactions will tell about it. I mean that, to forget forgiven sins can enable us to see the Lord better and as He really is. There is a deeper relationship between forgetting and remembering than we can think of. They exist to be allies and not enemies. Let us manage virtues and never antagonize them by putting them against each other.

73. Have you seen people who have one way now and the next moment they have another? However, a double heart or mind is a mixture of many problems. We cannot look too lightly into this issue. The other side of such people's heart is a side with many problems - all of them mixed up. Let me highlight only some of them. People live according to what they feel and their decisions change as their mood changes. They are set up to decide according to what they feel. This can be solved by deciding according to God's will and (very important) to decide to find grace through which one is to carry out anything he does. Another problem is that they are very sure about something one moment and unsure about the same thing the next moment. Finding God's will and holding on to it shall easily solve this part of the problem as well. Finding the power to carry out God's will, will bring peace of mind and perseverance into the heart too. Finding real peace about things will hinder greatly any change of mind. Another problem (and perhaps the most disguised one) is impatience. Be sure that a double hearted person changes his mind quite often because he is impatient about things. That's probably the main reason why any person changes his mind from one moment to the other. And changing of mind all the time is, also, responsible for the impatience that keeps causing more changes of mind. Perhaps, that's what deprives man of finding God and God's will in a clear and most abundant way. Mutual trust between God and man will do the rest. If we are honest concerning faith, we shall be able to trust God in the same degree that God can trust us. Are you faithful? Have you forgotten that genuine faith is both the fruit of a genuine relationship with the Spirit and a gift of the Spirit?

74. If man has a limited relationship or no relationship with God at all through which both the gift of faith and the fruit of faith can shine and transform all man is and thinks, he shall surely try to believe using another way or using the force he relies upon. He will rely in "the arm of the flesh" to believe and to feel confident. In other words, man shall try to believe his way because there is no real faith in him instead of realizing he has no relationship with God at all. No one should dare to manufacture faith where there is no faith, I mean, where God is not present to speak the word upon which the Spirit shall quicken the heart and the actions of man. If man does this, as soon as he has a relationship with God by doing away with all kinds of sins and pet sins, such as impatience, own-mindedness among many others, he shall surely be tempted to avoid quickening and establishing genuine faith through his doings and reasoning because man is not used to a new life and the way it is put to work or to a faith that really works. Man can handle a kind of faith that brings no results. He knows how to drive himself into false believing because that makes him assured in sin and comfortable by causing him to avoid the cleaning off his pet sins and by not giving up on sin and, especially, on "the arm of the flesh". Genuine faith is something which needs to be worked upon, even if it is done through other means and ways. The easy way out, the way of error when false believing is stopped with, is to feel lost and at random once the old ways of man become or seem useless. Man needs to learn a new way to do things, that is, to carry them out through, together and for the Lord. Every time you do or think something, have always in mind there is another side of man's heart. If you cultivate a false way of believing, surely genuine faith won't work in your daily life. No one can avoid creation to work all the way only the way it has been created because that's the way it should work.

75. There is a strange association between sin and temptation which we are seldom aware of. There are people who confuse sin with temptation and, consequently, temptation with sin. And it is here where we must be aware that the heart of man has two sides. We must have in mind that when we see temptation as sin, we shall be able to see sin as a mere temptation as well. No one can avoid it happening that way. It happens that way because we are not able to differentiate between them. We need to have in mind that in every situation there is always a double reality we need to pay attention to. We need to stop seeing sin as temptation and temptation as sin. The better we can differentiate between the two, the happier our way shall be. And, if we can see sin as sin we shall surely see temptation as temptation as well. It just happens that way.

76. Faith to be there in a real way demands two things from us: that God indeed speaks and has given us a word upon which we can (must) fully rely; and man must either have or be on the verge to have a real relationship with God. No faith can grow unless it is settled upon a real word from the Lord, and no word of God can bring forth good fruit unless it grows upon a relationship with God, just as no plant will ever grow in a healthy way unless it is rooted near the water and in good soil. No plant can grow unless it is watered and cared for just as no faith will ever make a difference in, to or through man unless it is watered and bathed in a real relationship with God. However, a good watered soil is not enough just as a good seed is not enough on its own. The fact is that a false faith grows speedily when God is absent from man's inner life (or when God does not feel comfortable there) as weeds do in good soil, and, through that, genuine faith fades away; and any kind of false believing is done away only by having a new, real, eternal (constant) and growing relationship with Jesus. The more real and the more continuous that relationship is, the sharper and the more spontaneous faith shall become. Care, also, to have an external change in all your ways through which you used to work out the old life because the new life has new ways different from those which need urgently to be made practical and working. Do not offend God through old ways and habits. Everything must be done here on earth the way anything is done and carried out in heaven. The way must be the same here on earth as it is in heaven. It is easy and possible. Just dare to try it God's way, deny all old stuff and confess all your sins one by one and by name. Always remember that the more you lose on the old ways of believing, the easier it shall be for real faith to grow and stand.

77. People have an idea that meekness is more or less tolerance towards sin. In fact, the more tolerant we are towards sin, the less meekness we shall experience in our hearts. If you ever whish to share in the fruit of meekness, which comes from the Holy Spirit of God, you must have an intense hatred towards any kind of real sin in you (and not against supposed sins). Sin brings hardness into the heart, and we can easily assume hardness is the opposite of meekness in many ways. If sin makes people hard, surely meekness is brought about by a real hatred towards sin and not by tolerance towards it. Tolerating sin makes people harder and not meeker. Annihilating sin on the spot by putting it in the Light turns people meeker.

78. Those who say the truth and apologize for having said it have the same problem as those who are harsh and bitter when they strike with words. One uses an apologetic spirit to feel justified as the other uses anger and bitter words for the same purpose. It is the same kind of heart which seeks to be justified in different ways or under different situations. You must know that whoever apologizes for having said the truth is someone who pleases people. And, any man who pleases people is capable of displeasing them and may even become quite mean when something wrong is done against him or when bitterness entices him to feel justified through anger. Anger is mostly self-justification.

79. It happens quite often that people who suffer from ignorance believe that they know a lot about many things because they are not in a situation to evaluate how much knowledge they lack or have. Then, it is easy for them to believe they know all because "all" is what they know. It also happens that those who have great knowledge believe they know very little because they have a good idea of how much there still is to know. This is just one more situation where we can clearly see that the heart of man has its two respective sides, I mean that an ignorant man thinks he knows all and a wise man can easily conclude and become aware that he knows close to nothing.

80. The work of God, the work of genuine revival happens when people are clean enough for God to come down upon them without having to curse them by His coming. We cannot deny that is how it happens. We read in the Bible that John the Baptist came to prepare a willing people for the Lord and we assume the the Lord came to prepare a people for the Holy Spirit and the holy Spirit came to prepare people for heaven. However, once God comes down - and He comes down as soon as the minimum requirements for true revival are met by His people - people start believing they are perfect because they had this idea God wouldn't come down unless they had been good enough, clean enough or faithful enough. The truth about one needing to clean up before revival causes many to stumble in lies after revival has arrived. It is people's fault, though, and not truth's. However, most people believe praying for God to come down is enough and that cleansing is not a commandment. But, once people see they need to clean up to experience genuine revival, and after God comes down, they are tempted to believe there is nothing more to clean up and change in them, or God wouldn't have come down. It is the same kind of heart thinking under different circumstances. This is how the human heart works and how easily arrogance is able to take over. The heart is deceitful indeed. We should be on our guard because the heart always shows its two sides under any circumstances. Genuine perfection comes long after revival has started. Meeting the minimum requirements for revival does not mean we are perfected already. And God comes down in full power as soon as the minimum requirements for genuine revival are met. If those minimum requirements are not met and He comes down, people will be cursed by His coming, Mal.4:6. We need to press on and end faithfully what God has started in us by sending revival, knowing we should end in the Lord and through the Lord Jesus as well and not only start with Him.

81. There are people who would like to be around bad people without judging them. And there are those who do the opposite and judge sin to make a point and to consider themselves separate from any person whom they consider worldly. As much as these two kinds of people seem different, we can easily prove they have the same kind of heart, which reacts differently for equally personal interests. People are polite towards worldliness because they have a secret love towards sin in them still and they don't act that way for the sake of the world at all. "It is not good to accept the person of the wicked", Prov.18:5. And those who become judgmental to the point of segregating themselves also have a secret love for the world and for sin or they wouldn't be judgmental about it at all. They fear the world and are afraid to stumble by staying around worldly people. They seek their own interest by separating themselves. "He that separates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound wisdom", Prov.18:1. If you wish to stop being judgemental, stop loving the world and stop limping between Christ and the world and leave your neighbour alone. So, even though these people seem different in the appearance, it is, in fact, the same heart revealing its two sides. Both have a secret love towards the world and for sin. Once our heart is indeed changed, it won't matter if the world is around or not, because we just don't belong to it. The secret is to find the way not to belong to it, wherever we are. In other words, we may separate ourselves from the world thinking we don't need a change anymore. Then judging makes us believe we have changed. We cannot fool ourselves to the point of believing we hate the world only because we may have separated ourselves from its people; and neither can we say we mingle with them for the sake of love at all. The change must occur inside of us. In fact, separated people may still have a heart which belongs to the world, and people may mingle with the world without belonging to it at all, just as Jesus did the way He did it. The conclusion of this is: a condemned heart or a condemning conscience can lead either to judging or to please people and none of these two options is a good one. The hidden option is to exterminate sin in the heart and the love for the world by putting all in the light.

82. People often strive to gain the good opinion of others about themselves. Most of them do so because the opinion they have about themselves craves after an exterior assurance or an exterior assuring confrontation or complicity. In fact, they don't really seek others to think well about them, but seek rather to have an own good opinion about themselves. With that purpose in mind, they make use of what others think about them to mould their own opinion about themselves. We know an opinion about self is seldom a good one and seldom is it a reliable one either. Also, we don't think much of someone we know too well and got used to. And many people know themselves just too well. People in this state of heart cannot have a truthful opinion about themselves at all, even though what really counts is God's clear judgment about us. Now, here we see this two-sided heart which seeks others' opinions because it entertains the idea that it needs to think highly of self. Usually, people need to feel great and awesome to feel confident. Jesus' name doesn't mean anything to them at all and they will rather trust self than the Lord; or they will trust the Lord as long as they still share it with some degree of confidence in self or in the arm of the flesh. In case such people are convicted of the sin of seeking others' opinions concerning them and stop seeking it because of conviction and repentance, they should know there is still other parallel problems they need to look at and solve as soon as they can, which is seldom separated from the one they have been convicted of. They need to do away with pride and, along with it, annihilate the lack of trust in the Lord's capabilities and in the power He has. They still need to do away with the trust they bestow upon self. Sometimes they also need to stop seeking a good opinion about them from the Lord Himself. God does not need to have a good opinion about you because He can change people who come to Him as they are and trusts only the kind of work He has been able to carry out to the end. Whatever you are or do can never impress the Lord at all, not even when it impresses you.

83. Here is another thing we should have in mind once we have solemnly vowed to do all things through and for the Lord. The Bible is clear about us needing to do everything here on earth the way all is done in heaven. The way it is done is the seal of whatever we do. The emphasis was laid by Jesus upon the way God's will is carried out and not so much on God's will itself. "Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven". What counts most is the way it is done and through which power. God does not want strange fire on His altar of holy works. Now, because people easily understand that the emphasis is on the will itself and not on the way it is done, they understand that whatever they desire or want can never be turned into a blessing or even dedicated to the Lord, and that they should choose what God wants always in detriment of themselves. They assume that whatever they want cannot be done for God because they want it, and nor can it be blessed or turned into a blessing for the same reason. They feel they need to deny whatever they want at all times. Here is an advice for those people who can carry all things out through the Lord and, also, for those who can't. Whatever you carry out with the blessing and through the power of the Lord is also His will. It must be. Let me explain. If there are things we consider as our own; and we near God because of them; and God answers our prayers; and He gathers with us when they are carried out; then, we can never think those things are selfish at all because God would never feed selfishness. If it is carried out through the Lord and God is able to gather with us and through them for real, it cannot be considered selfish anymore. Hannah brought a child into the world which she had desired deeply and God granted it because that child came to belong to the Lord and not to her anymore. She did not deny to have that boy after she had discovered she was selfish about it. The boy was dedicated to the Lord and she kept her promise of the sanctification of the child. The plague of selfishness had been broken, but not the desire for a child. The child she desired to have ceased to feed selfish purposes. On the other hand, there are those people who try hard to do something which they know is the desire of God, even though it is not theirs. The sacrifice and the denial they inflict upon themselves concerning the issue is also able to assure them it can't be selfish and it must be acceptable to God. However, because they know such a thing is not their will and might be God's will, they will try to carry it out anyhow and even through "the arm of the flesh". It not being their will seems enough to justify the use of strange fire on the altar of God. They carry it out but not through the Lord because there is no way they consider what they are doing as selfish. They easily believe God is obliged to bless and accept this seemingly altruistic act meant to please Him. However, anything carried out through "the arm of the flesh" must have some selfishness backing it up or just hiding somewhere linked to it or not. This is one of the reasons God says He does not desire sacrifice. Where there is flesh there is some disguised selfishness somewhere. The conclusion of this thought is: what man can't do through the Lord and through the Holy Spirit he can't do for the Lord. And, whatever he can carry out through the Holy Spirit, however selfish it seems, is acceptable to God because He trusts only a work He carries out and is able to take to the end. We should know that if we gather with Him or through Him we are not scattering at all - whatever it may be. And when we are doing something God wants but not through Him, we are surely squandering and spoiling His will one way or another by turning it unacceptable to Him.

84. Here is another thing you must know about the human heart. If you have a heart that makes you complain under trials and which seeks God to lift them up for you, but do not seek God for God's sake alone, you will surely sin and deny God under times of abundance. You need to seek God to find God under any circumstances. You cannot afford to seek God so you can find something else. God said, "Seek Me to find Me" even if you can seek to find something else after you have found God for real to dedicate it to Him. Remember the Israelites who denied God in the abundance of the desert? They had abundant life close to them and, even so, complained about many things. They were the very ones who also complained under the heavy yoke of Pharaoh. Had they been faithful to Pharaoh under slavery as Joseph had been, they would have never denied God in the desert at all. The heart they had in them would go along with them. So, here is this reverse truth as well: if you are faithful to God under riches and under many wonderful blessings, you are a person capable of enduring any kind of trial for His sake. Remember Job? He was very rich and faithful to truth and to God. He is the one who remained faithful to the Lord when all had been taken away from him.

85. An independent spirit is always a spirit that seeks the attention of other people. "He that separates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound wisdom", Prov.18:1. Isolating yourself is usually a way to blackmail people into giving you some attention you believe you deserve to have even  when you do not seek it. Whoever ceases to seek other people's attention usually ceases to be an independent person. In other words, if you suffer from an independent spirit, you should also know there is isolation, timidity, attention seeking or even some other related sins you must deal with in a thorough way. 

86. Timid people are proud people and the daring are humble and often receive from the Lord who "gives grace to the humble". There is a huge association between humility, daring and receiving. If the daring receive, they must be humble people or grace would not be distributed to them at all. And if those people who are bold are able to reach out to the Lord and receive from Him, surely the timid must be proud people or they would receive as well.

87. An ignorant person who does not make use of wisdom in his daily life is usually an unbelieving person who also trusts no one but himself. He is always suspicious about everyone else's opinion as well. The reason for that is very simple to explain: all ignorant people believe they know all because their lack of knowledge does not allow them to evaluate what they do not know. And because they believe they know all, it so happens that anything they consider new to their knowledge or experience is enough motive to distrust because they do not believe there is still something to know about outside the range of their experiences and knowledge. So, if you wish to stop thinking highly of yourself and to stop believing you know all, start seeking harder to learn from the Lord Himself and not from human institutions. Seek that kind of wisdom. By destroying ignorance one also destroys self deceit and self conceit, unbelief and pride. "But the wisdom that is from above is first truly pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy", James 3:17. Find that kind of wisdom and all good fruit shall be added unto you very easily in due time.

88. The man who seeks rest in riches is an anxious and worrying person as well because riches offer no inner rest. So, whenever you stop seeking riches and stop believing they are able to give you rest, make sure you also deal thoroughly with the anxious and worrying spirit associated to it which you acquired through habit; or, if you stop being anxious through grace, make sure to deal with the deep, concealed, perverted and selfish seeking after riches or make sure you deal with the deep belief which causes you to suspect that riches are still able to grant rest. These kinds of sins are always found hand in hand and one is the other side of the other.

89. All those people who do things for others because of lust or some kind of self-seeking interest, whether it s a material or emotional motive they seek it for, have great difficulty doing things for the proper motives of love. You cannot do things to others because of yourself and because of the love of God at the same time. Also, everyone who does everything through the power of man has a great difficulty doing them through the Lord. And, every person who does everything through the power and the simplicity of the Lord because he is already a stabilized man in that power cannot find it easy to do anything through the arm of the flesh, and neither can such people work together with anyone who works things out in a fleshly way. The reverse of this is also true.

90. Most Christians have already heard about the reciprocal enmity there is between the Spirit of God and the flesh, even though most of them have not yet taken it seriously. These two mortal enemies are always active against each other. There is no rest or peace in the place where they meet. The arena where they are found together is always turned into havoc. And by that we all know what enmity really means. However, let's see how it works out when the arena is the human heart. Many people find it difficult to read their Bibles hungrily and in a living way. They fall asleep when they read it. Most of them even feel guilty about it and try hard to read it by avoiding or reprimanding all wandering thoughts. However, we must have in mind that we can seldom solve such distracting problems during the time we are trying to read our Bibles. That problem should be solved by dealing with the love, the disposition of the heart and the time we share with worldliness, fleshly friends and fleshly things - all of our daily life. If you love the world, you won't love God; and if you love God you won't love the world. And we think a lot on the ones we love and our thoughts are often called there. It is as plain as that. If you wish to be a good and faithful steward of the Lord during devotional time, you must take into account that there is such a thing as a consequent curse of enmity (lovelessness) in the heart against God every time we touch the world in our daily life; and there is always an accompanying blessing during Bible reading, preaching, prayer or whatever else we do when we let worldliness down by hating it from the heart. Our spirit becomes awake either to God or to worldliness. Whatever you do today, you should take into account that there are curses and blessings breeding out of every situation; and the blessing or the curse upon whatever we try to do next will always depend much on what we did before and, also, how we did it. You cannot avoid falling asleep when you read your Bible if you are wide awake during a novel or during a session of jokes among 'friends' who act as enemies of God. Things always depend directly from curses and from blessings. A hungry heart is a blessing and the enmity against God is a curse. There are such curses and blessings. You cannot avoid breeding a kind of lifelessness and lovelessness in your daily life and especially in the things of the Lord if you still are in touch with the worldliness and sin in some way.

91. As for the power of the Spirit and the power of the flesh, it works much with the same duality. Most people expect to receive the power of God to solve those things they consider hard and difficult. However, unless you do all in the Spirit (including small things) it is not likely that the arm of the Lord shall ever stand by you during more difficult times. There shall always be a two-sided truth about this: if you give room to the arm of the flesh in any aspect of your life, the power of God will die in the whole of it; (remember that the flesh already killed Christ once and it will do so again in your heart and life. Its doing only mean to kill Christ); on the other hand, if you consecrate yourself fully to the way God does things, even the remembrance of the arm of the flesh will (consequently) die away from you. You cannot expect to experience God's power in great things if all other daily things you consider minor are dealt with through or for the flesh. The goal of Christ is to let things be done here on earth the way they are done in heaven. The way it is done is more important than the accomplishment of it. Remember that it is not the size or the importance of anything that counts, but the usual way you carry it out. Does the thing you do contribute to learn to be lead and blessed by God along the way? The relationship with God is what counts and anything else can and must be used to establish it, however small those things are. The aim is the establishment of that relationship. There is also a reverse truth about this. You can neither expect God to run those simple things of life if your difficult times are worrying times. Many people forget about God when things are hard for them and they are able to think only of their own power to solve them during those moments. They cannot trust the Lord during hard times. Their faith is too short and it reaches out only in small matters. Consequently, you can never expect God to carry out or bless any normal, simple or daily thing unless God is still God for you during the hardest time you can ever conceive or imagine. Remember that for God either all counts or nothing counts at all. And you cannot feign faith, love, hope and expectation at all. It is a disaster to do so. You must always be able to make sure about God's power and will so faith and expectation may become real and untouched by the arm or the force of the flesh. Man must be fully convinced and not be convinced by himself.

92. There are those who seem to be unwilling to take evil into account because they believe the Children of God can't be assaulted by evil. And there are those who take evil into account with the purpose to fight it off them and by neglecting their work and whatever God entrusted into their hands to carry it out faithfully. In the first situation people often have a wrong idea of what God plans about them and of the environment they are found in. The aim of God is to have everyone carry out in Him all God entrusted into their hands to do. They should not only carry it out, but carry it out in Him. The intention of God is not that they carry it out, but, that it is carried out the way things are carried out in heaven. They should find themselves in God still after the task is over. They cannot change in relation to God during their course. Now, people who do not take evil into account and who do not accept the idea that they are living for God in the territory of the enemy, are seldom prepared to live for God exclusively by being faithful to the work entrusted to their hands and hearts. When evil comes, they don't cannot figure out what is happening to them. They are unprepared people for the Lord. In case they did take evil into account, they would say something like this: "I will be faithful to God when evil comes and will still be found doing what God has left me to do faithfully. I will not start beating my fellow servants, be annoyed or start drinking with them because I am know there is evil and a evil day", Lk.12:45. Paul assured us, like Jesus did, that evil would be coming. "Therefore take to yourselves the whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand", Eph.6:13. Here is this astonishing truth: if we do not take evil into account, we will be unprepared people and will have our seeds thrown between thorns and thistles and we shall be people who will not do all to be able to stand and be found in Him fresher than ever at the end of our course. But, when we take evil into account, we should be careful enough to prepare ourselves in order to carry on with God's work the right way (in Him) whatever happens so we would not waste our time withstanding evil in any way. "Withstand no evil", Paul said. Taking it into account means we know we must keep track with God and His ways of carrying out His will. We should not expect or wait for evil to go away before we prepare ourselves for God's work. We should always be "a prepared people for the Lord".

93. Any man who convinces himself in the matter of faith using encouraging words of his own is not open to be convinced by God. Such people aren't of the kind to be convinced by God at all. I often hear people assuring themselves about many things, which is not always wrong. The wrong part is when they start believing that is what faith is all about. Faith is to be fully convinced by God. And, if you really want God to convince you so that your faith will withstand any kind of evil or trial and still end up real, you must stop with the habit of convincing and assuring yourself of things which are naturally true. You should allow some space in your heart to take truthful things as true simply because they are true.

94. Many people take admiration of man and amazement towards their works as submission to such men. Do you remember Simon of whom was said, "And seeing miracles and mighty works happening, he was amazed"? Act.8:12,13. He was the one who wanted to be like Peter and even offered money to do what Peter did. In other words, man who admires wishes to be admired himself. Never trust the person who admires you in any way. Such people are proud and are, also, of the kind who can hold grudges against you. If you are able to admire others, be assured you have a heart in you capable of holding grudges as well. And, if you are able to hold grudges in you against anyone, be also assured that you can most easily be guilty of the sin of admiration and amazement. It just works that way. Now, if you find yourself admiring someone, you must know you must deal with the deep, concealed and abstract desire to be admired yourself and be glorified before men as well. In doing so, you will gradually cease to admire people and open a way see holy people in the proper light. You shall cease to cause them to stumble and shall be able to save your own life.

95. There is an important relation between our motives and the encouragement of God. Many people desire to be encouraged by God without undergoing a change in their motives. We shouldn't only be motivated by the Lord, but also have the same motives He has. God can't motivate us unless our motives are His. It simply works that way. There are two sides in us concerning this same matter to take care of. If you long to feel God nearby to encourage you and give you hope, just try to change your motives that they like God's.

96. There is another law we cannot avoid. As soon as we start disagreeing with God, we will also be in disagreeing with holy brothers. But, that is not all. As soon as we start disagreeing with God we will also start agreeing with unholy people. Let's put it the other way round as well since it also works that way. As soon as we start disagreeing with our holy brothers God might start disagreeing with us and us with Him. And as soon as we start agreeing with unholy people we won't agree with God and neither God with us. "Can two and two walk together unless they are agreed?" Amos 3:3. And as soon as we start agreeing with holy people, we start agreeing with God even though our hearts might not yet be in a complete agreeing state. The heart must be fully convinced before it acts and reacts as God would.

97. Have you ever seen a husband or a wife demanding form the partner that all things be discussed among them before any decision is taken? Every time it happens, it means the one who demands does not wish to discuss what he or she does, but only what the other one does. If you complain against your partner on this issue be assured that you are the one who is unwilling to talk about what you do. It just works that way and if you don't believe me put yourself to the test. If you discuss your stuff with your partner, however, so will you partner discuss with you what he or she needs to do. Remember that the Law and the Prophets are fulfilled whenever you do to others whatever you wish to be done to you and not when you wish things to be done to you the way you want it. And a persisting example is usually a teaching mode in any relationship and soon the two will be doing the same thing the same way, either good or bad.

98. Now, here is something for those people who wonder about having or not having sex before marriage. There are more wrong things with pre-marital sex than the adulterous act itself, even if adultery is bad enough already. There are, also, many inner consequences coming from such an act besides guilt as well. Pre-marital sex means sex outside the marriage and also means getting a heart which thinks of sex outside the marriage. We cannot avoid having, later on, the same heart we have started to create now. You can choose the seed you sow, but you cannot choose what you shall reap one day from the seeds you used. Now, here is something you can be sure of: when you have sex with your future partner before marriage, you will surely become cold towards that same partner after marriage. Sooner or later it shall happen. You cannot avoid it happening unless your adulterous heart changes on the course of days. This kind of coldness towards partners is the main reason why many adulterous people seek partners outside the marriage bond. They have created a beast out of their heart by having sex outside (before) their marriage. Lawlessness calls for further lawlessness. It just works that way. In other words, if you are having sex with the person you intend to have as a future wife or husband, you must realize that all promises of eternal love between the two of you won't work out as you believe they will. And there you sin again by not being able to fulfil those promises. The heart you will have then as a consequence of your acts now won't allow couples to keep the flame of honeymoon. These are the two sides of the same story. Pre-marital sex makes people cold towards their partner after they get married. If you are adulterous now, you will be adulterous later on (or, at least, you shall wish to be adulterous, which amounts to the same sin); and will, consequently, be coldly related to your partner whom you should be able to honour as a gift of God. Don't expect to harvest a faithful heart if you, now, sow an adulterous seed. Whatever you sow you shall reap - and so will your partner who shared in the act with you. The costs of pre-marital sex are high - much higher than you can imagine.

99. Here is another truth concerning humility and pride. What God considers as pride or as humility is not what the flesh considers as pride and humility. God and the flesh use the same vocabulary do describe distinct states of heart and of mind. Humility is to be transparent, open and to be yourself all the time under any circumstances. The flesh seeks humility only in the appearance of man. And we all know appearance is the opposite of transparency. Now, if you have a heart like God's, you must know you shall see as pride whatever people and the flesh consider humble; and if you have a worldly vision about most things, you cannot but consider God's things as proud manifestations whenever you see them in transformed beings. You cannot help it happening that way at all. The same principle can be applied to other virtues or sins. For example, people whom God sees as persevering, the world will se as stubborn; and the world will see real stubbornness as will-power and perseverance. And all people who persevere in the Lord must have given up the world and sin or they won't persevere to the end at all. Consequently, the world will see them as cowards who give up too easily or even consider them as lazy or irresponsible fools because they have left the world and its ways behind. This is part of the price you will have to pay to follow the Lord.

100. Every person must have, obey, experience and drink from own rivers of living water. If not, such a person will eventually die or, perhaps, right away. It will surely happen. We cannot wish to drink from others living waters and, as a consequence, expect others to drink from ours. It must be the other way round. If we drink from ours, we usually expect others to drink from theirs as well. One thing leads to the other. The truth about this is: whoever wishes to drink from other people's living water has a continual urge in his heart to preach to others about what he himself should give an ear to. If such a person ever experiences real living water in his heart, he shall try to apply it on others first. And it cannot work that way at all. It will give a bad testimony to the truth of the gospel. It shall tell people Jesus does not save in a practical way. "It is right for the labouring farmer to partake first of the fruits", 2Tim.2:6. If we admire people it means we have a secret desire to be admired ourselves. Also, when we expect other people to listen to us and to drink from the waters we are supposed to drink ourselves, we also believe we must drink from others' waters. And this is the devil at work. We must have such a personal relationship to the Lord that the living waters in others and in us becomes a whole so that we can't find where it starts and where it ends. Now, whoever tries to apply on others what he learns or experiences from the Lord personally is surely trying to escape from salvation. It means there is a devilish instinct that makes such a person throw abroad the bands meant for him and to avoid being entangled in the cords of love which God threw to bring him in. We must know that if Jesus teaches us it means He teaches others also. If this is not happening to others, we should rather find out what hinders that to happen above trying to teach what people don't learn from Jesus personally. Do you have that worldly habit to apply on others what you learn from Jesus? Be sure you are deviating the aim of truth from its real goal.

101. People may easily become proud of their own poverty just as many may become humble by their riches. The sin lays in the heart and not in circumstances. Self-consciousness hinders anyone to become a real disciple, whether that consciousness is brought about through riches or poverty. A disciple is conscious of his Lord and not of himself or of circumstances. So, you cannot be a disciple of the Lord if you are self-conscious. It just doesn't work out that way. Now, all of us must know the other side of this as well: discouragement is directly related to self-consciousness. Where you find one, you shall find the other because people, by believing they are disciples of God, expect things which God refuses to grant them or to grant them at His proper time. The degree of discouragement is proportionally related to the love one still breeds for self. If God is trying to kill self and people expect God to please it, the outcome is discouragement. Self-consciousness leads to it.

102. Be careful when you find Jesus' words hard. If that is happening to you, or if you still entertain ideas of finding an easier 'gospel' to fit your desires, you love the world and you are the one who is harsh towards the Lord, even when you don't see it that way. You are the one who is hardened and not the words of the Lord. If it happens that you find God's words hard to swallow, instead of trying to soften whatever He says, rather try to put worldliness to death in you. You cannot afford to make a word from God softer than it is or you shall be guilty of adding to His words or of trying to change them. And how terrible it shall be when God considers you a liar in front of those people before whom you softened His words for! The you shall hear the facts about having misjudged God's words being taken by the hardness of your heart. You wished Barabbas free rather than Jesus. Isn't it true that Jesus says that He is lowly and meek of heart? Therefore, every time you find the words of this meek Lord hard, say to yourself you have a hard stone inside you. You are the one who is hardened. Get a new heart and you shall surely find God's words as soft as snow and as pleasant as honey. Never attempt to make God's words sound lighter or softer than they intend to be. It doesn't work out that way. If you do that, Judgement Day will have you condemned as a liar because the truth is that God's words are real life indeed. "Do not My words do good to him who walks uprightly?", Mic.2:7.

103. As a rule and by the laws of spirituality, every person who understands something is someone who already practices in some way whatever he or she understands. That is why he understands it. That is a law in creation. Even Jesus said, "Whoever practices shall know". If you understand sin, it means you practice sin. If you cease to practice sin, you will gradually cease to understand it. The same principle can be applied to all aspects of our lives, whether it is our prayer life, cultural life, language or any other. If you understand English it is because you already practice it in some way, or you would not be able to understand it at all. Therefore, if you understand the ways of holiness, take courage and carry on living as God told you to. Do not be misled by accusations if you already understand and easily accept holiness. Find more of it in a practical way and you shall surely be given more and even better to understand. This is a rule which often causes people to waver when they try to launch themselves into a life of faith and undisputed trust in the Lord. People often do not understand it before they start practicing it. It is hard and too daring to hand our lives over to the unknown Lord of all. It will often seem to risky because we do not understand a thing about the practical outcome of what we are doing. But, let there be faith! Let there be more people who practice so they will gain good understanding. It will mean more people will have understanding or, at least, people will have more and better understanding. This is the main reason why the fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom. It means people who fear the Lord start practicing out of fear and will gain the consequent understanding through what they do, or by what they are and, most important, of who God really is them. Understanding is the main consequence of practicing. This is the other side of this truth.

104. Never fear to refuse the hastening or speeding up of the proper time of the Lord for certain things to happen. People usually fear to be delaying things which they are impatient about. Do not fear to deal thoroughly with impatience because the man who refuses to hasten the time of God will also easily refuse to have the proper timing of the Lord postponed or delayed. One thing leads to the other. That is the way a normal heart works. To refuse to hasten the time of the Lord is not the same as postponing things - at all. It only means we want the right things to happen in their proper time and place. Today belongs to today. In fact, by trying to quicken or hasten the right time for something often delays it instead of quickening it up. It means we are busy with tomorrow and, by doing so, we cannot be busy with the preparation those things require to be fulfilled and accomplished in us. We are not busy with today. Consequently, we shall not prepared when tomorrow comes to receive it naturally. You must rather choose to be "a prepared people for the Lord" instead of trying to skip or avoid your cooperation with God in whatever means He uses to have you dead and fully crucified and, consequently, resurrected with Christ forever. So, here is this double truth: if you try to hasten things, you will surely delay them; if you refuse to hasten them to use your precious and short time for the sake of your own preparation and faithfulness, you will undoubtedly "redeem the time". And the other truth is: if you find yourself busy with hastening times and are filled with impatience and mistrust towards God and His timing, you cannot be busy preparing yourself for when it comes and neither can you be filled with God. We cannot do two things at once or serve two masters at the same time. And woe to the servant who is unprepared when the Lord comes with what He has promised!

105. We often hear from people that they lack faith. (Here, we must first differentiate between faith as a gift to perform certain greater things according to God's will in God's time which is given only to some people; and faith as fruit of the Spirit which all must have without exception. Those who have the gift must also have the fruit. The gift cannot be separated from the fruit). Now, there are people who lack faith for some reason and they try to believe as a thief would try to jump over a wall to enter the sheepfold. We need to get in through the door of faith or the Lord shall consider us as thieves. Usually, some sin or some stain in conscience which requires cleansing is responsible for the shipwrecking of faith in man. And by refusing to put it right, man rather jumps over the wall so as to try believing in his way and on his own terms. It feels to him like a more direct way into the sheepfold than acknowledging and cleaning sin. However, faith is set ablaze by fellowshipping with the Lord in a real way and any kind of sin separates us from that fire which makes the heart burn in assuredness. Unless we fellowship with Him, we won't be able to believe the way we ought. This is why Jesus talks about those who can believe and those who can't, Mk.9:23. However, this is only one part of truth. The other point is that faith comes through a truthful word which we are able to take in as truth. It may also occasionally come through a lying word which we are able to reject as a lie. To have lies as lies is faith. We must know truth and faith cannot be separated and neither can lies and sin be separated from unbelief. Where one is, the other will also be found. However, we all know that there must be a truthful heart to accept truth as truth because sort seeks sort and everyone feels attached to his likeness. We have been made in the likeness of God for that reason as well. "Will two and two walk together unless they are agreed?", Amos 3:3. The conclusion of this is: one must be either truthful or on the verge of being truthful to be able to believe the way it is required of us to believe. In other words, there is a direct link between faith and inner truthfulness. If you feel you lack faith and can't believe God for some reason, you must know that faith is not only a decision of the heart. Faith is sustained by the Holy Spirit as much as by the truthfulness of the heart. You must work on being truthful all the time if you wish to believe the Lord when He speaks and if you wish to remain in silent trust and expectation when He is quiet. You must not only take a heartily decision to take truth as truth and lies as lies, but you must also make a point of becoming truthful all the time or faith which started its work will not last for long. You must be truthful. A believing heart is also a truthful heart, and an unbelieving heart is a heart which lies easily to self, before God and to people. Truth, truthfulness and faith are always found together. There will always be this bond between truth and faith as well as between lies and unbelief. Make sure you work on both sides when you wish to believe in an unfeigned way.

106. If you are a person who sees fault where God does not put fault, you are also someone who puts virtues where God finds no virtue at all. Once you start having light and start seeing clearly through the mist of your own thoughts and ways, you shall need to lift up all those faults from where you have put them and, also, cease to find virtues where where there is no virtue. You shall cease to condemn the innocent and shall, also, cease to breed a spirit of fault finding, which is done only for the sake of covering self up and for other personal uses like satisfying bitterness and greed. But, once you do that, make sure you deal just as wisely with the false virtues you used to uphold and distribute around you. Stop putting fault everywhere once you cease to please people. Also, make sure you stop pleasing people when you stop pleasing yourself through fault finding. Fault finding and pleasing people are inseparable mates. These are always found together and must die together or the sin which survives will sooner or later bring the other one back from its apparent death along with seven other demons.

107. There are those people who, by coming to Jesus and by experiencing what it is to see under the transparency of light, realize how deceitful their heart is or can be. If you are one of those, you must know that deceit is the outcome of something we need to root out from our system. Deceit is the outcome of anyone's independence from the Lord. The Bible also says that people become deceitful because they spend a lot of time imagining evil things. You cannot help but having a deceitful heart as a final result in you if you allow some space to evil, aggressive or distracting thoughts in your mind. So, if you wish to stop being deceitful, you must also deal in a parallel imaginations the devil tempts you with. "Deceit is in the heart of those who imagine evil", Prov.12:20. And if this is true, we can easily assume the opposite of it as true as well: if we imagine, think and search truth to find and experience it, surely righteousness will slowly take hold of our whole being and we will become righteous. "He who breathes truth shows forth righteousness", Prov.12:17. "Blessed is the man who... in His Law he meditates day and night", Ps.1:2. "I will think on Your precepts", Ps.119:48. Righteousness is not directly attained. It is righteousness which takes us over step by step, thought by thought, way by way. If you wish to be righteous, work on your mind, thoughts and heart and be fully surrendered to the Lord so you can have "the mind of Christ" all the time without needing to "work it out" yourself.

108. We read that, "The way of a fool is right in his own eyes", Prov.12:10. It is obvious that no one who is right in his own eyes will ever consider himself a fool and that no fool will assume he thinks highly of himself either. Paul talks about seeking the approval of our ways from the Lord by abandoning our own ways and approvals until we have the mind of Christ and feel at home with it. Then we might have a better opinion about many issues. It is an impossible task to realize we are fools when we are indeed foolish. By having our ways as right in our own eyes, we do so at the cost of the key issue of the Gospel: surrendering to Jesus, whatever our ways are like. So, if you, perhaps, find out (by the use of light) that your ways are right in your own eyes, make sure you also realize you must deal against the consequent foolishness which came to life through the way you think about your ways. There must be some sort of foolishness or foolish drive in you as a consequence of being right in your own eyes; or, you must realize you will also think you are right in your own eyes if you find out you have been foolish lately. There is always a parallel work we must do when we are stained with some sin of this sort. We must do that because we all realize no fool will ever have the happy ending he expects to have. Now you know what to do when you realize you keep defending your ways before the eyes of people as well as before your own at the cost of surrendering your whole being and ways to the Lord, and at the cost of being fully subject to His correction for a change. Do not fear what people can do to you or think about you at all. Let them talk and think as they wish. Simply surrender and be wise enough to do only that. Surrender and wisdom are always found hand in hand and wisdom is the opposite of foolishness. So, surrender must be the opposite of foolishness as well.

109. Did you know that searching and finding the wisdom of God applies a death sentence to all sorts of pride? "But the wisdom that is from above is first truly pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy", James 3:17. Many refer to poor people as "humble people". Through that assumption we are tempted to believe that rich people are proud people. And that is not what the Bible says about that because pride and humility lives in the heart of man and does not depend on external circumstances. It depends mainly on what man is and not on what he has. There are many poor people whose cup runs over with pride. And we also know how humble and how rich Job and David have been. Have you ever felt a deep desire to be really humble and simple? Do not associate it to poverty at all, but rather to the wisdom of God and to a fully surrendered heart, whatever the circumstances are. Try to live out, experience and enjoy the wisdom of God in all its fullness and you will have a deep kind of humility in you resulting out of it! And when you are humble, be yourself and never attempt do be an actor but rather the real character.

110. Jesus said that, "No prophet is accepted in his own country", Lk.4:24. We all know this is true, whether through personal experience; or by seeing it happening to others; or, at least, through acknowledgment of truth. Even though I do not wish to dwell too deeply on why this happens, I would like to mention that it happens mainly because people get too used to the meek person who is around them all the time and cease to appreciate what is good because the evil heart they have takes over easily under easiness and chooses to live rather from the assumptions it has already made its mind about, which cause it to assume easily it knows more and better. If there is someone in your household whose words are often fulfilled by God, you must make sure you will not look at that person as a family member, but rather as a messenger of the Lord. You must look beyond the family ties and the thoughts you are usually tempted by in order to purify your hearing. You must make sure that you believe what Jesus has said. He said that NO prophet is accepted as a prophet in his own house. So, if there is a prophet in your house whose words are truthful, make a point of accepting such a person as the mouth of God, because your heart might resent doing that in a natural way for many reasons. And whoever does not accept a true prophet as such at home, will undoubtedly accept any evil prophet outside the household only because he is a stranger. Motives always work on a dual basis: if you accept or reject someone only because he or she is near to you, you shall do the opposite to those far from you. It just works that way all the time. Under easiness you will easily listen to, share and agree with anyone who is like you and if you are in need of a change yourself, you are set on slippery ground. It happens because if you do not listen to truth for any reason whatsoever, you will be open to listen to lies anywhere. Make sure you take these words of Jesus as truthful and make sure you acknowledge it can happen to you just as it can happen to anyone else in the Universe. This might be seen as one of the reasons why Jesus keeps Himself discreet or at a certain distance from those hearts which are still in the process of being changed. People are inclined to reject someone who is too close to them all the time.

111. We read: "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. Though a sinner does evil a hundred times, and his days be made longer, yet surely I know that it shall be well with those who fear God, who fear before Him", Ecc.8:11,12. If we know God, we must also know that a thousand years to Him feels like a single day. And God might punish evil during our times or only afterwards. However, in case evil is not immediately punished, we must take pains never to be deceived through our short-sightedness because the devil will surely tempt us through lies on this point in many ways. If evil abounds and flatters itself through the 'lack' (the delaying) of Godly punishment, make sure you tell your heart it must fear God as it would were each act of evil dealt with on the spot through the wrath of God. Know that your heart will surely be tempted to accept evil around and within, and to ease up on the fear of God whenever punishment takes some time to occur. Do not play this kind of dangerous game and jump out of it as quickly as you can. Remember that the Ark of Noah took about a hundred years to be built and, because it took so long and because people were evil (what a bad combination!), they assumed things would go on as always. Make sure you do not fall into this trap and live each day as if you have seen with your own eyes how Ananias and Sapphira fell down into hell.

112. Spiritual stagnancy means fleshly activity and spiritual brightness means the flesh is dead. Spiritual stagnancy occurs, also, when people do not know when or how to wait on God just as when they do not know when or how to walk with Him through Him as happened to the Israelites in the desert. They had God, but could not be reigned by Him because the sort of heart they had in them wasn't reignable. Having God around is not the same as having a heart which is easily reigned by Him. The other side of the coin is that people who know how to wait on the flesh and to expect from it shall never know what it is to expect and receive from God. If you are expectant that something shall come from the right you cannot expect it to come from the left. You cannot expect two opposed things to happen the same way at the same time and having the same results. This why the Bible says that whoever is not for God is against Him. God and the flesh are opposed sides. The same principle is applied to walking through God when people know only to walk in the flesh and to make use of its strength. That is what causes most kinds of spiritual inactivity and spiritual stagnancy: people just don't know how to walk in the Spirit! They never learned it and they are not used to it once they enter into Life. They must learn to do it all over again. The other counter truth is: spiritual people simply can't walk using any sort of fleshly means or strength at all. They don't know how to do it. It feels strange to them. It just doesn't work out with them when the flesh knocks at their door as a helper. They only know how to do things in the Spirit and through God.

113. When the mind is active the person is often physically stagnant and slow. If your mind starts running you will slow down and if you start running, your mind eases up. No one can avoid it happening that way. Usually, people do better and more (physically) when their mind has already settled itself down. This is what athletes do when they say they are concentrating before a race. In fact, they are making their minds void of anything that does not belong the the race itself so that their legs and arms can be left alone and so the mind's resources can be channelled to the activity they are trying to perform. Thinking will surely hinder their performance. Activity and thinking cannot go together because activity requires the resources of the mind to do what it pretends to do. This is why sport works on resting the mind and thinking means rest to the body. If you don't believe this, try it out. Have you ever seen somebody stopping in the middle of the road because he is started thinking about something all of a sudden, or because something has suddenly started to make sense and demands his mind's attention? It just works that way. This said, we may ask: how does this apply to the spiritual life? This means that thinking a lot on God's words is not the same as walking in the Spirit. Thinking and meditating on truth is badly needed for all beings. However, make sure you walk accordingly and stop pleasing yourself with vain thoughts which assure that you know the truth and must be godly by thinking a lot on God's truths and things. Walking is walking and meditating is meditating. Your prayerful meditation changes your heart from within and absorbs your mind by making it conformed to God. However, after our heart has suffered any kind of change or challenge, we must know that the practical part of the spiritual life is still coming and that is what counts; and to walk upright requires more of spontaneous holiness than of thinking. Thinking and meditating on truth causes to breed the heart which is responsible for walking upright and pure in that spontaneous way if we stick to the Lord as we walk on. However, walking is not thinking and meditating is not walking. The more you walk upright in a spontaneous way, the less you think; and the more you think, the less you walk. Both are needed for a holy walk, however. But, meditating and walking cannot be simultaneous. A continuous meditation is the essence of uprightness and of breeding a truthful heart which causes us to walk in a spontaneous, unpremeditated way. But, the walk is what receives the reward and the reward for a holy meditation can be a holy walk. "Enoch walked with God three hundred years...". Could you walk with the Lord for three hundred years? "Walk thou before Me..."

114. The fearful often listens to wisdom attentively. However, he will rather obey folly. Fearful people listen to wisdom because they seek attention and company and they obey folly because their heart runs wild according to emotion and according to what it defines as the best option. Fear dictates that option. Fear of the flesh will never obey God, no matter how you look at it. If you are fearful having God nearby, you must acknowledge it is an offensive attitude you breed continually against the Lord since you could ask for protection. But, if you wish to have your heart changed right away, you must take into account this double-sidedness of the fearful heart: it seeks attention from wisdom and obeys folly easily. You must make a point of obeying wisdom and the Lord and of discarding folly completely and simultaneously. If you neglect to do one of these, the work shall remain incomplete in you. You will become or remain lukewarm.

115. Have you, perhaps, seen how often people say they are not loved when they are denied something? Usually, people do not dare to say God does not love them when He tarries with something to sharpen their faith by putting it to proof. Some also say things tarry to happen because they might have some sin they are not aware of, even though it might be true. However, when unbelief is not brought about through some sin which causes faith to shipwreck into the usual suicidal attitudes or thoughts of any stained conscience due to the felt separation from God, God deals against it by tarrying, delaying, postponing or simply by granting it at the right time (and usually the right time is not impatience's time). It is, then, that people say they are not loved or that their person is denied. In fact, they feel robbed of some of those rights they believe they have or believe they should have because God loves them. We all know surrendering to Christ is mainly made of surrendering all of the rights we seem to hold on to. Now that this is said, you can easily confirm that this sort of unbelieving attitude is often mixed up with some of those rights people refuse to lay down to death and deny forever. The other side of this coin of unbelief has some rights it refuses to give up. If God does not fulfil some sort of promise, it usually happens because of these rights which God cannot afford to feed or sustain through His fulfilment of promises. It will seem God is not faithful then, by not fulfilling and, by fulfilling, it will seem God upholds the the attitude of holding on to our rights even unconsciously. Whenever you find yourself in this situation and you have made sure you have no sins which can cause God to refuse the answer to some of your prayers, make sure you not only deal and withstand the unbelief you become aware of, but you also deal thoroughly with those rights you believe you still have about anything. This kind of unbelief is often backed up by holding on to some rights you seem to hold on to for granted. The human mind has this cultivated habit of believing any loved one has some rights over the attitudes of those who loves. This kind of coin has unbelief on one side and is holding on to some rights on the other side of it. Make sure you deal with both on separate levels whenever you find yourself in this situation. Full and sincere surrendering often cleans up both sides of this stained coin. However, even though this is the same coin we are talking about, it has two distinct sides to take care of. But, remember that all sins are dealt with by pushing them into the light and through surrendering to Christ. "Do not resist evil" directly. Rather use the new weapons of light and expose your own sins fully. That way you not only resist it, but kill them forever.

116. There is a kind of life which works for the salvation of others and which strives to be divine. And there is a kind of life which saves others and which is divine. One is earthly and the other is celestial. The life of God in saved ones manifests itself as the very Life of heaven and not as a kind of life which looks like heaven's or strives to be heavenly. A divine life does not struggle to be divine because it is divine. The life which struggles to be divine is not divine. It can't be. What really counts is the essence of holiness and not the mere appearance of it. Jesus came to us as One who had no appearance and had nothing in Him which we should desire. Yet, He was and still is holy. It means He acts the same way still. "The kingdom of God is not coming with a visible display. For the kingdom of God is in you", Lk.17:21. Now, concerning the two sides of the heart of man, the person who struggles to be divine still has certain earthly aspirations and dreams which drive fleshly motivation and earthly means to reach out to them. Both the means and the motives must be changed in an individual basis. They will rather have those than work hard on a heart change through prayer. God is not in debt towards the flesh and none of His promises are meant to satisfy carnal people or carnal desires. Read the Bible the right way and you will immediately come to that conclusion yourself. If you, perhaps, find yourself still struggling to be holy and to be at peace in the presence of God, you must know you must change the kind of life you work through and you must, also, exchange the motives, the means and the goals in you for celestial ones - even if those use the same descriptive words heaven uses. This is often a double problem and needs a double solution.

117. "No one calls for justice, nor does anyone plead out of truth", Is.59:4. In another translation this verse says that no one calls for justice out of a truthful heart. It does not mean people do not call for righteousness and justice. There are many who fight for causes of selfishness and sin with the whole heart using any means to win them, even the means of apparent truth. Are you one of them? Some use truthful means to defend a lying heart's causes. Some others are engaged in the causes of truth half heartedly using the weapons of darkness and of lies. Is your heart fully set in the causes of God? Is it fully settled in them? Does it feel at home in God? Do you feel at home with truth and do you feel at ease by being fully transparent? Or does light annoy you often and makes you feel uncomfortable? Is your whole heart engaged in the manifestation of truth and righteousness to reveal itself fully through the light? What do you have in mind about righteousness? Do you still believe others are the ones who must be made righteous? The main ground and battle for truth is inside each fighter and not on the outside. "The kingdom of Heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his own field", Mat.13:31. God expects you to be righteous when He talks to you about righteousness. Do not easily assume those words He speaks are meant for a sermon or for someone else to hear besides you. They are meant for you. Do not try to carry out on the outside what must be fully accomplished inside first. Do not let God say you trust yourself. Let it never be said of you! "They trust in vanity and speak lies. They conceive mischief and bring out iniquity (...) Their webs shall not become clothing, nor shall they cover themselves with their works...", Is.59:4,6. These people who do that experience some sort of typical problems, according to this piece of Scripture: 1. "They do not know the way of peace". This means they are constantly in a fighting mood and that there is a continual fight going on inside their hearts. 2."They have made crooked paths for themselves". This is something we should expect, because people do not wish to deny God, but only His ways. Their ways become self conceived and self-satisfying and demand the blessing of God. This really happens! This is a triple-sided coin. And it happens in such a way that people are seldom aware that they are doing the wrong thing. What a curse this must be! The way of a dishonest heart is a terrible curse! It is the curse itself. Can there be a greater curse than to be in a state which makes our own ways out to plan them by ourselves? This will give the impression we are righteous and are defending the right causes. But, God will deny these causes along with us. "I never knew you". I have always believed that appearance hinders transparency anywhere, anyhow and all the time. Make sure you work on truth; that you work it in yourself and avoid preaching to others so you may skip putting yourself in the light; and, whenever you do so, make sure you do so with a truthful heart.

118. God does not have time or respect for a bad temper or for a bad mood. And, usually, respect and attention is what anger or a bad spirit demands most. Just take some time to find the truthfulness of what I am saying here. On the other side, whenever my temper or mood changes, I must know God does not change along. A bad mood usually loves to believe others need to change along so that it can assume it is not faulty in any aspect. The other side of any kind of a bad mood is the assumption it is not wrong in itself. Self-justification is the other side of a bad temper. And God works assuming my bad mood shouldn't even exist - at all! He assumes it must be kicked out of me by me right away. It is I who must do it. And that is why He carries on with His work as always and He expects that from us that we carry on with our work as well as we would under the best mood! Make sure you work on it along with God because any bad mood usually works against whatever it should be doing. And the best way to deal against a bad mood is to stay side by side with God and work on what we should do and as we would do were we in our best disposition. let's be a "ready a people prepared (in a good disposition or mood) for the Lord", Lk.1:17.

119. So many question what they hear, having certain doubts about whether what they hear comes from God, the devil or from the flesh. There is no easy way to solve this problem, though. The only way there is, is to enter into the Sanctuary and to get so near God that we shall, so to speak, see His lips moving and easily recognize His voice and realize who is speaking. You won't solve such doubting problems or moods unless you can make sure. And, to make sure, you must get near. Are you moving that close to God? Make sure you know that people who try to hear God do so at the cost of getting near Him. It is not your ear which must be tuned only, but the whole of your heart. Jesus said that unless you become sheep you won't be able to hear Him the way you should. The main secret is seldom trying hard to hear, but rather becoming sheep from the heart. It is sheep that hear - not those who try hard to hear.

120. Living on earth that kind of life which is lived in heaven, just as God demands from all of us, should be the easiest thing on earth for humans. We are weak and unfit. Therefore, we do fulfil the prime conditions to be able to live that life through the Lord. Weak people are the best candidates to share in the fullness of the Lord. To be 'able' and strong is the worst that can ever happen to us. The strength of the flesh is the greatest competitor of eternal life within us. Think with me for a while: will a strong man seek to be strengthened by the Lord? Will 'knowledge' search wisdom from God? Will satisfaction seek help from God? Won't it rather boast and say, "I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing"? (Rev.3:17). Will any person who believes amiss in the Lord ever seek to be comforted by Him in a real way? This said, it is clear that weak and unable people and hearts are the ones appointed to share and experience the plenteous and abundant Life of the Lord. Being 'only human', as people often say, does not excuse them at all, but, rather condemns them. Being weak is, therefore, the fulfilment of the conditions to have the abundant life of God in us. "Let the weak say, 'I am strong'", Joel 3:10.

121. Many assume almost unconsciously a difficult thing must be accomplished through grace and an easy thing should or can be carried out through self. That is a simple way to feed self and to keep it alive. The main secret of the gospel is to do all through grace, not because of what we do, but rather because of how we do whatever we do. The flesh is fed and kept alive by using any other means besides grace. Things must be done here on earth exactly the same way anything would be done in heaven. The important part is how we do and what we do is of secondary importance, though it is important. Therefore, you must be aware that, whenever people say they must pray a lot because they are facing something they consider difficult, the other side of them is assuming easy things need not be done through God. Doing an easy thing using the arm of the flesh is like smoking only one cigarette more whenever you are trying to quit. Doing easy things through the flesh amounts to feeding this strange monster which is abnormal to creation and rises up against God within us and against all His knowledge as well as against the knowledge and acknowledgment of Him in us.

122. Have you been struggling with impulsivity lately? Impulsive people are usually spoiled people or, at least, people who breed this spirit that it should undoubtedly be spoiled and loved. You must know that an impulsive person has another side of him or her which is spoiled. Again, make sure you deal with the main partners of this kind of sin if you find any trace of them in you. Do not dare to deal with it in a superficial or one-sided way only. Impulsivity is superficiality. Impulsive people cannot take things seriously.

123. We are easily taunted by this idea that we must do exceptional things for God. That spirit which wishes to do exceptional things usually feels annoyed with the idea that it must instead be exceptional itself for God. Doing heroic or exceptional things is the usual excuse or means people use to avoid becoming holy and heavenly. Trying to do exceptional things is a cover-up or hiding haven for many a sin. Make sure you assume in daily life that hunting heroic things is synonymous of hiding the true heart from God. No such person will ever prosper or make any progress in the spiritual life because he covers his own sin by wishing to be heroic, Prov.28:13.

Tell me, do you wish to be saved and save people or would you rather prefer to save through heroic actions? Is it important to save or to do so in an unusual way?

124. We live in the era of confusion of knowledge where people know nothing and, even so, believe they know all because they are still able to interpret things their way. They tear Jesus' words apart to understand it to end up building a sort of knowledge that suits them. That is the main reason why people believe they know a lot. The wrong kind of knowledge is not meek. The other side of such hearts is that they can only trust themselves. If you boast in the knowledge you think you have, you cannot trust the Lord, but only in yourself or those who support your belief in the arm of the flesh. "Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding", Prov.3:5. Genuine wisdom and trusting God go hand in hand. This means that leaning on what we understand is the most disguised and common trust in the flesh - or it might be the flesh trusting God for its survival!

125. Everyone who glories in himself has the other side of him which assumes good things do not last for long or that goodness is something unusual or unseen in the present age and era. Do some thoughtful research and you will confirm this truth. If man did not think that way, he wouldn't take glory upon himself. "Why do you boast yourself? The mercy of God endures forever", Ps.52:1. The Psalmist has seen this point clearly: those who boast do not believe goodness lasts forever. They can't. All who have a boasting spirit or boasting habits glory in most of the things God does. They have miracles as unusual, goodness as rare and holiness as unattainable on this present age.

126. We may not allow ourselves to believe that a superficial and frivolous person cannot be serious about anything. We wouldn't be believing truth by believing that way. Such people are capable of becoming serious whenever the issue they are dealing with is superficial, frivolous or of no importance. Take some time to watch these people on their actions and let your heart be free of judgment and let it be neutral and precise. Many people are misled by the serious look stamped on their faces. They are serious about unimportant matters, things which have no eternal value and bear not eternal fruit. Take care to have these two sides of frivolousness in mind. Do not look only at the seriousness of the person, but at what they are serious about. Then you shall make a better judgment of what surrounds you.
127. Jesus didn't say that a person in darkness does not walk or that such a person doesn't believe he is getting somewhere. Such people walk and believe they are going somewhere. "They know not what they do", only. When a lost person starts believing he is lost, he seeks a way out, an alternative way. However, lost people carry on as always because they do not believe they are lost. Do you see lost people seeking the Way and the Life? No, you don't. Only when they see themselves as lost will they attempt to seek it. And it doesn't necessarily mean they seek to find it, but, only that they seek it. Many seek it until they are able to believe their lies again. They do not wish to find - only to seek. Seeking comforts them in their lies. Can there be a greater curse than this? Jesus said: "He who walks in darkness does not know where he goes", John 12:35. This means such people walk indeed, thinking they know where they are going. Having said this, let me underline some secret concerning the two sides of this truth: any person in darkness is able to trust only when there is no light and when he doesn't know where he is going. A clean man will feel lost without light, but, any dirty soul shall feel lost when light shines. Feeling lost is not always a bad thing and feeling safe is not always a good thing. Put yourself, for a moment, in the shoes of a blind man who has never seen light and suddenly gains his sight. Before, he used to count his steps; to be attentive to familiar noises; to touch around and guess what he is touching; to trust his smell and first intuitions, among many other things. As soon as he gains his sight, his whole world and structure changes. He sees precipices where, before, he did not see any. He will have to adapt to what he sees and nothing that he learned before will be of any use in his new living. This is, surely, a great challenge upon his whole way of thinking and upon his brains. His whole personality shall need to change and adopt a new life style. Will he know how to make the best use of light? He will need to learn all from scratch, even learn to trust again. Besides, any blind man who has never seen light, has his own idea of what light is like. And his idea is a mere imagination and is not a truthful or faithful description of light, much less of living in it. It must be a great adaptation to any bind man. He won't need to count his steps anymore and will need to measure distances some other way. He does not need to touch walls anymore to walk in darkness. His old life and everything he has learned before is of no use once his sight is given him. This can mean he lost his life to gain another way of living. Will these people still hold Jesus' hand once they see light? Will they feel the need to be led after they see? Will they follow or will they start to decide their way for themselves? There are many question in this line we could ask to be aware of the other side of truth, of light or of darkness and lies.
128. Confusion of mind and stagnation shall always be found in those who cannot wait on the Lord, especially those who are able to receive  because they are clean before God and people. However, whoever is not clean of heart will also be confused by waiting, because he shall not receive unless a change in him occurs first. Further, if you find it hard and difficult to wait on the Lord, it means you are either expecting God to grant you your own thing or the right thing your your own way. We must also see that impatience, useless occupations brought by the thought of causing time to pass by quickly is a kind of stagnation even if such people are seen as busy and hard workers. Being busy does not necessarily mean one is profitably active. Own occupations are a result of a heart which is not quiet and still and if it is still or seems still it means there is a great degree of hypocrisy and work of the flesh to bring that sort of peace into being. It is not a real rest in assurance, but rather a great effort to look like one who is trusting.
129. Real tiredness is to 'swim against the stream'. Even the best swimmer gets easily tired by swimming upstream and seems to go nowhere or even go backwards instead of making progress. "Behold, you also said, what a weariness it is!" Mal.1:13. And what do I mean by swimming upstream? I mean this: when unrighteousness makes an effort to look righteous; when a selfish person tries to 'love' others; when a liar makes an effort to seem truthful; when a preacher uses the gospel to gain; when we 'have faith' enough to pray and are still bound by personal or wrong motives. I always believed there is no greater tiredness than serving sin in the temple of God. To serve the hard and ruthless master of sin outside the temple of the Lord is a hardship in itself, but, nothing to be compared to the burden of serving it inside God's courts. It must be hard. In fact, it has to be hard. This is the main reason why most people give up on the Way or conceive an alternative gospel which is easier. It is because they never really belonged to the Way of Life. "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they were of us, they would have continued...", 1John 2:19. If you get tired on the way of the Lord, make sure you know you are swimming against Him. And if you, somehow, find (perceive) you are subtly against God or that God is discretely against you, instead of giving up or changing to an easier way, rather choose to get a new heart. Be refreshed by genuine new life. Let your heart be for real what you try to resemble through effort and hard thinking or hard believing. The two sides of this truth is: tiredness on the ways of God is, usually, synonymous of swimming upstream. To live with the Lord should be easier for the renewed spirit than swimming downstream.
130. Let's have a look now at a hesitating heart. Every person who hesitates is surely someone who believes there are still some things which depend from him. Even if it seems that the person does not trust himself, double-heartedness is a great deal of self-dependence and self-trust. The more wavering the person is, the more self-trust there is - even when that person is not able to use it. Wavering is, mostly, the inability or the 'prohibition' to to rely on self, which the person still trusts. It means 'confidence' would be there were self used or allowed to trust. (Psychologists say it is lack of self-confidence that causes this sinful way of life. Paul says he cannot afford to trust the flesh anymore. Self-confidence is the most direct enemy of real faith). This means that now that the impossible is or can be simple and possible, by wavering one only shows the amount of self-dependence and self-trust there still is. Wavering people show a mistrust in God and still believe things depend on them and not only on God. In other words, to stop wavering when our hearts are clean (because uncleanness is another main cause of wavering in honest people), one just needs to see for real how things really depend from God and not from any of us. Once we have made sure of that, we will easily launch ourselves upon Jesus along with all we need to do, either great or small, so that He can perform it. Through Him we must do both what is possible as well as what seems impossible. All things must necessarily be done through Him, so that the flesh might never boast or survive on some crumbles. And, whoever does what is possible through the Lord, will also perform what is impossible through Him. The power of God becomes, then, very familiar and things will be performed the way they are performed in heaven.
131. Exhibitionism means a lot of self-deceit of the kind that creates its own appearance of truth or, should I say, its peculiar cover-up for deceit and lies. To exhibit oneself, for whatever reason, is the greatest danger for the march of truth. Truth must begin in the heart before it passes on to words. This means that every bit of truth which is not coming from a personal experience and from a spontaneous heart action or reaction is nothing more than exhibitionism and hypocrisy. It serves only to cover the sinfulness of self and cannot be a blessing. Because it lacks on blessing it must find other kinds of power through which it can implement itself. It has to impose to be settled.  Exhibitionism is a sign which says, "I don't live what I love to preach". All of us who love truth know that truth never speaks through shows and exhibitionism because it would be working against itself. Whoever lives and experiences truth does not need to interpret it. The life that expresses it, lives through it seldom uses words to express the whole reality of it. Interpreters of truth seldom live it - who lives of truth seldom can interpret it. When the Scriptures are read by those who experience truth in a real way, it often explains only what is going on in them. Therefore, the best preacher is not someone who explains truth, but the one who works so with words and truth that people come to experience what truth is. The point I wish to bring forth is: exhibitionism and self deceit go hand in hand. They are always found together. Many are smeared with truth, but, they are not truth.
132. Have you ever seen or heard about a Christian who says yes in one day and no in the other with the same conviction? And some are even seen as honest ones doing it! This means only such people do not consult God, but the flesh. "Or the things that I purpose, do I purpose them according to the flesh, so that with me there should be yes, yes, and no, no?", 2Cor.1:17. It is obvious that sudden changes of attitude, mind, decisions along with many other things mean that somewhere along the way people have not consulted the Lord and if they have, they are not listened to Him. Changes of mind means that before or after consulting God, people consult the flesh or simply consult it without turning to the Lord who can and must lead them all the way. The other side of this truth is this fact: people who change their mind often are not of the kind that consult the Lord the way they should. People who do not consult the Lord to obey Him and to follow will always be cursed by breeding a irregular state of heart which can move one way today and tomorrow go in the opposite direction with the same conviction. An unstable heart is the curse those who do not consult the Lord never expect, though. Yet, that is what they get as a consequence of that kind of sin. And such people will never be comfortable with the firmness and of the Lord which remains forever. They need a change so now and then to feel they are moving on. "My son, do not meddle with those given to changes", Prov.24:21. If this curse has found lodging in someone, make sure all sins are cleansed from conscience including the sin of not consulting the Lord about everything. And by unstable people we must understand that there are those who feel unstable being stable or unstable in their ways, just as there are people who feel stable yet are follow an unstable way feeling assured by the flesh or the devil. "...Purify your hearts, ye double minded", James 4:8.
133. Whoever doesn't do the will of God is not an inactive person. Such people go nowhere in terms of eternity, but they are quite active. There are two sides of this truth: one is doing and the other is not doing. Do not let people think all they need to do is to learn to do God's will. They should unlearn their own and deny it. Doing God's will, at first, means not doing our own. We need to become inactive concerning whatever we used to do or to will. When that happens, the world shall not understand it. To many, those who do God's will are seen as lazy people who want to do nothing. The world will often say, "Go do something! You cannot wait and go on as you do!" Let's answer and say, "My time has not come yet", John 7:3-6. What I want to say is: if we are found doing our will, we shall never enter God's will; and if we do God's will, our own is over. Besides, God will not do our will. And there is this certainty: if we don't do God's will in practical life, we shall do our own. We shall never be inactive. And everyone shall be rewarded according to what he does and not according to what he believes he does.
134. The Bible says a lot about discerning the spirits. It is very good to have the gift of discernment. That gift is, nowadays, the most useful one. However, it is the rarest gift in church and the one most people do not desire to have. And those who have it, need to believe what God shows them. They need to stop pleasing people and rather choose to believe God. Also, they cannot choose between people and must be able to use the two-edged sword anytime under any circumstances. Having said this, let us have a look at the two sides of any person who has this rare gift. There is a great bond between discernment and impartiality. Only impartial people can think of receiving this gift from the Lord. It is true we need to look at some other aspects as well, if we want this gift, such as walking continually in the light; abstaining from wrong or fleshly judgements of things and people; walking with God all the time with no interruption; discerning the thoughts of our own heart first and that without partiality. However, let us make sure we know that this gift cannot be exercised or received where impartiality is not a way of life. Just as we cannot separate spiritual growth from obedience, understanding and discernment cannot happen apart from impartiality. If it happens, it is of the wrong kind and, surely, there is something wrong with it.
135. Lets have a look at changes of mood. There are no changes of mood (especially from a good mood to a bad one) where wisdom reigns. Every lack of desire to learn and to be wise is directly related to sudden changes of mood and vice-versa. The absence of wisdom has, as the main consequence, sudden changes of mood. As a rule, such people seek to be understood while it is they who need to understand their own hearts and others's to clarify it. They seek attention to avoid changing. Every heart problem is easily solved on our knees and it remains camouflaged if wisdom is resisted, resented or twisted in some way. Unmistakably, every person who persists in the error of hiding the heart for whatever reason, becoming as good as an hypocrite, will also try to work out an own righteousness which is an image of what is in the earth or in heaven. Any image is no real thing. We must know Jesus changes the heart. The real doctrine is that Jesus saves from sin - all sorts of sins. The fact I wish to highlight here is that bad moods are closely related to lack of wisdom and lacks of real knowledge. Where you find one, you shall find the other. Also, where you find such a combination, you will find images or resemblances of what is going on in heaven. It is an idolatrous way of life.

136. Many steal and attribute some of the glory of God to themselves because they want to attract people to them to fill their voids through it. The law of nature determines that it will push people away instead, since others who seek to glorify themselves as well and they won't pay much attention to someone else's own glorying. Own glory lasts for a short time only - if it lasts at all. Only the glory of God can last forever. Humble people, those who live knowing that all glory belongs to God indeed - those that do not have a doubt about it - they are the ones who are able to attract others to themselves, because they bear with the truth. This a combination which no one should ever forget about: the quiet corner of humble people attracts those affected and tired out by the noise of pride and own glorying.

137. Every person who is dominating and wishes to control other people's lives for them (or should I say, control it for the sake of themselves) is also a possessive kind of person which seeks emotional comfort and attention. It is always needed to deal with both sides of such sort of sins or of sinfulness. If one deals only with one part of it, surely, the remaining sin will eventually call the other one back. And even if the other sin doesn't come back, there will be perpetual temptations in that area until it is thoroughly dealt with through a fight (striving) between the soul and the Holy Spirit of God.

138. There is another side in those people who believe they are unable to achieve certain goals or believe they won't be able to reach out to the character, the goals or anything else God requires or has for them as a real gift. These people are the ones whom the devil easily convinces they just won't get there. They feel inferior or unable and because they feel so, they clearly confirm they believe in themselves and not in the Lord. They also forget that holiness is to be a normal person in Christ and, to be holy, one needs to get off sin and have holy things as friends. By renouncing sin, holiness becomes a gift - it is there, it is available to anyone. However, should such people reach those goals they thought impossible for them, they would feel proud about it or have any other kind of alike feeling in them, emerging from the feeling of inferiority they seldom deny as sin. People, usually, feel proud about something because they think of it as an unusual thing. There is a great association between pride and all feelings of inferiority and incapacity. Pride gives them their temporary equilibrium. Besides, there is also this reality that God cannot give anything to people who breed and maintain feelings of inferiority. Would God grant it to them, it would mean their death. We all know that any blessing before its time is a curse. They would easily enter into the condemnation of the devil. This means it will only be given to them according to their faith. However,  if this happens this way, it shall seem what they believed about themselves gets confirmed. What I mean is that, usually, God grants them according to their faith and it means they won't reach out to the gifts of God. It will confirm their unbelief and their ways will be a confirmation of what they had been believing. Feeling inferior is pride - it is just another face of it. Didn’t God create all beings alike? Believing one is inferior is not believing according to truth. It is believing amiss.

139. There are facts which we cannot avoid. One of them is that when someone has preferences in favour of a certain person, he shall surely have own opinions against somebody else. If we choose between people, it means we choose for and against people. We cannot just choose in favour of someone without being against somebody else. It simply works that way.

140. Have you seen someone who is not faithful in his work in a continual way? According to the Bible, such people also spend without need. "He also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster", Prov.18:9. I believe this is so true. Unfaithful people are unfaithful in all aspects, even with the money God has allowed them to have.

141. We read in the Bible something like this: "They have loved to wander; they have not restrained their feet", Jer.14:10. Lost people are always tempted and moved to carry on as lost. They just won't restrain their feet. The other side of this truth is, however, if people have the habit of not restraining their feet when they are lost and, yet, they stop to try to figure out why their lives are not working out, then, they will surely restrain themselves from walking in holiness. They will feel lost in its ways. This means they will do during the course of truth what they do not do on the way of sin and lies. They will doubt and question truth and become stagnant; however, when it comes to lies, their lives become practical and there they can walk, decide, discuss and do all things people who walk do. If you do not restrain your feet on the way of sin and hell, you will restrain them on the way to holiness. Thank God it also works the other way round: if you will restrain your feet and stop to find your way back to truth when you are going astray, you won't restrain your feet once you are found on the way which leads to peace and holiness.

142. Every person who has dark spots in his obedience to the Lord or fails to be always faithful in all things (even at work) is surely someone who, also, suffers from exaggerations. Such people need to take hold of some weapon or compensation to fill up the gap they dig through disobedience and unfaithfulness. If you have failures, you will be tempted to boast or exaggerate and if you exaggerate or boast, it shows you have failures. See for your self if this is not so. This is what James wishes to say when he speaks about a double heart which is inconstant and unstable in all its ways. Its roots are rotten because of darkness and it still wishes to be goo or, at least, to look good.

143. Have you ever given a serious thought to the words of Jesus when He said people will rather jump over the wall to avoid going in through the door? There are many circumstances when it happens. Let's think a little about it. For example, pleasing people means the use of an alternative way to love. Because people refuse to love for real, they enter into being pleasant to camouflage their lack of real love. This is why I firmly believe that everyone capable of pleasing people has the capacity at heart to be unpleasant and inconvenient in many ways. And we will find many other subways which people will rather take so that the true virtue or the reality of the true essence of love, faith, godliness, prayer among many others will be avoided. They will rather enter going over the wall. In other words, if one finds oneself still pleasing people, he must make sure he deals against it by finding real love from heaven (which God pours down into our hearts abundantly if we ask Him with a prayer which is not an alternative to a genuine one). Do that instead of becoming unpleasant, rude and unfriendly. The same principle may be applied to all virtues, because everywhere we find appearances of godliness, of faith, of hope, of patience and, indeed, of all fruits of the Spirit. To be free of all kinds of appearances, one must find the real thing instead of merely avoiding the wrong one. And to become real from inside means that we shall start being real having an evil heart. God will change it because we are truthful in His presence.

144. Any sinful person is always searching for an own righteousness to lean upon and to justify himself. A saint seeks own sins to cleanse his heart and to accuse himself. Now, if a sinful person comes to genuine conversion, he must know he needs to deal thoroughly with the sinful habit of justifying self to be assured.  This habit was learned over the years and needs to be dealt with along with all its ramifications, such as: the 'need' to be assured either by others or by self; the idea that everybody is a possible enemy of his opinion; the instinct to hide and the fear to expose and put self fully in the light do die; in fact, a new convert needs to deal against all forms of self-justification along with all its side effects. Concerning the saints, they must know that self-accusation is as good as self-justification. Self-accusation is a lamentation for not being right. It cries out because it can no more justify itself. Self-accusation is self mingling in godly affairs. It is the devil trying to serve in the temple of God. The heart of man is treacherous indeed. Self-accusations and accusations are not convictions worked by the Spirit of God. It is self crying because it can't be good and can't show itself as such. Let conviction be at work.

145. Remember Zachariah, the father of John the Baptist, and how he wasn't prepared to believe the angel sent to him by God? It can happen to any of us. But, there is one truth one should be aware of: if we can't believe the words of God concerning something we consider great because we feel inferior or unworthy, it means we have a heart that will easily despise a small duty or, at least, which we consider small. Then, we have a heart which shall be presumptuous doing smaller things. We will not carry out anything small through faith, but through presuming, fleshly power. For God, there is no greater works - only for us. For God, there is only faithfulness and faith, along with all other virtues we need to attain. I believe from my heart that whoever is able to consider himself too small for greater works, will also despise what he considers small or 'insignificant' duties. He will feel too great for smaller, insignificant works. "For who has despised the day of small things?", Zac.4:10. If we cannot believe something because we expected it for too long, or because we started believing God is not looking at us, we shall surely be offended when a smaller task or gift is entrusted to us. This is the other side of the human heart. Let us be faithful in the smallest details of the smallest things as if they were great, because what counts is the amount of faithfulness and not the size of the task. If we think we are too small to meet a great man of God, if we are taken by the occasion when we meet him, we have a heart which feels awkward near the most insignificant person. Even if we readily commune with 'insignificant' people, we look down on them. Jesus demands of us that we become smaller than the smallest because we must become a ready people to meet a great King as if it was the most usual happening. Let us be prepared for that day. "Be not dismayed", the Lord told Joshua.

There are many more ways and many more facets of our daily life in which this truth concerning the two sides of any person's heart is clearly revealed. All I tried was to give some examples of how it works and what this truth meant for me the moment God revealed it as I was riding in my car. It just pays to walk with the Lord and He can, indeed, reveal all truth to any of us in a most marvellous way. God teaches even the most unworthy of this planet. May God bless you all. Amen.

José Mateus