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LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION

" And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil ..."  (Matthew 6:13)   Growing up, I was taught to recite the Lord's Prayer in Sunday school, and I committed it to memory at an early age.  It wasn't until years later, however, that the words began to sink in, and then only little by little as the Lord opened my understanding to what I had learned.  Most recently, though, I was brought up short by the words quoted above.   I have always considered that temptation was an inevitable part of life, and that there was nothing that I could do to avoid it.  These words promise something altogether different than I had ever considered.  They indicate that the Lord is willing to lead me in such a way that I will not walk into temptation blindly, and that He is able to deliver me from the evil that would seek to divert me from following Him.   When Jesus went to the garden of Gethsemane to pray before His betrayal and ultimate crucifi...
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JONAH

"Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before Me.  But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD." (Jonah 1:1-3).   As much as we hate to admit it, there is, at times, a little bit of Jonah in all of us.  It's that carnal, selfish side of us that rises up and says, "I want to do what I want to do!"  Even when we know it's not a good choice, we choose it anyway.  Paul experienced it, and wrote about it in his letter to the Roman believers.  He said, "For that which I do, I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I." (Romans 7:15).  In other words, the things that he hated doing, and in his mind he wouldn't allow himself to do, he did anyway; and the things that he knew were right and good, he found that he had trouble doing.  It's sort of like our New Year's r...
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THE MANIFESTATION OF THE SONS OF GOD

"For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God" (Romans 8:15-19).   "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.   And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as He is pure" (1 John 3:2, 3).   Each of us who have been born again by the Spirit of God has been adopted into the family of God.   From the outset we are fully sons and daughters just as surely as our own children are our sons and daughters the moment they are born.   In terms of maturity, however, we have a lot of growing up to do in order to become fully functioning children of God.   It isn't apparent, looking at ourselves now, just what we will look like or be like once we grow to full maturity.   What is evident, though, is that the more we discover of the Lord Jesus and His true natur...
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