"Seriously !"

"Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing: the LORD will abhor the bloody and deceitful man." (Psalms 5:6) Here is a phrase that I haven't heard in a while: 'Practice Makes Perfect'. It seems that we have grown so accustom to failure, that there is a tendency to just not try more to succeed at something that we fail in. But; in the practice of holiness, we should never give up!!! Do you want to know why? Because God will never give up on us! What does this have to do with the verse above, you might be wondering? Well; this is a very serious verse; therefore, I will try to relate something that God is showing me, with what I believe that David is saying here; and it has to do with the patience of God, and to the ultimate end of His patience. The first thing to look at is "those that speak leasing"; which at first glance, might not take hold in our hearts as something which we need to pay much attention to; mostly because of the first few words, which say, "Thou shalt destroy them"; so automatically, we skip over the rest, thinking, Well, that does not pertain to me. If you recall from Psalms 4:2, that this word "leasing" is a word that means a lie, falsehood, or deceptive thing; and, as I mentioned yesterday, those that are deceived either do not know it, or will not admit to it. Here's the thing, and why 'Practice Makes Perfect' has anything to do with this: it is because there is an opposite reaction to that phrase, and it has to do with believing a lie: the more we speak a lie, the more we believe it to be the truth; that is just how our minds work. This is why it is so vitally important that we check ourselves against the whole counsel of God's Word; not just the parts that we like or accept, but all of it!!! Secondly; we must go back to the word "destroy"; which actually means what it says: DESTROY! Again; I need to remind you that this is A Prayer For Protection; and when we are talking about protection, this can also include protection from ourselves. In light of what you think that you know, or what others have said, this Psalm has a living message that gets to the heart of what makes us unprotected, as well as asking for God's protection. Surely, we that are covered by the blood of Jesus are protected; but, the real question is, Are we truly covered by His blood? Or are we just pretending that we are, and fooling ourselves in the process? This is what Paul meant by examining ourselves, as to whether we are in the faith; it is a process by which we take the actions of our hearts, and measure them against fruit of the Holy Spirit: Are they real??? One thing that we must never do, is to look at someones life to gauge that of our own; we must work out our own Salvation, with fear and trembling! With that, we must also realize that God does allow room for mistakes; however, mistakes are not a lifestyle, they are simply mistakes that are made out of pure ignorance of what is expected of us. Thirdly; we have the word "abhor", which is not a word that we hear very often, but is similar to words such as detest or despise. One reason that the LORD will despise or have a low opinion of "the bloody and deceitful man", is because of all the chances that have been given him to get it right. He really is a God of patience; however, His patience runs out upon our death; at which time, there will be judgement! Besides all of this, there is something else to be considered; something that goes towards the unprotected which are His, if there is such a thing, and I believe that there is! That has to do with His perfect will for our lives, and how He will allow us to get thrashed by the devil, to such a point, that we will surrender our lives totally to Him. And then, finally, we have "the bloody and deceitful man", of which He abhors; which for a lack of a better description, is the man that brings others into his deceitful ruin. My mom always use to say, Misery loves company; which is something that we do not want to be associated with, for the punishment of such shall be great! We all have someone who looks up to us at one point or another in our lives, and the way in which we persuade them in matters! It is one thing to deceive ourselves, but to bring others into our ring of deceit is unforgivable, and we will be despised by God for doing it. Having said that; there is always room for restoration with God, and we can see that with the Apostle Paul; who before coming to Christ, had led many that were following him into persecuting the church. This may be the reason that he referred to himself as the chiefest of sinners; for not only what he had done personally, but for having persuaded many to others to do also. But we have to remember something very important about Paul's case: what he did, he did out of ignorance...