Today Our Daily Bread 1 Ptr 4 *****

1 Peter 4: 1 - 19
1 So then, since Christ suffered physical pain, you must arm yourselves with the same attitude he had, and be ready to suffer, too. For if you are willing to suffer for Christ, you have decided to stop sinning. 2 And you won't spend the rest of your life chasing after evil desires, but you will be anxious to do the will of God. 3 You have had enough in the past of the evil things that godless people enjoy – their immorality and lust, their feasting and drunkenness and wild parties, and their terrible worship of idols.
4 Of course, your former friends are very surprised when you no longer join them in the wicked things they do, and they say evil things about you. 5 But just remember that they will have to face God, who will judge everyone, both the living and the dead. 6 That is why the Good News was preached even to those who have died – so that although their bodies were punished with death, they could still live in the spirit as God does.
7 The end of the world is coming soon. Therefore, be earnest and disciplined in your prayers. 8 Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins. 9 Cheerfully share your home with those who need a meal or a place to stay. 10 God has given gifts to each of you from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Manage them well so that God's generosity can flow through you. 11 Are you called to be a speaker? Then speak as though God himself were speaking through you. Are you called to help others? Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies. Then God will be given glory in everything through Jesus Christ. All glory and power belong to him forever and ever. Amen.
12 Dear friends, don't be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through, as if something strange were happening to you. 13 Instead, be very glad – because these trials will make you partners with Christ in his suffering, and afterward you will have the wonderful joy of sharing his glory when it is displayed to all the world. 14 Be happy if you are insulted for being a Christian, for then the glorious Spirit of God will come upon you. 15 If you suffer, however, it must not be for murder, stealing, making trouble, or prying into other people's affairs. 16 But it is no shame to suffer for being a Christian. Praise God for the privilege of being called by his wonderful name! 17 For the time has come for judgment, and it must begin first among God's own children. And if even we Christians must be judged, what terrible fate awaits those who have never believed God's Good News? 18 And "If the righteous are barely saved, what chance will the godless and sinners have?" F17 19 So if you are suffering according to God's will, keep on doing what is right, and trust yourself to the God who made you, for he will never fail you.
FOOTNOTES:F17: Prov 11:31.
Holy Bible, New Living Translation,copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.,Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

~ Lena’s Comments~
This (suffering) is what I’ve personally been thinking about a lot lately. How willing am I? He was so willing. His love took Him all the way to victory, through excruciating pain, especially of the soul. What if when I receive Him and become a seed bearer of His words, someone I know or love does not believe in Him or know Him well enough to love Him also? What if they mock His name by rejecting His call on their and my lives? What if you love someone and they do not love back? (Think about how God may be feeling here) What if you give them the gift of life, the words of life and they do not want them? What if they see you as different now and want nothing to do with you? What if the enemy uses people to challenge you, as in defying you? What if your boss or boyfriend or husband does not allow you to do what promotes your spiritual growth, either knowing or unknowingly? What if you stand and stand and stand on the word and what you stood for never happens? What if you have forms of opposition come your way over and over again?-
Persecution arises for the Word’s sake (see the sower parable). Why does persecution arise? Because the Word is being made alive in us, and will bring spiritual change of rulership in the earth, and satan hates that. To him the sprouts of the Word in our lives are like weeds in his garden (satan is the god of this world). He will do his best to uproot them. THIS is why we must be solidly rooted and grounded in God’s Word. He may tug and pull, and blow a wind or try to flood us out with a storm, fire etc, but if we are rooted and grounded, he cannot have our faith. Our faith will have been tried and found true. Am I willing to have my faith tried? By fire? By storm? By persecution? By hatred for the Word in me? By opposition? Am I willing to suffer?
Somehow it seems if there is no suffering, maybe there is not much Word being tried…..Yet if we suffer we are made more then conquerors through Him who loved us and gave Himself for us. The victory in the end is truly one of an eternal nature, that we have kept our faith. THAT is really the main focus and point. The true battle stems from way way back when satan rose up against God. This is where it began.
Am I willing to be a part of God’s work in the earth to willingly rise up for and with God, and in so doing I automatically join combat against satan and his cohorts who have tried to withstand God. Am I willing to push back darkness in earth for God? Do I join His forces? If I do not join his forces I’m already assigned in satan’s.
We have to switch sides by a deliberate act of our wills and make it visible in the earthly spirit realm of who’s we are. I keep going back to if we are not Visibly FOR God we are Visibly against Him.
The spirit realm is way more visible to God, His angels, and satan and his angels, than what we are seeing and doing here. What we do here speaks out loud in the spirit realm. Ex.- If I watch junky programs on TV all day long and do not read or study my Bible except when I open it on Sunday or at cell group, I am placing a visible marker out there of who I am. This is why the Word says, what we do in secret God’s knows…yeah god (satan) knows too. IF I use foul Words at home with my family, yet at work or church I speak good words, I’m setting up a visible marker in the spirit realm of who I am and who’s I am. IF while alone, and in a hard or lonely place I take out the alcoholic beverages and have a few, where no one sees, or go out with the gang and have one where some see, I am showing God and satan’s cohorts who’s I am. Do I trust God or substances that the god of this world has set out there as substitutes for the true and living God in my life?
Mt 12:30 "This is war, and there is no neutral ground. If you're not on my side, you're the enemy; if you're not helping, you're making things worse. (Message)
"Whoever is not with me is against me. Whoever does not work with me is working against me. (NCV)
`He who is not with me is against me, and he who is not gathering with me, doth scatter. (Young’s Literal Translation)
Anyone who isn't helping me opposes me, and anyone who isn't working with me is actually working against me. (NLT)
"Anyone who is not for me is really against me; anyone who does not help me gather is really scattering. (Good News Translation)
He that is not with me is against me, and he that gathereth not with me scattereth. (American Standard V)
Luke 11:23 "This is war, and there is no neutral ground. If you're not on my side, you're the enemy; if you're not helping, you're making things worse. (Message V)
"Anyone who is not with me is against me, and anyone who does not work with me is working against me. (NCV)
In reading all of these translations and versions of this same passage, what do you see as common ground proof that we are with God? I see "gathering"/"working". If I gather, which has everything to do with the Lord’s harvest field, then I am WITH Him, if I do not gather, but rather even scatter (through offenses, or intolerance’s, or impatience, or lack of counting the cost, maybe not being developed in His God-kind of love, or maybe I’m hnot willing to be healed of past hurts, or not being willing...etc) I am against Him.
In the visible spirit realm I am known for who I am in what I do or do not do. I am known in the spirit realm way more than I think I am known here. In the spirit realm we cannot hide at all - ever. There are no walls, or clothes or masks. We are known by our hearts and the abundant actions that follow.
Rom 8:31 So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose?