God is Love but God is not Puffed up examples given

Welcome to episode 281.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the Word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage, inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I'm continuing to talk about 1 Corinthians 1:13. We're going to segue into a couple other scriptures, but I want to remind you that 1 Corinthians 1:13 is called the love chapter, and we've gone through that the last few episodes. But I want to key in on 1 Corinthians 1:13, verses 4 through 8, and then verse 13 in this episode. And I do have to make a correction from the previous episode, episode 280. If you want to go back and watch where I screwed up— I mean, I am not perfect. I have said this multiple times, this is an imperfect man as he follows after a perfect example. So God's not upset, he's not condemning me that I messed up, said the wrong verse to the wrong book to the wrong scripture. The scripture that I was talking about and that is in question is in James 3:16, and I wanna read that real quick. For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. And I was talking about in the last episode how when we have envy and strife, and I'm sorry for skipping all around, but I had that mistake on my mind. It was the first thing I was thinking about when I started this episode. I don't know if you've ever done that. When you make a mistake, you wanna right it as quick as you can. So 1 Corinthians 13, verse 4 through 8: Love is patient, love is kind, love does not envy, love does not parade itself, love is not puffed up, love does not behave rudely, does not seek his own, is not provoked, thinks no evil, does not rejoice in iniquity but rejoices in the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. We're going to continue to talk about 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, but I just want to continue to have us think about what love is not and what love does not do. And love does not envy. We talked about that, and that's where my correction is from James 3:16, and that is where envy and self-seeking or strife exist. There is every evil work. And that is a mouthful. And I just want you to think about when we're talking about demons and we're talking about Satan and we're talking about— if you remember when I talked about what sin looks like, for all have sinned. So when we start talking about what sin looks like, and remember, sin is nothing more than us opening the door to the punk. And I know that may be oversimplistic, but temptation is just the knock on the door. And when we open that handle, we're the only ones that can control the handle in the spirit realm. We open the door to our heart or into our soul, our mind, will, and emotion, into the spirit realm where we allow these demons to have access to us. And it's the same door that Jesus uses. It says that I will knock, and if you open the door to me, it's in Revelation, that I will come in and we will sup with you. And, but I, I've talked about this before, but the door inside of your spirit man. And we— and I, again, I've got to picture everything, but sin is nothing more than an open door. Because I heard people say multiple times, well, at least I'm not this, or at least I'm not that, and at least I don't do this. And when we start comparing ourselves among ourselves, it leads to trouble. That's what the Bible says. So we are never to do that. We're not to judge one another. What we're supposed to do is we're supposed to love God and love people. That's our job. And that's what we're talking about because God is love and Satan is a punk. I've said that multiple times and I'm gonna continue to say it because he is. I want you to start hearing that in your sleep or hearing that over and over and over. Every time you hear Satan, I want you to think he's a punk because he is. He's defeated. He just hadn't been banished yet. He knows he's beat it, but here's the thing. He is so evil and he's so ornery and he's so mean and he's so conniving that all he wants to do is hurt God, and the only way that you can ever hurt God is to hurt God's people. And we've talked again that we're not warring against flesh and blood. So if you can see the person, we're not warring against that as a Christian. We are not attacking those people. I hate it when I see Christians who are supposed to be acting in love blasting other people, and I'm guilty of it too. I've talked on this podcast how I used to call God's kids and still every now and then do. I've got to make a confession. I'll call— I'd call them an idiot. Look at this idiot. And then finally, God pretty much— he didn't scream at me, but that little thought, that little voice box in the back of my head— we've talked about this before too, but I'm bringing— I guess I'm just going to bring a bunch of different episodes into this one. But I heard God say to me, what would you do if a grown man called Seth an idiot right to your face. And it just stopped me because that is not where I was. I was blasting this person who had just pulled out in front of me and put me in the windshield. And I couldn't get over, I couldn't get around, and I just turned into my parking lot at my work. And I'm just blasting, and this little old lady, she didn't even know I was alive. She didn't even know she pulled out in front of me. But I'm blasting her. I'm getting after this., and I am so angry, and I heard this thought in my head. And that's how I say when God spoke to me, because that was nowhere near where my thoughts were. I've just got to be completely transparent. I was still blasting this little old lady, and I heard, "What would you do if a grown man called Seth an idiot right to your face?" And it just stopped me. And I said, well, I wouldn't like it. And God said, you've been calling my kids idiots and I'm sick of it. And it just stopped me. I was like, wow. So I've tried real hard not to do that, but that's Father God correcting. He corrects those that he loves. And I know he loves me. I know I'm his favorite. You're his favorite. But he's going to correct you if you mess up. And trust me, I mess up all the time. But I want to talk about how Satan He pulls us in and he does it by attacking or questioning the Word of God. There's nothing new under the sun. Satan does the same thing. He's got the same routine all the time. And if you look in scripture, back in Genesis 3, he talks to Eve and he questions the Word of God. And he gets us, and he got Eve wondering if God was holding out on him or if God was really telling the truth. So we've got to think about— in the next episode, I'm going to start talking about this prism that we start looking at life through, and it's going to come out to be a biblical worldview. But we have got to set the stage, and we have got to get in our spirit man that God is love. That's what the Bible says. We have got to know that the Word of God is the truth. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one gets to the Father except through me. Jesus said that he is the truth. The Gospel of John chapter 1, I say it every episode, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. So Jesus was not only the Word of God, he was also God incarnate. He became a man It is such a wonderful story, and I just want to encourage you to get in the Bible. A little late for my soapbox moment, but this word will change your life. It's no respecter of persons. It has changed me. I can't stand the thought of not having my Bible. So I just want to encourage you to get into that word because Satan is going to attack it every chance he gets. And if you don't think Satan's attacking the word, just start doing something and say that, hey, the Bible says this, or the Bible said that, and just watch how people just go off the rails talking about how, oh, that Bible, that's antiquated, or that's this, or that's that, and they will start beating up on the Word of God. But if you know the Word of God and the Word of God is inside of you and you can bring that Word of God out into this world, Satan is no match for the word of God. And Revelation again, 12:11, they overcame him, which is the punk, by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. So we have got to just understand that there is a battle, and the battle is for the souls of men. The battle is for heaven and hell. Satan is heading to hell. He knows it. There's nothing he can do about it. He's screwed up. He has nowhere to go except hell, and he is going to drag as many people to hell as he can because he knows that the only way that he can hurt God is to take his people into hell with him. And I just want to encourage you that if you have not accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, take another look at the Bible. Take another look at Father God and think about God as love. Is that he's kind, he's gentle, he's faithful. All of the things, the fruit of the Spirit, is also God. And we're not going to talk about that in this episode. That is a totally different rabbit that we'll end up chasing, but we're not going to do it here. All the things that God is not— God is not puffed up, he does not parade himself. And I just want to give you an example real quick. I think it was Isaiah, and I apologize when I start quoting things, I don't have it all memorized by chapter, verse, and book. He didn't have any redeeming features. He was just plain. And I know I've just chopped that all up, but it was the prophet that said people were not drawn to him by his looks. And I'm telling you that if I was God, because I'm still just a little bit vain, you know, I still try to work out every now and then, don't do it very much, but every now and then. And I'm trying to lose a little bit of weight. I mean, all of those things I care about how I feel and how I look, but not to the point where I'm not going to do something. But I just want to remind you that God could have come in any vessel that he wanted. God could have come as the strongest man, Samsonite, muscles on top of muscles. He could have been a great-looking man, 6'2", 6'3", 225, and just beat the tar out of anybody that crossed him. But it says that love does not parade itself and is not puffed up. And I just want you to think about that, that God came as just a regular guy. In fact, his looks— I mean, I'm sure people, he would walk by and people didn't even turn their head. Don't want to call out actors or actresses, but you know, some of the actors, you know, most actors don't get into acting, or most actors don't become big and famous because they're you know, ugly as mud. They're good-looking people, and they, you know, they have an attractiveness to them and probably a decent body style and all that good stuff. Well, God didn't come like that, and that fascinates me. But it just— it goes exactly in line with his word, because love does not parade itself and is not puffed up, and it does not behave rudely and does not seek his own. Jesus did not go about trying to get everybody to see it his way. Jesus was the truth. He just spoke the truth, and then he just let the truth lay there right where he spoke it. And if people accepted the truth, that was great. And if they didn't— the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and all the scribes and all that stuff— if they didn't take it, he kept going. In fact, usually the religious leaders— in fact, as I looked through the word when Jesus was walking on earth, The only people that he really attacked were the religious leaders, and it was because they did not embrace the truth. And they— he said that they were of their father the devil. And it says that he is not provoked. You can't make God angry. And when I say that God is not even mad, God is not mad at you or I because you can't provoke love. Love is not provoked. So God is not provoked. But I will tell you that God hates evil. We've talked about that on previous episodes, about what God hates. We, we are to hate evil. If we're going to be like God, we are to hate evil, and evil is defined as lawlessness. So that's why God has chosen not— he hates sin. He does not like sin. So if you're sinning or if you're doing lawlessness, God can't look at that. God can't deal with that. But God loves his person that he created.

He—

you are made in God's image. I don't care if you're sinning right now while you're listening to this. I don't care if you've sinned yesterday or you're planning on sinning next Thursday. God loves you. There's nothing you can do to make him love you more, and there's nothing you can do to make him love you less. God is love, but he hates evil, and he hates sin, and he hates lawlessness. And so God is gonna attack evil. God's word attacks evil. And so that's what we're talking about. And we're trying to get kind of a compare and contrast. I want you to understand that God is love, but in order to understand what God is, we gotta understand also what God is not. And to kind of get some examples and to see that God just does not like evil. And Satan hates God. So that is the war. It is a war against good and evil, against light and dark, and we're caught in the middle. You and I, anybody listening to this episode, is— we're just in the middle of this battle. If you see the Russia and Ukraine stuff and you see all of that devastation, just imagine what's happening in the spirit realm with God's people and Satan. And it's the same thing except you just can't see it with your physical eyes. And God is having to look at that. We're going to talk in the next episode about how God is dangerous. I know I've said that multiple times, and I just want you to see how dangerous Father God is and how loving and kind and what that really means. But that's enough right now. Let's pray. God, thank you so much for everything that you've done. Jesus, thank you for coming. And living a life that I could not live and dying a death that I should have died so that I could be saved and I could declare you as Lord. I pray that this listener has declared you as their Lord and Savior as well. And if not, Father God, I pray that you would draw them to yourself. God, we thank you. We love you. We ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you in the next episode.

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