Make Life Simple Again, Part 7

God is loving. God is merciful. But God is also holy — and He does NOT hear every prayer. This sermon dismantles one of the most dangerous lies in modern Christianity:
“God understands… so I don’t have to change.”

To learn more about The Feast of the Lord, visit us at www.orangeburgchurch.com

Here are the author's notes from this week's message:

Make Life Simple Again Part 7

*- One of the best ways to make life simple again is to intentionally avoid certain people.
The foolishness of man subverts his way [ruins his affairs]; then his heart is resentful and frets against the Lord.
Proverbs 19:3 AMPC
*- “Stay away from people who act like a victim in a problem that they created…”
*- “My antidote to that is… spend more time with people with whom you have a common future, instead of a common past.” -Bishop Dale Bronner

Behold, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs forth; do you not perceive and know it and will you not give heed to it? I will even make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
Isaiah 43:19 AMPC
*- A primary reason we fail to live simple lives is that we complicate the present and the future by dragging the past into them. We reconnect what no longer fits—what’s no longer a part of who we are now—and disrupt the peace and simplicity God works to give us.

Go from the presence of a foolish man, when thou perceivest not in him the lips of knowledge.
Proverbs 14:7 KJV
24 Make no friendships with a man given to anger, and with a wrathful man do not associate,
25 Lest you learn his ways and get yourself into a snare.
Proverbs 22:24-25 AMPC
4 [They will be] treacherous [betrayers], rash, [and] inflated with self-conceit. [They will be] lovers of sensual pleasures and vain amusements more than and rather than lovers of God.
5 For [although] they hold a form of piety (true religion), they deny and reject and are strangers to the power of it [their conduct belies the genuineness of their profession]. Avoid [all] such people [turn away from them].
2 Timothy 3:4-5 AMPC

11 As a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool returns to his folly.
12 Do you see a man wise in his own eyes and conceit? There is more hope for a [self-confident] fool than for him.
Proverbs 26:11-12 AMPC

*- God does not require us to be in the company of those who are…
• determined to remain in foolishness.
• committed to destructive, ungodly behavior.
• unwilling to change their ways.
• living in rebellion and deceit.
• choosing sin over repentance.

*- Does God actually agree with these actions?
*- Yes, because He does the same…

The face of the Lord is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.
Psalm 34:16 KJV
1 Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened at all, that it cannot save, nor His ear dull with deafness, that it cannot hear.
2 But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.
Isaiah 59:1-2 AMPC
Then will they cry to the Lord, but He will not answer them; He will even hide His face from them at that time, because they have made their deeds evil.
Micah 3:4 AMPC
The Lord is far from the wicked: but he heareth the prayer of the righteous.
Proverbs 15:29 KJV

Lifework Assignment:
*- Since a friend is someone God places in our lives to express His love through, and they allow Him to do so, take careful note of those who live according to God’s will—from whom you can draw strength, wisdom, and understanding.
*-Also, take note of those who refuse to live according to God’s will and should be avoided.
*- Yet, we continue to pray that all will soon obey God and serve Him with strict obedience.

Expected Behavior:
14 But if anyone [in the church] refuses to obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person and do not associate with him, so that he may be ashamed.
15 Do not regard him as an enemy, but simply admonish and warn him as [being still] a brother.
2 Thessalonians 3:14-15 AMPC