First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside

[shortlady]

You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may become clean. (Matthew 23.26 NRSV)

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During the Christmas season of 1879, a newspaper reporter in Boston saw three little girls standing in front of a store window full of toys. One of them was blind. Coming closer, he heard the other two trying to describe the playthings to their friend. He said he had never thought of how difficult it would be to explain what something looks like to someone who has never been able to see. That incident became the basis for a newspaper story.

Two weeks later this same reporter attended a meeting conducted by Dwight L. Moody. His purpose was to catch the great evangelist in some inconsistency and expose him. He was greatly surprised, therefore, when Moody used the reporter's own newspaper account of the three children to illustrate a spiritual truth. "Just as the blind girl couldn't visualize the toys," said Moody, "so an unsaved person can't see Christ in all His glory." He said that God opens the eyes of anyone who acknowledges his sin and accepts the Savior in humble faith. The newsman was touched by Moody's words and saw that he too was blind and in need of Christ's healing touch. It's a good word for us to consider. Are we seeing life in all its richness or is there a blind spot in our lives? There is only one Doctor who can heal spiritual blindness. That is Christ.


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God of peace, heal my spiritual blindness. Amen.

Ron Newhouse

 

[spirit1st]

The inside of our cup is our Spirit man!
We need to be Born -Again first!
I was not taught it was a real birth! I died thinking i was saved! I was not! I had no idea what being born -again was! We can All understand a birth !A new creature has come into the world!
Our new birth is just as profound as our first birth! Except our New birth is of our Spirit!
It is a new baby Christian! Christian meaning Christ -like! Because our spirit is made after the pattern of the last Adam ! Jesus Christ with his mind and nature type!
1Co 2:16 For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.

2Pe 1:4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

Gal 4:19 My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you,

Eph 4:13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:

Our spirit grows on the living words of God!

1Pe 2:2 As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby:

Not a play on words! We are new born beings and we need fed the bible words!
This flesh body is just a thing we get around in! It not eternal and only dies because it sin filled! We can control it pretty much and use it for our LORDS Glory and honor!
And we should! The more we live though our Spirit? The more we will please our LORD and do His perfect will in our lives and others!

The mistake is thinking some how we can in a carnal way use the body for HIS glory or control it by carnal thinking! We cannot !

the carnal thinking can never please GOD !


Rom 8:7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

1Co 3:3 For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?