The generations of the end First Service Apostle Sergio Enríquez O. Guatemala, June 12th. Year of Abundance
Every time we meet, as we get our lives ready for God to fill them with His presence and His Word, it is normal for us to focus on the end time we are currently living; thus if some people believe these are not the end times because they refuse to even look at how the revelation seals began to open since last century, for us these are indeed the end times since that is the revelation God has given us. We are not going to argue with those who are unwilling to accept the end times we are presently living in; it might be that these are not the end times for them since their time to get ready has not come yet; however, this our time to strain to be duly prepared for we are soon leaving this Earth. We have also been speaking about the signs that come along with the days of Elijah, Noah, and Lot; therefore we must gird up the loins of our minds in order to be duly aware, and avoid deception at all times. Now, we need to observe some situations in which we could be deceived in order to completely stop us to get ready for what we are being called: 2 Timothy 3:1-5 (ESV) You must understand this, that in the last days distressing times will come. For people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, brutes, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to the outward form of godliness but denying its power. Avoid them! Here we see the apostle Paul with whom, in some way, he identified better; this is the secondto-last epistle he wrote, and he is giving the last instructions to Timothy, since he was in charge to continue with his work, and then he reviews everything he had left, for he would have to pass on the baton to those that would come after him, but he needed to warn them about many things since for those times men will be invaded by these 18 characteristics, being so we could relate this number also to 6+6+6=18, however when we analyze it closely we observe 19 points. Each characteristic has such a meaning, that it even the order in which they were listed has a special purpose, because if someone says: “As for me, and my house, we will serve the Lord,” it does not mean the same as: “As for my house, and I, we will serve the Lord.” Therefore, we could say the genesis of all the evil we see in those 19 characteristics is: lovers of themselves. G5367 PHILAUTOS = Friends only to themselves, egotism we must difference from selfesteem. Before we continue, we need to know if we are to love ourselves; we must have self-esteem, considering that it is Biblical because it is part of God’s commandments as He says: “love…”; the issue here is that when someone is broken in his way to love, and this stops him from loving; however, the Bible says we must love God above all things, and our neighbor as we love ourselves. So, there is a requirement for us to love ourselves, if we miss it, we could become egotists. Let us examine some verses that prove the fact that we need to love ourselves without falling into egotism: 1 John 4:19 (ESV) We love because he first loved us.
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The generations of the end First Service Apostle Sergio Enríquez O. Guatemala, June 12th. Year of Abundance
During our lifetimes, we could have had situations that impaired our capacity to love, and instead of doing good, we sought ways to hurt many people; a situation that held us hostages until one day someone told us “Jesus loved us”, and as that word became alive in our hearts, everything began to change in our inner selves so that we could love our neighbors. James 2:8 (KJV) If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well: What is that royal law? We must understand this is the truth of God. Matthew 22:39 (KJV) And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. With these 3 verses, we can clearly see the fact that we are to love ourselves. Now, let us see some secular reports: Narcissism: Excessive, or exaggerated admiration of oneself, whether for physical appearance, gifts, or qualities. According to mythology, Narcissus was a very good looking young man, and all the damsels fell in love with him. A nymph, called eco, fell in love with him, and he rejected her, so Nemesis, the vengeance goddess, condemn him to fall in love with himself, and when he saw his own reflection in the water, he fell in love with himself, and because he could not kiss himself, he killed himself. The problem with all this is that what was part of mythology has come to our times, and has become something even more serious; let us take a look of the following report: One of the phenomena of the XXI century is narcissism coming from the immoderate use of social networks, above all the self-portraits so called “selfies.” The obsession of self-portraying, and sharing selfies in social media has created a MENTAL DISORDER. Metrosexuals. We need balance, and avoid extremism at all times; besides, we must keep in mind that as we are externally dying, our inner being is renewing every day; mainly because what we need above all things is for Christ to be seen in our lives, and to completely die to ourselves. 2 Timothy 3:1-5 (ESV) You must understand this, that in the last days distressing times will come. For people will be lovers of themselves… The beginning part of this verse is the genesis of many things we need to beware of.
This study is allowed to be copied and printed by any mean, only if the source of the information is quoted.
www.ebenezer.org.gt
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