The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. Deuteronomy 6:4,5

It is a curious thing about human beings, that what we love we become like. What do you love? Is the Lord first in your life or is something else there? Do you love violent video games, becoming more violent in your attitudes and actions? Do you love money, becoming obsessed with gathering more, neglecting the Lord and your family in the process? Do you love pornographic movies, becoming more lustful as time goes on? Do you love yourself, selfishly neglecting or even exploiting others for your good?

Are you a drug addict who has a few good buddies who tempt you to use drugs? A alcoholic who practically lives in the bar that has become your second home? What about the bakery that supplies you with those luscious pastries and doughnuts that ruin diet after diet? It doesn't have to be an extreme habit to be a source of trouble in your life.

The best way to deal with such situations is to cut them off. Stop associating with old friends who are still mired in the bad habits that you are asking the Lord to help you overcome permanently. Pray for them, of course, but don't let them drag you down. You may want to witness to them to draw them into your new life as a Christian, but take care! Bad company ruins good morals far more often than good company mends bad morals. Even mature Christians take care to avoid even the appearance of evil. It's a lot easier to fall into sin than to climb back out of it.

The Lord commands us to love Him totally before everything else. As we walk with Him, we gradually become more like Him, reflecting His glory, just as children become like the human parents they love. Our God is a loving, reasonable Father who wants the best for the children He has created. He wants to teach His children to be loving, reasonable, responsible spiritual adults who will choose to do good towards Him and towards others of their own free will.

When a Christian is born again, the Holy Spirit takes residence in his heart to guide him and teach him the Lord's ways. Just as an earthly parent has the responsibility to lovingly raise his or her child to be a responsible citizen of his country of birth, God raises His children to be molded into the image of His Son Jesus, the king and high priest of the Heavenly kingdom over God's human children.

When there is a problem, it is because we have chosen poorly, not because there is a flaw in God's ways of handling life. When this happens, God wants us to acknowledge our error, repent of it, and try to do better. He doesn't want to straitjacket us with unreasonable rules. He doesn't want to pounce on us to punish us severely. He wants to teach us His better way of handling the situation and forgive us when we agree and follow His way. It is only when we refuse to repent of the evil we have done that He moves in to judge and punish us.

The Devil tries to make this look like tyranny. He slanders God by saying that God is unreasonably strict, enslaving His creatures with no freedom to follow their own wills and desires. He wants you to think that God is trying to stunt your spiritual growth and deny you the fullest possible development of your potential.

Contrary to Satan's well-publicized lie, Christians are not supposed to be living in a constant state of guilt and striving to live a sinless life by our own efforts. One of the most welcome discoveries that a Christian makes is that you can't live a sinless life on your own and you were never supposed to.

If it was possible to live a perfectly sinless life, then Christ would not have had to die for us. Part of human nature since the Fall in the Garden of Eden is that humans have a bent towards sin. Even if you manage to avoid the big sins, you inevitably stumble over the little ones.

That doesn't mean that you should just give up and not try to avoid sin. Grace may mean that God accepted Jesus Christ's payment for your sins at the cross, and that He will extend cleansing and forgiveness if you do sin, but you aren't supposed to take unfair advantage of that to willfully sin when you know better. Part of being God's child is that you are learning to think like Jesus and do as He would in any given situation, and Jesus never solved any problems or filled any needs by sinning. You need to learn what Jesus would have done and then apply that to your life until it is a well practiced habit.

God won't condemn you if you stumble while you are learning, but he will punish you if you willfully sin when you know that you shouldn't. He will teach you and strengthen you to withstand sin. That is what growing up in Christ means, that you are getting stronger and more mature in character so that you are better able to successfully handle life.

If you find yourself habitually in sin, willfully so, and feel no incentive or discomfort to stay out of it, you may not be saved at all. Having a guilty pity party to pay for it and going back to the sin again doesn't solve the problem, either. The Holy Spirit and your new nature are foreign to sin and can't abide with it. If you never get the message from the Holy Spirit that there is a problem, He may never have entered your heart to take up residence there because you never really got saved.

People who have not yet been born again into God's family are said to be inhabited by the spirit of disobedience, the spirit of Satan's kingdom who tries to get them to sin, which means to commit lawless acts that hurt themselves and others. Satan and his followers are just as determined to ruin as many human lives as possible as God is to redeem and purify them.

The Devil has had 6000 years of "freedom" to develop his fullest possible potential, and the results are very evident for all to see. Wars, murders, rapes, robberies, all sorts of evils abound when he convinces people to follow his way of handling life. The people who practice the Devil's ways only develop their potential for harming others, while the people they victimize are stunted by the constant onslaught of trouble in their lives.

The Bible spells it out plainly in the book of Proverbs. God gives a thorough description of the wicked and the lies they will tell you to convince you to do things their way. Then God tells you the disastrous consequences if you fall for the lies and actually do it. Don't fall for Satan's lies about God's ways. God summed up what he wants for His children in Micah 6:8.

He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? Micah 6:8

God's ways are the ways of love, of respecting the well being and property of others. He wants to settle disputes lawfully by reason, not by force. He wants people to do right towards Him and each other because it is wise and reasonable to take care of each other in love. It is a lot easier to live in harmony with others than to live at war. That is all that God basically wants for His people. It's really very reasonable.

You can make the choice as to which spirit you wish to follow. God's Holy Spirit will lead you to life, love, joy, and prosperity for you and your family in His kingdom. Satan's fallen spirit will lead you to death, hatred, sorrow, and destruction in his kingdom. God will give anyone the chance to join His family, but Satan will keep you in his by any means necessary.

Choose wisely what you love. It will shape you for good or ill. The Lord loves you and wants the best for you. Be wise and love Him in return.