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As a diligent student of the Bible, you will want to make sure the Bible really says what this study says.  Always remember to test all things with God's word - as the Bereans did.  They "received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily, to see whether these things were so" (Acts 17:11). 

First, read the study all the way through, without looking up the Scriptures.   Then read the study again, this time looking up the Scriptures.  Highlight or mark each verse you look up so you can easily find it later.

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The word of God says, "This is the day the Lord has made, let us Rejoice" and enjoy it.  Now, if you are going to have a good day and enjoy it, you must stop complaining about the weather.  The weather is God's business and none of yours.

Some other ingredients for having a good day include:  cheering up people at work; helping people; consoling people; being friendly and understanding people.   That means serving your brother and sister and that is being like Jesus Christ.

Practice being positive.  Unrestrained human nature practices being negative.   It is counterproductive and degenerative.  When your life is lived positively, then positive things begin to happen to you.  If you are living negatively, which is normal but evil, sometimes you will not even recognize good things happening to you.   Negativism, inwardness, selfishness, indifference, hate and murder are all brothers of destruction.  This is why Christ said if you hate your brother, you are the same as a murderer (1 John 3:15).  By practicing attitudes that are destructive, you cannot expect to live a constructive life.  But when you are practicing attitudes that are constructive, such as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control you are, in fact, practicing godliness, or imitating God (Gal. 5:24-25; Col. 1:10; Eph. 5:1).

If we practice things that are not good in our daily lives, we will become increasingly evil, by nature. By continually practicing evil behavior, we become more like Satan, our earthly father (John 8:41, 44). But if we practice daily what is right, good, honorable, uplifting and pleasing in the sight of our heavenly Father, we will become more like our Father in heaven (1 John 3: 7-10).  We will be living holy lives instead of unholy lives.  We become what we are practicing to become - perfect (Matt. 5:48; 1 Peter 5:10).  We are, by nature, sinners.  God wants us to allow Him to change our nature to one of a saint.  In order to do that, we must practice living saintly lives by changing our thoughts to godly thoughts.

How many of us would want to see violence done to our children?  Yet, we watch violence being done to other people’s children on television and vicariously enjoy it.  If we did not enjoy it, we would not continue to watch it day after day.   Do not be fooled.  What you see with your eyes and hear with your ears affects what you think (Prov. 24:12, 29; 12:14).  We are not to look at what is evil - violence, murder, rape, etc. (Psalm 34:13-14; 1 Peter 3:10-11).  That includes any sport that is violent or anticipates violence.  Anyone who loves violence is hated by God (Psalm 11:5).

So let’s clean up what goes into our minds and guard those doors carefully, for what is in our minds has a lot to do with the condition of our hearts and what comes out of our mouths.  "Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, think on these things." (Phil. 4:8).

(Feel free to give copies of this study to others who want to know God’s truth.   You will be doing God’s Will when you show and tell others how to live this special Way.)      

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