{"id":311973,"date":"2022-11-24T02:25:14","date_gmt":"2022-11-23T20:55:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.com\/?p=311973"},"modified":"2022-11-24T02:25:15","modified_gmt":"2022-11-23T20:55:15","slug":"the-distraction-of-contempt-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/2022\/11\/24\/the-distraction-of-contempt-5\/","title":{"rendered":"The Distraction of Contempt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-vivid-red-color has-text-color\"><strong>Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us! For we are exceedingly filled with contempt.<br>\u2014Psalm 123:3<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br>What we must beware of is not damage to our belief in God but damage to our Christian disposition or state of mind. \u201cTake heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously\u201d (Malachi 2:16). Our state of mind is powerful in its effects. It can be the enemy that penetrates right into our soul and distracts our mind from God. There are certain attitudes we should never dare to indulge. If we do, we will find they have distracted us from faith in God. Until we get back into a quiet mood before Him, our faith is of no value, and our confidence in the flesh and in human ingenuity is what rules our lives.<br>Beware of \u201cthe cares of this world\u2026\u201d (Mark 4:19). They are the very things that produce the wrong attitudes in our soul. It is incredible what enormous power there is in simple things to distract our attention away from God. Refuse to be swamped by \u201cthe cares of this world.\u201d<br>Another thing that distracts us is our passion for vindication. St. Augustine prayed, \u201cO Lord, deliver me from this lust of always vindicating myself.\u201d Such a need for constant vindication destroys our soul\u2019s faith in God. Don\u2019t say, \u201cI must explain myself,\u201d or, \u201cI must get people to understand.\u201d Our Lord never explained anything\u2014 He left the misunderstandings or misconceptions of others to correct themselves.<br>When we discern that other people are not growing spiritually and allow that discernment to turn to criticism, we block our fellowship with God. God never gives us discernment so that we may criticize, but that we may intercede.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us! For we are exceedingly filled with contempt.\u2014Psalm 123:3 What we must beware of is not damage to our belief in God but damage to our Christian disposition or state of mind. \u201cTake heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously\u201d (Malachi 2:16). Our [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[686],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-311973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-devotion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311973\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}