Hate the sin love the sinner.

Why is it that it is often easier for us to confess our sins to God than to a brother God is holy and sinless He is a just judge of evil and the enemy of all disobedience. But a brother is sinful as we are. He knows from his own experience the dark night of secret sin. Why should we not find it easier to go to a brother than to the holy God But if we do we must ask ourselves whether we have not often been deceiving ourselves with our confession of sin to God whether we have not rather been confessing our sins to ourselves and also granting ourselves absolution...Who can give us the certainty that in the confession and the forgiveness of our sins we are not dealing with ourselves but with the living God God gives us this certainty through our brother. Our brother breaks the circle of self-deception. A man who confesses his sins in the presence of a brother knows that he is no longer alone with himself he experiences the presence of God in the reality of the other person.

The flesh resists this daily humiliation first by a frontal attack and later by hiding itself under the words of the spirit i.e. in the name of evangelical liberty. We claim liberty from all legal compulsion from self-martyrdom and mortification and play this off against the proper evangelical use of discipline and asceticism we thus excuse our self-indulgence and irregularity in prayer in meditation and in our bodily life. But the contrast between our behavior and the word of Jesus is all too painfully evident. We forget that discipleship means estrangement from the world and we forget the real joy and freedom which are the outcome of a devout rule of life. As soon as a Christian recognizes that he has failed in his service that his readiness has become feeble and that he has sinned against anothers life and become guilty of anothers guilt that all his joy in God has vanished and that his capacity for prayer has quite gone it is high time for him to launch an assault upon the flesh and prepare for better service by fasting and prayer Luke 237 42 Mark 929 1 Cor. 75.

God used the element of faith to construct the earth and its inhabitants. Whatever he said it came to pass then dropped these elements in us to say whatever we want to also come to pass but sin and disbelieve has murdered the faith in us and need to be ressurected by purity and strong will power.

When the mind for want of being sufficiently reduced by recollection at our first engaging in devotion has contracted certain bad habits of wandering and dissipation they are difficult to overcome and commonly draw us even against our wills to the things of the earth.I believe one remedy for this is to confess our faults and to humble ourselves before God. I do not advise you to use multiplicity of words in prayer many words and long discourses being often the occasions of wandering. Hold yourself in prayer before God like a dumb or paralytic beggar at a rich mans gate. Let it be your business to keep your mind in the presence of the Lord. If it sometimes wander and withdraw itself from Him do not much disquiet yourself for that trouble and disquiet serve rather to distract the mind than to re-collect it the will must bring it back in tranquility. If you persevere in this manner God will have pity on you.

Pardon me also and deal mercifully with me as often as I think of anything besides You in prayer. For I confess truly that I am accustomed to be very much distracted. Very often I am not where bodily I stand or sit rather I am where my thoughts carry me. Where my thoughts are there am I and frequently my thoughts are where my love is. That which naturally delights or is by habit pleasing comes to me quickly. Hence You Who are Truth itself have plainly said For where your treasure is there is your heart also. If I love heaven I think willingly of heavenly things. If I love the world I rejoice at the happiness of the world and grieve at its troubles. If I love the flesh I often imagine things that are carnal. If I love the spirit I delight in thinking of spiritual matters. For whatever I love I am willing to speak and hear about.

The second cause whence these rebellions sometimes proceed is the devil who in order to disquiet and disturb the soul at times when it is at prayer or is striving to pray contrives to stir up these motions of impurity in its nature and if the soul gives heed to any of these they cause it great harm. For through fear of these not only do persons become lax in prayerwhich is the aim of the devil when he begins to strive with thembut some give up prayer altogether because they think that these things attack them more during that exercise than apart from it which is true since the devil attacks them then more than at other times so that they may give up spiritual exercises.

With respect also to spiritual sloth beginners are apt to be irked by the things that are most spiritual from which they flee because these things are incompatible with sensible pleasure. For as they are so much accustomed to sweetness in spiritual things they are wearied by things in which they find no sweetness. If once they failed to find in prayer the satisfaction which their taste required and after all it is well that God should take it from them to prove them they would prefer not to return to it sometimes they leave it at other times they continue it unwillingly. And thus because of this sloth they abandon the way of perfection which is the way of the negation of their will and pleasure for Gods sake for the pleasure and sweetness of their own will which they aim at satisfying in this way rather than the will of God.And many of these would have God will that which they themselves will and are fretful at having to will that which He wills and find it repugnant to accommodate their will to that of God. Hence it happens to them that oftentimes they think that that wherein they find not their own will and pleasure is not the will of God and that on the other hand when they themselves find satisfaction God is satisfied. Thus they measure God by themselves and not themselves by God acting quite contrarily to that which He Himself taught in the Gospel saying That he who should lose his will for His sake the same should gain it and he who should desire to gain it the same should lose it.

God wanted us to do something and we went the bad way. Then he said No I am not going to lose what I want done So Im gonna save this people and restore their dreams back to them

Anyone who is having troubles should pray. Anyone who is happy should sing praises. Anyone who is sick should call the churchs elders. They should pray for and pour oil on the person in the name of the Lord. And the prayer that is said with faith will make the sick person well the Lord will heal that person. And if the person has sinned the sins will be forgiven. Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so God can heal you. When a believing person prays great things happen. James 513-16