Thank you for your encouraging comment, Ann:) I pray God uses it to be a blessing to many! Thanks for following it. God bless you!

Hi Steve:) Yes, I was considering them “classifications.” I couldn’t think of another way to describe them, so I classified them. That’s a great point though. I guess you can consider them “classes” too considering God teaches us.

You are more than welcome to post a link to your series. I can too if you would like. Thanks for your support. Blessings on your series:)

Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Rikki! I agree. Simply saying because the Bible says so is not enough. That is the main purpose of this blog. God led me to start “Sharing the Truths Behind Truth” to share the reasons and benefits behind the things God tells us to do and not to do in His Word in order to show people that God is for them and not against them.

Your second point I believe is also very common. I remember as a new believer thinking “Heaven is great but what about now? There has to be more.” I’m sure there are many others who ask that same question.

Great points on the wilderness. I will dedicate a lot of time on that topic. People also don’t understand that the wilderness is not just a one time thing, either is the promised land. To go from one level to the next, glory to glory, you have to go through the wilderness. But we can be fulfilled while we are going through it.

Great point on the Pharisees. God looks our hearts. He criticized them for their hearts being far from God. When I was just religious, I didn’t do it because of my pride. I was ignorant. I didn’t know any other way. I didn’t know God. When He revealed Himself to me my life changed.

You shared some great points that will be very useful in the book. Thank you very much! God’s blessings to you and your ministry:)

Great comment, Luther! Yours was similar to the last two. It’s a very common struggle. Our sinful nature is selfish. When we’ve lived most of our life focusing on ourselves, its harder to get away from that. But praise God He knows how to get our attention. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Blessings:)

Thanks, Melissa, for your wonderful comment. Understanding the Holy Spirit and following His promptings is necessary to live a fulfilled life. I look forward to reading your blog post. I’ll head over there soon. God bless you:)

Everyone’s comments are so helpful. Thank you all so much!

Thanks for the recommendation, Serge! I agree, we can’t be fulfilled when we are living in condemnation. I am definitely going to address that. I just did a post a couple weeks ago on condemnation. It’s so subtle at times, even when we are walking strong in the Lord. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Many blessings to your ministry in Him.:)

Everyone says, “The Bible says, ‘Don’t sleep around.'” But very few go into why it’s not a good idea to sleep around, other than “God says not to.” Many of the “restrictions” God puts on life is, frankly, for our own good, believer or non. (As I tell my ministry kids, “God says it’s not a good thing to sleep around because… well, do you want to have to go on The Maury Povich Show and parade seven guys to get DNA tests just to find none of them is the father of your child?” They understand that.)

I also think people get stuck in the wilderness because they don’t recognize they are not living life to abundance, or just think that the abundant life is reserved for heaven. There are very few people who seem to be living the abundant life here on Earth, and most of those who do don’t broadcast the fact.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard a sermon on “What the Wilderness Looks Like.” We don’t see the wilderness for the scrub-brush, so to speak. And once we recognize that we’re in the wilderness, we may or may not have a Moses or Joshua to lead us out (or, when we realize we have to fight our way out, we go back to what we are used to). We look at the pillar of cloud and fire and, instead of following it to the Promised Land, we say, “Well, look at that… that’s an interesting weather phenomenon.”

On the Religious types, though: Don’t forget that the Pharisees, the religious types in Jesus day–the ones for whom he had such apparent disdain–held fast the religious traditions in order to lead people to God. They added 600 extra laws in order that God would be glorified. They had wonderful motives (the salvation of their nation), but they went about it the wrong way.