BBD 03.06.18 Gurners (Classic)
Posted by: wrathered <wrathered@...>
Classic from 2010
Burning Bush Devotional
06 March 2018
Gurners
Therefore lay
aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the
implanted word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and
not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word
and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he
observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.
But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is
not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what
he does. If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his
tongue but deceives his own heart, this one's religion is useless. Pure and
undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows
in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. - James 1:21-27
NKJV.
Are you a gurner? I have seen some people do this before, but never knew
that it was almost a sport. Gurning contests are a rural English tradition that
have been around for a couple of hundred years or more. Gurning consists of
making a face, i.e. distorting the facial features. At least one man had his
teeth removed so he could more easily contort his face. A face frequently made
in these contests is known as the duck face. Anne Woods has won the contest at
the Egremont, England Crab Fair 27 times. Tommy Mattison, the men's champion
has won it 11 times. Both Woods, and Mattison will be in the next Guinness
World Records book.
Some people purposely distort their faces, and some people purposely
distort their thinking. The apostle James writes about some mental gurners in
his letter. Apparently, there were people who heard what God said they should
do, knew what God wanted them to do, but still they did not do it. Hmm, that
sounds a lot like the majority of the people who call themselves Christians
today. We go to church on Sunday, and then go out and live like the devil the
rest of the week. Maybe, it isn't quite that bad, but surveys have shown that
the goals, the desires, and actions of those who call themselves Christians -
are not much different from those who do not consider themselves to be
Christians. James says that this kind of religion is “useless!”
The apostle Paul has this to say about the mental gurning of Christians in
Romans 6, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may
abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or
do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were
baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into
death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,
even so we also should walk in newness of life.” Paul goes
on to say in verses 12 - 14 of chapter 6, “Therefore
do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.
And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but
present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as
instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you,
for you are not under law but under grace.”
Are you a Christian gurner, mentally distorting the Word of God to fit
your life, and your circumstances? If your mindset is that you will go ahead
and commit a sin, because you know God will forgive you, then you are gurning
in your thinking. There is always a cost to sin because “...the
wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23a).” The price of sin will
always be more than you want to pay.
Copyright © 2010 - 2018. Ed
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