Keep Your Heart Right
From the Old and New Testaments, we learn that our actions reflect our hearts. If our hearts are right, our actions will be right. But if our hearts are wrong, our actions will be wrong.

The problem resulting in Israel’s sin was in their hearts.

Known By Your Fruits
Since our actions reflect our hearts, our hearts are known by examining our actions.In warning the people of false prophets, Jesus tells us we know them by their fruits.

The important point  is that you know your heart by looking at your fruits. If you’re not acting like a Christian, your heart can’t be right with God. it then also stands to reason to consider that , we can know other people’s’ hearts by looking at their fruits.

Judged By Your Fruits
Since our fruits reflect our hearts, it sit logical to assume  we’ll be judged according to our fruits. In line with this thinking, Jesus tells us we’ll be judged by whether we practice lawlessness.

There’ll be people at judgment who call Jesus Lord, but their fruits prove they didn’t truly believe He’s the Lord because they practiced lawlessness. As a result, they will have to account for their  actions

Don’t Deceive Your Heart
Some people deceive their hearts, believing they’re righteous, when their fruits clearly reflect the sinfulness of their lives.

James says these people are forgetful hearers of the word, and delude themselves. They hear what God says but don’t change, continuing in sin while thinking they’re righteous.

Anyone who thinks he’s righteous, but isn’t a doer of the word, deceives himself.

so  how do we know whether we’re doers of the word, or we’ve deceived ourselves?

James gives us the acid test by which we examine ourselves

If you controlling your tongue, and helping those less fortunate to  relieve them in their distress, and keeping yourself unstained by the world, you know you’re a doer of the word.

It Takes Work
It takes work to get our hearts right with God, and keep them right!

Peter specifically addresses the need for this work, when he commands us to prepare our minds for action.

It Takes Preparation
To do anything well, it takes preparation.

We must prepare ourselves to be good students, good employees, and good parents. And certainly, we must prepare ourselves to be faithful Christians.

If we prepare our minds as God commands, we’ll succeed in obeying Him. But if we don’t prepare our minds, we’ll fail. Preparing as God commands in His word, is the key to success.

Spend Time With God
To grow strong and stay strong, we must spend time with God by studying his word, praying, and singing spiritual songs.

We study God’s word, meditating and thinking upon it throughout the day..

We pray. Some prayers may be short, offered throughout the day while doing other things, and others may be longer, when we pause from the day’s busy activities.

We sing spiritual songs to God. Sometimes we sing silently in our minds, and other times we sing orally when we’re doing things like riding in a car.

When we make Bible study, prayer, and singing spiritual songs a daily part of our lives, we grow strong and stay strong.

Don’t Entangle Yourself in Everyday Life
To stay strong while living around sinful people, we can’t entangle ourselves with the daily affairs of everyday life. Like a soldier, we have to concentrate on our mission, not on the day-to-day, unimportant things of life.

We must lay up treasure in heaven, not on earth.

When we’re devoted to doing God’s work, rather than satisfying the flesh, we grow strong and stay strong.

Sin doesn’t have the allurement it had when we were trying to live for the flesh, because our lives have a higher purpose. Then, when we are blessed with the physical things of life, we can truly enjoy them as content children of God, happy and satisfied in the Lord.

Consider these questions:

• Are you more concerned with spiritual things than physical things?
• Do you spend more free time with spiritual activities or recreational activities?
• If you lost all your wealth and possessions today, how would that affect you?

Avoid Sinful Situations When Possible

we’re not bound together with unbelievers. God commands us to come out of their midst and be separate.

So we live around sinful people, but we don’t have sinful partnership or fellowship with them. We do not participate in their unfruitful deeds of darkness, but expose them by living as an example of how god brings light  in the world.

To live this way, and avoid sinful situations, we must put to death our sinful desires.

Avoid Sinful Language
It’s not possible to avoid all sinful language in the world, but we shouldn’t expose ourselves to more than is necessary. Nor should we use sinful language ourselves.

If we participate in sinful language, it leads to further ungodliness that spreads like gangrene

Avoid People Who Oppose the Truth
We shouldlimit expsure to  people who oppose the truth because they lead people astray.

These are:

• “Lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power . . .”

Paul tells us to avoid such people because they oppose the truth, leading people away from God.

• “Avoid such men as these. For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected in regard to the faith“

We are to avoid sinful situations as much as possible, and make a special effort to avoid people who are leading people away from God, except to preach the word to them

Although we’re loving toward all people, we shouldn’t be companions of religious leaders who lead people into sin through their teachings. Nor should we be companions with people advocating sin in pop culture, such as advertising executives advocating sin through their commercials.

As a matter of fact, when we act as Christians, exposing darkness as lights to the world, people advocating sin don’t want to be our companions.

Avoid Factious People
A factious person causes division.

Sometimes people like to be factious to destroy friendships for self-serving purposes. Maybe they want to gain power over a group of people, so they cause strife resulting in division.

In religion, the same thing happens. The best way to destroy a congregation is to create strife resulting in division, especially by teaching false doctrine. Unless the congregation is strong enough to reject the factious man, it will be divided.

God’s command, through the apostle Paul, is simple and plain

Associate with Godly People
Rather than associating with sinful people who influence us negatively, we are to associate with godly people who influence us positively.

The most important group of people to associate with is Christians, at the assembly and in day-to-day activities. These are the people who will help us get to heaven.

Summary
To stay strong in a sinful world, we must:

• Keep our hearts right with God.
• Spend time with God by studying and meditating on his word, singing, and praying.
• Not entangling yourself in the affairs of everyday life.
• Avoiding sinful situations as much as possible.
• Associate with godly people.