Hi Friend, how can I help?

Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. Romans 15:2 (ESV)

How is everyone today?
I trust you are well … let’s dive into some good Word right away!

As I read this verse from Romans in both the ESV and the MESSAGE translations, I thought about my goals for you, my reader, with my ‘Minutes with Monica’ messages. Say that 10x fast! :)

Please keep in mind that I am NOT a theologian nor am I a Pastor in a church; the thoughts I put here on these minutes are simply my PERSONAL devotionals of the Word and how it rolls through my heart and mind.
I pray that when I share these with you, it will lead you to your own personal devotionals too... it’s important for us all to NOT only HEAR His Word but READ it for yourself - hopefully each of you own your own bible so you can pull out and read along with me.

So, with that said, my heart is that my ‘Minute messages’ from HIS WORD, help you transform your heart and mind to focus on Him, at this very moment, and then filter throughout your day/night- leading you to more in-depth study for yourself to find what God is speaking to you!
With that said, check out how the Message translation reads from the same verse-

Those of us who are strong and able in the faith need to step in and lend a hand to those who falter, and not just do what is most convenient for us.
Strength is for service, not status.
Each one of us needs to look after the good of the people around us, asking ourselves, “How can I help?”
Romans 15:2 (MSG)

So, read on to find out how I hope to be helping each of you wonderful readers today…
I found it interesting that when I searched for ‘how many verses are in the Bible’- searches came back with 31,000-66,000 totals. That’s a large difference, but I am assuming that’s based off numerous translations.

Either way, I love the fact that we can read ONE small group of verses: for example, Psalm. 7: 9-14 and gather so much from it.

Let me show you what I mean…

I was reading Ps. 7 & here are the verses that stood out to me and the study on them.

So back to our righteous God testing or probing our minds and hearts!

Psalm. 7: 9-14 ESV
9 Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end, and may you establish the righteous—
you who test the minds and hearts, ^[c] O righteous God!
¹⁰ My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart.
¹¹ God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day.

¹² If a man^[d] does not repent, God^[e] will whet his sword; he has bent and readied his bow,
¹³ he has prepared for him his deadly weapons, making his arrows fiery shafts.
¹⁴ Behold, the wicked man conceives evil and is pregnant with mischief and gives birth to lies.

Psalm. 7: 14 NIV
¹⁴ Whoever is pregnant with evil conceives trouble and gives birth to disillusionment.

With all that we are experiencing and witnessing globally today, evil is showing up everywhere. I am sure we can all agree on certain things that happen as evil: murder, human trafficking, human abuse, animal abuse, witchcraft, sorcery, powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
I am sure I can go on and on with the ‘big’ evils of the world, but I believe this word has been watered down so that when we read the word ‘evil’ such as in verse 14 we tend to think of these bigger evils.

So, I decided to do a word study to see what the actual definition(s) are.

Evil Definitions of vary- as does the analysis of its motives.
Elements commonly associated with personal forms of evil involve unbalanced behavior- including anger, revenge, hatred, selfishness, psychological trauma, ignorance, destruction, neglect.

morally wrong or bad, immoral, wicked, evil deeds, evil laws, evil quality, intention or conduct

force in the supernatural that governs and gives rise to wickedness and sin.

in a general sense is defined as the opposite of absence of good

… it may be an extremely broad concept though in everyday usage to talk about profound wickedness and against common good (this can be different for everyone-based off how we are raised, or beliefs, etc.).

I bring this up because check out what the verse says again…
¹⁴ Whoever is pregnant with evil….

Again, recall what the online dictionary, not even Christian based, DEFINES evil as ‘PERSONAL FORMS of evil involve unbalanced behavior- including anger, revenge, hatred, selfishness, psychological trauma, ignorance, destruction, neglect’.

…. conceives trouble and gives birth to disillusionment.

And once again I must do another word study, as disillusionment is not a typical word in my personal vocabulary.

Disillusionment Definitions:
A feeling of being disappointed and unhappy because of discovering the truth about something or someone that you liked or respected.

A feeling of disappointment akin to depression arising from the realization that something is not what it was expected or believed to be- possibly accompanied by philosophical angst from having ones’ beliefs challenged.

The condition of being disenchanted, dissatisfied, defeated in expectations or hope.

synonyms: discontent, sadness, sorrow, dejection or disgruntlement

Let’s look at a specific word that I hear over and over from people who are dealing with this— DEPRESSION- I am sure either you may be dealing with this or know someone who is- and maybe this message will be an eye opener for you &/or you can share this message with those that you know it could help!
(Feel free to Share my MINUTES.)

What if we took this verse and wrote it out this way:

¹⁴ Whoever is pregnant with anger, revenge, hatred, selfishness, psychological trauma, ignorance, destruction, neglect (evil) conceives trouble and gives birth to DEPRESSION (disillusionment/NIV or lie/ESV).

So, the way I see it is depression can come from all of these PERSONAL forms of evil— dive in and let’s pull out, IGNORANCE and NEGLECT. As it reads then, forms of neglect could be counted as evil in the Lord’s view!
Neglecting His Word then leads to ignorance of His Word (is that a double evil?) — not sure about you and how you are reading this, but in my heart, this is severe and could lead to the path of disillusionment which is akin to depression!!!

If we just read over the verses and not stop to study, we lose some of these big A-HA moments that can change everything!

What about anger?
How many people have told me they deal with anger almost daily. What if those people could understand that even anger can be considered evil in God’s view and that could lead to depression! How many people would want to figure out how to control anger then?
Well, there’s another ‘Minutes’ message I’ll have to write up soon.

To try and wrap this up and give a CALL TO ACTION if you feel this was written with YOU in mind… let’s look at vs 12 below-

As noted already, translations vary some and I have discovered that it’s important to compare when prompted or led to.
For example, in Ps. 7:12 the following words are different, and IMO have a different meaning: NIV RELENT/ ESV REPENT.

¹² If he does not relent, he^[e] will sharpen his sword;
    he will bend and string his bow.

¹² If a man^[d] does not repent, God^[e] will whet his sword;
    he has bent and readied his bow;

Side note: WORD STUDY
RELENT: to become less severe, yield, to become more lenient or forgiving- to capitulate, give in/give up

REPENT: to turn from sin & dedicate oneself to the amendment of ones’ life.
To repent is to regret so deeply as to change the mind or course of conduct in consequence and develop a new mental & spiritual habit.

and to follow through…

¹² If a man (person)^[d] does not repent (to turn from sin & dedicate oneself to the amendment of ones’ life) (from the evil- anger, revenge, hatred, selfishness, psychological trauma, ignorance, destruction, neglect), they will give birth to lies and disillusionment (depression) and God^[e] will whet his sword; he has bent and readied his bow,
¹³ he has prepared for him his deadly weapons, making his arrows fiery shafts.

Lastly…. if this wasn’t enough...

¹⁵ Whoever (the person spoken of above) digs a hole and scoops it out & falls into the pit they have made.
¹⁶ The trouble they (the person spoken of above) cause recoils on them; their violence comes down on their own heads.

YIKES!! I don’t know about YOU, but I am asking Jesus to point out any of these evils that I have committed and WILL REPENT- not just RELENT in order to have a clean heart and remove any opportunities of DISSILLUSIONMENT or DEPRESSION to sink in.

I thank God my/our Father, Jesus His Son and the Holy Spirit for His wisdom, knowledge and understanding of these verses.

Emphasizing when we are prompted to repent for something that is UNCLEAN in our hearts that the Holy Spirit IS showing us what needs to be removed from our heart.

SIDE NOTE: the Holy Spirit convicts are hearts but the enemy (or dragon of our souls as I prefer to call him, the ‘dragon’ and from here forward will do so) he condemns us.
Completely different words … maybe that’s another ‘Minutes with Monica’ message … I’ll keep in mind. ;)

Remember this is GOOD, even though it’s tough to think about ourselves as evil... Usually this only happens for me when I am quietly reading, and He can speak to me without any distractions... I pray you find some quiet time soon!!!

Live Radiantly today… Monica

ps. thank you to all of you who have generously supported my work here. You are appreciated and valued! It is a joy for me to share…

Photo Credit: Rick Schaff (2001)