Isaiah 58:9 "Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and He shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity;"
Exercise your mind and strengthen your health in the WORD of GOD. Ask our FATHER to give you your daily bread, morning by morning, to hear as the learned. Vain religion is empty of the WORD of GOD and in the midst of the congregation. A vain man is empty on Truth and speaketh vanity. He's an empty vessel sitting inside an empty church.
Stop being a judgmental hypocrite. Take a good, honest look at your own shortcomings and work on improving yourself. Eat the WORD, fill your vessel, and share the surplus when your cup runneth over with truth. Unyoke yourself from the traditions of men and yoke yourself with the Living WORD.
When you pray, you expect GOD to hear what you have to say, don't you? So when do you make time to hear His response, as well as other important things that He wants for you to know? He wrote you a letter and it's called the Holy Bible.
If you possess literacy, there are no excuses for not studying GOD's Letter to You. If Christians in our modern society would put at least half the effort into studying GOD's WORD as they do towards educational degrees and certificates, their lives would improve greatly. More folks would be able to discern between high levels of good and evil and discontinue their praise for men and their traditions.
Job 15:31 "Let not him that is deceived trust in vanity: for vanity shall be his recompence."
The lukewarm Christians measure all improvements via gain, worldly standards and carnal measurements, which makes them carnal and not much different than non-believers. If you live by vanity and vain words, you'll die by them. Live the agenda cain way of life, on false security and worldly gain, and you'll die in that illusion. Everyone gets what's coming to them.
Isaiah 58:10 "And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday:"
Preach to the dead bones, the spiritually dead, and the LORD will satisfy and fill your soul, making fat your bones. The Living Water, Jesus Christ, will nourish your spirit unto good health and bring your mind out of darkness.
You get to know our FATHER and Jesus CHRIST by studying His Letter to you, verse by verse, with understanding from the Holy Spirit. Satan knows that you cannot physically see or hear GOD, so he has fabricated substitutes, to deceive people into turning to the wrong pastors and feeding troughs. Stick with GOD's WORD and not the precepts of men or their organized religions. Stop basing spirituality purely on emotions, because dogs and cats have emotions, too. As a Christian, you can give a thousand excuses on why you won't study. But in the end, it's all on you. The precepts and fables of men will lead you astray and keep the Four Hidden Dynasties concealed to your eyes.
You lay up the WORD in your heart. You must build up the spiritual library in your mind. You engrave into your being. It is the spiritual discipline to change the default, or carnal, setting within you. Do not reference to the carnal mindset, but the WORD of GOD.
Just like with learning a new skill, you must do it over and over again, until it's part of your reflex, your instant reaction. The spiritually meek and hungry will be fed with the WORD and gainsayers will be shamed. Spiritual exercise and meditation... Jesus showed us time and time again how it's done. That's why we are to meditate on His WORD daily.
GOD brings wisdom and understanding to past, in your mind, once you apply the WORD in your thoughts, words and actions. You can memorize the entire Bible or read everything there is to learn about a subject such as swimming. But you'll never become a real Christian, or swimmer, until you've actually applied what you've learned and put it into practice. Sit on a pew and hear sermons all you want, but it means very little if you never put in the effort and work. Only when you immerse yourself into a body of water, will you know if you'll sink or swim.
There are no gray areas in the WORD. Gray is lukewarm. You either have faith or you don't. You became successful either by the doing things according to ways of men or of GOD. There is no righteousness or true success without Him. If you think that you obtained your success with your own hands, you've allowed yourself to be deceived. The path that you took required that you put someone or something else before GOD. That something else that you turned into an idol, became satan's bargain for you. All things carnal, satan can offer, and none of them go with you when you die.
If the Word of GOD is not in your thoughts and words, then they will not transfer into your actions and works. Someone who receives instruction on how to swim will not be able to swim until he puts it into practice and work. Many folks are hearers only, but they rarely do the work or apply the Word in their lives. Wisdom can be heard, but you must apply it before GOD's wisdom will bring to pass understanding in your heart and mind.