Tuesday, July 29, 2008
bulletin cover July 27th
For some time now I have noticed different stages in my life and have labeled them. The ignorant years were my teens, the stupid years my early twenties, and the most recent stage I like to call "embracing the process of me." This was a time when I was very aware with everything wrong with me and I was so overwhelmed with the though of fixing it all in one day. It took some time, but I have since learned that life is a journey, a process that works much better if you embrace and accept the time that it is going to take. It will take a lifetime. My present stage is learning about humility, what it is and how to live a humble life. The previous lesson taught me that it is not necessarily hanging out all my dirty laundry at once, or beating myself up over the stupid years. I am still learning what it is and I'll take any tips that you feel led to pass on to me. However, God is a faithful teacher and I read something that brought me to a place of humility before God.
I picked up a book I read a couple years ago because the chapters are meaty but short and thus great for quick devotional time of an unorganized mother of three. So let me encourage you to run, don't walk, to your nearest Christian bookstore and purchase The Indwelling Life of Christ: All of Him in All of Me by Major W. Ian Thomas. Each chapter has at least one or more questions for you to linger over and carry with you through your day. Here are the first two questions at the end of Chapter One, Finding God On Earth: "1. What does it fully mean to you that you have been created in God's image and likeness.? 2. What things should logically be expected from someone who is made in God's image and likeness?" The first time I read this I mentally threw the book across the room. I was overwhelmed with my faults and shortcomings and how I was nowhere near to mirroring God's perfect image here on earth. Reading it this time, I had a little more clarity of thought, embraced the process and felt the Lord reminding my to focus on who He is and not what I am not.
Who is God? 1 John 4:16 tells us that God is love. What is love? 1 Corinthians 13 tells us all about love. Allow me to replace the word "love" with "God" and it with "His" or "He".
"God is patient, God is kind and is not jealous; God does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; He does not seek His own, is not provoked, does not take into account of a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes in all things, endures all things. God never fails..."
This is who God is, this is who I am to reflect so others may see. Step one of humility is to take my focus off of myself and put it on God. Have you ever noticed that if you are around a person long enough you start to pick up there habits or mannerisms, good or bad? May I surround myself with the God who is Love and take on His ways.
I picked up a book I read a couple years ago because the chapters are meaty but short and thus great for quick devotional time of an unorganized mother of three. So let me encourage you to run, don't walk, to your nearest Christian bookstore and purchase The Indwelling Life of Christ: All of Him in All of Me by Major W. Ian Thomas. Each chapter has at least one or more questions for you to linger over and carry with you through your day. Here are the first two questions at the end of Chapter One, Finding God On Earth: "1. What does it fully mean to you that you have been created in God's image and likeness.? 2. What things should logically be expected from someone who is made in God's image and likeness?" The first time I read this I mentally threw the book across the room. I was overwhelmed with my faults and shortcomings and how I was nowhere near to mirroring God's perfect image here on earth. Reading it this time, I had a little more clarity of thought, embraced the process and felt the Lord reminding my to focus on who He is and not what I am not.
Who is God? 1 John 4:16 tells us that God is love. What is love? 1 Corinthians 13 tells us all about love. Allow me to replace the word "love" with "God" and it with "His" or "He".
"God is patient, God is kind and is not jealous; God does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; He does not seek His own, is not provoked, does not take into account of a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes in all things, endures all things. God never fails..."
This is who God is, this is who I am to reflect so others may see. Step one of humility is to take my focus off of myself and put it on God. Have you ever noticed that if you are around a person long enough you start to pick up there habits or mannerisms, good or bad? May I surround myself with the God who is Love and take on His ways.
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