Lunch Break!!

It's Lunch time! I can’t shut my brain off to relax, mainly because I know once it's off, it’s off! There will be no turning it back on after lunch, meaning no productive work during work =D

Yesterday was Sunday and we had such an amazing sermon by Pastor Shirk. He taught out of 1 John 5: 

1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. 4 For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? 6 This is he who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree. 9 If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of God that he has borne concerning his Son. 10 Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning his Son. 11 And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

What a slap in the face this was to hear. Of course as a Believer I all know this to be true, so why do I not act like it? Why do I find myself so easily bringing other Believers down and just flat out being rude and unloving. My favorite part about the sermon was when Pastor Shirk listed off things that we can do to achieve the two greatest commandments. One was to Not talk bad about something that one did “wrong” to others, even if it’s true. What difference does it make if it's true or not? Sinning is sinning. God does not weigh each sin, they are all the same and they all break His heart. If ‘it’ is true, we should be discussing how to help them and bring it to their attention in love.

From this point forward Zechariah and I have promised to keep each other accountable to love even those “worst” people and even the non-Christians. Isn’t that what Christ did? 

Not 15 minutes after our promise was made, I found myself talking about the SaveMart check out lady that yelled loudly at me to give me a coupon. I was stating how I didn’t even want the coupon and she didn’t need to yell so loudly about it. My amazing husband peacefully said “Maybe she would have gotten in trouble if she didn’t give you the coupon”. I had my doubts and started to share them. I saw his face and I instantly knew he was keeping my accountable. I then submitted to the idea that she was just doing her job.

I pray that as the days go by I will have Zechariah there to keep me accountable and it will become easy for me to instantly think on the positive side of every situation.

This is step one of my “Grow Closer to God” adventure. This week my mother and sister in-law and I are going to be going through “Behold Your God” by Myrna Alexander. It is a devotional/study book that goes through some of the attributes of God. - I STRONGLY encourage everyone who wants a deep study to get this book.http://amzn.com/0310371317- The first attribute: Love. I have a feeling God will definitely show me a lot of flaws in my life and things that I need to change in order to fully glorify Him. I am extremely excited about this (as I’ve heard before) cocoon I’m about to enter. And once I’m “Done” I will come out a prettier butterfly. And then after the next cocoon…and even pretty one!