When Your Mother Says She's Fat

I sat here reading this crying my eyes out.  A great read

When Your Mother Says She's Fat

Pray Continually

Before I began my quiet time today, I prayed that God would open my heart to what He wanted me to hear.  After I said Amen, I turned to my book and giggled a little.  The topic was on prayer and I was excited to dive in.  It gave me three verses to read, and while they were all great ones, there was one that hit me.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 "Rejoice always,  pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus."
I can't tel you how many times I have read and heard this verse.  It is even underlined in my bible, and a certain verse has a box around it, but something struck me today that I never noticed.  Verse 17 only contains to words, in my version. "Pray Continually".  I just sat there in awe, knowing this was what God wanted to reveal to me today.  These words could have easily been apart of verse 16 or 18, but it was important enough to be on its on.  We are to constantly be in prayer, lifting up thanksgiving, confessing our sins, stating our needs.  But what does this look like?  Does it mean we are on our knees all day, tucked away from everything? 
 Of course not!  If we did that, we wouldn't be able to spread the Word, as we are called to do.  This is meaning to have a prayerful mindset.  When we do this, we will be more attuned  to the Holy Spirit, since we are told to pray in the spirit in Ephesians 6:18 "And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests." 
When we are driving down the road, we should be praying; when we are sitting in class, we should be praying; when we are interacting with people we should be praying.  When our hearts and minds are prayerful, our words and actions will reflect that. 
There are two quotes on prayer that I just discovered and love.  When I am going through trials I will constantly be lifting up the situation to God, not because I don't believe He's not hearing me or that I am not leaving it at His feet, but more as an act of perseverance, and believing that what I am asking will come to pass.  R.A. Torrey said “Those persons who know the deep peace of God, the unfathomable peace that passeth all understanding, are always men and women of much prayer.” And one of my favorites, Oswald Chambers said “We have to pray with our eyes on God, not on the difficulties.”  Sometimes for me, being able to keep my eyes on God is when I am constantly praying to Him about a situations, whether it be mine or someone else's.  It also helps me have peace and believe that God will answer.
So I encourage you, always have a prayerful mindset.  It will help you battle temptations, bringing you closer to God, and have the mindset of Christ! 

Rejected by Men

My quiet time today was on the 1 Peter 2:9.  I decided to read more in that section and this though popped into my mind.  Maybe it will make sense (I'm hoping I say it right) or maybe it won't. but this is what went through my mind as I was reading.  The section of chapter two this verse comes from is titled  "The Living Stone and a Chosen People".  Now after I read verse nine, which states "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light."  I get that gleeful feeling, and am in awe thinking about how God chose us, over everything else, He chose us.  As it seems to go recently, I end up sometimes reading the entire chapter.  Second Peter actually starts at the end of another section.  1 Peter 2:1-2 states "Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure

spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good."  Then I move onto vs 4-5 which say "As you come to him, the living Stone

rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."  I have always known we were not to be like the word, but after spending a week at Beach Retreat, away from the world, I saw this verse in a new light.  We are to be like Jesus, the living stone, which means we are to not look like the world.  Before God even created world, before sin had entered, God chose us to His family.  Ephesians 1:4-5 says "Long before he laid down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ."  Because God has chosen us to be set apart, we should strive to rid ourselves of things like deceit, envy, slander, lust, etc.  These should not be desirable things to us.  We are a holy nation.

I understand it can be hard to rid ourselves of things that are of the world.  Though we have become a people who look out for themselves, we still long to be accepted and liked.  So we dabble a little in gossip, throw a cuss word in here and there, dress in a way that garners attention and can cause someone else to stumble.  Yet at the same time, as a Christian, we claim to want to be like Jesus.  We need to realize something that is clear as day in vs 4 "As you come to him, the living Stone--rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him" Jesus was not popular...Jesus didn't try to fit...he was rejected by his own people; but he was chosen by God, and precious to Him.  The rest of vs four says "you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a royal priesthood."  Guess what...when we accept Christ in our hearts was become like living stones.  What does this mean?  That we will be rejected by the world.  When we live like Christ, the world will turn away from us and disown us.  But we need to remember, we are chosen by God!  We are precious to him and I would rather be chosen by Him than by the world.  

Yes it may hurt when friends turn against us, it may hurt when people laugh or make a face because you don't join in on gossip and saying slander against someone, but if we remember that we are chosen by God, accepted into royalty and adopted into His family, it makes it all worthwhile.  This world has nothing for us, we need to remember that, but God has everything!!!