****Listen to The WORD IS ALIVE on the playlist player to the right, after you read this post**
Words the basic units of communication do we really need them, it seems they just lead to misunderstandings and arguements. Can't we just all use sign language? Is communication today what God created it to be? Does God get glory from communication? What is the "creation story on Communication"? Dispite some peoples problems with it and dislike of it, communication is a good thing and has a divine purpose but like everything else after the fall it was corrupted. Creation was brought to be with the LORD speaking, He spoke and matter obeyed the sound of His voice and responded. Our salvation is kind of like our "spiritual creation" God speaks to our heart and it hears Him and responds and allows Him to transform us from the fallen, dark and self serving individual into the "new creation" in His image, With a comforter and teacher to help us transform more and more each day to be like Him. Yes, for most of us it is an hourly transformation but the important thing is there is change, and the change is because of how we respond to what we hear. That sounds alot like communication to me.
The way we use words has a connection with our heart, our motives and that is where the trouble comes in. If we use our "fleshy, selfish heart" our interpretation and receptiveness is dependent on how this affects ME!!! and not what the other person is saying. The other person is pouring out emotion, feelings, disappointments, worries and whatever else they can get out before being stopped with objection. I do not know about you but I tend to be a teapot, (well except for the short part,) but when the whistle blows stand back...... and I try very hard to be "careful" what I say and try to preface everything with the "right words" I feel... I think.... "I am just venting here" but it does not seem to help. Scripture tells us we need to watch what we say and even hold our tongue, if we say everything we think, Proverbs says we are a fool. And well that is one scripture most people know even if they do not read the bible they know that verse. What is a person to do, just stifle it all up and walk around wounded, overwhelmed and unhappy. NO!!! There are scriptures against that too. There are times when we need to speak and what we have to say will not always welcomed but if it is spoken with the right heart, God is going to make it have the effect it is designed to have, we may not even see it responded to but we will know we were right in speaking anyway. God is in Control of everything!!! so if you are unhappy, sad, confused, angry.. whatever talk to him. Regardless of how we feel we are to Rejoice always, and again I say Rejoice. Not because of a ritual or rule but, because if we take a deep breath and think for a minute our heart will remember the dark, hopeless place it was in when we were in control, responsible for everything and everybody, but then we heard the voice that we KNEW, the LORD our Creator spoke to us by name and asked us to come with Him, let him have all the responsibility, all the hurt, all the anger, all the bad things we had done, our hearts and he would wash them in His, precious and perfect blood and cover them and we would be a "new and beautiful creature like He designed us to be, but because of the sin in the garden we were given a choice and every generation is given that choice, if we get back to our designed state all the problems go away. Walking and talking with God, learning from Him, using the knowledge He already gave us, praising and worshiping all that He has given us, toiling and caring for things and doing the specific work He designed for us.
I found this awesome book, War of Words: Getting to the heart of your communication struggles by Paul David Tripp. (ISBN#0-87552-604-7) It outlines God's purpose for communication, what sin did to corrupt it and how we struggle with it everyday, and then he shows how we can transform our talk and heart to be what glorifies God. If everyone reads this book and responds to it, we could have the beautiful fellowship that is talked about in the bible. But, if you read this book and you respond to it, a few less wars of words will occur and eventually maybe those around you will respond and that hope will be a reality. But either way God is glorified when one responds and follows His plan through Faith others can be healed.
Forgiveness, Grace, Mercy, Love, Joy, Peace
***Listen to The WORD IS ALIVE on the Playlist Player to the right ***********************
Friday, May 30, 2008
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Pray for Brandon Thomas
This requests is from our dear friend and neighbor, wife of Larry Cassidy (see the post memorializing him).
please pray for Brandon Thomas. He is the son of one of my co-workers at BB&T. He suddenly was diagnosed with a brain tumor and is not doing well. We all know how serious this is. I feel like I am reliving Larry's battle with this due to a lot of the same events taking place. Please keep Brandon and his family in your prayers. The link below is a web page that gives updates on his condition and shows some photos of him.
Thank you,
Kim Cassidy
The address for Brandon's CaringBridge website is: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/brandonmthomas
please pray for Brandon Thomas. He is the son of one of my co-workers at BB&T. He suddenly was diagnosed with a brain tumor and is not doing well. We all know how serious this is. I feel like I am reliving Larry's battle with this due to a lot of the same events taking place. Please keep Brandon and his family in your prayers. The link below is a web page that gives updates on his condition and shows some photos of him.
Thank you,
Kim Cassidy
The address for Brandon's CaringBridge website is: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/brandonmthomas
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Obedience is an exercise of Faith not knowledge and understanding
Have you ever had a hard time obeying God? (Be honest, it is just you and God). Sometimes He does the "parent thing", Do this... no explanation, no discussion (I hate that, I want to "work it out --talk about what if's, preparation needed, possible outcomes but He says.. Do it!) And then the Why?What if? How? wheel starts in our head and hearts. And then we hear Him, "Walk by Faith, Trust me, and Know that I AM sufficient for all your needs, I will WORK THROUGH (inspite) of you if you submit and OBEY!. WOW!!!! I feel like such the disobedient, disrespectful bratty child. Have you ever discussed this with your children??
They yearn to see adults having to make hard choices, in their eyes adults get to do whatever we want, especially when they see "bad examples" and they always seem to be there when we slip and always remember that episode, and share it with everyone they come in contact with. My ..... said something mean to their friend or ...... said they could not do something for someone when they could have, they just did not want to or ..... said a really bad word, and they were not even mad, they just wanted to say the bad word that if they were a kid they would have had soap put in their mouth. I personally think God made children to reproof us incase we do not heed the holy spirits prompting, and miss the biblical reproof. There is just something about, having a child question your actions and have you try to explain why you did something and why you are not going to be punished. If we are truthful and take a moment and handle this right it is such a model to follow as a parent. And what a relief and lesson to our children, Do not rejoice in anothers sorrow, but instead desire grace and forgiveness and righteousness returning for the person. What a feeling to have your child pray for you and understand that even though we do not see God's dealing with someone we KNOW it happens because it says so in the Bible, and even when people say otherwise, God blesses when we obey the laws and rules he has given us and the things he tells us to do and when we do not obey we risk, consequences which only happen when we are out of God's will when we have walked out of his protection and are walking on our own, fighting battles we were not designed to fight and doing or going places we were not designed to go.
This is where many demonination and doctrinal issues arise, this is not threatening us to do (WORK) for Gods love, He gave us that freely, before we even knew Him, because of the breakdown in our spiritual family tree. This is basically Grace, the buzz word in christianity and a source of great debates, many books and alot of missing the whole point. This has nothing to do with our salvation, this is about our daily living, and choices to be with God, under his protection, guidance and assistance or to go it in our own strength, with our wealth of knowledge, and pride, selfishness. We make this decision hundreds of times a day, either we pray and take God through our day with us or we only call him after we act and get into trouble and "Oh, God please forgive me for ....., please help we...." or sometimes we just pray for the things we know we can't handle or for situations that need divine intervention but we have specific requests "Oh God, please touch this empty vessel I am dealing with, show them the error of their ways, show them your path (ie: the way I am thinking things should go)" and when God speaks and actually changes our course we are not happy and convince ourselves this must be a mistake, He could not actually want US to Do That! (Did He say it?) You believe 66 books but, when He speaks you are questioning it? Look at the creation record, nothingness responded to God's voice, waters parted when He spoke, shouldn't someone who is only slightly less than an angel, created in His image respond to His voice???
The story of Abram and Sarai is a great example of Faith, obedience, promise, Faith, reward, Faith, and punishment. See Genesis 12:2-9 for a great picture of faith and obedience. Do you see the connection. Hebrews 11:8 really makes this very clear. It says, He obeyed out of faith and went not knowing where he was going.
It does not say and he began questioning God, where am I going, what about food, is there good land, grass, what about the weather? It says he went.
As parents when we tell our children to do something we want them to do what we say immediately with out talking back because the trust us and respect our authority as the parent. We tell them this a million times, but do they see us obeying anyone, do they see us respecting anyone? Have they ever heard you tell a lie? Well, we know that lies weaken and eventually break our trust, do we think our kids TRUST us instinctively, even when we act and speak contray to what we teach. There is a saying "Walk the Walk and Talk the Talk" and "Practice what you Preach (Say)". There is a poem with I think comes from scripture, but I have not found it just yet, but it says Be careful what you say and do because little eyes are watching you and will one day become you and follow in your footsteps.
They yearn to see adults having to make hard choices, in their eyes adults get to do whatever we want, especially when they see "bad examples" and they always seem to be there when we slip and always remember that episode, and share it with everyone they come in contact with. My ..... said something mean to their friend or ...... said they could not do something for someone when they could have, they just did not want to or ..... said a really bad word, and they were not even mad, they just wanted to say the bad word that if they were a kid they would have had soap put in their mouth. I personally think God made children to reproof us incase we do not heed the holy spirits prompting, and miss the biblical reproof. There is just something about, having a child question your actions and have you try to explain why you did something and why you are not going to be punished. If we are truthful and take a moment and handle this right it is such a model to follow as a parent. And what a relief and lesson to our children, Do not rejoice in anothers sorrow, but instead desire grace and forgiveness and righteousness returning for the person. What a feeling to have your child pray for you and understand that even though we do not see God's dealing with someone we KNOW it happens because it says so in the Bible, and even when people say otherwise, God blesses when we obey the laws and rules he has given us and the things he tells us to do and when we do not obey we risk, consequences which only happen when we are out of God's will when we have walked out of his protection and are walking on our own, fighting battles we were not designed to fight and doing or going places we were not designed to go.
This is where many demonination and doctrinal issues arise, this is not threatening us to do (WORK) for Gods love, He gave us that freely, before we even knew Him, because of the breakdown in our spiritual family tree. This is basically Grace, the buzz word in christianity and a source of great debates, many books and alot of missing the whole point. This has nothing to do with our salvation, this is about our daily living, and choices to be with God, under his protection, guidance and assistance or to go it in our own strength, with our wealth of knowledge, and pride, selfishness. We make this decision hundreds of times a day, either we pray and take God through our day with us or we only call him after we act and get into trouble and "Oh, God please forgive me for ....., please help we...." or sometimes we just pray for the things we know we can't handle or for situations that need divine intervention but we have specific requests "Oh God, please touch this empty vessel I am dealing with, show them the error of their ways, show them your path (ie: the way I am thinking things should go)" and when God speaks and actually changes our course we are not happy and convince ourselves this must be a mistake, He could not actually want US to Do That! (Did He say it?) You believe 66 books but, when He speaks you are questioning it? Look at the creation record, nothingness responded to God's voice, waters parted when He spoke, shouldn't someone who is only slightly less than an angel, created in His image respond to His voice???
The story of Abram and Sarai is a great example of Faith, obedience, promise, Faith, reward, Faith, and punishment. See Genesis 12:2-9 for a great picture of faith and obedience. Do you see the connection. Hebrews 11:8 really makes this very clear. It says, He obeyed out of faith and went not knowing where he was going.
It does not say and he began questioning God, where am I going, what about food, is there good land, grass, what about the weather? It says he went.
As parents when we tell our children to do something we want them to do what we say immediately with out talking back because the trust us and respect our authority as the parent. We tell them this a million times, but do they see us obeying anyone, do they see us respecting anyone? Have they ever heard you tell a lie? Well, we know that lies weaken and eventually break our trust, do we think our kids TRUST us instinctively, even when we act and speak contray to what we teach. There is a saying "Walk the Walk and Talk the Talk" and "Practice what you Preach (Say)". There is a poem with I think comes from scripture, but I have not found it just yet, but it says Be careful what you say and do because little eyes are watching you and will one day become you and follow in your footsteps.
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