365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 119

A conversation I had with the girls over the morning breakfast of rainbow pancakes was very interesting. Somehow we got to the topic of Heaven. So, the girls were sharing their thoughts about Heaven. One of them said it is kind of weird that we have 3 Gods in one, another mentioned going to purgatory first. My daughter’s image of Heaven was seeing 3 thrones with God who is big in the middle and Jesus on the one side and the Holy Spirit on the other side. We all see and perceive things in our own way but we do have to be careful to always shine the light of the truth of God’s word onto everything so that we can wisely discern what the truth is. There are differing denominations within the Christian church for this very reason. We read and interpret things in different ways. The truth can be found with prayer and study. You don’t solely follow the words of someone who sounds knowledgeable about the bible. Get in the Word yourself. Seek and you will find.

Hebrews 7:27 Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 300

God is so working on me in terms of learning to love my enemies. My feathers got ruffled a bit yesterday when I heard on the news about the document that they say, says Jesus said "my wife". I was immediately angry with the media for taking something and exploiting it like this without any real research behind it. My first thought was maybe Jesus didn't mean it literally. Like the bible says we are the bride and he is the bridegroom. My wife could mean the whole body of Christ. Thankfully, our pastor last night did his research and shared with us 3 reasons this is not true. First the definition for the greek word for wife: GUNE (phonetical Goonay) is a woman of any age, whether a virgin, or married or a widow, a wife. Second, we should apply the theory of Biblical interpretation called Hapax Legomenon which basically says if a text only appears once in any form, it should be considered with less weight than if a text appears multiple times through many different authors and centuries. Third it is Coptic (Egyptian) script which is from the 4th century AD, 300 years after Jesus and from a copy of a 2nd century Greek text. Coptics were not known for Biblical accuracy, but rather for their astute and penetrating theology. So, my problem is still with the media. Love my enemy. Love my enemy. My second enemy of the day was my workplace especially after finding out the way our vacation time is accrued changed at the first of the year and nobody bothered to say anything to us. They changed it from an accrue by calander year system to a accrue by your starting anniversary date. Apparently, if at your anniversary date you have more than 24 hours accrued you will lose it. I have no idea if I lost any because my anniversary happend in July. This really got my feathers ruffled. I had to put on my head phones and listen to God speaking to me through music to calm myself down. Love my enemies, Love my enemies, Love my enemies. Oh, Lord this is so hard but I am thankful for your help in starting to learn the process of loving my enemies. Pray for them is what you have been telling me. So that is what I will do.
Matthew 5:44 But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.