Good morning everyone. Winter happened and the temperature changed from 64 degrees to 29 degrees in one day(smile). Sudden changes happen in life. Just imagine for a moment you are seeing through god’s eyes. Things would take on a whole new perspective. What a great idea it would be for each of us to do a random act of kindness for a complete stranger today, so let’s put it to action.
Today’s Prayer
Dear Jesus, You are the key to our happiness. You are the key to our lives. You are the key to our future. We have heard You knocking and we’re opening the door. Please come into our hearts and guide our every thought and move. Bless us and make us a blessing to others. In Your precious name we pray, Amen.
Let’s eat.
Seeing Through God’s Eyes
They mourned and wept and fasted till evening for Saul and his son Jonathan, and for the army of the Lord and the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword. – 2 Samuel 1:12
How would you react if you heard something bad happened to someone who had been trying to kill you for several years? In the bible it tells us that King Saul had been seeking to kill David for many years before Saul was thrust into battle against the Amalekites. In this final battle, a sword killed Saul. When the news reached David, instead of rejoicing that his enemy was no longer a problem for him, he responded in a totally different way. He mourned. Think about that; he mourned for the one who sought to kill him.
This is a sign of someone who can look past an individual who is the source of pain and consider how God views him. God looks on that individual and sees his needs and knows why he responds the way he does. When we begin to see people as God does, we’ll no longer look at them as enemies, but as souls in need of grace. This is how Jesus could give up His life for us. He saw our great need, not what we did to Him. When someone does you wrong, do you seek to retaliate, or do you pray to understand the need behind the offender’s actions?
For several years I had a person that was a source of constant irritation for me. I thought there was nothing I could do to change it. God allowed me to go beyond the person’s actions to understand what the source of my problem was really. When I gained that understanding, God gave me a picture of this person inside a prison cell and in bondage. This bondage made him respond to life in the way that was so irritating to me. I was able to pray for him and genuinely love him in spite of the fact that he offended me. This is the kind of love Jesus wants us to have when He tells us to love our enemies and pray for those who spitefully use us. Here a little something else on the subject that I read:
“I believe God does a special work of grace in those who go beyond the realm of normal response to persecution. He brings us to a level of grace we never thought possible. Describing how God worked in Joseph’s life, Francis Frangipane reveals what happens when we tap into this grace:
God made him fruitful in the very things that afflicted him. In the land of your affliction, in your battle, is the place where God will make you fruitful. Consider, even now, the area of greatest affliction in your life. In that area, God will make you fruitful in such a way that your heart will be fully satisfied, and God’s heart fully glorified. God has not promised to keep us from valleys and sufferings, but to make us fruitful in them.” [Francis Frangipane, Place of Immunity (Cedar Rapids, Iowa: Arrow Publications, 1996), 93]
Quote of the Day
He enters by the door who enters by Christ, who imitates the suffering of Christ, who is acquainted with the humility of Christ so as to feel and know that, if God became man for us, men should not think themselves God, but men. He who, being man, wishes to appear God, does not imitate Him who, being God, became man. Thou art not bid to think less of thyself than thou art, but to know what thou art.
Augustine
WITH HOPE AND FAITH
Rev. ELDER G E STERRETT
FOUNDER
GCKRS HELPING HAND FOUNDATION/ The Relationship Factory