There are many aspects to Prayer. Examples: procuring items, plea for healing, calm your mind.
the ideas
may be jumbled
When you place your thoughts in God
God places thoughts in you
If this seems daunting to you try a small amount. Begin with a minute. Set your timer if you want,
“Lord, if you want,
I will climb out of the boat”
A verse to help us “cope and not loose hope” during this time “Covid 19”.
Prayer – there is more to prayer than God answering a list of wants and needs. Try listening to God and meditative prayer.
Watchful – The early church faced opponents of the New Faith on the block, yet they were preaching and teaching. How about us — be sensitive to the times — help stop the spread of Covid 19 and you may also meet someone who needs to see your Faith.
Thankful – take time to list, mentally or on paper, what you have to be grateful for.
-Jeff
[paraphrasing] This age will pass away but use the things of this world “lightly”, do not put your trust in them but trust God.
Advertising is meant to grab and hold the human attention; and usually works very well. Which is why advertisers continue, endlessly with their ads.
Buy this. Do that. You can’t live without this! Be happy, spend money.
Amongst many of the ‘worldly pulls,’ Christians are to live ‘apart’ from worldly things — Ideas, religions, philosophies, societal rituals. . . Holiday traditions, family traditions, and the notion, “When in Rome do as Romans do”. . . Cars, airplanes, other physical items too numerous to mention.
The things of this world help us in our daily living
And teach us realities of Heaven
Of God, and Christ and the Holy Spirit
But they are not Heaven
They are symbols, and are transient
-Jeff
The Jesus – God relationship is what our relationship (you and me) is to reflect.
Also Philippians 2:3
John 17, verses 11 and 22
Romans 14:5,
Submission: one of the more difficult areas of Faith. Submit to a group, organization, individual person, God alone. What is God’s will? How is it qualified, quantified? Confusion and competition when so many people and organizations want our attention, obedience.
We need to focus on Christ.
I foster the personal side of our relationship with God; where God communicates with us (substitute the word “me” for “us”) directly, unencumbered, open, raw — a relationship available for believers and non-believers, on an individual level. (Admittedly, it would be hard for an unbeliever to have this personal thing going on while not believing).
I consider this relationship:
higher – it lives in Heaven above Earthly standards
more important – directly influencing
deeper – the most meaningful
our story – what we were meant for
further – wears better, like some old tattered jeans
more encompassing – a relationship without bounds
beyond – not held by Earthly bonds
Example: As a Christian Musician, an ability not mentioned very much in this blog, I run across songs and instrumentals, or let’s say, ‘some melodies with words attached’ and ‘melodies without words’. I am inspired by both! and I know both would be inspiring to Christians in the context of worship. Yet when meeting with church musicians and pastors, I usually discover a much different view of which piece of music is “inspiring”, with the vast majority are “melodies with words attached”. It causes me to wonder if we are losing the art of instrumental music in our worship services?
Do I listen to what I deem an “urging”, the call of the “Spirit within”, or not?
But can you truly, always put others ahead of yourself?
This passage reveals a mindset we are to nurture: place other people higher than yourself.
An intriguing principle, and a virtue residing in the arena of a “matured” Faith, carrying a high degree of difficulty because to achieve God’s standard, you attach reigns to yourself.
But can you truly, always rank others ahead of yourself?
These 3 aspects of the Christian faith have been on my mind recently. So I will help us to be mindful about all 3.
We need to check ourselves every now and then to make sure what we are saying and doing have perception as loving acts. Sometimes in the way we treat other people we say things or do things and the other people don’t see, may not perceive this as a caring act. We can mean well but they may not take it that way.
To be thankful for everything is an overwhelming aspect of the Christian Faith. It’s difficult to be thankful when things are not going, or at least you perceive they’re not going well. In this world we suffer losses and setbacks, heart aches and failures, but move your attitude to a place where thankfulness arises.
And the third item, this morning: assuming, can catch us off guard. We know that other people think differently than I / we think: have different terminology, define words differently. But it is fairly easy for me to go through my daily life thinking that other people, since they’re doing the same things — get out of bed, eat breakfast, go to work, buy groceries, meet with friends or family, go to church, watch a movie, read a book — are gathering the same ideas that I am gathering. And as such, are forming the same opinions and attitudes as myself. But there is a good chance they are shaped differently by these same experiences.
Be mindful.
-Jeff
Saint Isaiah the Solitary
The First of 27 Texts
“There is among the passions an anger of the intellect, and this anger is in accordance with nature.
Without anger a man cannot attain purity: he has to feel angry with all that is sown in him by the enemy.
When Job felt this anger he reviled his enemies, calling them ‘dishonorable men of no repute, lacking everything good, whom I would not consider fit to live with the dogs that guard my flocks’ (Job 30:1-4).
He who wishes to acquire the anger that is in accordance with nature must uproot all self-will, until he establishes within himself the state natural to the intellect.” Continue reading “On Guarding the Intellect 1”
