I will share about Christian books I have read or listened to.
I will be sharing about my life before and after Christ. I will include stories about my pet and other pets I have encountered.
Loving Your Family
The word family can carry a lot of different meanings, depending on who you ask. But, the command to love your family comes straight from God.
In the Old Testament, the command to honor your father and mother was included in the Ten Commandments that God gave to Moses for the people of Israel:
Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.
Exodus 20:12 NIV
As Paul, the author of Ephesians, is teaching the church in Ephesus about the implications of following Jesus, he repeats this command from the Ten Commandments. Paul knew that if we are to follow Jesus then we need to learn to love everybody, even those who are closest to us—and especially our own family.
Now, everybody grows up in different family circumstances. Some are born into nuclear families, some are raised in situations of brokenness, and others are welcomed into adoptive families. Regardless of how or where we grew up, God calls us to love those who raised us.
That may be a hard thing to do. Sometimes a family member seems like our greatest enemy because of how they’ve hurt us. But even in that, Jesus encourages us to love our enemies and pray for them.
While learning to love those who are closest to us may be one of the most difficult things we do, it is also one of the most life-changing. It increases our capacity to see and love others, as well as honor God with our life. Consider how you can take steps today to better love those God has placed in your life.
Never Forget
Humans are forgetful…
We forget what God has said.
We forget what God has done.
We forget what He’s called us to do.
We forget who He’s called us to be.
The word “forget” can mean two things: to not remember (sometimes by accident) or to ignore (sometimes on purpose). To “forget” is to fail to hold something in our minds.
When faced with hard things, we might beg for miracles or plead for provision, but when we get the thing we asked for, we can still tend to forget what God has already done for us. We’re not alone in this—the Bible is full of stories about people forgetting God … But that doesn’t have to be us. That doesn’t have to be you.
We’ve stepped into an ongoing story that’s been playing out since the beginning of time. With zero help from us, God has hand-crafted this breathtaking world and chosen the unique times and spaces in which we show up. And even though the world seems to get crazier and scarier by the minute, God is always at work in the mess.
We...
