The Authentic Me

     Have you ever heard of the saying that no two fingerprints are the same? If you look at your fingers alone, every fingerprint is slightly different than another. We often look at our hands as a huge help when it comes to putting on clothes, doing our hair, cooking, communication, or talents. But when we proceed to look deeper into what our hands really hold...we find that they always leave a part of us behind. I always thought it was the coolest thing when a piece of tape got stuck to your finger and once you pull the tape off your fingerprint is left behind. But beyond the piece of tape, we always left a part of ourselves behind in whatever we do or even say. But the key point to remember here is that yeah we all leave our marks but all of those marks are different. I have stated before that we were all made differently which has created our vastly different world. The best two lessons we looked back at the beginning of creation and the roles that men and women carry separately as different genders. But in this lesson we are going beyond the gender. Look at human nature as a whole..just like not all women are the same, not all men are the same. And altogether every single one of those different men and women are different from each other. So if we were all made differently on purpose than why do we push the concept of acting the same, dressing the same, loving the same, learning the same, acting the same, and most importantly...worshipping the same. Society pushes most of these pressure on everyone to live up to some standard that ultimately makes us all become formed into one American form of a human. Not all people strive to fit the norm of the world. But one thing we should all do is worship differently than anyone else in the world. Just imagine this...if everyone sang the same exact way with the same amount of un-excitment or if everyone read the bible every now and then in the same exact way, then would we really be different from each other? Now I'm not saying that if you sing in an identical way to another person during worship that it means you are not being different. My point here is we are made in so many unique ways and we need to show that through our faith so that the whole message is seen. This came to my mind while I was doing my devotional time while reading the extended edition of the Purpose Driven Life book called What on Earth am I Here for? and while I was reading it I thought to myself, well okay that is a very valid point that we need to be set apart in our ways when it comes to worshipping. But it just now comes to me that the title asks why we are earth here for and that topic is a huge piece of information. God wants us to worship him with all of our heart and mind. Keep in mind that we all are different. We need to worship God in the way that represents us the most. Not everyone has been through the same things or have the same amount of faith. Realize how much God wants you to worship him by the person you are. Yes we are on the earth with each other and we all come together as brothers and sisters of Christ but worship God through your own heart and not how others do it. Stick out from the crowd and actually worship him the way her tells you too. You will benefit more by showing the true authentic you instead of showing the person you have made yourself. So do not only yourself but do God a favor and worship God in a way that tells him "Hey it's me!" God will look down on you and know that your worship truly means something to you. Lastly, when we show this authentic relationship through worship we also continue to grow a relationship between ourselves and God. Show yourself you are authentic...worship God by your God given ways.



Words of Wisdom: "Everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way."
                                  ~1 Corthians 14

Restricted

     Thou shall not: bow down thyself, take the name of the Lord, kill, commit adultery, steal, bear false witness, covet, follow a multitude, lie with mankind, lend, tempt the Lord, be hypocrites, and thou shall not eat from the tree of the forbidden fruit. These commands are written in the bible as restrictions according to the Lord. When we are told to that we are restricted to a certain set of rules or a certain way of living, we set in our hearts that we want to break that restriction. This is better shown through the action of Adam and Eve back in the beginning of creation. Eve was told by God that Adam and herself were not to eat from the tree of the good and evil because it would kill anyone. Now you all probably know this story in that Adam and Eve ending up thinking that by eating the fruit from the forbidden tree wasn't a huge ordeal so they ate it. And according to the restrictions above, if you eat the forbidden fruit then you will be sure to die. Well Adam and Eve technically lived after they ate the fruit. But they did die inside. The forbidden fruit was of good and evil, once they bit into that fruit their balance of good and evil was thrown all out of whack. They were sinful...they set the whole notion for the rest of humankind for being a sinful people. But the lesson to get out of this is to see the connection to restrictions through Gods instructions. Adam and Eve didn't think, well this God guy thinks he is all high and mighty going around telling us that we cant do certain things in the garden. They didn't go and eat the fruit just to tick God off, they ate the fruit because they didn't see the eternal conflict that would be upon them. The fruit was a simple restriction. Eve didn't get mad at God for restricting her by not letting her eat the forbidden fruit from the tree. This normally isn't the case for most people today. Whenever you try so hard to achieve something that you never get, you get angry right? We all set standards of what we want out of life and half the time we just demand what we want and expect God to just pick up the slack by making it all work. But God has set restrictions in our lives and I'm talking outside of the basic laws. When God sets restrictions on things in our lives it quickly is noticeable. As we go on with life we continue to grow but yet again when it comes to that point in life where we get stopped by the restrictions of life. When you think of restriction you probably think of being held back. One thing you need to realize if you haven't already is that God simply gives you certain things while he restricts other things. God also gives you a chance to make the most of your life by living within the walls of the restrictions. Yeah, God may have given you a talent to sing and your friend got the talent to dance. No matter how hard you try you will never be as good as a dancer just the dancer wouldn't be half as good as the singer. I challenge you all this week to realize what God is restricting you to. Once you find it, follow it and figure out how to live with what God gives you at a certain point in your life. God doesn't allow us to do certain things because he can torment us that way its because he knows what we can actually handle. Like always...God doesn't inflict pain without a lesson to be learned. So don't get mad when or if God set restrictions on your life. All he is trying to do and is take your life in his hand to shape a better you.





Word of Wisdom:  " Be still, and know that I am God! I will be honored by every nation. I will be honored throughout the world."
                                                   ~Psalm 46:10

Men will be Men

       "Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground..." is what is stated in Genesis 2:7. Just like women, men were created in such an amazing way by the hands of the Lord. When he created both men and women separately he also created special purposes for each individual. Last week I covered the purpose that a woman carries with her despite what the world inflicts on it. And this week we are going to focus on the purposes that a man of Christ carries with him.



       Men are to be viewed as the stronghold of the house or the one that fixes the broken things in a family. Men were created by God in an intentional way. God shaped man like a potter shapes a piece of clay. And just like women...man's spirit came right from Gods breath. If you look back on creation both men and women were created out of the most simplest things that became so complex. Man came from dust...particles of dirt that just sits on the ground for things to trample on. And a rib which is just another bone within the human body. If you look closer, without dirt we wouldn't be able to grow anything on earth. There would be absolutely no original plant life on earth. Just like women, men get a lot of rap on what their earthly and spiritual duties are to be. When men are told that they are to go out and make all the money or protect the house 24/7 or that they need to pay all the bills or take care of the yard, they get slammed with a huge burden.
        Now some women might be thinking that if women are slammed with so much of their own duties then men should be able to take care of their duties as well. Well think of this...either if your a man or a woman I'm sure you have failed to do at least one of your everyday tasks. I know I have. And most of the time the personal things that an individual has to achieve themselves can't be done by anyone else but themselves. Which brings me back to my point. We have covered the fact that men are the masculine part of the world when it comes to the ability of duties. This isn't telling women that they need to stay in the kitchen or that men have this standard to live up to. It is simply stating that man was created to be the stronghold of the family. If you look back to very beginning of creation God had created man first and gave him set instructions.
         He simply told him the lay of the land he had just created and what it all needed to survive. He also explained to Adam that he would create a woman in God's likeness to be the pair of man. Here we see that man had set instructions to live by for the rest of eternity and little did we know, men still use it today! But once woman was created, God also gave her set responsibilities apart from man. So you see....we are to be set apart when it comes to our purpose due to our gender. I warn men to not abuse your duties and abilities. Yes,men are to be the strong figure of the household to rule the family. But they are to not abuse this by not letting the women in your life fulfill her purpose as well. What do I mean by this? Okay, man and woman have their own separate duties. They both know what they have to do and to be in order to finish their duties. If you gave a man's duty to a woman and vice verses, neither one of them would have any clue on where to even start! If we all switched responsibilities then nothing would get done in the Lord's name because we would have it all wrong. So listen up men...you were created apart from women.
        You have a purpose to protect, serve God and your family, love, be "tough", build things, break and fix things, have a stable job, and anything else that defines manhood. But set this above all else....know that women were created with just as amazing purpose as you so let them fulfill their purpose with you fulfill yours. If your married show your wife the love that you were created for by protecting her and guiding her from unseen evil. Now everyone listen up...we are to work together as we were created. The other part of the creation is that once God created man and woman separated he wished that we would all work together as one. We would all come together every single moment of every single day to glorify him. So men don't get irate when a woman can do something better than you. And women don't get ticked when you can't do a man's job. Because we all a different piece of the puzzle that makes on picture. And that is the image of God over all the earth.




Wisdom: "But now, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand."
                                      ~Isaiah 64:8

Women will be Women

          For centuries the view of women has been to be the householder. Or for some modern women today they would say that they feel like the "slave". Now technically women aren't the slaves..they are simply doing their jobs. When it comes to what women and men should be able to do there is normally a huge fight between genders. Some women take their role of cleaning the house, taking care of the kids, providing the love and comfort, having a part time job, or many other things. While the men of household are seen as the stronghold or the father of the house that provides the materialist things we need to stay alive along with love. First off, no women likes to hear that she cant do something because shes a woman and that shes not cut out for it. You may hear these lines a lot in the business world or the world of athletics mostly, where women want to do what they want and not be compared to the abilities of men. I used to be one of those women that would get ticked when they were told that a man should take a duty over me because he was stronger or it was a man's work. And at times that still gets me. But over the summer I had a chance to sit down a face the toughest bible study with a group of talented young women. In this study we looked at what it meant to embrace your divine design of true womanhood. And boy was it hard, because it also faced the realities of men vs women in the world around us. As I was saying earlier, most women would get upset if they were told they couldn't do something because of their gender and honestly they have a right to be mad. When most people say these hurtful words to women they only state the negative side of their abilities whereas most don't see the most important side...the positive side. Men and women were both created equally in the beginning...totally equal with their own God given abilities. I look at it as Adam and Eve were obviously different because of gender but they were equal. So they were different but equal? Confusing I know...but they both had all their own amazing talents (all different!) but yet, they both will equal up in the eyes of God. You might be asking, well then why are women seen as a smaller less "important" figure than men today?........... SIN. When we were created in the image of God we were created equally with our own talents as I have said... but as soon as those talents hit the air of sin. Bang, they acted as if they were in a car crash or a "gender bender" as you would call it. Because of sin, the gender difference between men and women today is a struggle. Women know their roles as the women of the household and in the family of God just as well as the men do. Some men or women may or may not choose to do those abilities but they are still always going to be their duties. I am in no way saying that women should bow down to men...so women listen up ( men tune in as well). Women: as your job as a daughter of the Lord we have more than just the duties of sweeping the floor and washing the clothes. Women are relational beings so therefore sin will affect our relationships. Women are meant to care. I have heard the saying that while women are thinking about a millions things at one time a man is only thinking about one certain thing. Its the truth..but that's not calling men dumb. Women were meant to show the divine beauty, gentleness, love, compassion, grace, and so much more that mirrors the image of God. Not all women have the same talents and destined duties of every other woman....everyone is different but women all come from the same root. So women...I challenge you to look at your special privileges that you cant do that men can as a gift. Because I can guarantee that more than 50% of what you do a man cant do. Challenge your self to ask what can I do as a daughter of Christ to be a mirror image of him. Don't worry about what others say you can do because you can do it...many things! Instead worry about what you need to do in order to better the kingdom of God because in the end that's all that counts.




Word of Wisdom: "She believed she could so she did."



For further words go to truewomanhood.com for videos and the information on the devotion I did over the summer...it will take your womanly relationship with God to a whole other level.