Revenge

    "Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."   ~Romans 12:17-21

    God calls us to be calm and have it altogether when things go wrong. When revenge gets a hold of us it doesn't let go. The whole purpose of revenge is to be consumed with thoughts of getting back at someone because they did us wrong. No matter how small the hurt is it will consume us. If you really think about it why does being hurt bother us so much? I mean yeah, nobody likes heartbreak or disappointment but shouldn't we just brush it off? The only problem is...we care too much. Our conscience tells us that it needs to be kept straight even if the kinks are in the past. We always want to be treated right by others which we should be. But it becomes a problem when it rules our lives.

    We place revenge on others because we simply aren't happy. We take this period of being ticked at the person who hurt us in hopes of it bothering them. If the people that hurt us also hurt and are worried because of what they did to us, then nobody is happy. What is the point of nobody being happy? Really? There is no point. 

    Think back to a time when revenge took hold of your mind. I have let revenge eat me alive so many times I can't recall one specific incident. I know I have definitely done it to my parents when I argue with them and give them the silent treatment in hopes of them coming to me to reconcile. Not in every circumstance are we right as the hurt ones. But we are wrong when revenge takes us hostage. Really think of what this horrible mind set does to us ultimately.  This is not something God likes to see take sail in our heart so therefore it is the devils. Everything about sin screams revenge and Satan loves that. See revenge does no good for our hearts and our morals. It teaches us that hating others and constantly asking for more is a good thing. The filter that normally holds back all hateful thoughts doesn't exist in revenge. 

    We can't fully live our lives if revenge is in it because we will always strive to make that go away. We need to just fully cut off all feelings of revenge as soon as we encounter them because they only grow. It is like a disease that will continue to grow with the hopes of overtaking us and it becomes impossible to get rid of it. Know you might be thinking to yourself "well I don't have any revenge, so how does this pertain to me." Everyone has past hurts and will have future ones and there are several times where we think that we have let go of our revenge when we really haven't. Search your heart this week and find out if revenge is taking you captive if so free yourself of it so you can start living.

Word of the Day: "But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace."

                                      ~James 3:17-18

Against Ourselves

    We blame our failure on this world. In light of this we chase dreams that are not our own. We get so upset over things that we could prevent but dont realize the source. Often we work against ourselves when God calls us to work through him in order to live our life. So what do you think would happen if we took the responsibility for what we do and think? Now im not saying that we aren't responsible people. The focus is on discovery what it means to not be against ourselves. 

    God created us to work as a unit....but often in ourselves. It is weird to think of us working together within ourselves. When we don't work in our favor we create another opinion in our head that works against us. To explain this further...if you just picture our purpose to be fused with God. So technically here there is one mind, one heart, and one soul through Christ we live a fulfilling life. It's when we go against this that we allow a gap to form for the world to fill. Being unsteady with the components in our life seems so hard to grip. That is because the world fills in the cracks. 

    I remember as a kid I would love looking at the outside of a puzzle box to see what it's going to look like when I'm done in hopes that I can make that. Of course the puzzles were usually full of a gazillion pieces and it seemed impossible to complete. I would be able to start off with a clear mind of patience to out the outside together and I thought I was so good at puzzles. But soon I would start to get impatient and try to jam pieces together that didn't even remotely go together. So my sister or parents would join in and help me find the right pieces to make the beautiful scene. If someone else never looked at that puzzle when I got frustrated with myself then it would of taken a lot longer or not even of been finished. 

   Going against ourselves creates such a battle for us and delays us from living our lives. If you look back on your life I'm sure you can attest to this fact occurring. It's hard to not let this happen but let that be our focus this week. When you find yourself going against yourself stop and ask to be one with God because you can't afford to be anything else. 

Word of the Day: " But Jesus looked at them instead and said, " With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." 

               ~Matthew 19:26

Ahead of the Game Plan

    Through times of suffering we hear the typical..."Everything is gonna be okay" bit. And part of us believe it but then in the back of our mind we tell ourselves that our lives just really stink. Most of the time when we confront God we buying into the fact that he has our back. Which he does have our 100% of the time but we don't jump in fully 100% of the time. If you really think about how horrible our life situations are and how God handles them, it is outstanding. He knows how bad they there are...even though he can overcome anything God does realize how horrible our situations are. In knowing that he tells us automatically tells us that we will encounter riches and wisdom.

    You would think that we should just take that as a relief statement but we don't. We just brush off God's wisdom as a little far-fetched and it is never going to happen. When we open up to God and give him the chance to actually evaluate our life situations while giving advice, he is all in. He already knows what is going to happen to us before we go to him on our knees. Plus he knows the ending to all of our troubles. So isn't that such an encouragement to know that God has the game plan in his hand? He can just look down on the whole outline and know what to do when and where. To me that's exciting because someone in this world has it down pat for me! What puts the icing on the cake is that he WANTS to do it all. He wants to hold the game plan and be the coach and give us motivation.

    The most famous verse for letting it all into the hands of God is Jeremiah 29:11." For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." This same verse has become my own personal life statement. I carry it around on a ring that I can always refer to as the big man upstairs has my back. This is a great verse for personal enlightenment and hope for the future when life just kicks us while were down. But surprisingly this verse is often taken out of context. If you go back a verse  you will see that God promises hopes for us over a period of time...
    "This is what the Lord says: "When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place." The passage that 29:11 came out off is all about the exile of Babylon. People in exile were told that the Lord had hopes and plans for them. But let's look at verse ten first. God in fact did promise the suffering people a bunch of awesome things but after 70 YEARS!!! Can you imagine waiting through our own suffering for 70 years!? Some times we do need to wait for a long time through our suffering for God to give us things over time.

    The main point here is to show ourselves that God has it. We would never know that He has the game plan in hand if we didn't follow his teachings. He knows what is going to happen and how it is going to resolve it's self and what he needs to do in order for that to happen. But we need to realize that God takes these things out over time for the optimal support.



This lesson came out of a clip posted below...check it out.

Word of the Day: "And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ."
                      ~Philippians 1:6

Relentless

    The love that we receive from Christ seems so...graceful. God is just so amazing, he can whisper soft words in our ears to calm our every fear. He is seen as the man that has it altogether. He faces so many difficult things for just one person but he never blows up on someone or just says alright I am done with this whole God thing, anyone want it! God is a masterpiece with the softest touch. We always view God's love for us as simple and an everyday task. Well I imagine it is but I can guarantee it's not easy. I can't even fathom how hard it is to love every single person in this world, each in a unique way. Think of just your relationship with Christ and how big of a deal that is to you with how intense it is. Now imagine that times millions upon millions. I know we think there aren't many Christians out there but there is more than what meets the eye.

    Putting God in a box of  being safe and comforting is good until a certain point. Until the point where we no longer see the intensity God brings. If God fought like a true fighter of this world he wouldn't be the person we wanted him to be. With curse words flying out every 10 seconds and swinging his fist in hopes of knocking someone down all just so he could get a medal to hang around his neck so he could call himself a victor. This imagine is world generated by what we think a true champion should be like. From Joe Louis to Muhammad Ali to Sugar Ray Robinson...there titles tell them they won but God beats them all without every physically stepping into a boxing ring. So what makes a man that has died, before our time, that walks around us everyday as a spirit-like man in a white robe so much better than these legends? Grace.

    From Genesis all the way to Revelation God never once stopped fighting for us. HE WAS RELENTLESS. If God stop and put in the towel for a couple of battles so he could rest up for the next one there would be holes in the history of this world and who we are. If he didn't go as hard in the fights he fought, he wouldn't of won like he did. Jesus flipped the tables in the market place while people sold so frivolously so they could survive while Christ was standing there all along. In what appeared as anger was God showing that he was fighting for our lives. We get handed over to idols so easily that it just sucks us in and God holds on for dear life while we push his fingers right off the edge of our hearts. Relationships take the place holder for Christ in our hearts and we wonder why none of them ever pull through. GOD IS RELENTLESS. So your thinking, "how is he relentless if some things never change?" Things always change...for Christ. He faces a new day with every single one of us with a different situation he has to keep running with. It is just like writing a bazillion books that never stop.

    Seeing that God has grace and that feeling that he could just complete everything about us screams hero. He IS the unsung hero. He HAS fought the battle. He is MADE relentless. Christ sacrificed his nice comfy home in heaven to walk this earth with people that could never compare to him. He actually associated himself with them and acted as if he was one of them. He lived an earthly life with the thoughts of the heaven stream on continuous connection. He knew he had a duty to bring us to a better hope and future as a people. He knew he was going to be threatened. That he was going to be beaten. That he was going to be rejected. That people would look at him like he was crazy. That life on earth would get a lot more crazy with God on it. He didn't take a step back and say he wasn't ready that maybe he could try it next year. He jumped in with both feet and heart full of passion.

    God fought for our hearts. The world grips it while God ask for our hearts to be his so we can be free. Seeing how easy it sounds to hand our hearts over to a gentle feeling verses how the world takes it is so hard to believe it is true. But it is because God is RELENTLESS. He is relentless to love. Relentless to discover. Relentless to save us. Relentless to face disaster. He is so fond of not giving up because his scribe to love us beyond the edge of time is carved in his heart. A man that has breathed life into all of these sinful people like ourselves has to be so relentless with as much grace.

    No matter how many times we push God away he is back for more and more. And WE CRY, WE KICK, AND WE SCREAM because he just acts too perfect!!! He is perfect but that is not the nature that we see of God in here....his relentless nature is what makes us know that he is all knowing. We need to let God be relentless in our lives. Let us pursuit God. Let the desire be all knowing through God and our faith in him. Let it be relentless.



GET PSYCHED!  "Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn't he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?" 
                                                  ~Luke 15:4

Hard to Please

    I am one of those people that wants to please everyone. When someone is mad or upset with me it just eats me alive because fighting is the worst. I always finding myself striving to make differences equaled out but it doesn't always work that way. There are so many different ways of thinking and personalities in this world that there is no way we could possibly please everyone in it. We can definitely try to please everyone that we want but that will stretch us beyond belief. The closest thing the bible says about this topic falls under the category of reconciliation. Pleasing others and reconciling with others are actually two different things. Your first have to be in an actual argument to need reconciliation while pleasing others is the unspoken war that mainly goes on in friendships where one seems to dominate. God actually calls us to please others but not in the way the world says to.

   It is quite confusing reading the bible at times because we are always told to please God and not others. But we are also told to put ourselves aside to please others for the good of Christ. You all know that it is extremely hard to submit our actions and self to people that do not deserve it or even take advantage of it. We also all know that God see's everyone's true motives...and this promise should be enough for us. Without God, pleasing others would be excessively hard but we aren't to do it without him. The discovery of Romans 15 led me to the thoughts that we are living to please others. This lesson kind of shows that doing that can be a good thing or a bad thing but let's see how.

    "We who are strong must be considerate of those who are sensitive about things like this. We must not just please ourselves. We should help others do what is right and build them up in the Lord. For even Christ didn't live to please himself. As the scripture say, "The insults of those who insult you, O God, have fallen on me." Such things were written in the scripture long ago to teach us. And the Scripture gives us hope and encouragement as we wait patiently for God's promises to be fulfilled."
                                            ~Romans 15:1-4

    Those that are strong through Christ Jesus are called to be considerate of the weak about things. Wow....that is definitely hard to not get irritated with people that seem to drag us down. But aren't to just please ourselves we need to do the hard thing in order to do the right thing so others can see the face of God. Even when Christ was on this earth he was the servant in order to be served and look at how stinking awesome God is!! Those times that we address slightly in the beginning of this lesson shows up in verses 3 and 4. Isn't it a little bit more assuring to know that Christ went through the same things that we are going through now. That is evidence right there that the impossible is possible but this is how we are ultimately taught.

    This week think to yourself....how can I please others so that it actually HELPS them? Make sure you are pleasing people but ask God about it first! 

The Theory of Keep

    Keep, Keeping, Keeps, Kept (v): to be faithful to; in control; to refrain from granting, giving, or allowing; to cause to remain in a given place, situation, or condition; to refrain from revealing; to maintain or preserve.

K...know
E...every
E...eternal
P...promise

Maintaining  or keeping things right can be a lot of work. We often don't recognize this in our relationships with Christ as well. In order to our unique connection with Christ going we all know that we have to continually seek him. In the bible definition above of to keep is clearly seen as a pivotal in the Christian faith. But instead of this being a long lesson of how I see keeping our words true through Christ lets have God do the talking and us do the thinking. Based on the brief definition above and the bible verses below think to yourself how it relates to you. Think of how such a simple and meaningless word like keep carries so much weight in our faith.



Exodus 31:13 tells us...
 “Tell the people of Israel: ‘Be careful to keep my Sabbath day, for the Sabbath is a sign of the covenant between me and you from generation to generation. It is given so you may know that I am the Lord, who makes you holy."


Deuteronomy 7:8 tells us...

^"But it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the promise He made to your fathers. So the Lord brought you out by a strong hand. He set you free from the land where you were servants, and from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt."

 

 

 

2 Chronicles 34:31 tells us...

^"Then the king stood in his place and made an agreement before the Lord. He agreed to follow the Lord, to obey His Laws with all his heart and soul, and to do what is written in the agreement in this book."

 

 

Psalm 15:4 tells us...

"He looks down upon a sinful person, but honors those who fear the Lord. He keeps his promises even if it may hurt him."

 

 

Ecclesiastes 3:6 tells us...

"There is a time to try to find, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away. "

 

 

Romans 14:22 tells us...

"Keep the faith you have between yourself and God. A man is happy if he knows he is doing right."



    Take time to evaluate what needs to be kept safe and what needs to be thrown out for God, not yourself. Make sure you keep just the right amount of love of Christ in your heart so you can live for him.



Need Prayer? Message me at kaitlynsartori@yahoo.com and tell me what's on you're heart, in complete confidentially. Even if its prayer for someone else.