Showing Love

"You don't know everyone's story and today I understood the story of a person who has been through more than I could imagine. There are so many people walking around hurt and wounded. I challenge you to hug someone you thought was rude, mean, inconsiderate, etc. I guarantee they are hurting on the inside. Love on them for five seconds.  You might just change their life! THINK ABOUT IT!" (via Janita Still Movingforward)

I just happen to come across this in my Draft emails. I remember when my friend posted this sometime last year and I saved it to send to someone else. It stills stands very true today. We all have seen pictures or heard the statement how there's always someone else who has it worst than you or how we all are fighting a battle. I have no doubt about that for a second. We all are fighting through something and trying to make it to the light!  I also think there are some people who are just plain rude, inconsiderate, selfish and don't have any respect for anyone, let alone themselves! BUT..STILL show them love! Don't allow them to walk over you and disrespect you or try to do harm to you. Just always show and have love for them and PRAY for them!

Romans 12:20-21 NLT

Instead, “If your enemies are hungry, feed them. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals of shame on their heads.” Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good.

Matthew 5:43-44 NLT

“You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy.  But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!

It's truly a learning process that only the Lord can give us the strength to do in turning the other cheek and walking away and not always having something to stay. We are a work in progress! We all need to be transformed and broken to be restored on a daily basis! So, the next time that rude co-worker or bothersome neighbor or inpatient and uncaring Sales Rep gets lippy with you or just tries to disrespect you and have no compassion or sympathy for you or your situation, take a deep breath and count to five and Thank God for STILL showing you Love throughout all your faults & imperfections! OUCH!!! I KNOW SOMEBODY SAID AMEN ON THAT ONE??!

BE BLESSED & ENCOURAGED IN THE LORD TODAY!!! XoXOXo

~Raven J.

Forgiveness

Some people hurt you unintentionally. Some people hurt you deliberately. Forgive them both! The anger, resentment, stress & worry you put into it will have a long-lasting effect on your body and more than likely, they've moved on from it, or didn't care from the beginning. Now, whether or not you choose to continue to deal with them is another story. LIFE IS WAY TOO SHORT!

Growing up, I think every generation was told to "Forgive and Forget." Then as we got older, people started saying they forgive the person but they don't forget what they did. Which expression is correct? Jesus plainly tells us in:

Matthew 6:14-15 NLT

“If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you.  But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins."

None of us are without sins or faults. The world's views on sin(s) is judged extremely  different than what God teaches us. We often compare some actions being greater or lesser than the other, such as a fib or  small white lie versus a lie. At the end of the day, a lie is STILL a LIE whether we're lying about something huge or something very small.

James 2:10-11 NLT

"For the person who keeps all of the laws except one is as guilty as a person who has broken all of God’s laws. For the same God who said, “You must not commit adultery,” also said, “You must not murder.” So if you murder someone but do not commit adultery, you have still broken the law."

Romans 3:23 NLT

For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.

We are human with a fleshly body and are going to continue to make mistakes and have faults.  Thank God for his mercies being new everyday and for his AMAZING grace! We as a people need to learn and work on being more merciful to those who have wronged us (using wisdom of course).

Matthew 7:6 NLT

“Don’t waste what is holy on people who are unholy. Don’t throw your pearls to pigs! They will trample the pearls, then turn and attack you."

*"Neither cast ye your pearls before swine," advice that Jesus gave to Peter. It means: Don't waste your advice, intelligence, good words (basically, anything you could provide of value) on those who are too naive or ignorant to appreciate it.

I love the way this user broke down that scripture. So, when I said we need to be merciful to those who have offended us, there are alot of people we will have to love from a distance even tho we have forgiven them. Some people may continue to hurt us, put us down and are just not healthy for us to be around, and it's up to us to choose whether or not we're going to be around that negative environment. Letting them go and choosing to not to talk to them or hang with them anymore doesn't necessarily mean we no longer love or care about them, just that we love and care about ourselves more and those individuals need to get themselves right first and learn to love themselves in order to be a better and kinder person to the people that are in their lives. Only then, when we know they're attempting to change for the better and do right, then we can obtain that same grace & mercy Jesus has when he said:

Isaiah 43:25 NLT

“I—yes, I alone—will blot out your sins for my own sake and will never think of them again.

We will truly have such a LOVE and FORGIVENESS in our hearts towards those who have committed the most unbelievable offenses and earth-shattering evils towards us that we, too, will remember their short-comings NO MORE!
THANK YOU JESUS FOR FORGIVING US WHEN NO MATTER WHAT WE SAY OR DO, WE'LL NEVER BE DESERVING OF YOUR GRACE & MERCY! PLEASE BE BLESSED & ENCOURAGED IN THE LORD TODAY!!! XoXoXo
~Raven J.

Our gifts are for others

1 Peter 4:11 NLT

Do you have the gift of speaking? Then speak as though God himself were speaking through you. Do you have the gift of helping others? Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies. Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ. All glory and power to him forever and ever! Amen.

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening, luvs,

I hope everyone has had a very blessed and safe weekend. Firstly, My heart and prayers goes out to those effected by the tornados. May the Lord be with everyone and give them strength during this time. This is a very exciting blog post for me because although it's being posted here on my own personal blog, it's my first blog entry for The Reading Group Ministries. I was brought on board Saturday afternoon.

I'm so excited and sooo grateful to the Lord for this opportunity!!! God truly hears ALL of our prayers! Whether they're vocal, written down, or just our thoughts or what we're feeling in our heart. HE..IS..LISTENING!!! AND He truly cares!!! People can say what they want about social networks, but I have met many people from Instagram, Facebook and Twitter who have been such a GREAT inspiration to me, who have been AWESOME at encouraging me - half the time, not aware of it, and just a HUGE blessing in my life on a daily basis!! ♥♡

So...with that lovely introduction, I want to say that the way God blessed me Saturday, inspired the title of this blog and all that it regards. As always, I pray that you are blessed & encouraged in the Lord today! No matter what you're going through, try to stay encouraged! I know it's not always easy, but I'm often reminded, especially as of lately, that IF we take our eyes off our situations and storms and put our eyes on the ONE who can help us with our circumstances, then we will have peace and no more stressing and worrying. I honestly believe that's why this door of opportunity opened for me the way that it did because I just let go and realized that my circumstances are what they are and I will only make things worst trying to fix it myself doing something out of desperation. But that's another Blog.. 😉 ENJOY!

Our gifts are not for ourselves. The Lord has blessed all of us with many gifts and talents. Some of us have the gift of management, the gift of event planning, very good with numbers, good at encouraging, the gift of sewing & quilting, good at singing, dancing, acting, writing, very good at cooking, applying makeup, doing hair, or good with technology.. and thousands of other talents! A lot of the time the passion we have for our gifting, it started off as just a hobby and developed into something more. Also, we may find ourselves interested in things we didn't think we'd ever have an interest in. The Lord places those desires within us, and then it's up to us to go out and put them into use for His glory alone! A lot of us including myself need that reminder from time to time. It's Okay to love with you do! It's even OK to want to make a career out of it, but in all that we do, it should glorify the Lord and we should be helping others. Those two are the main things.

There are people who are struggling so bad financially it's like they're buried deep in their debt and don't know how to get out of it. Somebody somewhere has an awesome testimony about a financial hardship they've endured and the Lord gave them a vision on how to manage money better. That person or persons needs to let their story be heard! Forget about the shame and guilt you may have. The Lord brought you out of it and turned it all around for your good! The world is full of resources! WE ARE THE RESOURCES! WE all are a gifts to the world for the world! XoXoXo ~Raven J.