^5' This is what the LORD says:
   “What fault did your ancestors find in me,
   that they strayed so far from me?
They followed worthless idols
   and became worthless themselves.
⁶ They did not ask, ‘Where is the LORD,
   who brought us up out of Egypt
and led us through the barren wilderness,
   through a land of deserts and ravines,
a land of drought and utter darkness,
   a land where no one travels and no one lives?’
⁷ I brought you into a fertile land
   to eat its fruit and rich produce.
But you came and defiled my land
   and made my inheritance detestable.
⁸ The priests did not ask,
   ‘Where is the LORD?’
Those who deal with the law did not know me;
   the leaders rebelled against me.
The prophets prophesied by Baal,
   following worthless idols.'
- Jeremiah 2:5-8

Sound like another country we know?  I think we all know where I'm going with this but first I'll give you some background.  God is speaking to Jeremiah here about the land of Israel, they've fallen away and He's trying to draw them back in. 

I'm going to be embarrassingly honest with you, I was reading this chapter while trying to walk the treadmill.  I only got through to the eighth verse before I stopped reading and began to pray, cry, and run as hard as I could.  I've made a lot of comments lately, in fact there are few people dear to my heart that I've not discussed with what I think is coming to America.  If you know me at all you know being serious about anything is not my thing, my favorite motto is if it won't matter in a year it shouldn't matter right now.  The problem with that is what I see coming to America in the next year is a second Great Depression, that's going to matter in a year, in ten years, my generations grandchildren will come home from school and ask us about it for their history papers.  So I've gotten serious about the state of our country and when I read this scripture each line was like salt in the wound.  There's a reason it was so painful, here comes the embarrassingly honest part.

When I finished reading I began to cry out to God to save this country.  I began to beg Him not to destroy it, recounting the story of Sodom and Gomorrah where He promised not to destroy the towns if there was even 5 good people living there.  I heard my answer immediately, and as usual He didn't candy coat anything, here's the way the convo went.

Me: God please don't destroy this country, there are way more than 5 Godly people here.
God: I'm not destroying it, the people are.
Me: What can I do God, move in me I'll go where you want me to go.
God: Make a change.
Me: God I can't make a change big enough to move the people of this country there are millions of them.
God: No, not them, you.  Make a change, come up higher.

At this point y'all my flesh was screaming.  I've been making changes, huge, painful, devastating changes in myself at God's prodding (if you haven't heard the story about 4 months ago God began to call me to come up higher, it's been an interesting 4 months).  My flesh was ready to give up, my flesh thought I was a pretty darn good person already, but inside of me, in my soul, the Ten Commandments began to play one at a time over and over again. 

1. Have no other god's before me.  (Does anyone else see a fat hundred dollar bill when they read the first commandment because I do.  I also see a giant portrait of myself, I am the god I put before God.  I am who I worship when I selfishly do what I want instead of what His word tells me to do.)
2. Make no engraven image to worship. (I'm not going to lie to you this one doesn't effect me as much, LOL)
3. Do not take the Lord's name in vein. (Now I'm not much of a cursor, but I did say oh my God, and OMG all the time.  I understand now that the Lord's name is holy, reverent, and shouldn't be used unless we're speaking directly about Him.  Remember if I say the B word while speaking about a female dog I'm not saying a bad word but when I take it out of it's context all the sudden it becomes a huge insult.  There are many Jewish people out there that have so much respect for God's name they blank it out when writing it like this G-d.)
4. Remember the Sabbath day, keep it holy, don't WORK.  (As a person I usually do absolutely nothing on Sunday's, as a nation we have folded our hand here.  People working on Sunday isn't breaking a commandment anymore it's just them doing what they have to do.  We have to get away from that type of thinking, it's us taking our trust away from God, assuming that His commandments aren't in our best interest, and putting that trust in our own, massively incapable hands.)
5. Honor your father and mother.  (My father was an alcoholic and I honor him but not touching alcohol.  My mother abused hard drugs until I was 14, I honor her but not doing drugs.  Sometimes the most important way we can honor our parents is by learning from their mistakes.)
6. Do not kill folks. (Jesus expands on this is Matthew 5:21-22 and says if you continue to be angry at your brother or sister you're held just as responsible.  Why?  Because forgiveness is important to God, freely we received so freely we should give.  If you don't the consequences are yours to contend with.)
7. Do not commit adultery.  (Jesus expands on this one too, if you think about another person in a lustful way you've committed adultery already in your heart.  Watch your thoughts, they matter to, where the mind goes the man follows.)
8. You shall not steal.  (Don't think about stealing either, that's called coveting and it's a commandment too!)
9. You shall not give false witness against your neighbor.  (This means don't lie about other people.  Ever been caught in a He said She said situation?  Even little white lies are still lies, don't do it.  It's a trap of the enemy.)
10.  Do not covet.  (When you want what someone else has it's like saying straight to God, 'What you've given me isn't enough, I don't want what your plan for my life I want your plan for her life'.  Once again it boils down to trust, do we trust God that what He's given us is enough?  He who is faithful with little will be given much.)

With these, along with the scriptures from Jeremiah, my concern for America, and my own personal sins that I keep neatly hidden from most people rolling through my head I began to feel uncomfortable.  Anxious.  That still soft voice began to say over and over again 'run it out'.  I pushed the button to make the treadmill go faster (3.5) and the conversation got more intense. 

Me: God I know I've got all these problems to fix, I can't fix them on my own.  I can't do anything on my own, I need you.
God: I'm here.
Me: If I fix them will you save America?
God: You worry about fixing you.
(4.5)
Me: If I fix them will you use me to save America.
No answer.  Panic. 
God: Run it out.
(6.0)
I ran until I couldn't think, I couldn't ask any questions, I couldn't think about the fear, all I could do is listen.  The scriptures I love, the scriptures I trust, began to run through my head.

All things are possible with Christ who strengthens us.

For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you not to harm you.  Plans for a future and hope.

The one who began a good work in you will see it through. 

Have I not commanded you be strong and courageous.  Do not be discouraged, do not be terrified for the Lord your God is with you.

When I couldn't take it anymore, I heard 'Stop'. So I stopped. Then, that still, soft voice said this to me.  'Be prepared.' 

I cried, I got down on my hands and knees and I cried.  I wish I could say I'm not a proud person, but I am.  I don't like to cry, even worse than that I don't like to admit it to people.  But humility is a beautiful thing and I will humbly tell you right now that when I felt in my heart what God was asking me to do I cried.  Live an upright blameless life, be holy for your father in heaven is holy.  We've let to many little things slip between the cracks.  For as many amazing excuses as we have as Christians for the way we behave, there is not one good reason. 

There are two more commandments that Christ gives us.  Love your God with all your heart, and love your neighbor like yourself.  That, He said, was the greatest of commandments.  Love.  I've done a lot of blogging, a lot of talking, and a lot of thinking about love.  I saw a sign in a short video the other day that some protesters were holding in a town halfway across the world, they were protesting the Jewish nation and the signs read 'The gas chambers are ready again.'  There is so much hate.  Not just across the world but everywhere.  We have, as Christians, tolerated our Ten Commandments being ignored, how long before we tolerate the hate?  Are we already tolerating it?  Or worse, are we joining in?  God has called me to renew and restore myself like never before.  He has called me with great urgency for four months now to make the drastic changes in myself that I've felt were unnecessary all these years. 

We have been born, as Americans, in the promise land.  This is the greatest country in the world, it use to be one nation under God, but what is it becoming?  God doesn't belong just in a church, He belongs in every hallway, every doorway, every walkway, every street, and every home, and every heart.  Separation of church and state was designed to keep the state from interfering with what the church did, not to keep God's commandments out of court houses.  If you take Him out of the streets, out of the homes, out of the hearts of politicians and leaders, and try to put Him in the box of a church building then what protection does this country have?

When it's the darkest out light shines the brightest.  It's time for us to shine, it's time for us to renew ourselves, to restore ourselves back to the people God intended us to be.  Don't back down, don't give up, live upright and blameless lives.  Renew, restore, love.  Together we can bring this nation back to it's former glory.

I wrote those Ten Commandments down and posted them on our fridge.  It's a daily reminder that God has higher standerds for His people than the world does.

Deuteronomy 30:19

Deuteronomy 30:19

¹⁹I call heaven and earth to witness this day against you that I have set before you life and death, the blessings and the curses; therefore choose life

I know this is going to be an awful serious blog and most people around Christmas time are light hearted and full of joy, and I am also for the most part.  There is, however, a small part of me that every year at Christmas time is reminded of the weighty decision I was called to make when I was 14.  That’s when God put two paths in front of my eyes, two words, cut and dry, black and white, life or death.  For some people it’s a slow fade to death, or a slow ascent towards life.  It’s important to remember that God deals with us all differently and just because your experience was different than mine it doesn’t make mine better or worse, just individual. 

There was nothing slow about my decision and like all the other times God as spoken to me it was blunt and to the point.  Maybe that’s because I don’t like being serious, I take everything lightly, so He has to be a little more stern with me.  I don’t know why He does things the way He does, but I trust Him. 

To be honest with you I had started going to church because my friend told me there was cute boys.  I went on and off with her for two years and there came the day when God confronted my heart.  I remember so well because just before that day I had been talking to a friend about the hole I felt in my life, in my body, what I called a ‘dad shaped hole’.  I didn’t realize then that the hole I was longing to have filled couldn’t be filled by any man, God was the only one that could heal that hurt. 

That day He put before me two paths, one of light, peace, joy, and life.  It was a life where I gave my whole heart to the Lord.  The second was one of statistics.  I’ve said it before, it’s sort of my catch phrase, I’m not a statistic I’m a success story.  The path to death, the second path, before me that day was one of drug abuse, alcoholism, sexual immorality, and intellectual decay.  It was the path I was statistically more likely to take.  I’ve been proud for many years to say I am not a statistic, I chose and still choose daily the first path, the path of life. 

That day God immediately began to patch up the hole in my vessel.  Why was that so important?  Because God is not an idiot, He’s actually quite the smarty pants.  He knows that if He pours fruit into a vessel with a hole in it that the fruit will fall out the bottom and be wasted.  God’s will is going to be done, if not by you He’ll find someone else.  So when we make the choice, when we choose life, He begins to patch up our hole or for some put back together a broken life. 

¹⁶And no one puts a piece of cloth that has not been shrunk on an old garment, for such a patch tears away from the garment and a worse rent (tear) is made.

¹⁷Neither is new wine put in old wineskins; for if it is, the skins burst and are torn in pieces, and the wine is spilled and the skins are ruined. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.

Matthew 9:16-17

The most fascinating and moving part to me about this process is that He doesn’t pick up the old pieces and reuse them, He patches up our holes and pieces us back together with new clay, clay made with the blood of Christ.  Sometimes God puts us back together instantly and begins using us as vessels to carry His fruit wherever He needs it to go, but that was not the case for me.  It was a slow, and sometimes painful, process to patch up my gapping hole.  Why?  I think because had He done it quickly and began using me I would have grown haughty and proud, He searched my heart, I trust Him.  Once it was all patched up He began to fill my heart with things I hadn’t understood or ever known.  Where before there was chaos He gave me peace, for anger He gave me forgiveness, for fear He gave me faith, for hate He gave me love, and for loneliness He gave me Himself.  It took a long time to get to the point where my vessel could be used, and I’ve had to get up every morning and choose life over death, Christ over flesh.  There is nothing easy about Christianity, but it is always worth it.

That same choice is before you right now, life or death.  There is no gray here, there is no middle ground, it is all or nothing.  If you don’t give Him you’re all He can’t patch your holes or repair your broken pieces, and He won’t pour fruit into a broken vessel.  If you’re living in the world, if you’re waited to give Him your whole heart, if you think you have the right to your tomorrows, make the decision today.  Change courses and let God move in you’re life. 

If you had someone in your life who was to tell you they loved you but all the while they openly flirted, and dated other people right in front of you would you feel loved?  Would you feel important?  Would you stick around?  Luckily God is not man, He is going to stick around, but if you are flirting with sin, if you are dating the world, He sees and He longs for you to turn to Him.  He longs for you to love Him whole hearted, for you to view Him as the most important.  He cares more about you than anyone else ever can, I know you hear Him calling to you, I know you see the paths before you.  Choose you this day Life.

1 Samuel 16:7

But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." 1 Samuel 16:7

Before we get digging let me give you some background for this scripture.  King Saul messed up real bad, it’s a great story you should give it a read, so God sent Samuel to find a new king even while Saul was still alive and ruling.  Samuel goes where the Lord tells him to go, Bethlehem.  There God tells him that He’ll name the new king from the sons of Jesse.  Jessie has a whole lot of tall, good looking sons to pick from and as soon as Samuel sees the first one of them he naturally assumes that he's the one.  That’s when God tells him not to look at the appearance, God knows the heart.

There are so many lessons in this story I could probably start from the beginning of the book and write a hundred blogs going through just to this point.  But I’ll stick to what the Lord has put on my heart to write.  I’ve got a personal story to attach to this blog that happened when I was 18.  Every Sunday morning I remember that time in my life.  I hope you don’t mind if we walk down memory lane before we dig into this Word.

I had been serving the Lord for four years, so at this point I was fluent in Christianese and very comfortable at any church I went to.  I’m 5^th generation Pentecostal, and the church I got baptized in when I was 14, though non-denominational, leaned heavily to Pentecostal.  If you’ve never been to a Pentecostal church I’ll explain to you, when praising the Lord it’s very normal to raise your hands.  I know this is done in other churches, but not all of them.  Anyways, I had grown very comfortable raising my hands every Sunday morning like the grown ups did.  God let this go on for 4 years, He knows me better than I know myself so I’m confident that His time, like always, was perfect.

One Sunday morning I was praising like always and I felt the Lord very clearly tell me to put my hands down.  I immediately thought, ‘That’s just the enemy trying to stop me from praising, I’m going to ignore him.’ But as the songs continued I grew more and more uncomfortable, I couldn’t even hear the music all I could concentrate on was that still, soft voice…

‘Lauren, put your hands down.”

“Why Lord?  If I put my hands down people will think I’m not praising you right.’

“You’re not praising me; your hands are up right now so others can see you.  You are praising your own image, put your hands down.’

That’s all it took, my hands were down.  I felt like a little kid who had gotten caught doing something very naughty.  It had never occurred to me; I raised my hands like the other women did because it looked so spiritual when they did it.  To be honest it took a moment for my heart to stop pounding, the first time you clearly hear from the Lord is a lot of things, awesome, frightening, beautiful, words probably can’t describe it right.  After I calmed down I began crying out to God.  I don’t know why I thought I was so insignificant that God wouldn’t notice my intentions every Sunday, but like the scripture says He searches our hearts.  My heart was in the wrong place but I saw what I wanted to see, I saw what man saw. 

When I went digging in this Word it brought it all back to me.  When God spoke this to me He showed me His majesty, His authority, and His love.  I was, and am, so important to Him that He searches my heart.  You’re that important to Him as well, so submit every step, every movement, every word and thought to Him.  I know the reason I raise my hands now, I raise them to the most High in honor of Him, to give Him praise, not because it looks super spiritual.  I don't care how spiritual I look or how elegantly I can spout scriptures or cute Christian sayings, and neither does God.  We care about my heart, we care about the 'why' I'm doing what I'm doing.

A little more digging in this Word showed me another thing; the first son that Samuel thought would be king God said He had rejected.  Why?  Because He had searched this boys heart.  This young man didn’t know it but he could have been king, but his heart was in the wrong place.  How many amazing blessings, how many amazing opportunities do we miss out on because our hearts are in the wrong place? 

1 John 4:19

"We love Him because He first loved us." 1 John 4:19
This is a beautiful scripture, it’s simple but deep and for the first time God turned it around in my own life and showed me how to apply it to my love walk.  I was instantly awed by the power of the Word to transform letters on a page into a mind blowing, heart melting lesson for day to day life.  Because this whole passage is talking in general about love I don’t need to clue you into the context, how it reads is the context.  However, because of the beauty and majesty of God’s love I strongly encourage everyone to read the entire chapter, or book. 

Any who let’s get digging.  When this scripture popped up on my FB page I almost skimmed it and moved on but something jumped out at me.  There are some people in my life, like most of us have, that are not as easy to love as others.  When I read this scripture God whispered in my heart to look closer.  Because He first loved me I love Him.  I don’t know my biological father, I have vague memories of him when I was 6 which was the last time I saw or heard from him.  I have no more love for him then I do a stranger on the street.  I think all God’s children are beautiful simply because they are God’s children, but because I’ve never received any fatherly love from him I don’t love him like a father.  My daughter, on the other hand, adores my husband.  He has been in love with her since before she was born, when she wakes up in the morning and sees him the first words out of her mouth to daddy is ‘pretty’.  I know I’m thinking ‘aww’ as I write this, it is very cute, she usually pets him a little while she says it.  Why does my 13 month old daughter do this?  Most likely because for 13 months my husband has petted her and called her pretty. 

In my previous blogs I’ve spoken a lot about loving people, about how God calls us to treat others, and even gave a ‘how to’ on love.  So I have full confidence that you’ll be able to act this scripture out in your life.    

Now tying this in to the less lovable people in our lives…I’m sure you already know where I’m going with this…

There are people in our lives that refuse to play nice, that refuse to love us.  Some of them are saved, some of them are not.  Some of them we genuinely want to love us, but they don’t seem to know how.  The people in my life that refuse to love me are people who are eat up with negativity and seem to find pleasure in upsetting others.  God spoke this to me today ‘before they can love you, you have to first love them’.  To this my very whiny flesh responded ‘But Gooood…I do love them, I just don’t like them.’  But in my spirit I knew what He was saying, in my heart I loved them, I prayed for them and I felt sorry for them, but in my actions…ouch that was another story.  Sure I wasn’t rude to them, but I very rarely went out of my way to exhibit the Christ like love that should be flowing out of me. 

As a side note I’m going to let you in on a secret satan doesn’t want you to know, offense will put a plug in the stream of love in your life.  It comes from God, magnified by Christ; hand delivered by the Holy Spirit, and is poured out to the world through you!  When an unlovable person comes your way and offends you that effectively stops the flow of love which stops the work of God in your life.  It’s a nasty little path the enemy puts us on, as the song says it’s a slow fade.  Becoming able to forgive offense is a major part of understanding love.  When we understand love we can receive it, when we receive it we can give it.

The people in our lives can not love us unless we first love them.  A few tips I’ll give you that really help me is not talking about people out loud, if you have a negative thought keep it to yourself.  Those negative thoughts are fiery darts sent your way from the devil and when you speak them out loud his lies become your truths.  Once you conquer not talking crap about an unlovable person begin working on your thoughts, every time you have a negative thought about a person focus on something positive about them. 

‘Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.’ Philippians 4:8

There’s a very special quote I heard once that I repeat often ‘your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, and your actions become your habits.’ I don’t know who said it but it comes to play here.  I strongly believe that the thing lacking the most in Christians is not faith, but love.  We don’t get it, we don’t use it, and we don’t show it.  The end result is a whole lot of unsaved people saying ‘I don’t know what God they serve but I sure don’t want to meet him.’

I want this generation, this year in time, to be a time they talk about for years to come, a time when the most amazing love revolution spread throughout the body of Christ.  It starts with you, it starts with every thought you have and every word that comes out of your mouth.  You have the power to change the world by simply loving the people in it, I’ve seen this love spread like chain mail.  I almost want to end this by saying IF YOU DON’T SHOW LOVE TO 8 PEOPLE IN THE NEXT TEN MINUTES SOMETHING BAD WILL HAPPEN TO YOU TOMORROW AT 7:10 AM.  But the truth is, if you don’t show love to even one person something bad is already happening to you and through you right now.  Lets make a stand this year for love, link arms as Christians and stand firm on LOVE.

Luke 15:29-32

But he answered his father, 'Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!' 'My son,' the father said, 'you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.'"  Luke 15:29-32

This is probably going to be the shortest blog I ever write, but some points are better left short and sweet.

This Sunday the sermon was about love and one of the scriptures used was the one of the prodigal son.  My husband and I went home and went back over that story and something clicked for me for the first time.  The older brother says ‘this son of yours’ but when the father answered he said ‘this brother of yours’. 

You can take this parable in a couple different ways; I can see it fit with the older brother being Jews and the younger brother being Gentiles.  Or I can see the older brother being those who have been saved their whole lives and the younger brother being newly saved people.  Either way, the Father is always God.

When we, as Christians, see other people sinning we have a tendency to write them off, to say well God you deal with them.  To say, God he’s your son.  God gave me a clear message in this passage, they are my responsibility to.  He says, he’s your brother.  The Bible tells us to rejoice when others rejoice, and mourn with others mourn.  Do we, as Christians, do this?  What this is saying is when God kills the fattened calf for a brother or sister we need to be happy for them, rejoice with them, love them, not be jealous of them.  When something bad happens, when someone is mourning, we need to have compassion on them, pray for them, love them.  The people around us are our ministry, the stranger on the street, the person in the car beside you, or the co-worker down the hall, they are all in your life for a reason.  God has put love in each one of us, not so that we could hoard it or hide it, but so that we could share it.  We have a responsibility as Christians to show the love of God to those around us, they aren’t just His children, they are our brother’s and sister’s. 

Mark 14: 3-5

Mark 14:3-5 3 While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head. 4 Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, "Why this waste of perfume? 5 It could have been sold for more than a year's wages and the money given to the poor." And they rebuked her harshly.

We’ve all heard the story, even Jesus says in the next couple of verses that everywhere the gospel is preached this woman’s actions will be told.  Something different stuck out to me this time, something I had never seen.  Before I dig in though, let me set the scene for you.  Judas is about to go sell out Jesus, in fact Jesus tells the people around him that this woman was covering him in perfume for his burial.  Can you imagine hearing that?  ‘Hey ya’ll, quit being mean to that lady.  BTW I’m going to die soon.’ Harsh!  But that was the facts, Jesus was about to die for our sins.  So that’s the scene here, this woman has come to pore expensive perfume over our savior before He dies.

Now the digging begins.  Something I’ve never noticed about this scripture is that Mark says ‘some of those present’.  Not everyone there was upset about what this woman was doing.  This tells me there were three types of people in the room 1: The people who were offended by what the woman did 2: The people who really didn’t care and 3: The people who thought she was doing a good thing, namely Jesus.  Now this may be just me but it seems like in every situation in my life I want to be in category 3 with Jesus. 

1: The people who were offended.  All throughout the day we will either be this person or encounter this person.  Our society runs on offense, we sue over everything, we honk if a person isn’t driving as fast as we think they should, we huff if someone in the grocery store lingers over the item we’re interested in.  It’s the snare of the world, offense.  These men were offended by the woman’s action, and they had an awesome excuse!  That jar should have been sold and given to the poor!  But she didn’t sell it and give the money to the poor because she had a better reason then their excuse so she did what God was telling her to do.  Would it make sense, even back then, to dump perfume on a man while he sat at the dinner table?  No.  She was probably already uncomfortable with what she was doing.  When God takes us out of our comfort zone there is always going to be someone there to say ‘Don’t do it!’ or in this woman’s case ‘You should have done this instead!’  The important thing is for YOU and ME to never be in category 1.  If it’s not got to do with you stay out of it.  You don’t know God’s plan, and I promise your plan is not better then His.  So there is two things we can learn about category 1, that these people are everywhere being easily offended at the things God tells us to do, and that we never want to be this person.  Offense if the best trick the Devil has against us as Christians, the Bible tells us NOT to be easily offended. 

2: The people who really didn’t care.  Although I’d rather be the person who doesn’t care than the person who is easily offended, it’s still not the right category.  Why?  Because these people might not have been attacking the woman but they also didn’t defend her.  We’ve gotten so quit as Christian; we don’t stand up for what’s right anymore.  We don’t want to be uncomfortable or offend anyone.  Jesus didn’t mind offending people, He rebuked those men immediately.  I’m going to tell you something that you already know, category 2 people allowed category 1 people to take prayer out of school.  Because category 2 people are so wide spread in the Christian community I wasn’t allowed to bring my Bible to school, I couldn’t even wear a cross necklace without getting detention or sent home.  Category 2 might be the most comfortable, peaceful category but it’s not the category I want to be in, and it’s certainly not a category you’ll find Jesus in.

3:  The people who thought she was doing a good thing.  Category 3 people know that where Satan can take everything good and make it into something bad, God can take everything bad and make it work for good.  Category 3 people don’t get offended, they don’t get comfortable, they get heard.  Read on in this chapter, I promise you won’t find a place where those men continued to argue with Jesus.  We should all be category 3 Christians; we should all be category 3 spouses, parents, and employees.  Christmas is coming up, this shouldn’t be a time when Christians are put to the test, it should be a time when we all get to rejoice, but category 2 people have allowed category 1 people to turn Merry Christmas into Happy Holidays.  Are you offended when someone says Happy Hanukkah?  Me either, so why should we stop saying Merry Christmas?  I’m not going to, this holiday is a holiday celebrated by Christians who are thankful God sent His only son.  Don’t be complacent, don’t sit idly by and let category 1 people use their excuses to stop God’s work, defend God’s people, defend God’s principles, defend Christmas.  Argue back against the world, they have an awesome excuse; we have an even better reason.  There is a reason for this season!  It’s JESUS!

1 Corinthians 13:4-7

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

As I’m reading this scripture today for the first time in the many, many times, I’ve heard it repeated I noticed the order in which it was put together.  Patience and kindness, envy and boastfulness, arrogance and rudeness, and irritability and resentfulness are written together but insisting on your way and rejoicing in wrongdoings are left without pairing.  I don’t know why God decided today to show me this but he did.

Something people should understand is the Bible is a living Word, it moves with your life and inspires and encourages in different times.  The amazing part of that is it not only gives you what not to do, what to do, and why but it sometimes gives us a step by step.  We could take this unbelievably profound scripture at face value, skim over it and move on to the next thinking how sweet it is, or we can take it apart and decide today is the day you will do what the Bible is telling you to do.

Before taking it apart you have to understand under what context this was written.  Before verses 4-7 Paul is explaining that no matter how great of a person you become, no matter how spiritual or religious you come to look, no matter how much volunteer hours you put in or how much money you donate, if you don’t have and understand love it’s all pointless. Now that we’re all caught up let’s dig in!

Love is patient and kind.  Those are the first examples; take this as a first step in learning about God’s love and how he expects us to love others.  There’s a reason this is first, both patience and kindness are gifts God has already given us through His grace, and both of them are needed to continue in the next steps.  Take a day, week, month, however long it takes for you to learn to use patience and kindness in all you do.  Once you get where your family, friends, and complete strangers (yes I’m talking to those of you inflicted with road rage) can not shake your patience or kindness you are officially ready to continue to the next step.  I know as Christians we say ‘Don’t pray for patience’ and I couldn’t agree more.  Why pray for something you already have?  No idea, instead pray for the grace to act out your patience in every opportunity.  The same with kindness…pray for the ability to exercise your kindness.  We all have muscles, just because we don’t use them doesn’t mean they’re not there.  When you start working out it burns at first, but you begin to feel better and have more energy.  Acting in patience and kindness is like spiritually working out.  The best way to achieve this is by getting your attention off yourself and on other people.

Love does not envy or boast.  I find it very interesting that these two are put together.  They both, from two different sides of it, show insecurity.  Envy tells us that for whatever reason someone else is better then us.  Maybe because they have cuter clothes, are in better shape, are wealthier, or, dare I say it, because they are more faithful then us.  Then there is boastfulness, the need for others to see how great we are.  Boasting comes from the same place envy does, the idea that we need to be better then everyone else.  This is easily tackled by understanding who we are in God.  As with patience and kindness, this comes when we get our attention off ourselves, but instead of putting our attention on other people, to beat envy and boastfulness, we have to put our attention on God.  Meditate on the scriptures that tell you who you are in the Lord, on how great He is and how much He loves you.  Take however long you need to get this, it’s important.  If we can’t overcome envy and boastfulness we can’t get the revelation of Love. 

The problem with the world is it’s backwards; there are two hands in the world both pointing in different directions.  One hand is pointing at self, and it is boastful, the other hand is pointing at others, and it is constantly pointing out flaws in other people.  When we, as Christians, turn those fingers around, pointing out what others do that is great, and pointing out flaws in ourselves that God wants to fix, then we can get it.

Love is not arrogant or rude.  Once again these two play off of one another.  Do you remember the mean girls in school?  For whatever reason, those girls were flat out rude.  The arrogance of those girls brought out the worst in them.  Like the world they were pointing their fingers at every flaw another girl had, and their other finger pointed at how great they were.  I’m going to say this but I certainly don’t mean it to offend anyone, arrogance and rudeness should never, ever, be in the heart of a follower of Christ.  If you are new to faith and you still have things to work out I get it, once you get through kindness you won’t have a problem with being rude and once you get through not boasting arrogance won’t be a problem for you either.  This is why Paul set it out the way he did, step by step be patient and kind, don’t envy or boast, and you won’t be rude or arrogant.

Love will not insist on its way.  This is apart of dying to self.  The ability to let everyone else do things the way they want to without insisting your way is better.  It’s not easy, particularly for those of you who are perfectionist, but if you’ve followed the scripture and added big muscles of patience and kindness, took away the need to boast or any feelings of rudeness or arrogance, this step should be a piece of cake.  Like when working out, once you’ve grown comfortable and the burn stops it’s time to push harder, that’s what this part is about.  In your walk with Christ if you stop moving forward you’re already moving backwards.  The best way to accomplish this step is simply through recognition and practice.  Recognize when you are insisting on your way and practice keeping those thoughts to your self.  Eventually you won’t even have those thoughts anymore, and you might learn some better ways of doing things on the way.  You’re thoughts become your words, your words become your actions and your actions become your habits.

Love is not irritable or resentful.  It’s so interesting to me that Paul put this after all these other steps.  You would think that after learning patience, kindness, kicking out all envy, boasting, rudeness and arrogance PLUS letting go of the need to have your way, that being irritable or resentful wouldn’t even be a problem.  Here’s where it gets good though, once we, as sinful human beings, begin to show growth we have a tendency to find others working on things we’ve already overcome annoying.  That’s where the irritability comes in.  Continue showing kindness, continue beating back the urge to be arrogant, and you might be able to get by without being irritable.  Ladies, and sorry for any men reading this, I sort of take this as a nod towards us.  Even the most faith filled, well learned, well practiced Christian woman has to either 1: get a visit from aunt Flo 2: get pregnant or 3: go through menopause (I must point out gentleman that there is a reason it’s called Men-O-Pause, it’s a hint…think before you speak to a menopausal woman!) So as women there are times when hormones all but run ramped through our bodies.  Irritability is a word we hear ALL THE TIME, and no men Midol does not help with it.  Never-the-less it wouldn’t be in the Bible if it wasn’t something we couldn’t overcome.  We are woman hear us roar!  ALL…ALL…ALL things are possible through Christ who strengthens us!  Now on to resentfulness, this is a sore subject for most of us.  There’s not one person on this Earth who hasn’t been scared by someone, and yes it is possible to get through patience, kindness, envy, boasting, insisting on your way, and irritability without having dealt with the people you resent.  Why?  Because most of us won’t touch those people with a ten foot poll, which means we never have to be around them.  Out of sight out of mind?  Not for God.  He loves those people you are choosing not to.  Freely you received freely also should you give, let go of your resentfulness and I promise it will free you.  Pray, pray and pray again, read every scripture you can on resentful spirits and on forgiveness.  This might take you ten years, however long it takes you get there.

Love does not rejoice in wrongdoings, but rejoices with truth.  This is the last of the what not to do’s before the scripture gets into what to do.  It’s perfect; it fits so fantastically that I can almost forget how long ago this Word was written.  Once we get through all those steps the enemy is going to put another stumbling block in front of our way and once we fall for it we get to start ALL over again.  Rejoicing in wrongdoings.  The weightiness of this is tremendous, what this is saying is after we get through all the steps we have to make sure we don’t get excited when we see others messing up.  When you see people doing wrong resist the urge to insist they do things your way.  Resist the urge to be rude to them about there sin.  Resist the urge to feel arrogant, you are not better then them Christ, who worked all these things in you, is.  Resist the urge to boast about how much further you are then them.  This one might seem odd, but resist the urge to envy them; Satan will put someone in front of you sinning a particular way you use to enjoy sinning.  Resist the urge to be impatient with them, instead patiently help them through it.  Why?  Because…

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.

One last thought, the Bible tells us to love our neighbors, it says as God so loved us so should we love others.  What does this mean?  It means you can’t just apply this to your spouse; these lessons have to follow you everywhere you go.  Who knows, maybe if this love thing catches on Christians might start looking a little differently then everyone else.