Sunday, November 6, 2016

What Do You Do For Fun? 1 John 3 NKJV

1 John 3 NKJV
The Imperative of Love
10 In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother. 11 For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, 12 not as Cain who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and his brother’s righteous.
13 Do not marvel, my brethren, if the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death. 15 Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
When I worked for the county in Arizona we were assigned to "teams". Once a month we would have a team lunch at a nearby restaurant. I remember one such lunch where my Christianity became a topic of ridicule.
I did not hide my faith. We had small bulletin boards in our work space and we were permitted to decorate them any way we wanted. I called mine my "Jesus Board". We were also permitted radios if the volume was kept down and mine was tuned to a Christian station.
At this particular lunch, the group was talking about getting together after hours at a casino for "happy hour". One of my coworkers pointed out I would not join them on that excursion. Someone else asked why and the coworker volunteered the information that I don't gamble or drink. This surprised some and they laughed and asked what I did for fun. I told them I have plenty of fun. My faith continued to be the topic of ridicule for several minutes.
Jesus told us in John 15:18 “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you."
The interesting part of working there, whenever someone was in crisis, they came to me for prayer, even those that claimed to not believe.
Blessings, Cecilia

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