If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn.
If children live with hostility, they learn to fight.
If children live with fear, they learn to be apprehensive.
If children live with pity, they learn to feel sorry for themselves.
If children live with ridicule, they learn to feel shy.
If children live with jealousy, they learn to feel envy.
If children live with shame, they learn to feel guilty.
If children live with encouragement, they learn confidence.
If children live with tolerance, they learn patience.
If children live with praise, they learn appreciation.
If children live with acceptance, they learn to love.
If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves.
If children live with recognition, they learn it is good to have a goal.
If children live with sharing, they learn generosity.
If children live with honesty, they learn truthfulness.
If children live with fairness, they learn justice.
If children live with kindness and consideration, they learn respect.
If children live with security, they learn to have faith in themselves and in those about them.
If children live with friendliness, they learn the world is a nice place in which to live.
Copyright © 1972 by Dorothy Law Nolte
Our words matter, not only to children but to everyone around us.
Matthew 15:10-11 NLT
10Then Jesus called to the crowd to come and hear. “Listen,” He said, “and try to understand. 11 It’s not what goes into your mouth that defiles you; you are defiled by the words that come out of your mouth.”
Blessings, Cecilia
Wednesday, May 3, 2017
Titus 2 Are you setting an example?
6In the same way, urge the younger men to be self-controlled.
7In everything, show yourself to be an example by doing good works. In your teaching show integrity, dignity, 8and wholesome speech that is above reproach, so that anyone who opposes us will be ashamed to have nothing bad to say about us.
9Slaves are to submit to their own masters in everything, to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, 10not stealing from them, but showing all good faith, so that in every respect they will adorn the teaching about God our Savior.
Self-control, this seems to be an issue with the younger generation. They can't listen to an opposing point of view without attacking ones character or becoming violent. Why do you think that is? Could some of these be the cause? Spoiling them as children? Fatherless homes? Filling their wants as a child? Not having to do without? Not teaching them to respect their elders?
Be an example, do good works, show integrity, dignity, wholesome speech, be above reproach! The other day at Sams Club while eating lunch I saw an elderly couple waiting for help to load a large heavy box. After we finished I asked them if they needed help. They replied yes. If I ignored them and moved on like the rest of the world, what message would I have displayed?
Slaves, we don't see this much in the western world. But can you consider yourself as a slave to your job? Try replacing slave with employee. Do you submit to your supervisor? Do you take things from work? Make copies on the company's copier. Show your employer good faith, show them you are a follower of Christ. Some will ridicule you for your faith. Some may even seek you out for prayer. Some may even say they desire your internal peace in Christ.
Are you setting an example?
Blessings, David
7In everything, show yourself to be an example by doing good works. In your teaching show integrity, dignity, 8and wholesome speech that is above reproach, so that anyone who opposes us will be ashamed to have nothing bad to say about us.
9Slaves are to submit to their own masters in everything, to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, 10not stealing from them, but showing all good faith, so that in every respect they will adorn the teaching about God our Savior.
Self-control, this seems to be an issue with the younger generation. They can't listen to an opposing point of view without attacking ones character or becoming violent. Why do you think that is? Could some of these be the cause? Spoiling them as children? Fatherless homes? Filling their wants as a child? Not having to do without? Not teaching them to respect their elders?
Be an example, do good works, show integrity, dignity, wholesome speech, be above reproach! The other day at Sams Club while eating lunch I saw an elderly couple waiting for help to load a large heavy box. After we finished I asked them if they needed help. They replied yes. If I ignored them and moved on like the rest of the world, what message would I have displayed?
Slaves, we don't see this much in the western world. But can you consider yourself as a slave to your job? Try replacing slave with employee. Do you submit to your supervisor? Do you take things from work? Make copies on the company's copier. Show your employer good faith, show them you are a follower of Christ. Some will ridicule you for your faith. Some may even seek you out for prayer. Some may even say they desire your internal peace in Christ.
Are you setting an example?
Blessings, David
Tuesday, May 2, 2017
Can you tame your tongue 👅?
F.Y.I. Damn is NOT God's last name. Jesus Christ is NOT a curse word, it is
the name of my friend, my Lord and my Savior. And those words that many
people snicker at, are NOT french. It seems as if the American society has
lost its moral conscience and respect for others and even the very young
say things that would make a sailor blush. For the believer, some of them
are just coming out of the world and it is understandable that it may take
a little time before conviction sets in. The problem that I see, is that
many do not know how to discern what is right and wrong. Black and white
have turned into grey. The Bible has many verses that help clarify. *James
3:8 But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly
poison. 9 With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men,
who have been made in the similitude of God. 10 Out of the same mouth
proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be
so.* And also, *Ephesians 5:4 neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor
coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.* There
is power in God and power in the name of Jesus, if not, why not say, oh
Buddha, or oh Hare Krishna. Brethren may our life, language and love for
God, be an example of godliness, holiness and purity at all times. May this
lost world see something different in each of us. Closing thought, what is
in your heart. *Luke 6:45...For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth
speaks.*
the name of my friend, my Lord and my Savior. And those words that many
people snicker at, are NOT french. It seems as if the American society has
lost its moral conscience and respect for others and even the very young
say things that would make a sailor blush. For the believer, some of them
are just coming out of the world and it is understandable that it may take
a little time before conviction sets in. The problem that I see, is that
many do not know how to discern what is right and wrong. Black and white
have turned into grey. The Bible has many verses that help clarify. *James
3:8 But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly
poison. 9 With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men,
who have been made in the similitude of God. 10 Out of the same mouth
proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be
so.* And also, *Ephesians 5:4 neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor
coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.* There
is power in God and power in the name of Jesus, if not, why not say, oh
Buddha, or oh Hare Krishna. Brethren may our life, language and love for
God, be an example of godliness, holiness and purity at all times. May this
lost world see something different in each of us. Closing thought, what is
in your heart. *Luke 6:45...For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth
speaks.*
Douglas
WWJD What Would Jesus Do? Matthew 15:1-9
Should children take care of their parents in their old age or should children not be expected to carry that burden? No parent wants to be a burden and often times the children have families of their own to consider. It's a tough question and can only be answered in each individual case.
My dear friend Sandy is in that situation right now. She is finally in a rehab facility trying to get her strength back after open heart surgery in January. Each of the family members has rotated in to care for Ken who has stage four Parkinson's Disease while Sandy has been absent. Now the time has come for some tough decisions. Ken will be moving to Saint Louis next week to live with his younger brother. This leaves Sandy alone in Tucson. It breaks my heart but it's not my decision to make.
God commands us to honor our mother and father. That's an action. It means to treat them with respect. The Pharisees, in their greed, ignored this command. They imposed man made laws that superseded Gods command. This left the children without funds to care for their ailing parents. That is not what God wanted and Jesus let the Pharisees know it.
When faced with the tough choices, there's an easy solution. Just ask what Jesus would do and do it.
Matthew 15:1-9
1 Some Pharisees and teachers of religious law now arrived from Jerusalem to see Jesus. They asked Him, 2 “Why do your disciples disobey our age-old tradition? For they ignore our tradition of ceremonial hand washing before they eat.”
3 Jesus replied, “And why do you, by your traditions, violate the direct commandments of God? 4 For instance, God says, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and ‘Anyone who speaks disrespectfully of father or mother must be put to death.’ 5 But you say it is all right for people to say to their parents, ‘Sorry, I can’t help you. For I have vowed to give to God what I would have given to you.’ 6 In this way, you say they don’t need to honor their parents. And so you cancel the word of God for the sake of your own tradition. 7 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote,
8‘These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me.9 Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.’”
Blessings, Cecilia
My dear friend Sandy is in that situation right now. She is finally in a rehab facility trying to get her strength back after open heart surgery in January. Each of the family members has rotated in to care for Ken who has stage four Parkinson's Disease while Sandy has been absent. Now the time has come for some tough decisions. Ken will be moving to Saint Louis next week to live with his younger brother. This leaves Sandy alone in Tucson. It breaks my heart but it's not my decision to make.
God commands us to honor our mother and father. That's an action. It means to treat them with respect. The Pharisees, in their greed, ignored this command. They imposed man made laws that superseded Gods command. This left the children without funds to care for their ailing parents. That is not what God wanted and Jesus let the Pharisees know it.
When faced with the tough choices, there's an easy solution. Just ask what Jesus would do and do it.
Matthew 15:1-9
1 Some Pharisees and teachers of religious law now arrived from Jerusalem to see Jesus. They asked Him, 2 “Why do your disciples disobey our age-old tradition? For they ignore our tradition of ceremonial hand washing before they eat.”
3 Jesus replied, “And why do you, by your traditions, violate the direct commandments of God? 4 For instance, God says, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and ‘Anyone who speaks disrespectfully of father or mother must be put to death.’ 5 But you say it is all right for people to say to their parents, ‘Sorry, I can’t help you. For I have vowed to give to God what I would have given to you.’ 6 In this way, you say they don’t need to honor their parents. And so you cancel the word of God for the sake of your own tradition. 7 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote,
8‘These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me.9 Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.’”
Blessings, Cecilia
Titus 2 What kind of life are you leading?
Titus 2
Berean Study Bible
Teaching Sound Doctrine
1But as for you, speak the things that are consistent with sound doctrine.
2Older men are to be temperate, dignified, self-controlled, and sound in faith, love, and perseverance.
3Older women, likewise, are to be reverent in their behavior, not slanderers or addicted to much wine, but teachers of good. 4In this way they can train the young women to love their husbands and children, 5to be self-controlled, pure, managers of their households, kind, and subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be discredited.
As we attain years, grow older, we tend to mature and mellow out. Paul reminds us as older men and women we are to be consistent with sound doctrine. In other words, don't be blown around like the wind with every new doctrine.
The other day on the television show 48 Hours they featured a program about "The Family". The evil woman featured would adopt, steal or procure children, 20 plus of them, and claim to be the reincarnated Jesus. She strongly disciplined, starved, beat, drugged, molded the children into her liking, she dyed there hair blond, stole their identities and had founded churches in the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom.
Didn't her followers of this cult ever read the bible? If they did they would know and understand the second coming of Jesus!
Paul, instructs us as older men and women to be examples and teachers of younger people who are less mature in life and in the faith of Jesus Christ.
Specifically men are to be: temperate, dignified, self-controlled, and sound in faith, love, and perseverance.
Specifically women are to be: reverent in their behavior, not slanderers or addicted to much wine, but teachers of good.
Paul goes on to say about women in verses 4 and 5:
4In this way they can train the young women to love their husbands and children, 5to be self-controlled, pure, managers of their households, kind, and subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be discredited.
Men and women, let's examine ourselves and see if we are leading the life that God instructs us to be through this scripture.
Blessings, David
Monday, May 1, 2017
“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.”
The word "Martyr" has the sound of antiquity about it, the statistics say
that more Christians have been killed for their faith in this century than
in all previous centuries combined. Many today claim the Christian faith.
They claim to believe that Jesus is their Savior and that they obey God,
but when they are faced with challenges or temptations they give up this
faith. There were 3 guys in the Book of Daniel that did not waver.
*Daniel3:15...But if you do not worship, you shall be thrown at once into
the midst of a furnace of blazing fire; and what god is there who can
rescue you out of my hands?” 16 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego answered
the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to answer you on this point. 17
If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to rescue us from the furnace of
blazing fire, and He will rescue us from your hand, O king. 18 But even if
He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve
your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up!”*
Many in today's society only claim faith in Christ because of its cultural value.
When this faith requires that they sacrifice, then their faith is no longer
existent, and they give into the values and morals of the world. This faith
is not a true, saving faith, but a faith that is only superficial. It is a
faith that only sees God as a way to get things that they want. When they
do not receive the things that they have requested, then they abandon God.
When their faith is being tested by fire, they dessert God and cling to
themselves and their lives. One day our complacency will come to an end.
Faith responds and does not conform, it is rooted in the power of God and
remains committed. Tertullian, the famous second-century lawyer who was
converted by watching Christians sing as they marched to their deaths gave
us this famous statement: “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the
church.” St. Augustine wrote, “The martyrs were bound, jailed, scourged,
wracked, burned, rent, butchered—and they multiplied.” True Faith Stays
Standing.
Douglas
Titus 1 Are ALL things pure to you?
Correcting False Teachers
10For many are rebellious and full of empty talk and deception, especially those of the circumcision, 11who must be silenced. For the sake of dishonorable gain, they undermine entire households and teach things they should not. 12As one of their own prophets has said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.”
13This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sternly, so that they will be sound in the faith, 14and will pay no attention to Jewish myths or to the commands of men who have rejected the truth.
15To the pure, all things are pure; but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure. Indeed, both their minds and their consciences are defiled. 16They profess to know God, but they deny Him by their actions. They are detestable, disobedient, and unfit for any good deed.
Paul's rebuke of false teachers or false followers was stern. Ours must be too. We all have seen or heard them. People that claim to be Christians but have no fruit, they follow the ways of the world and aren't set apart from others. Gossipers, liars, drunkards, druggies, these so called Christians give Christianity a bad name and turn others from the faith. They put man's works in front of the free gift of salvation! You know them! You must attend church the sabbath, you must be baptized to be really saved, you must do this or that, ENOUGH!
Stop these misguided souls before they corrupt your church. As Paul says, rebuke them sternly, so that they will be sound in the faith, and pay no attention to the commands of men who have rejected the truth!
I repeat verses 15 and 16, let them sink in!
15To the pure, all things are pure; but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure. Indeed, both their minds and their consciences are defiled. 16They profess to know God, but they deny Him by their actions. They are detestable, disobedient, and unfit for any good deed. Do you get that?
Are ALL things pure to you?
Blessings, David
10For many are rebellious and full of empty talk and deception, especially those of the circumcision, 11who must be silenced. For the sake of dishonorable gain, they undermine entire households and teach things they should not. 12As one of their own prophets has said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.”
13This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sternly, so that they will be sound in the faith, 14and will pay no attention to Jewish myths or to the commands of men who have rejected the truth.
15To the pure, all things are pure; but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure. Indeed, both their minds and their consciences are defiled. 16They profess to know God, but they deny Him by their actions. They are detestable, disobedient, and unfit for any good deed.
Paul's rebuke of false teachers or false followers was stern. Ours must be too. We all have seen or heard them. People that claim to be Christians but have no fruit, they follow the ways of the world and aren't set apart from others. Gossipers, liars, drunkards, druggies, these so called Christians give Christianity a bad name and turn others from the faith. They put man's works in front of the free gift of salvation! You know them! You must attend church the sabbath, you must be baptized to be really saved, you must do this or that, ENOUGH!
Stop these misguided souls before they corrupt your church. As Paul says, rebuke them sternly, so that they will be sound in the faith, and pay no attention to the commands of men who have rejected the truth!
I repeat verses 15 and 16, let them sink in!
15To the pure, all things are pure; but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure. Indeed, both their minds and their consciences are defiled. 16They profess to know God, but they deny Him by their actions. They are detestable, disobedient, and unfit for any good deed. Do you get that?
Are ALL things pure to you?
Blessings, David
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