Opening:
I pray before I write these sermons. Today it came on my heart,”Self improve vs Self Destruct.” In the past, people came to think,”Yo, if I only live so long, I should have a ton of fun when I am still young, and who cares what happens when I am old, everyone dies.” So self destructive lifestyles became cool along the lines.
In actuality, we all live forever. We leave lasting change on the world. So while one might think,”Well let me have fun when I can, who cares what happens to others.”. In actuality we should be “planting trees” even when we ourselves will not experience the fruit. When men and women act in such a way to invest in the future generation over themselves, things go well. Boy Scouts have a saying,”Leave the Campground better when you leave then when you got there.” It has a dual meaning of also talking about Earth.
So knowing we live forever because of Jesus, and knowing we should serve others over just ourselves, what are we left with? Well we can see that extreme self destructive behavior has a cost on society. People pay taxes to see you get an education. Until you work, you’re eating up your parents resources in a way(but they love you for it). I’m not trying to shame people about their existence. It is just whenever someone tragically loses their life to bad life choices, it is a societal cost even if they personally didn’t care about themselves. So if we want to help society, we should be building ourselves up and those around us.
Prayer of Forgiveness:
Lord, I’m sure most of us at some point in time have been self destructive. It could be a phase, a long term thing, or even just a binge on a bad night. Forgive us God. We should be in the business of building up ourselves and others. Jesus being a carpenter is maybe in a way symbolic of this.
If we want forgiven, Jesus teaches, we must forgive others. To be able to forgive, we should practice forgiving the small stuff. To practice, in your mind, imagine small events happening and you forgiving them:
Practice not flipping out on a restaurant clerk if they get your order wrong. If you can tolerate eating what they give you, just do it. If you complain, they throw it out and waste resources.
Practice not road raging if someone pulls out and almost wrecks you, then goes super slow when you’re trying to have an appointment.
Practice not being mad at someone cutting in line at the supermarket.
You can think of other ones. The key is to practice on the minor things. This exercise doesn’t work so well on major things.
Movements of the Holy Spirit:
You guys might laugh at this one. I asked my aunt to get ChicFila. Well about the time when she was about to get back that I just guestimated. I said to my Gran,”Hey, I’m going to get the ChicFila” I opened my door, and my aunt was right there coming in with it. I expected to have to walk up and even then it might not be there. It was perfectly timed.
Lesson from this; Don’t be surprised when your prayers and life align perfectly so each event happens right after another. This is very common especially when you’re waiting for something, get bored and decide to start praying on stuff. When you conclude your prayer, the wait might be over immediately. I’ve seen this happen on numerous occasions. It is a God timing thing. And in the same vein, God can frustrate us, and slow us down so we don’t get into a tough spot.
Today’s Blessing:
I hope you guys are blessed with enough income to pay down debt, and start saving and getting ahead. It is hard to be self improving for some when their expenses are higher than their income. You see this happen a lot now with rent and housing prohibitively expensive.
Praise for God:
God is super cool. I went for a walk today. It was a little humid, but saw those blue moths. I talked with a neighbor. Honeysuckle is out now in South Western Pennsylvania, so it makes the lane smell sweet. Thanks God for beauty and sweet smelling walks.
Prayer Cues:
Pray people in hospitals, those who can’t get to hospitals, and those who have been at hospitals and are recovering.
Maybe pray that the new satellite internet helps people in foreign countries and competes with ISPs locally to drive down prices to access the internet.
Maybe pray that the James Webb telescope launches and unfolds without error when it goes up. If you loved the Hubble images, James Webb will be even more sensitive to the Electro Magentic spectrum it is looking at. It will likely be a view of God’s Creation we never saw.
Pray people are smart to get of cigarettes and bad drugs so they don’t destroy themselves.
Pray people want to self improve over self destruct.
Scripture of the Day:
Proverbs 15:24 “Wise people walk the road that leads upward to life, not the road that leads downward to death.”
If you want to unsubscribe, reply,”Unsubscribe” The software is new,so if it doesn’t get you off the list the first the first time, complain again.
You can also reply to this email! faithclubdotnet(at)gmail.com is a live email, hopefully checked every day once I get discipline. Most newsletters have no way of contacting anyone, but you can contact us and chat it up. I even encourage it. Give us your comments, questions, prayer requests, and even announcements if you want. I can’t guarantee we announce it, but you can try ;)
Tell your friends to email faithclubdotnet(at)gmail.com and say subscribe. This is a form of witnessing and you likely will receive eternal rewards in Heaven and maybe even immediate rewards on Earth.