“What I’m trying to say is that as individuals, we have thoughts and attitudes that need to be overcome — thoughts of hatred or extreme dislike toward ourselves and other people when instead we should feel dislike toward behaviors. We also have extreme attitudes toward outward appearance that needs to be overcome. If you look at the life of Jesus, you see…..
Reading about the merciful in the Sermon on the Mount connects me to Jesus’ later teachings about forgiveness. In the Lord’s prayer he taught his disciples to pray, ‘forgive us …. as we forgive others.” In forgiveness there is great mercy, but in order to receive something it must be given to you. A hard-hearted person struggles with forgiveness. You…..
Perhaps you’ve heard someone say: “He/She’s so meek.” More than likely you were thinking that in terms of emotional or social weakness of some sort – maybe being shy. But the biblical meaning of the word meek is different than what this generation of English speaking people understand it to be. When Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount the word meek meant humble…..
By the mercies of God, Paul asks the church members to present their bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God.
When I read the opening lines of this letter written by the Apostle Paul I can’t help but think about his conversion. From being a man who had been hurling murderous threats against the church to now asking it’s members to become ‘living sacrifices.’ It’s a remarkable transformation! Proof that people can change and that the power of…..
In Matthew 4:19 – 20 we read that when Jesus told some fishermen that if they followed him he would make them fish for people they left immediately to follow him.
Interesting – there was no two week notice, five or twenty year plan to get ready to follow Jesus. Immediately they dropped what they were doing and followed. Maybe that’s the problem with most people today – we want time to plan for the future. We want to make…..
Last evening I attended a local International Day of Peace event at the public library. I wasn’t exactly sure what the facilitators were going to lead us through and was surprised and pleased and I am still a little bit in awe of how the Holy Spirit worked personally in my life during those brief two hours. I’m only going to share from a portion of the evening as I am still allowing the full work of the Holy Spirit…..
Last evening my husband and I went to church. The Parish Priest asked, “Does anyone feel called to read the Scriptures?” Inside I smiled – I have always felt called to read the Scriptures, from the time I was in Sunday School I can remember waiting until I was ‘old’ enough to be able to read them during our class. Finally, when I was old enough to read them in class my teacher told me that if I wanted to…..
Sometimes we remember Traumatic Experiences from a healing point of view and other times we experience remembrances from a traumatic point of view. We cannot control flashbacks, but we can control – with help – how we respond to them when we realize we are having one or that someone else is having one.
Today I’ve heard rumblings about remembering the traumatic event of 911 – it was surreal for so many people around the world. I myself thought…..
It seems sometimes that we are so fixated on endings, rather than beginnings.
When you pick up a book to look at and decide if you want to read it – do you open it to the end or the beginning? When the seasons change – do you call them the end summer or the beginning of fall? Most people say it’s the end of a season and yet our calenders mark the seasonal changes as the first day…..
