Tag: december

25 Days of December: Matthew Chapter 10

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Hi guys! Happy Tuesday! If this is your first time reading, we are on post #7 in the series I call, “25 Days of December” where we are going through the book of Matthew together in hopes of finding some “soul food” during this season of busyness and distraction. I believe this month has become a time where we tend to concentrate on our gift lists and holiday plans a little more than the word. I’d like to think of fellowship and bible study as “filling our cup, so that we are able to pour into others.” That includes pouring our love into those surrounding us during the holidays! So let’s get started.

I want to remind you that I will be referencing The Message and NIV translations with occasional mentions of biblehub.com. If you do not have a bible handy, you can click here to link straight to Matthew chapter 10 on biblehub.com. In other news, I was recently asked what bible I use. If you would like to view the two bibles I use, you can visit Amazon through these links: link 1 and link 2 and purchase your own! (Note: link 2 is to a bible that is SIMILAR to The Message translation that I use. The exact one I have, is not available on Amazon but the one linked is a women’s version I’m sure you will love! If you are looking to gift one, there are many other versions available including men’s (NIV), youth (The Message) and children versions!)

The main points we will touch on today:

  • Help the lost in your own neighborhood
  • Don’t allow yourself to be bullied into silence
  • Start small

 

  • Help the lost in your own neighborhood

Matthew 10:5-6 (The Message): ” Jesus sent his twelve harvest hands out with this charge: ‘Don’t begin by traveling to some far-off place to convert unbelievers. And don’t try to be dramatic by tackling some public enemy. Go to the lost, confused people right her in the neighborhood.'”

I think, sometimes, we think in order to make an impact we have to go do something extraordinary like travel overseas and build homes. If that is what you feel called to do, then definitely go do that but please don’t underestimate the opportunities you come across daily to help others. If showing compassion to kids at work while the boss bullies them is what you are called to do during this time, that is fabulous! If building your friends up in their ministries while still trying to find yours, is your calling right now, that’s awesome! If paying for the person behind you at lunch is what you feel called to do, you are making JUST AS BIG of a difference as that evangelist on TV.

Matthew 10:9-10 (The Message) also tells us: “‘ Don’t think you have to put on a fund-raising campaign before you start. You don’t need a lot of equipment. You are the equipment, and all you need to keep that going is three meals a day. Travel light.'”

Matthew 10:19-20 (The Message): “‘And don’t worry about what you’ll say of how you’ll say it. The right words will be there; the Spirit of your Father will supply the words.'”

  • Don’t allow yourself to be bullied into silence

Matthew 10:28 (The Message) reminds us: “‘Don’t be bluffed into silence by the threats of bullies. There’s nothing they can do to your soul, your core being. Save your fear for God, who holds your entire life-body and soul-in his hands.'”

People will be uncomfortable with you talking about God, or doing anything that has to do with God for that matter. Don’t let that change what you believe to be true. Now, I’m not saying we should shove our beliefs at people or change the way we treat them if they don’t believe the same as us. In fact, I think the best way to treat opposition is with kindness and compassion. These are very hurt people we are talking to and they may react out of that hurt. If we continue to show compassion, forgiveness and love towards them even after they have shown opposition towards our beliefs, that will speak to what we truly believe. We, then, will not only be people who speak about our beliefs but people who MODEL those beliefs in our everyday lives. Next point being: Don’t allow that opposition to stop you from believing or sharing!

  • Start small

Matthew 10:42 (The Message) instructs us: “‘This is a large work I’ve called you into, but don’t be overwhelmed by it. It’s best to start small. Give a cool cup of water to someone who is thirsty, for instance. The smallest act of giving or receiving makes you a true apprentice. You won’t lose out on a thing.'”

I think, we see people all the time in the media who have made it to the big time. People, like Oprah, who have the means to make a huge impact. We see ministries on Instagram or Facebook, who have thousands of followers and are impacting hundreds of people daily and we start to get down on ourselves. Who are we kidding with our 5o followers and our posts that get no response? The enemy would love nothing more than for us to give up. He can not only stop the spread of the word, but also the spread of understanding, forgiveness, love, compassion and fellowship. Women, simply lifting up other women is a HUGE thing! We live in a world where women have come to compare themselves to one another and COMPETE against the very women who could be lifting them up if they gave them half a chance. The enemy LOVES to see strife and envy. Don’t let him win. Keep going. Keep doing your small acts of kindness and paying it forward. Keep praying for people. Keep sharing your story. Keep helping in the little ways that you can. It won’t go unnoticed. At least not by the One who really matters. ❤

*Hope to see you back tomorrow for Chapter 11!

25 Days of December: Matthew Chapter 7

Published on by mamaknowsmess2 Comments

Hello and welcome to Day 4 of our 25 Days of December series, where we are diving into the book of Matthew with the goal of gaining access to some “soul food” during this season of busyness and distraction!

It’s Saturday and I know you have a list of other things you could be doing right now, even if sleep is at the top, so I will get started!

If this is your first time reading, I will be referencing The Message and NIV translations with occasional entries from biblehub.com. If you don’t have a bible, you can jump over to biblehub.com, which is a very user friendly way to look up scripture and provides MANY translations allowing for easy deciphering. If you click on the blue link, I have bookmarked Matthew Chapter 7 for you! 🙂

The main points I want to touch on today are:

  • Judging others
  • Ask for what you need
  • Entering the “narrow gate”
  • False prophets
  • Building a firm foundation

I LOVE this chapter. Each point speaks directly to me and gives me a practical guide to follow in my day to day.

  • Judging others

Matthew 7:1-2 (NIV) reads: Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

(Raises her hand) I am guilty as charged! This may be one of my biggest weaknesses guys. The thing that keeps replaying in my mind is that we will be judged to the same measure as we have judged others. So not only do we get judged if we judge others but the degree to which we judge is even taken into account! YIKES! Looking back, I find that I tend to judge people when they are a threat to me or I feel hurt by them. It’s a defense we use to justify our feelings. All we can do is try our best to not judge others and if we do (because we are human) we know where to go for forgiveness! There is freedom in forgiving others AND in forgiving yourself!

  • Ask for what you need

Matthew 7:7-8 (NIV) promises us: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knows, the door will be opened.”

Something that dawned on me as I read these verses: ABSOLUTELY, we must go to our Father and ask, seek and knock, but this also applies to our interactions with our family and friends! We have all heard men tease women about how they assume men know what they need and then give them the silent treatment when they don’t get it! (Raises her hand, again!) GUILTY. I am all the time doing this to my poor husband! If I look even further, I do this with my family and friends as well! It is hard to be open with people. Sit them down with some coffee and tell them what you need or set boundaries where there is too much give and not enough receive. I recently did this. It was very hard and emotionally straining, but you know what I gained from it? The time to write this blog and join in on a community full of Jesus loving women! What a reward!

  • Entering the “narrow gate”

Matthew 7:13-20 (The Message) describes the narrow gate: “Don’t look for shortcuts to God. The market is flooded with surefire, easy going formulas for a successful life that can be practiced in your spare time. Don’t fall for that stuff, even though crowds of people do. The way to life-to God!- is vigorous and requires total attention.

We know that hard work produces great rewards in our everyday life. Why would our faith be any different? It WILL be hard to go against the crowd, for it is harder work. The crowd tends to do what is easy. Remember to always listen to your inner gauge of character and morals and to always go to God if you are questioning what his will is. I struggle weekly, if not daily with the writing of this blog. It’s not necessarily popular to set aside social events or Facebook scrolling to write a month long bible study. It just isn’t. I know that you too, choose to do the right thing when it’s not popular and I am SO PROUD of you for doing that!!

  • False prophets

Be wary of false preachers who smile a lot, dripping with practiced sincerity. Chances are they are out to rip you off some way or other. Don’t be impressed with charisma; look for character. Who preachers are is the main thing, not what they say. A genuine leader will never exploit your emotions or your pocketbooks. These diseased trees with their bad apples are going to be chopped down and burned.”

Also, choose your church, your bible studies, the leaders in any area of your life -carefully! Unfortunately, there are people out there who are VERY good at pretending and they will stop at nothing to get what they want. 😦

Matthew 7:15 (NIV) says: Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.”

  • Building a firm foundation

Matthew 7:24-27 (NIV) tells us: “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

I like to think of this in a way that’s easy for me to visualize. I love the foundation metaphor but I like to think of it like a tree. Every time I put scripture into action it’s like another root growing it’s way deeper into the ground. The more I do this and grow my roots, the stronger the tree (myself) will stand when a storm hits. In turn, if I read scripture but do not apply it, it is like watering a tree that you haven’t actually planted into the ground. You can water it all you want but if the roots have nowhere to grow, the tree will die.

Not only that, but if we are “practicing what we preach,” non-believers will be attracted to the love and light they see in us, and want to know where we got it! The Lord! 🙂

I hope and pray that these lessons are touching you and inspiring you to love on others the way reading scripture does for me. ❤ Thank you so much for joining in on this community and being a part of this study and the sharing of my personal stories. I can’t wait to see you here again tomorrow!

* Reminder: You will have easier access to each of my posts by hitting the “follow” button in the sidebar to the right. This will sign you up to receive emails each time a post is published! Thanks again, friends!

 

 

25 Days of December: Matthew Chapter 4

Published on by mamaknowsmessLeave a comment

Hello everyone! Today is the first day in the “25 Days of December” series, where we are going to dive into the book of Matthew (chapters 4-28) and give you a little soul food to get you through this season full of busyness and distraction. 🙂

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Let me preface this by saying that I feel like a Grinch some days. SOME days I feel overwhelmed with gift buying, sales ads, traditions, to do lists, food lists, event dates and all of the other things that tend to come with the holiday season. Don’t get me wrong, the holidays make me feel warm inside and I love to spend time with my family and create memories for our children but GOLLY, it’s kinda been turned into a big tornado of doing and spending and not so much enjoying, am I right? Being an introvert, I thrive off of quiet time, reading and studying. The holidays tend to kind of squash that.

During my study yesterday (yes, this just came to be YESTERDAY), God just laid it on my heart to provide a study of the book of Matthew and share it with you ladies. Now, I don’t know about you but when I hear God’s whispers I try my hardest to obey! And our loving God always rewards obedience. 🙂 To be completely honest, I have no idea what I’m going to be writing each day and I have nothing prepared in advance. I simply prayed over the study, over you ladies and asked that my blog posts be the voice of whatever it is God is wanting to be said here. I sincerely pray that you ladies find value in this series and find some light through the holidays. ❤

Before we start, I just wanted to clarify that I am not a bible expert. I have no special degrees or certificates. I’m just an everyday wife and mom trying to dig into scripture and apply it to my life like any other regular person out there. The thing that may be a little different is the fact that I am FIRED UP to share my “scripture digging” adventure with YOU! So let’s get started….

Today, we start in chapter 4 where Jesus is tempted by Satan 3 times and goes to gather men along the beach of Lake Galilee to become “fishers of men.”

Side note: I will mostly be referencing both the Message translation and the NIV translation. I also like to use biblehub.com to look up verses that really stick out to me, because it offers MANY versions of the same verse which opens up lots of room for deciphering!

The first part of this chapter where Jesus is tempted by Satan three times, spoke to me in a way that every human on this planet can understand! TEMPTATION. Not one of us is exempt from this. We all know what Satan has set out to do: steal, kill and destroy. He stops at nothing but the power of Jesus. He has so many strategies that it makes it hard for us to figure out what’s going on! He will hit us out of NOWHERE and most times he will start at our WEAKNESSES. Satan does not place nice, guys.

In Matthew 4:1-3 we read, “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”

His weakness. His hunger. Now, he’s Jesus, he could have easily performed a miracle and turned the stones into bread and satisfied his hunger but he knew that was not His Father’s plan and that He would be giving into the enemy and THEREFORE giving him POWER. You guys, the important thing here is not that we do or do not give into temptation (although, that is important). The even BIGGER point here, is that when we DO give into temptation, that allows Satan IN! It gets him closer and closer to where he really wants to be. In our hearts; STEALING our family, friends and love for Jesus, KILLING our passion and drive, and DESTROYING the plan God has for us.

This is not where you need to start feeling bad about all of the temptations you’ve given into. The mistakes you’ve made and the times you’ve given in can be forgiven! Our Father loves us so much and will forgive us of our sins. We can not be strong ALL the time. We are human, and unlike Jesus, we do not have the answer every time. BUT, we do have the same access to our Father that Jesus did, through prayer. Lately, I have been finding AMAZING amounts of pressure relieved by prayer and asking for forgiveness as well as giving forgiveness to others even if it may appear that they don’t deserve it. Grace.

If we DO need somewhere to look when we want to resist temptation, though, we can look to Jesus’ response in Matthew 4:4.

Matthew 4:4 says: Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'”

When it comes down to it, all we really need in this life is God. Sure there are things we “need” to survive like water, food, shelter, love and so on but hasn’t GOD promised he will provide all of those things and more to those who believe in Him?

Philippians 4:19 assures us: “And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.”

Again in Luke 12:31 we read: New Living Translation
Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and he will give you everything you need.

The word is our SWORD. We must pull it out and fight the enemy when he tries to tempt us!

The second time Satan tries to tempt Jesus, he tries to do so by challenging Him. His attitude comes off as: So your Father has all of these powers? Prove it! And how does Jesus respond? He used his SWORD (scripture), and quotes Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy 6:16 says: “Do not put the LORD your God to the test as you did at Massah.”

The third and final time Jesus is tempted, Satan pulls a very famous stunt of his by offering Jesus the riches of the world. This one hits home for a lot of us, if not all of us, at one point or another. How appealing has the enemy made money, diamonds, brand name clothes, big houses, and fast cars? How much money does any given brand spend on advertising in a year? He works overtime trying to convince us that we will be LIKED and ACCEPTED if we have these things. We will FIT IN if we follow the crowd and fit into this mold. Being POPULAR fuels many of our daily actions!!

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We are ALL guilty of this. The enemy feels he is winning at this, because he sees our weakness of wanting to feel loved and accepted; as our human instincts crave it to survive. The thing we have mixed up here is that God instilled this craving into us so that we would NEED HIM! That craving that we all have can only be satisfied by Him.

I have experienced this like anyone else out there. I STILL fight temptation to have the things of this world. One thing I can say, though, is that God has shown me that those things not only leave me empty but they push me further away from God and closer to the enemy. Can I get personal and share my money situation like we are told not to? ha. A year ago my husband was making $12,000 a month. We were on the verge of divorce. Today he makes less than $3,000 a month and we are the happiest we have EVER been! We budget TOGETHER, we spend QUALITY time together, we ENJOY each other’s presence and we push through this life TOGETHER! We no longer try to satisfy our needs with money and things. When our budget doesn’t allow us to take trips or go out to eat or take the kids to a playhouse – we stay home and watch Frosty the Snowman, drink hot chocolate and play on the floor (GASP!)

Simply put: If we desire the things of this world over God, we are worshiping the wrong God. That hurts. As Christians, we don’t want to hear that we are WORSHIPING THINGS. That seems as crazy as worshiping a cow. Worshiping doesn’t necessarily mean we bow down and pray to this thing. It simply means we put it first. If the majority of our thoughts revolve around something other than God, we need to change our priorities. What is the motive behind our actions? That will ultimately tell us who or what we are worshiping. Now, we all have everyday tasks that we need to do: cooking, cleaning, errands, work, attending events etc but we need to look at the REASON we do these things. Putting God first doesn’t always have to mean we spend 24/7 at church. We can serve Him through our DAILY actions. We can clean our house in joy knowing that we are providing a happy place  for our family to land, we can go to work and make a difference in someone else’s life, we can tip a waitress a bigger amount because we are blessed with the means to do so.

The last thing I wanted to touch on today was when Jesus walked down the beach of Lake Galilee and began to gather “fishers of men.” What does this mean to you? To me, it means that God is calling us to go out and “catch” the hearts of the broken and tell them about the love of Jesus. Let’s talk to our friends and family with meaning. Let’s be REAL and SINCERE and relate to people! Tear down walls, cry with people, break generational cycles of abuse, CARE about PEOPLE and not what they are wearing or driving.

For some reason, my husband and I tend to get into Netflix shows that have to do with the end of the world. Power outages, viral outbreaks, zombies…..whatever it is. I take away things from those shows other than the cool visual effects and sappy love stories. One thing that kind of sticks with me is: in all of these shows, these people are having to survive and guess what? MONEY means NOTHING. It loses it’s value. The material things these people worked their whole lives to store up and gain status from…..they mean absolutely nothing. The things that mean something to them during this time are their faith and relationships. Hollywood did get something right. The End. ❤

*I hope to see you tomorrow, all ready to dive into chapter 5! If you haven’t already, please find the “follow” button in the sidebar on the right so you can receive daily emails. This will allow you to easily access these posts each day of the series!

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