Defeat the Foothold

When you keep your emotions and hurt feelings locked inside it does nothing but cut you deeper. Withholding feelings and not pouring out truth will only build up anger and frustration, which gives the devil a great opportunity to attack. Has someone has said or done something to you that got under your skin and really bothered you, but you did not take any action because you thought you could just "sweep it under the rug"? However, you find that you are constantly shoveling junk under the rug, and you do your best to carry on being KIND! Out of the goodness of your heart you sincerely try your best to keep your mind off the negativity of the situation with that person; however, you realize that the more you avoid the thoughts and feelings the more often they come up. Eventually,  your emotions get strung out to shreds and you reach a breaking point ?! 

The Devil Will Take a Hit, Will You Withstand ?!

We all fall into traps and God knows this will happen and he shows grace every time, "Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that GOD will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will." 2 Timothy 2:25-26. You have to decide how you are going to handle yourself when you reach your breaking point. Either you can act out in anger or find it within you to humble yourself and express your feelings with the person in a rational and kind way. We find in Ephesians, "in your anger do not sin" so there you have it, a direct route to take, God is telling you not to let your anger defeat you and be wise with your actions!!! Do not listen to another lie that the devil is feeding you because it likes to magnify things and your anger to get the best of you if you do not get it under control. 

Communication Carries You Far

So what do you do with all those conflicting feelings that are eating at you ? You may not think it is impossible to sort through the complexity your situation; however, God is not going to push you harder than you can withstand. Personally, I cannot stand confrontation and I will avoid a situation that bothers me until it starts completely consuming me. I will try to convince myself that I can handle the situation, and I am great at pulling out the idea of, oh I just do not need to worry about it because time will just mend things. However, that is SO wrong the bible tell us, "do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold" (Ephesians 4:26-27). I have learned that if something bothers me then it is more than likely not going to just disappear. Quit waiting around and start communicating.  Life is not easy by any means, we all face troubles and hardships; however, you can either live in bitter discontentment or in peace through faith in God. In Matthew 18:15-17 we find valuable and wise action steps to follow, "If a fellow believer hurts you, go and tell him—work it out between the two of you. If he listens, you've made a friend. If he won't listen, take one or two others along so that the presence of witnesses will keep things honest, and try again. If he still won't listen, tell the church. If he won't listen to the church, you'll have to start over from scratch, confront him with the need for repentance, and offer again God's forgiving love."

Confidence in Yourself and Trust in God

Taking the first step is always scary because you are moving into the unknown, but rest assured that you are moving with God and remember this, "For the Lord God is our sun and our shield.

 He gives us grace and glory.The Lord will withhold no good thing from those who do what is right." Psalm 84:11. Be truthful with your words and speak on what is pressing on your heart, and all of those negative and lingering emotions that hang heavy on your heart will no longer exist. You are making yourself whole by resolving the conflict that you are battling with the feelings that you are holding onto and you will feel peace once you let it all go. In Epehsians 4:31-32 we are told  to, "get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be KIND and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you." 

Action Steps

Pray for guidance and wisdom.

Abandon the lies that the devil has been feeding you.

Speak truth and remember God is near every heart. 

Forgive and move on with kindness uniting you as one through your faith.

Positive thoughts will lead to positive outcomes.

You need the Lord all of time, and I promise that the more that you seek him the closer he will draw to you. He is willing to help you through anything. 

Acting out KINDNESS

  This week we are talking about KINDNESS and how it applies to our lives. Today I (Savannah) am going to be talking about how ADOPTION is one way you can do that.

Adoption is a huge part of my entire family, and it has impacted my life in many different ways. Recently, I attended a church that dedicated the entire Sunday to their Orphan Care Ministry. My SIL is part of this ministry, and she has helped it grow into a wonderful thing! It was truly an amazing service, and I think many hearts were impacted from it. The pastor of ministries spoke, and he did a wonderful job speaking about adoption. The title of the sermon was "Adoption Is the Heart of the Gospel."

He began by talking about how there are two types of adoption...vertical adoption and horizontal adoption. Horizontal adoption is what comes to most peoples' minds when hearing the word adoption...giving an orphan a forever family and a forever home. However, vertical adoption is something that every child of God experiences. We are adopted into His forever family when we believe that He is the one and only Lord and savior. It was amazing to connect the word adoption to the very thing that we are all created for. Adoption is truly the heart of the gospel.

We are all called to care for orphans in our lifetime...

"Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to orphans, the homeless and loveless in their plight..." James 1:27

Here are some ways you can do it...

- Discover adoption and impact an orphans life forever...go to one-27.org

- Head over to this blog...http://everythingbeautifulshay.blogspot.com...and check out the right sidebar. Here, my mom has posted many opportunities to reach out to those that are going through the process of adoption.

- Pray for the needs of more than 160 million orphans in this world...

If that doesn't move you to care for orphans in some way, maybe these precious faces will. 

These are five faces of once orphans who now have forever families. Only by the amazing gift of adoption did they receive this amazing and wonderful thing. A thing that you and I take for granted every day...

 My sister EllaKate...given a forever family at 11 months old...

...now she is a beautiful and healthy 6 year old...

My sister ShayleeJoy...given a forever family just over 1 year ago...

...now she is healed from a heart defect and is healthier than ever...

My baby brother Will Perry...given his forever family just a couple weeks ago, read his story HERE...

My nephew William...given a forever family at 5 years old...

...now a handsome and healthy 8 year old...

My nephew Daniel...given a forever family at 5 years old...

...now a happy and healthy 6 year old...

Please act now because adoption is our mission and a way that KINDNESS can become apart of our lives each and every day. 

If it's on God's heart, it should be on our hearts too!

"In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.' " Acts 20:35

 ---------------------------------

Savannah

Life's Greatest Challenge

"I tell you, love your enemies. Help and give without expecting a return. You'll never-I promise-regret it. Live out this God-Created identity the way our Father lives toward us, generously and graciously, even when we're at our worst. Our father is kind; you be kind." Luke 6:35-36 The Message. 

I'd be willing to bet that most of us have someone in our lives that we just don't like. Maybe they did something to hurt us, or maybe there is just something about them that irritates us, maybe we feel like the choices they are making aren't right. Whatever the reason, most of us have had a person like this in our lives at some point. We build up these negative feelings towards them in hopes that we will make ourselves feel better. Unfortunately, this is rarely the case. Usually we end up feeling worse and the negative feelings consume our lives. It eventually ends up effecting other parts of our lives that are not even related to this person. 

As Christians we are called to love our enemies. The love described here is a general love, meaning you don't romantically love them or even love them like you love your best friend, but you love them in a genuine way-meaning you care about their well-being. To love your enemy is to find it in your heart to put aside differences and love them regardless.

This is life's greatest challenge. 

But why? Why would we want to love someone who has harmed us or someone who gets under our skin. It's simple: because Jesus loves us. We are sinners, we hurt the Lord time and time again but guess what.. he doesn't leave us. He loves us unconditionally just as we should love others. 

Showing love to your enemy is to show Christ's love on earth. I feel like so many people have this warped view of Christianity because they see those who claim to follow Christ making judgements against their enemies. As followers of Jesus we are called to love EVERYONE-no.matter.what! 

I know it's not easy, let's be honest the last thing we want to do is smile and act like that person doesn't bother us.. but if we think about it in terms of Jesus' love for us it makes a whole lot more sense. Jesus is a friend to sinners, and so should we. If we want people to come to Jesus we have to love them like He loves them. Let our hearts be lead by mercy and not judgement. 

Listen to the lyrics of this song and really think about the relationships you have in your life. Are you loving like Jesus? Are there some people you need to make things right with? 

"Help us to remember we are all the least of thieves let the memory of your mercy bring your people to their knees, no body knows what were for only what we're against when we judge the wounded, what if we put down our signs, crossed over the lines and loved like You did?"

Click here for video :)

Be Blessed,

Jamie

It was His idea

Monday morning to YOU!  I hope every one of you had a great time celebrating Thanksgiving with your friends and family.  There is something so special about Thanksgiving week for me (Nicole) and I look forward to that week full of remembrance and thanksgiving all week.  This year was extra special.  I spent the weekend before thanksgiving week in Georgia with Jamie, Jessica, and Savannah!  Yep, the Fearless gals were all in one place together, and it was perfect, y’all.  I’m sure you will hear more about our fun weekend at the end of the week, but I can’t wait that long to show you a picture of us ALL TOGETHER.  :)

As Jessica likes to call us, “The Fearless Four”! Ha!

We are starting this Monday with a little post on kindness. 

Let’s just jump right in the Word, shall we?

“Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in the world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus.” Ephesians 2:7 MSG

If that doesn’t make you want to jump up and down on a Monday morning, I don’t know what will!

Let’s unpack this verse a little bit by looking at it from the end to the beginning.  It is IN Christ that we are shown kindness.  God shows us kindness THROUH the life of Christ.  Isn’t that essential to our faith?  Because of Jesus Christ, all good things flow. 

Let’s look at the next few verses in that passage before going back to 2:7.

“Saving is all his idea, and all his work.  All we do is trust him enough to let him do it.  It’s God’s gift from start to finish!  We don’t play the major role.”

Wow, rich stuff.  Kindness originated with God.  When Adam and Eve sinned and caused the human race to fall, God decided to send someone to take the blame.  Even though we did NOTHING to deserve the grace that came through the blood of Jesus Christ, He sent him anyway.  God IS kindness.

As Ephesians 2:7 says, God has all the time in the world and the next to shower us with his grace and kindness.  Do you know what that means?

His grace and kindness won’t stop.  EVER.

Grace, love, forgiveness, kindness and every good thing was his idea.  Nothing that we have ever done has made us worthy.  The “saving thing” was all his idea and all we ever have to do is trust him.  That’s it!  We don’t have to wrap our lives in a little bow and pretend everything is perfect.  We can rest in his perfect love, forgiveness and kindness.

To lead us into our discussions about having kindness towards others this week, let’s apply this:

God showed us eternal kindness by sending his son to die for us, even though we mocked him, laughed at him, and are ultimately unworthy of his forgiveness.

God showed us THAT kind of kindness.

Aren’t we supposed to reflect the heart of God?

Here is my challenge for you.  This week think of someone that you haven’t shown kindness to “because”.  You know that that “because” is for you. 

Maybe the person really hurt your feelings.

Maybe the person went out to hurt you on purpose.

Maybe the person turned their back on you when you needed them most.

Maybe the person has been downright MEAN.

Whatever the “because” is for you, I want you to think about one way that you can show the kindness of Christ to them.  God could urge you just to pray for them, or he may push you to be so bold as to step out of your comfort zone to show kindness to them.

Whatever the case, be Jesus to someone else.  Show kindness to them in a world full of people who don’t because of their “because” situations.

After all, Jesus showed kindness to you through the cross regardless of all the reasons he could have withheld it “because”.

We love because Christ loved us. 1 John 4:19

Nicole