The Full Armor of God

http://www.pegsplace.us/armor.html

My Daily Rituals - turning them into habits!

I have gathered these from my experiences in the last 8 months, from my Church, Bible, Books and courses I have done.
I would really like to get into the habit of doing the following daily as I think they will help me to become more God like! In other words I want to be a better person;

Be filled with the Holy Spirit
Prayer
Put on every morning The Full Body Armour - please see my other article
Bible reading
Be Grateful for at least five things Daily
Giving away what we have received.

x

How to Love People You Don't Like - Christian Working Woman

I found this article and wanted to share it. Thank you - http://christianworkingwoman.org
Please click on the above link to read the rest of this great article.

Do you have people in your life that you really don't like? If you're human, there are bound to be some of those people around. And it seems to me that we run into these people on our jobs quite often.
Yes, even Christians are allowed to have people in their lives they do not like. I know of no scriptural directive that commands us to like everyone. But I know many verses that tell us to love other people. Here are just two of many:
And this commandment we have from God, that the one who loves God should love his brother also. (1 John 4:21)
Jesus said: "Love your enemies. For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them"
(Luke 6:32 & 35).
It's clear that as Christians we are to love people–all people, yes, even the people we work with. But what about those unlikable people? Since we cannot like them, we usually conclude that we cannot love them either. Don't we have to like people before we can love them? How can we love someone we don't like?
Part of the problem is that we misunderstand the word love. The kind of love that we need in order to love people we don't like is agape love, God's kind of love. Now, agape love is not a feeling. Though we may experience nice feelings as a result of agape love, it does not depend on how we feel or how others feel about us. We can express agape love whether the feelings are present or absent, whether they are good or bad. This kind of love is not a feeling.

Click on the link above to read the rest of this very good article.

My Father or The Father? Suicide, Death and Heaven.

It seems to be so relevant this weekend, and somehow throughout the last 13 years I have never made a connection. Why, because I was not a Christian before and not aware of why Christ died or even when he died. That is really bad, but I am not going to beat myself up about it. I always remember my Fathers  birthday around the time I met my amazing hubby Ben. In fact Ben and I first kissed in the pub my mother and father met in, back in 1974. Now that is spooky! Oh and we kissed to Stevie Wonder's Superstition, my father's most favourite song of all time.

Yesterday was the day we, my sisters, cremated my father 13 years ago. Although 13 years ago, I have done what a lot of humans do: that is, lock away the hurt and pain. However, now I have children I seem to be unlocking all that hurt and pain. I went to a small communion at church in the early morning as we were going out for a family day out. The service was rather small, closed in and very formal; not conducive to sobbing my heart out and trying not to be noticed. The sermon of course was about Christ on the cross and the 2 people beside him. Considering that it was around the time we said our final goodbyes to my father I thought of him and whether in his last moments he had asked God for forgiveness. I never knew and will never know if my father believed in God or even for that matter if he is in heaven!!!

I asked the question: Has my father gone to Heaven as he actually took his own life? If and when I go to Heaven will I meet him there? I always cried to Chris Rea stairway to heaven. It makes me feel very sad that my father lived a very lonely, painful life and that taking his life was to end his long life of suffering. I totally understand why, but do miss him terribly. I can never know if he would have been proud of me as a mother and wife. It saddens me that he never met my amazing husband Ben and my beautiful children.

I also asked the question: will God forgive him because he was mentally disturbed with schizophrenia, maybe due to family inheritance or unhealthy life style?  I know deep down in my fathers heart he was a very good man, he loved people, but was plagued with horror all his life. I hope God that you also saw this and helped him to ask for forgiveness just before he passed away.

So now I will look at things differently and will remember that at Easter time not only did Christ die for us and our Sins, " and I truly thank God that I am now a Christian and that I have been given the wisdom to understand the painful things in my life", my father also died to save himself from the hurt and pain of the life he led.

I just feel sad because I will always have this fantasy that one day I will see my Father again and he can tell me that he is very proud of me and the life I live. So for now, I trust you the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit and I give you all my trust and faith and that "you" will be proud of me and love me for who I am and look after me and my precious family.

And that will be all I need.

Love your enemies

Jesus said: "Love your enemies. For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them"
(Luke 6:32 & 35)

Five things to be grateful for today:

The rain!!
The blossom on all the trees just beautiful
The 3 Easter egg hunts we have done, Dunwich, back garden and Icksworth House just fab.
Nice Warm house 
My cosy bed


OK I am going to put another on here,
That Jesus died on the cross for our sins, we are truly very luck people. Think this should have been number one........