So I have taken on cooking at the house. Since our financial demise over the past few years Tara has been forced to take a second job. She works at Publix 2 nights a week, that leaves me with all the chores and all teh cooking for a few nights each week. That originally meant frozen pizzas, pizza pockets, fish sticks and ofcourse chicken nuggets. But, after a while even the girls wanted to broaden the spectrum a bit. So, I have tackled a few other things slowly, and mastered few of them. I do like to cook on the grill over the weekend leaving me plenty of food for the weeknights and for my lunches. But I will confess I have not tackled anything major that includes a recipe(unless sloppy joes or mashed potatoes count).
To me many times scriptures act as a recipe, a list of the ingredients needed to put together the perfect believer. Not perfect by God's standards, but as close to perfect as humanly possible. One such scripture is 1 Peter 3:8.
Finally, all of you, live in hamony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult,but with blessing,because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.
THere is so much to break down in these verses, the apostle Peter wrote this book of the Bible for those who he knew would face persecution as believers. He wrote this particular set of verses to those who were wondering how they should conduct themselves when the persecution comes from other believers.
It's clear that he wants us to live in harmony and avoid conflict as much as possible. In a church setting harmony should be easy because we are all seeking to grow closer to God, and to reach those who do not know Him. Secondly, he urges us to be sympathetic. In other words get into the habit of putting yourself in the other person's shoes. If you do that, you will find yourself far less defensive and far more understanding. Third, is the one that covers over it all, be compassionate and humble. If you will be humble, all the rest of these things will become automatic. You will have no problem putting yourself in other people's shoes if you stop thinking of yourself as better than them. Think about it, the majority of the time when we are arguing it is because we think our opinion and our feelings are right and more important than the other person's. Humility will cover over all of this, you won't fight for what you think is right so often when you realize(here's an epiphany!!!!!!!) that you are capable of being wrong! What? That's right and an even bigger epiphany, others can be right sometimes. That's right people other than you are capable of being right.
So be humble, put yourself in the other person's shoes and allow God's love and compassion to rule in all your dealings, especially inside of your church family.
Thanks for reading and have a great day.
We do have our website up, it isn't finished but it's up and you can find the blog on one of the pages there as well. IT's www.freedomfamilysa.com
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