Non-conformity of the Christian's Life

I had the opportunity to go away this past weekend and took it. While away my friend and I attended a Beachy Amish Mennonite church, such a blessing! It is one of the more conservative Beachy churches, and we both really enjoyed ourselves. So much that we even went back for their evening service, which happened to be a song service! Oh how I love to sing. Can't say I'm the greatest, but I do love to sing :) The lady I was sitting next to was surprised at how quick I picked up the tunes because I hadn't sang any of the songs they were singing before, and half of them had no music notes with the words, so it was a complete shot in the dark :)

Anyway, their morning service message was on non-conformity. I found this to be a wonderful message for me to listen to. So much so that I took notes (I do not remember the last time I took notes!). The minister said there are three main sub-sections of non-conformity.

1. Non-conformity of the heart
2. Non-conformity of our actions and speech
3. Non-conformity of our dress

There is scripture that supports all three of these sub-categories for non-conformity.

For non-conformity of the heart, read: Luke 16:15, John 17:14, Titus 2:14, James 4:4, 1 Peter 2:9, 1 John 2:15. Verses on what God thinks about "the world": Romans 8:5-14 (emphasis on verse 13).

There are seven different areas that fall under non-conformity of our actions and speech (according to the minister, you may think of more), they are:
1. Our obedience
2. A pure heart
3. Humility
4. Charity/love
5. Joy of the Lord
6. Integrity
7. Peace

As for non-conformity of our dress, his guidelines were as follows: It's not about fitting in, it's about looking and acting Godly.

Please remember, you will not get salvation through practicing non-conformity, that is strictly through your faith and belief in Jesus Christ our Lord, but this is an obedience issue.

With my writing out scripture, I have come across some of my favorite verses again :)

Philippians 4:6 (NKJV) - "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God"

Philippians 4:13 (NKJV) - "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me"

Philippians 4:19 (NKJV) - "And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus"

These verses speak so powerfully to me so I thought I would share them with you.

Blessings in Christ,

My view on the Bible

I started thinking more about my mom's issue with me taking the Bible as a "rule book". Am I really taking it solely as a "rule book"? I don't think so because there are certainly topics that I do not follow as strictly as either maybe I should or as others do. She said she really wants me to recognize God's love as "my" God's love. Not "the" Lord's love.

I explained it to her like this, and thought the analogy was rather good if I am allowed to say so :)

"It's like with you and dad, I do not need to do anything to earn your love. You give me your love. However, there are rules you expect me to obey. It's the same with God and His love. He gives me His love unconditionally and without me doing anything to earn it, but there are still rules that He expects us all to follow."

My mom has a real issue with me taking anything but Jesus' word as His. So that is part of our differences on covering and modest dressing. Even though I do not agree with her opinion on this, I am trying to understand where she is coming from. The only thing she truly obeys are the 10 Commandments, but those are not "rules" for her to follow. Those are simply guidelines to her. They are rules or commands to me. This is a huge difference for us -- one that I do not think will change, thus I am trying to understand her point of view.

Blessings in Christ,

Crawling...

I have begun to crawl I think, but I may be knocked down again. One friend has been helping to hold me accountable with God. I am all to ready to give up on Him for a time more. I just cannot grasp how He would allow all to happen that is happening right now. She has given me "homework" as she likes to call it :) Writing out specific scripture verses by hand. I know for sure it will help with scripture knowledge, I just am not sure if it will help strengthen my faith again.

I am back to my covering when I am out of the house and in my bedroom. It causes too much "discomfort" for my parents when I cover in their house so I was asked not to. I am doing my best to respect their wishes, but I also feel like I am disobeying God and do not know how to compromise on this. Or do I not compromise? They are blaming my sadness on my covering as well. Seems odd to me because I love my covering. It is everything else in my life that is causing me to be sad and quiet now, but they don't seem to recognize that as the cause.

I am looking forward to this weekend though, I get to go visit my friend :)

I am sharing my struggles to hopefully allow everyone to see that as strong as I may be in my faith at some times, I certainly am not that strong all the time. This time is one that I am definitely struggling. It is certainly not hte first time I have struggled this much and I guarantee you this will not be the last!

Blessings in Christ,

What if I Stumble?

"What if I stumble? What if I fall?
What if I lose my step and I make fools of us all?
Will the love continue when my walk becomes a crawl?
What if I stumble? And what if I fall?"
- DC Talk's "What if I stumble?"

For the past week and a half, I have been stumbling. Both emotionally and in my faith. They are intertwined though. I have been feeling guilty that I did not do enough to help a friend in need, that I helped her but then I left the area and am not there to physically support her. I have been able to work through that feeling for the most part, but then another blow. I felt abandonded. Because the people that are helping her decided I could not visit her for two-three weeks and her and I were both already struggling because we both felt I should be with her and not at home. I felt like I was being abandonded by them and by God. How could God let me sit here feeling so guilty and then add another blow? I gave up on Him for a few days. I have started praying again, but not nearly as much as I was before all this happened. I haven't read my Bible though, well nearly as much as I should be for a time like this. I have a tendancy to do really well with everything spiritually when everything in my life is going well, it is when things are not going so well that I stumble. Odd fact, which seems rather backwards to me, but I read somewhere (not sure where) that more people are good with God in the bad times and forget to rely on Him during the good times as well. Does that seem a little bit backwards to anyone else?

I am also stumbling because I have been wearing a covering in the house and everywhere since I got back from my mini-vacation almost 2 weeks ago (yay!), but it has put up a wall between my parents and I who despise my covering. They say it makes them uncomfortable and I need to think about how I am making others feel before I put it on. Odd? To me that is. They have never once told me to think of other people first before what I am doing for my Lord. However, they do not believe this command is from the Lord, they believe it is from Paul who my mom's pastor calls a "pharisee fanatic".

Those are my stumbling blocks right now, how are you doing in your walk with the Lord? I am slowly starting to crawl again and hope to pick myself back up when I am able.

Blessings in Christ,

How do you view the Bible??

Poll for anyone who is interested in sharing their opinion!

Is the Bible a "guide book" or a "rule book"?

This is the current debate between my mom and I. She is a firm believer that it is a general guide book for life and believes I take it as a rule book since I cover and dress modest.

Blessings in Christ,

This past weekend

This past weekend was such a blessing for me. I went to Ohio to meet up with a fellow covering sister in Christ and we stayed with a couple that I had met on my last trip there. Such a wonderful good time that we had while we were there!! My friend's husband even enjoyed having 3 women in his house lol!! While we were there, we went to church twice :) Such a wonderful blessing to have a whole roomful of respectfully dressed and covered women during worship. No distractions, except for the children who have yet to learn to sit quietly in church :)

We went to several attractions while we were there and they were enjoyable, but the true blessing was my one friend whom we stayed with. She truly has God's gift with words - something I have to work on. I absolutely love how God has developed that gift in her, her husband even seems to have that gift as well, but he is rather quiet and does not speak much...but when he does, it is really a blessing if you are able to listen :) Another highlight was to see how a couple who absolutely loves God lives for Him everyday! My parents are the kind of people who go to church maybe twice a month and that's about it. I don't mean to say that when they are not in church that they do awful things, but they definitely do not live for God the way this couple does! I truly wish to emulate them in my life so that I may live for God each and everyday, not just Sundays :)

Food for thought: How do you live for God each day of your life?

Blessings in Christ,

Spiritual Gifts

I recently joined a Yahoo! Group and was asked to take a Spiritual Gifts assessment. It was 130 questions long, super long! I am curious, have any of you been told your Spiritual Gifts? It was determined that my main gift is faith, with administration, helps, intercession, leadership, mercy, shepherding, and wisdom as more gifts that the Lord may or may not be developing in me. I was able to read the description of those gifts and I can see how I fit into each of those categories.

If you have not been told your Spiritual Gifts and would like to know, here is a website that you can use. The only down side of this one that I have found is there are not as many gifts listed as the one that I originally took. Other than that, it is pretty accurate.

Do you agree with your Spiritual Gifts? Are you able to see how God implements these through your daily life?

I think it is absolutely wonderful how the Lord gives each and everyone of us different gifts and different ways that we use the gifts He has given us.

Blessings in Christ,