And yes, I posted earlier about trying to follow the great commandment. I suck. OBVIOUSLY. I try and I try and I try and I fail and I fail and I fail. One of these days I'm not going to fail. Then you will see me smile a smile that covers the entire bottom half of my face OR I'll be lying there dead of a heart attack.
Which brings me to another rant . . . I have a friend who keeps getting mad at me and saying that she/he is sorry that they are not a saint like me.
Do I sound like a saint?!? I'm a work in progress people. Some days I am good and I have made strides (at least in my own mind) towards becoming a better person but I'm still a person and I still suck. I will continue to suck until I am transformed. I have that hope (being transformed). I have the hope that I am a work in progress. I know that the Holy Spirit is working within me, but there is so much work that needs to be done, and I'm stuck here on earth, and it is a messy messy place. I get cleaned up and then bam, in the dirt I go again, but I keep getting up because His strength is sufficient and He is obviously not through with me yet.
Is this not normal? Maybe other people are quicker on turning their life around. I've never said that I'm anything other than slightly retarded (I know, not politically correct term but I'm ranting here!)
To be very honest with you I spend a whole lot of my time wishing I couldn't speak. Then I wouldn't have to be kicking myself all the time. I know that my words are supposed to be kind and encouraging and sometimes they are. Other times . . . argh.
These are some of the verses (His Words) that give me hope.
Romans 5:1-21 ESV / Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. ...
1 John 3:2-3 ESV / Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.
Psalm 51:10-12 ESV /Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.
I apologize for not learning more quickly and I do not want to hurt anyone ever ever ever. I do not want to lead anyone astray. I want you to find your way to Jesus and I want you to experience the love and guidance and hope that I see in His Word. I want us all to be together in heaven. I get so excited when I think of heaven. What did Jesus say?
John 14
New International Version (NIV)
Jesus Comforts His Disciples
14 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God[a]; believe also in me. 2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going.”
Jesus the Way to the Father
5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really know me, you will know[b] my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”
9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. 12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
Jesus Promises the Holy Spirit
15 “If you love me, keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be[c] in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 21 Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”
22 Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?”
23 Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24 Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.
25 “All this I have spoken while still with you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
28 “You heard me say, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. 29 I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe. 30 I will not say much more to you, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold over me, 31 but he comes so that the world may learn that I love the Father and do exactly what my Father has commanded me.
“Come now; let us leave.
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