Are we waiting for a better time to really live? Are we thinking that when we get our lives in "order", then we'll get serious about knowing the God who created us? Are we thinking that being a spouse or girlfriend is enough stress right now that we can't add on another level of getting serious with our spiritual lives simultaneously? Sometimes I get caught in these thoughts. However, I know that the time to really live the life God has given me is now....same with you.
Dear friends, women of truth, let us let the people in our lives see us LIVE. Let them see us live for a higher purpose than ourselves and our own agenda. Let them see us live for truth in the public places and in the comforts of home. Let them see us live fully for the One who gives us a life to live out loud in the first place. Let the people in our world SEE us live......not just exist. Let each breath we take be for the purpose of honoring the Great God who loves us unconditionally and sacrificially. Let us live.....have a heart beat for being women of peace in our communities. Let us live....pursuing knowledge as a way to bless others around us and live for God's great purpose more effectively. Let us live....show kindness and understanding and deep God-powered love to our spouses and our children.
This is a huge exhortation to me and you in honor of my dear friend/sister in Christ---Karen M. who is battling cancer and who is (from what I've been told) is close to meeting our LORD face to face. All of her family and friends are waiting to see what God's will is going to be for her in this--her battle with cancer. We know God has even brought people back from the grave. We know nothing is impossible for God. We just wait and continue in gratitude to our God for allowing us to know Karen and be blessed by her sweet spirit, wise words and loving service to so many lives.
Karen has always inspired me (like so many other dear women I have the privilege to know--including my fantastic mother) to LIVE life and not just exist. Karen lives life to the full. Encouraging everyone around her; strengthening them with her God-driven counsel and hope-filled words and giving of her talents and gifts selflessly. I pray everyday that God wouldn't take her to heaven so soon. I am selfish and I want her to stay here on this earth and continue to glorify God with her life here; to share His amazing love with many more people till a very old age. But God's will is so much higher than our human will.
So, I pray for you and me, dear friends, that we let our light shine! If you feel your light is burnt out.....go get the Word of God--read it and start the fire again. Let's go! Let's really LIVE!
COLOSSIANS 1:3-18 (The Message----a paraphrase version)
3-5Our prayers for you are always spilling over into thanksgivings. We can't quit thanking God our Father and Jesus our Messiah for you! We keep getting reports on your steady faith in Christ, our Jesus, and the love you continuously extend to all Christians. The lines of purpose in your lives never grow slack, tightly tied as they are to your future in heaven, kept taut by hope.
5-8The Message is as true among you today as when you first heard it. It doesn't diminish or weaken over time. It's the same all over the world. The Message bears fruit and gets larger and stronger, just as it has in you. From the very first day you heard and recognized the truth of what God is doing, you've been hungry for more. It's as vigorous in you now as when you learned it from our friend and close associate Epaphras. He is one reliable worker for Christ! I could always depend on him. He's the one who told us how thoroughly love had been worked into your lives by the Spirit.
9-12Be assured that from the first day we heard of you, we haven't stopped praying for you, asking God to give you wise minds and spirits attuned to his will, and so acquire a thorough understanding of the ways in which God works. We pray that you'll live well for the Master, making him proud of you as you work hard in his orchard. As you learn more and more how God works, you will learn how to do your work. We pray that you'll have the strength to stick it out over the long haul—not the grim strength of gritting your teeth but the glory-strength God gives. It is strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy, thanking the Father who makes us strong enough to take part in everything bright and beautiful that he has for us.
13-14God rescued us from dead-end alleys and dark dungeons. He's set us up in the kingdom of the Son he loves so much, the Son who got us out of the pit we were in, got rid of the sins we were doomed to keep repeating.
15-18We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God's original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body.
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