Sacrifice

1 John 4: 8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

I live a life without to live a life with. Doesn’t make sense does it?

This is what is on my heart today:

Mark 8: Mark 8: 34 And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
[35] For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it.
[36] For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
[37] Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
[38] Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.

I grew up in a household with five older siblings. They all had wants and needs and most of them TOOK what they wanted and needed. I learned from them. I stole, I drank, I lied, I hated. I was a normal child right? Wrong. And to think I was being raised Catholic, and you wonder why I’m not Catholic now?

I respect the Catholic religion but I lose respect for people who ABUSE that religion or any religion for that matter. I’ve seen many ‘Christians’ abuse the faith too, so I’m NOT pointing fingers here. Speaking from experience, MY experience, I’ve lost all respect for my family. There are things I’ve forgiven over and over and over again, only for them to continue to be the hypocrites they are. It truly hurts.

When I chose to convert from being a Catholic to a Christian, I knew I was different than them. Not BETTER than, just different than. They knew it too and I feel THAT is the reason I’ve been shunned half of my life.

Sacrifice. Sometimes you have to give up things in order to get the real things out of life. Yesterday’s post was about values. Sacrifice, I believe, is a part of the vitality that carries values and morals the full length. I also believe a nation without God is a faltering nation.

Imagine a young girl, say sixteen or seventeen, sacrificing the pleasure of attention from a guy, feeling so self–assured, and waiting to have sex and a baby. Because we all know teen pregnancy is out of control. The majority of these teens were born out of a teen pregnancy.

The mother feels trapped; they let grandparents, the school system, and any other person raise their kids while they go on drugging, working, ignoring the child that they bore. Then when the child grows, gets into trouble, she washes her hands of them, or worse becomes a grandmother having to raise her child’s child! She didn’t do any good at raising HER child as a teen, what makes her think she can do better at raising a grandchild?

Sacrifice. Sometimes a girl needs her confidence in herself so she DOESN’T need the attention of a man/boy. As you know, to boys, girls are what THEY need to conquer the world. Waiting to have sex is NOT an option and they take the first easy, low self-esteem girl they see, and ruins her life by making her feel that sex is the answer to both of their insecurities!

You might be saying, “What does she know?” I’ll tell you! I was one of those low self- esteem girls pregnant at sixteen! Go ahead, point fingers. Remember, I was raised in an alcoholic drug infested household where the Catholic religion was being abused. Granted my mother and father have been married sixty years now, their children, not ALL have never gotten out of the destruction alcohol causes.

Me? I married the first boy who touched me and got me pregnant. We stayed married for twenty years. I felt I owed it to God to sacrifice my entire life to Him so I stayed married, until God said it was time to move on. After cleaning myself up and dedicating my life to God, life took on a whole new meaning. (I had no one but GOD guiding me.)

I wonder if someone can reach out to these girls at a ripe young age and help them to see their inner beauty. We have too much evil crawling the streets so getting to reach these kids is harder than it sounds. Boys need to see their worthiness too! Girls are NOT just sex toys and boys are NOT just sex machines.

No one is willing to sacrifice these days. Their cable television is more important than their car. Their fast food is more important than a family-eating together-at home-meal. Their clothes are more important than their electric bill. You see what I’m saying here? If adults are struggling with the simple sacrifices, how are we to expect our children to learn from us? How is this teaching them responsibility?

Have you ever tried walking into the Goodwill and buying clothes? To proud? What? Do you think people are going to look at your butt and say, Goodwill, pass. Are you really THAT self righteous that you can’t sacrifice $20 jeans for a $6 pair of name brand jeans?

Really? Let go of that pride and ego and you might find that extra money you need every month to pay bills.

Spend time with the kids, play Frisbee, horseshoes, catch or take nature walks. By SACRIFICING small things you will unknowingly be bringing God into your life. If you already HAVE God in your life, you should already understand this.

Life is not about having it all, that’s greed. Life is not about going out and taking anything you can’t have, that’s selfishness. Life is not about killing one thing to get another, that’s anger, greed AND selfishness. Life is about LOVE and wrapping it up in your heart to share it with others. Life is about sacrifice and when you can’t sacrifice, you won’t know the blessings God has in store for you. You’ll never taste the fruit you so richly deserve and are freely given.

I live a life without to live a life with. Makes more sense now, doesn’t it?

Mark 10:19 Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Defraud not, Honour thy father and mother.
[20] And he answered and said unto him, Master, all these have I observed from my youth.
[21] Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.

Family Values

Job 13: 4 But ye are forgers of lies, ye are all physicians of no value.

Well here we go again, yet another heinous school shooting. I remember back in 2000 when my son was old enough to start school, I knew in my heart that it was a bad idea. I could feel the winds of change although there had been no school shootings in my area, I was not going to send my kid to a government run, bureaucratic system.

There have been over one hundred school shootings since 1980 and a massive amount of fatal deaths in those shootings. Statistically it began ascending after the Columbine incident and to this day is a growing trend in America. That’s not taking into consideration the massive shootings in malls and movie houses.

What is happening in America that people just want other people dead because either their life isn’t as good as the next person’s, or they’re mentally unstable, or they’re angry at a country which is failing them.

I follow the vile hatred of these stories in disbelief. While others think I have rose colored glasses on and am blind to the world around me, I AM aware. I find it quite silly to place blame. No, school shootings are not our government’s fault, guns are not to blame, the ease of getting guns are not to blame. The mind is to blame. Self value is to blame!

Somewhere along the line we lost the value in life. These days we glorify death, we support the smarmy entertainment business, (yes, even Christians who say they can’t stand this and that are supporting the sleaze that comes through the box!)

I hear so many couples (with kids more times than not) say they can’t make ends meet. They can’t afford their two cars, clothes that they worked for, no less, eating out five or six times a month, they can’t afford the cable bills or electric bills and barely have food for the kids. What?

Sure blame the husband because he’s tired of having no money. Blame the wife for having too many shoes that she DESERVES; blame, blame, blame!! Here we go. The modern family has two people working (to barely make ends meet) the kids are off in a school system where parents allow the system to raise their children, so they can make ends meet, mind you. And what value do parents place on their children?

Sure we live in a society of let me buy you this let me buy you that. Buy materials, you’ll be happy. Enjoy trash on TV, you’ll be happy. Have two cars, buy steaks, eat out at restaurants, you’ll be happy.

Guess what people, YOU’RE NOT HAPPY!! You’re a devalued human being, being manipulated by materials and you’re ALLOWING it to happen instead of taking a stance for your FAMILY and family VALUES!

Kids are having kids, they become hard to handle so they put them on drugs. ADHD drugs that from every commercial I see come with a warning: May cause suicidal tendencies. This is what the kid’s flipping out and killing people were more than likely on as a child. Their mother’s, who became divorced, couldn’t handle the wild child, and placed him on meds. We lost value of life along the way of medication and an over abundance of materials. The media is saturating society with what they THINK people want to see, and people claim to hate it but the majority is watching it and buying into the devaluing of society.

We no longer value marriage, we no longer WANT to spend time with the kids, we’d rather put them in front of a TV and let a game system raise them. We over feed them on takeout food, we’d rather work to make more money so we can have luxuries of the world. A tainted crop of humans has emerged and it is not pretty.

Blame evil, blame satan, blame the government, blame everything but yourselves who are showing as much lack of control as these very angry students. Just because you don’t wield a gun doesn’t mean you’re NOT to blame. YOU are enabling them. You are feeding their fire with every meal and tv show, every luxury you bathe in, YOU are to blame.

My son just graduated high school. He CHOSE to go the last four years but he soon discovered it wasn’t HIM who had the societal problem it was society itself. He was taught the rights of Americans and realized he really had none at all. He has CHOSEN not to go to college so as not to burden himself with the money it will cost. And while people frown on his decision and almost laugh at his indecision, I think he made the right decision. He’s thinking of his future while the naysayers are thinking of MONEY in his future. Yeah blame me, his mother, whose life does NOT revolve around money and materials. I taught my son that.

2 Cor. 12:14 Behold, the third time I am ready to come to you; and I will not be burdensome to you: for I seek not yours, but you: for the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children.

Parents need to stop owning children and raise them instead. Values are taught at an early age and you can’t tell a sixteen year old that what he is doing is wrong when he was allowed all his life not to respect morality.

We need to change. We need to put family values back in this world. I think returning to a one person working household is a start. I know you’ll say, “But we can’t AFFORD to be a one person working household.” And I’ll say why? WHAT is it you won’t be able to afford? Cable? Get rid of it. New shoes? Wear the ones you have! Take-out food? Cook at home. This alone will save you HUNDREDS each month!

How are we as adults going to teach our kids responsibility if we ourselves can’t even sacrifice for the luxuries we want and put our NEEDS first? It’s going to be a hard climb back into morality and values when our eyes are fixed on blaming everyone and everything else for the situations we find ourselves in.

God is not to blame! Satan is not to blame! Our government is not to blame! Guns are not to blame! YOU my friend, are to blame. When we start taking responsibility for our own selves, that is when the blame game will end and morals in society will surface and we can begin placing a value on life.

Rom. 30:28-32 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

Quotation Saturday

 Luke 12: 7 But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.
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FOCUS  ~

“To do two things at once is to do neither.”
~Publilius Syrus

“Do not dwell in the past; do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.”
~Buddha

“What this power is I cannot say; all I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in that state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it.”
~Alexander Graham Bell

    
CREATIVITY ~

“Ineffective people live day after day with unused potential. They experience synergy only in small, peripheral ways in their lives. But creative experiences can be produced regularly, consistently, almost daily in people’s lives. It requires enormous personal security and openness and a spirit of adventure.”
 ~Stephen R. Covey

“It is wonderful to be in on the creation of something, see it used, and then walk away and smile at it.”
~Lady Bird Johnson

VALUES ~

Who you are, what your values are, what you stand for...they are your anchor, your north star. You won't find them in a book. You'll find them in your soul.
~Anne M. Mulcahy


Values are where the hard stuff and the soft stuff come together.
~Robert Haas

I value your friendship, I treasure you heart. My values are high standard, never to part! ~Joni Zipp

 
WORDS ~

Say all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will certainly misunderstand them.
~ John Rushkin  (1819 - 1900)

A serious writer is not to be confounded with a solemn writer. A serious writer may be a hawk or a buzzard or even a popinjay, but a solemn writer is always a bloody owl. ~Ernest Hemingway

Our truest responsibility to the irrationality of the world is to paint or sing or write, for only in such response do we find the truth.
~Madeleine L'Engle