I Don't Struggle With a BAD Attitude!!!

As women, if we are going to be really honest with ourselves, we would have to admit that at times we have BAD ATTITUDES.  We can get grumpy or moody, especially when we are tired or when it's PMS time.  Those attitudes are often easy to recognize in others.  I'm sure you have all experienced having a lady walk through the door and her mood is written all over her, even though she hasn't said a word.  Yet those are not the attitudes that I'm talking about.  I'm talking about about attitudes that are a lot more subtle - they maybe even have become your identity...       

1.     I achieved/accomplished...

2.     I deserve...                 

3.     I need....                          

4.     I must promote myself...

5.     I have to be strong/I am strong...

6.     I must fight for myself, I must protect myself...

7.     I am worthless, stupid, good for nothing...

8.     I can't do anything right, I don't deserve…

9.     I made a fool of myself, I failed, I suck...

10.   I did better than ..., I am not as good as ..

If we were to be completely honest with ourselves, we would have to agree that we struggle with many of the attitudes listed above.  When I asked a group of women which attitudes they saw the most in other women the answer was very clear - #2,7,10 came up as clear winners!    

Why do so many women struggle with these attitudes?  It's because our hearts are sinful and naturally we are all selfish.  You heard me right!  Selfish!  

 So what does it mean to be selfish.  Often when we think of selfishness we think of little kids who are fighting over a toy.  We see this sort of behaviour in our children and we work at teaching them the importance of placing other people's interests ahead of our own.  We teach cooperation but rarely do we get to the heart issues.  When the heart issues aren't dealt with the selfishness just begins to look different as we get older, but it's still there.   Let's go over the list above again, but now with different eyes.

1.     I achieved/I accomplished... is actually self-fulfillment

2.     I deserve...  is actually self-gratification                 

3.     I need.... is actually self-pleasure                          

4.     I must promote myself...  is actually self-advancement

5.     I have to be strong/I am strong...is actually self-reliance

6.     I must fight for myself/I must protect myself...is self-preservation

7.     I am worthless/stupid/good for nothing...is actually self-hate

8.     I can't do anything right/I don't deserve…is actually self-condemnation

9.     I made a fool of myself/I failed/I suck...is actually self-criticism

10.   I did better than/I am not as good as...is actually self-comparison

When we struggle with these attitudes, we are actually struggling with selfishness.  God desires for us to die to self so that we can be true disciples, fruitful in ministry!  

John 12:24 I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

Matthew 16:24-25 ...If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.

In order to become fruitful disciples of Christ, true disciples of Christ, Jesus calls us to die to self.  This means that we are to put aside our selfish ways, including the attitudes listed above.  It's a lot harder than you may think.  For many of us, these attitudes have been our default ways of thinking and reacting since we were children.  These attitudes have been coping mechanisms for us, they are so much a part of us that we don't even know who we are without them.  They have become our identity   But without them, we will be more like Christ, we will be more godly, and we will begin to experience authentic, genuine fellowship with other women.  It's worth the effort!  AND, it's what God is calling us to do!  How do we do this?  Follow the steps below...

Practical Application:

1. Ask the Lord to show you 2-3 of the attitudes listed above that you need to deal with today.  

2. Write a prayer of confession to the Lord, confessing these attitudes as selfishness and sin.

3. Ask the Lord to show you how He has been faithful to you, even though you have struggled in these areas.  

4. Write a prayer of thanksgiving to the Lord.  Thank Him for His forgiveness, thank Him for showing you the truth so that you can grow and mature into a fruitful disciple. 

Next Steps:

1. Each time these attitudes come up, confess them as sin.

2. Pray regularly for God to change you!  You can't change on your own!

3. Obey each step that He shows you on this journey of learning to die to self!  

Special Thanks to Grace Fast for her contributions to this blog post.  

50 Meals for Mom's

I love it when I see God's hand in things!  People say they don't believe in God because they can't see Him - I ask, "Where are you looking?".  I see Him everywhere.  I saw the way He brought a lady to me whose husband found a pig and slaughtered it for us for free.  I saw the way He had the butcher process all the meat for us for free.  I saw Him in the way ladies just signed up to make the meals, donating their precious time.  I saw Him in the way they gave generous donations for groceries.  I saw Him when pretty much all the groceries were on sale.  I saw Him in the love and fellowship we had together as we made the meals.  I saw Him in the ladies who gave, even when they themselves have big needs.  I saw Him everywhere!  I thank Him for moving in our Wed. cell group.  I worship Him for the many lives I have seen Him transform.  I love Him for who He is and for who He is making me to be.  I know that He will use these meals to glorify Himself and to grow His Kingdom because His fingerprint was all over this.  It was His idea, He orchestrated it and He will bring in the fruit from it!  Thank you Jesus!

Becoming a Woman with an Unoffendable Heart

This week we read John 5-8 in our devotions. Did you notice how many times people got mad at Jesus, they wanted to kill Him, they argued and how much division there was among the Jews?  I have one word to summarize this– OFFENSE!  Many people were offended at Jesus and as a result of this, they grumbled, argued, called Him names and tried to kill Him. 

• Is Jesus Perfect? YES!
• Is everything that Jesus does perfect and right? YES!
• Then why were people offended at Him?

If people could be offended at a perfect, loving, holy and righteous God – how much easier will it be to be offended at each other, considering that we are sinners?

That’s the thing about offense – we become offended because our hearts are wicked and sinful.  One sign that we are broken or wounded is that we offend easily. This is also good news because it means that you are in control of the amount of offense in your heart. This means that we can become women who are unoffendable in all our relationships. 

In reality, in day-to-day life with all its challenges, we are tempted to be offended by other people.  People hurt us and don’t treat us as we think they should.  The occasions for taking offense are practically endless. 

CAVEAT – we are not saying that the person who offends you is in the right, they could be dead wrong.  But that gives us no right to be offended. 

We are daily given the opportunity to either be offended by something or to possess an unoffendable heart.  God’s desire for us is an unoffendable heart.  He wants to use every possibility of offense as an opportunity for us to become more like Christ.  Taking offense against another person will only turn into bitterness and unforgiveness.  It will hinder our prayer life and affect every other area of our life.  The devil will use it to bring division, ruin our relationships and make us totally ineffective.  The biggest struggle for most Christians is in the area of relationships, especially in families.

Often little offenses accumulate and cause our love to grow cold, especially in marriage.  This causes women to fall out of love with their husbands.  The same is true in other family relationships – so many women struggle with being offended at a sister, a mother, or in-laws…. Maybe someone fails to meet our expectations or we don’t like someone’s personality  Someone might hurt us by something they said, and we react out of pain.  Little offenses turn into big boulders that we stumble over.  It is very dangerous to harbor little offenses. 

Personal differences are a breeding ground for offence, especially among women:

• Bottle feeding vs. nursing – how long to nurse…
• Disciple of children
• Stay at home mom vs. working mom
• Home school vs. public school
• Organic food, sugar and sugar substitutes, flour or spelt???
• Chemical cleaning products or no chemicals
• Then there are multiple church issues that come up… doctrine…etc.

One of the reasons why we have sharing guidelines in this cell is because when we share out of a heart of offense, we spew hurt and bitterness and unforgiveness.  This often makes us feel better temporarily but in the long run we actually aren't fixing the problem, we are masking it and without dealing with the real problem we end up worse than before.PLEASE FOLLOW THE SHARING GUIDELINES – they are to protect you from offense. 

Personal differences cause great irritation and offense that can became a trap of Satan.  How can we walk through life successfully and avoid the trap of offense?  .

Luke 6:

Vs. 27 – love your enemies, do good to those who hate [offend] you

Vs. 28 – bless those who curse [offend] you, pray for those who mistreat [offend] you

Vs. 31 – do unto others as you would have them do unto you

Vs. 35 – love you enemies, do good to them without expecting to get anything back

Vs. 41 – worry about the plank in your own eye instead of the speck in your brothers…

Vs. 47 – don’t just hear my words but put them into practice

How can we walk through daily life and avoid traps of offense?  How can we learn to have an unoffendable heart? 

We need to listen carefully to our thoughts - These are like silent conversations in our heart.  Has someone or some situation caused us to be offended?  These ongoing conversations can be destructive.  They are dead-end conversations that get nowhere.  We must guard our hearts and not even let our minds go there. 

We need to look carefully at our conversations – we must learn to shut our mouths and not talk to others about our hurts but bring them to God.  Pray about the things that offend you instead of running to a friend to dump on.  Each time you are tempted to be offended, ask the Lord to show you what’s wrong with your heart. 

We need to be careful with our online activity - especially Facebook. People smear their problems and hurts all over FB.  It’s sinful.  It’s not just FB, I’ve read many blogs that are women just using the internet as an emotional dumping ground.  Stop doing this, stop reading this!    Also, FB chat’s – many of which are just people arguing and being divisive without real ministry being done.    They argue about churches, doctrine, TV shows…it’s mostly rooted in being critical and negative.  Again, just stop posting and reading this garbage.    

We need to learn to forgive - We must learn to forgive from the heart and not seek revenge.  This takes time, and we must work at it until it works into us.  Then our internal dialogue begins to change.  We need God’s grace to forgive.  He will help us to forgive and pray for our enemies. 

We need to die to self - We must use every offense as an opportunity to die to our selfish ways.  We need to use these offenses as an opportunity to become more Christ like. 

We need to focus on God - Jesus is our example.  He will give us a new heart.  When we let ourselves get offended, we are focusing on self instead of God.  We need to look up and ask God for help.  We need to focus on His attributes and worship Him.  He will help us through every offensive situation.  He will bring justice into our situation.  God is absolutely just, and only He can ensure that justice is fully carried out.  If we are impatient and seek revenge, we presume that we are wiser than God, and we reveal a blatant lack of trust that God will do the right thing.  Only by trusting God’s sovereign wisdom will we be free from our anger and preoccupation toward those who have committed evil.  If we refuse to trust God’s justice, we become enslaved to bitterness and anger.  We must guard our hearts and trust God to exercise His judgment against those who oppose Him.

Prayer Sheet:

Read Luke 6: 27-36

1. Ask the Lord to show you someone whom you have been offended at, no matter how little the offense.  Confess this as sin, repent of it and ask the Lord to help you turn from this sinful behaviour.
2. Ask the Lord to show you any ways where you have been protecting your heart from this person, either consciously or unconsciously.  Ask Him what He wants you to do about this. 
3. Ask the Lord to show you how He wants you to show His love to this person.
4. Ask the Lord to show you what area He wants you to work on in order to grow an unoffendable heart:  Thoughts, Conversations, Online activity, Forgiveness, Die to Self, Focus on God
5. Ask the Lord if there is anything else He wants to say to you today?