nov 27

2 Corinthians 13:7-11
7 We pray to God that you will not do what is wrong by refusing our correction. I hope we won’t need to demonstrate our authority when we arrive. Do the right thing before we come—even if that makes it look like we have failed to demonstrate our authority.
8 For we cannot oppose the truth, but must always stand for the truth.
9 We are glad to seem weak if it helps show that you are actually strong. We pray that you will become mature.
10 I am writing this to you before I come, hoping that I won’t need to deal severely with you when I do come. For I want to use the authority the Lord has given me to strengthen you, not to tear you down.
11 Dear brothers and sisters, I close my letter with these last words: Be joyful. Grow to maturity. Encourage each other. Live in harmony and peace. Then the God of love and peace will be with you.

You're in a hurry to catch your ride after school, so you stop Darla in the hall and hand her a slip of paper. "Would you do me a favor?" you ask her. "Oh," she answers, almost clucking the word like a contented hen. "Of course!" "Could you give this to Cindy Johnson?" you say, nodding to indicate the slip of paper. "She missed algebra class today, so I told her I'd write down the homework assignment for her." "Oh," Darla answers. "I'm not talking to Cindy." "Well," you say, still holding the slip toward Darla, "could you give it to Mike, her boyfriend? He can give it to Cindy." Darla rolls her eyes. "Well," she says, "if I'm not talking to Cindy, I'm not talking to her boyfriend, either. Duh!" "OK, OK," you say, still holding the slip and determined to think of something. "What about. . . could you, um, ask Joe Deters to give it to his brother Kyle, who works with Sylvia? Sylvia can give it to Cindy on her way home from work." Darla's nose wrinkles as if she's just smelled a dead fish. "Joe Deters? Ugh! I can't be seen talking to Joe Deters! He's such a-such a-you know what I mean." You nod, not totally sure whether you know what she means or not. But one thing you know for sure-you'll have to call Cindy with the homework assignment. Darla may be extreme, but she's not too different from a lot of people who seem to divide the world into "the people I'm getting along with right now" and "the people I can't stand right now." Or they divide people into "my type" and "not my type." Or "friends" and "enemies." Or "cool" and "you gotta be kidding." But that kind of behavior, believe it or not, often hurts the Darlas more than it hurts the Cindys or the Joes. You don't need to litter your life with broken friendships and burned-out relationships. You're not helping yourself if you hold on to old feuds and resentments. Unity is so much better than disunity and division. Unity with others brings rewards; disunity only brings resentment. Living in harmony with others promotes peace; living in disharmony only brings about pain. That's why God desires unity for his children. He knows unity brings much better results than division and disagreement.

REFLECT: Is there anything in your life causing division between you and a friend? If so, what steps can you take to bring about harmony and unity with that friend?

PRAY: Use Jesus' prayer for his disciples from John 17:21 to pray for yourself and your relationships with your friends and acquaintances. (For example, you may pray, "Father, my prayer for... is that we will be one.")

Oooh holding grudges are a huge thing for me!
I've mentioned this before in a lot of other devos but my level of forgiveness is based upon how strong my relationship is with that person.
The stronger the relationship, the easier it is for me to forgive, and the weaker the relationship, the harder.

But there are those occasions where my really close friend or my family member really upsets me and I can't even stand to be in the same room as them.

I've gotten a lot better at forgiving those who aren't as close with me though!

uh...yea i think thats it.
bye!

i dont really hold grudges that easikly but there are certainly grudges i hold against someone if they keep going at whatever they do to make me angry. i do forgive and forget easily if it happens like once or twice or after a while of the person holding back and being neutral with me. i guess it has to do with my patience that i have with people. im actually pretty patient and im glad that God has blessed with this quality because i dont like feeling bitter about someone but of course it cant be helped sometimes because we are not on the same level as God.

Hah, why does the reflection part remind me of an over possessive friend of a girl/boyfriend?

Anyways. Something the reading for today really stresses out is to encourage each other. I think that in our congregation, there are many people aspiring to fulfill different roles. As a team taking up a leadership role in our church, we should encourage others to do better than they think they can. Small things like compliments, or big things like inviting them to the praise team.

That's kinda why I can connect more on an emotional level with today's reading, because it really reminded me of how I really got brought in to Praise Team. I'm pretty sure most of you guys know, but just to tell a tale; Jeremy just asked if I want to take up the Praise Team while we went to the same school. I just said "Sure, why not." and then really took it lightly. It was really only after talking it out with Billy that I really came to an understanding of how real this is.

it's weird to call Billy a role model, but I guess he just really showed how that even the smallest bit of motivation in a person can really bring that person to love and be inspired by whatever they might be doing. and tthat's a really good reeason to encourage others in the ministry to take up leadership roles.

I didn't really get much from this devo as the last few devo's were more or less on the same topic, but I was reminded of the importance of forgiving others. God forgives us of all our sins unconditionally, so we should also forgive others. On the topic of grudges, I've never been one to hold one for long, but I realize now that I haven't really been consciously forgiving people either. It's more of a carefree attitude rather than a Christlike one, so that's what I'll be working on from now on.

9 We are glad to seem weak if it helps show that you are actually strong. We pray that you will become mature.

This verse really stood out to me because some times u will have to step down and be the lower one to be strong. Say for example, you are talking to a disability child you wouldnt talk to him like you would as to your friends because you dont know this person and you dont know what kind of person he is. Growing mature is abig part which will help you communicate to people if you dont like them. There are always those people that you dont like to talk to or try toavid,, but the best thing to do here in my opinion is try to understand them andt han figure thigns out

idk my view of things gnite

I thought that today's devo was quite related to the topic that were focusing on on Sunday sermons.
We tend to sometimes catagorize and group people into their own seperate and different groups. You know what I mean? For example in high school, there are some cliques. We also use these groups to identify people like the popular group and the geeks. There are so many positions people put themselves and others in!
God wants it the other way. Everyone is connected, you can have different intrests but that shouldn't separate you from certain others. Be united!

K, good night!
~Audrey~

"You're not helping yourself if you hold on to old feuds and resentments"

We grow constantly, But I think some of the main draw backs are not being able to forgive someone
When we can't forgive someone, that sticks with us in the back of our heads, the depths of our hearts, and
to me, it feels like it almost creates a wall. How can we grow if there's something we can't get over?
Forgive others just as JEsus forgave us. That's what the Lord's prayer says more or less.
Help ourselves, by forgiving others.

I think one problem I've always had, but have always tried to fix, is holding grudges.
I suppose they're not really grudges but I make it clear that I no longer want anything to do with certain people and usually it's because they have not lived up to my expectations.
Which is absurd because I'm not even in a position to judge or decide to discontinue a friendship because someone hadn't lived up to my expectations.
I SHOULD be letting those things go.

I've definitely gotten better, but it hasn't completely vanished either.

Hmm.. this was a good reminder.

Obviously, you and your friends have disagreements and such. If they were perfect, you would basically hjave jesus as a friend. haha
Some factors that keep me apart from ym friends is the church. While they go out and do wahtever they do on weekeneds, im mostly stuck at church doing my own thing. These factors lead them to think that i will never chill with them and stuff so they ened up not even asking me.
If that happens, just pray about it because you dont want to lose your friends... as well as lose God. Divide your time wisely and in a fashion that you will have time for both... but more importantly for God.