Dec 7

1 Peter 2:11-12
11 Dear friends, I warn you as “temporary residents and foreigners” to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls.
12 Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors. Then even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior, and they will give honor to God when he judges the world.

There once was a shepherd boy who kept his flock not far from a little village. One day, while watching the sheep all by himself, he decided to play a little trick on the people in the village. He started running toward the village, shouting, "Wolf! Wolf! A wolf is attacking my sheep!" The villagers all left their shops and homes and fields to help him, following him all the way out to the field where he kept his sheep. But when they arrived, there was no sign of any wolf. The boy laughed at his little joke, and the people returned to their village, shaking their heads at the boy's foolishness. Some time later the shepherd boy got a little bored and decided to play his little trick again. Once more he ran to the village, once more the villagers came to help him, but once more they discovered there was no wolf. Still later the shepherd boy got a little lonely in the fields by himself, so he tried his trick a third time, with the same results. The villagers came and discovered that they'd been fooled again. Then one day a wolf really did break into the sheepfold and began killing the boy's lambs. He tried to chase the wolf away, but he could not. At last, he ran to the village, crying, "Wolf! Wolf! A wolf is attacking my sheep!" The people in the village heard his cries for help, but no one paid any attention to the boy; they thought he was fooling them again. No matter how loudly or how insistently he cried, no one believed the boy, and he lost all his sheep that day. This fable illustrates an important truth. The person who is dishonest not only hurts others, he hurts himself, too. Dishonesty cuts both ways. That's part of the reason God commands honesty-he wants to protect us from the harm dishonesty will do to us. He wants to protect us from having a bad reputation. He wants us to enjoy the rewards that come from being trustworthy and from having people believe what we say. And he knows that the only way to truly achieve those rewards is by being honest.

REFLECT: Have you ever had trouble getting someone to believe you were telling the truth? If so, what did it feel like? Did it make you feel good? bad? frustrated? insulted? what's the best way to avoid those kinds of feelings in the future?

ACT: Write the slogan "Honesty is the best policy" on an index card and post it where it will remind you often of the benefits of being honest. (If you're artistic, you might want to add a drawing of a sheep or a shepherd's crook to remind you of the boy who cried wolf.)

PRAY: "Help me never to tell a lie" (Proverbs 30:.

this really ties in with this past week's devotion so i didnt get a too much out of todays devo. be honest, and constantly lying can make you get into huge trouble. people eventually get used to your lies and they will come to not believe you at all one day, and that truth that they deem to think is a lie, can be life threatening or whatnot. it is really important to keep a clean record and tell the truth for others to earn their trust.

I liked the second verse.

I kinda read it as "if you get people hating on you, just be a man and suck it up." It kinda reminds me of how Jesus took the torment for us and nailed all of our sins unto that cross. Pretty dramatic. 2000 years later, he's known by everybody for really being tough about everything.

Buuut anyywayysss, more than being tough, this verse is about consistency and code of conduct. I think that it can tie in really well into our praise team, because seeing as what we've been going through for awhile, we've been consistent in alot of the wrong things. soo.. yeah. it's really hard to talk about but, i'm pretty sure everybody can relate on this topic.

Thank God it's FINALLY friday!

Lying may not seem to be like such a big deal. Especially if you get away with what you were lying about.
But lying is not ok. No human might find out you were lying, but keep in mind God saw everything. You're just setting yourself up for more problems if you do lie. And why would you want that? Isn't the main reason you lied is so you can get out of a certain situation?

See you guys tomorrow!

Risking your relationship and trust betweeen others should not happen. Like the classic story of, "the boy who cried wolf", he foolishly wasted the generousity of others and one day realizing his mistake after it was too late. god doesn't want us to face this same problem as well. When you open to others, they will open to you. Do not waste your oppurtunity to connect with others and help them out too. When you use them for pointless reasons, you are just slowly isolating yourself from everyone.
This story has a very strong message and lesson (of course that's why we've all heard this story.....)

I know people say this a lot:
"treat others the way you want to be treated....."

~Audrey~

As it is hard to be faithful in someone when constantly lied to, it's extremely hard to convince those you are truly telling the truth. Trust is also built, gradually and consistently. When lying to someone, regardless of reason, you know for a fact that you've made a poor choice. An addition to feeling guilty to that person, it's letting down your relationship with that person, regardless if they've realized your lie(s). For me, I've never brushed off a lie. It doesn't seem like I could, just turn away, acting like nothing unjust happened. Everyone deserves the truth.

classic tale of the boy who cried wolf. The message was pretty straightforward, so I can't say much. Just that it is important that we are trustworthy people and that we shouldn't be people who cry wolf. The message from that story isn't even just aligned with God's expectations, but also society's. So be truthful to those around you.

Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors. Then even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior, and they will give honor to God when he judges the world.

I agree with this because everyday we interact with people who may not beleive in God. If we give a good impression than even if they want to say bad things abotu us they cant. If we behave well and were a respectable person, they cant say anything negatie about us. this can relate to the short story about the boy who cried wolf beacuse like this boy was abusing his trust and eventually the villagers just didnt beleive him anymore. and when the wolf really came out and he called for help no one came to his rescue because of the way he acted before hand.

12 Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors. Then even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior, and they will give honor to God when he judges the world.

Now the biggest problem in my opinion with having Non believer relations with others is that they just don't understand us.
It can be as complicated as why we do certain things and simplistic things such as "Why do we go to church on sundays?"
They won't understand, they won't approve, but they will still honour our Christ like acts.
Why? Because deep down, no matter how strong of an athiest they are, they will come to the realization that something good is being produced from our lives from this religion, Christianity. Or relationship I should say.
And they will give honour to God
We will influence our friends, ONLY in positive ways if we reflect the Christ like attitude, even if they think our religion is "lame" or full of BS.
Something to always keep in mind!

I've always had trouble getting people to believe what I say haha.when that happens, it feels kind of bad in a way.. If we can't even get someone to believe us through something so simple... How are we supposed to make thme believe that there is a God.
We all grew up in the church and its easy for us to belive in God cause we have strong faith... But if we were to tell someone completely random about God... What will we say? How will we do it.
I think none of us know how we would do it as of now.. But it is important to know! So I suggest we gather the strength and knowledge to be able to spread God words and make others believe

There will always be people who won't believe. There will always be people who test your faith. But if they can only bag on our religion if we become hypocrites and who what we tells others not to do.
That's why I always say, put on your best foot forward at all times.
Because you don't only represent yourself, you also represent God.

So keep yourself at the top of your game, spiritually because the only person who can judge you is God and at the end of the day, he should be the only person who you care about impressing!