dec 10

2 Corinthians 3:17-18
17 For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
18 So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.

Lenny got to spend the day at the bank with his father. They called it "Take Your Child to Work Day." As his father showed him around behind the tellers' counter, he pointed out a neat machine that counted bills. The teller had just taken a wrapper off a stack of one-hundred-dollar bills and was putting them in the counting machine. "Hey," Lenny said. "That money looks funny!" His father took a couple bills from the machine and showed them to Lenny. "They've just come out with a new one-hundred-dollar bill to make it more difficult to make fake ones. See, the picture is larger, they've moved it off-center, they've used a special kind of paper ... and if you hold it up to the light, you can see a strip with writing on it. While it might be possible to make a good copy of most of what you see on the bill, it's supposed to be harder to copy everything." Lenny was confused. "You mean whenever you get a hundred-dollar bill, you have to hold it up to the light?" Lenny's father chuckled. "No," he said. "Bank tellers are trained to recognize counterfeit money by handling nothing but the real thing. They sort and stack and shuffle real money all day long, hour after hour. The more they see and handle the real thing, the easier it is for them to recognize a fake because something about it just won't feel right. When a counterfeit bill comes along, a teller's familiarity with the real thing will help him or her notice something different about the counterfeit. That's when he holds it up to the light or gets a magnifying glass or asks for the head teller to inspect it. But usually a teller is so familiar with real money, he can spot a fake pretty easily." "That's neat," Lenny said. He smiled at his dad. "Think you could give me a bunch to practice on?" "Sure," Dad said, "in your dreams."

REFLECT: it's easier to know whether something is real or "right" by being familiar with the original. When it comes to choices between right and wrong, God is the original. How well do you know God? Does your relationship with God help you make right choices? How can you know God even better? How can you "reflect his glory" even more?

PRAY: "Lord, make me willing to let your Spirit work within me so that I can become more like you and reflect your glory."

sorry guys, i'm sort of confused on what to really think about this devotional.
i'll get back in the zone later on. i seemed to have stacked on lots of work on top with each other o-o;;

the Spirit of the Lord is strong and it will lead us on with our daily lives, being the voice that speaks the right and wrong to us. as for me, i always have this strange feeling when i lie or get caught up in a problem, because i know exactly what i did wrong, and God is whispering in my ear to fix what i did wrong. God tries to change us through this into beings that are becoming more and more similar to Him. and like i said in my devotion two weeks ago, for those hearts and souls He speaks into to taking leadership and the responsibility to lend Him a hand, are to give others a push in their own faith and allow God to open up their hearts.

Just like bank tellers or basically any other occupation, dedicated repetition of practice is needed. Relying on the head teller for any guidance, until they perfected it themselves, which then they would share the knowledge that they previously learned. Putting God as the original really pushes the WWJD, making the right and difficult choice, rather than taking the easy way out. Pastor Dan shared through Vivian's devotion, that the main focus is on God. Leading by example is the first step to reflecting his glory and our job (which we volunteered for) is to helping people reach God.

hohoho i liked this one.

This reminds of that sermon Dan Kim gave about walking and how you can't walk with just one foot. To further that analogy, while tying this devo in, we have to learn to take regular steps. As Christians, nothing is ever constant, and so our walk will never be as well, but if we try as hard as we can to keep our walk steady, our relationship will not only become easier, but it will become stronger. What characterizes these regular steps is making good choices and like the devo outlines, the more regular our steps are, the easier it'll be to notice our faults and see when we trip up. So always aim for regular steps.

If you keep "practising" God's rules then it'll be easier to tell when a fake comes your way. Sinning for us is a daily thing, so from that we learn our mistakes. Now we know to never make that mistake again and we try our best to stay out of trouble. The more you get used to your relationship with God, the easier it will be for you to decipher the difference between something good and real versus something bad and fake.

When we learn more from God's word, we can get stronger in our faith. We read the bible and study it, do our devos so that we will be prepared. We will be able to handle things when the time comes where there is problems and trouble. To let that not get in your way with God, you must be strong in your faith and be able to choose the right decisions.
As time goes, its your instinct given through your faith will help guide your way.

~Audrey~

As we familiarize ourselves with certain things in our Christian walk, we begin to understand what is the right thing to do in a given circumstance
WE mature as Christians, things that weren't clear before are clear now.
The question is what have we done differently towards the things that to us are now clear?
To me, that applies to as little things such as talking to new comers. I know I'm more able to do those things now than before.
Simply because I feel like as a leader, it's something that i SHOULD be doing. So that they may see the Christ like traits in me.
How welcome would someone feel if not a single soul approached them.
Of course, 10years ago, that didn't matter to me
If I had my friends, everything was ok, I didn't care so much for others as I should have.
Just like those bills.
Had they not been able to tell the difference between a counterfeit and a real one, they would've distributed and received the 100 bills without quesiton. But considering that they ARE able to tell the difference, they're obviously willing to do something about it if it was fake.
Same thing applies. We should take the new things we learned, and do something with it.

18 So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.

this stood out to me and while knowing that we should use God as our original, we should be familiar with HIm. We can use the original as an example and follow his steps as best as we can. WE have an example to follow so we arent alone in the dark. we have a path to take
all ig ot

Hmmm, interesting devo.

Honestly, reading this, the first thing that came to mind was that this was about how as you grow in your faith, it becomes increasingly easier to tell whether or not someone is hiding behind a mask and faking their relationship with God.
Because you can always put your best foot forward at church and make it seem like you're a top-notch Christian but it's definitely not the same as honestly having that close relationship with God.

I think I'm not making sense... let me try the next one. LOL