God's child

Yes, I gave my heart and life to Jesus when I was 14. I am now 45 and living my life dedicated to Him. I remember my water baptism well and it was such a cleansing experience, but more significant to me was the cleansing feeling I had when I walked up the aisle and received the glorious gift of salvation from my Heavenly Father. At the time I did not understand it all, but even at that young age I knew I was somehow different than I had been a few minutes before and that nothing would ever be the same again. I felt new from the inside out. When Jesus saves you, it is truly a cleansing experience.

I am so grateful to God for all of these things that He did for me, but my heart becomes full with the awesome knowledge that Jesus died so that my sins could be forgiven. That He took my sins and cast them into the sea to be remembered by Him no more. When I think of that I feel so unworthy of this most precious gift and I know that I will never receive another gift as precious as this.

A person cannot go against God's word and then expect to have his prayers answered. He commands us to love one another just as He loves us. He does not make any exceptions according to His word and if we deliberately disobey Him in how He tells us to treat each other, how can He possibly hear and answer our prayers.

Wisdom and knowledge come from God and when a man relates to his wife in this way he is demonstrating his love for her just as Christ loves him. It shows that he is interested in her as a fellow heir in Christ and a fellow human being when he treats her with respect and love with the wisdom God has given him. She in turn will freely give to him the things he needs in order to feel loved, needed, and respected. (HENCE-self-interest) I think some men try to dominate their wives because that is what they saw their own fathers do to their mothers and some even use the Bible to justify why they dominate because they take the verses out of context instead of seeing the truth in God's word. I have seen marriages where the wife has taken on the leadership role and neither one seemed at peace. I think sometimes a wife dominates because the husband is unwilling or feels unable to lead his family, so he finds it easier to let her have control. Other wives could use dominance in order to keep from feeling like the victim. When this happens with either spouse there is no balance in the relationship and no true feelings of love, respect, honor, of being cherished, or even liked as a person and it totally goes against God's design for a holy marriage union and ignores the truth of God's word that we are both joint heirs in Christ.

By placing our heart and hope on the things of God and by using the struggles He allows to come into our lives to draw us towards a more loving and intimate relationship with Him. Our inner beauty comes out of the loving relationship we have with our Lord. Good character also comes from the struggles we face and by trusting God to guide us safely through these struggles, valleys, and the mountains of our lives. Through Him we gain our inner strength and the struggles and walking by faith build our character. If our husbands see us facing the trials of our life with faith in God and sees the peace in us that can only come from God during these hard times it makes our husbands feel more secure in the marriage relationship. I think most men want a wife of good character and an inner beauty.

God tells to take care of His temple, being our physical bodies, and I think the way in which we dress and take care of ourselves is also a reflection of our relationship with Him. We should dress and present ourselves as though we are doing it for the Lord. For a lot of women, their looks and the way they look to the world becomes the most important thing to them and they spend all of their time and attention toward that fulfillment and this in a sense becomes their god. Putting God first and allowing Him to nurture our inner beauty without neglecting our outer appearance.

Most humans feel that when they are asked to be submissive they are giving up control and letting someone else make decisions for them and it is a very uncomfortable and confining to have no control. It would be comparative to a wild animal being in a cage and all it can do is pace back a forth. No, especially in a marriage. My husband values my opinions and I his and I feel this is how God wants husbands and wives to make decisions concerning the marriage and family. Submission is wrong when it causes you to so do something that goes against God's word.

Love as brothers, be compassionate, and humble. In our church, it is more about loving the lost and rejected into the kingdom. I don't see anything in our church that is not Christ-like. Our pastors have such a love for the misguided, lost, and rejected and they always focus on where our worth comes from and that is Jesus Christ. So many people grow up carrying with them all the labels others (parents, teachers, bullies, etc.) have given them and that is where they find their worth and it keeps them from seeing the true worth that God has placed on them. This is not the only thing we learn at our church, but it is the biggest and, I think, the best part.

I think as humans we sometimes want to lash back at those persecuting us when God expects us to be Christ-like at all times. Because it can sometimes be easier to do the wrong thing rather than suffer the persecution. I am facing a situation at this very moment which calls for all of these instructions. But, I think for me the most needed would be in my heart setting apart Christ as Lord.

Even though we were saved, by God's grace, from our sins when Jesus died for us, He has not taken our free will or our fleshly desires. We are free from sins power as long as we remain under the cover of God's guidance and protection. I know that for me, if my relationship with Christ is first in my life, I have no desire to sin in the general sense the way you would think of sin as an immoral act against God and my body. I still say things I shouldn't and think things that I shouldn't, so I have to continually ask God to help me in those areas. Living for 'righteousness' means to me that I should model my behavior after Jesus' example and live in a way that would draw those that are lost to Him.

This is such a difficult question to answer, because how does one express one's feelings when another gives so much so that the other one can have everything. When I think about what Jesus did for me, how much love for me He had to have in order to die for me in such a way, truly blows me away. I simply have no exact words to completely tell someone how humble His act of love for me makes me feel. I am forever thankful for His total and unconditional act of love for me. His incredible love for me shown in the way He died for me tells me without a doubt that had I been the only one to die for, He still would not have hesitated to do it.

If Jesus had not been without sin, He would not have been a pure sacrifice for the worlds sins, and only a pure sacrifice was acceptable. Jesus is not only the Son of God, but God himself who came in the form of a man so that He could live through every temptation known to mortal man and yet not sin. The way He lived His life is the example He set for all His children. When He was beaten and humiliated and nailed to that cross for my sins, I know that His suffering was more than I could even think or imagine. I am so filled with awe and humbleness to know that He loved me so much that He would die such a cruel death so that I could have forgiveness of my sins and have eternal life with Him. Jesus said that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me. He said that He does nothing but what the Father tells Him to do. I think that even though Jesus asked God to remove the cup He was getting ready to drink from Him, and because He was human, yet God, and felt human pain and suffering, He knew that the only way we would be able to be with Him was through His shed blood and death and resurrection. He loved us so much that for Him anything less than the perfect sacrifice would not do. Bearing my sins not to mention the whole worlds sin and shame must have been the worst feeling imaginable. Worse than death itself.

He gave Himself to die on the cross because I personally needed to be forgiven and without the sacrifice He made for me, I could not have atonement for my sins. He separated Himself from the Father for a little while so that I (we) could be with Him throughout all eternity.

Jesus life was a model of how He expects us to behave, especially when we are being treated unjustly. His example should lead me to respond in ways that would glorify God. Always speak the truth no matter the consequence to me. That is not always easy, but when I do I know that I am pleasing my Lord.

We should act and react in a way that brings God pleasure. We are not to act toward our employer in the harsh and negative manner in which he or she may treat us. But, if at any time our boss should ask us to do anything that would be contrary to God's word, we are no longer obligated. God's word tells us to go about our work and daily life without grumbling or complaining. I am not normally a confrontational person, but I feel that if a bad situation merits confrontation, it should be done. The Bible teaches us how to do this in a way that pleases the Lord. Christ, himself, shows us how to treat injustice in the Gospels, without sin.