Prayer for change

One morning, earlier this week, I was reading through the prayer booklet that was published specifically for the week of prayer 2015. I found these words:

God of life, 

Let our strength

not be the result of violence,

but of love.

Let our prosperity

not be the result of possessions,

but of sharing.

Let our path

not lead to ambition,

but to righteousness.

This is what we ask

in the Name of Jesus,

Your Son.

Amen.

Good news blog

Wishing you all a blessed and inspirational 2015 full of pleasant surprises from our heavenly Father!

In a world that seems to continually scream bad news at us, I have yet again made a commitment to write short (I know how busy you all are) encouraging, uplifting and positive blog posts in 2015 and to share good news  items whenever possible. After all, we are called to share the good news, not to spread and repeat the bad stuff (which we will leave up to the secular media).

It is my wish that a visit to my blog will make your day brighter, so you can pass the light on to others... Let's do it!

If you can think of a topic that needs a fresh (biblical) perspective, please do not hesitate and send an email to meijers.marja@gmail.com. Who knows it will turn into an interesting blog series.

Elsie Amata, you have won the December give-away. Please, send me an email with your address and I will make sure the two books will come your way. Congratulations and have fun reading!

Adoration

 Arise and shine

Painting by Mattia Preti (1613-1699)

Arise,

shine,

for your light has come,

    and the glory of the Lord

rises upon you.

See,

darkness covers the earth

    and thick darkness

is over the peoples,

but the Lord rises upon you

    and his glory

appears over you.

Nations

will come to your light,

    and kings

to the brightness of your dawn.

[Isaiah 60:1-3]

December give-away

Dear readers of this blog,

At the end (almost) of yet another beautiful and inspiring blogging year I want to thank you for reading along, for commenting and for sharing the posts. Your input and responses make each post a valuable interaction about the deeper issues of life.

I cannot thank you all personally, some readers desire to stay anonymous and that's just fine with me, but I would like to express my gratitude to everyone who visits this blog, whether you are a reader, a blogger or a writer (to be)... Without your encouragement this blog would not continue to exist. As a way of saying thank you I will be hosting a give-away this month!

You can win a copy of My Neighbor's House and, as a bonus, a copy of any other book in the Ten Commandments series you desire. The only thing you need to do is to leave your comment underneath this post and describe in six words how you have experienced 2014. (This is a great opportunity for the writers and poets among us to practice writing a six-word-story.)

I'll ask my husband to draw a name, later this month!

Fruit of the Spirit (10)

This is already part 10 in the series on the Fruit of the Holy Spirit, as described in Galatians 5:22-23. It is very interesting what precedes these verses:  What human nature does is quite plain. It shows itself in immoral, filthy, and indecent actions; in worship of idols and witchcraft. People become enemies and they fight; they become jealous, angry, and ambitious. They separate into parties and groups; they are envious, get drunk, have orgies, and do other things like these...

Ouch! I am sure we can all recognize some of this happening around us. Thank God, the word doesn't stop there... But the Spirit produces love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).

In the last part of this blog series we will take a closer look at self-control or, as the KJV says, temperance. Nowadays that is probably a word which will make people laugh or frown. Let's be honest: in the Western world we live in a time and culture of abundance. Eating a whole bag of potato chips or half a box of chocolates, purchasing fashionable purse number twenty, browsing the internet for hours and hours at the time, drinking too much, wasting precious time in front of the television etc. etc. Too much, too much, too much.

Self-control, temperance... not our strongest point. The more we try, the more we fail. And that is exactly why God wants to help us. Without self-control we are weak and an easy target for the enemy. Proverbs 25:28 says: Like a city whose walls are broken through is a person who lacks self-control.

The self-control the Holy Spirit wants to produce in us is not the kind of effort we sometimes undertake, as in 'I can do it if I want to' or 'just a little longer and I made it'. It is self-control at the most unexpected moments. Right when we think we can NOT do it, the Spirit wants to come alongside to help. We can simply ask Him to do so!

Less of our own will, more of His!