This morning, I read the book, Colossians, which was very short. Only four chapters in it. The whole theme of this book was false teachers. Paul was writing to them that what some of their teachers were teaching where not from Christ. They were worshiping other gods and listening to 'empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that came from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than Christ'. (NLT 2:8) For me, since I am a deep thinker, I notice that I have to ask Jesus about a lot of things over and over. I worry that what I think I'm hearing is from him but if I think on it long enough I'll wonder if it's coming from the world.
A big topic that has been in my home is of having tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. When we started to attend the church we go to now they have this course on becoming members of the church. We did all kinds of things, mostly along the lines of knowing the mission God has planned for the church. One of the last things we did was do one of those personality tests but for God's kingdom. Among the ones I read in this book of Colossians I am merciful, kind, and gentle. The ones I have to work on are humility and patience. I can't say I don't have pride because my mother points it out to me, but I do notice the times where I can accept my humility. I pray that God will continue to show me more clearly those things that aren't so great in my humility and patience.
In chapter two there is something I wanted to write about real quick. It's about not letting others condemn us for the practices we do or don't do. The one practice, or holiday, that is border line in this home is Christmas. Some years ago I found out a little bit about the history behind the celebration of Christmas, besides Christ. Christians always celebrated this holiday as the birth of Christ, which we should celebrate ever day. When I read that the act of decorating the tree was some type of thing for a fertility god, I didn't think much of it. I thought, 'Well, I'm not decorating these trees to worship a fertility god, I just think it's fun and cute.', then cast the thought out my mind. (Of course, we didn't have a tree for some years *which didn't effect us* and this past Christmas our tree was a very sad looking one after all those years.) As of now we are eliminating the tree from the holiday since it stands for some other god. A lot of Christians, or believers/followers of Christ, either don't believe this or think that the person is thinking too deep about it. Then becomes something that the person can be condemned about. I actually think the whole fertility god thing is just creepy. (And it also depends on if one believes in gods with a lower case 'g'. There is more to the whole tree of Christmas, but that's a whole other topic.) At the end of the day, always pray and talk to God about it.
This last thing I'm reflecting on is prayer. I always hear to pray every day and talk to God all day every day. It actually is not that hard and if you are always talking to God there is a less chance of you doing something he would not approve. I keep two journals. One is a prayer journal where I write serious and specific prayers that I would like answered. My other journal is one where I freely write my feelings to God. I can go on for pages and pages at once just expressing my thoughts to God, as if he doesn't already know me. It's the act of always having him in my life on purpose that makes a difference, even though he does know everything. When it comes to prayer for me though, I am much better at writing it down than thinking the prayer with my eyes shut, head bowed, and speaking out my prayer in groups. I tend to be repetitive in my spoken prayers and worry that I'll pray for too long.
Tomorrow morning I am reading 1 Thessalonians which is five chapters. I'm going through this Bible reading plan quite quick and soaking up many valuable things.
*note: I'm planning on writing posts more in depth about other things outside of this Bible reading plan. It wont be so easy because just studying the Bible then writing it down like this takes some time. Plus, I get tired of staring at the screen and typing. I can write pencil and paper as long as I need to, but it's something else when typing. Of course everything I write about will have God in it. Asking questions about different things, then giving what I know and my thoughts, and lastly what I'm ultimately getting.*
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