Mean Girls (and other mean people)

Chapter 29...
I bet that title got your attention. Who doesn't know mean girls (and other mean people)? There are mean girls in every middle school and high school and in every other age group too. Mean girls shun other girls and try to turn other people against you. 

I am only going to say this once: I hope you are never a mean person. In this life, it is far far better to be shunned and disowned than to be the one doing the shunning and disowning. 

Do you know what Jesus says about disowning him? He says that if you disown him, he will disown you before his Father! But that is a whole different thing than disowning people, isn't it? Let's look at the whole passage from Matthew 10: 

32 “Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. 33 But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.

34 “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to turn

“‘a man against his father,
    a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—
36     a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’[c]

37 “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.38 Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me.39 Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.

40 “Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. 

Jesus is telling his disciples that how we treat other Christians is how we are treating Christ in our hearts! If we accept and welcome others, we accept and welcome Jesus. But if we disown others who are Christians--watch out--because you are also disowning Christ. 

Because we are the beloved Bride of Christ, we are one with Him and whatever somebody does to his Bride, they do it to Him. Here is another passage that says it more clearly. Matthew 25 says

34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

Do you see that how we treat other Christians shows how we treat Christ? If we accept other believers and treat them with kindness and love and acceptance, then we are accepting Christ and loving him. But if we treat other people meanly, if we ignore them, if we don't invite them in, if we don't visit them when they are sick or in prison, if we disown them, then we are disowning Christ before men. Jesus even goes so far as to say we should treat our enemies with this same kindness. Because just maybe our enemies belong to Him or will be drawn to him because of our kindness.

And if we disown Christ by our treatment of others, then He will disown us before his Father. Look again at that last line: "Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life." 

Here is one last passage from John--just in case you are still shaking your pretty heads about this:

19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

There  is never any excuse for someone who calls himself or herself a Christian to be mean or cruel. It takes great courage to be kind and welcoming, but your reward will be very great:

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 

Because God in Christ has shown us such grace in our lives, we can become people who show grace to others. That is why we are here. 

Here is a link with a true story about how it feels to be excluded by mean girls.  Learn from this!
https://www.lisamccrohan.com/2014/09/raising-girls-who-are-includers-instead-of-mean-girls/

SaveSave

Believing Is Not Enough

28--How Can I Know If I Am Really Saved?

Did you know that the majority of people who think they are saved are not saved at all? That is a really scary thought! Most of those people would say they believe the Bible and they go to church every week and maybe once upon a time they prayed a prayer to accept Jesus, but that is not enough. Even Satan and demons believe that the Bible is true. The Jesus-hating Pharisees were always parading all their "righteousness" around, but they were not saved. 

Can we really KNOW when we are saved? Absolutely! The Bible gives us some very definite ways that we can know if we are truly saved. 

First of all, a person who is saved has a very acute awareness of the sin in her life. She is painfully aware of how unworthy she is and she hates her sin so much that she repents of it and turns away from it. A lot of people hate sin--they hate everybody else's sin, but not their own. But people who have a true relationship with Jesus hate their own sin more than anything. 

Secondly, a person who is a true Christian is willing to surrender EVERYTHING for the sake of Christ. They are willing to give up all their hopes and dreams and ambitions and even their friends and family for the sake of Christ! Jesus says if we love mother or father or son or daughter or anyone or anything more than we love Him, we are not worthy to be his disciples. Whoa, Nelly! That means that you might have your heart set on going to Harvard or Yale, but if Christ wants you to go to the local Bible College, you'd better listen up. It means that even after you grow up and become an adult, you can't just do whatever you feel like. You may have to give up your fondest dreams and desires. Are you willing to do that?

Finally, the real test of knowing you are truly saved is to evaluate how much you love other people. This is what the Apostle John says in I John 3:14-15 "We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer and you know that no murderer has eternal life in Him." WOW! If you hate somebody so much that you won't even be around them, so much that you cut them off from you--even if you don't murder them, God says it is murder! But if you are kind and affectionate and loving to everyone, even if they irritate you, that is a supernatural kind of love that can only come from God and it is evidence that you are a child of God. (It would be like a dog loving a cat!)

So these three things will tell you if you are truly saved:  Are you very aware of how awful your sins are and do you hate them so much that you will turn away from them? Do you love Christ more than you love your friends and family and your hopes and dreams? Do you love all the people God has put in your life--your family, your friends, and even people who irritate you? If you answer 'yes' to all those questions, you are certainly saved. 

If you are still not sure, the one thing  you can do is to pray that God will have mercy on you and that he will reveal your sins to you and help you to love Him and everybody else. He will never turn away anyone who comes to Him asking for mercy. 

Perfect Friendships for the New Year

27--Relationships That Glorify God

Friendships are the stuff of life! A true friend will always stand by you even if you irritate them--which I hope you don't. But our world has set up rules for choosing friends that are not good or right. According to the world, we should choose friends who always tell us what we want to hear, who always praise us and take our side even when we are wrong, who never stand up to us or irritate us, who think like we do, and who make us feel good. That gives you a lot of control. It makes you feel important to have friends like that. You set the standard for them. And if they don't live up to your standards, you simply discard them like a dirty dishrag.

How do we know who should be our friends? Believe it or not, the Bible gives us a lot of advice about that. The book of Proverbs tells us a lot about who we should avoid--people who try to entice us to sin, and people who are angry and abusive. And the New Testament gives us the same kind of advice in the letters to Titus and II Timothy. Titus says, "As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned."  II Timothy says, "For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people."

James tells us to avoid friendship with the world. It doesn't mean you can't be kind to people who are not Christians, but we can't get past a very superficial level with them because we have nothing in common. 

Now that we know what to avoid, we can start looking at what to look for in a friend. Look for people who are willing to tell you the truth even if it is not something you want to hear. Look for people who are peacemakers--the ones who will stick around and be forgiving. Look for people who are kind and patient and who always want to include others. If you choose friends who are critical and judgmental and who like to be exclusive, sooner or later they will exclude you. And they will always be trying to make you choose between them and someone else. Avoid that.

These are the people who should be in your "inner circle" but it should not stop there. You should actively look for people who do not have friends. You should always be looking to include more people and expanding your larger circle of friends. Find people who are lonely or sad. Make friends with people from all age groups. Don't settle for your own peer group--there is much to be learned from people who are your grandparents' age and from little children. Make friends with people who are really different from you in other ways. Learn about their culture. Make friends with people who disagree with you about politics. It's OK to disagree with people. Jesus did not agree with his disciples about all that. But he loved them anyway. You can do it too.

Three simple rules will help guide you in your choices for friends:

1. Always, always, always be kind to everybody--even your enemies. There is never any excuse for cruelty or unkind treatment.Treat others the way you want them to treat you. 

2. Be discerning about your "inner circle" of friends--the ones you trust for good advice and the ones who share your beliefs and worldview.

3. Always be expanding your larger circle of friends and include people of all ages and all walks of life. 

If you follow these guidelines, you will glorify God in your relationships and that is always the goal--to please Him above yourself. 

Best Friends Forever

A Perfect Family for the New Year

26--Relationships that Glorify God

Do you wonder why everyone who ever lived longs for the perfect relationship, longs to be noticed, longs to be significant, longs to be loved and cherished? It is because God created us FOR relationships. 

God the Father and Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit are the only perfect family in the history of the world. If you read this post you can read all about that perfect family. 

Our world is full of broken relationships. After Adam and Eve sinned nobody ever had a perfect relationship again. God designed it that way because if we ever found the perfect relationship on earth, we would never turn to Him. But we can have relationships that glorify God if we do the things God does. We know what God does because he gave us his commandments and the commandments are all about how to do relationships: Love God above all and love your neighbor as yourself. Do unto others what you would have them do to you. 

The Trinity wanted to expand their family, so they created people. God-glorifying people also want to expand their families. Married people have children. Family members are loyal for life--they love each other and help each other and they make a place called home that you can always come back to. Some families are on the lookout to take in other people who are lonely and don't have families to show them love and affection. They adopt children or they invite others over for meals and holidays. Family expansion is what we are called to do. 

The opposite of family expansion is family diminishment. Cain did that when he killed Abel. He cut Abel off. He committed murder. Jesus said that if we are angry with another person, we have murder in our hearts. John the apostle said that hatred is the same as murder and we know that people hate when they cut others out of their lives. Creating division and separation and divorce and shunning are all forms of diminishing a family--something God hates.

We see that on a lesser level with ordinary friendships. Some people are very welcoming and when they see you, they get excited and they talk to you and tell you about themselves and what is going on in their lives and they ask you about your life. Other people are suspicious and mean and haughty and when they see you coming, they stop talking and then walk away. If you say something to them, they might look at each other and roll their eyes. You know what I mean. Hateful people reject you. 

I hope that you all grow up to be the kind of people that are kind and courteous to everybody. I hope that you never shut anybody out or make them feel unloved. It takes a lot of courage to be kind. It takes a lot of courage to stand up and befriend someone who doesn't have many friends. It takes courage not to go along with the crowd when the crowd is wrong. 

I hope that you love with an enduring love like God does and that you are faithful to your family and friends. I always like to say, "I love you forever!" Do you know that God says that too? There is a whole Psalm that says it over and over and over again. It is Psalm 136. For His steadfast love endures forever. That is God saying to you, "I love you forever!" 

There will be times in your life when people let you down. They may betray you or hate you or completely shut you out of their lives. But God will love you forever! He will never ever leave you or forsake you and when people let you down, it may be that God is calling to you to Himself. The pain of rejection is real, but if you trust God, you will find that he is enough. And he will give you joy in the pain.