Good before the bad

Our Daily Bread
A family motto is "If you can't say something nice about someone, then you shouldn't say anything at all."  There are a lot of folks over the years that kept me very silent!  ha! Or, a joke with some friends is "If you can't say something nice about someone, then come sit by me!"  Bad, very bad!

The devotional talks about how to encourage and correct folks.  It makes sense.  Do unto others and that sort of thing!  ha!  It talks about how Paul gave honest compliments to folks in different cities, encouraging their journey in Christ.  He then gently, or sometimes not so gently, gave them correction from a man of God to help them move forward in their lives.  The author indicates that it is usually easier for other folks to hear the "correction" stuff if they have been encouraged first.

While I can be good at encouraging and gentle correction, I often get impatient and stress the correction more and more.  It is out of genuine concern for folks to move forward in their lives.  I am not being a spiritual jerk.  I will do better about loving people where they are and being patient for the Holy Spirit to act!

Lord, thank you for giving us friends and mentors that will lovingly correct us when we need it!  Please help us be more like Paul in that aspect.

Teaching Tuesday
I read a little more in the book Mere Christianity by CS Lewis this week.  I planned to finish it this week, but that didn't happen.  I hope to finish it this week before my EFM reading starts up.

I started into the chapters on the great virtues.  They seem like the Fruits of the Spirit to me, so I was familiar with the concepts.  The CS Lewis great virtues don't line up exactly, however, I found the explanations of them very interesting.  Faith, hope, temperance, charity and self-control are some of his.

The most interesting chapter in the book so far has been the called The Great Sin.  It is about Pride.  Wow!  The "a-ha" moment was realizing that Satan can lead us to think that we are mastering some other sins, like dishonesty and sexual immorality, to "hook" us into the worst sin of all -- Pride.  We read over and over in the Bible about Pride being the root of separation from God, including the fall of angels from heaven and the fall of man.  I am much more cautions about this now.  The week before I read this I bragged to a friend about how I had conquered a pet sin for a month.  Pride was busting out at the seams of my gym shorts.  So now I am praying for self-control AND humility about it!

Pick up this book when you get a chance.  Re-read it if you haven't read it in a while!

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We too can know this God and be assured of His presence. He has revealed Himself in His creation and in His Word. As we ask Him to make Himself known to us, we’ll learn that He is even more than the owner and creator of everything! - Our Daily Bread web site