Lent Has come around again.

Well here we are and it has fully come around almost one year since my last post. A lot has happened and I have learned a lot about Jesus and my faith. We are back in the season of lent. This year I have given the kids faith bands again like I did last year. It is exciting this year too because Amelia is old enough to really start understanding more. Our biggest lent event this year for the kids is the Jelly bean Prayer.

I have found a couple of different versions of it. Here they are below.

Red is for the blood He gave                                          

Green is for the grass He made

Yellow is for the sun so bright

Orange is for the edge of night

Black is for the sins we made

White is for the grace He gave

Purple is for the house of sorrow

Pink is for the new tomorrow 

A bag of jellybeans

colorful and sweet

In this prayer is a promise

And a small delicious treat.

 JELLY BEAN POEM

Little jelly beans 

Tell a story true.

A tale of Father's love 

Just for me and you. 

GREEN is for the waving palms.

YELLOW is for the sun above.

BROWN is for the soft earth where 

People sat hearing of HIS love. 

A SPECKLED bean for fish and sand.

RED for precious wine and 

BLACK is for the sin 

He washed from you soul and mine. 

PURPLE'S for the sadness of 

HIS family and His friends,

WHITE is for the glory of 

The Day HE rose again. 

Now that you've heard the story

 You know what each color means.

The story of our Father's love 

Told by some jelly beans.

So every morning take a bean 

They're really very yummy.

Something for the soul, you see 

And something for the tummy.

 Jellybean Prayer

Each Child Gets a Jelly bean Jar. At the end of the day we review the various colours and meanings below and the kids will slowly fill up their jelly bean jars. White jelly beans represent the grace of God and you can't earn them they must be given freely. So to show the kids how Gods Grace works I will top up their jars on Easter morning. 

To earn a red jelly bean they have to have sacrificed something that day

To earn a green jelly bean they have to have done a good deed that day

To earn a yellow jelly bean they have to share or discussed in everyday conversation the word of God with someone.

To earn an orange jelly bean they have to Pray.

To earn a purple jelly bean they have to apologize to anyone they may have hurt

To earn a pink jelly bean they have to have forgiven someone who apologized to them.  

They are all enjoying this bed time ritual. It gives us all an opportunity to discuss each Jelly bean colour and the meaning we associate with each colour. Once the kids start talking about their sacrifices, mistakes and the various other subjects that come up, it opens more and more doors that lead to discussions about Jesus and what he did. 

This is truly a great way to celebrate and keep lent.

Guilt

I have finally finished my reflection on guilt. It took quite some time. I am sure though it is worth the time I took. Guilt it is no longer my enemy, nor my friend, and it has no power. I am releasing guilt from all of its duties and casting it out of my life. I don't want it or need it, and moreover find it to be an oppressive useless presence in any ones life.


The description of guilt is as follows:a feeling of responsibility or remorse for some offense, crime,wrong, etc., whether real or imagined.


The noun guilt is therefore a feeling, whether real or imagined it is a 


feeling. A feeling can not accomplish anything unless acted upon. 


How do we react to guilt? 
1. By conjuring up more bad feelings, such as shame, disgrace, dishonor, error, failing, fault, iniquity, regret, self-condemnation, self-reproach.
2. By separating ourselves from what we most need, such as family, friends, support systems, God.
3. By blaming others for our perceived guilt, projecting onto others our guilt.
4. Being unhappy and pouring our unhappiness onto others.


What we should do with our guilt?
Simply let it go. As you can see from above it does no good to feel the crushing weight of guilt. If we have done something wrong, feeling guilty will do nothing about it. We must make amends to the party we have hurt, totally and sincerely. That is the best thing to do in every situation where we have done some wrong. If there needs to be some form of penance, in the legal system, work place, or in a relationship, so be it, sometimes we have to make amends by doing something to make up for our error. 


I think that guilt often does the opposite of what its original purpose is. Sometimes when someone feels guilty it makes it harder for them to approach the person they have hurt for fear of rejection. 
In the case of religion, more specifically of God this is disastrous. 


God knows what is in our hearts, and our thoughts. He already knows all that we have done to offend him. He has already sent his son to suffer; he doesn't want us to suffer, he wants us to live in peace and love and when we walk around with guilt we are not doing his will. 


Guilt makes us feel unworthy, and not one person can ever accept something they do not feel worthy of. God gives us mercy, grace, love and most importantly forgiveness which we accept by going to him to ask for forgiveness, by acknowledging our slights and allowing them to be taken. 


We cannot walk around glorifying God if we have guilt in our hearts. it must be forgotten when it is taken away. God does not encourage us to confess and repent and then continue on with a load of guilt that is so heavy, it keeps us from love, worship, and daily life. 


Guilt is painful, it makes you feel so far from God that you fear you will never be near him. When you are forgiven, you must accept it as so. This is Gods promise. 


Romans 8:1-3 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,


We have to move on from our troubles and guilt, continue in our lives fulfilling Gods purpose.


So I am calling on everyone I know to throw off their guilt, to release themselves from their Guilt because God has already done so, and to continue holding onto it is to reject the Holy Spirit and that, in and of itself is a sin. 


Don't judge yourself after God has already done so, you are meant to reflect to learn and to improve, keep yourself close to God so that you readily accept and receive his mercy and grace.

In addition

I knew I did not capture everything in my last post it just took me a while and a bit more thinking to sort it out.

I know a lot of people say the road to God is narrow, that there is only one way. While this is true, it is not up to us to say who God will show mercy to.

When we judge we do not know the circumstances of the heart and mind and life that we are judging. God asks us not to judge.

I received this reminder from a friend today.

Luke 6:37-38 "Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not ,and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven: Give ,and it shall be given unto you; good measure , pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again. 

When it is our judgment time and we stand before God, are you going to take out your bible and say to the Almighty God, with finger pointed at scripture, "you see God it is written right here. I was following your word. I only rejected my brothers and sisters because they would not agree with me, in what I thought you were saying." Are you prepared to defend yourself by throwing his word in his face? Or will you as his humble servant be able to stand before God and say, "Forgive me father if I have offended you. I tried to love my brothers and sisters while living in your word and being true to it."

My point is that God has mercy and we should try to live in his word. As any good parent he is guiding us and wants us to succeed and if there is doubt in what we do we must keep in mind that working in his word and with his love is the best way to follow the narrow path directly to him. 

There are two other points that I will touch on in my next couple of blogs, think about them yourselves and see what you think about them and then you can see what I think. They are submission and Guilt Click on the words to view the definitions.        

Why that name?

So I finally get around to writing about the name of my blog. My Jesus is your Jesus. Pope John Paul II once said something like, We all have the same God he just speaks to us in different ways. I can't find the actual quote but you get the idea.

I love what that statement means. Religion, Faith whatever you would like to call it, is about or should be about an individual relationship with God. No one but God knows what is in your heart.

How then, can there even really be a true religion or Faith? So many people rely on institutions such as the church, or various religious organizations to guide them in following the interpretations of the bible. Of course in true human fashion, and nature, men don't always agree with one another. Divisions and splits are made within church after church. Because of mans fallibility and inability to stay out of another mans business, man takes it upon himself to judge another man. We can't truly judge a man without knowing what is in his heart, which is why God speaks of judgment and wants us to leave it to him.

God doesn't want us to be separate and individual in our praise. He wanted us to come together, community, communion as brothers and sisters of children of God.

So churches separate due to Doctrinal differences, and people kill one another to prove their interpretation of Gods word is right, and the human race of this generation teaches our children that it doesn't matter what Gods word is; what Jesus said, we should be judge, jury and prosecutor, sentencing our brothers and sisters to Hell because we disagree with what they think God is trying to say.

Church is community, in community we can praise God, How Glorious! Since our relationship is with God ultimately God will judge us, we are responsible for learning as much as we can about our God;my Jesus who is your Jesus. We must teach our children how to seek and find the truth that will give them the ability to stand before God, on their own, defending their actions and intentions and speaking for themselves and what they know.

As we live our lives and make decisions we use Gods gift of free will. When our time comes for judgment, the priest, pastor, spiritual leader or old buddy from high school will not be standing beside or behind you saying,"Oh no I made her do that." or "I tried to tell him but he wouldn't listen." Its just you and God.

It would be nice if we could get the church to do that, put aside differences and just allow us all to come together to praise and worship in, and for, the Glory of God, together, as was meant. Leave the judgement to God. In the mean time, I will worship in groups and in church in my daily life and in private, and I will pray that one day we will all come together to worship the one God that there really is.

Shrove Tuesday,

So today we started our lent preparations. I spoke with the kids during dinner which was of course, PANCAKES! We talked about why we eat pancakes and I told them all the exciting things I picked up today for them to help them each get closer to Jesus during the next 40 days.

Silly Bandz? Nope Faith Bands

So I picked up these Faith Bands, they come with a little legend that lets you know what each color is. Each of the colors is a different component of faith so they can choose one every morning to wear to school and be reminded of their faith and their walk with Jesus during lent.

Family Countdown to Easter A Day-by-Day Celebration
By Debbie Trafton O'Neal Illustrated by Viki Woodworth

I also picked up this book called Family Countdown to Easter, it has kid friendly scripture and some daily family activities for lent. There is a pull out in the middle of the book which is a puzzle of stickers, you add one sticker for each day and at Easter we will have finished the sticker puzzle and will see what our picture is of. I picked up a few other things and before dinner we looked through them. Each of the kids has picked a memory verse to have memorized by they end of the week.

Victoria working on the Cross

Victoria is upstairs as we speak, she is going to paint a bunch of flowers and make a big paper cross. During lent we are all going to work on improving our virtues and every time we do something that improves our virtue or contributes and shows love for others we will put a flower on the cross and hopefully by the end of lent we will have a cross full of flowers.

Olivia trying to read her Kid builder Bible

I was very happy when after dinner Olivia asked me if she could do a bible study like I am doing. I was so excited and overjoyed. Cody asked me if he could use my bible too. I invited Cody to help himself anytime he liked and told Olivia to look in her room for the Kid Builder Bible. I knew we had one, I used it for Becky, Megan and Cody when they were little, I was happy to dust it off and show Olivia how to use it. I am excited to start our lent journey this year. I am excited to reintroduce my children to Jesus. I am excited to feel the love and peace of the season. If any one else would like to share their lent family experiences I would love to read them.

How much can I give?

Although there is no scriptural basis for us celebrating lent, I always have.  I call it Celebration because it always strips away my ideas of what I have planned for my life and it strips away the illusion that I have, of my own needs. I find this stripping to be the closest I ever come to seeing the true me. The person, with the characteristics, and talents that God meant for me to have and use, it all comes shining through when an uncluttered mind and heart are focused.

I have been trying to think of things that I want to do with my family for lent. One of the ideas I found on the internet, that seemed to be very popular last year is called 40 bags in 40 days. The way it works, is you purge your house of things that you could really live without. Not just the stuff you don’t want or don’t use, but things you don’t need. I like the idea of showing the kids just how much they do have in the way of material stuff, that are extra’s, that are fun, but that are not needs, and could go to someone who has far less than we do.

 I also like the idea of our food being scaled back. Of course I wouldn’t want my children to fast.  I do often put a lot of flourishes into our meals that are unnecessary; making simpler meals has many benefits. Less mess to clean, therefore creating more time for the children and family, to cultivate appreciation of what we do have, once again showing that if we live simpler, maybe with the excess from our grocery budget we could donate a generous amount and be able to give to a family with much less than us.

Of course I have done the usual calling, and emailing around looking for special projects (the kids may be old enough to volunteer now). I do this to introduce my children to the idea that lent is not about giving up in order to suffer like Jesus did. God gave us Jesus, the pain and sacrifice that Jesus gave was for us, why would he want us to do it again? Lent is about reminding and refocusing. Reminding us who and what Jesus was and is. Refocusing on making our time on earth worthwhile for the human race not just ourselves.  Such as the gift God gave us, through Jesus.  I am also making a list of all the things that I think Jesus was and is, and I am going to make a Lent Calendar and challenge myself and the kids to be each of these things at some point during lent.  

-Son of God (k so this one may be difficult)

-Visionary

-Social networker

-Teacher

-Savior

-Preacher

-Friend

-Gift

-Word of God

-Missionary

-Truth

-Courage

-Kindness

-Healer

All of these wonderful things and we rush through life barely touching on any of them. Why do we do that? Because we don’t have faith, we get caught up in day to day stuff and we think that everything else is more important than God.

When we are so far from God we feel like the most important things in our lives are those things we must provide for ourselves. Money, food, housing, cars, insurance, t.v., internet, video games, clothes, and numerous other material goods.

Lent is a time to put all of those things into the background, yes I know how do we put food and housing and transportation into the background? We don’t really, but when we clean the rest of the stuff out of our lives, there is plenty of time for God and to provide for necessities.  When we do this we come closer to God, to Jesus, and in doing so help others, enrich our lives and remember that the important things are not those that we have, but the things that we do, when in our actions we honor God.  

I want peace in my heart and God has promised it.

Psalm 29:11 The Lord will give strength unto his people; the Lord will bless his people with peace.

Isaiah 26:3 Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in   thee.

John 14:27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

Romans 5:1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ

Ephesians 2:14 For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;

2 Thessalonians 3:16 Now the Lord of peace himself give you peace always by all means. The Lord be with you all.