"The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion — to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair."~from ISAIAH 61 Bible verse for this Blog

APOLOGY to READERS who followed a SEARCH to HERE & didn't find it

On July 18, 2017, I drafted almost 3000 blog posts that I had published since 2008 when I began blogging, rather than edit each one. So if you clicked here from somewhere else and ended up with the post unavailable or error, I am sorry but this is why. It'd be too much work for me to go back and fix them. There's an explanation on 7/19/17 as I'm still learning.

Monday, February 14, 2022

Centering RELATIONSHIPS Around Jesus Today




One of my books for the year 2022 is "JESUS LISTENS" and after only a month or so following along daily, it's one of my favorites by Sarah Young. I'm pretty sure I either have them all or have read most of her books, but because I love Prayer, this one, by far, is my favorite (however, this blog post is not intended as a book review). I recently received an email that promoted an accompanying discussion guide for this book and so I downloaded it, but have not used it yet. As I was preparing for this post, I wanted to link you to the Jesus Calling website where you can also download it, but I found out that currently on Amazon Kindle it is available for 0.00 also. You can't beat that! Whether you have the book yet or not, I recommend that you download this discussion guide while you can at this unbeatable price, before it changes, because that way, I can share with you on my blog by pointing you to that section of the 56 Week guide. That is the reason I am here sharing this today ... because I'm skipping ahead to Weeks 21-25 in honor of this day ... Valentine's Day (also known as Day of Love and Friendship in most Latin American countries) so we can share the discussion on 

LOVE!  

There are 5 weeks (or 5 pages) which could actually be done one a day (5 days) whatever time you have to fit this in for the LOVE Discussion divided as follows: 

Week 21: Relationships
Week 22: Finding Confidence
Week 23: Centering Relationships Around Jesus
Week 24: Building Trust
Week 25: Pouring From & Refilling Your Cup

{some of you will understand why I chose this section out of this Discussion Guide}

Week 21 - RELATIONSHIPS

[based on the devotion and Scripture passages from April 19th in Jesus Listens]


photo from my book of Jesus Listens -April 19th

Scripture Passages (used in the prayer devotion above):

Psalm 139:1-3 NASB; 1 Corinthians 13:12 HCSB; Romans 3:22; Psalm 21:6


Reflect or Share any of your responses in the Comments:

[Questions taken directly from the Discussion Guide for Week 21]

1. Think about your RELATIONSHIPS - family, friends, co-workers, acquaintances. Do you believe that they are all accepted and loved by God? If you know that God loves them, how does this inspire you to treat each RELATIONSHIP (even the difficult ones) with that "love lens" in place?

2. Each of us has a unique identity as one of God's beloved children.
Do you or anyone you know struggle with feeling known by God?
What are some ways you can remind yourself and others of the depth of love God has for each of us and how He longs for us to know and be known by Him?

3. When a problem arises in your RELATIONSHIPS, is it your natural inclination to bring it to God in prayer? If not, how would your problem solving change if you had God's love at the core of how you respond to problems?


The following box has which devotion entry is used for each week from the Jesus Listens book:

Week 21: Jesus Listen entry dated April 19th
Week 22: Jesus Listen entry dated August 24th
Week 23: Jesus Listen entry dated October 8th
Week 24: Jesus Listen entry dated October 22nd
Week 25: Jesus Listen entry dated July 18th


The Discussion Guide has sections for these topics with 3 questions like above: PEACE (Weeks 1-5); HEALTH (Weeks 6-10); DISCIPLINE (Weeks 11-15); JOY (Weeks 16-20); LOVE (above); FREEDOM (Weeks 26-30); HEALING (Weeks 31-35); HUMILITY (Weeks 36-40); COMMUNITY (Weeks 41-46); OBEDIENCE (Weeks 47-51); RESPONSIBILITY (Weeks 52-56)

Each of these topics are wonderful, but I chose the one on RELATIONSHIPS - the one for Week 23 focuses on our RELATIONSHIP with Jesus and reads "Falling in Love with God" on the Discussion Question page. For me, this is the perfect LOVE for this Day of LOVE & Friendship! So I'll be turning to the Prayer (devotion) for October 8th and reading Psalm 37:4; Zephaniah 3:17; Psalm 118: 28 HCSB; and Psalm 62:8 as I LISTEN to Jesus and sing some LOVE songs back to God because there is no Greater LOVE to celebrate on this day then JOHN 3:16!


[various versions of this image have been around for quite some time, 
although many have it on Pinterest now; it didn't originate there]
I don't do Pinterest but had this image saved from previous blog posts

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!


I am so thankful for God's LOVE for each one of us and that JESUS LISTENS & demonstrated this Great LOVE willingly & sacrificially at Calvary! Please remember to thank God for His LOVE on this day celebrating LOVE! 

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Bless you for your visit and encouraging words! I thank you and I am humbly blessed by YOU and the time you spend with me... Peace, "Mazmagi" Peggy


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DIOS TE BENDIGA
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always

Peggy