Self love

This past Thursday was a fun night, but we missed those who were unable to make it. We started off the evening with a dose of breakfast, french toast, eggs and bacon to be exact.

After a good time around the table we dove into our creative exploration of the story of Joseph. After the first week of discussion on the story of Joseph I really got to thinking. I started asking myself the question, how was it that Joseph was able to handle all the situations he went through with such righteousness. Even though crappy things kept happening, he was still more than a conqueror. I started thinking about Love and fear. I realized that Joseph had no doubt in his mind that he was loved, at least by his father. And I'm sure that his dad, Jacob, told him stories of El Shadai (God Almighty), and the promises He had made to Abraham, Issac. I then asked myself why is it so hard for us to receive love so often. Or why don't we believe that God's love for us is perfect and not earn able, but a free and amazing gift. There is nothing we can do to earn God's love, but also nothing we could do that would make Him love us any less. I talked this over with a few different people. One of these people said " I think a big reason why we don't believed that we are loved is because we don't really love ourselves." I thought that to be quite profound.

How can you respect an artist if you think his art work is Junk? How can we respect, trust, and beleive God if we think His artwork is crap. The artwork I speak of is Us.

I think we need to love ourselves to believe that God loves us.

Psalm 139 talks about how God knit us in our mothers womb, and that we are fearfully and wonderfully made.
Romans 5:8 talks about how God proved his perfect love for us when HE died when we were still in rebellion against Him (or sinners). And Mat 16:26 talks about how are souls are worth more then the whole world. To gain everything in the world is still comparable to our souls, our essence, ourselves.

So for our time of exploration we busted out the crayons, markers, and other instruments of beauty making and depicted 10 things we like about ourselves, or in other words 10 things we think God likes about us. We then each went around and shared 2 of those things.

This night was a beautiful night of openness, and sharing of the goodness of God and us with one another.

I am really excited about the direction God is leading this Group! Thanks everyone who is apart of it, I've really enjoyed our time together!

Grace and Peace,
Chris