Loving God's Way

1 Corinthians 13 The Message (MSG)

The Way of Love

13 If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.

2 If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.

3-7 If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

HAPPY VALENTINE's WEEK!!!! 

Love Mary

Inside the Journal of Intentional Living!

The Journal of Intentional Living will help encourage your quiet time and live intentionally with God daily!  Here are a few pictures of what's inside! 

The outside cover.  Simple and inviting for your quiet time.  Psalm 16:11 "You fill me with Joy in Your presence."

Journal of Intentional Living just for you and your relationship with Christ.  The next page is a place for your Name and Date and Moments/Thoughts you never want to forget.  A keepsake for years to come!

8 Tabs to separate your times with God:  Prayers, Quiet Time, Favorite Scripture, Worship, Bible Study, Conference/Retreat, Journal, and Clear Your Mind.  All your God moments in ONE place!  Throw away your ten different journals!  YES!

Heart of Living Joy is a relationship with Christ is the only perfect fulfillment for the heart!  Encouraging daily joy based on faith!

Your different prayer topics for each day of the week.  Deepen your prayer life!

The prayer section.  A place to write out your prayers and HIS ANSWERS!  God is faithful!

Quiet time section includes a verse for each day, a place to write your intentional living moment and what you are grateful for.  A grateful attitude always brings Joy!

Each tab includes a pretty JOY scripture!

Clear Your Mind section is for all those distracting thoughts that you are reminded of *ONLY* when you finally sit down for your quiet time.  When they come up, jot them down here, and these pages are perforated so you can take them with you and make sure they are completed later in the day!  Love these!!!!

Thanking God!

My favorite time of the year has arrived!  I love this week - gathering with family, friends and loved ones to give thanks!  As you try and make everything perfect - from the table top to the pumpkin pie.  Remember, the most beautiful moments in this life are those felt with the heart!  Here at Living Joy Ministries, we will be thanking and praising God this week - on purpose!

Join us as we live in a posture of thankfulness!  Psalm 103:1-5 is a lovely Thank you note from King David to God.  Praising God for His mercies!

We adore and thank you God for all your personal blessings this day!  Thank you, GOD.  Thank YOU!

YAY! Tomorrow! Order YOUR OWN Journal of Intentional Living!

My heart is over joyed to get these journals to you! Living with a mindset of intention and gratefulness will change your everyday living.  My prayer are the journals encourage your quiet time wherever you are in your faith journey.  He meets you just as you are and honors any time you spend with Him.  Jesus didn't die on the cross for us to live a boring mediocre life.  He wants us to live a powerful and intentional life with Him!

Love you so very much and thankful for YOU!

Mary

Why I love Journaling!

This is a picture of previous journals I have used.

Girls, I was OVER. IT. when my “Super Awesome Ideas” Journal lost its back cover and the mere fact I was writing my deepest thoughts in anything that said “Super Awesome Ideas”…I couldn’t handle it and was determined to make a Journal that I would enjoy writing in and want as a keepsake for years to come!

I have used the journal over the past few months and LOVED it!

My thoughts are your Journal of Intentional Living will be similar to the latest photo album you made.  In life we go through many seasons and we document them through pictures - so we never forget them.  Your wedding day, child’s first day of school, parents retirement party, vacations, birthdays, family Christmas cards and so much more.  Our photo albums display memories in pictures.  Similarly, our journals record our most inner thoughts and deepest moments with God – memories we never want to forget!

Gordon MacDonald, pastor and author of “Ordering your private world” describes journaling in his book this way:

(1) "I began to realize that the journal was helping me come to grips with an enormous part of my inner person that I had never been fully honest about ... I became aware ... that God's Holy Spirit was directing many of the thoughts and insights as I wrote. On paper, the Lord and I were carrying on a personal communion ... this began to happen only when the journal was employed" (p 131).

(2) "twenty years of journal keeping [as of 1984] ... Hardly a morning passes that I do not open the journal and record the things I hear God saying through my reading, meditation, and daily experience. When the journal opens, so does the ear of my heart. If God is going to speak, I am ready to listen" (p 132).

(3) "a beautiful example of a man listening to God in his private world through the use of a journal ... as he perceived the divine whisper, he transformed into print the still, small voice of his Lord" (p. 133).

 (4) "the main value of a journal is as a tool for listening to the quiet Voice that comes out of the garden of the private world. Journal keeping serves as a wonderful tool for withdrawing and communing with the Father. When I write, it is as if I am in direct conversation with Him. And there is that sense that in the words that you are led to write, God's Spirit is mysteriously active, and communion at the deepest level is happening" (p. 136).

Today, I am taking my niece and nephew to Disneyworld.  I have packed my camera, Bible and Journal for sure.  I do not want to miss taking pictures of them on the Tower of Terror and I don’t want to miss recording this sweet answered prayer in my Journal.  What moments with God do you not want to forget?!

Lots of love and BIG hug to you sweet friend!  God is so so good!!!

Mary =)