Live it.

I have been working in a marketing office for 12 weeks, two days a week. I have spent 180 hours surrounded by a group of seven individuals, writing articles with them for magazines, emails, designing posters, the whole deal. Yet I had no idea their spiritual ‘status’. . . For all the time I had spent with them, nothing they did or spoke of told me anything about their view or life of Christianity, even though I make my beliefs clear. (My very email contains ‘LionessofGod’ in it.)

This made me wonder, how is it I could have talked and worked with them for this long, and only once have heard one of them say “yeah, my church did an egg hunt for Easter” and that be the end of it?? I know for a fact at least 2 of them “go to church” but if that is all I know, what does that say about their walk with God? Think about it, my fellow Lions. People should KNOW your citizenship to the Kingdom of the Lord by more than a passing comment or your facebook profile. How many of the people you are surrounded by everyday are Christians? Do you even know? Have you looked?

Better question – Do they know You are One?

If you don’t reflect the love and life of Jesus Christ in EVERY aspect of your own life, how can you claim to be a Christian, a vessel of His Glory, while hiding behind the status-quo of ‘politically correct’? If you offend someone simply for saying “I believe in God.” then they are the ones with the issue, one they will eventually take up with Him. At the same time, while one of your companions is grinding their teeth and shunning you, another might have desperately needed to know they are not alone, that you have God’s love in your life, a love you are called to share with them.

Don’t ever, ever, ever say “This just isn’t the place to bring up Religion.” If you know anything about God and Jesus’ mission on earth, you know it has absolutely nothing to do with Religion. God put you where you are for a reason, wherever that may be, to be to be Lions in a world permeated with fear, Love in a world polluted with hate, and Light in a world cast in darkness.

If you don’t put God into Every situation, and live for Him in ALL you do, then how can you expect Him to have power over it, and over the darkness around you, if you won’t even address Him when you are there?

With my Love and His~ Arial Alexis LionessofGod
PS: See This Link to a former post that addresses a similar topic on leading a Sanctified, Christian Life.

Kids = Gift of God

This post is a bit different than I have done in the past, but this needs to be told. The state of the world can be changed by a very specific group of people, who hold the future in their hands. The PARENTS.

Yesterday I watched as a young couple argued in my kitchen over why their 3 year old daughter is stand offish towards her father. The mother says "She hates him! For good reason too! He called her an ugly baby! He'd make faces to get her to cry! (Child's name) just hates him!" Meanwhile the poor little girl is sitting on her mom's hip.

Now I'm not a parent, but I am a Child. And of the MANY things wrong in this situation, I will name a few.

1.) Never criticize your spouse in front of your child. If we are old enough to understand words, we will remember. Daddy is our knight in shining armor (even if you are fully convinced it is only tin foil) and mommy is perfect. She is warm and soft and is made of hugs. Respect each other and we will grow to respect you.

2.) Your baby is never ugly.

3.) If you make babies cry I hope your face freezes that way. -.-

4.) Last but not least, my kitchen is not a therapy room. Not for you. My kitchen is my therapy. My facebook is yours. ;) See my FB here!

Psalm 113:9 He gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children.Praise the LORD!

Psalm 127:3-5  Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.

Psalm 139:13-16  For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you,when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

John 16:21 When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.

James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

For you.

Jesus died for you. He died so you - so WE - in all our sin, in all our pain and shortcomings, could one day stand in the presence of God, by offering Himself as a sacrifice for the Grace of God. In His Death and Resurrection, He has given us the chance to change, the chance to LIVE. He 'tore the veil' separating us from God by becoming the ultimate sacrifice needed to atone (make right) our sins. He did all this - He suffered, He died, He taught in Hell for 3 days apart from God's Spirit, and finally rose again, a victor over death and the Devil - all for YOU. 

Romans 1:4-5

And Jesus Christ our Lord was shown to be the Son of God when God powerfully raised him from the dead by means of the Holy Spirit. Through Christ, God has given us the privilege and authority to tell Gentiles (outsiders, unbelievers) everywhere what God has done for them, so that they will believe and obey him, bringing glory to His name.

Romans 6:8-11

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus 

1 Peter 1:13-25

Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

Matthew 20:28

"The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many"

Hebrews 2:14-15

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

1 Peter 2:24

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.

1 Peter 3:18

For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit,

1 John 2:2

He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.