What’s on your Menu? YOU!

   
What a wonderful Day it is, Let us open in prayer…

Father in Heaven, we implore your aid in our suffering, we applaud your grace in our forgiving and we ask for your power in our discernment! We thank you Lord for All things you do and have done for us, seen and unseen, for we know without you Life has NO Meaning! Continue to strengthen us Father knowing we are flawed, and inspire us towards greatness with your words to light our compass, and with your love as our way! Amen! 

How we love the Lord! 🙂 Feels good right? Like knowing you are about to eat your favorite meal cooked by mom or grand mom….you see, God wants us to learn to find our own happiness through Him; you have to learn to take time for yourself to find out what that happiness is! YOU HAVE TO PUT YOU ON THE MENU!!! 🙂

Put YOU on your calendar!! Put YOU in your schedule!!

  
You need your attention too! You see, if you don’t see yourself as valuable no one else will! So spend quality time with your self… If you must spend time with others…make every relationship count! Stay with me here 😉 Everything is about relationships. Continue to inculcate reciprocal resourceful relationships. Let me explain…When YOU are on your menu, it’s all about your time, your space and your happiness, right? So if you must have a relationship, make sure you don’t inherit its mess! It’s an STD! Spiritually Transmitted Distraction! That’s right! Just like you can catch a physical sickness from a relationship, so can you catch a spiritual sickness…so you MUST guard your relationships and what you put on YOUR MENU! You see, if relationships are not reciprocal AND not resourceful those are NOT relationships you want! Ask yourself…If it’s about me, my menu…I know who prepared my menu! Thank you Lord…You know what you bring to the table! However, If a relationship doesn’t bring you anything (Not Reciprocal: Doesn’t bring knowledge, happiness, wealth, water, nothing…yet, takes takes takes…again, that is not reciprocal!! So if you must have a relationship, make sure it brings something to the table and adds to the magnificent Menu you already have prepared!! Make it reciprocal and resourceful…start with God’s discernment on it. Again, it is hard to establish relationships if you are not right with yourself…You see nature teaches that there can be no fruit without relationships! You cannot be successful by yourself in business, family or in life! However, it takes solid reciprocal resourceful relationships for you environment to grow… You show me the person on your right and your left, I can show you your future….Hear me, you are no more than the relationships you surround yourself with!!! So make sure they are good ones and fit on YOUR Menu! 🙂

So, the message for today! God 1st and keep you on the Menu! Self Love, then the relationships that count.

Let’s pose the question…

Question: “What does the Bible say about self-love, loving self?”

Answer: Love as described in the Bible is quite different from the love as espoused and expressed by the world. Biblical love is selfless and unconditional, whereas the world’s love is characterized by selfishness. In the following bible passages, we see that love does NOT exist apart from God, hence God 1st! and that true love can only be experienced by one who has experienced God’s own love firsthand and Loves themselves.

Romans 13:9–10, “The commandments, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ ‘Do not murder,’ ‘Do not steal,’ ‘Do not covet,’ and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”

John 13:34–35, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

1 John 4:16–19, “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us.”

We should love others based on God’s abiding love for US in Christ. In response to HIS love, we share it with all whom we reciprocate in contact with—our “neighbors.” Someone who is worried that he doesn’t love himself enough WILL have the wrong focus and attract Spiritual STD!! Hear this!! His concern, biblically, should be his love for God 1st and his love for his neighbor. “Self Love” is something we want established so that we can love outwardly, find reciprocal resourceful relationships and manage our Menus as we ought. 🙂

Stand tall in all you do, God’s speed in your endeavors and may your laudable undertakings be rewarding, bringing you happiness and assist in discovering your true passion in this life!

Rev. Gerald F. Poe Jr., PM