{"id":1107,"date":"2011-06-27T15:40:08","date_gmt":"2011-06-27T19:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/?p=1107"},"modified":"2011-06-27T15:40:08","modified_gmt":"2011-06-27T19:40:08","slug":"meditations-monday-transformational-benevolence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/?p=1107","title":{"rendered":"Meditations Monday: Transformational Benevolence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Lord; Happy Meditations Monday Father!<\/p>\n

Well Lord, yet another weekend has come and gone at the Malmstrom home.\u00a0 As seems to be our norm as of late, it was a somewhat hectic weekend but also one filled with fun, laughter, and the company of good friends.\u00a0 Your Presence was felt in abundance, and I thank You for Blessing us with these times of recreation and fellowship.<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s Meditations Monday<\/span><\/em> verse is taken from Chapter 4 of Paul\u2019s Epistle to the Ephesians:<\/p>\n

\u201cGet rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.<\/strong> <\/strong> Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.\u201d \u2013 Ephesians 4:31-32 (NIV)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wow\u2026 no pressure there Father.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

This a powerful, relevant verse Lord, and one all Your Children should take to heart more thoroughly.\u00a0 As the fragile, broken beings we are, we often allow our sinful natures to overshadow Your Desires for us.\u00a0 Feelings of inner conflict and malicious intent eat away at our souls, and obscure us from Your Voice.\u00a0 In this passage, Paul reminds us that You Blessed us with the perfect example of Divine Forgiveness.\u00a0 You set the bar, and guide us in our Walk to emulate that behavior in our dealings with one another.<\/p>\n

And as we discussed on Friday’s post<\/a> Father, You know our hearts, not just the persona we put on for others.\u00a0 \u201cSurface forgiveness\u201d<\/em> isn\u2019t what Your edict to us defines, but instead we\u2019re to strive for true, transformational benevolence<\/span><\/em>.\u00a0 It\u2019s a steep climb to be sure, but one that leads us ever closer to Christ\u2019s Footsteps and to Your Kingdom.<\/p>\n

Heavenly Father, I thank You once again for Your consistent guiding Presence in my life.\u00a0 Please help me to cast off the chains of sinful emotions, and reach out to others in the nature of true forgiveness and compassion.\u00a0 Help me to make decisions that best glorify Your Will, and to bring Your Light to those around me.\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n

~Phather Phil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Lord; Happy Meditations Monday Father! Well Lord, yet another weekend has come and gone at the Malmstrom home.\u00a0 As seems to be our norm as of late, it was a somewhat hectic weekend but also one filled with fun, laughter, and the company of good friends.\u00a0 Your Presence was felt in abundance, and I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[762,289,359,168,256,419,286,132,321,829,37,590,1124,915,154,143,282,1404,342,967,1399,541,173,619,216,220,1400,543,842,628,228,24,110,769,966,1332,686,847,1407,444,140,273,593,916,806,1295,1402,104,654,1403,206,1325,141,274,432,887,587,572,655,1408,1401,1405,114,1098,1406,49,504],"class_list":["post-1107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-emails-to-god","tag-anger","tag-behavior","tag-bible","tag-bless","tag-blessed","tag-blessing","tag-child","tag-children","tag-christ","tag-company","tag-compassion","tag-compassionate","tag-creation","tag-dear-lord","tag-decisions","tag-desires","tag-divine","tag-divine-forgiveness","tag-emotion","tag-ephesians","tag-epistle-to-the-ephesians","tag-example","tag-father","tag-feeling","tag-feelings","tag-fellowship","tag-felt-in-abundance","tag-footsteps","tag-fragile","tag-friday","tag-friend","tag-friends","tag-fun","tag-giving","tag-god","tag-gods-voice","tag-guide","tag-guiding","tag-guiding-presence","tag-happy","tag-heart","tag-hearts","tag-heavenly","tag-heavenly-father","tag-hectic","tag-help-me","tag-inner-conflict","tag-light","tag-malice","tag-malicious-intent","tag-meditation","tag-meditations-monday","tag-mind","tag-minds","tag-overshadow","tag-passage","tag-power","tag-powerful","tag-sinful","tag-sinful-emotions","tag-sinful-natures","tag-surface-forgiveness","tag-thank-you","tag-transformation","tag-transformational-benevolence","tag-weekend","tag-will"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p18mMc-hR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1107"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1112,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1107\/revisions\/1112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}