Dear Lord; Happy Meditations Monday Father!<\/p>\n
Today Father, I\u2019d like to start the week by thanking You from the bottom of my heart for the wonderful vacation You Graced us with last week.\u00a0 The weather was gorgeous, the scenery was breathtaking and all of us had a fantastic time away together.\u00a0 For the first time since starting my business in 1997, I actually made a conscious decision to leave my mobile phone in the cabin and not call into the office each day\u2026 It was a practice that I\u2019ll certainly be repeating on future trips.\u00a0 The personal impact of using that time to focus on my family and on Your Presence, and to recharge my spiritual and emotional batteries can\u2019t be overstated.\u00a0 It was truly a Blessing to all of us, and I thank You wholeheartedly.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s Meditations Monday<\/span><\/em> Scripture reading comes from the book of John, and addresses an issue that all followers of Christ deal with at some point in their Walk; Disdain and in some cases, persecution for our Faith.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.<\/strong>\u00a0 <\/strong>If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own.\u00a0 As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.\u00a0 That is why the world hates you.<\/strong> <\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.\u00a0 If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.\u00a0 If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.<\/strong> <\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me.\u201d \u2013 John 15:18-21 (NIV)<\/strong><\/p>\n Now Lord, I don\u2019t know of any cases where I\u2019ve been outwardly hated for my relationship with You.\u00a0 However, I have been aware more than once of some people avoiding my company because of the public emphasis I place on Your Word and Your Presence in my life.\u00a0 These daily chats, along with my outreach efforts and scripture postings make some people uncomfortable, leading them to shy away.\u00a0 By drawing the division between \u201cchildren of the world\u201d<\/em> and the \u201cchildren of God\u201d<\/em>, Jesus warns us that the rift between the two would lead to such conflicts, and to not be surprised by it.\u00a0 Instead, we\u2019re charged to reveal Your Light within us and allow it to bridge the chasm through signs and examples of Your Gracious Love.\u00a0 The important thing to remember is this; although we will likely see hardships and resistance as Christians in a confused and troubled world, by keeping our gaze fixed firmly on Jesus, we\u2019re assured the strength and peace to stand firm against the world around us.<\/p>\n “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. \u00a0In this world you will have trouble. \u00a0But take heart! \u00a0I have overcome the world.” \u2013 John 16:33 (NIV)<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s lovely to be back Father.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n Amen.<\/p>\n ~Phather Phil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear Lord; Happy Meditations Monday Father! Today Father, I\u2019d like to start the week by thanking You from the bottom of my heart for the wonderful vacation You Graced us with last week.\u00a0 The weather was gorgeous, the scenery was breathtaking and all of us had a fantastic time away together.\u00a0 For the first time […]<\/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":[549,168,419,1329,1113,1503,516,286,132,1058,1509,321,772,722,27,829,1504,915,342,578,306,15,4,173,42,1360,1510,1507,1391,1502,59,805,237,269,787,206,1325,1508,1506,517,1505,734,729,92,290,1511,1358,1513,627,117,95,86,1512,476,544,114,510,733,378,379,1501],"class_list":["post-1166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-emails-to-god","tag-avoid","tag-bless","tag-blessing","tag-book-of-john","tag-bottom-of-my-heart","tag-breathtaking-scenery","tag-business","tag-child","tag-children","tag-children-of-god","tag-children-of-the-world","tag-christ","tag-christian","tag-christians","tag-comfort","tag-company","tag-conscious-decision","tag-dear-lord","tag-emotion","tag-emotional","tag-emphasis","tag-faith","tag-family","tag-father","tag-focus","tag-followers-of-christ","tag-gods-gracious-love","tag-gods-presence","tag-gods-word","tag-gorgeous-weather","tag-grace","tag-graced","tag-hardships","tag-jesus","tag-leading","tag-meditation","tag-meditations-monday","tag-outreach-efforts","tag-outwardly-hated","tag-personal","tag-personal-impact","tag-public","tag-recharge","tag-relationship","tag-resistance","tag-reveal-gods-light","tag-scripture","tag-scripture-reading","tag-servant","tag-son","tag-spirit","tag-strength","tag-strength-and-peace","tag-teach","tag-teaching","tag-thank-you","tag-troubled","tag-uncomfortable","tag-wonder","tag-wonderful","tag-wonderful-vacation"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p18mMc-iO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1166","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=1166"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1169,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1166\/revisions\/1169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}