Devotional for friends // Devocional para as amigas

So then, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; what is old has passed away—look, what is new has come! (2 Corinthians 5:17) Portanto, se alguém está em Cristo, é nova criação. As coisas antigas já passaram; eis que surgiram coisas novas! (2 Corinthians 5:17)   Do you see this picture above? Ok, I cleaned it. Do you know what it is? I suppose you do, but to be clear, this is some sort of grill that came with my “fancy” electric ninja foodie pan, I love it and I use it a lot, but it got dirty with grease. There have been some days since I had said that I would clean it, but I was relying on my memory to buy the thing that cleans aluminum stuff. Guess what? Of course, I never remembered it. So, I decided to get creative and clean it. I got a piece of aluminum foil, made it a little ball, and rubbed it onto the grill with a drop of dish soap. It worked! I was proud of myself.   As I was cleaning, God was bringing to my memory that some days ago I was asking him to teach me how to

  Be intentional.   You know when I look at my past and I remember that there were uncountable times when people had said something and few moments later they’d say “I was just joking”, “It was a joke Hadassa, why are you always so serious?” But I wasn’t always serious, I can say jokes too, but my jokes don’t sound like something that would hurt somebody or even something I wouldn’t say directly so choose to say “jokingly” to minimize the effect of the rudeness behind. You know what I mean, right?   If you want to say something good, just say it. If you want to criticize something or someone, choose the right words (a hard task I’d say) and the right moment, but likewise say it. Especially if it is something that will help the person or the thing grow, move forward, and get better. If it is something that will edify the person or the thing.  Don’t hold back something that not only through your eyes but through common sense will bring something good out of it. But don’t expect to be lov

  Sometimes things seem tough. Like life. Like elections! I am not going to talk about that. Bad example. Jesus sometimes had some hard words for his disciples and they could not get their heads around what Jesus was talking about. Later on... I mean… later on after some long time I dare to say the Holy Spirit could open their eyes in understanding so they could finally get what Jesus had talked about.    I’ve just read the passage when Jesus said, “our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep”. As he did later, he could just say that Lazarus had died. When he said it plainly so they could understand what he meant by “fallen asleep” he added, “for your sake, I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe” (John 11:14). Ouch! Lazarus was his friend, right? It would sound weird if I told my friends that one of my friends had died and I was glad I wasn’t there. At first, anyone would think, wow that was very insensitive on his part. Why not think that? Because at first, it was.   So, it