Self-Respect: the Means for Self-Love - Part 1

Values determine your lifestyle and what you treasure. Parents work and save to give their family an inheritance they hope will be appreciated. In truth, the greatest treasures you pass on to your children are strong godly values – not an easy task because each person falls short of demonstrating perfection.

Children easily identify and even replicate their parents’ weaknesses and mistakes. However, as parents determine to clean up and change their lives, their children will observe and respect their efforts. Children long for parents to give them hope and assurance that change is possible. They want and need to emulate honorable and trustworthy values.  

          Be open and honest about your struggles. Along with honesty, it’s critically important to demonstrate endurance, the staying power that sees a task through to completion. Honesty’s ultimate goal hopes for closeness, love and respect, for this is the pathway to self-respect and a healthy self-love. It’s God’s way and that must be good.  

Seize Opportunity: It's Our Responsibility - Part 1

What makes human beings unique from other species is our ability to feel and think and to come to logical conclusions. Listen to Hebrews 2:7 from J. B. Phillips' The New Testament in Contemporary English. "What is man and woman that you bother with them; why take a second look their way? You made them not quite as high as angels. Then you put them in charge of your world."

With responsibility comes opportunity, but also accountability for how choices are managed. Another component of responsibility is submissiveness, which in its healthiest sense demands compliance and obedience to authority. Submissiveness implies honesty and truthfulness, which are an absolute necessity for every facet of life.

If opportunity is not seized at the moment of availability, it may be forever lost. Opportunity may mean saving a relationship that has deteriorated, but could with major effort be turned around. God puts us at the crossroads of life to offer us a chance to evaluate what's important. Submitting to that opportunity is your choice.