7 EASY-ish tips for living... we can do this!!
7 EASY-ish tips for living... we can do this!!
Taken from Paul the apostle's letter around AD 52 from the new testament
I will keep this brief today as it should be and was meant to be.
I found these verses to be easy to memorize and use daily a few years back. They are easy to bring up in conversations, especially when someone says they can’t understand the Bible and it’s confusing.
Let’s read these short verses from 1 Thessalonians and see if they confuse you- I think you will find they are simple to understand and easily remembered.
16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 19 Do not quench the Spirit. 20 Do not despise prophecies, 21 but test everything; hold fast what is good. 22 Abstain from every form of evil.
Below I will share how I study verses for myself, helps me to memorize them and understand them too. Mom taught me this years ago.. thanks Mom!
Especially if there are words that I don’t use often, I will do a word study and look at different translations too to ensure I am grasping the meaning and why it was written.
I break the verses up into numbers so you can see the (7 Easy tips for living) - God’s perfect number- God stopped on the seventh day. In Hebrew, the number "seven" has the same consonants as the word for completeness or wholeness.
Seven develops two key symbolic associations. One of them is that one through seven all together is a symbol of completeness.)
1) 16 Rejoice always, (this is different than being ‘happy’ which is usually just circumstantial and can fade quickly- rejoicing means to be FULL OF JOY- will discuss this more in my NEW BOOK!)
2) 17 pray without ceasing, (pray can also be translated, TALK- so basically talk to God without ceasing!)
3) 18 in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
(Yes, even in the hardest parts of life, through tragedies, failures and successes, give thanks- if you need more study on this, see James 1 and I am sure it will be in one of my devotions soon- so important to grasp)
4)) 19 Do not quench THE SPIRIT
(You and I are made up of a body, soul and spirit- the things that can keep the spirit filled and running is reading His Word, praying and sharing with others, and doing the other 6 items listed here- our spirit is then filled with His Holy Spirit).
**More on this topic to come, why I started writing my NEW BOOK!!
5) 20 Do not despise PROPHECIES.
(I have been researching on prophetic scriptures for YEARS! Anyone else read all the ‘Left Behind’ series & still have them?? I have so many stories about this topic and things learned.. and am still learning to this day. We are all living in a very unique and special time. I understand that a 1/3 of the Bible is prophecy.. and about 75-80% of all prophecy has already been accomplished.. meaning the remainder of is coming quickly and right in front of our eyes! We were born for a time like this, take joy in finding out WHY!)
6) 21 Test ALL THINGS;
(We can only TEST all things through the Word of God- after all He created EVERYTHING- why it is important to read His Word so we know what was written and can say “for it was written” with confidence, like the disciplines did, following Jesus’s example).
7) hold fast WHAT IS GOOD. 22 Abstain from every form of EVIL.
(I have another devotional I will soon share that talks about evil from a different perspective.)
** in case you haven’t seen this post on my NEW BOOK— here it is:
