Uniting Belief and Behavior (Acts 24:14-16)

If we fully understand that we are sinners saved by grace, we may struggle with the idea of a "blameless conscience" (Acts 24:16). After all, we know our own hearts and motivations, don't we? Yet the apostle Paul found a way to ensure that his conscience commended rather than condemned him. Paul had a secret: Paying close attention to his beliefs and his behavior.

Paul went before the Roman governor Felix to plead his case in Acts 24, offering the consistency of his faith and behavior as evidence of innocence. His actions were determined by his convictions ~ namely, that he served the God of his fathers, and God would raise the dead to judgment. Together, these two firm beliefs helped him maintain a clear conscience.

Paul knew, as a student of Christ, that our deeds flow from who we are on the inside. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus described conditions of the heart and illustrated with practical applications. He was saying His followers would be "the light of the world" because of their work, but the work begins in the heart (Matt 5:14-16; Luke 6:45).

Far too often, Christians focus on doing the right thing, rather than on the underlying beliefs that drive such behavior. We can give, serve, or in some other way act "good"; but unless we pay attention to the convictions motivating our actions, we may end up with an unclear conscience after all. If, however, we submit to God and allow Him to transform us totally from the inside out, then our consciences and our testimonies will be strong and clear. We will be able to speak the truth with our deeds.

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Just a short little devotional today as I am pressed for time. I have so many things I want to do and so little time to do them in. I finished my first prayer shawl last night. (I still have to bind it off and braid the fringe on each end but the body of the shawl is done.) I hope I can figure out how to do the fringe. If I can't, I'm sure Kathleen will help me out. She's already said she would help me block it over at her house where she doesn't have any inside animals and we can put it on a sheet on the carpeting in the livingroom area until it is blocked and dried. I'm so excited to see what it looks like in it's proper shape. She's done a prayer shawl and that's how she blocked hers. I've never blocked anything so she'll be teaching me how to do that at the same time. I'm hoping we will do that this next Friday. Tonight I'll bind it off and try to get the fringe cut and figured out. It's kind of complicated looking. I'm hoping it's one of those things that look complicated but are really as simple as can be. This prayer shawl will go to my niece whose son, Merle, just died a month or so back. I know I mentioned her to you. I started knitting it for a blogger whose little 2-year-old strangled to death a couple months ago. But the Lord pressed Laurie onto my heart and I made the decision to change it and make it for Laurie. It was funny. As long as I prayed at the end of each side, it came out right. If I forgot to pray, I'd mess up and come out a stitch short or a stitch too long. (Thank God this is a forgiving pattern and yarn to work with because you can't see the mistakes, except for one. That one I mistook the number 6 on my row counter for number 9 and so I have only one row of YOs instead of two. You can definitely see the mistake if you look at it, but unless you really get down and start analyzing it, you won't really notice the mistake. I didn't notice the mistake until I was about 6 inches beyond and there was no way I was going to rip it all out for a mistake that no one's going to notice anyway.) But, as long as I prayed I'd stay even. Also, I had a miracle happen while knitting this prayer shawl. I got near the end of my pattern row and only had a few stitches left on my needle and I counted it out and I was one too many stitches. So I prayed, and voila! it came out even! I had just counted them and I was one over. Then I prayed and that extra stitch disappeared! Honest! It really happened. I'm glad the Lord told me to give this to Laurie because she needs the Lord so desperately in her life. She just got through a divorce from a deadbeat (sorry for being judgmental but that's was he was), then she lost Merle, and now she's kind of teamed up with another deadbeat. (No job with a history of drug use.) Someone she really doesn't need in her life right now. And I'm thinking that all the prayers that went into the making of this shawl will help her find the Lord. She needs the Lord so desperately right now. She was raised a JW also and she's since left that cult but she's like my sister who was a JW; they aren't doing anything spiritually at this time in their lives. We all need the Lord and we need Him ALL the time. Once the Lord led me to make this for Laurie, I prayed for her repeatedly throughout the making of this shawl. So this is a prayer shawl that has had dozens of prayers prayed during the knitting process. So it is truly a prayer shawl in that respect (or is it aspect?). I'm hoping that when she is down and hurting, when the sorrow of losing her firstborn bears down on her, she will be able to wrap herself in this shawl and feel all the prayers and find healing in the Lord. I have offered to share the gospel with her a few times and she's never taken me up on it. But this shawl has power. God made this shawl using my hands. This is God's creation, not mine. I anticipate seeing great things happen.

My hair is really growing out now and I've been going without a hat most of the time around home. You can still see my scalp in a lot of places (okay, most places) but it's looking like a short, short pixie cut. Depending on what it looks like in another month or so, I may keep my hair this way. Live dangerously! I've always wondered what I'd look like with really, really short hair and I'm being forced to experience it. The hair on the crown sticks straight up but the rest is now long enough that it's lying down on my head. The only problem I have is that I have what I consider a round, fat face and a pixie might not be the best decision to go. We'll see. I'm going to make an appointment with my hairdresser and get the sides and back cut with the clippers so it will all be the same length and then just see how I like it as it grows out. (Well, not quite this short. But short.) I've decided to be brave and try going the really short way and see how I like it. It will be wonderful to not have to worry about how it looks and always having to schedule in time needed to fix my hair before we could go anywhere. Some women can get a style to last a few days but mine is an every-day redo and only really looks good for the first couple hours. I hate my hair. It's so hard to work with and there's so little of it, even before it all fell out. It's taken 4 months to get to this stage and I figure it will probably take another 2-3 months to get to the pixie stage. And we'll just see how it goes. Once people get used to my short hair I won't look funny to anyone. Maybe not even to my worst critic: Me!!

Well, my computer is telling me that the autosave has failed and that blogger is down and publishing might fail so this post may just disappear when I try to publish it. Gee I hope not.

We've been having beautiful weather here in our corner of California. Lots and lots of sunshine. Right now the valley fog has moved up and enveloped us. I don't know how long it will stay with us but probably for the rest of the day. Sacramento has been having really dense fog this past week or so. We rarely get fog here although we get more here than when we used to live on Summit. The "kids" were here over the weekend and we had just beautiful weather. John was wearing shorts and tank tops most of the time. Of course they're used to really cold, ocean temps so this was balmy for them. They will be back for New Years. Then Easter. I don't mind because I just go on to church and leave them with Michael, I mean, they are his kids. They don't mind me leaving them for an hour and a half anyway.

Well I've got prayer meeting and knitting tonight so I really should get away from this computer and get a few things done around here. Lots of things to do. I'll go back to knitting the baby blanket as soon as I get my chores done. Sorry I've been so bad about writing lately. Until the next time... (now lets see if this will publish)