Intentionality

in·ten·tion·al·i·ty

inˌtenCHəˈnalitē/

noun

1. 1.    the fact of being deliberate or purposive.

   
   
2. 2.    the quality of mental states (e.g., thoughts, beliefs, desires, hopes) that consists in their being directed toward some object or state of affairs.
3. 
   

This is absolutely my "NEW" catch phrase, buzz word, go to thought.  You name it.  

I'm participating in several studies through my church and on-line, and I keep hearing this word over and over.  

Mark Gungor, in Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage, "intentionality".  He doesn't have a great relationship/marriage because it just is, it's because he has intentionality of purpose in ensuring that his wife is loved, and that his marriage is great.  

Mark Virkler's, 4 Keys to Hearing God's Voice.  Some of us can't just hear God talking to us, some of us of to "intentionally" work at it.  

In Acts it says that Paul learned to be content, not he had prayed for contentment and God granted it to him, but that he learned it.  This indicates an intentionality in purpose to "learn". 

In my Monday class, Fight Back with Joy by Margaret Feinberg, we are learning how to find Joy, and utilize Joy.  But I have noticed that some in my class just don't see that they have Joy in their hearts.  They have suppressed it.  Some have even drowned it without realized it.  

Gifts of the Holy Spirit

I Corinthians 12: 7 The Holy Spirit is given to each of us in a special way. That is for the good of all. 8 To some people the Spirit gives a message of wisdom. To others the same Spirit gives a message of knowledge. 9 To others the same Spirit gives faith. To others that one Spirit gives gifts of healing. 10 To others he gives the power to do miracles. To others he gives the ability to prophesy. To others he gives the ability to tell the spirits apart. To others he gives the ability to speak in different kinds of languages they had not known before. And to still others he gives the ability to explain what was said in those languages. 11 All the gifts are produced by one and the same Spirit. He gives gifts to each person, just as he decides.

Fruits of the Holy Spirit

Galatians 5:22-23 tells us, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” The fruit of the Holy Spirit is the result of the Holy Spirit's presence in the life of a Christian.

When we accept Jesus as our savior, when we believe that His truth will save us, and restore us, and deliver us from evil, He infuses us with the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit indwells us, and remains in us.  He guides us, and convicts us, and loves us completely.  He also gives us the gifts listed in I Corinthians 12.  We don't all get all of these gifts, we do not all get the same gifts, but we do get gifts.  

AND MORE... if we ask.  I wondered for a long long time why I didn't "know" like other people did that I was filled by the Holy Spirit.  I wondered why I couldn't hear God.  I wondered if I was just going through the motions.  I joined my daughters confirmation class, because I hadn't had that opportunity as a 6th grader.  A grown adult sitting in the corner with 22 6th graders.  It's quite funny looking actually.  But I'm learning quite a bit about the history of our church, and about Methodism, John Wesley, and a bunch of other things.  This class breaks down the Apostle's Creed and dives into certain parts of it each week.  Our Pastor's wife, Allyson leads the class.  And she told the kids one day, that the Holy Spirit is in all of us, but to get the gifts, we have to ask Him for them.  We have to ask Him to turn them on, we have to ask Him to come alive in us, we have to surrender to Him, listen to Him.  THIS we have to do "intentionally".  It doesn't just happen.  

God created us with free will, the freedom to choose.  God wants us to come to Him, to surrender to Him, to seek Him.  Not just once, but always, often, daily, every minute of every day.  In order to do this, at first you have to have intentionality. We can choose and accept, believe, surrender, but He doesn't take over once we do this one time.  We have to intentionally keep doing this over and over and over.   

I have been told that if you do something every day for 30 days it will become a habit.  How is one to do something every day for 30 days?  They must intentionally think about it, they must intentionally remind themselves to do it, they must persist with intentionality!!

If I intentionally seek the Lord every day, He will intentionally be with me every day.  In order to use the gifts of the Holy Spirit, I must intentionally ask Him for these gifts, and intentially use them.  In order for the fruits of the Holy Spirit to be mine, I must intentionally as the Holy Spirit to plant the seed of that gift, and then I must intentionally water that seed with the Word, and nurture that seed, with intentionality in order for it to grow.  

There are many great and awesome sites and blogs that can help you cultivate your gifts and your Joy with intentionality:

7 Things You Need to Know

7 Ways to Cultivate Joy

How to Find Joy "IN" Suffering

Bible Verses about Joy

These are just a few to help you get started if you are lost and unaware of the Fruit of Joy that God has given you.  I would also recommend that you talk to someone, ANYONE, that will listen.  I am more than willing to talk with you.  I am not a therapist, psychologist, or licensed anything.  But I can be a friend if you need one.  jrpodgurski27@gmail.com. 

AND I recommend Fighting Back with Joy by Margaret Feinberg.  Go to her website, and sign up for her daily emails.  SHE is an awesome and inspiring lady, who has overcome a lot, through Joy.  She has daily inspirational emails that almost always are something I need to hear.  AND as always, knee-mail to God, talk with Him, build your relationship with Him.  Talk with Him, He will respond.  Sometimes He will yell in your head so loud you can't focus, if you just let Him.  

INTENTIONALITY:  doing something deliberately, with purpose, repetitively, in order to achieve an outcome or state of mind.  

Joan Rivers -- GOES OFF on Epic Israel/Palestine Rant

Joan Rivers:  Joan Rivers -- GOES OFF on Epic Israel/Palestine Rant

Read more: http://www.tmz.com/videos/0_1t3hcwj3/#ixzz38nKsvOCh
I happen to agree with MOST of what Joan is saying. Enough's enough, just quit it. 

However, the New York/New Jersey issue, although nice and poignant, does not give the U.S. a valid reason to interfere and assist as I've heard a lot of people say that we should do.

1. If New Jersey attacked New York, would Israel come to our aid?
2. The U.S. funded the "Iron Dome", that's support right there. Does the U.S. have an Iron Dome?  If so, I'm not aware of it.
3. As long as we have a Muslim President, does anyone really expect more aid to go to Israel?  That is who is fighting right now, Israel and Muslims.  Two warring religions, that have been warring for as long as anyone can remember.  You can't negotiate peace for them, that will NOT come until God is ready for it to.  
4.  The U.S. as a country has no business interfering, aiding, or assisting, ANY other country.  Aren't we in debt enough?  Let's worry about us for a while.  
5.  We are talking about Israel. The chosen people of God. God pulled them out of Egypt. Parted the Red Sea. Laid waste to Sodom AND Gomorrah.  Eliminated everyone from the world except Noah and his family with the Great Flood.  Just to name a few.  I am pretty certain God can handle a few folks in Gaza. I'm going to stand back and let Him work.  


Now some of you may bring to light, that passage in Genesis that reads:

Genesis 12:3 I will bless those who bless you, but I will curse anyone who curses you; and by you all the families of the earth will be blessed.

And you might say, curse Israel, is to curse yourself.  I don't disagree with that specific statement, but I disagree with it's application in this issue.  

bless

  [bles] 

verb, blessed or blest, bless·ing.

1.

to consecrate or sanctify by a religious rite; make or pronounce holy.

2.

to request of God the bestowal of divine favor on: Bless this house.

3.

to bestow good of any kind upon: a nation blessed with peace.

4.

to extol as holy; glorify: Bless the name of the Lord.

5.

to protect or guard from evil 

curse

  [kurs]

noun

1.

the expression of a wish that misfortune, evil, doom, etc., befall a person, group, etc.

2.

a formula or charm intended to cause such misfortune to another.

3.

the act of reciting such a formula.

4.

a profane oath; curse word.

5.

an evil that has been invoked upon one.

Now I can see by definition that sending Israel money, weapons, food, arms, soldiers, and other things of this nature would be considered a "blessing".  But requesting God to protect them is also a "blessing".  It is not necessary, to cripple the U. S. economy further than it already is, by sending these things.  Nor is it an expression of a wish that misfortune, evil, or doom befall them, by allowing God to do what only God can do.  He alone can bring peace to that area, and He will do it when He is ready, on His time table, in the manner in which He sees fit.  


NOW...
On to another note...

God's Plan

"If you are one of God's people, God is going to use whatever means necessary to divide and separate you from the things of the world, things that are not good for you.  But it is not our human instinct to follow God and leave behind everything that is not of God.  Rather, we try to keep one foot in the world and the other in God's kingdom.  That won't work.  I'm not sure there is any greater misery than that of a child of God who keeps resisting the Lord's will to separate from all that is unholy.  The grueling part is that it is a never ending process for the duration of our lives, as long as we stay in the faith.  It seems that once we finally sever ties to some worldly thing that we are enslaved to, God shows us yet another area of our lives that must be dealt with in the same manner... and on and on the process goes all of our days."  
Tom Bradford Torahclass.com


If you are one of God's people, he will divide and separate you from everything that is not of Him.  Things that hold you back, and hold you down, and keep you from being who you were meant to be.  And from doing the things you are meant to do.  It's natural to "fight" him, but as Jacob fought him and lost, so will you!

Submitting to God

For many of us, we have been raised (or not raised) to be "in control" to take care of ourselves, to provide for our own needs, to look after ourselves.  To depend on no-one, answer to no-one, to take responsibility for our own actions or in actions.

That is why for some of us, me include, it goes again all we know to bow down and submit completely to an unseen entity.  To trust that God is there and will take care of us.  

I think that for all of us it is imperative that we have this "wrestle" match with God, for control of our lives, just as Jacob did.  I am finding over and over in the Bible, and I'm still in Genesis, that patterns, and repetitions are abundant, and they are examples to us to guide us.  When Jacob realized that he wasn't fighting a real person, he was fighting God, he KNEW that he could not win....he bowed down and requested his blessing.  Why does it take most of us, reaching the bottom, being broken, disabled, lost and disillusioned before we can submit to him completely?

When we fight God there is NO chance to win, not on our terms.  Only on His terms, an utter defeat of ourselves, do we have a chance of winning in the end. 

I want to share this that I found on the website Torahclass.com by Tom Bradford. 

I cannot help but recall my Ishmaelite brother in Christ Tass’s story about his coming to Lord. About how as a Palestinian, fighting against Israel, they could never seem to defeat the Jews. That, like the average Muslim Arab living today, there was the deepest frustration and anger that leads to irrational hatred over Israel because it was incomprehensible that 200 million Arabs could not defeat 6 million Jews. That the combined Arab armies that dwarfed Israel’s were defeated time after time, and brought nothing but humiliation to the Arab world. After coming to Christ, Tass suddenly realized why they had never been able to defeat Israel: he finally understood that the Arabs and Muslims who thought that their enemy was the Jews…… had actually been fighting God. And, when we fight God, there is absolutely no chance of victory on our terms. In the most ironic way, our victory in God must occur by the defeat of ourselves.

If you are down and out, depressed, lonely, lost in the world.  Have you accepted Christ as your Saviour? Have you accepted God's will over your own? Do you have your priorities in the right place?  Open your bible and read, start at the beginning Genesis is as good a place as any.  Find someone to read it with you.  Find someone to talk to about it.  jrpodgurski27@gmail.com  I'm more than will to talk, listen, hear, and share with you.  Don't go through life missing the truth, find it for yourself.  

And please keep in mind, you will get forgiveness from God if you sincerely ask for it.  But you may still have to face the earthly consequences of your actions.  

The WHOLE Bible

This passage was originally titled as it shows Does God Condone Bigamy? but there is so much more to the answer to this question than just that.  I feel it's important information to share, so I left it intact for your perusal.  The important thing to take from this passage is that you can NOT snippet the bible and use it for your own purposes and agenda, you have to take the Bible as a WHOLE, all of it, in context of it's entirety.  

This is from Journey Through the Torah Class Series: Genesis by Tom Bradford.  

"Does God Condone Bigamy?

God most certainly did NOT validate Jacob’s choice to take TWO wives……any more than he did Isaacs, nor Abrahams. Too often we like to say, ‘Well, its in the Bible, so God must be OK with it”. Not so. VERY often, the Holy Scriptures simply tell the historical truth, tell us what was said or what happened, and then do NOT specifically comment on it. Rather these statements simply stand on their own. God had made quite clear early in Genesis that marriage was the forming of one flesh from two; not 3,4,5,6, or as Solomon so much later, a thousand.

This is why it is so important to read and study the WHOLE bible; so that we can separate God’s commands, principles, and characteristics from simple statements of historical fact. The Bible is full of statements by men and women; and many of those statements are outright lies, or self-aggrandizing, or greatly exaggerated, or wishful thinking, or rationalizations of personal behavior, or simply expressions of widely held superstitions. In the case of Jacob, he deceived his brother Esau, and his father; it wasn’t right, but he did it, and the Bible simply reports it. Jacob didn’t pick the wife (Leah), on his own, that apparently God selected for him……he picked the one (Rachel) that most pleased his fleshly and impulsive male desires. It wasn’t right, but he did it, and the Bible simply reports it. Then, he wound up marrying two wives; it wasn’t right, but he did it, the Scriptures tells us about it, and so on.  We must never assume that since the Bible does not comment on every statement or action as to whether it was right or wrong, good or evil, that those not commented on must be, to at least some degree, acceptable to God. For, if we have the Torah in our hearts, and have read it and studied it, we will KNOW what was right and wrong in God’s eyes; and THAT is what we are expected to do. The fact that we are given the full, unflinching view of who these Biblical characters were, flaws and all, doesn’t change God’s absolute, unchanging, uncompromising truth. Like us, every Bible character, except Yeshua, was imperfect and did things they ought not have done."