"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righeousness"

WARNING: This may be offensive to a few.

My head is spinning, my head is spinning, my head is spinning! I have all these thoughts and I need to get them out.

I have recently been doing a 9 week devotional on character. It is called, "Lord, only you can change me." This study reflects on the Beatitudes. It started off saying, "the key to the kingdom of heaven is righteousness."

"For I say to you, that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5:20.

It got me thinking about my righteousness. Am I living my life seeking to be righteous? Since being pregnant I've had A LOT of time on my hands being a stay at home mom. We have a library close by where you can rent movies for free so Jon and I would go in at the beginning of the week and get about 20 movies. It became a challenge for me to finish them all and I would feel an accomplishment when I was done. It wasn't until I started this devo that I realized how desensitized to the movies I was getting. I made the decision to stop checking out movies and stop watching them all together for awhile. I wanted to work on my righteousness.

A few days after I had made this decision Jon and I were at a Christian friends house and about to watch a movie, I was asked, "How are you with secular movies?" my reply was, "I am ok, doesn't bother me that much." I choked up, I froze! I didn't want to be that loser that made a big deal about it. I hated myself for not saying anything. I knew this movie we were about to watch was horrible and I kept my mouth shut. About 5 mins into the movie I got up and left using the excuse of putting my baby to bed; I didn't return. About 15 mins later Jon came into the room, leaving for the same reason I had stating the this movie isn't very good. This movie was degrading the name of our Lord every scene practically.

How was everyone in that room seeking righteousness at that point in time? Why do we tend to brush off the degration of our Lord when it is in movie form? Why are we not weeping and mourning over such degration of the one who died for us? Is not our entire belief based on this man, this Christ being beat, spat on, mocked, and finally nailed to a cross taking our sins and dieing so that we may live all because of his eminence love for us. We may as well have been one of those who cried out for Jesus to be crucified.

This also got me thinking about the summer and about bikini season. Tell me what is the major function of bikini's ladies? To show as much skin as possible so we can get a killer tan? To attract the opposite sex? To feel better about our self image because men stare? All of the above? Where in those options do we see: to glorify God, to dress modestly as we are called to do, to help out our fellow brothers not to stumble? If you have any other reason for a bikini then please let me know. But I don't think Jesus cares if you get a wicked tan this summer, do you?

How are we being any different from the women in the magazines when we dress this way? The same women that are leading this young generation to eating disorders, to depression due to lack of confidence and to promiscuity. Are we not to be different from this world like we always talk about? To be witnesses, role models.

I recently went to the K7 Graduation ceremony where their Valedictorian, Jeremy Derksen mentioned that they were a fragrance of Christ everywhere they went. After coming to all of these realizations my thought is this, "are we, K6 and the of body of Christ today being a fragrance of Christ or the stench of sin?"

Much love,
Shannon "BOLD" Grochowski