Intentionally Focused - Imitators of God.

Today I join thousands of others in an online Bible Study hosted by Good Morning Girls called Intentionally Focused. It's goal is to be intentional in every.single.part of our lives while drawing us closer to Christ. Over the next eight weeks we will be focusing on eight parts of our lives: 

1. Being Intentionally Focused
2. Your Spiritual Life
3. Your Mind
4. Marriage
5. Friendships
6. Children
7. Ministry
8. Health

I cannot explain how excited I am to start this process. I often have good intentions that seem to go bad, especially when it comes to my quiet time each day. Too often I find myself putting it on the back burner to tend to the house, the husband, the kids, or watch TV. It's too often a sad reality, and I want to change that. As long as I have accountability I'm all geared up and ready, but once the accountability is gone, so is my routine. (sigh) So, my ULTIMATE goal the next eight weeks is to go BEYOND the eight week mark and make my quiet time my first priority. 

Intentionally Focused

6:00-6:30 AM @ my kitchen table

Today's focus is on Ephesians 5:1 "Therefore, be imitators of God as dear children."

 I remember when I was younger I took a picture of MaryKate Olsen to the hair salon and I wanted my hair to be cut just like hers! (I wanted to be JUST.LIKE.HER) It was shoulder length and it had a lot of layers and volume. I was so excited, I had been waiting for weeks to finally get it done. The day came, and I went to the salon. As the lady was cutting my hair I noticed it getting shorter, and shorter, and shorter. I didn't say anything because she was the stylist right, and she was suppose to know what she was doing, right. Well, my thirteen year old heart got broke that day. I left the salon in tears and didn't want to go in public because what was suppose to be MaryKate's haircut on me turned out to be a nightmare. It was HORRIBLE. I STILL cringe thinking about it. Y'all I was a thirteen year old with a new MULLET ... ahhhhh!!! 

God calls us to imitate HIM, but often we imitate the world. The world tells us skinny is in and if we are 5lbs overweight it's a big deal. The world tells us that sex sells. The world tells us we have to have the biggest house and the fanciest cars. We are fixated on being imitators of 'The Jones'." 

I think imitating God means loving every.single.person with selfless love. It means we put aside our own needs to meet the needs of others. I think imitating God means the things of this world that are not Godly, break our hearts. I think imitating God means we are more concerned with the heart of people, rather than the appearance of people. It means denying ourselves, carrying our cross, and following Christ in everything that we say and do. 

Are you imitating God or the world?