Daniel 1:12-15 (deployment bag packed?)

Let's welcome God today by reflecting on this short Living In Faith Exchange (LIFE) Group devotion (life-devotions.blogspot.com), which is based on Living Faith. All whatsoever you do in word or in work, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Col. 3:17

Give us vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then see how we look. After ten days they looked healthier and better fed than any of the young men who ate from the royal table. Daniel 1:12-13, 15 (full readings)

Living Faith snippets: "Insecurity is really nothing new. We exist in a state of radical vulnerability...all of us, all the time. Live long enough and you will surely lose something you believe you cannot live without. And then you will go on living. How? Oddly enough, it helps to begin by saying thank you for whatever is left. Gratitude takes practice. It is a discipline, especially when we are hurting. It teaches us that we can thrive on vegetables, even when we are used to feasting like kings. Thank you, God, for everything I have left." Karla Manternach

Pat's nuggets: Today's Living Faith snippets focus on gratitude, coinciding nicely with Thanksgiving this week. I am grateful for our LIFE Group which encourages us to defend the unborn and compels us to have a living faith. Happy Thanksgiving!

* To help focus our LIFE Group impact, devotions will now be sent only on Monday (me), Wednesday (Steve), and Friday (Rich). Also, to reduce the # of emails, the LIFE Group email is now set to only allow Rich, Steve and me to send out LIFE Group wide info. Please continue to send us info to consider and consolidate in the devotions: faith sharing/quotes, prayer requests, newslinks, etc. We will still send out urgent messages. This faith sharing and collaboration keeps the Holy Spirit stirred up in our LIFE Group...thank you!

* I spent last week training in a chem warfare defense exercise. The chaplain was my roommate, so I had plenty of top cover! Our deployment bags had to be packed with required items for inspection. This was a great reminder to also keep my spiritual deployment bags packed with required items (love/service, prayer/praise, gratitude, forgiveness, etc)...for God's evangelical missions now and ultimately for God's judgement day. Angi helped me pack...analogous to the Body of Christ working together for God's glory. From OBOB, "The Lord tells us to "stand erect" and hold our heads high (Lk 21:28) when the world ends. The way to have this confidence is to live for the Lord right now. If we [are] totally committed to the Lord, totally forgiven of sin, and totally forgiving of others, we can have confidence that we will be right with God at the world's end. If the world were to end today, what would you do? Saint Francis of Assisi had the right answer: "I'd do what I'm doing now." Obeying the Lord is our only security for the future."

Faith Challenges: Let's all invite one person each week (John 14:6) to join our LIFE Group (~250 of God's children)...welcome to Mickey Carlson!
* NEW: Let's take a moment to review our spiritual deployment bag checklist (love/service, prayer/praise, gratitude, forgiveness, etc). Are we packed and ready?

* NEW: Sr. Francelle's devotion: The Altar of my Heart‏.

Counter-Culture News: LifeSiteNews, American Family Association, Priests for Life
* Let's never forget the horrific reality of abortion (images)...#1 cause of death in America. Let's courageously share ProLife Truth to create social tension for exposing abortion's unjust peace...rebuilding a Culture of Life (Matt 5:16) for setting the unborn (and parents) free!

Our Prayers: Those who pray together stay together. Fasting ideas in footnote below.
* Prayer to end abortion, abused children, chastity, peace, our enemies, our troops, depression/despair, prisoners, politicians, illnesses/injuries, jobs, natural disasters, refugees, addictions, persecuted believers, Peters family (JP, Rebekah), Joe (brother Mike), Doug Young (special intention), Pat Castle (health care reform bill), Joe (daughter's pregnancy), Aaron Ferrie (special intention)

Faith Quotes: Pastor Don Bird shared this quote by Maltbie Davenport Babcock, "Christianity is not a voice in the wilderness, but a life in the world. It is not an idea in the air but feet on the ground going God's way."

Gratefully, Pat

Phil 4:13

* Prayer: Prayer connects us with God's will & His miracles, changing us & helping others. 'If you pray that God will move a mountain and He doesn't, assume Christ wants you to climb it instead.'
* Fasting: Let's fast from things that take our eyes off Jesus (selfishness, pornography, bitterness, criticalness, impatience, gossip, excessive video games, etc) and take on things that fix our eyes on Jesus (selflessness, kindness, compassion, forgiveness, patience, understanding, caring, helping, listening).
* Defend the unborn: 'Rescue those who are unjustly sentenced to death; don't stand back and let them die' (Prov 24:11). 'Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you' (Jer 1:5). 'It is a great poverty that a child must die that you might live as you wish' (Blessed Mother Teresa).
* Evangelization: Let's make room for unbelievers (be a friend, make a friend, lead a friend to Christ) and perpetual re-evangelization of self and those near us, by way of daily prayer (relationship) and following Christ's example of selfless love, mercy, and service (Matt 28:19).