Month: December 2013

declaration, adapted from 1 Cor 13

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My previous blog detailed a declaration written about my season of singleness. This declaration below is a different type, one written directly from scripture. Someone gave me this idea and after reading this over myself, I have seen very real changes in my thoughts and actions. (Especially the “keeping no record of wrongs” part…I have actually found myself forgetting what someone did recently that evoked a negative emotion from me! I remember that they frustrated me but couldn’t remember why. Did you know it is impossible to be frustrated at someone if you don’t remember the reason they frustrated you to begin with?!)

2 Corinthians 12: 9-10 He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. With Christ in me, I lack nothing. 1 John 4.8 says God is love. So this declaration below is an expression of these truths. 

1 Corinthians 13, written as a declaration

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

I am patient, I am kind. I do not envy, I do not boast, I am not proud.  I do not dishonor others, I am not self-seeking, I am not easily angered, I keeps no record of wrongs.I do not delight in evil but rejoice with the truth.I always protect, always trust, always hope, always persevere.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For I know in part and I prophesy in part,but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a woman, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now I see only a reflection as in a mirror; then I shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

my single declaration

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I’ve always enjoyed making declarations with a body of believers. So I’ve taken to writing declarations for myself. We see the power of words discussed many times in scripture. Here are just two examples: Psalm 18: 21a Death and life are in the power of the tongue. or read James 3! Verse 5 says So also the tongue is a small part of the body, and yet it boasts of great things. See how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire!

So, what do I want to give life to? What will I speak that I want to live and breath? Well, I wrote this declaration in my notes a while back, as something that I want to be real, and true, and desire for myself.

I will honor my husband today. I honor him with my thoughts and my mind. I choose him today over all the other stimuli that I’m being offered. I choose him over cheap flirtation. Over a need to be affirmed by other men. The Lord is my affirmer. He whispers in my ear and I choose to listen to his words over me and need not the words of men. I choose my husband over inappropriate movies and media. I honor my husband by guarding my mind and holding my tongue. I will not speak negative over my husband. I declare that he is worthy of my adoration, my trust, my life. I will follow him and give him all I have to offer all the days of my life. My commitment will not be swayed by emotions. Right now, I’m disciplining my emotions so that they do not control me. And in the days of my covenant marriage, I will live with disciplined emotions that are submitted to truth and honor.

This declaration is a work in progress. But I would encourage you to write your own. Who are you becoming for you husband / wife / children that you want to be in the foremost in your mind? This is not an activity just for single people, but for everyone who is growing into someone that is stronger and wiser down the road than they are today. Anyone who wants to declare good things for themselves. This declaration helps because when I am tempted to be distracted from what I want to become, I can recall this declaration and reinvigorate my convictions and beliefs. I remember why I’m doing what I’m doing, that my disciplines are not without purpose. I will read this declaration until all the truths held within it are a reality. Then I will write another one and continue to walk in deeper levels of growth.