Having a Reputation

I love to have play dates for my kids and mom friends! Usually we get together in the morning. One of us will make a light morning snack and someone will bring coffee. While the little ones play we spend the morning gabbing - sharing stories and advice. Paul was writing to a group of believers that he had grown close to. I imagine the women in that community would also find themselves gathered around gabbing as their children played nearby. Paul says that their faith was being talked about in the places that he traveled to. That is a reputation to be proud of! Is your faith as a wife & mother part of your reputation? When your friends talk about you to other people do they remember the way your relationship with Jesus has changed you? Would nonbelievers even notice something different? 

Pray: Loving Father, let my faith be one that gives me a reputation among my friends! Help me to be a woman that shares hope instead of gossips, a wife that trusts instead of nagging and a mother that prays instead of yelling. Help me to always be chasing after you so those who follow will find Jesus.

God's Good News {Romans 1:8-17}

Let me say first that I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith in him is being talked about all over the world. God knows how often I pray for you. Day and night I bring you and your needs in prayer to God, whom I serve with all my heart by spreading the Good News about his Son. One of the things I always pray for is the opportunity, God willing, to come at last to see you. For I long to visit you so I can bring you some spiritual gift that will help you grow strong in the Lord. When we get together, I want to encourage you in your faith, but I also want to be encouraged by yours. I want you to know, dear brothers and sisters, that I planned many times to visit you, but I was prevented until now. I want to work among you and see spiritual fruit, just as I have seen among other Gentiles. For I have a great sense of obligation to people in both the civilized world and the rest of the world, to the educated and uneducated alike. So I am eager to come to you in Rome, too, to preach the Good News. For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes—the Jew first and also the Gentile. This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.” (Romans 1:8-17 NLT)