TODAY

Today is the first day of the rest of my life. I don't understand what the Lord is doing in my life right now, but I do understand that He loves me and cannot do anything outside of LOVE. I do know that His plan is perfect for me and that He will prosper me in His timing. In prayer today with the Lord, He taught me to spend more of my prayer life loving others so that He can change me, not focusing on changing others so that He can love me...GET IT????

Oooh, the point the Lord is making: But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.'* For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." Matthew 9:13

Definitions below:
Mercy:1. compassionate or kindly forbearance shown toward an offender, an enemy, or other person in one's power; compassion, pity, or benevolence: Have mercy on the poor sinner.
2. the disposition to be compassionate or forbearing: an adversary wholly without mercy.
3. the discretionary power of a judge to pardon someone or to mitigate punishment, esp. to send to prison rather than invoke the death penalty.
4. an act of kindness, compassion, or favor: She has performed countless small mercies for her friends and neighbors.
5. something that gives evidence of divine favor; blessing: It was just a mercy we had our seat belts on when it happened.—Idiom
6. at the mercy of, entirely in the power of; subject to: They were at the mercy of their captors. Also, at one's mercy.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------[Origin: 1125–75; ME merci <>Sacrifice:
1. the offering of animal, plant, or human life or of some material possession to a deity, as in propitiation or homage.
2. the person, animal, or thing so offered.
3. the surrender or destruction of something prized or desirable for the sake of something considered as having a higher or more pressing claim.
4. the thing so surrendered or devoted.
5. a loss incurred in selling something below its value.
6. Also called sacrifice bunt, sacrifice hit. Baseball. a bunt made when there are fewer than two players out, not resulting in a double play, that advances the base runner nearest home without an error being committed if there is an attempt to put the runner out, and that results in either the batter's being put out at first base, reaching first on an error made in the attempt for the put-out, or being safe because of an attempt to put out another runner.–verb (used with object) 7. to make a sacrifice or offering of.
8. to surrender or give up, or permit injury or disadvantage to, for the sake of something else.
9. to dispose of (goods, property, etc.) regardless of profit.
10. Baseball. to cause the advance of (a base runner) by a sacrifice.–verb (used without object) 11. Baseball. to make a sacrifice: He sacrificed with two on and none out.
12. to offer or make a sacrifice.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------[Origin: 1225–75; (n.) ME < OF < L sacrificium, equiv. to sacri- (comb. form of sacer holy) + -fic-, comb. form of facere to make, do1 + -ium -ium; (v.) ME sacrifisen, deriv. of the n.]—Related formssac·ri·fice·a·ble, adjectivesac·ri·fic·er, noun—Synonyms 8. relinquish, forgo, renounce.