It's me, I'm back!
So much has happened since the last time I wrote something on here. I can't believe I let 2 months go by without posting anything (*scolds herself*.) But I am working on that, I've made a goal to post at least twice a month, if not more, and to write long[er] posts. Which shouldn't be too hard since a lot of my, um, "recent" posts have only been a paragraph or two.
Over Christmas break my family and I went to Romania with some friends of ours. We came home the first week of January and still had some "free time" before we all had to start school again. Danny and I started school a week after we got home, which I didn't mind because then I had something to take up some more time in my day and I didn't feel like I was laying around the house all day, but I don't think Danny really wanted to go back to doing school. He likes having all that free time.
It was nice to have mom and dad home with us for a little while, but with them at home it didn't really seem like we were doing school, and we would sometimes get distracted by them being there because we're not used to it anymore. Soon though they had to go back to school too.
Their first week back to school was, for me, their best week yet. Their guest teacher was Pastor Ed Hart, he and his wife Faith are very good friends of our family, and he is a wonderful teacher. So, Danny and I went up there every morning with them and sat in on his classes. I loved it, it was fun to be up at the school with everyone for a little while and I love listening to P. Ed.
We went through Philippians while he was here, and I got 16 pages of notes from all of his teachings. I'm not going to share all 16 pages of notes and what I thought about them, but I do want to share some of the things that I really enjoyed.
- In Philippians 1:3-4, Paul says "I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy."
P. Ed talked about how, every time we think of people, do we always thank God for them and pray for them with joy? And what about the people who we don't really get along with? We should be praying for one another, and thanking God for one another. He talked about how, if we pray for someone, even if it's someone who bugs us, we will start to love them. He encouraged us all to pray Phil. 1:9-11 for each-other.
I think one of my favorite things that he talked about was praying scripture. I guess I always knew that you could do it, but never really gave much thought to it before. He said that when we pray scripture, we're really just praying God's words back to him. He had us all take 2 minutes to pray Psalm 23, I don't think any of us really got past the first verse or two. It's amazing what you can pray with just a few verses, and praying scripture also helps you stay focused ;)
In verses 27 and 28 of chapter 1 it talks about living lives worthy of the gospel, and not being frightened by those who oppose you. P. Ed talked about how living a life worthy of the gospel was simply living according to the truth that we profess to believe. And how, if we are truly living a Christ-like life the world will hate us. Then he said that we all know that we should hate the things that God hates right? So why then are so many christians involved in the things that God hates?
Ephesian 5:11 says; "Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, rather expose them."
I think the world has set this standard of "normal", and christians are accepting it and we're even letting it seep into our lives. We start becoming dull to certain sins, and even out right ignore them because they become "normal." We don't want to stand out and be different because it's uncomfortable. But we're supposed to expose the darkness to the light, not blend in with it, only showing our light when it's convenient for us. God never said that being a christian would be easy, even Jesus was persecuted - and he was God. I really doubt that people thought of Jesus as normal. He even came into the world, to the people he loved, knowing that they were going to kill him. He knew that he was not going to be accepted by everyone, he knew that they would try to trip him up whenever they could, and he knew that in the end they were going to hang him on the cross. And yet he still came. If the God of the universe was willing to humble himself for our sake, then shouldn't we be willing to sacrifice our selfish desire of normalcy for Him?
All the little things that we compromise in order for us to feel a little less different so that the world doesn't hate us as much.
We should be willing to lay them all down, in a heartbeat, we should be willing to lay down everything that our flesh wants. And be willing to be fearless for the One who saved us. If the world hates you, so what? We're not trying to please them or be like them. Our main goal should be to live like Christ, to live a life worthy of the gospel.
"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose" - Jim Elliot.
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