Don't waste your life.

1. Boasting in the cross happens when you rejoice in something good that you know was bought for you on the cross. I need to always be reminding myself that everything good comes from God and was bought on the cross, i'll probably forget sometimes but in everything I need to praise God for what it really is.

2. The "I" who died is that one that was still stuck on the world. The "I" that takes everything for granted as their right but the "I" who lives is the one that has God in their heart and who realizes that God is the center of everything and without him you are dead. Key words would be the parts where it says I was crucified with Christ and I no longer live except he lives in me. Also, where it says the life I now live in the flesh I live by FAITH in the Son of God.

3. Right now, I live by faith in that I trust God will always be there for me and take care of me. I don't doubt that. But sometimes I just wonder why he does what he does, sort of like why do bad things happen to good people.

Walk the Aisle

My church doesn't do this but I go to a camp called Falls Creek which does. I've never really thought of the "altar call" as being a bad thing. To me it always just seemed like the people wanted to pick out the ones who were ready to make a decision in Christ so that they could have someone talk to them and answer their questions. I still think that it is good for that, but also when your at a camp like Falls Creek and the music is playing and you're in the moment I can see where someone would just walk down to the front from their emotions rather than an actual desire to know Christ. I'm not gonna hate or oppose the altar call or judge every single person that wants to walk the aisle, but I do see where this can lead to alot of false commitments.

Grilled Cheesus

One thing that I noticed they said was God is just a santa for adults like it's just something that we believe because our parents and friends and teachers tell us it's real and that really someone just made it up like a legend or something. They also think that he is just some magical being that grants all your wishes. They also brought up the issue of the whole different denominations being right whenever one of the girl's said something like We're both from different denominations so we thought one of our was bound to be right. This is inaccurate because yes, there are different denominations of the Christian faith and it doesn't really matter what we disagree about on the little things. The only thing that really matters is that Christians believe there is a God that he sent his son to die for our sins and was ressurected 3 days later. When you believe that and really build your relationship with God then you'll want to grow in him and study His word and then gather up your own particular set of beliefs. Nobody agrees on everything. Also, the very last part of the show when Kirt said I don't believe in God but I believe in me and you. They ended the show by kind of pointing towards that God and prayer didn't make his dad better but that their relationship did. Some parts were good though! Like one I can remember when that principle's sister said that God doesn't make mistakes. I kinda like the show Glee, I've only seen it like 3 other times then this but I think it can be funny and they all seem pretty good at singing. But the writers of this episode seem to be maybe a little confused about Christianity.

Sermon on the Mount.

Lay Up Treasures in Heaven

Matthew 6:19-24

"Do not lay up for yourselves treasure on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your you whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money."

I like this passage alot. It's message is pretty straight forward I think. You shouldn't spend all your time trying to be on top in the world and trying to have the newest stuff all the time. God and doing his will is the priority!  It will be okay if you have lots of hand-me-downs or things from the thrift store. God is clearly telling you that the things you gain in this world will come to an end where in Heaven nothing you gain there will ever end! It also talks about the eye being the light of the body. I think this refers to how you need to stay innocent and pure. If you lose that in one area it says your whole body will be full of darkness or sin. Sort of like it opens the door for more sin to enter into your life.

Carving Justin Bieber’s face into a pumpkin doesn’t bring to mind protection against evil spirits.

Okay, so my preacher preached this exact same thing last Sunday! I don't think it's wrong to trick or treat and carve pumpkins on Halloween. Yeah, its wrong to sit around and chant devil worship and everyone should watch out for that because that stuff is REAL but no, I don't think its wrong to have a little holiday fun. I thought it was interesting how he compared Christmas and Easter with Halloween. Obviously those holiday's are very different but we should look at them the same way. Why do we celebrate them? Christmas for Christians is viewed as the day of Christ's birth and Easter is the day that Jesus rose from the grave and Halloween is just a fun holiday to get candy on. So overall, I don't think Halloween is bad.

And I shouldn't get a bad grade on this because I was gonna write it last night but my parents surprised me with JUSTIN BIEBER tickets and I left at like 5, so yeah. :)

Special Olympics Bowling!!!!

Okay, so yesterday we went to help with the Special Olympics Bowling. And i'm not gonna lie I was really REALLY scared at first because working with mentally handicapped people is so far out of my comfort zone and I was freaking out up until I met my people and they were so cute and nice. I had 4 girls. Carol Stansil, Helen Davis, Sheri Townsend, and Sherry Manthy. They were all business. They came to win! Helen would always ask me what place she's in and she was usually in first or second and when I told her that she'd always say something like "I'm knocking the socks off everyone else!" It was funny. I also got to talk to some of the people who were in other lanes around me and they all just thought it was so cool how we were from Oba and how we came out to help. Whenever they would get a strike or a spare it was funny how they would yell and dance. Two of the girls in my lane were kind of shy but it was really cool to see how excited they got when people cheered for them even if they got a gutter ball. Sheri Townsend's outfit must have been brand new or something because like every five minutes she was showing it off to someone and she wouldn't bowl unless everyone in her lane was watching. She would just stand there with her ball and point at anyone who wasn't looking until they looked at her. Well, it was really fun to get to go and help yesterday and meet everyone. They are so thankful and joyful all the time no matter what. And they all love kids everyone I made eye contact with wanted to know my name and would ask me random questions like where I ate for lunch that day. So yeah, I went in there afraid but I came through and had a great time. It would be fun to do stuff like that more often.

Spiritual Emphasis Week

This week Andy Braner came to school to be our speaker in chapel for the week. He's pretty good. He keeps it interesting and says some really cool stuff! On Monday he basically just introduced his family and what he does. It's cool how he has his own camp called Camp Kivu and has adopted two kids. On Tuesday his main focus was BELIEVE?  He was challenging us with what we believe and how we can stand firm in what we believe. He talked about the two kinds of truth, Subjective Truth and Objective Truth. Subjective Truth is what we decide for ourselves that we believe is true like he used the example of ice cream. Everyone thinks their favorite kind is the best, so therefore everyone's personal truth varies.  Objective truth is what we know is true or not. Like we know that if you eat alot of ice cream then you're not going to lose weight, you are most likely gonna gain some. How can we prove that Christianity is 100% true? He said that we can't and that it is impossible to totally prove the bible is true is true there is proof, but you can't totally convince someone on the facts part of it just has to be faith. He explained that the basic foundation of our whole religion of Christianity is based on Genesis 1:1. If God didn't create the world then God couldn't have created Adam and Eve, then there wouldn't have been The Fall, then Jesus wouldn't have had to come and so on. Which was really interesting to me because i'd never heard that before. One Wednesday his main focus was BEHAVE? Ideas have consequences. He emphasized that what you put in is what you get out and gave up 5 points to write down he said:
1. You are what you eat
           -What you put in your body is what your body becomes
           -Same is true for your spiritual life
2. Junk food changes your physical shape just like thoughts change your behavior
           -What you spend your time thinking about is what you become
3. Junk food causes heart problems and confuses your body's natural function, just like unhealthy spiritual things can confuse your spiritual life
           -What you put in is what you get out
4. Junk food tastes great in the short term, but in the long term leads to adverse side effects
           -Watch what you put in your head
5. An apple a day keeps the doctor away
           -Put good spiritual things in your body at least once everyday

On thursday he talked about how the media affects our dating like how Facebook has given us the dating "status" and commercials use sexual ploys to get teenagers to use their products. He told us how music reflects some dating patterns he used Bruno Mars song Just the way you are to show a good relationship then went on to see how it can turn bad with Katy Perry's teenage dream. He showed how relationships can get obsessive with Rihanna's song Rehab and then showed us the extreme of people hating each other but not being able to force themselves to leave each other with Eminem's love the way you lie. Which I thought was a very good and interesting way to illustrate that subject. He showed us that what we put in our body, what kind of music we listen to, will ultimately start having effects on our lives.
Friday he wrapped everything up with BELONG? We want to be with other people. Three things we need to keep in mind as teenagers in this world is
1. We gotta know what we believe
2. We gotta know how to act in the world
3. We gotta know how to relate to people

Over all, I really really enjoyed have Andy come and talk to us.