Happy Sunday!

This isn't an official blog entry, but I wanted to share a thought. :)

Today at Church I was reminded of the beauty of the song service. One of the acts of worship is singing. It is for God, but it is also for our benefit. 

Ephesians 5:19

speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord,

Notice how the verse says we are speaking to each other. I often lose sight of the fact that we are actively encouraging each other while we sing. I've been thinking that life should be like a musical where we always sing. Part of worship is like that!

So at the next Church service you are able to attend, sing to God and your brothers and sisters. Encourage them and let the songs be uplifting to you. 

May the Lord bless and keep you,

Heather

Faith - Our Foundation

8-9-15

In 2 Peter 1:5-7 we are given a list of characteristics Christians should grow in to be fruitful. This post will start a series focused on these. 

What Faith Is

The first trait in this list is faith. Nothing can start without a knowledge and acceptance of the basics of who God is and that Jesus is His Son. Hebrews 11:1 explains, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Verse three of the same chapter says, "By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible."

The idea of faith is further explained in Hebrews 11:6: "But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him." If God isn't the eternal Being who created the world and is capable of eternally preserving our souls, then there is absolutely no point to being a Christian. It would be futile to try to live a godly life if these things weren't true. The foundation of Christian living is faith. Everything else must build from it.

God Said Go

 

8-2-15

Being a Christian is more than just being a pew warmer. The Church is compared to a body in I Corinthians 12:14-25. Pick something to not be able to use for a day. Want your hand to go on vacation? What about a foot? Maybe something a little more insignificant like a finger. Try tying your shoes without one of them. When part of a person's body doesn't work correctly or at all, that person quickly notices that something is wrong. The same is true of the Church. Unless each of us is doing the work we are supposed to, the Church will suffer.

Can a Christian love homosexuals and not homosexuality? And is homosexuality wrong?

7-12-15 

Debate can be good. It means people are thinking and haven’t yet become robots. I consider myself to be a logical Christian. In fact, the Bible teaches that we are to study for ourselves and to verify what we are taught. In light of God’s desire for people to be life-long learners, I want to provide, to the best of my ability, a reasoned answer to the questions I posed in the title.

Limiting God

5-20-15

God is big. I mean really, really big. Infinitely big. And that's something that, as mere people, is hard to comprehend. If I could put a soundtrack on this blog post it would be Christina Perri's "Human". When our reality is that overwhelmed sense of only being able to take just so much of what life flings our way, it's far too easy to forget that God is omnipotent. All powerful. Nothing is bigger or stronger or more powerful than God. Do we let Him be big? Or do we unconsciously put Him in the same box we must accept fitting into ourselves? 

Where Your Heart Is

5-10-15

Life is like a buffet. There are so many things we need and want to do that narrowing it down can be overwhelming. We are only limited by the size of the plates. Even then, on a buffet you can get a second plate… Unfortunately, we don’t get the option to have a second plate in life. We just have the one, so we need to fill up wisely.

Making Butter

5-3-15

There's an illustration from Rubel Shelly's Happiness Is... that I want to share with you. Let me tell you a story about two frogs. Their names were Optimist and Pessimist. They somehow managed to get stuck in a farmer's pail of milk and left overnight. At first they both swam, but Pessimist decided there was no hope and, as my husband says, went "glub, glub, glub." But Optimist didn't give up. He kept swimming and swimming. In the morning when the farmer looked in the pail, Optimist was sitting on freshly churned butter.

How Far You'll Go

4-25-15 

Influence is a funny thing. You can't see it or hold it, but it builds you into the person you are. For better or worse, everyone we meet and every event in our lives can influence us, sometimes minutely, and sometimes altering our futures.

Forgiveness Like Snow

4-11-15

This past winter, I got to experience snow. A lot of it. Maybe a little more than I wanted. On the positive side, I got some pictures and some thinking out of it. Snow is used as an illustration for forgiveness in the Bible. Isaiah 1:18 says, “…’Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They shall be as wool.”