The Jesus Storybook Bible written by Sally Lloyd Jones

~Saturday Stories~

The Jesus Storybook Bible is a children’s Bible, but I think we, teens, and adults for that matter can gather a lot from it.

The thing I really like about this Bible is that, as is said on the cover, “every story whispers his name”. From Adam and Eve to the tower of Babel to Jacob’s wife Leah to Naaman’s leprosy the stories always point to the story, the plan that God had from the beginning. Sometimes it’s easy to get lost in the Old Testament and not see the big picture. But if we look closer every story can “whisper his name”.

For more on Sally Lloyd-Jones visit her website and Facebook page.

How about you? Have you read this Bible? What do you think of it? 

Let us love one another

~Friday for Friends~ 

God’s Love and Ours
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.1 John 4:7-21 (NIV)

These are beautiful verses that call us to love one another “for love comes from God”.  So...

Have you ever noticed that there are some people in our lives who seem to be easier to love than others?  To love the kind Christian lady next door takes way less trouble than loving the always grouchy self-righteous man two pews down. To love the encouraging teacher who believes in us is nothing compared to loving the ever strict tyrant-teacher. But did God ever say  “do love these people, but those over there… they’re so bad I won’t hold it against you if you can’t love them”? No. God loved us when we were all still sinners and He keeps on loving us when we make mistake after mistake. With His help we can learn to love like He does. “Let us love one another”.

How about you? Do you ever find yourself not loving some people? Please comment and let’s pray together that we can learn to love others even it’s hard. 

I'll be gone - posts will still be here

I'm going on a (late, but hopefully awesome anyway) vacation. Hip hip hooray! That means I'll be gone August 29th - September 8th. I HAVE scheduled the posts, so please enjoy! I won't be able to moderate, publish and answer comments, though. Please comment anyway!!! I'll be glad to catch up with everything once I get back.

Blessings!!! 

Never quite reaching 'perfect'

~Tuesday Thoughts~

Last week I started the Starting School mini-series with “Homework? Maybe later…”. That was about slacking in our school work and today’s basically about the complete opposite: when we do whatever we can to reach that ‘perfect’ mark that always seems to be a few steps away.

Sometimes that’s me. I’ll try and I’ll try to be ‘good enough’, to be 'better than’, to meet and exceed the expectations that are set for me. If that means not reading that much contemporary fiction for awhile and spending hours reading more serious books, squeezing blogging in as best I can and taking chemistry, so be it. I'll push myself more and more, slack a bit and then I'll push myself harder because I'm afraid I slacked too much. Does that describe you sometimes?

Here's good news people: every once in a while you can relax. It's OK. It's reasonable.

Here's what the Bible says:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Matthew 11:28-29 (NIV)

How about you? Do you ever push yourself in order to be 'perfect'? What are some verses you can add to these?

Blessed be Your Name!

~Monday Movies & Music~

“Blessed be the Name” is a pretty neat song by Matt Redman. Here are the lyrics.

Sometimes it seems like everything is AWFUL. A car crash. Betrayal. A break up. Cancer. A move. Someone’s death.

How do we keep saying “blessed be His Name” when everything’s going just awfully? How do we say “we’ll trust in Him” when we don’t even feel Him?

He is always there, guys. I know sometimes that is really hard to believe, but it’s true. He says so time after time in His Word.

 “There is no one holy like the Lord;
    there is no one besides you;
    there is no Rock like our God. 1 Samuel 2:2 (NIV)

  The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;
    my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge,
    my shield[a] and the horn[b] of my salvation, my stronghold. Psalm 18:2 (NIV)
a.Psalm 18:2 Or sovereign
b. Psalm 18:2 Horn here symbolizes strength.

For who is God besides the Lord?
 And who is the Rock except our God? Psalm 18:31 (NIV)

Since you are my rock and my fortress,
   for the sake of your name lead and guide me. Psalm 31:3 (NIV)

Truly he is my rock and my salvation;
    he is my fortress, I will never be shaken. Psalm 62:2 (NIV)

What are some other verses you know? Blessed be His Name! 

Glass Girl by Laura Anderson Kurk

~Saturday Stories~

Typical Meg: Wyatt told me once that if tenderness were a disease, I’d be terminal. “You’re just a little glass girl,” he’d murmur every time I blushed or cried or stared too long at someone. I didn’t mind it so much. The point was he knew that one day I’d break— not my heart, but all of me. I suppose he was right.

 

Her older brother died. In a school shooting. And she saw it.
More than a year later, Meg’s mom is still reeling from the loss and getting further and further into depression. It seems like Meg's losing her too. And then her dad suddenly moves them all to Wyoming. A fresh start? She hopes so. But can anything ever be really alright after something so awful?

The premise of Glass Girl, a girl trying to cope with losing a brother in a school shooting, is pretty interesting and new to me. It has good promise. For me, probably the biggest downside to the book is that there are very few mentions of God. Most of the ‘healing’ Meg receives can be attributed to her boyfriend. He is a Christian and is nice, although he doesn’t talk about God that much at all. He is also what one might call “too perfect to be real.” It might make the reader feel that in order to heal one has to have a perfect boyfriend instead of the truth that they need the Lord. There are also about half a dozen uses of not-so-good language. For these reasons, the book was pretty disappointing. If there was more about our Savior and less about Henry, the story could be much better, I think.

For more on Laura Anderson Kurk, visit her website and Facebook page.

Should I be friends with him/her?

~Friday for Friends~

You adulterous people,[a] don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. James 4:4 (NIV)
a. James 4:4 An allusion to covenant unfaithfulness; see Hosea 3:1.

.
Okay, so the first thing I’d like to say is that this passage does not mean go and hide in some dessert or forest and never make friends with people who are not Christian. Because:

How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? Romans 10:14 (NIV)

Really, being friends with the world isn’t about having a friend or two who’s not Christian. It’s about being so ‘in love’ with this world’s ways and doings that you prefer them to God’s. That’s what we shouldn’t do. And sometimes this means saying “no” to friendships with people we know who are tugging us down deeper and deeper. But not necessarily.

It’s a balance. It’s a case-by-case thing. “Are we influencing them for Christ or are they influencing us for wrong?” is a question we should ask about each of our friendships. We should also pray the Lord guides us in this.

How about you? Do you have friendships that keep sucking you into wrong things? What are you going to do about it?