Ask, and it shall be given...

Tonight, I've decided to let the Word of God speak for itself, so here it is:

Matt 7:7-11
7 "Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you.8 "For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it shall be opened.9 "Or what man is there among you, when his son shall ask him for a loaf, will give him a stone?10 "Or if he shall ask for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he?11 "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!(NAS)

Glad About Grace

I am so thankful that it is not about me or my cleverness. In short, I'm glad of this because I fall so short of where I should or even could be. I try to do the best I can, but I even come up short on doing my best sometimes.
In my own power, I am nothing.
We as Christians are not told to go unto the world and argue people to Christ. We are simply told to go and tell the truth and then let the Holy Spirit do the convincing. I believe that is part of what this verse is saying:

1 Cor 1:17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, that the cross of Christ should not be made void.(NAS)


If we are bringing people into the church simply by being clever or using our whits, then the true gospel has been neglected.
We are not saved by our own works or by other's works, but only by the grace of God giving us the faith to believe in the saving blood of Jesus Christ.

What I'm trying to say is that the best approach to evangelism is to tell the truth of the gospel, pray, and be ready to give an account. That's all we can do, and that's what we're called to do. We don't have to be clever, and it's a good thing, too.

To Count All But Rubbish

Today at youth group we were reading out of Philippians 3:1-8. In this passage, Paul is talking about the Jesuits who spread the teaching that circumcision was necessary for salvation. These people that put the emphasis of salvation on man's works instead of God's were dealt with very harshly by Paul. He even goes so far as to compare them to dogs. Paul then goes on to share all of his earthly accomplishments, but instead of boasting in them, he says that he counts them all as nothing when compared with the grace of Christ:



Phil 3:88 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ,(NAS)



The application from this lesson: first, we need to be very wary of any teaching that puts the emphasis on what we can do to bring ourselves salvation. Second, the goal we should press toward is to be so amazed by God's grace that it's what our entire lives are about. The emphasis of our lives needs to move away from the things of this world and toward heavenly things.
How do we do this?
We get to know God better through studying the Bible and praying.

Very, Very Close to the End Now

As of today, I have practically finished two of my classes for this quarter. I turned in my portfolios for writing and for art today, and all I have to do now is show up friday and monday to get them back. The only major thing i have left to do is a quiz and then a final in my math class. Freedom is so close I can taste it.

Before, I posted about God's holiness and I talked about the other side of salvation, the side where God brought us salvation to bring himself glory. I said that everything was not about us. I think what I was saying came across okay, but I feel like I need to clarify just in case. The other aspect of salvation is found in John 3:16:
"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.(NAS)"
God did send Jesus because He loved us as well as to bring glory to himself, (in fact, I would argue that the two are connected in some way) but I was just pointing out another aspect of salvation that we don't often think about.

Back To Normal ... Almost

Today, things started returning to normal. The flooding receded enough that I got to school without incident. The part that wasn't normal was that after I had gotten to school, I saw a sign that said my math class, the only class I had today, was cancelled. After studying for an hour, I went to Dennys with my dad for some breakfast. It had been quite a long time since I'd had an omelete.

We also went to Petco for a little bit today. After looking at all the fish, birds, and reptiles, I was once again inspired to buy a pet. It still hasn't happened yet, but who knows what the future may hold. What I can say is that it won't be one of the 1500 dollar birds that we saw today. Oh, and it won't be a snake, because my mom would not be very appreciative of such an animal. It also won't be a dog, a cat, or any other animal with substantial fur, as my nephew is allergic to these animals. If it ever happens, I'm pretty much limited to a lizard or a fish, the later being boring and the former being expensive to buy and care for if you want one worth having. I'd like to get a Uromastyx, a type of vegetarian lizard, but I'm not sure if that will ever happen.

Some Crazy Weather and Something to Think About

These last few days have revealed one of the stranger weather systems I've ever seen. It started with snow on Saturday, then it started raining later that day. Saturday night, it started snowing again. Sunday morning, a little more snow was encountered, shortly followed by more rain, causing a lot of slush on the ground. Today, things got really crazy when it started raining early this morning. The last I heard, there was 9 inches of rain in Bremerton and it was still coming down. The fact that we broke a record for rainfall in Washington state says it all. My mom and I had to go out in our back yard with a shovel and pick to dig a drainage ditch to save our house from certain doom (little exaggeration). Needless to say, with puddles the size of your average lake sitting on the roads, I didn't make it to school today.


Recently I came across this verse:
I Jn 2:12 I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for His name's sake.(NAS)
I find this verse very interesting , because it emphasizes that God has forgiven our sins to glorify His name. We've been made pure in His sight so we can worship Him. It's definitely something to think about.

Gloomy Day

Nast night, it snowed. This morning, it snowed. This afternoon, it rained. Unfortunately and fortunately, the winter wonderland that was our front yard has turned into a slushy mess. Unfortunately, because it's always fun when it snows and if for some reason it gets cold again, all that slush will be ice. Fortunately, because I have a few major assignments due tomorrow for school.

Today, I did a drawing assignment. I had to draw 14 pictures of a person. I drew my mom. It was a little bit awkward, and I don't know why, but it turned out okay.

ONLY ONE MORE WEEK OF SCHOOL!!

Lagging Behind

For the first time, I've missed a post. I was at the guy's all-nighter with my youth group, so I didn't have access to my computer, and I wasn't about to bring my laptop when we were playing flashlight tag and shooting each other with nerf guns. We also watched Master and Commander. I'd forgotten how good of a movie that was. It had a good mix of action, duty, and just a twist of humor to balance it out. We also ate at Taco Bell. Then we all slept in the same building. That may have been a bad idea, but it worked out okay.

We had fun, ate food, drank lots of soda, and we even slept a little bit. (three hours)

Tonight I'm going to have to grab a little bit more sleep than usual, as I am a little bit behind in that department.