Posted by Posted in Bible attributes, Bible characteristics, faith, Living for God, words

Fixing My Eyes On You

For King and Country have a song called “Fix My Eyes”. The words of this song, jumped out at me and screamed for a blogpost so here it is. 🙂

I Love Like I Am Not Scared

Scared to love? Really? So many people give their hearts away so quickly. Is our generation scared to love? Loving like Jesus did, maybe. John 15:13 says “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends.” How often do we see that love? For more on relentless love check out the book: “Compelled By Love” by Heidi Baker.

Give When It Is Not Fair

“Its not fair!” the children call on the playground. What did Jesus say though??? Check out Matthew 20:1-16 or Matthew 18:21-35.

Live Life for Another
Jesus said to “love our neighbor as ourselves” (Mark 12:31), “love the Lord your God with all your heart” (Luke 10:27), it does NOT say to love ourselves. In fact Matthew 16:24 tells us to “deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow Him”. Phillipians 1:21 says “For to live is Christ and to die is gain.” We live for Chist, not ourselves.

Take Time for a Brother
Luke 6:29 tells us to turn the other cheek when others hurt us. The Bible tells us to give them our cloak when they take our tunic. Doesn’t this apply to us, even when we are not getting attacked? If your giving someone a ride to somewhere (giving them your tunic) then why not take them home too (give them your cloak)??? Matthew 9:36 tells us how Jesus had compassion on the crowd. Jesus is the best example of taking time for others.

Fight for the Weak Ones
When I think of this I mostly think of abortion, defending unborn babies who have no voice. Or defenseless orphans, widows etc. Proverbs 24:11 to “save those who ard being taken away to death” (abortion) and James 1:27b tells us to “visit orphans and widows in their affliction”. God tells us to stand up for the weak ones and defend others who can not defend themselves. Keep checking this blog and get my ministy updates I will be posting once a week starting next week to learn more on how you can stand up for orphans/abortion/etc.

Stand Up for Freedom
Gal.5:1 talks about how Christ has set us free. We should stand up for freedom too. You might say “well, I live in America, we have been free since the founding fathers fought for independance.” I would say Yes! Be grateful for your freedom from sin, and being able to live in a free country but guess what there are other people who are being held captive. Children in Uganda. Vulnerable young women in Asia. We must stand up for these captives. Jesus said to “proclaim liberty to the captives” lets do that.

Find Faith in the Battle
1 Timothy 6:12 tells us to fight the good fight and in John 14:27 Jesus promises us his peace, and tells us he will never forsake us. What greater promise do we need to find faith in the battle???

Stand Tall and Above It All, Fix My Eyes On You
An old hymn says:
Turn your eyes upon Jesus/Look full in His wonderful face/And the things of this earth will grow strangely dim/in the light of His glory and grace,
Psalm 46:10 tells us to “Be still and know that I am God.”
In the movie “Night of the Museum 2” Brandon (a night guard) tells Larry Daley (also a night gaurd) to “Shove your hands in your pocket, turn your attitude way down and be nice to people.” In the same way I am going to say, Stop looking at yourself, be still, and fix your eyes upon Him.

Priscilla

Posted by Posted in Bible, Bible attributes, Bible characteristics, character, faith, Living for God, the cross, words

Godly Characteristics: Love

What is true love? Lets see what the Bible says…

Love is Necessary

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbol. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.”

1 Corinthians 13:1-2

We can see here that God thinks that love is better than mighty deeds like speaking in tongues and such. Those small acts of love toward others are more precious than gold. And love is neccessary, if you don’t have it, you are nothing.

Love is Caring

“Love is patient and kind, love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.”

1 Corinthians 13:4-7

I think Love sounds like a caring friend or family member. Don’t you? Love is… well I will let the next verse explain…

Love is Jesus

“Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”

John 15:13

1 Corinthians 13 is a great chapter about love. I used verses from there to show that love is necessary (without it we are nothing) and love is caring (love is patient and kind). But the best way we can look at love is by looking at an example. This example is gory, grisly, and vividly horrid. It is the example of Jesus laying down his life for us on the cross. Jesus offering his life as the perfect sacrifice for me, for you, for everyone. That is love. So when you think of love, think of…Jesus.

Priscilla

Posted by Posted in 100 Hard Things Challenge, Bible, Bible attributes, Bible characteristics, challenges, character, do hard things, faith, gospel and outreach, Home, Living for God, myth of adolescence, teens, teens doing big things, the rebelution

#21- Gave Away One of My Blankets to Refugees

So recently, some people in our church were collecting blankets for refugees. I wanted to give a blanket so we got an extra blanket that we had and got ready to give it. I was passing by my bedroom when I saw that I had two blankets on my bed. Both were Christmas gifts and they were very warm and cozy. I realized though that I was super blessed to have two blankets on my bed when others had none. I also had a comforter. Stunned by my blessings and gratitude I hurriedly grabbed my extra blanket, washed it and gave it to the refugees. Some things can be hard but rewarding.

“The wicked borrows but does not pay back, but the righteous is generous and gives.”

Psalm 37:21

Let’s look at what we have and then give even more.

We can love Jesus in the hungry, the naked and the destitute who are dying…. If you love, you will be willing to serve. And you will find Jesus in the distressing disguise of the poor.
Mother Teresa

Priscilla

Posted by Posted in 100 Hard Things Challenge, Bible, Bible attributes, Bible characteristics, challenges, do hard things, faith, Family, Home, I was thinking..., Living for God, me, myth of adolescence, teens, teens doing big things, the rebelution, time

#10-Talked to my Dad about our family/social media balance

We got an ipad last summer mainly for Jace’s schooling. Now, we really do not have a ton of other electronics, only an ancient computer, the phones and the ipad. However, the ipad has slowly over the past months taken away from our family time. Social media can be dangerous like that. My sister and I noticed that the ipad was starting to control our evenings in some respect. We decided to talk to our dad and maybe start turning the ipad off in the evenings and using that time for something else. We talked to him and we are going to start using our evenings to have a family Bible time. Social media is something that can steal things more precious than facebook, twitter, instagram, etc. It steals your time. Time that can be spent to deepen your relationships with both people and God. People with phones need to stop using so much time looking down at their screen and look up, toward God. I think that sometimes we need to go back to the good old days where entertainment is self made and not on a screen. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that social media can be a tool. With tools like computers we can do lots of great things, it helps make writing books, staying in touch with people and communicating thoughts and ideas so much easier than handwriting long books, sending letters and telegrams that take forever to get to their destinations and getting groups of people together to hear your ideas. I believe that modern day technology is a tool, not a toy. Time can easily be lost when you are on social media. Lets not waste our time. Let us be good stewards of what God has given us.

Priscilla

“As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace.”

Posted by Posted in 100 Hard Things Challenge, backyard adventures, Bible attributes, Bible characteristics, challenges, do hard things, faith, Family, Home, I was thinking..., Living for God, me, myth of adolescence, stuff to do, teens, teens doing big things, the rebelution

#9- Weeded Garden

Ok, you may look at the list of what I have done so far and go, “Hmm, she has done an awful lot of housework.” I understand that. God has recently been teaching me to be faithful in the little things during this challenge. I’m a go getter, I have big plans and ideas and though I don’t mind doing little things, I felt like I wasn’t doing “hard enough” things. After talking to my mom, I believe the Lord was telling me that it is ok to do “small hard things” and wait for chances to do big hard things. So my hard thing (for Saturday actually) is weeding the garden. We have a pretty large garden and I have been taking care of it this year. A couple weeks back I took Drivers Ed in the mornings and was unable to weed it, so this week our bean plot was full of weeds. This Saturday, I weeded, mowed and trimmed the whole garden, in the morning, and I still had time to help with other projects. I don’t know about you but Saturday’s at the Bowers are a whole lot of work. But hard work is good for you. As my mom always says, ‘work is the best fun’. I have grown up doing household tasks, yard work and more, plus any other projects that I am doing (clubhouse, 4H projects and soon to come chicken coop and chickens!). If you want something, you work toward it. So even though weeding the garden isn’t the hardest of things to do, it speaks of hard work and doing the simple small hard things to glorify God!

Priscilla