Would you still follow?

"Even if there were no heaven and there were no hell, would you still follow Jesus? Would you follow him for the life, joy, and fulfillment he gives you right now?"
Shane Claiborne

- Liberty

Do All to the Glory of God...

"Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer."
Psalm 19:14

"Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God."
I Corinthians 10:13

Walking For God

Proverbs 3 is perhaps best known for these verses:

"Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths."

Reading this chapter today, I noticed the verses that come after verse 6.

"Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the Lord, and depart from evil. It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones."

Other than the rather amazing note that yes, the ancients did know about bone marrow, if not all the health ramifications, I found these two verses interesting.

The first 4 verses of Proverbs 3 are talking about listening to God- his commandments, his wisdom. Verse 2 tells us that there are benefits to doing this. Verse 3 and 4 tell us we should make mercy and truth our constant companions, and we will find favor with God.

Verses 5 and 6 are two of the most well-known verses in Proverbs. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, lean not unto thine own understanding. We are supposed to trust God with everything we have. Our heart is the most intimate thing we have- what we think with, where all those crazy ideas we humans are prone to come from. If we yield the entirety of that to God, then we've truly given him everything we own, with no reservations, no fine-print.

Further, we are not supposed to lean, or rely, on our own understanding or knowledge. We shouldn't get to thinking we're so big and great that we forget who really matters- God, and his wisdom, his knowledge, his understanding. Because, let's face it. God knows way more than we, in our limited life's experience, could ever begin to fathom.

Verse 6 tells us to acknowledge him in all our ways. This goes along with the first part of verse 5. We are supposed to trust God with our whole hearts- which of course means we'll also be trusting him with our ways- how we walk, how we appear to the world. To acknowledge God means we are supposed to live like he would want to us to. That worldly music has no place in our lives. Ditto for movies, books, etc. etc. that don't please him. Of course, that doesn't mean that we should never read anything but the Bible. I might very well die, because there is a lot of knowledge that one can't get out of the Bible. But people should be able to note a difference between us and the world.

Verse 6 continues and wraps up by telling us that, if we yield our entire being to God, if we trust him and rely on his judgment and understanding, he will direct our paths. And God will never lead you astray. He knows so much more than we can imagine, that it is impossible that he could lead us off the path we need to walk.

Verse 7 starts out by telling us to not be wise in our own eyes. This goes back to verse 5's "lean not unto thine own understanding." When we're trusting in what we know (or what we think we know), then we're being wise in our own eyes. We think we know how we should walk, what our life should look like. This verse continues and tells us to fear the Lord, and to depart from evil. These two go together. If we're fearing the Lord- which means having reverence for him, respecting him, and following him- then we will not do evil.

We can see the fruits of this style of living and the consequences for not living like this in different Bible stories.

Remember Ruth? Ruth was a Moabitess, an hereditary enemy of Israel. Yet she married an Israelite when his family moved to Moab because of a famine in his homeland (this is an excellent example of something bad that reaped to something good). When Naomi, her mother-in-law, was heading back to Israel in the wake of her family's death, Ruth and Orpah, her sister-in-law, were going to go with her. When Naomi urged them to go back to their father's homes, Orpah instantly left. However, Ruth wouldn't leave Naomi. She entreated Naomi to let Ruth come with her. I believe all of us know how the story ends- Ruth goes to Israel, meets a nice man, settles down, and ends up being in the line of Jesus.

Ruth's is a story of a young woman who completely gave herself to God. She was leaving everything she knew- her family, her homeland, her gods, her culture, her food, her clothes...everything that was familiar...to follow God. As we know, it came out to good. And I imagine she was glad she did follow!

However, we have another woman who also came to live in Israel, but didn't do half as well. She was Jezebel, queen of Israel. Jezebel was chosen as the wife for the King of Israel, Ahab. She also left everything she knew...but she handled it in a much different way from her earlier counterpart. Where Ruth was thankful and compliant, Jezebel was spoiled and bratty. She got her husband under her thumb and started making rules. Where she could have done great things for God, instead she brought her own foreign gods into Israel, ruining the culture in that country, bringing a famine down upon the land, and eventually dying in a gruesome way and having her body eaten by dogs.

All of this came about because she didn't give herself to God and follow him. She didn't trust the Lord with all her heart, nor did she depart from evil or acknowledge him.

Proverbs 3:5-8 give us a blueprint for a life surrendered to God- and one that is joyful and happy- not to mention more pleasant!

See the original post HERE. :)

~Liberty

God is our Strength

"My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion forever. But it is good for me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in the Lord God, that I may declare all thy works."
Psalm 73: 26, 28

~Liberty

Acceptance and Faith

Suilaid!

So I've recently gotten into a few discussions concerning several different theological points. I hold a few...unpopular views, mostly revolving around the "sin nature" (which I believe we don't have), etc. (Of course, I also hold unpopular political views, but that's an entirely different subject.)

Inevitably, every discussion concerning these points comes down to this line, quoted in various different ways by nearly every person- "Well, there are just some things we have to accept on faith because we can't understand them, so we just shouldn't worry about them."

...........

o.0

So...um...I guess since I can't understand God, I should just not think about it, right?

Whatever logic that is.

I think God intended for us to exercise and brains and try to understand things. Why else did He give us the Bible? So we could just blindly stumble through life, trying not to think about things?

Maybe it's just me. I am of such a temperament that I want to try to understand stuff. Including the Bible. That doesn't make me less of a Christian, or less faithful. I exercise my faith by trying to understand. Without faith, I couldn't make sense of half of what I read in the Bible.

There are many things God tells us in the Bible. For instance, He tells us about salvation. Salvation is beyond man's superficial comprehension. Yet men have, for centuries, turned their minds to the questions of sin, salvation, and sanctification. Why? Because they wanted to truly understand. Yes, salvation still in a way transcends our efforts to understand. But does the fact that some of it we do not yet understand mean we should stop trying? That we should simply stop in our tracks, go no further, and simply accept "by faith" whatever we are spoon-fed from the pulpit?

You never see that in the Bible. I don't think Paul stopped thinking about things because he didn't understand them. No. He kept on trucking, and he was one of the greatest Christians ever. All throughout history, man's understanding of the Bible has increased because there were a few who didn't stop at accepted doctrine and teachings, and instead plowed ahead and actually thought about things, letting it all soak into their minds and trying to make some sort of sense of the puzzle pieces they had been given.

Neither do I see in the Bible the commandment to merely sit back, doze off, and let everything difficult to understand float around in the ether somewhere. I do see commandments to meditate and a commandment to study, commandments to think, and commandments to read. God does tell us to accept certain things on faith- but always in the context of salvation, etc. Never in the context of learning more about Him, the Word, and the world around us.

Just because there are some things that are beyond our mortal comprehension (or supposedly beyond that comprehension) doesn't mean we should stop thinking about those things. Only through applying our minds and meditating and studying those things can we truly grow and get to know God.

Namárië and 爱於耶穌
~Liberty
(Also posted on Teenage Musings)

Abiding In Him

Suilaid!

"If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you."
John 15:7

What does this verse mean?

The most accepted interpretation is that we have to read our Bible everyday and memorize it and meditate in it because if we don't, we'll all go to hell.

Hm.

However, reading it everyday for half an hour isn't really "abiding" in anything. If you stayed in your house for only a couple minutes each day- or hey, even an hour or two- you wouldn't be abiding there. You'd be dropping in for a visit every now and again. "Abiding" is defined as "unceasing, unrelenting." To abide somewhere is not a transitory, once-a-day ritual: to abide in something is to have a constant reminder of that thing, to be in it each and every moment.

Now I don't know about you, but I'm not able to read my Bible nonstop. I confess I often spend more time reading other books and blogging/Facebooking than I do reading my Bible. So can it be said that I'm not "abiding" in my Bible?

According to the narrow definition normally imposed, yes. I am not properly abiding in my Bible. But I would argue that "abiding" is much more than mere reading.

Yes, reading and memorization is good. It helps us to know what God wants for us. But a mere head knowledge of something is not actual understanding. For instance, we can know that a hot stovetop will burn us and it will hurt. But unless we have actual understanding of that principle, we cannot understand why we should pull our hands back from the metal surface. Just like that, unless we also have a good understanding of what we read, our reading accomplishes nothing.

It comes down to, not just reading, but instead a moment-by-moment application of what we have read. That is true "abiding"- letting God's Word fill us and direct our actions. We do this by giving earnest thought to what we have read.

Too often it seems, we read a passage than skip on our merry ways, not paying any further attention to what we've read. Sure, we recognize a couple verses- Pastor might have preached on one of them last week- and we think we can pick out a rough meaning. But we don't truly understand it because we haven't actually applied our minds to the task.

Next time you read your Bible, make an earnest effort to try to ferret out the meaning behind the words. What is God telling you? What do you think God's purpose in telling you this is? If it helps, jot it down. But whatever you do, make sure you are applying what God tells you. Only then will you truly "abide" in His Word.

Namárië and 爱於耶穌
~Liberty

Yearning for God

"As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?

"My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?

"My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?

"When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holy day.

"Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance."

Psalm 42:1-5

waterfall pic from here
~Liberty

God's Glory

"Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all."

1 Chron. 29:11

The picture from this website.

~ Liberty

1 Samuel 16:7

But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."




~Megan

In 90 Days...

My mom and I have started this thing...reading our Bible in 90 days. It's currently day 5, and I'm already in Exodus. It's been a lot of fun, and has really been challenging.

What we did (if you'd care to join us) is looked at the number of pages in our Bible total, then divided them by 90. I have to read 11 pages per day, which is a bit daunting until I consider that I read more than that a day in other books LOL

Liberty

Verse

"All have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God." Romans 3:23

God Stands Forever...

Made by Maddie

I just read THIS POST on one of my very good friend's blogs.

It seemed very relevant to today and life in general so I thought that I would share.

Enjoy!

爱和祝福，- Love and Blessings,