Journey On

Pachelbel's Canon/ Seek Ye First

These are my guitar students for my senior project, playing a Pachelbel's Canon and Seek Ye First mix with me at Harvest Bible Church for a sort of "recital."

Me
Rachel Dierking
Jen Gerber
Ethan Gerard
Jerrod Steager

Isaiah 26:3 "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee."
It think sometimes we just expect that we are supposed to have peace and joy all the time because we are Christians. That somehow, we get saved and all of a sudden we can go through problems calmly and easily without blowing up all the time. The the peace that God promises doesn't come after we get a free ticket and now we have it forever. It doesn't even last all day when we read our Bible in the morning, but when we have that clear line of communication with God throughout the day and our mind is "stayed" on Him. That's why I love to choose a verse out of my devo's in the morning that I take throughout the day, because later, when I think about that verse, I don't just say it in my mind, but I go even deeper in my thoughts than I had in my devotions that morning. So I encourage you to do the same, and even go on long rabbit-trails in your thoughts. It helps keep your mind on Him, and it does give you the peace and wisdom to get past your own lack of peace during the little trials we all have in every day.

Follow God

Ecclesiastes 11:9. Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.
This verse is such a blow to the philosophy of our world today. Sometimes we think we have all the answers and that the plans we make are the best for our lives, and so sometimes we don't follow (and sometimes we don't even try to find out) God's perfect will. Let me encourage you to not become so set on achieving your own goals that you don't even think to ask God what His will is for your life. Since God knows all, I would think that He knows how to plan your life out just a little bit better than you do! Let Him direct your paths this week and notice how much better your life is run when God is in control. But if only the whole earth would follow God...

Happy Birthday To Me

As of yesterday, I am now a 14 year old grown-up and mature person. Happy Birthday to me!

A good name is rather to be chosen

In Matthew 5:33-36, Jesus is talking to his disciples, and He is telling them why it is never right to swear, or make an oath, by anything. "³³Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths: ³⁴But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne: ³⁵Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King ³⁶Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black." Basically, what He is saying is that we shouldn't swear by the Lord because if we do and we don't keep our promises then we are defiling the name of the Lord; neither should we swear by heaven because if we swear by it and don't do what we say, then we are telling people that heaven can't be trusted in; nor by the earth because if we can't keep our promises then we would be defiling something that God himself made; neither by Jerusalem because it is the city of the great King and we might be saying that God's children can not be trusted in; Neither should we swear by our heads because we are so fallible and weak that we can't make even one hair white or black that no one has any reason to believe that we would keep our promises anyways. So, in verse 37 Jesus says, "But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil." In other words, we Christians should build ourselves a reputation such as that no one will doubt us when we say something so that there is no reason for us to have to swear by something to be trusted. Do we have that great of a reputation?

The lesson learned from Matthew 5:22

Matthew 5:22 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Ra'-ca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. I love this verse and the message that it has. Sometimes, like when were having a "bad day" and we just get ticked off at every little thing, a lot of those "little things" really, we would not be angry over on a normal day. But when we do that, it's kind of like we are playing out the verse where it says, "That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment." We really are getting angry with them without a cause, just like the verse says. Also, when we get angry with some one, and we start calling them names, like "fool," or "idiot," the Bible (not me) says that we are in danger of hell fire, so obviously, it is important to God that we guard our tongues and keep our tempers. Although, when I read this verse, I did not really know what the word "Ra'-ca" meant, but I just kind of brushed over it. And since I read it, I kind of found my self playing this verse out and this verse popped into mind and now I've looked up what that word means and this is what the web page that I got into said: "Raca is of Aramaic origin and is a biblical term. It can mean "worthless, vain and empty". The word can be found only Matthew 5:22 quote "Whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council". It was used as a word signifying contempt by the Jews. At its root the word means "to spit".
When I first read this I thought it said, "At its root the word means to *split.*" But I thought it was really cool that I read it that way because basically when I am calling siblings "worthless" or "stupid," or what ever I'm saying when I'm mad, I am causing a split in my family, and it causes our relationships to get farther and farther away, and that is what Satan wants, he wants to disintegrate one of the most important things to God - the family - and I can not let him win.

Good refutes to another scientific explaination as to how the world began

Some scientists don't believe that the planets were created by a big bang, but they do believe that gravity pulled some dust particles together, and more dust started to come together, and, over a long period of time, just like snow packs together, this dust started to get more compact and started drawing more dust.
1. If that's true, then maybe that's why Columbus thought that the world was smaller than it actually was; the previous calculation of the world's size was actually true, it was just that America and the Indians had just formed out of some new dust.
2. I don't think water came from dust.
3. If living things could form out of dust particles, then the top of my dresser would be flowing with new living creatures and plants that aren't anywhere else in the universe. If you say, "Well the dust takes a long time to draw together and form something living"... O, it's been there for a long time!

Another look at the sowing-reaping lesson

Micah 7:13: Notwithstanding the land shall be desolate because of them that dwell therein, for the fruit of their doings.
We read this verse in family devotions today, and that last part of the verse struck me hard; it was "for the fruit of their doings." The land was desolate, with nothing good or healthy in it, because, as the verse says, the fruit of their doings wasn't very good either. You know, you do reap what you sow, but you also eat what you reap, and if you're not sowing anything good, then you're not reaping anything good, and if you're not reaping anything good, then you're not eating anything good, and if you're not eating anything good, you're going to die.

#1 Refute to the Big Bang Theory

Bangs have never created life; only destroyed it.

It is Now the Last Week of School for Me! Yay!

Keep praying...

Why do we always seem to skip over our time with God?

I find it amazing how, when we look at our schedules and we find it busy, or we find that we have an appointment early in the morning, or when get to bed late and just want to sleep in, the first thing we take off our list is usually our devotion time (maybe you don't have to have a list that says "devo's" on it but you just skip them anyways). I fall into this pit so many times w/out even realizing I'm there. It's like mom tells me, "You have a dentist appointment at 8:30 tomorrow morning," and I think, "Well, I'll have to get dressed, make my bed, take out the trash, eat breakfast... looks like I aint havin devotions tommorrow," or, like a lot of times, it happens this way, "O man, it's late already tonight, I'm tired, and I just wanna sleep in. I guess I'll just sleep through my normal devotion time," and I'm ok with that. I don't even think of it as being sin. One thing that I could also go awhile about on this post about is that this sin of course could also be categorized with the whole "setting your priorities straight," but thats a whole nother sermon. So just pray for me that I'll stop skipping over my devotions all the time, and since I know that it's a big trap for all of us in the youth group, just pray that all of us would find the time to be with our Best Friend (kind of ironic + sad that we don't want to spend time with our self-proclaimed "best friend"), and that we would not skip the awesome profitable time that we need to spend with Him every day.

Research paper done

I finally finished my research paper! Yay! It was 7 and 1/2 pages long until mom graded it. Then it went down to 5 and 1/2 pages. But it only had to be 5 so, it's still good. My online teacher gave me a 112/120 on it. One of the reasons i didn't get 120/120 is because I numbered my bibliography sources and I guess I wasn't supposed to do that. Keep praying for me though to finish school well because I have a lot of Lit to do now.

God's Grace is Sufficient

I was really having a rough time with my research paper recently, and it was really boring, and I really despised sitting down and getting information, and not really anything was going right - and it was getting really frustrating. But God laid it on my heart today that maybe it was because I was slacking in my devotions. And to be completely honest, I can't remember the last time I had my devotions. Maybe it was a week ago. Maybe two weeks. And I tell you what, being away from God for that long is frustrating, and it's depressing, and it's rough. So I asked God to forgive me and I asked Him to help me get back on track and to help me in my research paper, and it was really cool because things are fitting into place now and I've been hitting some valuable information for my paper and it's actually been exiting (and for socialism and capitalism and economics, that's pretty cool) to be finding the information. Anyways, it was a miracle that I was having fun putting that stuff together and making progress and filling out note cards for it, so just keep praying that I will be in God's word every day and that I will be able to get 5 pages worth for my paper and that I will get a good grade on it, and that I will feel worthy of the good grade, and that I will keep relying on God to help me along. Thanks guys, it's great to know that people are praying for you. Mark D.

Even though the bread is beaten over and over again, still it rises.