so there's something that has been in the back of my mind and it's that there is a good chance that you kids will teach my kids kinda like how some of your parents taught me. I realize that if I don't do a really good job with you guys then my kids will be taught poorly and that's how downwards spirals begin. not to say that I'm helping you to help myself, just that it's weird to see people do a crap job with ministries. Not necessarily at our own church, just an observation :P

2011

It's always I guess nice looking back at the year. I guess looking back on 2010 a lot of things has happened and a lot that was said and done. For me, it's really easy for me to get caught up in seeing how much I grew in general or what I learned or what I learned about God more in life. I guess it's nice "feeling good" I guess about yourself. But iunno...I think the bottom line is that it doesn't really matter. Like I think we'll all stand before God one day and it won't matter how much we grew or how much we learned or the experiences we had, I think what matters is how God was glorified. Francis Chan kind of talks about God making a movie. We're the extras like the people in the movie who are in the background. He's there in the beginning when nothing was created and He'll be there in the end ending the movie. We're just the extras that get 2/5 of a second in the movie. Kind of realized that we were all made for Jesus' pleasure and glory not for us and it's not really about us. Col. 1:16. Yea, I'm not so sure if it's really about how much we grow or how much we learn but it might be about how much was God glorified in our lives.

But anyways, have a merry Christmas and Happy New Years!

Grade Day: December 20

so... for the people that were not there for grade day... here is my bible study that i did!

Bible Study

Christmas

Why was December 25 considered as Jesus’ birthday? Ask Everyone

Luke 2:1-3

December 25 was chosen for Jesus’ birthday because no one knew the actual day or date of his birth. Luke tells us it happened when the Roman emperor Augustus ruled the world. But he doesn’t give us the day or the month. Romans already celebrated the festival of Saturnalia in December. The general holiday gave Christians time for their own celebrations. The Scandinavian mid-winter Yuletide festival was transformed into the birthday feast of Jesus Christ.

Why do we give gifts on Christmas? Ask Everyone

Matthew 2:1-12

John 3:16

John tells us that God loved us so much that he gave us Jesus, his Son. When Paul thought about that most wonderful of all presents he exclaimed, “Let us thank God for his priceless gift.” Many of the Christmas customs we enjoy today are left over from long ago, from the days before December was taken over as Jesus’ festival. Giving presents, eating special foods, decorating homes, lighting candles, all began in the long distant past. Because these customs were so deeply rooted in the minds and memories of the people, the Christian leaders of then had to let them stay. But they were given new meanings.

The Love of God

What is Love? Define

God’s love is his holy disposition toward all that he has created that compels him to express unconditional affection and selective correction to provide the highest quality of existence, both now and forever, for the object of his love.

1 Corinthians 13

John 3:16

In the Bible, we find a particular word used to name the love that God exhibits: agape. English uses one word (love) in dozens of settings, but Greek has several words that often end up being translated into our language as love. God’s agape-love is characterized by being giving, sacrificial, unconditional, and boundless. Read John 3:16

This verse illustrates the characteristics listed above. God gave sacrificially (“his one and only Son”) so that anyone who believes (“whoever”) could have boundless abundance (“eternal life”).

1 John 4:7-21

Romans 8: 38-39

Share examples of God’s love in your life

Closing Prayer

O Lord, our God who is love, as we consider the infinite nature of your compassion, mercy and favour, grant that we might grasp and accept the reality of your love, abandon all the things we’ve tried to use as substitutes, and sacrificially demonstrate your love to others.

Let us rely on and rest in the certainly of your unconditional love, even when we don’t feel it. Help us to see it even in difficult times, to know that it’s always there regardless of our performance, and to thank you for it constantly. Let it really sink into our heart as we’ve never known it before. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Earn This

I just finished watching this in history class today and I'm just reminded of Jesus. Some background information in the movie "Saving Private Ryan"...basically, there is this solider named Private Ryan. A team of soldiers is sent on a rescue mission to find Private Ryan located deep in Germany and bring him home. This is because his three other brothers were recently killed in war and High Command wants him to go back to his family. So basically, a team is sent out to look for Ryan and on the way, they lose about two soldiers before they find him. So they already lost two soldiers just for this one man. Then on, they find Ryan but he doesn't want to go back home because he wants to stay with his fellow soldiers. The team that went to find him decide to just stay and help Ryan and his fellow soldiers prepare for an upcoming German attack. Another line from the movie not included in the clip is something like, "Maybe one day we'll look back and say that saving private Ryan wasn't a bad thing and made up for the mess of the whole war."

The first clip is basically at the end of the final battle against the Germans. The main guy who led the team was about to die and he said the words, "Earn this. Earn it." Basically, Ryan is one of the only ones left after the battle and a whole lot of people died because of Private Ryan. Many people sacrificed their lives because of this one guy. And the guy says to him to Earn It. He already got something he didn't deserve so he doesn't have to neccesarily earn it but like, how if he going to live knowing that people died for his sake. I hope for me and you guys that we can learn to always take Jesus' sacrifice more seriously. I know that I need to really learn more about His love and sacrifice.

Master

I guess I will share about my experiences this weekend. This weekend one thing that was coming up was God being my master or Lord. I feel like whenever the word obedience or doing whatever God tells me to do pops up there are these images in my head of me preaching openly at school. I feel like these images are made by fear and not from God. I feel like these images are like prison or something I find hard doing I guess. I feel like there are two sides in my life right now. On one hand there is obedience to the Bible of God's Word and on the other is just obedience to these images that make me fear I guess. I find peace in obedience to God's Word but uneasiness in obedience to these images. Well, another thing that has been on my mind, if we can't obey the little things in the Bible, how can we obey the bigger things? Like if God tells us to never be anxious and to rejoice but we can't do that how can we do bigger things like fulfilling the Great Commision? Iunno, these are just my thoughts for now.