Slip on by...

Well, I don't have much to say today, so it's going to be a short one (for once, huh? lol). I've kinda been in a quiet, blah mood, and I've been working on a project. I wish I could tell you about it, but the recipient of this gift is probably going to read this, so I better not. I'll tell you about it later though! Anyway, something stood out to me today. It's a song that I've never heard before called, "Slip On By", sung by Finding Favour.

"Early morning by the riverside,
Saw an old man waiting for a bite.
We started talking and he took me back in time.
He said "I was young, and thought I'd always be,
Then I woke up, now I'm 83.
There's so much I missed, oh how I wish
I could get back all that time I wasted."
I see the tears of a young bride, the morning that we had our first fight.
I should've held her tight.
And on the day that my momma died, I hung up the phone and never said goodbye.
Don't let it slip on, don't let it slip on, don't let it slip on by.
Well he looked up, tears in his eyes,
Said "I'm not sure, if you were lookin' for advice.
There's just something about you that reminds me of me.
It ain't easy always lookin' back but it seems these days that it's all I have.
What hurts me the most, is knowin' what could have been, and if I listen real close,
sometimes I can...
Hear the sound of my little boy sayin', "Daddy can you come play with me"
But I was too busy.
Then one day, my baby grew up and went to war.
I never thought he’d be gone in the blink of an eye.
So don't let it slip on, don't let it slip on, don't let it slip on by.
I shook the old man's hand and I thanked him.
And I drove home as fast as I could go, just to let her know
That I need her, that I love her,
That I'm never gonna let another moment like this slip on by.
Don’t let it slip on by.
We’re only here for a little while
And God gives us only so much precious time
So don't let it slip on, don't let it slip on, don't let it slip on by.
Don’t let it slip on by."

 

What lyrics stand out to you in this song?

 

The lyrics, "We're only here for a little while and God gives us only so much precious time", really stand out me, because it is so true. It's important to figure out what you value most in life like family and don't let precious moments "slip on by".

These are just a few precious moments I'll never forget...

Ice skating with my nieces

Casting Crowns concert with sis & mom

 

Being a bridesmaid with my best friend for my other best friend's wedding

 

Hanging out with a dolphin...nuff said :)

 

Snow in TX with my high school friends

 

 

PS- If you are following along with the read-your-Bible-in-a-year plan, today's scripture is Matthew 22 & 23.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I need more fruit!

 

I need more fruit. Plain and simple. Did you know that the recommended amount of fruit for adults is a minimum of two cups a day. Fruit is an important part of healthy living because it gives us vitamins and minerals that help fight of illness, strengthen our immune system and give us energy. 

Are you getting the recommended amount of fruit a day?

That's not the only fruit I need more of...I need more fruit of the Spirit.

 

Have you heard of the "fruit of the Spirit"? If you haven't, that's okay because you are about to learn them! We learn about the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23..."But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." So basically the fruit of the Spirit is an attitude, a lifestyle, a result of living in the Spirit, not an actual fruit that you eat. So you may eat a cup of strawberries and an apple a day, but are you forebearing the fruit of the Spirit? I'll be honest with you...I sometimes (well, more than sometimes) struggle with the fruit of the Spirit. I've noticed, however, that the more dedicated I am to serving God, the easier it is to live by the fruit of the Spirit. For example, the days where I have dedicated my whole self to God and have immersed myself in the Word, I feel this joy and I think, "Why do I feel so free and so happy?" Or when I'm at the store and it's so easy for me to be kind to others, I think "What has gotten into me?!" God then reminds me, "Hellooo!! It's my Spirit! Duh Chelsea!!" The more focused I am on God, the Holy Spirit intervenes and gives me the ability to live in "love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodnesss, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control". Now, I'm not saying I'm perfect when that happens (because I'm not), but it becomes possible to bear that kind of fruit when I'm living by the Spirit. When I'm loving, kind, faithful, gentle, etc., that is NOT me...it is the Holy Spirit living IN me. The Holy Spirit can live in ALL of us. It's definitely a choice to follow Christ and to live as He has called us to live, when we do that the Holy Spirit kind of "takes over". Can you imagine if EVERYONE produced the fruit of the Spirit? Oh my goodness, that would be AWESOME! This world would be a MUCH happier place! We can't change other people and the decisions they make, BUT we can change the way WE think and the way WE live.

 

So think about this...are YOU bearing the fruit of the Spirit? Are you focused on God? If not, ask God to give you the hunger to seek Him, to live out His calling on your life, and to bear the fruit of His Holy Spirit. He wants us to live that way! So I challenge you to really dedicate yourself to God and His teaching. Trust me, you will produce some AWESOME fruit (of the Spirit, which is better than an actual fruit!). Plus, people like that kind of fruit (of the Spirit)...I mean, who wants to be around someone who is hateful, sad, impatient, rude, unfaithful, aggressive and impulsive? Um, I know I don't!

 

Pray this with me...Dear God, I thank you that you make it so clear in Your word what you can produce in me when I live according to Your will. Help me to hunger for Your Word and to live the way You have called me to live. Move your Spirit within me and produce fruit that will bring others to You. Thank you for the many blessings you have given me. In Christ's name, Amen.

 

P.S.- If you are following along with the read-your-bible-in-a-year plan, today's reading is Matthew 17 & 18, yesterday's was Matthew 15 &16. Also, if you're memorizing a verse, don't forget to practice it and hold it close to your heart!

My life as a woodpecker

This morning my mom and I sat out on our deck for our morning quiet time. The cold front came in so it was great weather for a hoodie and a big mug of coffee. I like sitting on the deck because it gets me out of the house and reminds me of the stillness and peace that God provides us through nature. It slows me down and removes me from all the craziness of life. It also reminds me how God has specifically designed everything in this world to work together for Him and through Him. Romans 11:36 says, "For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things." I think it's important to get out of our houses, offices, and wherever that can take us away from the beauty of God's creation. So get outside for a little bit and enjoy God's creation!

While we were on the deck, we heard, "tap tap tap...tap tap tap." We looked around, through the trees and there we spotted the red-headed woodpecker . I've seen woodpeckers before, but I never really watched them longer than a couple seconds. This morning, however, was different. I kept hearing the "tap tap tap" and I couldn't focus on my reading. It was like the woodpecker wanted to get my attention or maybe I have a slight case of ADHD...who knows. Anyway, I turned my attention to the woodpecker who was determined to get his breakfast out of that tree. When you think of a woodpecker, what comes to mind first? Annoying? Loud? Determined? Well, as I watched him for awhile and realized that this is a creature of persistence. He would not stop pecking until he got his food. He was devoted. He was dedicated. He was persistent. So it made me think...

Am I devoted, dedicated, and persistent in my walk with Christ? Or do I peck for a little while and then give up? What about you?

Since my mom and I were out late for the TobyMac concert last night (which was awesome!!), we didn't make it to church but we watched church on a live podcast. It was funny because Pastor Gregg talked about how Christians called to be devoted to Christ, being consistent in growing in our faith. I automatically thought of the woodpecker being devoted to that tree full of bugs and worms. I knew then that I should blog about persistence and dedication!
Funny how God works, huh?

Pastor Gregg based his sermon on Acts 2:41-42. Acts 2:42 says, "They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer." This scriptures tells us that we should be devoted to learning, fellowship, and communion with the Lord.

• So how do we learn? We read the Bible, listen to teachers, and converse with others to get different perspectives. When we learn about God, we grow closer to Him.
• We should also be devoted to fellowship. Through fellowship, we have the opportunity to love and grow faith based relationships that will hold us accountable in growing in Christ.
• We should be devoted to being in communion with God, meaning in prayer, reading His Word, and participating in the Lord's Supper. When we do these things, the Holy Spirit intercedes and we are in communion with God. Our faith increases, as well as our love for God. What could be better than that?!

Psalm 37:5 says, "Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass." When we dedicate ourselves to God, just like the woodpecker "tap tap tapping" at the tree, we will find promises and treasures. The woodpecker finds its food after persisting and we find what God wants for us. It could be new found talents or gifts. It could be new dreams and goals. Most importantly, when we persist and dedicate ourselves our faith increases. When we grab a hold of our faith, just like the woodpecker gets its food, we are energized to keep persisting! It's like a cycle! The main point is that we should be like the woodpecker, always dedicating ourselves to God and never giving up on Him because in Him we find life and we definitely don't want to miss out.

If you are following along with the read-your-bible-in-a-year plan, Sunday's are catch up day. So this week we read Matthew chapters 1-14.

DIY Halloween & Fall Decorations

As I was looking around the house, I realized that we don't really have any fall decorations. So thanks fellow crafty bloggers, I learned how to make decorations out of books!

All you need is...

• Books (paperback preferably)
• Hot glue gun
• Construction paper
• Stick (for pumpkin)

How to make Jack-o-Lantern:

• fold first page back to the spine, halfway and crease...continue with each page
• fold front and back cover to spine & glue covers to the spine
• Cut out shapes for eyes, nose, mouth and glue

How to make pumpkin:

• Draw a pumpkin shape on book
• Cut pages with scissors (I used exacto knife) (about 15 pages at a time).
• Once all pages are cut, glue a small stick to the spine
• Pull front and back cover together and glue.
• Fluff out pages to resemble pumpkin and add ribbon to your pumpkin (or whatever else you want to add)

These crafts were fun, easy and free! However, the pumpkin was a little time consuming. Have fun and happy fall!

My fear of yielding and merging...

In driver's ed, one of the things you learn is to yield. The definition for yield is "to give up, as to superior power or authority, or surrender." If you know me, you know that yielding has been a struggle for me. Being from a small country town, you don't have many opportunites to practice yielding. Whenever I would be in the city, I would freak out. Now when we are driving and yielding to traffic, we don't often think of those cars being superior to us. If you think about it, they are superior, because if we were to ignore the yield sign and just go, we most likely would be crushed into pieces by the traffic.  Obviously, being crushed to pieces is not on our to-do list so we should definitely obey those yield signs.  If you know me, you know that merging and  yielding has been a struggle for me. Being from a small country town, you don't have many opportunites to practice  merging and yielding. Whenever I would be in the city, I would freak out when I had to yield to other cars. I'm now over my fear of yielding (and actually quite good at it, if I must say so myself ;), but yielding can still be a hard thing to do at times.

 

So yesterday, I went to my grandparent's house to work on my t-shirt quilt sewing project. (I'm almost done...finally!) While I was there, they gave me a book that they thought would be a good read for me..."My Utmost for His Highest" by Oswald Chambers. My grandad has his own copy and is reading it for the third time (so it must be pretty good!) It's a year-long devotional book with short devotions. I started reading it today and I'm already loving it just after one devotion!  So I figured I would share with you the topic of today's devotion.

 

It is titled "Let Us Keep to the Point" and based around Philippians 1:20, ". . . my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ will be magnified in my body , whether by life or death". The main idea of today's devotion is to yield to God, no matter what circumstance.

 

Just like we yield/surrender to traffic, we should also yield/surrender ourselves to God. Why? God has superiority over us and we can't argue with that. I mean can we command light and darkness and create a whole solar system? Don't think so. It is clear that God has authority over us.  If we don't yield to His will, we will be crushed to pieces. We will be crushed in a sense that we ignored God's calling on our lives and therefore, unable to find peace in knowing that God is using us for His big plan. Even though it might be scary yielding and merging on the highway, we should never be afraid to yield and merge our lives with God's will. Our goal should be  our absolute best for God. Chambers says, "Shut out every other thought and keep yourself before God in this one thing only - my utmost for His highest." We should say with confidence, just as Chambers did, " I am determined to be absolutely and entirely for Him and for Him alone."

 

Yield to God. Surrender your life to Him and get ready to be used for the best mission on this Earth...showing God's love to others.

 

If you are joining in on the read-your-bible-in-a-year plan, today's reading is Matthew chapters 11 & 12.

 

So much to talk about...choices, choices, choices!

I have so much I want to write about it! Don't worry though, I'll try and limit myself. I don't want to bore you with a novel, but sheesh, there's so much to write about!

So I've been reading a lot the past 2 days (because I haven't felt like doing anything else). These are the 3 things I've read: my Bible, "His Princess: Love Letters from Your King," and "Sincerely, Jesus". Man, God has given me some good stuff to read, let me tell you. "Sincerely, Jesus" is by Edward Goble (I got it free on my Nook!) and it is about the letters that Jesus wrote to the seven churches listed in the book of Revelation. Although the letters were addressed to these seven groups, Goble explains how Jesus is talking to us, too. It's a short read, filled with historical information and tons of Jesus' promises for us that relates to our daily lives. I'm so glad I found it and look forward to reading it again. "His Princess: Love Letters from Your King" is by Sheri Rose Shepherd and is a devotional book that is in the form of letters from God. It is beautifully written for any age. So many times I finish reading a chapter/devotion in tears. Lastly, today's reading for the year long reading plan was chapters 7-8 in the book of Matthew. Out of these 3 books, God has filled my head with so much to write about! I decided to write about the reoccuring theme of the 3 books...choosing the right path.

I don't know about you, but I'm not real good at making decisions. I don't know if it's because I doubt my discernment or I just don't like making decisions. I've realized though lately that as long as I'm focusing on God, His will for me, and obeying Him; I can't go wrong. Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes through the father except me" (John 14:6).

Matthew 7:13-14 says, "Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it." So you may be wondering, "What's all this gate talk about? I haven't went through a gate."   Well, if we look at John 14:6 again, we know that Jesus is life, therefore, to go through the "narrow gate", all we have to do is believe and follow him. The wide gate is what the rest of the world goes through. If you want life, you want Jesus.  Simple as that. But you may be thinking, well I'm living and I don't need Jesus. The truth is, when we don't have Jesus we don't experience what true life is and we definitely don't get to experience eternal life.  Basically, if you want destruction (which I don't see why), go through the wide gate. Do what everyone else is doing. I know it may be the easy thing to do, but is it really worth it? If you want life (sounds so much better than destruction), go through the narrow gate - Jesus.

Romans 12:2 says, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will." When we are walking on the narrow way, following Jesus, we are able to figure out what God's will is for us. Decision making becomes less complicated. It will still be hard at times, since we are competing with the world and our fleshly desires so we must choose Jesus' path everyday. Like I've talked about before, it becomes easier when we use our faith in the reward God has promised us. Goble says in "Sincerely, Jesus", "Sometimes the footing is tricky because there is an enemy lurking in the shadows who will do anything to get you off the path." Satan wants us to do the things that everyone else is doing, so he is going to work his butt off to tempt us, but keep in mind when we follow Jesus' path, we recieve life. All Satan can offer us is destruction, but Jesus offers us eternal life. That should be a pretty easy decision right there...who are you going to choose? Do you want destruction or life?

Let Jesus be your way...your truth...and your life. When our faith is in Him, choosing which path to take becomes simple.  Proverbs 4:26-27 says, "Watch the path of your feet and all your ways will be established. Do not turn to the right nor to the left; Turn your foot from evil."  Goble says, "When we repent and place Jesus in the central place of honor and love in our heart, He will be our strength and energy for life. (p. 51)" When we start to slip off the narrow path (and it will happen, but don't freak out!), all we have to do is  refocus our eyes on the "way" (Jesus). Choose the narrow gate. Choose the narrow path. Choose life. Choose Jesus. It's worth it.

 

Today is the day that we choose a new bible verse to memorize, mine is Romans 12:2. Let me know what verse you are memorizing by leaving me a comment!

Also, are you joining the read-your-bible-in-a-year plan? Please let me know if you are! Today is Matthew, chapters 7 & 8.

Beautifully BE-ATITUDINAL

A friend invited me join her in reading the whole Bible in a year so of course, I said yes!! I've always wanted to read the whole Bible and I've tried multiple times but never seemed to follow through :/ So I figure this is a great opportunity since I have someone holding me accountable. Our reading started yesterday and so far we have read Matthew chapters 1-6. It's crazy how you can read something so many times and still notice things you never realized before...that's how God works ;)

Anyway, I love chapter 5, aka the Beatitudes and part of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. You might be wondering what the heck are "Beatitudes"? Beatitudes are defined as supreme blessedness or the blessings that Jesus listed in his Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is so clear & to the point...I love it! If you've never read the Beatitudes before here they are...and if you have, read em again, who knows something different may stand out to you this time!

Matthew 5:1-12

Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, ² and he began to teach them.

The Beatitudes

He said:

³ “Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

⁴ Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.

⁵ Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.

⁶ Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.

⁷ Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.

⁸ Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.

⁹ Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.

¹⁰ Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

¹¹ “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.

¹² Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

 

Let me ask you this, do the underlined phrases explain you and the way you act? Since these phrases are known as blessings, do you think the world would define them as blessings? Probably not...the world tells us, "Don't be meek, merciful, hungry for righteousness, poor in spirit, peacemakers...that's not cool!" As believers, we aren't supposed to go with world's flow, but to go against it so we can show Jesus' love for others.

 

So let's try to be beautifully beatitudinal!

If you would like to read the Bible in a year with me, feel free to tag along! You will be blessed, I'm sure!

To catch up with me, read chapters 1-6 in the book of Matthew.

Also, if you would like the reading plan for the year, I can email it to you. Just let me know by commenting on this post!