Oct 4

Ephesians 5:1-4
1 Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children.
2 Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God.
3 Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity, or greed among you. Such sins have no place among God’s people.
4 Obscene stories, foolish talk, and coarse jokes—these are not for you. Instead, let there be thankfulness to God.

Have you ever worked with someone and sewed something from a pattern? Or have you ever used a plan to make something from wood? Have you ever followed the directions to make a model car or plane, put together a new toy or bike, or used a recipe to bake a cake "from scratch" (where do you buy "scratch," anyway)? To do any of those things correctly you have to follow some type of plan, whether it be a sewing pattern, a construction plan, assembly instructions, or a recipe. Think what the cake would be like if you put spinach in it instead of flour. Yuck! Or how would the bike look if you tried to put both wheels on the back or left the seat off? Not much fun to ride! Or if you decided to ignore the pattern and put sleeves wherever you wanted or left out the neck hole? It may be a hassle at times to follow instructions, recipes, and patterns, but the outcome is sure better if you do. And the creator of the plan knows things will work out properly if you follow the instructions. Well, when it comes to living our life, we have a pattern, too. Jesus is our pattern. As God's Son, he came to show us what God is like. He is the ultimate example for us. When God tells us, in his Word, to be self-controlled, he's not just making a new rule off the top of his head. He's telling us, "Be like me," because he is self-controlled. When God says, "These are the things I will do" (Isaiah 42:16, NIV), he does them. He never lies, never gets carried away. Some people seem to be controlled by their temper; yet God never loses control of his temper. Some people's tongues seem to be out of control; yet God never loses control of his tongue. Some people seem to be victims of their passions; yet God is never controlled by anything except his own perfect, holy nature and will. And because God is self-controlled, he wants us to be self-controlled and to follow the example he sets for us.

REFLECT: Do you think God ever has to exercise his self-control with you? Can you ever be perfectly self-controlled, as God is? Can you reflect his self-control in your behavior? How?

ACT: Carry a carpenter's pencil or a recipe card in your pocket or purse to remind you to follow God's example and be self-controlled today. Or memorize Ephesians 5:1.

PRAY: "God, thank you for providing an example of how I should live my life. Help me to closely follow your plan for me."

Oh Gosh. I was actually learning how to cite APA, and I guess this kinda goes along with it.

Well. The rules God set down for us are pretty basic. We're meant to follow it so that we can apply it to other aspects of our life, and practice being a good Christian, and pretty much; the ideal person. With the rules God set down for us, we're set on a road to become more like Jesus. I think that's something we need to get from the bible. How we become more like Jesus shouldn't be a question, because essentially, Jesus asked of us to follow the rules, and heed his suggestions. The bible is a guide, that sets us to follow the rules, know of the rules, and our predecessors and their struggles to follow the rules. In a sense, it's a family record that holds information upon the Christian struggle, and the joy we got from it from millions of years ago, to now. As our guide, it's bound to take us to places that we would take time to appreciate, and show thanks to God.

It should send things in a loop, where we can keep on getting our spiritual needs from God.

Other than that.....THANKSGIVING WEEKEND IS COMING GUISE!
Gotta finish citing this thing, and get ready for Saturday's practice.

This devotion basically tells us to be imitators of God and do everything for him because we are children of God.
In my opinion, everyoine needs God to exercise their self-control when they are shifting away from God and leaning into sin and temptations.
I dont think anyone could be perfeectly self controlled like God because we all have flaws. Whatever they may be, God helps us oercome them and will always be there for us.
I guess what i see in myself is the ability to control myself even in times where it would be hard to. I thank God for giving me the strength of self control/

Hmmm.. to be honest, guys, I haven't gotten anything especially important or special in the last two devos..

I love the prayers and the messages are fine, but I feel like we've just been given the same message over and over with slight variations.
Perhaps it's the fact that I've been way too stressed with school these past two weeks. Anyway, I'll reread this one tomorrow, and maybe something will come up.

Okay, later potaters!

What i got from this was that God is our role model basically. We live our lives TRYING to be like him which we will never acheive because we are soo low in the trinity. We shouldnt want all the thigns listed in the verses such as
3 Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity, or greed among you. Such sins have no place among God’s people.
4 Obscene stories, foolish talk, and coarse jokes—these are not for you. Instead, let there be thankfulness to God.
because what are the point of these? short term joy on earth that is it. It will not follow us into heaven so these actions, are just for our own self enjoyment but in the long term picture they are useless. God wants us to follow him and not other things.
This reminds me that we should ALWAYS put God up front and nothing else. If we put forth something infront that means that we are worshipping that certain item. Such as money, fame, girls/guys, etc...
gntie tons of homework i dont like school

Okk, I honestly couldn't really find anything creative...
But God is perfect and we should definitely try to follow his example. It's impossible for us to be absolutely 100% like God, and there will be times when we mess up but that's ok! We are at least trying and if that is the best we can do, then God will accept it.
See you guys Saturday!

My cold is slowly going away....just in time, have to play flute tomorow....

I don't know why but I feel as if we've done this one before. But anyways, when I was reading this, I thought about how much we doubt god at times. It's funny how we sometimes trust ourselves more than we trust in god. Doubt goes waaaay back in the bible. When the serpent gave the fruit to eve, she trusted the serpent more than she trusted god. Jonah when he didn't do what god wanted him to do and set off the opposite direction. And that's true, we do go the opposite direction when we start to lose faith. Don't be discouraged though. We must live the way that god wants for us. Just remember that He only sets rules to protect us, not to prevent us from having fun.

I better get some sleep....
~Audrey~

Be CHRIST LIKE.
Apart from that there's not much more I can elaborate on.
It's a huge day to day struggle that I go through
To be more Godly.
Sometimes I had a mindset that it was something so hard to accomplish, I'd kinda give up
Or not make that attempt to have better traits.
Recently, I've been setting goals to produce better fruit and I feel good about it LOL.
As cheesy as it sounds. It feels great.

we are the children of Christ, therefore we should be imitators of God and follow His words and commands. i have countlessly heard this message over and over, from church, family, friends, etc. as simple as the message seems, it is quite the contrary. to be more like God is hard since we are all human and it is pretty much our second nature to sin. but of course, we cant be perfectly like God simply because we are human. however, God would embrace all the effort and goals you set to become more Godly.