New week new week

i realized that i like to take naps
I think you guys should listen to the song "Majestic" by Lincoln Brewster. It's good

Again they were thrown in jail. but they never break down. It seems like in our society, if one bad thing happens, we blame it on God for taking it away. However in this situation, Paul and Silas were thrown in prison and they continued to worship God. This shows one thing, i learned that the term "worship" is a lifestyle. Worship isn't something we do once every sunday, its when you are accepeted by Christ and everything you do is for the glory for Him. If everything you do is for him, then you live for Him right? SO taht's considered a lifestyle. Back to my point, these men were stripped of everything to follow the Lord, but thats just a misunderstanding. God is "Everything" and thats' all you need in life. But who has the courage to drop everything and just follow God? I bet no one really does, BUT we can improve so that we are inch by inch getting closer to God by giving whats his back to him.
Sorry i'm all over the place aha
Anyway have a good monday!
and we rocked today so good job everyone!

Acts 16

Pretty sick passage.

1. 7When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to.

God knows what's best for us and sometimes He will say no to what we might think is best for us, at the time. But we've gotta trust. In this case, God kept them frmo crossing into Bithynia, for whatever reason (maybe it was too dangerous for them? we don't know) and instead calls upon them to go to Macedonia through a dream. When He shuts one door, He always opens up another.

2. 25About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. 26Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody's chains came loose.

Even in a time of grave turmoil, what do they do? They pray and sing hymns to God. They WORSHIP and PRAISE God. I don't know about you guys, but when I face harsh times, that's typically the last thing I'm thinking of, because it's pretty hard to do...Typically most people get angry at God about the bad situation instead, or try to handle it on their own, but I think we need to be more like Paul and Silas, praying and worshiping God at all ours of the day, no matter our circumstances.

3. How the jailer comes to accept Christ with his entire family is pretty great.

4. 37But Paul said to the officers: "They beat us publicly without a trial, even though we are Roman citizens, and threw us into prison. And now do they want to get rid of us quietly? No! Let them come themselves and escort us out."

My favourite of the night! We saw this in Jesus, as well, in previous books. I think a lot of people typically think that since people are "holy", they're people-pleasers that are just oozing niceness to everyone they see. But these people in the bible were SMART, spunky cookies, and I love it. They could have just been thankful for being released and quietly walked away, but they recognized the rights of theirs that were violated and were adamant that justice be served. Awesome. The magistrates were 'owned'. Hahaha.

Happy fundays, everyone!
Friday friday friday friday friday

- H

blargh, im exhausted...

Like Hannah, i was inspired by the fact that they praised God even when in jail. When we go through hard times, we should praise God.

No practice this week, pure chilling out

Peace out hommies.

E-Sek OUT!

I really liked this chapter because God worked through so many people. One thing that I realized was that the first thing the believers did was to invite Paul and Silas into their homes and serve them.

Lydia: v.15 When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. "If you consider me a believer in the Lord, come and stay at my house."

Jailer: v. 33 ...immediately he and all his family were baptized. The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God- he and his whole family.

I guess what I learned was that "selflessness" is a quality that a lot of believers have. Once we accept that God gave His only Son to sacrifice His life for our sins, we see how someone can be so generous and loving. Our purpose in life is to spread God's word and live according to His will. By trying to be like God, we learn to be selfless and accept everyone.

-Denise

good day all
terribly sorry this is late.. haha jacob sent me a text to get my butt to do my devos!
So thanks Jacob for keeping me accountable

Hhaha Hannah did a kick-butt job at really highlighting the best parts of this chapter..
When the Lord's spirit didn't allow Paul and his companions from entering Bithynia, it really shows how God looks o ut for us and prevents us from bad bad things.. And when we read passages like this I think we automatically assume that God like.. put an invisible but very physical barrier between them and Bithynia, and it would be like.. comical like in a cartoon when they're trying to push through btu the invisible barrier wont let them.. hahah or thats just me And when we do that we feel like this isn't applicable to us becuase God never works so obviously in our lives..
But in this story, it could have been that God's spirit worked within their hearts to warn them, just as he uses our conscience and that little voice in our heads that tells us when we shouldnt be doing what we're doing..
I think this is so important for us, us silly teenagers with all of the drugs, sex and alcohol around us
God is there with us, and he does warn us and keep us from doing what will damage us.. But a lot of the times, it's up to us to make that final call. whether its wise or not..

I wonder why the girl kept following Paul and Silas shouting that.
She could see the future right? So she would've known that Paul would take away her foresight
Then she would also know that she would be useless because she was a one-trick pony
Yet she chose to continue to follow Paul and Silas... Maybe she wanted to be stripped of her omniscience??
I learned from this about the life of a person who is gifted in one thing...
It's probably miserable because your talent will be exploited by so many people, and they would not even try to be your friend or anything, they would just want to suck up to you and leech your gift.
I wonder what became of her...