Acts Seventeen

I had the weirdest dream today. I heard from someone that writing down your dreams makes you remember your dreams better, so I've been doing that these days. I must say that it does work. Last night, I dreamnt that I was pregnant, and I was 19... huh. Anyway,

Acts 17.

v.20 "You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean."
v. 32 "We want to hear you again on this subject."

From this passage, I saw that so many people were curious about what Paul had to say about God. Lately, I've been thinking if, as a believer, being curious about God's work means that we are doubtful. Is being curious necessarily a bad thing?

From reading this passage, I think that curiosity is good because that leads us to find out more about God. If we read the Bible more and see all the amazing things that God does through His people, we will have a stronger faith in Him. By reading the Word, we can answer the questions that sometimes cause doubt in our hearts.

-Denise

No TEST TEACHER CALLED IN SICK YAY!!!!
gotta love you trigs...

Verse 29 "Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being like gold or silver or stone- an image made by man's design and skill".

Huh the Gold comment. Is it referring to God being comparable to Gold or other highly valuable things. Or does it mean that in the Greeks' eyes a God had to be drenched with valuables, beaming with Gold and precious stones?

I liked the part were Paul used the statue with the inscriptions "To a unknown God", to preach. Saying that he is going to tell everyone about the unknown God and the only God.

Unknown God... Pretty creative

Verse 16: While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly displeased to see tthat the city was full of idols.
This is pretty sad, a mere human being following God was greatly distressed. Imagine what God must've been feeling, we'll never understand him and his emotions go beyond what we could ever imagine, and he has the right to be displeased, God is a jealous God. But how many times have we chosen something ELSE over him? and it's not even like eternal things, its things that God himself created. We often outbalance things between the creations and the Creator, and the problem is that the creations are mostly the ones that come first. It shoudl'nt be like that, anything can be an idol, and we have to be careful. Even when we choose to do something else over our devos, thats our idol worshipping, because we're choosing to weigh something of Gods more than God himself. Get what i mean?

Have a great tuesday.

whats up my friends?
Accounting test pushed back until after winter break ! so happpppppyyyyyy its unbelievable.

11Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.
like in 1 Peter 5:2 "2Be shepherds of God's flock that is under your care, serving as overseers—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve;"

I like the word eager. It has a sense of wanting and NEEDING of something. Thats something ive been missing in my life before this team. The NEED for God, not just a want. My mother always says "have a heart that NEEDS God more than water." And its something that stuck out to me today.
Lets have a eagerness to serve this team/ God. Not just a half-ass practice, or showing up late, or not doing devos. Lets NEED God.

Have a good Tuesday guys! P.S Denise ill start writing down my dreams too. I ve been getting a lot of them recently and i need to analyze them for SAP class.

E-Sek OUT!

Yo homes

"I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. "
I found this part very interesting.. because I think it highlights some unknown truth about a lot of non-christians out there.. A lot of people are really confsued and lost out there - people evnetually come to the realization that there is a supreme being - that there must be more to life then getting up everday, going to school/work, making the bills and coming home to sleep again.. But a lot of people don't know where to find answers.. They try frinding happiness in physical pleasures or materialistic things.. But then eventually they realize that it doesnt work.. And they may seek some form of religion, or spiritaulity in some way. (Some of my white friends converted to Buddhism! :S)
And so they, like these Greeks really serve an unknown God. They know that there's someone up there, but they dont really know who.. or if they try turning to another religion.. they dont really grasp who that God is (because we as Christians believe that tehre is no other GOd but ours! Ye yE )
But this is where we step in as Christians, to clarify this unknown God and put a name to him. Even though a lot of people seem like they're really not interested in Christianity, most people are (whether they know it themselves or not) are seeking God - even if he is unknown in their hearts and minds. But we as Christians have the mission to go and evangelize - to teach about our Lord, and how we works and saves our souls. This trasnforms this unknown god to the the God that we know, who I think is a pretty cool cat.
So yupp this really reminds me of our evangelical duties..
I'm going to moosedeer this Sunday so hopefully I'll have the right state of heart when I go - that I go witht he intention of bringing them love.
Hahah and also do you guys remember when we went around and shared that person we were going to evangelize to? I told my only two christian friends at school and we're teaming up to convert her hahaha
this weekend I believe we are going to a praise night/christmas play thing. i dont really know what it is at my friends church and we hope that it will bring our non-christian friends to see Jesus
and maybe let them see that church can be fun and more than an old man in a robe.

I like Athens... and the Roman goddess Athena; pretty wise and open-minded people

Anyways...
I re-learned the reason why God is just.. God rather than the God of something
Cuz if God was a God of something, then his realm of power would only extend to the limitations defined by the category in which He would be dominant.
I also learned about God not needing anything but our faith in Him.

ACTS 17

26From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'

Two things I like:

1. Where it says that he determined the times set for every person and the exact places that they will live, so that we would exercise our gift of choice and seek him and find him for ourselves. So not only does God know us through and through, having planned out every facet of our life before we were even conceived, but he also was gracious enough to give us that gift of free will. And once one chooses to seek God, what reality does he unveil? That he doesn't stay far from any one of us, in the least. "In him we live and move and have our being." He's just waiting for us to come to him, never forsaking us.

2. How Paul makes a reference to the culture of the audience he's addressing. "As some of your own poets have said..." He's exercising I think, a really good quality of one who is reaching to the lost, where he really tries to understand where they are coming from, trying ot make it accessible to them, etc. etc.

- H