do your own devos

hey guys:) hope you all had a good day ! it was so cold... and i had to do the beep test.... man... i hate it with a passion . HAHA

i read more from "the life youve always wanted"
this is more from the chapter about living freely as a christian and i really liked what it was saying !

"We want to impress people without letting them know that we are trying to impress them.Approval addiction is the full blown disease of which showing off is just one minor symptom. Approval addiction involves not just trying to attract attention for what we do well, but also avoiding saying what we truly think if we believe speaking up could draw disapproval. Jesus said "when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Jesus' point is that the true spiritual maturity means that we dont feel the need to congratulate ourselves because we've gotten something right."
we can take this in a lot of different ways.
1. we try too hard to look good to others. We care a lot about what others think. How we act, what we say, how we dress etc. But we only need to attract God's attention. Not saying "God look what i did right!" but "God, look, im living my life the way you want me to"
2. Spiritual maturity. Hmm, so what Jesus said really got me. Like when we do stuff for our church, or just for others in general, a lot of us wants to get recognition for what we are doing. But Jesus is saying, just do it in the background, youll be rewarded for what youve done. dont worry! Like Jesus did good deeds and didnt ask for attention going "LOOK HERE, IM GONNA PERFORM A MIRACLE, LOOK AT WHAT I CAN DO!" its the same thing on a worship team. Jacob and Isaac said this a lot. We need to be able to go worship in the congregation willingly without any complaints or any negative thoughts. Worship isnt about just leading in front of everyone and looking good as a leader to the rest of the church. and at a retreat, especially in BIG ones like visionx or kosta, there are so many people who help out, support the main thing from the back, and dont get much recognition. they are the ones who make the place work, and they are the base of it all. Jesus is telling us to be spiritually mature. Knowing to step down, and not raise our pride in the way of what we do.
3. I think pride is a big thing for "approval addiction". We care so much and we dont want to hurt our pride. We keep our thoughts back because we're scared of what others might think, that they might think its stupid.... but what if youre in the position where they are testing your faith? Where they are saying "GOD ISNT REAL! THATS ALL SO STUPID".. is it right thne, to just stay back and go "i guess so..." ? Why do we need the peoples approval? God's approval is all that matters in the long run!!!

sorry guys it got long, but its such a good book

see you all tomorrow~ i just got the gift for our gift exchange thing..... hehehe

18 If someone is eager to do good things for you, that's all right; but let them do it all the time, not just when I'm with you.


God wants us to be consistent with our acts. He wants us to be good, and stay good. I think that if God came down to Earth as a human and was always around us, we would always be good just because he's there. If that were the case, it means that we have to be good ALL the time even if he didn't come down to Earth as a human right now. It's because he's in our hearts, he's always in us. What I realized more about consistency was that sin hurts God, but when we repent and REPEAT the same sin, God is even more hurt. If we repent towards something, we have to try to be consistent and don't fall back into the temptation of sin.

yee retreats tomorrow
it came quick for me

Sorry guys. im really tired, im running on two hours of sleep. i tried doing devos but i cant keep my eyes from blurring.. but i think ill try and get up early tmrw cause i have to go to school anyways for stupid history.. GRR.
but till then. im just gonna catch up on sleep! g'night y'allz!

lol I was ready to make a cellphone devo again (hope you guys got the one for yesterday!), but somehow my computer right now is working, and I am afraid to move anything. lol i am using dial-up right now!

Romans 6

Sin is no longer your master

I've been reflecting on those words, and I found that it is true that sin is no longer our masters, but we still have the choice to be slaves to it. With Jesus, we are no longer slaves to sin. I'll explain. If we were still slaves to sin we won't even have the the option to be free. If you are a slave you can't be like "Oh I'll work for a little while and then I'll take a break." With Jesus we can break free from sin, but that does not mean we cannot fall back into it. Jesus gave us the option to choose for ourselves. We all fall back into sin, but we are not bound by it. Every sin can be conquered, but sin has a very tenacious characteristic.

"Don't you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey"

Jesus freed us from not necessary sin, but freed us from the shackles that kept us from sin. You have a role to pay within this freedom. You will have to want to struggle and change, and keep yourself away from sin, and to do that you need to trust in God.

K that is all

OMG OMG OMG RETREAT TIME! OMG OMG aghh!~

hey guys, i just wanted to say that you did good job and that besides the lack of practice, we will play GREAT this weekend because we are doing it for God! So let your mind be open to the spirit, especially the singers! and rock it out tmr!

-Isaac

hey guys, Sooooooo stoked guys....
I read proverbs 27 today and its kinda like a poem...
Sorry guys, Was talking to my parents...

It's pretty sick cuz it says almost everything about life in 27 verses, also in a poetic way...
It would take me forever to jst write 1 line about life while being poetic... Not the point...
The lines rele caught my eyes but sooo many of them so i'm jst gonna say the VERY SICK ONES

20 Death and Destruction [a] are never satisfied,
and neither are the eyes of man.

Man, so tru, also goes with the parable fire vs fire creates a bigger fire... And no matter what
we do, we will always have anger in our lives and it will never be satisfied with violence...

17 As iron sharpens iron,
so one man sharpens another.

Soo tru, lets say a chef was sharpening a knife, u cant sharpen it until we have a another big
iron piece... We can't go through this walk with our selves, we need to help each other...
We are already sharpened but we may get dull again so sharpen ourselves with others and also
sharpen others...

19 As water reflects a face,
so a man's heart reflects the man.

Wow, sick!!! Nothing else shows who we rele are unless we see the heart of a man...
and the only people that kno our hearts is ourselves or god, so we're the only one that
knos ourselves... Nothing else rele matters so if god knos that u have a good heart, thats
all we need to kno...

Sooo EXCITED SEE U GUYS 2MORROW!