Acts 17

it snowed today. i finished my hosp&tour project... that was due today XD HAHA i have to rap and come up with a slogan and logo for civics... but has nothing.... awesome day HAHAHHAA

20You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean." 21(All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)
22Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, 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 like paul pretty much i find that any opening to spread God's name... he takes in a second. Whenever he sees a chance to glorify God and tell others about him, he goes big. There are people who dont know what is in the scriptures. and there are a lot of curious people out there. When they ask us a question, shouldnt we try to answer the best we can? Or atleast open them up on the subject? God gives us many chances to evangilise... just like that parable where the master gives each slave a certain amount of money and comes back with more, except for that one who hid the coin and then gave it back to him. Those coins are each of the people who God sent to us to reach out to. To spread His word. What happens when we fail to see that? Sure, God can just use someone else.... but we just missed our own chance to reach out to someone, someone who wants to know more about this "unknown God".
32When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, "We want to hear you again on this subject."
some people arent going to open up even afterwards... but the worst that will happen to us will be like getting laughed at... sneering... but there are still those who want to know more and more.. who wants to know our God! For them, i think its worth taking chances and telling others what we know about this "unknown God" just like Paul did

WOW!! I have to finish my hosp and tourism project by 2morrow!! LOL it's a pain!!
I jst got my internet back today and the first thing is see in the forum is this PIC!!
KEVIN!!PIMP!!! MAN!! FACEBOOK ATTACK!!! AND LEFT 4 DEAD 2!!! ARG!!!

this was rele intereting... Paul was sent to another island and without even being angry
by being moved some where else, he jst decides to do what god tells him to do... in athens
people worshipped likek zeus and like other stuff like poseidon. POSEIDON IS THA BOMB!!! but
seriously... GOD CAN PWN THEM ALL AT ONCE!!! the first thing is does is just yell at the crowd
and preach the word of god... without even thinking about the dangers it brought up in the past,
paul just opens his mouth and lets out the wonder word of god... Luckily, the people of athens
were very open to what paul was saying... Altho some of them just passed by thinking "What is this
guy doing??" but he didnt care about what others thought but jst cared about what he was doing
for god... THAT'S COMMITMENT RIGHT THERE!!! I kno it's hard to preach about the words of god
in our school because other people are jst as commited in other religions. But think about it, paul and
the others had a chance of being stoned to death or being arrested at the least but they still were
preaching...The least we can do is at least have a talk with our fellow christian friends about god
and jst talk... THE LEAST WE CAN DO!!! i was thinking about street missions again... THAT WOULD BE BOMB!!

"for he has no needs. He himself gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies every need."

If God has everything, then why do we need to "give" him back our "gifts" or to serve him? I have many thoughts on this, first i always have the mentality that God did everytihng, planned everything, and has provided everything for a purpose.

I tihnk we need to serve God to A) show his sovereignty over us. B) For us to love "Love" (or God, because God is Love according to the Bible), we as sinners need to know humility and that God provided in the first place.

It could also come from the fact that parents love to receive gifts from their children even if they gave the money to them in the first place. If you think of all the attributes of a good parent (or the thnigs they do/dont or like / dislike) i find it easier to relate to God.

thats just my two cents though

-isaac

Hahahah, it did snow today. Exams are soon, but still take the time to do devos and what not! Also practice haha.

I guess there is alot that i could've got from this chapter, i've been doing alot of thinking
and i realized i haven't full relied on God. And that there have been so many things going on in my life,
it ended up like idol worshiping. But time and prayer will work through it.

God is goooood.

5 But some of the Jews were jealous, so they gathered some troublemakers from the marketplace to form a mob and start a riot. They attacked the home of Jason, searching for Paul and Silas so they could drag them out to the crowd

so i realized that jews were getting jealous of Peter and silas. What i thought to myself was, that jealousy is a feeling and god made "Do not get jealous' as one of the 10 commandments. I thought why would God put up a commandment full out knowing that we cannot stop ourselves from being jealous. My thoughts were that rules are meant to be broken. God put up the rules so that we would kbnow what we would do wrong, not to prevent us from doing it in the first place.

I remembered a quote when reading this, and it is basically "religion screwed my life, but God saved me"

Paul praised the Athenians for being very religious. He could have been sarcastic, or he actually meant it. Religion and God are two different things, and like the quote says, God and religion sometimes clashes. Anyone can be religious, we have so many religions, and every individual who practices their religion, can be called religous. Because you are religious does not mean you are saved. If you are religious, that just means you are very good at following orders. But, our God wants more from you, he wants to have a connection, and communicate with you. He wants to listen to your pain, sorrow. He wants to help you with all his power.

Religion just sounds like this obtuse and mechanical term, and it is appropiatly so

that is all
c ya

" 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 dunno why, but I really liked this verse. I can't really explain it, but I have a lot of respect for these Athenians. Paul commends them for being religious, and even though they were idol worshippers, I liked how they were humble and honest enough to recognize that they didn't know what form God took, but were so convicted of his presence that they worshipped him anyways as an unknown God. Now, it was the job of Paul and the apostles to share the gospel with them, which they did. I guess I respect them because they were able toa ccept the fact that they didn't know - which is something that can prove to be one of the hardest things to do. Most other societies and towns just made something up - in the form of like a cow or wahtever so that they can have something to worship. But in their acceptance of their lack of knowledge, they left room for God - as Paul says, 'I am now going to proclaim it to you'. Thus, they sort of. left room for God for him to fill when the time came. I think this can apply in our lives , because so often, we just don't know. We can be uncertain about God, uncertain about what to do in a situation, uncertain about what he wants for our lives. But instead of trying to use our own abilities to fill these uncertainties, it's a lot better to jsut leave it up to God, and accept the fact that we don't know. because once we accept it, it's a lot easier for us to just come humbly before God and ask him to fill our emptiness. But if we've already filled it with our own desires and our own inventions, we nudge God out and reject his presence in our lives..

Well, Good night everyone! Sorry this is late