Martin Luther King, By CJ

Martin Luther King

By CJ

Martin Luther King Day is January 21st this year.

Martin Luther King was a Baptist Minister. He lived in a pretty rough time period, that we now call the Civil Rights movement. Martin Luther King was a Christian; just like us, he believed in God. When I hear about Martin Luther King, I don't hear much about him being a Christian. But as I research more, I believe that he is a very good role model for Christians. He strongly believed in the Bible. He said that it was filled with truths. He knew in his heart that one day, all the people who were different and that were treated differently still had the same hope to "make it to the promise land." God used Martin Luther King as a leader; he was a leader and a Christian. God used Martin Luther King and many others to make a difference in the world. Right now, it might feel as if we are useless or purposeless, but God has a plan for you, and for me, and for your friends, and your family.

Jeremiah 29:11 "'For I know the plans I have for you.' Declares the Lord 'Plans to prosper and not harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.''

Research: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.

Praise Jesus, By Sarah P.

Praise Jesus

By Sarah P.

Savior, Redeemer, Counselor, Emmanuel, Son of God, Light of the world, Lamb of God, Messiah, King of Kings, Comforter, Lord of Lords, Keeper, The Good Shepard, The Great I am, Friend, Star of David, King of the Jews. Jesus is all of these, and even more! How awesome it is to have a God who loves us, cares about us, and helps us! He is the highest, most exalted King of everything, yet He loves us! We are hopeless, sinful, and hateful without Him, yet He loves us so much that He died for us! That's the best thing that could ever happen to anyone. Aren't you glad Jesus died for us? It is truly, "Love unspeakable and full of Glory!" Amazing love of Jesus! That is enough of a reason for anyone to be glad! "Serve the Lord with gladness: come before His presence with singing!" -Psalm 100:2. So this Sabbath, whatever your life is like, praise Jesus! Worship Him who has redeemed us all!

Virtuous Young Ladies - Part 2, By Trish M.

Virtuous Young Ladies - Part 2

By Trish M.

Beautiful Ladies! What's up?

Oh I've missed you guys! Guess what? My mum's baby is due this month and it's a girl. How exciting. Well enough about me - how are you? I hope you are blessed! Okay so this is part 2 of the Virtuous Young Ladies Series.
If you haven't read the first part, this is a 10 piece series on 10 qualities I think all Proverbs 31 women of Valour should have. The first attribute is Faith. The 2nd trait is LOVE. Let me begin with John 13:34-15. "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

Girls, we need love. The world needs love. Have you ever been sitting with your friends and the conversation has turned into a gossip session about other girls? Yeah, stop right there. Stop. That's not love. Love is when you encourage each other. As Christians, God wants us to encourage and lift others up, not put them down. We are the chosen people, so, come on, let's act like it. I have heard so many stories in 2012 of girls (I speak of girls because this series is for girls) committing suicide and other horrible things like self-harm because they were bullied, and this bullying is usually verbal bullying that causes emotional and psychological trauma, from other girls. If we loved each other then we wouldn't hurt and judge each other so much.

I understand that judging is part of human nature. As soon as you see someone, your instinct is to judge what they are wearing, if you think they are pretty or not, the way they talk, etc. But the word of God says "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." That's in the book of 1st John 4 , verses 7-21. So instead of noticing how much you don't like the shirt that girl is wearing, why don't you notice and tell her "how pretty her eyes are." This will not only potentially make you amazing, lifelong friends but you will be fulfilling God's commands.

God wants us to love each other, so what better reasons do we need? The best part about displaying love is that you are also displaying a fruit of the spirit. In the Bible, in Galatians 5:22, the word of the Lord says, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and faithfulness." Notice how the first fruit of the spirit is love. Once you display love, it's an automatic that you're going to be joyful, at peace, patient, kind, good and faithful because you love. Another reason to love is because we as Christians are trying to be like Jesus. Jesus loved everybody and showed His love by dying for us ALL. Let's pace ourselves though, probably no need to die for anybody, but we do need to have that kind of love. The love that will die for others.

So how do we show love?

Let's be really practical and literal. We can show love by: Helping others! If you see somebody who needs help and it is appropriate to help, then just help. Another way we can love is by encouraging others! Instead of discouraging and disempowering people, lets encourage and empower people. As mentioned before, another way is to compliment people. I try to compliment at least 1 person a day because making people smile and feel good about themselves is great but we must do this genuinely. Yet another way we can show love is by being generous. This doesn't mean you have to give thousands of money to charities. You could be generous by buying something for your mum instead of those cute shoes you wanted. I'm just saying!

Anyways Ladies, please stay beautiful. I love you all!

Virtuous Young Ladies, By Trish M.

Virtuous Young Ladies

By Trish M.

Hello girls! I am so sorry for not posting recently but with school, exams and assignments. So I’m starting a 10 part series of articles called “Virtuous young Ladies.” This will be 10 things that I think that we as young women in the lord should try to reflect in our day to day lives.

This whole series is based on Proverbs 31. I want to encourage you all to aim to be Proverbs 31 women of valour. Valour means bravery. Before continuing please read Proverbs 31:10.

I would like to invite all ladies to serve God in every aspect of your lives. The first aspect is faith. The Bible says that a Virtuous Woman serves God with all of her heart, mind, and soul. She seeks His will for her life and follows His ways. In Matthew 22:31, Jesus replied: “'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with your entire mind.” This means that we have to put our trust in God.

As ladies of valour, we have to not be easily discouraged when things go wrong but continue to praise, worship and love our God. If we look back in our lives, we can truly see all the things He has done for us, so why should we stop loving just because something has gone wrong? Always remember, God has a bigger plan for you; He sees the bigger picture. We have to live by faith and not by sight.

The word of God says in John 14 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God and believe also in me.  My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.  You know the way to the place where I am going.” So why should you worry about anything when Jesus clearly instructed you to not let your heart be troubled? Let God do His job.

Let's have faith in the Lord. Your job is fast and sincerely pray to God and He will do the rest. Our faith is what determines our blessings. If you believe, then surely God will hear and answer your prayers but all in goood time.

All right ladies, that’s all for the number 1.

The Love of God! Pt. 2, By Kaylee S.

The Love of God!  Pt. 2

By Kaylee S.
 

I am obsessed with Jesus!  He is life!  He is my reason for being!  He is my everything.  He is my love and He lets me cry on His shoulder almost every day.  He is my happiness and I laugh a lot at all the funny things that happen in my life.  He is my peace and helps me remember Him when bad things happen to me.  He is my Joy and makes me happy when I am sad.

So when I studied about Jesus crucifixion I was very very sad, but I am so thankful for what He did for me.  He died for me!!!  Well actually, Jesus let men kill Him for me, and for everyone in the world.  And His death was the most scary death I ever read about.

I really don't know why Jesus suffered so much when He died.  I mean couldn't the Romans just put Jesus to death very quickly?  I think they could have, but I don't know why they didn't.

Ladies, I have to say, that what I'm writing about is very scary and so sad, I cried when I was reading it and still cry about it.  But Jesus did this terrible thing for you and for me.  The love of God... what a marvelous and wonderful thing He did for us, but for Jesus, it was so very painful.

This is about Jesus’ death.

When I think about this first thing, I am just so bewildered how a person could let anyone do this stuff to them.  Jesus knew what was going to happen to Him! 

He knew exactly what was going to happen so when He went to the Garden of Gethsemane and He was praying to His Father in heaven, He was sweating blood!  That is so gross!  I can't imagine somebody doing that but that's what happened.  That's where the soldiers arrested Jesus.

But I looked at pictures of the garden of Gethsemane and it is so beautiful!  There are lots of beautiful flowers there.  So pretty for something that was so ugly it made me think of the love and hate that was there that night.

Luke 22:44  And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

Then I was thinking if I would do what Jesus did.  He knew the terrible death He was going to suffer, and He still did it... because of our sins!  Oh the beautiful love of God just amazes me!!!  So they took Jesus away and He was led around the city to see the chief priests.  With Jesus walking from here to there they think He walked about 2 and a half miles.  That is a really far ways to walk! 

So when Jesus was waiting to be put to death, there were soldiers there that were beating Him.  And they beat Him up so much He was bleeding because of them punching Him in the mouth and the nose.

Then they put a crown of thorns and His head and beat Him up some more.  I was thinking when I read this how many times I pricked myself with a needle when I was sewing something.  It really hurt!  But being pricked by a bunch of thorns ripping through His skin had to be extremely painful.

Then they made Jesus carry His cross.  And He carried it about one third of a mile, that's 1,760 feet.  His cross was in 2 pieces, the horizontal part and the vertical part.  The horizontal piece of wood weighed about 120 pounds.  They don't know how much the vertical piece of wood weighed but it was a lot, which is why Jesus fell one time.  He was so tired that He couldn't carry the cross anymore so the soldiers got someone else to carry it.

Then they came to the place where Jesus was going to be crucified.  Ladies I have to tell you that this part is so very ugly!  It is extremely violent so please check with your mom and dad to see if they'll let you read this.

First they stripped Jesus COMPLETELY!  I know we all seen a lot of pictures of Jesus crucifixion but I never knew that they did this.  Then they used a whip that was called a cat-o-nine tails.  It's a stick with 9 pieces of leather on it.  And they put little pieces of clay from pots at the end of the leather straps, then they whipped Jesus.  The cuts that the clay made were about 2 inches long.  They whipped Him 39 times because that's how many times they whipped all the prisoners.  Whipped with 9 pieces of leather with clay at the ends of them, 39 times... and each cut being about 2 inches long.  Jesus back was so torn up that the clay started hitting His bones.  After they did this they beat Jesus up some more.

The reason they beat him up a lot is because the soldiers didn't want people to live a long time when they were crucified.  That was their way of being merciful.  That is just so ugly and disgusting! 

Then they placed Jesus on the cross and pounded the nails into His wrists, not His hands.  If they put the nails in Jesus hands they would have ripped out because of how much He weighed.  That's why sometimes they used rope and tied the peoples' arms to the cross.

Then they pounded nails into Jesus feet!  After Jesus was nailed to the cross He would try to lift Himself up a little bit so He could breathe.  Because being crucified like that it was hard to breathe so He would lift Himself up a lot of times so He could take a breath.  So from the time he died on the cross until the time Jesus arose was about 36 hours. Doctors today say that Jesus died of suffocation. 

This next part just really bothers me so much.  After Jesus died, a soldier took his sword a stabbed Jesus in the side.  I'm pretty sure the soldier stabbed Jesus in the side to see if he had already died or not, and to fulfill certain prophecies (that his bones were not broken, as they had broken the others' legs to ensure a quicker death so they could no longer pull up to breathe).  The place where the soldier stabbed Jesus was in His side.  I don't know why I thought of this but, that's where God took the rib from Adam to create Eve.  I thought since Eve was the mother of all creation maybe that was the solder's way of killing every human being who loves Jesus!  

This whole thing is just so ugly and disgusting, but Jesus let this happen so that we could be forgiven.  Ladies Jesus did this for me… and for you!  I just can't imagine anyone letting people do this to them, but Jesus did, so that we could have eternal life!  When I was writing this I just started crying because I knew that this really happened.

I praise God so much!  Jesus love for us is so... unimaginable, so intense, so extreme!  Jesus loves us so much He let all these men do this to Him... so we could spend eternity with Him... forever and ever!  Such love totally amazes me, and I want that love so much!!!  Don't you?

Happy New Year! By Hillary-Beth Koenig

Happy New Year!

By Hillary-Beth Koenig

As many times as you've heard about New Year's Resolutions, and whether you participate or not, you probably can admit that a lot of the ones people make are lost by... say mid January? If not sooner!

Why do we have such a hard time making good changes in our lives? Well, we are all born with a sin nature, but we are also given a new nature and live by the Spirit's power as Christians. We know that God uses everything in our lives for our good, but sometimes we still want to control our lives, and we think "This thing I want is good." But God knows what, and when, things are best - when the timing makes us grow to be more like Christ. Which teaches you more - when you want a new phone and your dad just gives you one that same day, or when you have to wait? (I didn't say which is more fun!)

A few weeks ago at church, my pastor suggested that the Bible teaches that change comes from daily renewing our minds with the truth.

Romans 12:2 "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will."

Sometimes we need help seeing where our minds need to think more like Christ, and less like our sin nature, less like the world, and less like the lies we come across that sound really true. God's Word does this for us. Have you ever believed a lie like, "My sin isn't really that bad," or the opposite "God can't forgive what I have done!" How about, "If I were thin then I would feel accepted," or "If I dress differently then people will notice me," or "That person's ruined my life forever and I'll never be happy again."

God's Word tells us the truth about our situations -

Romans 3:23
"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." (NIV)

1 Peter 3:18
"For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit."

1 Samuel 16:7
"But the LORD said to Samuel, 'Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.'"

Matthew 6:25-26
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?"

John 10:10
"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."

Resolution or not - let God renew your mind by (starting today) reading the Scripture.