Journaling from our daily readings

Hey guys,

I really like what you guys have been journaling on Psalms - I've been reading it and ITS AWESOME SERIOUSLY!!! Keep it up!

I didn't want to interrupt that awesome thread, but I wanted to show you what i journaled today. I will probably just add stuff that I journal if I think it's awesome for us all you lovelies please add when you guys journal and find something awesome as well

so just to reiterate - THIS THREAD IS FOR THE READINGS WE DO AS A CHURCH - BUT KEEP GOING WITH THE PSALM ONE TOO - ITS AWESOME - FEEL FREE TO ADD YOUR STUFF TOO YOU LOVELIES -

S: Romans 16:19 - 'Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I am full of joy over you; but I want you to be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil'.

O: Paul is telling the people in church to be wise about what is good, but innocent about what is evil. Sometimes my friends who are not Christians will say to me, "I want to experience everything in life - good or bad". But this is not want Jesus wants.

Proverbs 28:14 (which is a reading in the same journaling session) says 'blessed is the man (or woman ) who always fears the Lord, but he who hardens his heart falls into trouble'. The more that we do something sinful, the more that your heart hardens to it - to the point that we may not even realise that it is wrong.

A: We need to journal daily and think on God's Word so that our hearts do not become hardened through sin. It will also make us wise in what is good, therefore fulfilling both parts of the Scripture (nice).

P: 'Give us the strength and wisdom to perceive sin and stay away from it'.

So there you go. For me, this also explains why God did not want Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. I believe that way, God could reveal what is good, and they would not have to experience evil. But at the same time, he did not want us to be robots, so he gave Adam and Eve a choice. They were just knobs like us and made the wrong choice

So tell me what you think, and add your own stuff. Cya.

oh wow, yeppp. that is good.
question.. by "this thread is for the readings we do as a church", is that just the journaling we do from those cool card things at church (which give a few chapters a day), or can we post our journaling from any chapter that does not fit under the psalms topic here?
good point about adam and eve at the end too

yeh i meant those card things from church....

but you can post whatever you like

i just made a new thread so that I didn't interrupt the Psalm one

so enjoy and go crazy

sweet
ok that's cool because i'm not really following the cards this year, just going through the bible book by book instead, so i'll put up a few maybe sometime in the not too distant future...
thanks for clarifying!

this is a good idea for those who want to post up other chapters of the bible that they've done instead of psalms..........................
good idea Alex

hello fusion lovelies

hey just thought I'd put this up here.... its not really a journal entry... but it is one of my favourites verses and is something that took me a really long time to REALLY get a hold of

From the Best book in the Bible - Proverbs 10:22 "The blessing of the Lord brings wealth, and he adds no trouble to it".

Let me get all personal on you guys ... when I was in highschool... probably between years 9 and 11 or so... I was ABSOLUTELY OBSESSED WITH MONEY

let me explain... you know all the so called 'make money fast' schemes that are plastered all over the net? I HAVE TRIED THEM ALL

seriously... every system that has ever been invented, through which to gain $money$ through casinos, horse racing, dog racing, sports, or any gambling or money making trick ever on the net........ I HAVE TRIED THEM ALL

it was a long time ago when i was a knob (well less of a knob than I am now ) but you know what results i got from all that???? NOTHING

i probably have wasted a good bit of money (into the 000's) and probably 100s of hours over those years.........THAT WAS MY REWARD

so what made me change? well first of all, all the people that I knew who had money (and actually live a happy life) were Christians. Some live comfortable lives... while others live extraordinary lives... but they were all people who trusted in God... something I could not claim to (remember - Matthew 6:24 You cannot serve both God and Money).

Second of all, I was losing sleep... friends... and pretty much hated life. Remember Proverbs 10:22 "The blessing of the Lord brings wealth, and he adds no trouble to it". When you try to gain money in a dodgy way... it brings trouble to you... emotionally, physically, etc. Money is a spirit that will suck you in... and spit you out with nothing...

Does this mean we can't have money??? NO but if you seek God first in your life... he will give you everything you need (read Matthew chapter 6 and you will see)

Anyway that is my little vent for today... enjoy

Let me encourage you... if you have any issues in this area... ask God to help you AND HE WILL... believe me I know...

catch you next time Fusion Family

Hey guys this is what i journaled today....

S: I Kings 18:21 - 'Elijah went before the people and said, "How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him'.

O: We can see from the start of this chapter, that the people who Elijah is talking to, in Samaria, were experiencing a severe famine. I believe that this is because of the wavering they were doing between two opinions, or two gods; the Lord and some weird random named Baal .

Throughout the Bible (you can see it clearly in Proverbs especially), God's great blessing for me and you are described in great detail - but we must follow Him only to recieve them. We need to have him as our top priority, and not other things like popularity or anything that takes up your time and efforts (for me, it was money for ages... see above journal entry).

Matt 6:33 says 'But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well'. These things are everything that you need in life; you can see that if you read Matt 6. To seek God means to actively seek Him out. The dictionary says to seek is 'to betake ourself to'. So we need to physically take our whole being to God. He needs to be our focus in everything.

A: To ensure that there is no famine in any part of my life, I need to seek Him first in everything. If you read 1 Kings 18, you will actually see that when the people turn back to God, rain begins to come again, which is what they needed to grow crops and get out of their famine.

P: "Remind us to seek you first always".

Enjoy. This is actually one of my favourite stories in the Bible (1 Kings 18), mainly because Elijah actually pays out the people TO THEIR FACE. I crack up everytime. It happens at verses 27-29, but if you read the whole chapter, it puts it in context. It could possibly be the most hilarious story in the Bible. Remember, God has a sense of humour; we are made in his image.

Oh, and by the way, PLEASE POST YOUR JOURNAL ENTRIES TOO. I feel so alone all on my lonesome, on my own.

SEE YA

Hey family...

I found an awesome Scripture while journaling today, so just enjoy

S: 1 Timothy 4:12 - 'Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity'.

O: Paul is writing to Timothy, and telling him to not let anyone look down on him because he is a young Christian. I know lots of Christians younger than me who shame me out because of how wise they live , and also I know alot of older Christians who I would never, ever take any advice from. EVER. Simple fact to remember: someone's age and the strength of their Christianity are not related. Having a relationship with God is what determines how strong you are as a Christian.

A: So what can we do as lovely young Christian peoples ? We can set an example for other believers. Paul points out to Timothy (and to us) five areas in which we can influence other Christians; speech, life, love, faith and purity...

Speech: Are we speaking negatively, or swearing when we speak? Or are we encouraging
others? Joshua 1:8 tells us not to let the Book of Law (the Bible) depart from our mouth. Does
that mean that we have to walk around speaking Scripture all day, even when it isn't appropriate?
(E.g. - Shane says to me, "Hey howz it going?", and I say "For God so love the world, that he
gave his only son...") No, that would be quite strange , but when we swear or speak
negatively at or about someone, God's Word has just left our mouth.

Life: How are we living? Do we trust God and put him first in everything? Do we rely
on him and trust him for what we need, or he is a second resort, or even a last resort? Check out
this awesome Scripture - Revelation 3:16 'So, because you are lukewarm - neither hot nor cold - I
am about to spit you out of my mouth.' This is God speaking, and he is saying that he wants us to
be hot, or on fire, for him. If we are not on fire for Him, then he would rather us be cold to him...
he does not want us to be in the middle. The original greek for the word 'spit' is actually VOMIT.
So God is saying that if we are a moderate, or up-and-down Christians, we literally make Him sick
to His stomach . So be on fire for God

Love: In Mark 12:29-31, Jesus tells us the two most important commandments: to love God
with everything we have, and to love our neighbour (anyone in our life) as ourself. We need to
continuously do this more each day.

Faith: Habakkuk 2:4 tells us that the righteous live by faith. So are we living by faith? Are
we trusting in God that he will direct our lives, and put us on the right track, in work,
relationships, etc?

Purity: Psalm 119:9 - 'How can a young man (or woman) keep his (or her) way pure? By
living according to your word'. The more that we get into God's Word through journaling and
reading and stuff, the more that God can work in us to make us live and think purely, in all areas
of our life. In Psalm 51:10, David asks God to create a pure heart in him after he has done the
wrong thing with a girl named Bathsheba. If we ask God, he will create a pure heart in us. It's all
about asking and believing.

P: "Help us in all these areas in our lives, so that we can be awesome examples and encouragement to other believers".

There it is MY ABSOLUTE FAVOURITE PEOPLES OF ALL TIME. enjoy! By the way, I wrote this just before and went to preview it, and my post got deleted . So I love you guys so much that I wrote this twice, just for you

AND WHERE ARE YOUR POSTS I don't care if it is from your daily journalings, or from Psalm, or whatever you like.... I want to read them cause I love you.

Cya later...

1 Peter 4:8

HA ha....
Its pretty awesome that you are talking about the WORD dude.... Last night I was walking home from work and I started talking with the Holy Spirit about the Word. It often in the bible it says like... hide your Word in my heart or Thy word that I have hid in my heart (Ps 119:11) or like The Word of God is living and in me etc.... but I never really understood this????

How can the Word be living??? that concept has really dumb-founed me... I mean I know by faith and that but the process really dumb-found me.
Then as I was talking it out I believe the Holy SPirit revealed it to me in my own thinking and rationale.....

There are 2 types of Words- The Word of God and the words of God. These to my understanding are 2 totally different things.
The words of God is the Bible. The Bible is not the Word of God...... uhh?? (you might be thinking).
John 1:1 "In the beginning was the Word (Notice the Capital W, representing the Word not words of God), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Jesus is the Word, the bible are his Words, the Bible is not Jesus, therefore the Bible is not the Word of God. But in hindsight the Bible can be the words of God.

Let me take You abit deeper- In Gen 1 when God created the Heavens and the Earth over the waters it says the Spirit of the Lord was hovering over the waters (Gen 1:2). This Spirit is a portion of the God head- Father, Son, Holy Spirit. And the Spirit is together with the Son because they are a thrinty, therefore, the Spirit is where-ever the Son is, and because the Son is the Jesus and Jesus is the Word, the Spirit of God is where-ever the Word is.
Therefore, what is written in the bible is not the Word of God that was referred to in Gen 1:2 and John 1:1 but rather the WOrd is in reference to the actioned Word of God.

The Words of God only become the WORD of God via action. For Example- JESUS. He was the very essence of God. HE was God in man form. He was the words of God (i.e. the law of Moese) in human or actionable form thats why he was the Word of God. The very action of the Words of God. In Mark 8:22-25 the story of Jesus Healinga Blind Man at Bethsaida. Jesus took the blind man and lead him outside the city (v23). Who is Jesus? THe Word... So here the man literally took the Word and put it into action by allowing the Word to take him outside the city..... Another story Luke 18:35-42 here again another blind man calls out to the Word and the Word replies Receive your sight; your faith has healed you (v.42). Here the mans action on the words of God was to call out to the Word of God louder and louder to recieve from the Word of God. These are some examples of healing in which the power of the words of God are adpated to create the WORD of God.

Whenever your reading and a verse says Word of God it is speaking about the actionable Word of God, meaning when you put the Word of God to action. I see why sometime I speak scriptures and nothing happens... they need to be tied to action to be created as the effective and powerful WORD OF GOD....

Hope that makes sense?!?!!?
If it doesn;t ask me at Youth to explain again
I luv u like I luv my FOXTEL

4:8

Hey super children!
Here's some thoughts on what I was journaling last night Sorry it's a little long .. try to stay awake till the end though!

S: Matthew 22:29- Jesus replied, "You are in error because you do not know the scriptures, or the power of God."

O: We're making mistakes and doing the wrong things because we aren't properly understanding both God's word and how God works.

A: Up until a few years ago, I didn't really ever read the bible- I was just one of those "sunday christians" and wasn't really growing or anything. But, over the last few years, I've started to understand how important it is to consistently read the bible to be able to grow.. however, this verse takes it up to the next level. Because my thoughts are all over the place, I'm going to break the verse down into separate parts

1. you are in error...
Now, Jesus was talking to the Sadducees here (they were a little bit weird) because they'd misinterpretted something, which is why they were "in error". Even though this was heaps of years ago, the same consequence still applies to us today! When we don't know the scriptures, we make mistakes and misinterpret things, we are in error.

2. because you do not know the scriptures...
Knowing is more than simply reading the bible. It's also more than not reading the bible at all. The dictionary told me that there are 3 different aspects to 'knowing'-
1- being aware
2- understanding clearly and with certainty
3- having it fixed in the mind
In context, the Sadducees probably weren't even aware of the scriptures, which is what led to their error. But, it's still relevant to us as well, and I believe that Jesus wants us to not only be aware of the scriptures, but that we also understand it and have it fixed in our minds too. Why? Because it tells us so in other places in the bible. 2 Peter 1:19 tells us that "you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place...". Paying attention to something requires concerntration and more than just awareness, so we can see he wants us to have all apssects of 'knowing'.

But, why do we need to know the scriptures in the first place? Jesus doesn't instruct us to do this to show off, or to give us something to do on a sunday afternoon- it's actually beneficial to us. Knowing bible verses is really profitable! 2 Timothy 3:16-17 mentions that it's useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so we can be ready to do awesome things. So, if God's word helps us to become righteous (which is what he wants us to be), how can we become righteous without the word? Simply, we can't (or it's really, really, really hard!)...therefore, we need to know the word, so we can be righteous, which will mean we are not in error.

3. or the power of God...
Knowing how God works is really important to being a Christian. Think about it, if you just got a job working directly for Kevin Rudd, but you didn't know anything about him, how would you be able to please him through your work? It's the same with us and God. If we don't know him, the way he works, and what he likes, how can we please him- or even do the right thing? This is aso why the Sadducees were in error, because they didn't understand how God worked, which is why they made a mistake. In the same way, if we're not doing the right things by God, then we're probably doing something wrong ... leading us to be in error

...so how do we avoid being in error?

"Continue in what you have learned..." (2 Timothy 3:14) & "Make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge..." (2 Peter 1:5). Read the word, be aware of the word, understand the word and fix it in your mind

P: Jesus, thanks for being super cool, and please help us to come to know you and your word better so that we won't be in error