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Students. Faith + Swagger. We're just a group of students trying to figure it all out.
Someone I would love to see in heaven is my Papa. I love and miss him. He was a great man. He always knew how to put a smile on your face. I've never seen him not smiling unless NC State was losing.
His death was so unexpected. He was only 57 when he died. He didn't suffer. One day he was working and he had to move some granite with a crane. The granite was 500 lbs. and the wire snapped and the piece of granite fell on top of him. They said he was killed instantly and didn't suffer. The impact was so great his glasses blew 15 feet from him. It's been almost two years since he died. I still cry and miss him very much. The good thing is that I will see him again because he had gotten saved. He was saved in church as a teenager. He did go to church sometimes, but not all the time. He did love the Lord and liked doing family prayer. He enjoyed going to NC State football games and riding dirt bikes. What is most important to me is I got to have great memories with him. My favorite one is when I was five I got to go to his house and stay the night and we would stay up, eat candy and watch movies in the living room. On Christmas five years ago he pulled me into the kitchen and gave me a little box and inside was a heart shaped locket. The best thing is to have these memories forever. When I get to heaven the first thing I'm gonna say is, "Thank you and I love you." I get to spend eternity with him in heaven. I miss him so much because it feels like a piece of me is gone.
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Although people can talk to the dead they shouldn't. It's Satanic. It may be normal for Satan, but if you are a Christian you don't talk to dead people. We are not on earth to talk to people who are dead.
According to James Van Pragh there are 10 signs the dead are trying to communicate with you: 1. Dream visits 2. Visions 3. Scents 4. Sounds and music 5. Coincidences 6. Sensing a presence 7. Butterflies, birds 8. Rainbows 9. Numbers 10. Recognition. So, first of all, dreams are just dreams unless God wants them to have a purpose. Visions can happen to people of faith and it doesn't mean they are from the dead. All the rest of them are your imagination or just something that was there. A rainbow was a sign to Noah that God would never flood the earth again. My question is why would you want to talk to the dead when you're alive and well? Go live your life! You can grieve about your lost loved ones but don't try to talk to them. They won't answer. Jesus loves you and wants the best for you, so stick with people that have beating hearts. Now, Jesus talked to Lazarus, but he came back to life, there's a big difference! Your family won't always be there for you but God is, so stick with the one who rose people from the dead and healed the people that are sick. Remember, if God had intended for you to talk to the dead, He would have made it a lot easier. Now start looking forward to your own future. Something I want to change is my confidence level but I'm not really going to change because every time I do something to make myself better I get put down so I don't try any more. - Bre The thing I want to change about myself is to be more outgoing towards new people. The reason I want to be more outgoing is because I will be starting a new school soon and I won't know anyone there so I will need to make new friends. How I will do it is by just trying to find one person and try to go start a conversation with them. -Jonathan One thing I would like to change in my life is my depression. I have had depression for four years now and I really want it to just be gone from my life forever. I want to be happy and to be able to wake up in the morning happy to have a life. I want to be grateful for what I have and not wish for myself to be dead. I want to be happy to have a family that loves me and a boyfriend that thinks of me as a queen. I want to be thankful for all of my friends. I don't want them to think that I am ungrateful for them because they are absolutely amazing. Truthfully depression overrides all of your other feelings which is not fun. All you feel is hopelessness, nothing more. I am here to overcome my depression. I won't let it control my life any longer. I love my life and God gave it to me so I am going to be thankful. I am determined to make my life better. My life will no longer be controlled by my stupid depression. It has no authority over my life. So, my plan is to have people keep me accountable. I definitely need to have prayer. My family will try to keep my spirits up. I will try my best to stay positive. -Lindsey I would like to be less shy to new people. When I meet new people I always just smile and nod and I don't talk. I am getting better at talking to new people and the best way is just starting a small conversation. -Emily
America is normalizing homosexuality. Is it good or bad? I think it's bad because it is wrong. What you do behind closed doors should stay behind closed doors. We don't need to fill children's minds with such evil. Like the transgender bathrooms... we don't need them. There is a thing called a family restroom. If that isn't good enough them them, then I guess they aren't using the restroom until them get home.
Homosexuals get so offended by stuff we do... but why do they do care and get mad when we get offended by them? Just because you find the same sex attractive doesn't make you special or get more privileges. When they do the gay pride marches I feel bad for them but at the same time I don't because they are proud of going to hell. When you're celebrating and aren't repenting from your sin, then by all means have fun burning. Leviticus 20:13 says, "If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable..." Unfortunately a child of a same-sex marriage will be deprived of his natural mother or father. He will necessarily be raised by one party who has no blood relationship with him. He will always be deprived of either a mother or father role model. Nobody is born gay. Being gay is a choice. God gave us choice. He wants to see if we would obey Him and do right instead of wrong. God does not hate gays even though he does not like the sin. He still loves them because they are His creation too. I've read many articles by ex-homosexuals and they all say they chose to be gay. They were hurt by someone in their life. When gays have parades we should be respectful. It's wrong to hate. When we have parades or even public prayer people get made and try to stop it because they don't want to accept that what they are doing is wrong. I don't hate gay people. I have gay friends. I know what they are doing is wrong, but I'm not going to dislike them because of that. My gay friends respect me and my beliefs and because of that I respect them. Some people say I shouldn't hang with them because they might influence me, but they won't because I know right from wrong. A lot of people may not agree with me, but that's okay. Matthew: Westboro Baptist has an interesting way of spreading the Gospel. They choose to do it through hate and not through love. The Westboro church website is godhatesfags.com which they think is completely okay, but it's not in my opinion. That is showing hate from God but God doesn't really hate them. God doesn't hate anyone, he hates the sin controlling a person's life. To me the reason this is so bad is that it will stir people away from Christianity because we are against people or we are against LGBT. We don't support it and we might not like it but we're not going to hate them or call them out or be mean because it's not our place to. I think Westboro needs help on how to share their message. Instead of saying, "God hates your prayers" you could say, "God doesn't like it when you pray but don't mean it." When you say things nicely people want to know more about who God is and what God wants from them... and all of us. Jonathan: It shouldn't matter about a person's sexuality. They are human beings and we shouldn't act differently toward them because of who they are.
A lot of people now in the church and in the media think that we should treat them differently because of how they act. That isn't how we are supposed to treat them. Mark 12:31 says, "Love they neighbor as thy self" so we should treat them as we want them to treat us. Matthew 7:5 says we shouldn't worry about the speck in our brother's eye before you deal with the log in your own eye. That means we need to treat them with respect and not judge them about their sins when we need to deal with our own first. Yes, it is true homosexuality is a sin, but God loves everyone the way they are so we should be like God and love them for who they are not how they act. God hates the sin but loves the sinner. It's not about people's sin that we should be focusing on. It should be the love that God shows them. When I was in elementary school I was bullied pretty much everyday and started hating myself more and more. The things they would say tore me apart. They told me I was insane because of my disabilities and that I wouldn't get anywhere in life because I was fat, stupid and slow. The criticism and hatred towards me has made me negative and hateful toward myself. When someone gives me a compliment I shoot it down. It's not that I WON'T believe it. It's that I CAN'T believe it. It's almost impossible. It's like a war inside my head. When someone tells me I look beautiful, it gets replaced by criticisms of the past. The battle wears me out, therefore I choose not to fight it. Unfortunately God waited 11 years to show me the reason for my struggle. The bullying went on from kindergarten to 10th grade. I started to wonder if God cared about me like the pastors said He did.
I mean, I would go home crying and asking God, "Why are you making me go through this? I'm just a kid. I don't want to deal with this!" It didn't seem like God loved me if He made me go through that, but everything happens for a reason. Unfortunately God waited 11 years to show me the reason for my struggle. As the years went by, I started to observe the people who were bullying me instead of just being the victim. I watched people who were being bullied and watched how they reacted. I learned to react differently than others would. Now I know not to be mean back, but to stand up for myself the correct way or walk away, if I'm able. I learned people don't bully others just to be mean. Life may be hard for them. They might not have a father or a mother to come home to. They might not get enough attention at home or have people who care, so they bully others to get attention. They also might have an abusive parent, therefore they are abusive toward others. Some people might want to act tough to let others know not to mess with them. One might have a popular family. In other words, one's parents might be popular and they expect their child to be popular. They bully to stay popular. Unfortunately some people do bully just to be mean. I have yet to figure out why, but I'll figure it out someday. So, the reason I think God allowed me to be put through all this bullying is so I can understand people better and learn safe ways to defend myself and others. Lindsey, Matt and Joseph discuss how God brought something good from seemingly terrible circumstances... a cutting habit, a brother's challenges, and the loss of a family member.
Worship is giving God the glory, honor, and praise. It's about telling God how much you love him and how thankful you are for his mercy and love. He is the one and only God! He is worthy to be praised!
Worship isn't just singing. you can dance, pray, write and do art. When I sing to God, I feel at peace. He will come and meet with me sometimes. When I dance for God, I get what I call the "Holy Ghost chills" from head to toe. I feel an overwhelming amount of freedom go through my body which tells me He is in the room watching me worship him. I write every once in a while about what I thought of the church service. I feel like God is hearing my cry. Writing is, in my opinion, like praying. It's a silent way to pray. I feel as if God is my psychologist. I have also seen people worship through art. An artist at my old church painted the steps that led Jesus to the cross. He started with the whipping, then the clothing, the crown of thorns, the royal sash, and then the cross. The final product was the face of Jesus crying and bleeding on the cross. The artist started to cry and speak in tongues. He was filled with the Holy Spirit. I haven't had an encounter with God in a while, therefore my longing to worship has lessened. I used to be eager to worship God. I don't know what happened. I remember when I would stop everything I was doing to worship him. Now I am doing everything to avoid it. Nowadays when I go to worship all I feel is conviction, which leads to the question, "What would need to change for me to be excited about Jesus?" My whole life needs to change. I've made my day too busy. I've prioritized objects before Jesus. I've sinned before God and not cared. I don't read the Bible. I use profanity and curse His name. I'm so far from God. I need to change. My actions need to change and my heart needs to change. I'm scared because I'm drifting so far from Him. I don't remember what it's like to be held by Him. The definition of worship is: "Reverent honor and homage paid to God or a sacred personage or to any object regarded as sacred." Obviously the only sacred person that's worthy of praise is Jesus Christ. (1 Chronicles 16:25 tells us God is great and he's worthy to be praised and is to be feared among all gods.) So praise Him! He has done great things for you. He has given his life for you so you can live eternal life. He loves you and gives you strength. He gives you mercy when you don't deserve it! God is a gentleman. He doesn't yell at you or demand you worship Him. He gives you a choice. If He wanted to force you to worship Him, He would. But He doesn't. He loves us so much and is so sad when we choose not to worship Him. If you are at a point where you are done trying to worship, tell yourself the truth. Remember the encounters and talks you've had with God... the way He made you feel. Peace, joy, happiness! God is definitely NOT bored with you and would love to have a relationship with you, so let Him and see what God has in store for you! Worship is hard to explain. It can be singing, dancing, or praying. Worship can be done in private on the inside as well. On the inside your can pray and think about the Lord.
Am I eager to worship Jesus? Not all the time. It's hard to want to worship when you could be doing something else. We all have excuses why we don't like worshiping. Some of us just don't like people to think we are weird, or we are bored, and so on... Jesus is very important to me, but I really don't enjoy worshiping because it is the same thing every Sunday. If I could change something to make me want to worship I think it would have to be the people. I want the people to be more accepting, stop judging and just accept whoever comes to church. The worst part of worship is when you're in sin and you are hiding something from the Lord and you just want to be left alone. Your stubbornness and anger keep you from repenting and it makes your worship fake. You don't worship unless you love God. It is to praise him and give him love, to show him how grateful you are to him for being alive. When you worship you're sometimes afraid you won't feel anything and that's hard. You want to feel the Lord's presence in your worshiping and when you don't feel him you're disappointed. But, never stop loving the Lord no matter if you feel him or not. The last think would be... Are you worshiping the right god? If your not then that is where the root of all your problems are. The One True God was born in Bethlehem in a manger full of hay. His name is Jesus and He is in Heaven waiting for the day when he can call of the true Christians home to Heaven. If you are not in the right mood for worship, there is a problem with your heart. If you are having problems with God, what is the point of worshiping? He is not going to like any kind of worship that is fake worship, so get your heart straight with the Lord before you do anything. And also, don't pretend to do something "worshipful" that others do if you don't like it. Jesus gave you life. The least you can do is give him a little gratitude by praising Him with all that you have. He love you. That's why He made you. I was about 21/2 when I sustained a head injury to the back of my head. I was knocked unconscious with a very shallow heartbeat and breathing. I remained lifeless in my grandmother's arms. She prayed for life to remain in my little body and for the paramedics to arrive faster. I went in an ambulance and when I got to the hospital they did not know how serious my injury was. After multiple tests and a few days in the hospital, the results showed I would have some learning disabilities from my injury. I struggled in school. God has blessed me by sending me to True Light Shines so that I can get one-on-one teaching and more help than what public school could give me. The good that came out of my bad situation is that I am at True Light Shines. I still have the learning disability but I am trusting God to do His will in my life. |
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