Test

Well this has been broken for awhile so I am trying to get it to work again.

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Catching Up

Alright well I just sat here for about 20 minutes and caught up on my couple days of laziness. I don't recommend doing that, cause that was kind of a lot of reading. I read the story of Jacob and the coat and how his brother sold him etc. etc. That is one of the most encouraging stories in the Bible in my opinion. I mean Jacob went through a lot of crap, and he did nothing to deserve any of it. He never stopped trusting God and never once blamed God, which is just amazing. Because of his extraordinary faith and loyalty, God blessed him more than he ever expected. He became the kings right hand man and had riches and power and everything he could ever desire. He still had good priorities and was still a God fearing man. This kinda reminded me of something else that happened today. The inauguration of Barack Obama, who I am not a fan of. One kid in my class visibly shared my feelings about him wit, except he was extremely disrespectful and negative about the whole thing. The bottom line is, He is the President whether I like him or not, and he deserves my respect and loyalty. He is an appointed leader and being an American citizen gives me the responsibility to respect my leaders. Also, regardless of how evil and screwed up he might actually be, it doesn't change the fact that God is in control and he have things work out the way He wants them too. There is nothing to fear here, only things to delight in. God works in mysterious ways, and I won't be surprised to see Him do great things through Barack Obama, even if they are against what Obama was trying to do in the first place, it should be a very interesting four years.

Struggling

Well that was a long time without a post. However, I only missed ONE day of reading, and I have since caught up and still going strong. I don't know, midterms have been throwing my days off a little and we have had a lot of days off of school and what not, so things should settle down and this should be a problem no longer. Anyways, lately I've been kinda rushing through the readings and not picking up that much stuff, even though the stories of Jacob, Isaac, Esau, and all of them are sorta boring at points, but again it's probably because I'm not really reading them slowly and getting what I should be out of it. Matthew is still really good though.

In today's reading, Jesus really taught a lesson that is incredibly important, especially today. It was the story of these Pharisees who tried to trick Jesus into "working" on the Sabbath, asking him if it was against the law for someone to work by healing on the sabbath. Jesus said, well if a lamb fell into a well on the sabbath, you would surely work to get him out, and how much more important is a human than a lamb, then He went and healed this man's deformed hand.

This really shows something to me. It is all about religion, and the rules that come with it. People see Christianity as this big list of rules of do's and don'ts. How you have to be a good person and do certain things, such as go to church, to be saved. But this is not how God sees it at all. The rules can really hold us back, we take them too seriously. Once God puts his Holy Spirit into our hearts, then we do not have to worry about those rules, we will have the wisdom to instantly know what is right and what is wrong, and what God would have us do. We don't have to worry about picking the right or wrong things, we just know. That lets us focus on the things in life that are really important, in our relationships with God and our relationships with other people. Our purpose on earth is too show Jesus to other people, and we can't do that if we are constantly worried about doing the right or wrong thing, we have to trust in God to show us what to do, and focus on having the faith and courage to do it.

Days 12 And 13

Hey well I missed my post yesterday, I was up studying and fell asleep after I read, I am pretty tired now too and just finished reading so this will be short. I just noticed something in matthew that is kinda ridiculous. Jesus was doing all these miracles, healing, casting demons out, and even raising people from the dead. He was giving people new life and changing the whole country and world for the better, except these stupid Pharisees just were too blinded to see it. They tried to male people believe that Jesus was a demon or working for the devil, and that's how he could do all that. Now that doesn't even make sense, why couldn't they just open their eyes and see the most obvious thing in the world. Jesus was right in front of them but they were just to pig headed and stubborn to see it - sad. Not surprising that people can't get it now, I mean there really isn't much visual proof anymore, we need more faith now then ever.

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Day 9

Yikes I finally missed a day. Last night we went late night bowling so I was extremely tired when I got home so I did not do my reading, conveniently, I have a bunch of free time now though so I am gonna double it up.

So Esau just sold Jacob his birthright for a bowl of red soup - what the crap. What kinda surprised me here is that God didn't get mad at Jacob for tricking his brother into giving him was what was rightfully his... I guess I it was really mainly Esaus fault for being foolish enough to not realize the importance of the birthright of the first born son, I don't understand it either. Of all the times I have heard this story you'd think somebody would have let me know what that is all about. Anyways, Jacob goes on to become a powerful and rich man, very blessed by God.

Matthew! A whole lot of healing happens in chapter 8, also the story if Jesus calming the storm at sea is located here. Jesus was unbelievable, to see him in person doing all those miracles and healing everyone that needed healing must have been amazing, your life would be instantly changed. Also, I am starting to realize that Jesus wanted to heal EVERYBODY, and still does. I have always kind of thought like Jesus had a plan of who he would heal and would only do it for certain reasons, but that is clearly not true. Jesus really does want the whole world to be healed and saved, everyone just has to have faith to believe that He can actually do it. Miracles don't happen everyday like they did back then, I mean it seemed pretty easy or someone to start believing in God back then. If you saw all that was happenin, it was almost impossible not to realize the truth. We don't have that here anymore, there is just too much sin and too little faith in the world, so us Christians have to do it the hard way. Regardless of what it takes, it is still the reason we are here and we still need to make sure we do that job. The difficulty will only give God more glory and make it even more clear how great He truly is.

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Day 9

Well it's about 40 minutes late, but I'm getting it in. After school I had to work, then I went straight to my friend's house to play some guitar hero, then went bowling til midnight after that, so I didn't have a chance to read or post earlier - and now I am really tired but pretty proud of myself for making this post now, before I would've just put it off for tomorrow. Good sign.

Anyways, my weariness did hurt something. I didn't really read the passages as deeply as normal, and kinda rushed through them, but I still found something interesting in Matthew.

21"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

Now I just thought that you have to believe in and accept Jesus to get into heaven - but this verse says that you have to do the will of his father. I think about that like a lot of my friends believe in God and go to church and whatnot, but they really don't think about it otherwise and I guess that would mean they aren't doing the will of God, which could prevent them from heaven? How come this verse doesn't stick out to me? I've read this book before - why didn't I ever notice it??

Now I'm kinda confused, not that I'm worried about getting into heaven, because there is no doubt I am, but it's my friends that i thought were saved that now I kinda think differently about it. If someone believes in God and Jesus' death and all the stuff in the Bible, but they just do whatever they want with their life and act like God isn't even there, then do they get into heaven or not??

I should know this stuff.......... ergghhh

Day 8

January 8th and I am still going strong! Today was a good reading, although I don't have too much time for a long blog here. The continuation of the story of Lot really disgusted me. Lot let these angels stay in his house, and was very hospitable to them (I don't know if he knew they were angels or not), and once the town found out, they wanted to have sex with these two angels, who appeared as guys? What the heck?? How tight of a grip did Satan have on that town. God showed lot and his family amazing mercy to get them out of that city. Matthew talked about one of my favorite subjects, not worrying. It says that we should not worry about our needs as humans, because God is going to take care of them. I love that reassurance and safety Gid gives us. Our job is to focus on doing God's will on earth, and He will provide.

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