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KbizzysBlogizzy
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Name: Kbone
Country: United States
State: New Hampshire
Gender: Male
Interests: I'm interested in several things including: air ballons, snorkelling, and bird watching... Not really. But If I had any hobbies these WOULDN'T be them. I like talking to people, laughing, smiles, reading, and coffee.But most of all I like just being who I'm supposed to be.
Expertise: I'm good at ...........................
Occupation: Student
Message: message meEmail: email me
Member Since:
5/28/2004
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| I've got a new blog! I know some of you have seen it, but if you haven't you can check it out! I actually blog there...i know shocker!
http://aionios.wordpress.com/
Bookmark it!!!
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| Living Without Regrets...
1 Samuel 12:1-5
“Then Samuel said to all Israel, "I have listened to everything you have said to me and appointed a king over you. And now, here is the king who will lead you. I am old and gray, but my sons are with you. I have led you from my youth until this day. Here I am. Testify against me in front of the LORD and in front of his anointed king. Did I take anyone's ox? Did I take anyone's donkey? Did I cheat or oppress anyone? Did I take a bribe from anyone to look the other way? If so, I will give it all back." They answered, "You didn't cheat us, oppress us, or take anything from anyone." Samuel told them, "The LORD is a witness to what you've said, and his anointed king is a witness today that you've found nothing in my hands." "He is a witness," they answered.”
I want to live a life free of regrets, a life free of people I’ve hurt or opportunities I’ve missed. I want to live that kind of life now, so that at the end of my life that people would be able to say I did nothing to harm them or cheat them, that I was fair, just, loving, and faithful. Finishing our lives well begins now in the way we talk, think, and act today.
1. Live For God
Samuel was able to live a life where no one could find anything wrong with his entire life, because he lived it for the right reason. There is a huge difference between the person who does everything for themselves and the person who lives for God, and Samuel at the end of his time in the spotlight as Israel’s leader made sure that the life he lived was for God. People who live for themselves are only concerned with getting ahead on their own and doing what it takes to succeed, but Samuel lived for God and so he wanted to make sure there was no one he cheated, took bribes from, stole from, or lied too- he wanted to be right with God because of the way he treated others. There is always a connection between how we treat people and if we are living for God.Today we have the choice to live for God; to live a life that makes God happy is something we have to choose now in every decision. We all want people to be able to say good things about us at the end of our lives or the end of our time around them, but anything they say has to begin today, it begins in the decisions we make today. If we begin to live for God today at the end of our lives people will be able to see why we lived. Living for God is something that we have to choose in every situation, every relationship, and every moment. Living for God should be the purpose of our lives; it should be why we do what we do, why we wake up each morning. Living for God should be the passion of our lives, if we want to get to the end of our lives and have no regrets. Living your life for God will never leave you with regrets!
How to Live for God?
(a) Be Devoted to Him-be consistent and faithful (b) Be Passionate- really love him!
(c) Be Active-do what God wants you to do!
2. Love People
When Samuel is asking the people of Israel if there is anything he has done to them that has hurt them, cheated them, or stolen from them, all these questions deal directly with his relationship with people. Samuel was a people person, he spent his life doing things that would help the people of Israel live for God, and he loved the people of Israel. Samuel loved the people of Israel so much he wanted to make sure that, even at the end of his life, there was nothing that the people of Israel could hold against him and that no one had any ill feelings toward him-he wanted to be sure his love was real. Samuel was connected to the people of Israel; they were his people, his friends, and his family. Samuel wanted to make sure they always were connected and that nothing he did as judge could separate them. Throughout Samuel’s time a judge, prophet, and priest Samuel had served the people of Israel in various ways. Samuel knew it wasn’t his job to better his life and treat everyone else like nothing. Samuel spent his life loving Israel. If we want to live a life without regrets in the end we must live a life that loves and wants the best for others today. We can’t wait till we’re old and have a family or till it’s convenient (love is rarely convenient) we should love them now! Loving other people must always be a part of our lives if we want to live for God and if we want to live without regrets. When we spend our time, energy, words, and thoughts on others-when we really love them, we honor God and it makes a difference in the end. Living without regrets happens when we love people!
How to Love People?
(a) Put others first (b) Seek to Help Not Harm (c) Seek to make a difference
3. Do Nothing People Could Hold Against You
There are only a few things that Samuel asks the people of Israel if they hold against him- cheating, bribing, stealing, and oppressing all of which they say he has not done. Christians and the church throughout time has been really bad at how it handles these issues. In the church we have more lairs, cheaters, and oppressors then we think-but they use God as their coat. Samuel wanted to make sure that there was nothing in his life that anyone could hold against him; he didn’t want anyone to have a grudge with him. He wanted to make sure his life wasn’t covered with a religious coat; he wanted to make sure everyone knew he really cared about them. There are a lot of things that people will just pass over, but there are certain things we do that cause a lot deeper wounds that stick around in people’s hearts a lot more. When we do things that break people’s trust and faith in us those things stick around-it’s really hard to get trust and faith back but Samuel lived making sure no one could hold any grudges against him. Not that some wrongs are worse than others, but some cause different damage than others-and this damage can cause pain, loneliness, and shame that lasts a lot longer than the things we have done. We should live lives that seek to not hurt anyone but to live lives that bring healing, forgiveness, and peace rather than bitterness, pain, and fighting. When we live for God and love people, we have the chance to do things that won’t leave pain in people’s lives, but instead to bring healing, and peace to the lives of others. Our choice to live in a way now, where no one can hold grudges or be in pain because of our lives, we allow us to live a life free of regret. Living without regret happens when we choose today to stop hurting people and start healing, not 10 years down the road.
How to Live Without Regret?
(a) Be Honest (b) Be Loyal (c) Be Loving (d) Be Truthful
(e) Be Purposeful (f) Be A Servant (g) Be Real
Living without regrets
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| YOUTH CONVENTION
Starts in about 2 hours. Please pray for the 44 people in our group,
that God will do some amazing stuff in their lives, and not leave them the same!
PLUS: I get to hang out with Pastor Chilly and Felix...2 people I love alot!
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| Isaiah 1:21-30
“See how Jerusalem, once so faithful, has become a prostitute. Once the home of justice and righteousness, she is now filled with murderers. Once like pure silver, you have become like worthless slag. Once so pure, you are now like watered-down wine. Your leaders are rebels, the companions of thieves. All of them take bribes and refuse to defend the orphans and the widows. Therefore, the Lord, the LORD Almighty, the Mighty One of Israel, says, "I will pour out my fury on you, my enemies! I will turn against you. I will melt you down and skim off your slag. I will remove all your impurities. Afterward I will give you good judges and wise counselors like the ones you used to have. Then Jerusalem will again be called the Home of Justice and the Faithful City." Because the LORD is just and righteous, the repentant people of Jerusalem will be redeemed. But all sinners will be completely destroyed, for they refuse to come to the LORD. Shame will cover you when you think of the times you offered sacrifices to idols in your groves of sacred oaks. You will blush when you think of all the sins you committed in your sacred gardens. You will wither away like an oak or garden without water. The strongest among you will disappear like burning straw. Your evil deeds are the spark that will set the straw on fire, and no one will be able to put it out.”
Jerusalem had a history of being a place where the people who were faithful to God lived, where right living and justice ruled the streets, and purity classified the people living there but over time the people of Jerusalem got religious (check out the verses before this) and began to allow sin into their lives in ways they never would have before. They got good at going to meetings, praying, and even serving God once and a while but none of this made them pure again, none of this restored the innocence and right living they used to have. Over time they got good at playing religion, one day they could sing to God and the next they would live impure lives, murdering people and acting as prostitutes. God was not fooled by their religious games; he doesn’t see their unfaithfulness covered in religion as faithfulness. Often we treat God the same way, the people in Jerusalem did. We don’t like to think of God in these harsh realistic terms-we don’t want God to be a judging God (which he is) we just want him to love us, but God loves us enough to judge us, enough to punish for the wrong things we do so that we will do the right things.
Hebrews 10:26
“If we give up and turn our backs on all we've learned, all we've been given, all the truth we now know, we repudiate Christ's sacrifice”
When we are unfaithful to God, when we tell him we want to change but don’t or when we say where Christians but don’t act like one, we: (a) Break God’s heart (b) Show him what he really means to us (c) Make what Jesus did on the cross worthless (d) Get into a cycle of wanting to live for God but always living unfaithful.
How to Live Faithful
1. Stop Being A Prostitute
It’s hard to be faithful to God when you’re always selling yourself for something less. There are so many lesser things that we tend to settle for when we get comfortable or when we don’t feel like choosing the best thing. The things this world offers are fillers or partial solutions to your need for God and are always less than the best, so why settle for it. Throughout the Bible, people who are closest to God are those who are faithful to him, people who didn’t settle for less just for an immediate pleasure. When we tell God we love him but live unfaithful to him we in a sense commit adultery, we cheat on God or act like prostitutes. Our unfaithfulness to God, whether it be selling ourselves to a boy, a girl, to a feeling, or a pleasure, always prostitutes our self. The more we find it okay to play Christianity but never truly love him is more time we act like a prostitute, which we shouldn’t be. Maybe you used to be faithful to God, have you become like a prostitute, sold yourself for less than you’re really worth? People who don’t really know God always sell themselves for less than they are worth because they don’t know their worth in God. You are so precious to God he didn’t spare any expense but paid the ultimate price, his life, so that you could know him and be faithful to him. How do you stop selling yourself to lesser things? Begin by selling yourself to God, the only one who won’t use you, abuse you, or refuse you.
2. Stop Being A Murderer
God doesn’t see the difference in sin that we do, he calls it like it is, sin is sin, and murder is the same as cheating on a test. When we are unfaithful to God we won’t be a place where right living and justice are found, but we will be people who murder others. We may never physically kill someone but we may kill people with our words and our actions. When we are unfaithful we begin to allow things into our lives that will: (a) Kill our sensitivity to God and doing what he wants (b) cause us to have problems with others. We in a sense commit a double murder-this sensitivity to God and others. When we begin to look at things or do things that God doesn’t approve of or want from us, we slowly begin to remove the God that’s in us and we begin to put the things we look at and do in place of God. Sure, most us want to do the right things but doing the right thing always means removing the wrong things from our lives. When God is no longer our focus and when we don’t hear him clearly or even hear him at all, our interactions with others will often lead to fights or killing others with our words and actions.
3. Stop Being A Worthless Slag
Slag is a word we don’t hear that much. Slag is stony waste matter separated from metals during smelting or refining of metals. It is the slag in metal prior to refining it that make’s the metal weak and impure, but when the slag is removed the refined metal is strong and beautiful. Slag is worthless because of how impure it is you can’t use it for anything and is rarely sold for much profit. When we are unfaithful to God we become like slag, impure and worthless. The difference between a pure silver ring and a slag silver right is like the difference between giving your future wife a ring from a candy machine and a diamond. Unfaithfulness is characterized an impure life. When we allow sin, selfishness, lust, pride, religion, and hate into our lives impurity fills us. A person without impurities is a person without the slag, without the worthless in their lives. It’s easy to allow useless things into our lives because we don’t think they are that important or that they affect us. Have you become useless or worthless because of the impurities in your life? Impurities of all types-sexually, mentally, and physically make us weak and impure-not the strong and beautiful people we are meant to be.
Faithfulness isn't an idea...it's a choice to everyday be sold out to God, sensitive to his voice, living right and just, and pure. I long to be faithful in all I do!
Kbizzy
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| We had an awesome night @ The Mission! 8 Salvations!!!!! 14 Students stood up saying that they were going to share their faith with their friends, and look for ways to bring Jesus up in their conversations! 69 people in a little room makes for a lot of fun and noise! God is awesome! Kbizzle
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