Remember Why You Are Here

I want to encourage each of you to find time through out your day to just spend time with God. Whether it's listening to worship music, praying, reading your bible, listening to sermons, etc. God just wants to be with you. Your best friends aren't the people that you have never met, or that you never spend time with, they are the people that you spend lots of time with. You learn about each other, and watch the other grow, and you see what they go through, and stand by their side through it.

Each of us has a unique and specific reason for being here today, no matter where on earth or what day of what year it is. God had crafted you, his masterpiece...

^{Ephesians 2:10}

For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

..., and placed you precisely where you are, to do the good things that He has planned. God doesn't want us to go through our life looking for the next person who comes along who makes us feel loved, because that love is only temporary. God wants you to see that he is here, waiting for you to see Him. That He has a plan for our lives, but we have to be willing to rest in his supernatural love. God is the I Am, He is everything that you are longing to find, and He is right here waiting for you to turn around and fall into His arms of love.

So as you go about your day, remember why you are here, and rest in the Lord.

He'll take care of the rest.

Bible Study - Acts 18

Read Acts 18

Again we see the importance in knowledge of scripture, and having a relationship with God. It is possible to love God, and His people without these connections, but when push comes to shove, and people are asking you for knowledge, and you don't have it...? It will become more difficult for you to tell people that you believe the Bible, because you will not know what is written in it. Priscilla and Aquilla knew this, and they educated Apollos in the works of Jesus. We need to strive towards the same knowledge.

Music - You Are More

This video is awesome, a great illustration of how powerful God's love is, how much bigger He is than everything, and how He washes away our sins!

Why Did God Put Us On Earth?

My friend shares this sermon on facebook, and I just have to share it with you too. Not sure who it is by, but it's good. My youth pastor just talked about Moses on Wednesday, it's awesome the things that God uses in our loves to get through to us! Live Jesus Conscious!

Worship - How He Loves

"Random" Post - Building Relationships

It’s amazing what spending time with people who don’t point out faults, or dwell on them, can do for a person. This past weekend, I spent time with people that I had only met once or twice in my life and, by the end of the week, you would have thought we had always known each other. I was reminded of who I am, of what I want to accomplish in life, how I need to live life, and how to live life to the fullest. I was reminded that I don’t have to be afraid of what others think of me, I can just be myself, and the right people will love me.

It’s amazing what can come of a relationship built through the love of Christ. There are not words to describe what it feels like to talk with someone who invites you to laugh with them, not just listen to them laughing at you. To stop what you are doing to go have worship and prayer time before heading into a new year. To be able to speak truthfully, and not be making fun of people, to be able to have fun, and also be serious. I can not describe the kind of relationships that I built this weekend, I can only tell you that as you spend time with God, and Godly people, you will build relationships that can be broken by nothing.

Bible Study - Esther 9 and 10

9 On the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month of Adar, the edict commanded by the king was to be carried out. On this day the enemies of the Jews had hoped to overpower them, but now the tables were turned and the Jews got the upper hand over those who hated them. 2 The Jews assembled in their cities in all the provinces of King Xerxes to attack those determined to destroy them. No one could stand against them, because the people of all the other nationalities were afraid of them. 3 And all the nobles of the provinces, the satraps, the governors and the king’s administrators helped the Jews, because fear of Mordecai had seized them. 4 Mordecai was prominent in the palace; his reputation spread throughout the provinces, and he became more and more powerful.

5 The Jews struck down all their enemies with the sword, killing and destroying them, and they did what they pleased to those who hated them. 6 In the citadel of Susa, the Jews killed and destroyed five hundred men. 7 They also killed Parshandatha, Dalphon, Aspatha, 8 Poratha, Adalia, Aridatha, 9 Parmashta, Arisai, Aridai and Vaizatha, 10 the ten sons of Haman son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews. But they did not lay their hands on the plunder.

11 The number of those killed in the citadel of Susa was reported to the king that same day.12 The king said to Queen Esther, “The Jews have killed and destroyed five hundred men and the ten sons of Haman in the citadel of Susa. What have they done in the rest of the king’s provinces? Now what is your petition? It will be given you. What is your request? It will also be granted.”

13 “If it pleases the king,” Esther answered, “give the Jews in Susa permission to carry out this day’s edict tomorrow also, and let Haman’s ten sons be impaled on poles.”

14 So the king commanded that this be done. An edict was issued in Susa, and they impaledthe ten sons of Haman. 15 The Jews in Susa came together on the fourteenth day of the month of Adar, and they put to death in Susa three hundred men, but they did not lay their hands on the plunder.

16 Meanwhile, the remainder of the Jews who were in the king’s provinces also assembled to protect themselves and get relief from their enemies. They killed seventy-five thousand of them but did not lay their hands on the plunder. 17 This happened on the thirteenth day of the month of Adar, and on the fourteenth they rested and made it a day of feasting and joy.

18 The Jews in Susa, however, had assembled on the thirteenth and fourteenth, and then on the fifteenth they rested and made it a day of feasting and joy.

19 That is why rural Jews—those living in villages—observe the fourteenth of the month of Adar as a day of joy and feasting, a day for giving presents to each other.

Purim Established

20 Mordecai recorded these events, and he sent letters to all the Jews throughout the provinces of King Xerxes, near and far, 21 to have them celebrate annually the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month of Adar 22 as the time when the Jews got relief from their enemies, and as the month when their sorrow was turned into joy and their mourning into a day of celebration. He wrote them to observe the days as days of feasting and joy and giving presents of food to one another and gifts to the poor.

23 So the Jews agreed to continue the celebration they had begun, doing what Mordecai had written to them. 24 For Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to destroy them and had cast the pur (that is, the lot) for their ruin and destruction. 25 But when the plot came to the king’s attention,[a] he issued written orders that the evil scheme Haman had devised against the Jews should come back onto his own head, and that he and his sons should be impaled on poles. 26 (Therefore these days were called Purim, from the word pur.) Because of everything written in this letter and because of what they had seen and what had happened to them, 27 the Jews took it on themselves to establish the custom that they and their descendants and all who join them should without fail observe these two days every year, in the way prescribed and at the time appointed. 28 These days should be remembered and observed in every generation by every family, and in every province and in every city. And these days of Purim should never fail to be celebrated by the Jews—nor should the memory of these days die out among their descendants.

29 So Queen Esther, daughter of Abihail, along with Mordecai the Jew, wrote with full authority to confirm this second letter concerning Purim. 30 And Mordecai sent letters to all the Jews in the 127 provinces of Xerxes’ kingdom—words of goodwill and assurance— 31 to establish these days of Purim at their designated times, as Mordecai the Jew and Queen Esther had decreed for them, and as they had established for themselves and their descendants in regard to their times of fasting and lamentation. 32 Esther’s decree confirmed these regulations about Purim, and it was written down in the records.

The Greatness of Mordecai

10 King Xerxes imposed tribute throughout the empire, to its distant shores. 2 And all his acts of power and might, together with a full account of the greatness of Mordecai, whom the king had promoted, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Media and Persia? 3 Mordecai the Jew was second in rank to King Xerxes, preeminent among the Jews, and held in high esteem by his many fellow Jews, because he worked for the good of his people and spoke up for the welfare of all the Jews.

Esther is a story of success for the Jews. It was a trial of their trust in God, and shows just how far God's people are willing to go for the sake of His name. It is a true testament of how much God loves his people.

Scripture - Love

1 Corinthians 13 (NIV)

1 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

No matter how hard you try to gain anything, be it a friendship, a family, a hope, etc., no matter how hard you try, you will not gain it without Love, for there is nothing greater.  If you are without Love, you are without God, in the same way, if you are without God, you are without Love.

1 John 4:8

“Whoever does not know Love does not know God, because God is Love.”

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Since we just learned that God is Love we can replace God with Love in any verse, this one is a great example:

“God is patient, God is kind.  He does not envy, He does not boast, He is not proud.  He does not dishonor, He is not self seeking, He is not easily angered, He keeps no record of wrongs.  God does not delight in evil but rejoices with truth.  He always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

If you do not know Love you do not know God.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

When we find God(Love), we find perfection, and everything else goes away.  Everything we know disappears , and the truth is revealed to us.  God loves us so much that He wants us to reach this level of understanding, where we fully know all his glory.  Love never fails, but anything that is not love, or of love will, one day, fail.  Love never fails, never ends, never gives up, never harms, Love, God’s Love is perfect.  God’s Love is like infinity, 1 and 1 million are equally distant from infinity.  The amount of God’s Love that you feel now is nothing compared to the amount that He has in store for you.  Currently, all we have is a taste of God’s Love, but when we have received even half the amount that he has for us, it will be like a feast that one cannot fathom keeping to himself.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Anyone can have faith - they know that something will happen, that someone will walk through that door, that their superhero won’t die - everyone has hope - that something will happen, that they will find someone someday who cares -.  Love is also something that everyone has, it’s something that everyone is always searching for, but how many things do you have that you are not aware of?  When we do find Love we rejoice, and Love rejoices, because it has been longing to be found.  In the same way everyone is searching for God, and He simply waits to be seen, and to be accepted.  When we find God, we rejoice and He rejoices with us.