"Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." 

And He told them this parable: "The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops. This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I'll say to myself, 'You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.'   (Is this sounding like anyone/any country you know yet?)

But God to said to him, 'You fool! This very night your soul will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?' This is how it will be with anyone who stores up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God."

Then He said to His disciples, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

...Do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. But seek His kingdom and these things will be given to you as well. 

Do not be afraid, little flock! for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Luke 12.

How to Know God- by Elisabeth Elliot

The order of the Christian's assignment is: hear, do, know. If we hear the commandments and obey them, the Father will make Himself known to us. It is no use trying to know Him without doing what He says. To listen to one word and go out and obey it is better than having the most exalted "religious experience," for it puts us in touch with God Himself--it is a willed response.

"If you really love Me, you will keep the commandments I have given you." It is perilously easy to imagine that we love God because we like the idea of God, or because we feel drawn to Him. The only valid test of love is obedience. Take one thing commanded and start doing it. Take one thing forbidden and stop doing it. Then we are on the sure road to knowing God. There is no other.

"You are My friends, if you do what I command you" (Jn 15:14 NEB).

"The man who has received My commands and obeys them--he it is who loves Me: and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father; and I will love him and disclose Myself to him" (Jn 14:21). There is the order: hear, do, know.

Bible study tool

This is one of my favorite study tools of all time. If you are reading a certain passage of the Bible, click "Hebrew" for the Old Testament or "Greek" for the New Testament. Type in the English word you want to know more about, and usually a few different Hebrew/Greek words will come up. http://www.studylight.org/lex/

Example: Romans 1.5: "Through Him and for His name's sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith." Click Greek: Type in "grace": Open new pages for the 2 words that come up: eu)preÑpeia and xa/riv. For xa/riv, it is defined as:

1. grace
a. that which affords joy, pleasure, delight, sweetness, charm, loveliness: grace of speech
2. good will, loving-kindness, favour
a. of the merciful kindness by which God, exerting his holy influence upon souls, turns them to
Christ, keeps, strengthens, increases them in Christian faith, knowledge, affection, and kindles
them to the exercise of the Christian virtues
3. what is due to grace
a. the spiritual condition of one governed by the power of divine grace
b. the token or proof of grace, benefit, a gift of grace, benefit, bounty
4. thanks, (for benefits, services, favours), recompense, reward

Then it will show you every verse where this Greek word is used (click on book name). You can explore this tool forever!! :)

Just like a bakery's Chocolate Chip Cookies

These are some cookies I just tried today from www.allrecipes.com  (by far my favorite cooking website!!!)

2 cups all purpose flour               1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking soda             1 tablespoon vanilla 

1/2 teaspoon salt                   1 egg

3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted        1 egg yolk

1 cup packed brown sugar             1 1/2 cups of chocolate chunks

1. Melt the butter in a small pan.

2. In a small bowl, whisk flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

3. In a medium bowl, cream together the melted butter, brown sugar and white sugar until well blended. Beat in vanilla, egg and egg yolks until light and creamy (about 3 minutes). Mix in the dry ingredients by hand and then stir in chocolate chips. 

4. Refrigerate for one hour. 

5. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper. 

6. Drop 1/4 cup of dough on cookie sheets about 3 inches apart (6 cookies to a sheet). They will be big! Should make about 14 large cookies.

7. Bake for 15 to 17 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the edges are lightly browned (don't be alarmed if they look cakey- they will fall and turn out beautiful). Cool on sheets for a few minutes. 

Delicious! The big size makes them look professional. The taste too :) 

Cosmetics Database

This website is one of the reasons I wanted to start this blog- because there are many great websites that I love and that are so helpful. You can search soap, shampoo, nail polish, make up, etc. products and see how safe this esearch group deems them to be.

http://www.cosmeticdatabase.com/

"Skin Deep pairs ingredients in more than 25,000 products against 50 definitive toxicity and regulatory databases, making it the largest integrated data resource of its kind. Why did a small nonprofit take on such a big project? Because the FDA doesn't require companies to test their own products for safety."

Learn what you are exposing your body to from the things you use on a daily basis (scary!!). It will list for you ingredients in this product and what they are linked to- i.e. cancer, reproductive toxicity, violations, restrictions & warnings, etc. Then it will give a rating to each of the main ingredients with its hazard score- i.e. fragrance (which you will find in almost everything!) is completely unregulated and can be a coverup for all sorts of dangerous things. It has a hazard score of 8 out of 10- high and very dangerous.

Or, if you want to find the safest kind of shampoo, for instance, search shampoo and then sort by "hazard score".

"If You are willing, take this cup from Me."

I have been reading C.S. Lewis’ “Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer”. He makes a most interesting point that I have never considered about Christ “sharing in our humanity" (Hebrews 2.14).

“Like all afflictions, they are, if we can so take them, our share in the Passion of Christ… In Gethsemane a very strange and significant thing seems to have happened.

It is clear from many of His sayings that our Lord had long foreseen His death. He knew what conduct such as His, in a world such as we have made of this, must inevitably lead to. But it is clear that this knowledge must somehow have been withdrawn from Him before He prayed in Gethsemane. He could not, with whatever reservation about the Father’s will, have prayed that the cup might pass and simultaneously known that it would not. This is both a logical and a psychological impossibility. You see what this involves? Lest any trial incident to humanity should be lacking, the torments of hope- of suspense, anxiety- were at the last moment loosed upon Him- the supposed possibility that, after all, He might, He just conceivably might, be spared the supreme horror.

But for this last hope against hope, and the consequent tumult of the soul, the sweat of blood, perhaps He would not have been very Man.

To live in a fully predictable world is not to be a man.

We all try to accept with some sort of submission our afflictions when they actually arrive. But the prayer in Gethsemane shows that the preceding anxiety is equally God’s will and equally part of our human destiny. The perfect Man experienced it. And the servant is not greater than the master.”

“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” Luke 22.42

Allow me to reintroduce the Christ

I love this slam poetry video, performed by Blair Wingo. It's so powerful and speaks against the lies of the world about who Jesus is. Be bold as this woman is, to tell the whole Truth about Jesus! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNJ5oi1cw2I


Also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Vvx8mdSXno&feature=related "You Just Lost One"


Transcript to "Allow Me"

We’ve got a False Jesus being portrayed. As seen on TV, acting cool….you see he’s changed.
A different Jesus from the Bible so…allow me to bring the real Christ on stage. Not that whack Jesus, the one not based on fact Jesus, too often displayed. The Christ in Glory, not the one on your chain.

Because he’s the real Jesus Peace that only dwells in the saved. So allow me to paint the picture of Christ in the Scripture preaching faith and repentance that your too cool Jesus….never seems to mention. It seems like He’s down with all the things that you do. But come on, there’s only one Jesus who is true. So which one will you let reign over you? Who?

The Millionaire Jesus who just wants to make you rich? Give you some ice, fame, money, to prove that you are blessed? The Black Panther Jesus who throws up his black fist. The ‘Kan…Ye…West’ Jesus who walks with no Holiness. Which one will you choose? I said….Which one will you choose?

So I think it is long overdo to have a re-introduction of Christ. So there won’t be any confusion as to which one is right, because one leads to death, and the other IS life! So allow me to, re-introduce the Christ. Allow me to, re-introduce the Christ. I said allow me to re-introduce the Christ! He’s been distorted by the people and IT JUST AIN’T RIGHT!

Allow me to re-introduce the Christ. Not someone you can pimp around to propel your cause. Or a name you can proclaim just to cover your flaws. Look if this is true then you’re serving a different Boss. Your Christ is an idol and you’re probably lost.

Because Christ in the scripture? He gave a call to forsake all. Not to wear a cross but to take up your cross and follow Him. Because we’re holding a death sentence because of our sin. And it’s His Mercy that His wrath hasn’t burned times ten. Just like Sodom and Gomorrah but a curse within. You see He gives us a chance to learn of Him!

So that He can be glorified in His rightful place. So if we’re serving this imitation Jesus, dude, it’s like a blatant slap in the face, distorting His grace and disregarding His sacrifice. For a worldly Christ, like the ‘Purpose Driven Life’ Jesus, who prophesied you’ll be used by him before you’re living like Jesus.

Or that S.A.T. Jesus who helps you with all your quizzes, gets you into college, allows you to pass math and physics, the homosexual Jesus who doesn’t see you sinning. The ‘Destiny’s Child’ Jesus who sees your Beyoncé and starts grinning. Which one will you choose? I said…which one will you choose?

So I think it is long overdue to have a re-introduction of Christ. So there won’t be any confusion as to which one is right, because one leads to death, and the other IS life! So allow me to.. re-introduce the Christ.
Allow me to … re-introduce the Christ. He’s been distorted by the people and IT JUST AIN’T RIGHT!
So allow me to re-introduce the Christ.

Not someone that we can cover His mouth, so we can continue our nose in the dirt, so He doesn’t require us to repent of all sins, to be born again, to never blend in with this world, and Broadway is the street that walks the Material Girl, she’s got you seduced, she feeds you a phony Jesus that doesn’t want to save you from your sins but wants to…”Kick it with you.”

Like…”Jesus is my homeboy”..or “Jesus got me employed” or “Jesus is my Decoy”, But will the real Jesus please stand up? The ONE who is TRUE! Because He’s been, knocked down, pushed down, and these idols come in, he wrecked it up, he wrecked it up to the point that if the real Jesus came back right now…Dude, the Church would probably hang Him upside down! Pin Him to one of these beams and crucify Him again. Because he’s not down with your sin! And it hurts me to see how the Church will defend their lifestyle. Like, Wow! Don’t we want to know Christ? The one who willingly gave His life to set us free from our sin you see.

And I must do this by ANY means necessary. See, I must NEVER hide the LIGHT! So tonight, I’m going to introduce Jesus Christ. I said I’m going to introduce Jesus Christ because He’s been distorted by the people and IT JUST AIN’T RIGHT! So I’m going to introduce Jesus Christ because one day…Dude…. He is coming back and it’s important that you recognize Him because the Scripture talks about that.

Many people saying….”I’m Jesus….No, I’m Jesus…No, I’m Jesus” But which one is fact? And you got to get into the Bible to see about that, that He’s coming in the clouds with Power and Glory, and every knee will bow, testify to His authority. So this Jesus of the scripture better take priority, not the one that’s accepted every where by the majority, when He Himself said the world would hate Him! So why all of a sudden does the world want to date Him? Think about it.

Hopefully you haven’t given in to this ‘Come as you are, stay as you are’ Jesus. ‘He has this wonderful plan for my Life’ Jesus, ‘You don’t need repentance’ Jesus…or ‘All roads lead to Jesus.’ I hope you haven’t given in to this, but you serve the One who is Holy. Because it will be something if on Judgement day the Jesus you’ve been serving was simply an angel of light, which covered a legion of demons masquerading as Christ. All this time serving a Jesus who’s not been pierced at His feet and the wrists, who has no sword coming out of His mouth, no rod of Righteousness! To go on day by day by day, and willingly miss because we’re serving a created image that leads you to the Abyss.

So lets get into scripture, so we’re not fooled by this Jesus who when were sinning He’s still with us, won’t get into this Jesus that the world loves, and He’s cool with your worldly music, worldly TV, you going to the club, your sex, your lies, your vanity, your phony love, the very thing that caused Christ in the scripture to shed blood.

So let’s make sure we’re serving the right Christ, not a wolf in sheep’s clothing that’s got you enticed. The TRUE ONE, want to make you new ONE, The ONLY begotten SON!So I think it’s long overdue for You to be introduced tonight. Everybody help me welcome…Jesus Christ!