Verses of the Week

Hey, girls! Happy late Thanksgiving!

Psalm 84:11-12

For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. O LORD of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee.

I’m so thankful God gives His grace to us. He ultimately showed that to us by dying on the cross for our sins. If we seek His will and help, He will help us do right and bless us. God shines His blessings on us and protects us.

Now, some other things I’m thankful for, in no particular order:

God, and all that He is

My amazing family and friends

A House with water, heat, etc

The Bible

Food and Water

Music

Humor

Church

My Blog and All of you guys!

There are so many other things, but there are just a few! 🙂

-MorganAshley

Verses of the Week

Hey, girls! I know this passage is typically read and talked about at Christmas time, but I am currently reading Matthew in my devotions and something came to mind as I was reading Matthew 1:18-25.

“Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a publick example, was minded to put her away privily. But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins. Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us. Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife: And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS.”

When Mary became pregnant with Jesus, she had to face the shame of having a child out of wedlock, even though she was a virgin. Yet, she was willing to give birth to the Savior. Luke 1 comes to mind. Mary was humble and willing to obey God. Even though it seemed to Joseph as though Mary had committed an immoral act, he was still a kind, merciful man and didn’t want to shame Mary further and was going to break up with her quietly. But when God gave Joseph the dream explaining everything to him, he accepted it and obeyed God. He trusted God’s plan and was also willing to deal with undue shame. I think it’s pretty cool who God chose to raise His Son, the Savior of all who trust in His sacrifice for their sins.

-Morgan

Verses of the Week

Hey girls! Here are the verses of the week.

James 4:7-8 – “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.”

As Christians, we should always be seeking to get closer to God in our relationship with Him. God doesn’t want us to only be partially committed to Him and partially committed to worldliness and pleasing ourselves. (James 1:8, Matthew 6:24) We must get closer to God by spending time reading the Bible and praying. When we are tempted to do something wrong, we must ask God for help to resist doing wrong, then we must through His grace and power resist. Humbly realize that God can give you victory over wrong; you have to trust Him to help you. It’s a great comfort to know that God is on our side and not only wants us to do right, but He wants to help us do right. 🙂

-MorganAshley

Verses of the Week

Hey, everyone! Since I’ve not been posting super often, I haven’t done Verse of the Week in a while. I wanted to share something from some sermon notes I did my devotions on recently.

Galatians 2:17-21

¹⁷ But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid.

¹⁸ For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.

¹⁹ For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.

²⁰ I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

²¹ I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.

These are some of the notes I took.

The true gospel changes lives without the deeds of the law. Divine grace is God doing something for me that I can’t do. Jesus didn’t die so you could earn your salvation. He already. Adding works to grace makes it no longer grace. Because of God’s grace, I should work to serve God first in my life, with full sincerity.  The purpose of the law was to show that you’d fail. We need Christ. We can’t meet God’s perfect standard; we must have grace. Why depend on what you can’t achieve for your salvation? If people can change the gospel, how many “gospels” would there be? And how can they all be true? God created the Gospel, so we should let the Bible, His Word, define it.

Romans 3:23-24

23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

Romans 6:23

²³ For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

2 Corinthians 5:21

²¹ For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

Philippians 2:5-8

⁵ Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

⁶ Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:

⁷ But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:

⁸ And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

Jesus is God. He died to take the punishment for sin that we all deserve so that we can have a relationship with God and one day go to Heaven. He is the only way. You con’t be saved by your works or anything else!

Acts 4: 12

¹² Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

We as sinners need a Savior and that is Christ alone. Have you experienced this? Then how is it working in your life?

-MorganAshley

Verses of the Week

Hey, girls! I’m memorizing these verses and wanted to share.

2 Corinthians 3: 17-18 – “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory: While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

God has been showing me a lot lately that the things of this world are not the most important thing. They won’t last in eternity. Christians should have an eternal mindset, thinking about how our choices and actions effect eternity. Our possessions here won’t come with us when we die. The things that truly matter are souls. A Christian’s focus should be on saving souls and pleasing our Savior. This leads to a true, lasting, eternal reward. This will pay off in the end. You may miss out on things here. But pleasing God is worth it. These verses can also apply to temptation. It’s afflicting! But, stay strong in God’s strength (Colossians 1:11) and He’ll reward you.

-Morgan

Verses of the Week

Hi, peeps! I found a cool verse today, along with some familiar ones.

Psalm 56:3-4,8-

“What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee. in God I will praise his word, in God I have put my trust; I will not fear what flesh can do unto me. Thou tellest my wanderings: put Thou my tears into Thy bottle: are they not in Thy book?”

I think these verses are cool because, when our trust is in God, we don’t have to be afraid, because He is in control. I thought verse 8 was really cool to think of God collecting David’s tears in a bottle. (I’m pretty sure that’s just a word picture, though.) But it shows how God cares about our troubles. He loves and cares about us, and He wants us to rely on Him in trouble.

-Morgan

Verses of the Week

Hi! I meant to post this earlier. Oh, well. We got our garden planted yesterday! That was fun. Ok, here are the Verses of the Week.

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.” Proverbs 1:7

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.”

Proverbs 9:10

Ok, so if you want to be smart and wise, you should fear and obey God. If you put God as the foundation of your life, He’ll help you learn better. Gain wisdom from the Bible. And a thing that my pastor said, why wouldn’t you want to obey God’s wisdom as presented in the Bible and receive the benefits. Our way doesn’t lead to blessing. God’s does. It’s not guaranteed to be easy but it’s worth it. This is something I plan and hope to keep in mind. 🙂

Gonna go play Halo multiplayer with my brother now. Have a good day.

-Morgan

Verses of the Week

Hey, girls! I came across these verses today while reading and paid more attention to them than I have in the past.

Proverbs 16: 14, 27-29 –

“The wrath of a king is as messengers of death: but a wise man will pacify it. An ungodly man diggeth up evil: and in his lips there is as a burning fire.  A froward man soweth strife: and a whisperer separateth chief friends.  A violent man enticeth his neighbour, and leadeth him into the way that is not good.”

So, these I took these verse to apply to how I use my tongue. It says an ungodly man digs up evil. He goes around intentionally looking for trouble. He uses his words to stir up trouble and cause fighting. This can make people mad, and break up friendships. Rather than be like the ungodly man, we should be like the wise man who pacifies anger. This definitely applies to relationships with siblings. I know how easy it can be to be annoying on purpose, and I know how mad you can get when a sibling acts this way. We should use our words, not to stir up trouble, but to edify and encourage, and we should be patient and kind when we get annoyed. This is wise and godly. If you think about it, I would appreciate prayer in this area. 🙂

-Morgan

Verses Of the Week

Hello, girls! Here are some verses.

Luke 22:33-34- But he said to Him, “Lord, with You I am ready to go both to prison and to death!” And He said, “I say to you, Peter, the rooster will not crow today until you have denied three times that you know Me.”

We had a guest preacher speak on this part of history, although, I think he preached it from Mark. Anyway, he talked about how Jesus already knew Peter would sin, but He still forgave him and loved him. It’s the same with us. Jesus knew every sin every person would ever commit when He died on the cross. He still died for us and offers us forgiveness. Because of this great mercy God has shown us, we ought to forgive others when they wrong us, even if they do the same thing again. God is patient with us, so we should be patient with others.

-Morgan