Again

"Finally, my brothers, rejoice in The Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you," (Philippians 3:1, NIV).

In this verse we see that Paul is not only telling the Philippians something, but re-telling. Paul has already written about these things before, and now he wants to tell them again. Paul isn't reprimanding the Philippians because "It is no trouble" to tell them these things again.

Paul just wants to make sure that the Philippians, as well as other Christians know what is being said. We as Christians in today's world need to follow this example when it comes to knowing and understanding the scriptures.

We need to read, and re-read, the scriptures. We should never feel like we know everything there is to know. We should continue to learn about God, His love, and His plan for our lives. The only way we can truly know God is to continuously read God's word, the Bible. For without God's word how can we know what He wants for us, and for our lives.

The lesson here is that you can never read the Bible too much. You should always continue reading, because you will always be able to learn something new. For God's wisdom, and knowledge, is unfathomable.

TNT,
Words by Ali

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How Do We LIve

"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me," ( Gal. 2:20, NIV).

As Christians we no longer live for ourselves. Our lives now belong to the one your saved our souls. Jesus Christ is not just our savior, because he is that. He is also who we are to live our lives for.

Everything we do should be for Him. Our desires in life should be what God has planned for us. And not the desires of our flesh. Our flesh has been crucified and we now have life. Life in Christ, to live a life for him.

Thank God for that.

TNT,
Words by Ali

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Faith

"Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong. Do everything in love," (1 Corinthians 16:13-14).

I recently read this verse in 1 Corinthians and it got me thinking about what having faith means. Having faith doesn't mean that our lives are going to be perfect. Anything but perfect. We're still going to have troubles and hardship in our lives. For the verse says we need to be on guard. If life was going to be perfect would we need to be on guard? No.

We our to have courage, and to stay strong. But we can't truly be strong with out God on our side. We need God to make us strong, and that is where faith comes in. With faith in God, God gives us the strength and courage to handle the trails we are going to face in our lives.

Most importantly though we need to love. For without love the things we do don't mean much. When we live our lives we should live them with love. Love for ourselves, our friends, family, neighbors, strangers, and even our enemies. For our faith in God will get us through.

TNT,
Words by Ali


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Prayer

I have always known that prayer is an important, if not an essential, part of my relationship with God. For you see prayer everywhere when you read the Bible. Not just in the New Testament either, in both Old and New. The Old Testament prophets were constantly talking with God, asking for help and guidance.

Prayer appears to be very important within the New Testament as well. In Acts we see Paul prays constantly:

"When Paul had finished speaking, he knelt down with all of them and prayed," (Acts 20:37, NIV), and "When it was time to leave, we left and continued on our way. All of them, including wives and children, accompanied us out of the city, and there on the beach we knelt to pray," (Acts 21:5, NIV).

These are two separate verses where we see Paul praying has he spends time with the other believers. Not only do the apostles and disciples pray, but Jesus himself is constantly praying to His father, God, who is also our father. If Jesus found prayer, conversation with God, so important in His life than prayer should be just as important in our lives as believers in Jesus and God.

TNT,
Words by Ali

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Joy

During one of my quiet times I read this in the Gospel of John:

"Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy," (John 16:22 NIV).

In this verse Jesus tells us... Let me just stop there. Cause the first, and most important thing, is that Jesus is talking to us. It's not one of the apostles, or anyone else, but Jesus Christ. He is talking to us, as Christians, and giving us great insight into what He has given us.

Back to the verse. By believing in Jesus we will always have Him with us, and he can never be taken away. There is no one that can take him away. But it's not just Jesus that can be taken away, but the joy we have Him. I sure want the joy that Jesus gives that will never go away. I just need to trust in God.

TNT,
Words by Ali


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Fellowship

Fellowship is defined as: communion, as between the members of the same church.

It is that, but it's also more than that. It is the friendships we make within our church family. Because that is what they are, family. It's different then our biological family, but it is just as important if not more.

We as human beings are a social people. We can not go about our lives without other human contact. Sociality is so important, because God created us to be that way. He created us to have relationships, fellowship or communion, with other believers.

I believe that fellowship with other Christians isn't just something that we do. It is a gift given to us, as believers, from God. It is a gift that God gave us, so it must be more important to our spiritual lives than we could ever imagine. We need the support of our church family to navigate the world, which is full of sin.

Without communion with the church, our family of believers, we wouldn't be able to survive in this world. At least I know that I wouldn't be able to. Our personal, one on one, relationship with God is essential and we can't live without it. But we still need each other. Christ gave us the church, all of God's children, so we shouldn't go at our lives alone. We never were meant to.

TNT,
Words by Ali


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How Could They Not Understand

During my quite times this week I read this passage in Luke:

"Jesus took the Twelve aside and told them, 'We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. He will be handed over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, insult him, spit on him, flog him and kill him. On the third day he will rise again.' The disciples did not understand any of this. Its meaning was hidden from them, and they did not know what he was talking about," (Luke 18:31-34, NIV).

I read this passage and I could help thinking about the final two sentences. "The disciples did not understand any of this." How could they not understand? How could Jesus be any more clear about what was going to happen to him. Jesus basically spells it out for the disciples. He is going to be handed over, beaten, and killed, and then raise back to life after three days.

It's very clear, easy for anyone to understand. I don't think it was that they didn't understand, but that they didn't WANT to understand. They loved and adored Jesus so much that they didn't want to believe that these things were going to happen. But if they didn't happen then the world wouldn't have been redeemed, and none of us would be able to have a relationship with Christ, and God.

We don't want horrible things to happen to the people we love. But this had to happen so we could be saved. Thank you God for loving us so much. For loving me so much.

TNT,
Words by Ali


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Worship

So, I went to the Church Service on Saturday, and I stayed for the entire night. I was tempted, at first, to leave early like always. Until I saw a friend who knows I've been struggling with laziness. I knew I couldn't just walk on past, so I sat down and stayed. I'm glad I did, because the worship at the end of the message was worth the night alone.

On Sunday mornings our Church is doing a different message than what is being taught on Saturday nights. I decided when I woke up that I wanted to go to the service. Once again, as the night before, I'm glad that I did.

God had something He wanted to teach me from that message about Worship. Worship is more than just singing songs to him one night a week. It's about the way we live our lives for Him. It's about how everything we do should be for God. Not anyone else, especially not for ourselves. If we live only for ourselves we will always be lacking something.

Worship is more about a relationship with God. It's not something that we are required to do. A relationship is about responding and communicating. That is how we should be worshiping God, by responding with our whole hearts to the unconditional love of God.

TNT,
Words by Ali


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Laziness

I feel like I have no motivation to do much of anything these days. Even when it comes to God and my spiritual life. I feel like I have to force myself to go to Church services or House Church/Small Group. Even when I do get to Church services I find some excuse to leave early, and not stay for the messages.

I think my prayer life, quite times, have gotten stale. I do the same things over and over and over again, and I feel like if I don't stop I'll go insane. I want God to rekindle a fire in me, like I had before. To wake up my heart and to thirst for seeking Him.

I think the first thing I need to do is get back into a routine (even if I don't want to):
- Quite times every morning
- Church service on Saturdays (and staying for the entire message)
- House Church/Small Group on Wednesdays

I also think I need someone to be accountable to. I fear that if I'm left to my own devices again a I'll continue to fall back into my laziness. Any suggestions on what to do?

TNT
Words by Ali


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Where to Begin?

The question is where does one start when it has been so long since they've spent any real personal time with God? It's been so long since I've really spent any personal time in a quiet time with God, that I feel like I don't even know where to begin.

I think, though, that where I do need to start is in prayer. Without prayer, actually talking to God, everything else will seem almost pointless. So, my first goal, on getting back into meaningful quiet times, is to spend at least 5 minutes each day in prayer. That's only to begin with.

We'll see how this goes.

TNT,
Words by Ali


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A First Step to Ending My Slackerness

This certainly isn't the only thing I'll have to do, but I have to start somewhere. And this is it. House Church and Small Group.

For those of you who don't know what that is, it's basically a Wednesday night Bible study. Twice during the month it's House Church where there's about 30 or so people. The other two weeks of the month is Small Group, which is exactly that a smaller group of people discussing the Bible together.

This is where I'm going to start. I figure if I start small I'll be more likely to stay with it in the long run.

TNT,
Words by Ali


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I Am The Worlds Biggest Slacker

I know what you're thinking, with a title like that I must be completely exaggerating. And you're probably right, but it certainly feels that way. Now let me tell you why.

I make all of these plans to do my daily quite times, and then what happens? Well it starts off great for the first day or two, but then my enthusiasm just seems to tapper off. I feel unmotivated and for some reason can't get back into it.

Do any of you out there have any suggestions on what I should do? Any advice at all would be very much welcome.

TNT,
Words by Ali


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