While You Were Sleeping

In light of Christmas's quick approach I have a Christmas song. May our heart be not cold to the truth and the turmoil of this world. And may Christ not find us sleeping when He returns. Jesus is the reason for the season and His death is the reason He came.

Oh little town of Bethlehem
Looks like another silent night
Above your deep and dreamless sleep
A giant star lights up the sky
And while you're lying in the dark
There shines an everlasting light
For the King has left His throne
And is sleeping in a manger tonight

Oh Bethlehem, what you have missed while you were sleeping
For God became a man
And stepped into your world today
Oh Bethlehem, you will go down in history
As a city with no room for its King
While you were sleeping
While you were sleeping

Oh little town of Jerusalem
Looks like another silent night
The Father gave His only Son
The Way, the Truth, the Life had come
But there was no room for Him in the world He came to save

Jerusalem, what you have missed while you were sleeping
The Savior of the world is dying on your cross today
Jerusalem, you will go down in history
As a city with no room for its King
While you were sleeping
While you were sleeping

United States of America
Looks like another silent night
As we're sung to sleep by philosophies
That save the trees and kill the children
And while we're lying in the dark
There's a shout heard 'cross the eastern sky
For the Bridegroom has returned
And has carried His bride away in the night

America, what will we miss while we are sleeping
Will Jesus come again
And leave us slumbering where we lay
America, will we go down in history
As a nation with no room for its King
Will we be sleeping
Will we be sleeping

United States of America
Looks like another silent night
While you were sleeping~ -Casting Crowns

But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,

1 Peter 3:15

He is Jealous for me.

Lord,You have everything yet You are jealous for me.

Of Wolves

There are two wolves fighting, a black wolf and a white wolf. Which one will win?

The one you feed.

Do you have a struggle you can't seem to get loose from?
I do and I found out that one of the reasons I can't let go of it is because I like it so much I continue to feed it.

A well fed black wolf doesn't die easily.




"Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life." ~Galatians 6:7-8


Thanks for this Alyssa.

Captivate Us

Beauty From Pain- Super Chick

The lights go out all around me
One last candle to keep out the night
And then the darkness surrounds me
I know I'm alive but I feel like I've died
And all that's left is to accept that it's over
My dreams ran like sand through the fists that I made
I try to keep warm but I just grow colder
I feel like I'm slipping away

After all this has passed, I still will remain
After I've cried my last, there'll be beauty from pain
Though it won't be today,
Someday I'll hope again
And there'll be beauty from pain
You will bring beauty from my pain

My whole world is the pain inside me
The best i can do is just get through the day
When life before is only a memory
I'll wonder why God lets me walk through this place
And though I can't understand why this happened
I know that I will when i look back someday
And see how you've brought beauty from ashes
And made me as gold purified through these flames

After all this has passed, I still will remain
After I've cried my last, there'll be beauty from pain
Though it won't be today,
Someday I'll hope again
And there'll be beauty from pain
You will bring beauty from my pain

Here I am, at the end of me
Tryin to hold to what i can't see
I forgot how to hope
This night's been so long
I cling to Your promise
There will be a dawn

After all this has passed, I still will remain
After I've cried my last, there'll be beauty from pain
Though it won't be today,
Someday I'll hope again
And there'll be beauty from pain
You will bring beauty from my pain

Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
~2 Corinthians 12:8-10

Loving A Person -Sara Groves

Loving a person just the way they are, it's no small thing
It takes some time to see things through
Sometimes things change, sometimes we're waiting
We need grace either way

Hold on to me
I'll hold on to you
Let's find out the beauty of seeing things through

There's a lot of pain in reaching out and trying
It's a vulnerable place to be
Love and pride can't occupy the same spaces baby
Only one makes you free

Hold on to me
I'll hold on to you
Let's find out the beauty of seeing things through

If we go looking for offense
We're going to find it
If we go looking for real love
We're going to find it

If we are the Body

For the past six years I have been one of the people everyone calls crazy when I participate in a 3 ½ day bike trip that travels 300 miles from one state to another. I’ve always loved it; the people you get to know, the fun you have but most of all the dozens of life lessons you learn.
Bike trip isn’t easy. Actually if you’re not someone who exercises a lot, and if you haven’t trained enough prior to bike trip, it can be very painful. You learn perseverance, and you develop a back bone for pushing even when it hurts. You learn that you need other people, to pull you in draft lines, and to encourage you. But most important you learn that it isn’t all about you. Other people hurt, everyone struggles at some point and everyone needs encouragement and love. This is a lesson I have had to relearn year after year. This year though, I began to see this concept in a new way.
Each day we are given a Bible verse to tape on our bike to read throughout the day. The verses this year had to do with the Body of Christ.
One of the verses was 1 Corinthians 12:24b-26.

“But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.”

On bike trip this needed to be our mindset. We all had a different part to play, yet we were equal, none of us were more important than another. And when one of us was hurting, we all needed to be hurting along side of them, carrying their burden. I often knew when one of the other bikers was struggling. Their legs slowed up, they peddled on alone. Their shoulders sagged in. You had at that point had a choice to make, to continue on passed them or to slow up and give them encouragement or maybe pull in front of them to break the wind.
I began thinking about it, if this is how the Body of Christ needs to operate on bike trip. And if bike trip is like life, than I have been living life all wrong. People are hurting all around us. Our own families and friends are struggling. We know it yet we fail to come along side of them, to serve them and to carry their burden. Life is hard, downright painful at times. We are human and we have a sin nature. We all sin and fall short of God’s best. We fail. As Christ’s followers we have to see the hurting people and to reach out and have compassion and love them for who they are and what they are struggling with down deep inside.
I have failed to do this so many times. I have lived for myself and for my interests and have missed the bigger picture. “But if we are the Body, why aren’t our hands reaching.”

Why should we do this?

“Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.” John 13:14-15

Because Jesus did so much more.

Experiment

I am considering deleting this blog.
You may have noticed that I rarely update it.
You also may have noticed that the amount of feedback I receive is zero. Not that feed back is what's important but it is rather nice to know you are not speaking to an empty audience.
So here is the experiment. If you do read this blog and appreciate what it says, then please let me know. I will delete it in one month if I don't hear from you.

You shall teach them to your children

And if you will indeed obey My commandments that I command you today,to love the LORD your God, and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, He will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil. And He will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you shall eat and be full. Take care lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them; then the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you, and He will shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain, and the land will yield no fruit, and you will perish quickly off the good land that the LORD is giving you.
You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates,

Deuteronomy 11:13-21

Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.

Deuteronomy 4:9


Pass the Baton to the next generation.
Lest we forget the Lord.

Generations will reap what I sow.

This song really put in perspective how important it is that Christians pass on the truths of God to the next generation.
Lest we forget.

I can taste the fruit of Eve
I’m aware of sickness, death and disease
The results of our choices are vast
Eve was the first but she wasn’t the last

And if I were honest with myself
Had I been standing at that tree
My mouth and my hands would be covered with fruit
Things I shouldn’t know and things I shouldn’t see

Remind me of this with every decision
Generations will reap what I sow
I can pass on a curse or a blessing
To those I will never know

She taught me to fear the serpent
I’m learning to fear myself
And all of the things I am capable of
In my search for wisdom, acceptance and wealth

And to say that the devil made me do it
Is a cop out and a lie
The devil can’t make me do anything
When I’m calling on Jesus Christ

Remind me of this with every decision
Generations will reap what I sow
I can pass on a curse or a blessing
To those I will never know

To my great, great, great grand daughter
Live in peace
To my great, great, great grand son
Live in peace
To my great, great, great grand daughter
Live in peace
To my great, great, great grand son
Live in peace, oh, live in peace

Remind me of this with every decision
Generations will reap what I sow
I can pass on a curse or a blessing
To those I will never know

Oh, remind me
Generations will reap what I sow
I can pass on a curse or a blessing
To those I will never know
Oh, I may never know

Generations
Sara Groves