It is hard to even know what to write when it is about the sad subject of death.  I want to let Lauren’s family and friends all know how sorry I am for their great loss.  I will always think of her great smile and sweet personality (true of all of her family).  You are all in my thoughts and prayers. 

Please fell free to leave memories of Lauren as we all grieve the loss of a friend.

Anyone grades 7 – 12 is invited Reality Check Teen Center tonight at 6:45 for a night of worship through music.  Join us as we sing praises to God and enjoy the love He showers on us!

So, I’m a big fan of music, if you don’t already know that…  So when I hear a new song, I love to sit down and listen to the words and really “digest” what the artist & the Lord is trying to say.  Does it apply to my life?  What can I learn from this message? 

Well, there’s a song out on the radio right now that I just love!!  It’s a Francesca Battistelli song entitled “It’s Your Life”.  If you read through the chorus, it’s a very simple message, but yet a very serious one, as well. 

“It’s your life
What you gonna do?
The world is watching you
Every day the choices you make
Say what you are and who
Your heart beats for
It’s an open door
It’s your life”

Think about it.  What do the choices that you make say about you?  Do they point to the Father, the one you say you love?  The world IS watching us.  They do notice when we make good decisions AND bad ones.  Sometimes it seems like they are just waiting for us to mess up.  But even then, how do we react and respond?  Every one of us has the opportunity to display the love of God and the kind of life available through Him.  But how often do really take advantage of this?  What does your life say about you?  About God, our Creator?  Are the people you call your friends, evidence of what your life is centered around?  Think about it. 

I pray that your hearts would ALWAYS beat for Christ, but know that even when you mess up, there is Grace.

by Danae

Hey Guys!!!! So guess what?!?! This is my offical, very first blog…it’s sad I know…but honestly I had absolutly no idea what to say until now. I was a little nervous about posting some thing on here, considering how Awe-Inspiring everybody else’s post have been so far, but here goes.
So I have had to go through alot of growing up lately and I never realized how much maturing can actually be very painful. I’ve had to face alot of the sins in my life that I have been ignoring for a very long time, and thats never a pretty thing. Honestly I would have been perfectly fine if I never had to confront a single issue in my life, that just the way I am. So you can imagine how hard the whole thing was for me.
I knew I had to sit down and talk to God, so i figured there was no sense in putting it off any longer. I just sat on my bed and told God to go for it, to confront me of anything and everything in my life that was not pleasing Him and…. WOW!!!! I didn’t have the slightest idea what I was asking, I wasn’t prepared for the things He had to tell me, or i guess i should say the things He had to show me. I never realized how easy it was to get caught up in my own life and not even stop to care about whats going on with every one else. I guess what I’m about to say kinda ties in with what I had wrote on my note card the night we all prayed for each other at digging deeper, I wrote that I needed to stop being so selfish. Well God showed me that I was still being selifish and greedy with my time. Sure I proclaimed my love for Him, but was it really evident in my life.
It always hurts when you realize that you’ve wasted so many times and so many chances that God has given you. Nobody likes knowing that they’ve failed or they’ve messed up, but its a fact of life, we all mess up. But if you do what I did and run from that, never wanting to face or confront the truth than you are wasting the gifts that God has given you….. And thats so much worse. I am writing you all of this to say, don’t be afraid of being confronted, and even more importantly don’t be afraid to change.

by Mason

Hey people!! My old priest Father John told this story in a sermon. It stuck out to me so I’m going to share it with you. There was once a Buddhist monk in India. This monk and his followers were walking down a familar path.  A river was rushing along beside the path and the monk noticed it was rising due to the recent heavy rains. He then noticed a scorpion entangled in a bush beside the river. The scorpion struggled and struggled to get out of the bush before the water rose up to drown it. The monk had a very kind and loving heart, even towards a scorpion, so he attempted to help it out. But when he tried the scorpion drew back its tail and tried to sting the monk’s hand.  The monk was persistent however and kept trying, but the scorpion kept striking at his hand.

The End

Yeah, I know, we never find out what happens to the scorpion (that may be because I forgot the ending….).  But this story is a reminder of something that happens in our own lives. Often we get entangled in our sins. We may try to get out but we fail on our own. God is like the monk, trying to untangle us and help us out. But we often draw back and don’t allow him to work in our lives. We sometimes aren’t willing to trust him. We need to humble ourselves, let go of our fears, and let God take control. He is the only way to get untangled.

Hey Guys- I just wanted to share a note about something the Lord has been showing me lately. Its a big word, and for you who have been and are public schooled you may not know what it means, but the word is Reconciliation. This is a very important word that I think we overlook a lot of times. What is it? the word mean by definition “to bring into agreement or harmony” Now that you know what it means, you are probably wondering what it has to do with you and me. Well let me tell you. Begin by reading this passage from 2 Corinthians 5:17-20

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, He is a new creation. the old has passed away; the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of  reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling  the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, God making His appeal through us.”

Guys, if you are like me, the older you get, the more you realize that you really are not a good person and that there is nothing you can do about it. I find that this is a big spot of attack that Satan uses on me. He takes my failures and tears me down with them. He tries to make me feel worthless and unworthy of God’s love to me. Can you relate to that? I hope you can, because the good part about what the enemy is saying is that it is true. At least the part about being unworthy of God’s love to me. But The Awesome part is that God new all my sins when He died on the Cross for me and he forgave them all. He is not supprised when I come up with some new way to sin against Him. Its already covered in His blood. This is where reconciliation comes in. God says some amazing things in these couple verses. Lets be encouraged as we look at a couple.

#1- Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, He is a new creation. the old has passed away; the new has come.

-Now we  probably have all heard this verse and you might have been tempted to skim over it because you know it so well, but think about what it says guys, If we know Christ, the old is gone! we are new creations! this is not made up or wishful thinking. Its God’s word and its true. We are new and have the power to overcome sin.

#2-  All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of  reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling  the world to Himself,

Just like the verse states, this oppertunity to get right with God comes strait from God. this is incrediable if you take time to consider what it must be for the LORD of the universe to take the time to make a way for us to know Him. this in its self should get are blood pumping!

#3- not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
This is the best part of the whole verse. he doesn’t count our sins against us when we are right with Him. In fact he goes on to use us to extend his Love to others through us. Now if that is not frogiveness nothing is. its a complete turn around or complete making new of us. we are changed from his enemies to his friends and sevants that do his will. It truly is amazing!

Be encouraged my brothers and sister! The LORD is at work, in the world, in us, and he is returning soon!

I want to share just a few high points from my devotional today.

At His Feet  by Chris Tiegreen