Believe

Belief is something that we all start out with. We all tend to believe in something whether it be God or evolution. Belief is just something that is engrained in us. We have to believe in something and for me that something is God, God of the Bible, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, God's whole Holy Trinity. Here is a study of the word believe as it comes up in the bible. There are way more verses than the ones I am listing, but this is just a general study on it. Red lettering is my comments.

1 John 3:23
And this is His commandment that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment.

Believing in His Son Jesus Christ should cause us to love one another and help one another. We should always be willing to help those we see in need. If we shut up our hearts to them, how does God's love abide in us? (1 John 3:17)

James 2:19
You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe - and they tremble.

Most anyone you will meet will claim to believe in God. I know of 1 person who is directly honest with me, that since he doesn't have the faith or that change in his heart that proves believing in God, he chooses to say that he doesn't believe. I respect the honesty. See, even Satan and his demons believe in God. Anyone can believe. That is why there is more to this than just believing. A life changing attitude must occur as a sign on true faith. Anyone can believe, but not everyone has the faith.

1 Cor. 1:21
For since in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

The world bases belief on wisdom, but God bases belief on foolishness. It appears to be foolishness to the wise people of the world, but to those who believe it's what saves us, it's the very word of God. I can tell you that when I talk to a person that is a non-believer in Christ, they think my reasoning for doing this or doing that is foolish. Of course it will look foolish to them, it did to me once before too. But when you truly believe, you are no longer blinded by your own wisdom. God shows you His wisdom, for He is greater than us and He knows better. I like to think of people as the rebellious teenager who refuses to listen to Mom or Dad. They think they know better and Mom and Dad don't have a clue. Only to find out that the older they get the more they realize, Hey, Mom and Dad did know what they were talking about. Isn't that something!?

Romans 10:14
How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in HIm of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?

How can people pray to God if they don't believe in Jesus? Jesus is God, so if you don't believe in Jesus then "How shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed?"
People hear references of Jesus, but how much have they really heard of Him? And I am not talking about reading articles, watching documentaries, or having conversations with others about Him, but actually studying His word and studying Him. you cannot believe in something you have not heard.

And how shall they hear without a preacher? This is probably one of the reasons I get accused of preaching to others a lot. I just get so frustrated when people who don't know the real Jesus, they go off of some word-of-mouth image of Him, instead of just looking and seeking the true Him. Don't let anyone tell you their version of Jesus unless they have scripture to back it up. Every faith needs a foundation to look back to, to make sure someone isn't feeding you a line. Scripture should be that foundation if you are a Christian, or hope to be one. There are many false images of Jesus out today. Make sure you are looking after the true one, but reading the Bible. That's is where you will find the real one. Not the one people talk about on TV or the one your friend told you about, or the one you even made up yourselve, but the one in the Bible.

Romans 10:9-10
That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession ismade unto salvation.

You have to believe without a shadow of a doubt that Christ was crucified for you sins, raised from the dead. This is the core of saving faith. If you do not believe that Christ died for your sins, then how else can your sins be forgiven or atoned for? There are no works you can do. It's by his wounds we are healed.

Believe + Faith = Trust & Obedience

This is the message that our Pastor preached on this past Sunday. I thought it was a great message and I am going to do studies for the next few days (or weeks, however long it takes) or each subject so I can get a indepth study going about it. And I am posting each subject as I get done with the study. So I hope others will read this and learn something new maybe? Thanks for reading and God Bless!!

Bible Study Time!

I had orginally started this blog to post some bible studies that I have been doing. I have neglected that part for some time now. It's time I get back to that. I need to do more bible studies. God has blessed me so much with great and wonderful people to help me out when times seem tough. The least I can do is give Him as much of my time as I can. Today I had a Leep and a D&C done. Mark had to go to work and I had to watch the 2 younger ones while I was recovering. My neighbor Debbie watched Ben for me while Charlotte napped so that I could rest a bit. I told her to go ahead and bring him home when Markie and Ricky get out of school, that would give me plenty of time to rest (about 2hrs.). So she picked up Markie and Ricky from the bus stop and dropped them off and chit chatted for a while. Then she went home and called me about 5-10 minutes later to tell me that she wants to take the kids to McDonalds to eat and let them play in the playscape for a while so that I could rest some more. How great is she? I tried to give her money to pay for the kids food, which she refused to take. I really strongly feel like God has given us Debbie to be there to help us when we need it. She has truly been a huge blessing to my family and I appreciate her more than she will ever know. I decided that since I had this extra time alone, I needed to spend it in God's word. So I went through some verses that our Pastor gave us during his sermon and added what I have learned from those verses, so I just thought I would share and try to put this time alone God has given me to help spread his message. So enjoy! And I pray that this really helps others!

Homemade gifts

This year Mark and I have decided that we are going to make some homemade gifts to give out to the family. I think it's just more special this way and it will save us money! This is a hat I made for Markie using a knitting loom, it was so easy! I am going to learn how to do a scarf and gloves to match it later. I used a whole roll of yarn that cost $5.99, which I guess doesn't really save me much, since I can get a hat for that price, maybe even cheaper, but this is really thick and warm, so I think a hat this thick would cost between $10-$15 at the store, so I did save! And my lovely model is Charlotte.

Fall Pictures are here!!!

We took the kids out to the campground today to get some fall pictures. We took a bunch and it was super sunny out. After we got out of the sun and looked at the pictures we took I noticed that there was a smudge on the lens and all those pictures were junk! We couldn't tell while we were taking the pictures because the sun was so bright, we couldn't see the LCD screen on the camera. Bummer. But at least we noticed before we were done, so we were able to get some good ones still. Here they are:

Trying to catch a picture of them thowing leaves up in the air. It isn't working!

Ricky

MarkieBenjamin

Ben is Mr. Robotnic!

The boy who could fly!

This is my absolute Favorite of Ben!!

Charlotte

I really love this picture!

I really like how the sun is shining down on her in this picture!

Future Rock Climber! (I hope not!)

Our kitty decided to join us. It actually stayed by us the whole time without taking off. She would explore, but never got to far from us. She jumped in our car when we were leaving and we didn't notice she was with us until it was too late to take her home. Then we drove past a farm and smelled some really horrible poop, but later realized it wasn't the farm, but the darn cat! She pooped on our back seat! Guess she won't be making anymore family trips with us!!!

Fall pictures coming soon!

I plan on taking the kids out to the campground hopefully this weekend to get some nice fall pictures of them. We were out there last weekend and went on a hay ride and I know the perfect spot to take the kids pictures. It's right by the water with the beautiful colorful tree's in the background. I can't wait! I wanted to do it this weekend since it was gorgeous out, but the kids were seperated and we just didn't have the time. But I will definitely try to get it done this weekend and get them posted. I am also taking Markie and Ricky to a cider mill and meeting Lori there, so hopefully I will get some good fall pics there too, but I am not taking Ben or Charlotte, this trip is just for the older ones. So for now, just scroll down to see recent pics and updates on all the kiddos! Leave a comment and let me know you stopped by! Thanks for looking and reading! God Bless!!

Ricky

Ricky is doing good. He is getting the help he needs at school and is starting to do better in the learning department. He's had 2 spelling tests so far and got 100% on one and 83% on another and the 83% was due to me loosing the spelling list and not being able to go over the words with him, so he did that all on his own, which I thought was great! I have him read everynight and he has some struggles, but it's getting better. He listens real well. I hardly ever have to yell at him. Although today was the first time I seriously had to yell at him when I caught him trying to get the lit candle off the entertainment center because he said that Markie wanted the other candles to be lit. So I yelled at the both of them telling them that when they play with candles they can cause fires and when you have a fire, you loose your home, clothes, toys, everything. I think it sunk it, lol. Especially when toys are concerned. LOL. He gets to see Nick often. Every weekend since my mom has had Nick. We took all the kids to Chuck E Cheese and they had a blast. Ricky has gotten to see Anthony often too, just not as much as Nick. You can definitely tell he looks up to his older brothers. He gets to talk to his mom too. He never asks to call her though, so he doesn't talk to her as often as I would want to talk to my children if they weren't home. So when I can remember, I call his mom for him. He's learned to ride a bike, which he is super excited about. He just has a little hard time at getting started on it. He just can't seem to get that you have to make sure the peddle is on the top. But once he gets going he is flying. I have to remind him to slow down or else he's going to hurt himself bad if he falls. Here are some updated pics of him also:

Here's Ricky being goofy with the camera:

Here is another where he is taking pictures of himself, lol:Here he is camping, he was acting goofy for his brother who took the picture:And this is his first day of school picture (2nd grade). My battery died after this shot, so this is the best I got: