The Importance of Accountability!

The importnace of accountability was made very clear to me today while reading Daniel 4. This chapter talks about Mr. Neb(See Simon Says post) and a dream he has. Once again he has a strange dream and none of his peeps(magician, diviners, ect.) can interpret the dream. But Daniel can with God's help. At the beginning of the chapter Mr. Neb calls God the MOST HIGH, and he says, "How great are his signs, how mighty his wonders! His kingdom is an eternal kingdom; his dominion endures from generation to generation." Sounds like he really loves God, right?? Daniel interprets this strange dream Mr. Neb has and Daniel basically tells Mr. Neb, "You aren't truly calling God the MOST HIGH GOD! Get rid of the pride and be humbled. You better get your life straight with God, or God will strip you of everything!" Mr. Neb heard Daniel but he eventually he forgot what Daniel had said. Just 12 months later, Mr. Neb was stripped of everything. Jesus knew that Mr. Neb needed to be stripped of everything before he could truly say that God is the MOST HIGH God because no one was helping him get rid of the pride and allowing himself to be humbled. My thoughts are, What if Mr. Neb would have been held accountable to what Daniel had said? What if someone would have taken the time to sit with him one on one and help him to realize how important Jesus is? Would Mr. Neb have been able to turn his life around and live for God without having to do it the hard way, by being stipped of everything??? What if the one way for Christians these days to truly live an active life of worship and be the Shadrack's, Meschacks, and Abednegos of today is through accountablitly?? I know that I can't today it all by myself. No one can. That is why I believe accountablitly is so important. I have/and still am learning so much from Jesus but it is also important to have a person on earth who can step out and tell you when you are straying from the path of righteousness, or who can tell you what an amazing job you are doing at something!!! Either way, accounability is important!!!

See you at the pole

I got up this morning and was at school my 7am for See You At The Pole. As it turns out I played my guitar and led all the worship songs!!! That may seem like no big deal to you ppl who go to church w/me because I do it all the time, but people at school don't know who I am, don't know I play guitar, and don't know I can sing and lead worship, so ppl were impressed. Me and my friend Nikki basically lead the whole deal this morning. Tonight is See You AFTER the Pole which apparently I am singing with the band Forver Now because Jenn picked me and HiL to sing with them so that should be fun! Just a few minutes ago I was checking some stuff on the computer and this grasshopper just dropped down from the ceiling onto the desk and then hopped behind the computer, it kinda just freaked me out because I wasn't ready for it. Anways, me and Kate are road tripping to IWU and I am going to meet with the admissions people there and all that fun stuff. WOOT WOOT!!! Ok, I'll update again later but until then...ADIOS AMIGOS!!! Me Llamo Krista :)

TODAY IS LAUREL'S 16 BDAY!

Last night, me and Andrew attended the pre-rally's for See You At The Pole. Just for the reconrd, we were the only two ppl there at the high school one for Iowa...from Heritage. It went well. There was worship, then a guy named Ted Haggard spoke(but it wasn't the one from colorado...darn!!) then we got into groups by school and prayed and then he had youth leaders go to the front and pray for the students, but no one went for us cause there wasn't a leader there for us. We decided it no problem because we are student leaders ourselves, so no big deal. I then took Andrew home and went home myself. I attempted to make french toast, but that didn't work well the first time so I had mymom make some for me. I did devotions and then was in bed by 9:30, so I got a full night of sleep. Today, I drank a whole Nalgene bottle in school. So, I'm def. not dehydrated today. I am currently over at the ppl's house that I babysit for and I'm not in the mood to do my homework but I will start it eventually. School just wore me out today, and when I got here I fell asleep on the chair and woke up to one of the boys saying, "I finished reading my Harry Potter book!" "Cool!!!" I responded and then slowly woke up again. TODAY IS LAUREL'S BITHDAY!!!!!!!!! SHE IS 16!!!!! So, HAPPY BIRTHDAY LAUREL!! You are sooo awesome! I LOVE YOU SOOO MUCH!!!

Wonderful Weekend

This weekend has been GREAT so far!!! Last night Me, Andrew, Kate, Jeff, Suzi,Marissa, Whitney, Lindsey, Bekah, and Kirbi got together at Suzi's and watched Saved which I thought was hilarious. Then I spent the night at Kate's and this morning we cooked breakfast. WAY TO GO KATE....it was an impressive meal. Then me, kate and jeff went to Aledo where I met my parents and we all hung out for the 150th aniversary of the town. The parade was great and Marsha(Jeff's mom) knew everyone which was hilarious! Tomorrow is Church, Creative Christmas, and then a pre-rally for see you at the pole. This weekend has been great, and I hope it continues to be great!!!

Simon Says

I began reading the book of Daniel today. Kate and I talked some about Daniel's visions as we were getting some background info on revelations(which we are currently going through!!), so I decided I'd look deeper into the book of Daniel. You all know what the game of Simon says is, the person leading the game(who is often referred to as Simon) says to do something and if Simon says it you do it. King Nebuchadnezzar must have loved to play this game. We will call him Mr. Neb. He would say do this, and people would do it fearing the rath of the king. For example, in Daniel 2 Mr. Neb had a strange dream and he wanted one of his enchanters, magician, or diviners to interpret it for him, and if they didn't he threatened to kill them. Well, no human being could do this, so of coarse they couldn't fulfill his request, so they were killed. Rough game of Simon says huh? I was reading on and something caught my attention. You must understand I have heard the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego plenty of times. I was one of those faithful sunday school kids. Well, as I read it these verses stuck out to me, "IF we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand. But even if he DOES NOT, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up." (Daniel 3:17-18) It's like they are saying, "You know what Mr. Neb, we don't need to prove anything to you. We are tired of this Simon says junk! We know that our God can save anyone from any situation, so you don't need to try to scare us by saying you'll throw us in your big bonfire. And even if God chooses not to spare our lives we want to make one thing clear to you before we die....We will NOT serve or worship your gods, we only serve the ONE and ONLY true God." Standing up to a king like that must have taken some real guts!!! They seriously just put their lives on the line. I'm so tired of Christians these days just going with the flow, and playing Simon says. When will we stand up for what we believe in and live an active life of worship? When will we become the Shadrach, Meshach and Abednegos of today???

The Holy Spirit

Tonight at the fruity life bible study I taught on the Holy Spirit, it went something like this.

1- Jesus Promised Us the Holy Spirit (John 14:15-21)

*Jesus didn’t want to leave us hangin when he went back to Heaven so he left us a counselor (Holy Spirit). In verse 17 it says we can’t see him but he lives with and in us. I think this means that the Holy Spirit does live in us. I think of the song Holy Spirit take control. Holy Spirit take control, fan the flames within my soul, breathe down deep within my spirit, strong fire burn. In verse 19 it says “the world will not see me anymore but you will see me.” One way we can see Jesus, is through the Holy Spirit working through people. People who love God and obey his commands (verse 15).

2- Work of the Holy Spirit (John 16:7-8, 13-14)

* The Holy Spirit is our Counselor. A counselor is someone who leads you along a right path. Another good word for counselor is a guide. This is exactly what the Holy Spirit is. Verse 8 says, “he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment.” Verse 13 says, “The holy spirit will guide you into all truth.” Verse 14, “ He will bring glory to me.” The Holy Spirit works as our counselor and brings glory to God.

3-Life By the Spirit (Galatians 5:16-17, 22-25)

* We are commanded to live by the Spirit. Our sinful nature wants to do the opposite of what the Spirit wants to do. How do we know if we are living by the spirit? We know this if our lives produce the fruit of the spirit which are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. This means that every day we need to wake up and make the decision to die to our sinful nature and live by the fruits of the Spirit. When we do that Acts 1:8 says, “ But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

So there are some of my thoughts on the Holy Spirit. If you were at the bible study let me know how you think it went, if not...you can decide for youself based on this! Leave some love :)

The Lakehouse...

Today, I spent my labor day at the Sandry's lake house. I went swimming, water skiing and kneeboarding. Currently my favorite thing to do there is kneeboard. I mastered doing it backwards today! It's just so much fun on the lake!!! Now I am going to just relax because I've been crazy busy since school started and I just need some time to chill. Leave some love... :)