Reading the Bible in 52 Weeks

So one of my New Year’s resolutions (for 2009) was to read most, if not all, of the Bible. One thing led to another and, 10 months into the year, I still haven’t read as much as I would have liked.

So, recently, I’ve been wanting to revive that resolution and start to seriously reading the Bible. I realized that reading from cover to cover would get (I’m ashamed to say it) boring at times, so I did a Google search for a good reading plan and I found a site that broke it up into weeks.

Each day I will read around 2 chapters (or more depending on the length of the chapter) for that day. The course I will follow is this:

1. Sunday: Epsitles (starting with Romans)
2. Monday: The Law (starting with Genesis)
3. Tuesday: History (starting with Joshua)
4. Wednesday: Psalms
5. Thursday: Poetry (starting with Job)
6. Friday: Prophecy (starting with Isaiah)
7. Saturday: Gospels (starting with Matthew)

The website I found this at is: http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.html

So, check back here as I give updates on how I’m doing and the things I learn.

Confessing our Sins to Others

James 5:16:

“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.”

For me, it’s always happened that I’ll sin and then I’ll pray forgiveness to God in private. Recently, however, a guy from my school (Christian school) opened up and shared his testimony to the whole high school student body. That took guts, in my opinion, because his testimony included attempted suicide and sexual indecencies, moreover just living a non-Christ centered life.

So this got me thinking of all of the sins that I’ve done recently and as I was thinking about this in class, a teacher was talking about the testimony; he brought up James 5:16 (see above in big bold letters). This was one of those moments that it just dawned on me, “Oh, other people in the world sin, too. It’s not just me! In order to get help with the personal sin that I struggle with, I gotta tell someone!” So, that night, as I was praying, I asked for help and strength with what I was struggling from God, then all of the sudden that I just got the biggest immense feeling to go and talk to one of my best friends about it.  Turns out, he was struggling with it, too.

Moral of the story: You are not alone.

Don’t feel like you are the only one that sins. Furthermore, when dealing with the shame that you feel, talk to someone about it. In addition to making things right with God (and someone you might have wronged) get help from someone, whether it’s your youth pastor, your best friend, your parents, your whatever; saying, “I need your help with this.” is sometimes the best way to reconcile.

God’s Word

Well, we all know Jesus is the perfect role model of love, sacrifice, leadership, and everything you can imagine and more.  So, try reading his autobiography.  That’s right, it’s the Bible.  The Bible will show you how to live your life exactly.  It can be hard to understand sometimes, but just ask God to talk to you and reveal his wisdom to you and he will be more than happy to.  Try getting advice from someone more experienced than you to help you in your walk and your study.  God’s word is living.  It can change you if you sincerely devote time into studying and understanding it.  I don’t know about you, but the days I read the Bible go a lot better than those I don’t because you get the Holy Spirit talking to you and residing in you because you did your part.  God wants to guide you!  He wants to show you the light; not leave you in the dark.  Just do your part.  Read his word, study it, and ask him to be a part of you to reside in you and he will change your life.  The Word is his gift to us to guide us and prosper us, not confuse us.  Just READ THE WORD!  I struggle with the commitment to daily devotion and prayers would be appreciated.  Don’t expect a big emotional immediate change, but do expect a difference in your daily life if you maintain a daily relationship.  Read his word, enough said.

Your Thoughts: Good Books

What constitutes a good book? How do you know whether a book will influence you to make better decision? Catholics used to be able to rely on a “Index of Forbidden Books” but that has been abolished for quite a while. Share your thoughts and ideas on how you choose books to read, do the same principles apply to all articles you read? Do you have any specific books you want to share with the Teenz Unleashed Community?  Comment on this post, some of the comments will be posted here on the top as well as a list of recommended books. Blaze off!

FREEDOM is COMING.

Just a nice little video for those of you that like choral music.

music and lyrics? Do they show the true colors of the pop culture?

  Do lyrics of secular music really show the true color of the pop culture?  Do we really need to Idol these people like Pink, Katy perry, lily Allen, and rappers like snoop dog, eminem, and all those other artist?  If you listen to the lyrics of the songs they suggest that we rebel against authority.  Pink’s song “so what” suggest that since she are a rock star nobody has authority over her. which is biblically incorrect.  Hebrews 13:17 says “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who Will have to give an account.  Let them do this with joy and not groaning for that would be no advantage to you.”  This completely goes against the lyrics of Pink.  Now on to Katy Perry’s song “I kissed a Girl.”  The bible says marriage is suppose to be between man and woman.  this song suggest that it is alright to be lesbian.  It slowly numbs the mind to lesbian and homosexuality.  This is one of the many ways the devil can gain foothold in your life.  It just saddens me that lyrics in this world can be so corrupt.  Nobody has probably heard of Lily Allen.  She has a song called “The Fear.”  This song is the most selfish song.   One of the lines says “I want to be rich and I want lots of money I don’t care about funny I don’t care about clever.  I want loads of clothes I want loads of diamonds.  I hear people die while trying to find them.”  that is just the first ten seconds of the song.  It just goes on and on about what she wants and not to mention has language.  Are these the people we want to idolize and worship.  My theory is to not buy the stuff and not even listen too.  this is all I have to say.  It saddens me that people listen and buy this stuff.  Say what you want and please comment.  prayers and peace.

 

Written By Jay

Your Thoughts: Secular Music

This is the start of a new series of posts that will be updated with your thoughts. This weeks topic: Secular Music and music in general. Do you think it’s okay or not okay for Christian teens to listen to secular music, do you think it depends, some music okay, others not? Comment on this topic and I’ll update it on the main post. If you wanna post references or quotations to validate your thoughts that’s fine.

Giovanni: I think it’s fine for us to listen to any type of music we like as long as it’s not like rap or really bad. But Christian music is probably better, just discovered this up and coming cool band called Colma Clarity based our of California. They’re music seems really rat.

Jenna: I think that it is fine to listen to secular music, as long as it’s clean. I love christian music, but I also love some secular music. Christian music is awesome, as it encourages and we can use it as worship. But, there is also secular music that can encourage us, or is just good to listen to. When it’s all about drugs, and alcohol, and sex and degrading women A LOT, it’s not good to listen to obviously. It encourages doing these things which are wrong. But yeah, Anyway, that’s my opinion.

Daniel: I think its best to listen to just Christian music but I also believe some secular songs are okay. It depends what the song is about. With Christian bands most of the time it’s all about worshiping God and the daily struggles of life. With secular music it ranges from all types of areas and some times is okay. I believe it is wrong to listen to music that uses the Lord’s name in vain, that shows women as sexual objects, that suggest that doing drugs, and getting drunk or crunk is a good thing. Also I believe that it is wrong for bands to show selfishness/ pride for themselves and to suggest that God is not real and that sucide is right and that abortion is right. All these reasons are why I choose to listen mostly if not all the time just to Christian music.

Read all other thoughts in the comments section and leave us yours!

Praying (the Jesus way)

I’m sure that most of us pray. We have our daily prayers, “Thank you Lord for blessing me with this house, this food, my things, etc….” Recently, I’ve been thinking long and hard about how I can pray in order to glorify God (just hang with me; you’ll get it in a second.)
The shortest gospel in the Bible, Matthew, is pretty much a field-guide to who Jesus was, His teachings, and other stuff about Him (I need to brush up on that ‘other stuff’. Jesus, in one of his teachings, specifically deals with praying.

::Matthew 6:9-15::

9This, then, is how you should pray:
” ‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
10your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
11Give us today our daily bread.
12Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.[a]‘ 14For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

What I’ve gathered from this verse is that we should pray to glorify the Lord, not JUST ask him for things. Look back to your last prayer, either with a group or alone, was it something like, “My mom’s sick, God please help her…Jimmy’s Dad just died, help them through this tragedy… Lord, give me strength tomorrow in my game against our rivals…” Now, don’t get me wrong, praying for the sick is GREAT, but I think that, if we word our prayers right, we can (a) glorify God, while still (b) praying for loved ones.

So, let’s have a little example. Lately, I’ve been witnessing to some friends and I’ve been praying about it for them and me. “Lord, please give me Your Word so that I can connect with these non-believers so they, too can know You. Amen.” was a (short version) pretty common prayer that I’ve said. But in order for me to glorify Him, I could easily change the way I say the prayer. Take this, “Lord, please give me Your Words so that everything I say will only be for the glory of You, and so that I help these non-believers know you as well, so they too, can praise and glorify You. Amen.”

Something you can take away from this (hopefully this wasn’t too confusing): Pray in order to glorify God, not yourself.

~Bryce

Lighthouse Everything Skit

So I was looking on youtube today and I found this video called the “Lighthouse Everything Skit”, and I thought I would share it with everyone!

“This could be a 5-minute, 32-second summary of your life.”

Powerful stuff! If anyone knows where this was performed comment this post, thanks.

Getting Your Bearings (in kindness and forgiveness)

Forgiveness and kindness. These are qualities that we all strive to have, yet sometimes it’s hard to forgive and be kind to one another. Scripture says,

Colossians 3:12-13

“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive.”

So in other words, because God has forgiven us of our sin when Jesus was sacrificed on the cross, essentially forgiveness, we should forgive others when we stir up strife with them. Look at that italicized phrase, “bearing with one another”. Bearing with one another means, although it may seem tough to even be in the same room with someone who you are mad at, you need to bear with them. Think of the phrase “bear with me”, which means to request patience. And of course this falls completely in-line with what Jesus said in Matthew 22:37-40:

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments”

‘Love your neighbor as yourself’; although it sounds cliché, it’s true. Also called the “Golden Rule” (treat others how you would like to be treated).

And one last verse for encouragement.

1 John 15:1

“If you love me, you will obey what I command”

My youth group had a session on this today, and I thought I’d sum it up and share it with everyone!