I was going to write another post to follow up the last one but I recently went to a retreat and learned something that I feel is important to remember and share. Before I talk about it I want to briefly share why I have this blog. This blog may seem like it is used to share my thoughts and hopefully encourage other people, which it is, but there is another reason I started it as well. I want this blog to be a place where I can write down different things that I learn and can look back on. I want to be able to read this blog down the line and remember important things that I have learned. Anyway, at the retreat I went to, known as the Grace Retreat, I learned a lot of things, but one thing stuck out; consistency. Consistency is being true to principles or ideas that we have. In other words, being true to yourself. People who are consistent usually don't do things that are unexpected, and they are usually reliable and trustworthy people. They are steadfast people; people who are firm in their purpose and unwavering. Being a consistent person is very important because being true to your values is critical. It's also important because a consistent person is able to be trusted by others because they know that when you make a commitment you will deliver. A consistent person doesn't contradict himself/herself, and always adhere to what he/she believes. There are many people in the world who aren't consistent people, because they always change how they act or feel, or even what they believe. One day that person is happy about something, the next day they are sad about it. One day they have a viewpoint, the next day it changes. Consistent people do not change who they are or what they believe very easily. This doesn't mean they won't experience different emotions, because everyone does, it means that consistent people know what they believe and are able to control themselves better. So how do we become more consistent people? First of all, we need to have core values that we really believe in. One core value mentioned at the Grace Retreat was being positive. If you believe that you need to become more positive, really try to live it out. Say one nice thing to somebody everyday. To be consistent we also need to find out who we need to be and become that person. Those core values should help you achieve this. We also need to do things that will help us be consistent. A great example is reading the bible. I personally want to read the bible everyday, so I can learn different things that will help me be a more steadfast and consistent person. There is one person who is a great example of consistency- Jesus Christ. What do I mean? Jesus was the same person everyday, every minute and second. I will talk more about this and connect it to my previous post later.
-Smart
God's Holiness
"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty; the whole earth is filled of His glory"
-Isaiah 6:3
I haven't posted in a while because I haven't really thought of anything to write about. Today I wanted to talk about holiness. What is it? Many people who go to church hear that word a lot, because it is used in the bible many times. What does it mean though? Being holy means being set apart, or being sacred. A holy person might be known for being saintly or godly. I understand the second definition, but what I really like is the first one. Holiness is being set apart. Why do I like this one better? I think it describes who God is in a better way. Yes, God is a sacred being, but that is what makes Him set apart. God has so many qualities that we do not have. He never sins, lies, and He always loves. We cannot even compare to the greatness of God because we always sin, lie, and we don't love like God does. Even the best of us can't compare to God. His character is so much greater than us. We are like a shirt that has permanent stains on it, God is like a shirt that cannot be stained. If you were to see the two together it would emphasize the ugliness of the shirt with the stain. As a matter of fact, you probably shouldn't have to two shirts in the same place because you might ruin the good shirt. This is obviously a flawed example because we really can't ruin God, in fact, He would ruin us. If we were to see God as He is in our natural human state, we would die. This is the reason He is set apart, because He can't be near us, or more realistically we cannot handle His awesomeness. No one in their natural earthly state has seen God, because He is holy. In the book of Isaiah, the prophet Isaiah sees God sitting on His throne, and seraphs (I guess angel like beings) said "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty." Notice that they say holy three times to stress God's holiness. Even these seraphs had to cover their faces because even they could not handle being in the almighty presence of God. Then Isaiah said to himself "Woe is me! I am ruined, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty." The prophet Isaiah could not bear to be in God's presence because he was a sinful man. As I said before, being near God emphasizes the ugliness of ourselves. So what can we do about this? How can we have a relationship with a holy God who cannot be with us? Well, actually He can, but that will be covered at a later time.
-Smart
-Isaiah 6:3
I haven't posted in a while because I haven't really thought of anything to write about. Today I wanted to talk about holiness. What is it? Many people who go to church hear that word a lot, because it is used in the bible many times. What does it mean though? Being holy means being set apart, or being sacred. A holy person might be known for being saintly or godly. I understand the second definition, but what I really like is the first one. Holiness is being set apart. Why do I like this one better? I think it describes who God is in a better way. Yes, God is a sacred being, but that is what makes Him set apart. God has so many qualities that we do not have. He never sins, lies, and He always loves. We cannot even compare to the greatness of God because we always sin, lie, and we don't love like God does. Even the best of us can't compare to God. His character is so much greater than us. We are like a shirt that has permanent stains on it, God is like a shirt that cannot be stained. If you were to see the two together it would emphasize the ugliness of the shirt with the stain. As a matter of fact, you probably shouldn't have to two shirts in the same place because you might ruin the good shirt. This is obviously a flawed example because we really can't ruin God, in fact, He would ruin us. If we were to see God as He is in our natural human state, we would die. This is the reason He is set apart, because He can't be near us, or more realistically we cannot handle His awesomeness. No one in their natural earthly state has seen God, because He is holy. In the book of Isaiah, the prophet Isaiah sees God sitting on His throne, and seraphs (I guess angel like beings) said "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty." Notice that they say holy three times to stress God's holiness. Even these seraphs had to cover their faces because even they could not handle being in the almighty presence of God. Then Isaiah said to himself "Woe is me! I am ruined, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty." The prophet Isaiah could not bear to be in God's presence because he was a sinful man. As I said before, being near God emphasizes the ugliness of ourselves. So what can we do about this? How can we have a relationship with a holy God who cannot be with us? Well, actually He can, but that will be covered at a later time.
-Smart
Rising
This is a very weird topic for me to blog about, but with the next movie in my favorite movie series coming out I thought I would talk a bit about it (kinda). The movie I'm referring to (if you haven't guessed) is "The Dark Knight Rises". This movie is getting a whole lot of hype because the previous movie "The Dark Knight" was really good. When I first heard that the title of the new Batman movie was going to be "The Dark Knight Rises", I wondered why the title was so weird. It only added one word to the title of the previous movie, the word "rises". The next question that came up was, why did they choose that title? What does it mean to rise? Obviously this doesn't mean the literal meaning of something that is raised or lifted. It also doesn't mean for someone to get up or anything like that. It means something more than that. However, it does use those definitions for a symbolic meaning. For something to rise, it has to be in a place to rise or have fallen. I think this is significant for the movie because in "The Dark Knight" Batman was chased by the police and admits to killing people even though he didn't. His reputation has fallen and he is now known as a bad person rather than a hero. It is said by multiple people in the movie that Batman is not a hero, but whatever Gotham needs him to be. In this case Batman takes responsibility for Harvey Dent's actions, making him a murderer. He does this to protect the image that people have of Harvey Dent and to give them hope. The point is that at the end of the movie Batman is no longer the hero people knew him as and has fallen. I think the new movie is titled the way it is because Batman has to rise up and become that hero again because Gotham needs him when they are attacked. How does he do that? I don't know because I haven't seen the movie yet. Sometimes in sports when a team is losing, a person on the losing team will rise up and get the team back in the game. How do they do that? They put more focus and energy into what they are doing and they genuinely want to win. If you feel like you've fallen and you want to rise up, or you just want to do better, you have to believe in what you are doing. If you don't believe in yourself and what you are doing, you'll never be able to rise up and accomplish anything. An important step in rising up is to believe in yourself. Another important thing you need is other people to raise you up.You need people to encourage you and keep you going. Encouragement can do a lot for you especially when you feel down on yourself. Don't underestimate other people's ability to raise you up. Sometimes it may feel like people just won't help you or they fail you. Unfortunately, people will do that. I believe that we have an inclination to rely on other people because we know we aren't perfect and we need other people to lift us up. However, we can't rely on other people because they fail just like we do. I believe we need someone that won't fail and will always want to help us rise.
-Smart
-Smart
Seek
"seek and you will find"
-Matthew 7:7b
Today I want to talk a little about seeking. We all know what seek means in its most basic form- to look or search for. To look, search, and seek all mean the same thing, but we use them at different times. We use to look when we lost something and we are looking for it. We use searching as kind of a more extreme version of to look for. Seek is a little different than that definition though. We don't normally say we are seeking something when we lost it. Actually we don't use the word very often at all. Two different times we use the word seek is when we are talking about a non-concrete item (I am seeking the truth) or when we are talking about trying to find a person. So why is this important? When you read Matthew 7:7b (above) you will notice that the Bible uses the word seek. This is significant. Why? Because no one uses the word seek when they are talking about something that is unimportant. Also as I said before, this probably means the verse is referring to finding either something non-concrete or a person. Let's suppose that it is talking about a non-concrete. What is this telling us? If you seek for something like the truth, you will find it. If you seek for something like meaning in life, you will find it. While I can see why people might take this interpretation, but I don't think this is the right one. How can you ever find the truth or the meaning of life or something like that? You can't really. Also, as I said before in my post about truth, when you want to seek truth you have to seek Jesus. In the rest of the verse which I didn't post, it says "knock and the door will be opened to you (Matthew 7:7c)". An abstract idea cannot open doors. That would be ridiculous. So now that we know that we are supposed to be seeking a person, who do we seek? That answer is obvious, and I said it already. We have to seek Jesus. He is the only person or thing that can give us meaning to life and truth, and anything else we are seeking. The more important and difficult question is how do we seek Jesus? There are many things you can do to seek Him. However, I won't point all of them out today, I just want to make one important statement. Jesus is a person. How do you seek a person? You have to put time and effort into looking for them, and you have to have a relationship with them. You might be saying, "wait, that's not what seeking means", but I believe it is a part of it. If you are seeking someone you are probably also seeking a relationship with that person. You can't just find Jesus and be content, you have to keep seeking Him all the time, and learn more about Him. You can't know a person just by finding them once, you have to keep talking to them and spending time with them. It's exactly the same with Jesus.
-Smart
-Matthew 7:7b
Today I want to talk a little about seeking. We all know what seek means in its most basic form- to look or search for. To look, search, and seek all mean the same thing, but we use them at different times. We use to look when we lost something and we are looking for it. We use searching as kind of a more extreme version of to look for. Seek is a little different than that definition though. We don't normally say we are seeking something when we lost it. Actually we don't use the word very often at all. Two different times we use the word seek is when we are talking about a non-concrete item (I am seeking the truth) or when we are talking about trying to find a person. So why is this important? When you read Matthew 7:7b (above) you will notice that the Bible uses the word seek. This is significant. Why? Because no one uses the word seek when they are talking about something that is unimportant. Also as I said before, this probably means the verse is referring to finding either something non-concrete or a person. Let's suppose that it is talking about a non-concrete. What is this telling us? If you seek for something like the truth, you will find it. If you seek for something like meaning in life, you will find it. While I can see why people might take this interpretation, but I don't think this is the right one. How can you ever find the truth or the meaning of life or something like that? You can't really. Also, as I said before in my post about truth, when you want to seek truth you have to seek Jesus. In the rest of the verse which I didn't post, it says "knock and the door will be opened to you (Matthew 7:7c)". An abstract idea cannot open doors. That would be ridiculous. So now that we know that we are supposed to be seeking a person, who do we seek? That answer is obvious, and I said it already. We have to seek Jesus. He is the only person or thing that can give us meaning to life and truth, and anything else we are seeking. The more important and difficult question is how do we seek Jesus? There are many things you can do to seek Him. However, I won't point all of them out today, I just want to make one important statement. Jesus is a person. How do you seek a person? You have to put time and effort into looking for them, and you have to have a relationship with them. You might be saying, "wait, that's not what seeking means", but I believe it is a part of it. If you are seeking someone you are probably also seeking a relationship with that person. You can't just find Jesus and be content, you have to keep seeking Him all the time, and learn more about Him. You can't know a person just by finding them once, you have to keep talking to them and spending time with them. It's exactly the same with Jesus.
-Smart
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