Thy work alone

I recently read this hymn by Horatius Bonar on another blog and it really touched me. I hope you enjoy it!

Not what my hands have done

Can save my guilty soul;

Not what my toiling flesh has borne

Can make my spirit whole.

Not what I feel or do

Can give me peace with God;

Not all my prayers,

And sighs and tears

Can bear my awful load.

Thy work alone, O Christ,

Can ease this weight of sin

Thy blood alone O Lamb of God,

Can give me peace within.

Thy love to me O God,

Not mine, O Lord, to Thee

Can rid me of

This dark unrest,

And set my spirit free!

Thy grace alone, O God,

To me can pardon speak;

Thy power alone O Son of God,

Can this sore bondage break.

No other work, save Thine,

No other blood will do,

No strength save that,

Which is divine,

Can bear me safely through.

I bless the Christ of God;

I rest on love divine;

And with unfaltering lip and heart,

I call this Savior mine.

His cross dispels each doubt,

I bury in His tomb

My unbelief,

And all my fear,

Each lingering shade of gloom.

I praise the God of grace,

I trust His truth and might

He calls me His, I call Him mine,

My God, my joy, my light

’Tis He Who saveth me,

And freely pardon gives

I love because

He loveth me,

I live because He lives!

In Christ,

Risa

Homeschool convention

This past weekend, my family and I attended an annual Homeschool Convention and Curriculum Fair. We have attended this conference twice before and greatly enjoyed the speakers, curriculum vendors, and chance to get away and enjoy each other's company. {And, of course, the opportunity to stay at a hotel always puts us in a good mood. ;)}

One of the speakers was Voddie Bauchum, and we appreciated his sessions in particular. {http://www.voddiebaucham.org/vbm/home.html} He spoke on the subjects of discipling your children, family worship, evangelism, etc. My sisters and I also attended a few of the "Teen Track" sessions which were on becoming world changers; learning styles; avoiding lies from culture, Satan and the flesh; and Christian heroes in history. In the Vendor Hall, I purchased a few books as well as "Pendragon: Sword of His Father," a movie produced by Burns Family Studios. {http://burnsfamilystudios.com/movies/pendragon/} We watched it on the evening we returned home and thoroughly enjoyed it.

We all greatly enjoyed the conference itself, the chance to be encouraged and learn and talk with other homeschoolers, but I think that spending time together while on the drive, eating out and in the hotel was the biggest pro of the trip. We always spend time together but we do not usually have the luxury of just "hanging out" with the work, school and distractions of home. My dad described our trip as "an extra-long weekend."

All in all, I really liked the trip, from the raspberry lemonade I smuggled in to the Vendor Hall {*looks sheepish*} to chatting with an old friend to staying up late with my sisters in our hotel room!

Hoping to post again soon,

Risa

Romans 12:1

As I was reading my Bible today, I kept coming back to this one verse: Romans 12:1 “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.”
I started thinking about what that really meant.
Well, the key words for me (the ones that seemed to stick out) were: Mercies, sacrifice, holy, acceptable, and reasonable. So I decided to go deeper and try to find out their real meaning.

mercy or mercies
1. compassion: kindness or forgiveness shown to an offender or to somebody a person has power over
2. compassionate disposition: a disposition to be compassionate or forgiving of others
3. something to be thankful for: a welcome event or situation that provides relief or prevents something unpleasant from happening
4. easing of distress: the easing of distress or pain
5. kindness in excess of what may be expected or demanded by fairness

That verse says that it is only by the mercies of God that we can even do any of those other things. Meaning number one says that mercy is forgiveness shown to an offender and number three says that it’s something to be thankful for (amen to that!). But I think I like what number four says the best. Easing of distress or pain. I had never really thought of mercy as that, but it sure is true. In definition number five, it says that mercy is kindness showed beyond what would be fair, which is absolutely true. If things were fair, then we would be here with no hope. But God did show mercy, and sent us His son. If it weren’t for the Lord’s mercies we would all be distressed and in pain. I don’t know about you, but I thank God for His mercies every day, and mean it with all of my heart!

sacrifice
1. giving up of something valued: a giving up, destroying, or foregoing, of something valuable or important for somebody or something else considered to be of greater value, importance, or having a more pressing claim
2. something valued and given up: something valuable or important given up as a sacrifice
3. offering to God: an offering to honor or appease God, especially of a ritually slaughtered animal or person
4. something or somebody offered to God: something or somebody offered to honor or appease God
5. symbolic offering: a symbolic offering made to God

Something I noticed while reading that is, you can’t sacrifice something to nobody. There has to be a purpose to your sacrifice, someone you are sacrificing to (God, of course).
What exactly are we sacrificing? The first two meanings of the word talk about giving up something of value. Well, we’re giving up ourselves (“I beseech you therefore…present your bodies a living sacrifice…”), into the loving hands of God. Giving up our fleshly lusts, our sinful desires, our whole human nature. Another thing: It says, “…a living sacrifice…”. Because until we give ourselves up to God, our sin nature is alive and well. We can’t fight it on our own--we need to let God help us. But after something is sacrificed, it dies.

holy
1. sacred: relating to, belonging to, or coming from God
2. saintly: devoted to the service of God
3. pure: morally and spiritually perfect
4. consecrated: dedicated or set apart for God

Whenever I would think of holy, these are the words that came to mind: God, Angels, Jesus. Though God, Jesus, and the angels are holy, we see in the first denotation of the word “holy” can just be belonging to God. But the things we do, even if we belong to God, may not be holy. Like Satan. When he was an angel, he was holy, but he still rebelled from God, giving up his holiness forever.
I think that to be holy meanings one, two, and four must all be put together. We must belong to God (otherwise how can we serve Him?), be devoted to serving Him, and set apart (and dedicated) to/for Him and only Him.
But meaning number three…well, only God and His son, Jesus, have fulfilled that. No human can be perfect, though that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive for moral and spiritual perfection.

acceptable
1. adequate: considered to be satisfactory
2. approved of: likely to gain somebody’s approval
3. welcome: likely to please the person who receives it

Well there’s only one way to be any these things to God, and that’s through Jesus Christ, who gave His life for this reason (of course He rose three days later). We see that Jesus is the only way in Isaiah 64:6, which says, “But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousness is like filthy rags; we all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” I think that that verse obviously states that we could never be “considered satisfactory” in God’s eyes unless we were covered by Jesus’ blood.

reasonable (n)
1. in accord with common sense: acceptable and according to common sense
2. not immoderate, not excessive, not unjust

“…which is your reasonable service." To me, this phrase states that it would only be logical, obvious, and sensible to “present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God”. Because He deserves your life and more. Apparently, the oppisite of reasonable would be unjust, unacceptable and nonsense. It’s only natural that we should give Him our all and our life, seeing how He gave us His all and His life.

Well, that went longer than expected. Would you add anything? What are your opinions? Comments are welcome = ).

E Sam

(most of these definitions came from Encarta World English Dictionary or Websters New Twentieth Century Dictionary)

Trudy Rose the Blue-Eyed Snufflepuss!

Yay! =D We just got a new puppy! Her old name was Blue Wrinkles Terracotta but now we changed her name to Trudy Rose the Blue-Eyed Snufflepuss (a.k.a. Trudy or Trudy Love). She's a pure-bred Shar-Pei and she is absolutely adorable!!!!! (Here is a picture of Trudy. . .chewing on my shoe :P)

At first she was going to be for the whole family, but since mom has always loved Shar-Pei's and dad put the ownership in her name and she promised to share *phew!* she's our mom's dog.

Our other pets:

Daisy...

Popcorn...

And Edward Tulane...

...are all outside pets but Trudy is going to be our inside dog.

I'll end this post with a quote from my papa. "She is so ugly, that she's cute."

ESam

Viking Quest

Just so you all know, Risa made a new post but for some reason it turned up below my Mother's Day post :-/. But please do read it! :D
I have just finished a series of books called, Vikings Quest. This is a great Christian series about an Irish girl named Brianna (a.k.a. Bree) who is captured by viking raider Mikkel. Mikkel takes her back to Norway as his slave. During this time, Bree escapes bondage, gets taken back as a slave, makes a great friend, finds a long-lost sister, goes on a four-year voyage (most of which is with Leif Erickson), falls in love, and best of all, grows in her faith with the Lord.
I would recommend this five-book series to anybody! They are great reads filled with excitement and are also filled with Christian principles. It teaches about trusting in the Lord and the importance of forgiving our enemies. And these books are very historically accurate.

Definitely books worth reading!


{This is the first book ;-)}

Sam

Bible Bee

In September I’ll be competing in a Bible Bee. Don’t know what that is? Don't worry, a month ago I didn’t know what that was either! The Bible Bee (BB) is similar to a Spelling Bee but instead of asking you to spell words they ask you to recite verse, or answer bible knowledge questions. Early in May we printed out the Bee-liever’s hand book and started practicing for the Bee. We got the handbook as soon as we could and I’m so glad we did because there are over 1900 verses and I haven’t even started to count the bible knowledge questions!
I believe it is a wonderful thing to memorize God’s word. The more you study the Word, the more you see God wants us to memorize it. Psalms 119: 9-11 says, “9 How can a young man cleanse his way?By taking heed according to Your word.10 With my whole heart I have sought You;Oh, let me not wander from Your commandments!11 Your word I have hidden in my heart,That I might not sin against You.” I believe it’s pretty obvious that if someone is searching something with their whole heart they are going to know that something pretty well. In Matthew 4 you can see that Jesus knows the Word of God and it helps Him to stay away from temptation when the Devil entices Him. It has not only helped me when temptation arouse, but it has also helped me when knowing how to live my life and witness to others. My ultimate goal is to magnify Christ. How could I if I didn't know Him? I couldn't! The only true way to know Jesus Christ is through the Word and payer.
The motto of the BB is "Learn it! Speak it! Live it! Building character. . . one verse at a time". The competition of the BB encourages you to memorize also. I believe that the Lord is happy when we get to know Him and spend time in His word, the same way a father is happy when his children spend time with him. I love the Lord and want to be as close to my Father as possible!

~Momo