2 Peter 3:10-11
The day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives.

Thoughts on today's verse

Holiness is that forgotten character virtue that is the Christian's reflection of God, his or her holy and righteous Father. In a day of cheap grace, when anything goes just as long as we want to be buddies with Jesus, Peter's words should shock us into reverence - the commitment in life to set our lives apart from the evil and sludge that defiles our hearts and to offer our bodies, hearts, and minds to do his will and reflect his character.
Prayer:

Holy and Righteous Father, teach me to do your will and reflect your character while offering your grace. May the movements of my heart, the thoughts of my mind, and the actions ! of my life be pleasing to you and reflect your holiness and grace. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.'

Beautifully Stated

As we grow up, we learn that even the one person that wasn't supposed to ever let you down probably will. You will have your heart broken probably more than once and it's harder every time. You'll break hearts too, so remember how it felt when yours was broken. You'll fight with your best friend. You'll blame a new love for things an old one did. You'll cry because time is passing too fast, and you'll eventually lose someone you love. So take too many pictures, laugh too much, and love like you've never been hurt because every sixty seconds you spend upset is a minute of happiness you'll never get back.

Don't be afraid that your life will end, be afraid that it will never begin.

anonymous

"I Believe"

Have a seat....relax...and read this slowly.

I Believe


I believe-
That we don't have to change
friends if we understand that friends change.

I believe-
That no matter how good a friend is,
they're going to hurt you every once in a
while and, you must forgive them for that.

I believe-
That true friendship continues
to grow, even over the longest distance.
Same goes for true love.

I believe-
That you can do something in an instant
that will give you heartache for life.

I believe-
That it's taking me a long time
to become the person I want to be.

I believe-
That you should always leave loved ones with
loving words. It may be the last time you see them

I believe-
That you can keep going long after you can't.

I believe-
That we are responsible for
what we do, no matter how we feel.

I believe-
That either you control your attitude
or it controls you.

I believe-
That regardless of how hot and steamy a
relationship is at first, the passion fades and there
had better be something else to take its place.

I believe-
That heroes are the people who do what
has to be done when it needs to be done,
regardless of the consequences.

I believe-
That money is a lousy way of keeping score.

I believe-
That my best friend and I can do anything
or nothing and have the best time!

I believe-
That sometimes the people you expect to kick you when
you're down, will be the ones to help you get back up.

I believe-
That sometimes when I'm angry I have the right to
be angry, but that doesn't give me the right to be cruel.

I believe-
That just because someone doesn't love you the way you want
them to doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have.

I believe-
That maturity has more to do with what types of experiences
you've had and what you've learned from them and less to
do with how many birthdays you've celebrated.

I believe-
That it isn't always enough to be forgiven by others.
Sometimes you have to learn to forgive yourself.

I believe-
That no matter how bad your heart is
broken the world doesn't stop for your grief.

I believe-
That our background and circumstances may have influenced
who we are, but we are responsible for who we become.


I believe-
That just because two people argue, it
doesn't mean they don't love each other, And just
because they don't argue, it doesn't mean they do.

I believe-
That you shouldn't be so eager to find
out a secret. It could change your life forever.

I believe-
That two people can look at the exact
same thing and see something totally different.


I believe-
That your life can be changed in a matter
of hours by people who don't even know you.

I believe-
That even when you think you have no more to give, when a
friend cries out to you - you will find the strength to help.

I believe-
That credentials on the wall do not make
you a decent human being.

I believe-
That the people you care about most in
life are taken from you too soon.

Nothing that we despise in the other man is entirely absent from ourselves," wrote Dietrich Bonhoeffer while awaiting execution in a Nazi prison. "We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer."

Related articles and links



I read Bonhoeffer while touring the three tiny Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. As I was exploring country roads and cobblestone streets, hostilities broke out between Israel and Hezbollah, giving me much opportunity to practice Bonhoeffer's principle on how to regard people.

Israel. You cannot understand the Israeli mindset unless you visit a scene from the Holocaust: Auschwitz, Dachau, or perhaps the Paneriai forest on the outskirts of Lithuania's capital. There, Nazis converted storage pits designed for oil tanks into open graves. As trains full of Lithuania's Jews arrived daily at the tiny Paneriai station, ss guards marched the Jews to the pits and systematically shot them. The practice continued for two years, and corpse burners reduced the bodies to bones and ashes to make room for more bodies. At least 70,000 Jews perished in the pits.

I visited Paneriai on a cloudless summer day. Located amid a pine forest, its dark green background was interrupted by an occasional white birch tree. Although butterflies flitted among the wildflowers, the forest seemed oddly void of birds, as if nature itself recognized a place of haunting. I walked from pit to pit, each labeled with the exact number of people massacred: 7,898 here, 5,423 there. In a small museum, the recovered diaries of neighbors report matter-of-factly how many trains arrived each day, how many died, how long the shooting lasted. Blood had seeped into the ground I walked on; human ashes had blended with the soil.

One photo imprinted itself on my mind, and to this day I cannot erase it. Bored Nazis had forced five women to strip to their old-fashioned bloomers underwear and pose. They stand at the edge of a burial pit, and the foreground shows the pile of corpses they will join as soon as the guards put down cameras and take up guns. The women seem like ghosts staring, with a look at once haunted and helpless, victims of an evil beyond comprehension.

Every Israeli citizen knows that look. They read about it in schoolbooks, honor the victims in their own museums, and visit the hallowed sites in Europe. When terrorists and the president of Iran vow to wipe Israel off the map, they take the threat seriously. Israelis have a Masada complex because they have a Masada history.

Plastic

Aronofsky: I buy it. I think we live in a very critical time. Every plastic bottle of drinking water that we've produced is going to be around for 10,000 years, at the minimum.

elections

Whether we agree with our leaders or not we have an obligation to participate in the privilege we have in this country--voting. If we don't vote then we have lost the opportunity we have in this country to influence who will make decisions that effect us in the future. Is it a perfect system--by no means--but if we don't utilize what our ancestors put in place I don't believe that we should complain about how the system works.

Romans 13:6
This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

Thoughts on today's verse

Ouch! I hate taxes. But I have to admit, I enjoy many of the privileges and blessings that those taxes afford. Paul keeps reminding us in Romans 13 that civil authorities are God's tools to hold back anarchy, chaos, and lawlessness. As a Christian, I'm immune to most laws because my faith in Jesus is going to regulate my behavior far more strictly than a legal code. But I do have a responsibility (I owe it, Paul says) to be a good citizen, a good financial manager, a nice respectful neighbor, and a person who willingly honors those who have merited it.
Prayer:

Almighty God, I pledge allegiance to you. You alone are Sovereign, Ruler, and King. But because you call me to honor my government, because you have so richly blessed me to be in a land such as this, because you have lavished your grace on me so richly, I will live today in a way that honors my allegiance to you, my citizenship in my country, and my respect toward those whom I meet this day. In Jesus I pray. Amen.