26 August 2007
“Urge bondslaves to be subject to their own masters in everything, to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering but showing all good faith so that they will adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in every respect.”
- Titus 2:9-10 [EMPHASIS MINE]
This passage is addressed to the physical bondslave, but can also apply to our lives and our relationship and to God our Lord.
SUBJECT : : submission; we are to show our Master submission in EVERYTHING; do we ever jump up and say, “Yes, Lord–I love doing everything you want me to do!”?; Christ is our standard, He was consumed in fulfilling His Master’s Will; we need to do our Lord’s Will with gladness–for it is a joy to serve such a perfect Master.
WELL-PLEASING : : not just pleasing, but WELL pleasing; we need to do God’s Will with a joy and contentment with where He has us, no matter where we are or what we’re doing; do we just do a job just because we’re told to do it?; shouldn’t we do our jobs to please the Master.
NOT ARGUMENTATIVE : : do not talk back; are you a hostile slave by resisting our Master at every turn?; sinners are rebellious and want to overthrow their earthly masters and even God; do we find ourselves argumentative when we’re proven wrong?; do we argue, back-talk, or resist our parents?; do we honor our Master, Jesus Christ?.
NOT PILFERING : : do not steal for your own gain, by keeping back what is not yours, for it is not pleasing to our Lord God; how are we pilfering God?; everything that we have is God’s; do we cling on to the things that are God’s and not let the Master take them away?; we need to give everything we “own” to God, so that we may do His Will more fully.
SHOWING ALL GOOD FAITH : : demonstrate our faithfulness; show that we are faithful and trust-worthy; demonstrate utter faithfulness; how trust-worthy are you?; do we fill our commitments, or do we do a sloppy job–just to get it done?; how faithful are we to God?; we need to be faithful to our earthly masters (and be a good witness) and to our heavenly Master, Christ Jesus.
ADORN THE DOCTRINE OF GOD OUR SAVIOR : : adorn means to beautify, this is used with a spiritual application; we are to have the doctrine of God our Master in our hearts and lives, to adorn ourselves with them in every possible way with a cheerful and thankful spirit and attitude.
FINAL APPLICATION : : do not focus on making ourselves attractive, but on making the Word of God attractive; we need to rearange our lives to make the Word of God attractive, and to seek to be well-pleasing.
These are some of my notes from today’s sermon. It’s a very convicting subject, that I’m sure we all have problems dealing with. But with the Lord our Master’s help we can do GREAT THINGS FOR GOD!
18 August 2007
Mr. and Mrs. Thumbkin were joined in matrimony on August 17, 2007.
They will be honeymooning in Hip-Pocket Resort.
13 August 2007
ast night my family and I got to see parts of God’s creation we’d never seen before.
Well, I guess it was this morning, but anyways we saw some meteorites!
They were so amazing. Some would have short tails, others had long lasting tails. They were so beautiful.
I would call out “There’s one!” but no one else would see it, and they *hopefully jokingly* said that I was making it up that I saw them.
Now I can’t exactly prove it. But I did see them.
Altogether, we saw 23 meteorites. :) That’s an accumulative amount (out of the four of us) over a period of about 40 minutes.
It was so beautiful seeing God’s great and awesome creation, seeing the enormous sky and the vastness of God’s glory in His creation.
“Thus says the Lord, Who gives the sun for light by day And the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night Who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar; The Lord of hosts is His name.” – Jeremiah 31:35
WE WERE ALSO REMINDED OF HOW LARGE HIS CREATION IS BY THE PLANETARIUM AT THE CREATION MUSEUM IN KENTUCKY WHEN WE WENT A COUPLE MONTHS AGO, THE BEST AND MOST GLORIFYING TO GOD MUSEUM EVER!
6 August 2007
A week ago today was monumental for me.
The first day of school.
Oh, it has been simply wonderful. I had missed it so badly and I didn’t even know it.
Schedules help so dearly, I wouldn’t get anything done if we did not have one.
Mom, Bre, and I do a Bible study in the mornings after our quiet time. We use the books from Doorposts, we’ve been going through Polished Cornerstones, but right now we are taking a break and doing Beauty and the Pig. These studies have helped in strengthening our walks with Christ. I have been extremely encouraged and blessed through these studies.
If writing were a sandwich I’d eat it. Okay, so I was using one of the things I learned today in writing (experimenting with sentence opening). In writing we are using Student Writing Intensive Group C from The Institute for Excellence. Mom, Bre, and I have learned a lot already. The teacher, Andrew Pudewa, is simply hilarious, we’ve cracked up quite a lot while watching the lessons.
In Algebra, we are using Video Text. In my world: The best ever math program. Algebra is such fun!
For History, Geography, Literature, and everything else that can be tied in, we use Tapestry of Grace. The author, Mrs. Somerville, is amazing, she ties everything into one. It’s like relish to my day. I highly recommend it!
Within the sphere of science, we use the textbooks from Apologia Educational Ministries, Inc.
2 August 2007
A while back, Daddy was watering the strawberry patch, and he saw a little dark animal race across the yard and disappear down into a hole.
So tonight, he told Breezy and I that we would go outside and do an experiment after dinner.
Once dinner was cleaned up, we all went outside and took the water hose with us.
Daddy showed us the holes and told us about seeing the little creature.
To make the little vermin show himself, he took the hose and stuck the end in one of the little holes.
Water filled up to the top of the other three holes, and the little beast never showed himself.
Daddy thought that it might be in the strawberry patch, so he began watering it.
Out came the little guy.
A vole.
The vole raced to his holes to hide, by then the water had already seeped into the ground.
He didn’t return to the surface, so Daddy began filling the holes again with water.
Out he came.
He tried aimlessly to go down another trail, but we had closed it off.
So he did a very daring move.
He went in to the tunnel of water.
Silence.
A few seconds went by.
And out he came from a different hole, and this time he was all wet.
We watched him intently, feeling sorry for the little wet guy.
Then, all of a sudden he disappeared down an unblocked trail.
The little wet vermin was triumphant, and succeeded to get away from us creepy people.
And there ends the tale.
Do not worry, we weren’t going to hurt the little guy, we just wanted to see what he looked like.
