The purpose if school is to prepare people for life by providing them with the skills and knowledge they need to be productive members of society.
The world has seriously let us down, by the way they prepare young people for life.
Schooling in America lets society down. When they choose to push their racist and gender confusion ideology.
They have ruined a generation, young people lack so many skills today. Paired with how technology has caused digital distraction leading to decreased productivity and negative impacts on mental and emotional health. It’s a cocktail for disaster.
Excessive screen time can negatively affect our lives in various ways, including disrupted sleep, impacting mental health by increasing anxiety and depression, reducing social  interaction, hindering, cognitive ability, and children, and potentially contributing to obesity due to decrease physical activity.
We see every day what screen time does to our children, it is important to set limits on screen time and practice, mindfulness.  excessive screen time for babies and toddlers lead to shorter attention, spans and lowers empathy for others.
Using social media excessively impairs attention and cognitive function, and social interaction, which potentially leads to a distorted perception of the world and leads to struggle in real life situations.
“My Son (children) don’t forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments, for length of days, and years of life and peace, they will add to you. Don’t let kindness and truth forsake you. Bind them around your neck. Write them on the tablets of your heart“ -Proverbs 3:1-3
The beginning of wisdom is, on the positive side, honoring God by knowing and fearing Him properly. But at the same time, this implies a negative command: guarding your mind in order to keep it free of errors. Simply knowing the truth isn’t enough, we must keep ourselves from losing or corrupting the truth. We must, as Solomon said, engrave it on the tablet of our hearts.
In English “heart” means to talk to your emotions. And in Hebrew the “heart’ is a persons mind – their thoughts and their will.
Solomon says in Proverbs 4:23,
“Watch over your heart with all diligence. For from it flow the springs of life.”
So Solomon is saying, guard your mind and your thoughts because they will determine how you live your life.
“Remain in Me, and I in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself but must remain in the vine, so neither can you remain in Me” -John 15:4 (NASB)
Trim a long off a tree and what happens? That limb will never grow another inch. Accidentally cut off a limb, and that limb is cut off from its source of life.
We are seeing the consequences of a nation that has rejected God.
If you’ve ever been on a road trip with a toddler, you’ve probably experienced the struggle of trying to keep them in their car seat for hours on end. They don’t understand that the restraints are keeping them safe, and that ultimately you love them and know what is best.
So it is with mankind and God.
From the beginning of creation until now, people have tried to cast off every restraint on them by the loving hand of God. Not willing to yield to the perfect will of the Father, nations have rejected God’s authority again and again.
Though the Lord remains faithful, He also maintains justice, and there are consequences to rejecting His authority.
The first on is that they will get what they asked for.
They soon forget His works, they don’t listen to counsel, but lust after immoral things, but sadly their flesh is never satisfied, and their soul is parched like a dry and thirsty land with no water.
Apart from God, they are alienated.
We are being threatened by moral deterioration. We are plunging deeper and deeper, at a rapid speed. Honesty and truthfulness have been thrown out the window along with morals and values. The nation is on a mad pursuit of amusement, pleasure and immorality.
The same symptoms that were in Rome during its last days are now seen and felt in America. Everything is centered on sex.
I turned on the television a while back to watch a home-improvement show. I was shocked to see it was laced with immoral sexual behaviors.
We are being consumed by our own falsehoods, and God is removing His hand of protection, which we are suffering unnecessarily. We are left to our own devices.
When humans persist in sin despite God’s frequent attempts to call them toward obedience and to warn them of what will happen if they continue down the path they are on, there comes a point where, sometimes, God simply withdraws His hand of protection and allows people to suffer the consequences for their sin, for chaos to reign, and for Satan to bring death and destruction. God always warns us before His judgment.
God is turning His face away from us. We are becoming a perverse nation, who have no faith.
Unless we turn back to God as a nation, we will destroy ourselves.
“If God is for us, who can be against us? -Roman’s 8:31
Before the batter had even begun, God told Joshua He had delivered Jericho into Joshua’s hands.
We don’t really like to talk about battles or wars anymore. The idea of everyone co-existing sounds really nice. But it will never happen.
Until Jesus returns and He brings Judgment on the earth, battles and wars will remain. No matter how peaceful we want our lives to be, the truth is our lives, this side of heaven, will have conflict.
Many people have an unseen war going on raging against them. Fighting us and trying to keep us from embracing who we are in Christ.
Ephesians 6:12 reminds us,
“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places.”
While that is true, we are not to be discouraged or feel defeated. Jesus has already fought the ultimate battle on the cross and won. Because of Jesus, we fight these battles from a place of victory, not defeat.
I think this is something our country and around the world, we should embrace as truth. The fight is in the spiritual realm not the earthly realm.
God’s warfare tactics are not like ours. In Joshua 2-6 it gives some pretty detailed commands that God gave to Joshua.
Joshua obeyed God no matter how crazy His military tactics sounded. God basically tells Joshua to attack Jericho with some marching men, trumpet-carrying priests, the Ark of the Lord, and some shouts from all the people. Joshua obeyed because He trusted God. He knew God will do what He said He would do.
Through those crazy military tactics, God’s amazing power is displayed to an evil nation and His own watching children.
The unconstitutional military tactics God gave Joshua we’re as much for the evil nation as they were for God’s people.
God does the same for us today through His Word.
God is for us, not against us, we need to listen for His voice and obey Him even if His tactics sound crazy.
Maybe your city of “Jericho“ is in your life to show you, and the believing world around you, just how powerful God is.
Do what He says and watch as God tears down your “Jericho” walls before you’re very eyes.
There is no situation, no pain, no sin so great the God cannot handle and no problem too big for His mighty hands.
God promises us He will never leave us or forsake us. We do not simply fight for victory we fight from victory. Because Jesus has already won the battle.
He promises that if we obey that we will have the the victory.
In three years I hope I will have grown and learned much more than I know now. Without growth and knowledge, the passage of time would be worthless.
Hopefully, I will have learned how to respond better to situations on my journey through life. Every circumstance allows us to reframe our mindset to ultimately make our lives happier.
Many people are focused on achieving fleeting things like wealth, success, or fame. These only provide temporary happiness. I would out of all these things I can work towards personal growth which leads to contentment.
Personal growth is about overcoming our natural tendency to respond quickly to negative situations. Controlling how we respond to any situation opens up a world of possibilities.
Invent a holiday! Explain how and why everyone should celebrate.
I don’t think we should invent any holidays. I think we should celebrate the ones the we have the way there were meant to to celebrated
Easter was meant to be celebrated Jesus who was killed, and in 3 days He rose again. He was our Passover lamb that saved us from our sins. We should celebrate that He rose again. Not the commercialized holiday it has become. Easter is not about the bunny or the eggs it’s about the Lamb.
Christmas was meant to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Our greatest gift ever received. There is nothing wrong with giving gifts, but again America was commercialized it so much, that people put themselves in debt trying to buy gifts when they should be celebrating Jesus as our Lord and Savoir. Christmas is not about the gifts but the greatest gift of all.
We have moved so far away from the “true” meanings of these holidays that we have lost our way.
If you want to give gifts, try baking some cookies, or some fudge and giving from your heart and spending a little time with that person. That will mean so much more than any gift you’ve gone them and you won’t go into debt to buy.
When God separates for His purposes there becomes a time when our friend circle becomes smaller. Personal growth tests our circle of friends.
We definitely find out who our true friends are when we choose to follow Jesus. Failure friends have a way of testing our Christian values in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.
True friends support you and your beliefs allowing you to grow spiritually. This is a complex social landscape, these tests from fake friends can come in various forms and guises.
Being a follower of Jesus means navigating these challenges with grace and wisdom.
Fake friends have a knack for disrespecting biblical values. They challenge your beliefs, and some make you second-guess your faith. It’s not always blatant, sometimes it’s as subtle as a sarcastic remark or dismissive attitude toward our values and beliefs.
They put you in situations where you have to defend your faith which often goes against popular opinion.
But a true friend will respect your beliefs, and values, even if they don’t share them.
It’s something we should watch out for and is a clear indication that we are being tested by fake friends.
I had a friend who constantly wanted to put me in situations that conflicted with my values. She would invite me to her house for a little get-together, with people who would intentionally say things that would go against my beliefs and values just to make me feel uncomfortable. She would constantly test my ability to uphold my values in challenging situations.
It’s not easy to stand up against peer pressure, especially when it comes to friends. But true friendship is about respect and understanding, not about forcing someone into uncomfortable situations.
Our circle of friends can greatly influence our behavior and attitudes.
Fake friends often encourage negative behavior that goes against our beliefs and values. They promote gossip, dishonesty, and other actions that don’t align with the teachings of the Bible.
God holds up to a higher standard. If you notice someone in your life who encourages behaviors that clash with your beliefs and values, it could be a sign they are testing your resolve.
I like to think God sifts out our relationships. He removes people from our lives to prepare us for better things to come. He helps us move in the direction He intends us to go.
God’s truth is made up of three things. Revelation, Inspiration and Illumination. These are important truths that are used in explaining the giving of Scripture by God, the recording of scripture and the understanding of it by believers. Therefore, it is Crucial that we comprehensive exactly what each if these terms mean and how they relate to each other.
We also need to understand the differences between these terms. These can be stated simply,
Revelation: the giving of divine truth
Revelation is God revealing His truth to humanity. This truth could not be discovered through any type of human reasoning. It is entirely a work of God.
2. Divine Inspiration: the recording of divine truth.
Divine inspiration is concerned with the recording of truth. It refers to God supervising the writers of scripture to say exactly what He wanted to say. The result was Ho, y Scripture -the Bible.
3. Illumination: the understanding of divine truth by believers only.
Illumination is something we can experience through the work of the Holy Spirit. It refers to God giving understanding to His people of what His written Word means.
Before I was born again or even prayed, I tried reading the Bible and did not understand any of it. It honestly was a bunch of gibberish to me. It wasn’t until after I was born again and prayed for God to help me understand what I was reading that I began to understand.
Revelation is the disclosure of God’s truth to humanity, divine inspiration is the communication of that truth in written form. And illumination is the understanding of that truth. They can work separately, or together.
Sometimes there is divine inspiration, the recording of God’s truth, without revelation which is the supernatural giving of God’s truth. There’s an example of this in Luke 1:1-4,
“Inasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having things from the very first, to write to you an orderly account most excellent Theophilus that you may know the certainly of those things in which you were instructed.”
Luke wants to inspire others, to his collected truth in the form of eyewitness accounts, facts, and evidence from the early church. We can learn from out elders (from generation to generation. Luke was present for many crucial events in the early church and was a co-worker with the Apostle Paul. In his travels, he likely met many key figures in Jesus’s earthly ministry. Biblical faith has always placed great emphasis on truth and reason. We don’t know who Theophilus is exactly. But we do know Luke seeks to strengthen his faith in the truth being taught about Jesus.
While Luke based his gospel on a variety of sources, the end result was divinely inspired scripture, but not divine revelation.
I cannot imagine not learning the things I have from my pastor. If you can I urge you to get connected with a Bible-believing church. And ask as many questions as you can to the elders. I used to feel dumb asking questions, but really there are no dumb questions when you want to learn about God and His Word.
Usually, divine inspiration and divine revelation go together. Revelation 1:1-2 says,
“The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him (John) to show His servants things which must shortly take place. And He sent and signified it by His angel His servant John, who bore witness to the Word of God, and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, to all things that he saw. Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of his prophecy, and keep those things which are written I it, for the time is near.”
God divinely revealed these truths to John and then divinely guided the writings of the Book. This divine revelation, the giving of truth, worked with divine inspiration, the recording of that truth.
Divine inspiration can also occur with illumination. The writer would then understand the divine revelation they back been given. Paul wrote,
“For this reason, we also thank God without ceasing, because when you receive the Word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of man, but as it is in truth, the Word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe.
Paul understood that he was passing along divine revelation to the people. He also understood what divine revelation meant.
There are a number of ways in which divine revelation inspiration, and illumination can work together, or separately. Each is a work of God.
Illumination is a supernatural event where the Holy Spirit helps people understand the meaning of the Bible. The best way to explain it. Is when you’re reading God’s Word and you get that Aha moment. You finally understand what God is saying to you.
From Pity to Praise 