For the last few weeks our church, Blount Community Church, has been doing a series called "Truth". If you are interested in watching any of the messages, you can find them here. The jist of it all is that the Bible is God's word, and it is the truth that we seek and build our lives on. It's been a great series about why to trust what the Bible says, how to study it and how to apply to our everyday lives. Which has really been awesome because I have always struggled in this area. I mean, I want to have some good Bible time each day, and pre-baby that was an easy thing to achieve. Now I have to be a little more strategic about planning this time in and I'm not gonna lie, sometimes I say, "Oh, I'll do it the next nap she has..." and before you know it, we are going to bed and I never even looked at my Bible (except to maybe dust under it, which is on my chore list, and well you know how I feel about lists).
But, even when I do have some good Bible time, sometimes it's really hard to see how stories like the stoning of Stephen apply to me today - we don't exactly stone people these days, literally anyway. So I read just to read and feel good about it. As we've gone through this series though, I've learned a little bit more about how to really read the Bible and apply it.
One big thing that's helped too, is that in doing this series, we've also been looking at Rick Warren's 40 Days in the Word challenge. If you are looking for some insight on Bible study or are looking for some great devotions, visit that site! It has been a great resource for me so far. I have especially enjoyed the video devotions because they are only 5-10 minutes long and they are jam-packed with substance.
One that I really liked in particular is this one by Pastor Vance Pitman from Hope Baptist Church in Las Vegas on Psalm 119:7-11. He does a much better job at explaining it, so I'd highly encourage you to watch it, but its about how "the Law of God" is freeing and not binding. He talks about boundaries and how you set boundaries for your kids because you love them and don't want them to get hurt - not because you want to imprison them and keep them from something greater. Our Heavenly Father does this for us as well in teaching us how to live through the Bible. Andy Stanley, who we are BIG FANS of at our house, also has a great message on boundaries called Guardrails (unfortunately I don't have the link to that one handy, but I am sure it is online somewhere if you want to watch it - it is awesome). Anyway, I just thought this message gave a fresh perspective on God's Word for us and wanted to share it!
And because I agree with Carol who said once that every post should have at least one picture, I'll give you this one:
I took a handful of 6 month photos yesterday and this is one of them. I wasn't entirely pleased with most of them, so we'll try again this weekend when it should be more than 40 degrees outside and not rainy.
Awesome! :)
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