The Lord My God Illuminates My Darkness

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We love because He first loved us!

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My Beloved Is Like A Young Stag

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BibleShared Will Work For You

I’ve been using a new and free Bible reading program on-line and it has been a real blessing so I’m sharing BibleShared with you. Here’s what you can do with it:

• Each verse provides a link to write notes in the margin.
• Margin notes can be shared with the whole group, or a select few.
• The recent notes list shows what people have been reading and writing about.
• Notes can be filtered by the topic they are related to.
• Comments help open up a dialogue about the Scriptures.
• Bible reading progress is tracked as chapters are read.

You’ll also like to know that the creator of this program is a nice person. Rev. Nick Hauenstein is the youth director for his church. He came by my blog recently to comment on some of my posts about The Purpose Driven Life and he had this to say about BibleShared, “Until the last few years of my life, I’ve felt weird about writing in my Bible, but then I found so much value in it. Having BibleShared.com has added to that because writing in your Bible can become a ministry, and reading others’ insights helps me as well. Truly iron sharpening iron.”

May it be a blessing to you.

Jesus Directed To Prepare The Passover

Have you ever celebrated Pesach or Passover as Jesus did with His apostles for The Last Super?

Pictured here are samples of the Seder Plates used for the Passover dinner. Our church and several other churches in our area celebrate the seder meal each year and several newspaper articles have been written about it in the Los Angeles Times and the Los Angeles Daily News. Has this Jewish celebration been adopted by your church, I wonder? If you are Jewish, I’d love to hear about your memories or what you look forward to each year during Passover.

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Follow Your Passions To God’s Purposes

“As a face is reflected in water, so the heart reflects the person.”  Proverbs 27:19

Do you enjoy doing what you are doing in your life right now?  Do you have a passion for your job or for your life?  Sadly, many of us, perhaps even most of us, answer a resounding “NO!!”.  That should be a huge red flag for all of us.  What are our joys in life?  What are our hobbies?  What are our passions?  What do we love?

Rick Warren is not the only one to tell us that we should follow our heart’s desires.  Psychologists tell us too.  Career counselors tell us.  Highly successful and renown people tell us.  The Bible tells us.

Do we listen?  Really listen?  Or do we say “Yeah, yeah, I know,” but keep doing the same old rat race, the same old daily grind, the same old rut?

Have no worries, God will use that daily grind purposefully too, but it should lead you somewhere, not keep you stuck in it like quick sand or even cement.

Take the time right now to ponder about what you are enthusiastic or passionate about.  Go on, think.  Don’t read another word.

BrainPOP Works For Moms And Kids

A bunch of us moms were discussing what works for us regarding our children’s education and a lot of things were brought to the table, but the moms were unanimous about one teaching tool. At the time, it was brand new to me, but my trusted network of moms went on and on, and on about all the qualities of this animated educational site: BrainPOP! I am not affiliated in any way with this company.

All the moms loved it because it truly taught their kids and because their kids loved it too. It works for us, and I’m sure it will work for you too. Go check it out for free for two weeks.

If you use BrainPop, go ahead and put in your two cents.

What teaching tools work for you and your kids?

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Behold The Lamb Of God

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Wishing you all

a

Peaceful Holy Week

and a

Happy Easter!! 

Saving Money When Bringing Home The Bacon

I eat pork. What works for me is to stock up on pork and bacon around the time of Jewish holidays. One of my local grocery stores is within walking distance to 3 Jewish temples and their cup flows over with pork, pork sausage and bacon when any of the holidays roll around. Some Jews will eat pork during the year, but NOT during high holidays. So when the rest of the year, the store has just the right amount, during high holidays they simply can’t price it low enough to get rid of it. Just yesterday I went to that store and found 1 pound packages of organic bacon for 75 CENTS. You read right. They had so much of it that even on clearance they would end up with too much. It was NOT expired and two went in my refrigerator and the rest went in my freezer. I also found organic pork sausages for $1.75 a pound. Two packages were mixed in with my ground beef for meat loaf and the rest also went in my freezer.

I’m sure there’s a grocery store in your neighborhood near a Jewish temple and even if you don’t know when Jewish holidays are celebrated, most calendars will list them. Otherwise, keep an eye out for sales on Matzo, Kosher wine, candles, etc. and that will be the time of the high holidays.

What about you? How do you save money?

We Are Chosen To Tell About God’s Excellent Qualities: Chapt. 29 Purpose Driven Life

We resume our regularly scheduled program after a short interruption brought to you by: L I F E ! Thanks for your patience and understanding.

“You were chosen to tell about the excellent qualities of God, who called you.” 1 Peter 2:9

Today we start on chapter 29 beginning our study on our fourth purpose: To Serve God.

First, Rick Warren discusses how we accept our assignment from God. He tells us we were created, saved, called and commanded to serve God. We can serve God directly or indirectly. When we serve others, we are also serving God. Guess who we serve if we are serving neither God, nor others.

God often likes to have the least likely person serve. Moses stuttered, yet he spoke to all the slaves of Egypt and even to Pharaoh. Thomas doubted, yet he was one of the apostles to spread Christianity. Who are you? Are you a Jonah, an Elijah, a Martha, a Paul or a Timothy? It doesn’t matter to God if you appear under qualified or even totally wrong for the job. To God, you are absolutely perfect.