Early!!

I got up early one morning,
And rushed through the day;
I had so much to accomplish,
That I didn't have time to pray.
Problems just tumbled about me,
And heavier came each task;
"Why doesn't God help me?" I wondered,
He answered, "You didn't ask."
I wanted to see joy and beauty,
But the day toiled on gray and bleak;
I wondered why God didn't show me,
He said, "But you didn't seek."
I tried to come into God's presence,
I tried every key in the lock;
God gently and lovingly chided,
"My child, you didn't knock."
I woke up early this morning,
And paused before starting the day;
I had so much to accomplish,
That I had to take time to pray.

-Anonymous-


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So you think your just to busy for God

Home > Teens > Faith & Life > My Story


No Time For God
Laura wondered if fitting in had become more important than her faith.
Laura Capp, as told to Karen Langley

Sweaty and exhausted after hockey practice, I dropped onto a bench in the locker room. As I yanked off my skates, I listened to a teammate spread the latest gossip.

"Can you believe she hooked up with him? What does he see in her, anyway?"

"Who knows?" I replied. I felt a familiar twinge of guilt and ignored it.

Another teammate interrupted our conversation. "Laura, you're gonna play in Sunday's game, right?"

"For sure!" I answered. I didn't feel as sure as I sounded. My stomach had flip-flopped when Coach announced the schedule. I'd have to miss church … again.

It was my sophomore year, and I'd played for the Komets seven months of every year since fifth grade. I'd made the hockey-over-church choice a thousand times. But it never got any easier.

My youth pastor often encouraged me to come to church and youth group more often. He said God should always come before sports. He just doesn't understand what it's like to be on a team, I thought to myself. But I knew he was at least partly right. I played volleyball for my high school, but that never conflicted with church the way hockey did. Because I was on a club hockey team, we often had Sunday games—which meant I missed a lot of Sunday school and church. Practice on Wednesday nights meant I rarely went to Bible study.

It went beyond just missing church activities, though. My relationship with Christ was starting to slip. It's not like I was totally walking away from God. My teammates did a lot of stuff I never got into, like swearing and drinking.

They also gossiped a lot, which I did get into. Our conversations revolved around hook-ups and break-ups, who got pregnant and what our ex-teammates were up to. Gossiping made me feel uncomfortable, but I knew it was just part of locker room talk. More than that, I stuck out enough by not drinking and partying. Joining in the gossip helped me to feel like I fit in.

During the summer after my sophomore year, I worked at my church camp as an assistant cabin leader for younger girls. Being tucked away in the woods for a week made it easier to think and pray over what had been going on in my life. I started feeling pretty guilty about all the gossiping I'd done. I also felt bad that I'd been giving so much time to the team and so little time to God and my faith. I wondered: Had fitting in with my hockey friends become more important than God?

As I walked through the woods on quiet afternoons, I realized I had a choice to make: I could devote myself to hockey, or I could devote myself to God. I'd tried juggling both, and it just wasn't working. As much as I loved the game, I knew the hockey environment was really hurting my walk with Christ. I made a decision right then and there. I'd choose God.

Quitting hockey was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. But I know I made the right choice. Being involved at church and hanging out more with my Christian friends has really helped strengthen my relationship with Christ. It's such a relief to have friends who encourage me and build me up instead of tempting me to fall into bad habits.

I'd be the first to admit that living my faith isn't always easy, and I'm still tempted to gossip. But I have true friends who support me and hold me accountable. And I have Christ walking beside me, guiding my thoughts and how I talk. I guess what I gave up is no big deal compared to what I gained.

Copyright © 2004 by the author or Christianity Today International/Campus Life magazine.


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6 Reasons Why Sunday School is Important

Sunday school is important

It's amazing that we should ever find ourselves having to defend the importance of Sunday school. After all we can thank Sunday school for giving us pastors, missionaries and evangelists. Our churches are full of Christians strong in their faith, and established in the scriptures.

The real importance of Sunday school is one that has a dynamic ministry to every member of the family. It is a unique program that meets the needs of its participants as no other program of the church can.

6 reasons why I believe Sunday school is important

Sunday school provides a basic systematic study of the scriptures at a level of understanding for that age group.

Sunday school allows an opportunity for its members to talk and share about their needs with others in similar life situations.

Sunday school provides an opportunity for personal application of the scriptures based on the age level of the class.

Sunday school provides for fellowship and a sense of belonging for each member of the class.

Sunday school provides a platform for people to serve the Lord through teaching and administration.

Sunday school is a training ground for young Christians to be more productive in their church and gives them the opportunity to develop their skills and talents for the Lord.


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Living in community Part 1

LIVING IN COMMUNITY PART 1

Christian community starts with each individual persons relationship with Christ. This is the foundation. With it we join hands and live our lives together, in community. So why do we feel so disconnected. Usually it's one of two things. Either our relationship with Jesus is suffering, which makes us feel alone even when with other Christians, or we are not connecting with other Christians outside the few opportunities provided for us by places like our church. So should we blame others, parents, pastors, teachers etc., or should we look to ourselves and do a serious self evaluation? Ask God to show you from your life what is causing the block for you and then seek ways, if not obvious, to remove the block. Talk to your Pastor or a trusted adult. They are there for just these kind of things.

Some great versus on resolving conflict

Bible Verses about
Resolving Conflict

Matthew 18:15-17 ESV / 43 helpful votes

“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

Matthew 18:15 ESV / 24 helpful votes

“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.

Luke 17:3 ESV / 18 helpful votes

Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him,

James 4:1-6 ESV / 16 helpful votes

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? ...

Ephesians 4:26 ESV / 16 helpful votes

Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger,

Matthew 7:5 ESV / 16 helpful votes

You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.

Luke 6:27 ESV / 13 helpful votes

“But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,

Matthew 5:24 ESV / 13 helpful votes

Leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

Proverbs 15:1 ESV / 13 helpful votes

A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

Colossians 3:13 ESV / 11 helpful votes

Bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

Matthew 5:9 ESV / 10 helpful votes

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

James 5:16 ESV / 8 helpful votes

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

Ephesians 4:31-32 ESV / 8 helpful votes

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

Matthew 5:23 ESV / 8 helpful votes

So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you,

Ephesians 4:15-16 ESV / 7 helpful votes

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

1 John 4:7-8 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

Ephesians 1:1-23 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, ...

John 7:24 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”

Psalm 1:1-6 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; ...

Philippians 4:13 ESV / 4 helpful votes

I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 ESV / 4 helpful votes

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ...

Romans 12:20 ESV / 4 helpful votes

To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.”

Matthew 18:17 ESV / 4 helpful votes

If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

Exodus 18:13-27 ESV / 4 helpful votes

The next day Moses sat to judge the people, and the people stood around Moses from morning till evening. When Moses' father-in-law saw all that he was doing for the people, he said, “What is this that you are doing for the people? Why do you sit alone, and all the people stand around you from morning till evening?” And Moses said to his father-in-law, “Because the people come to me to inquire of God; when they have a dispute, they come to me and I decide between one person and another, and I make them know the statutes of God and his laws.” Moses' father-in-law said to him, “What you are doing is not good. ...

Matthew 18:1-35 ESV / 3 helpful votes

At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, ...

1 John 1:9 ESV / 2 helpful votes

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

2 Peter 1:21 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 ESV / 2 helpful votes

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

Colossians 1:1-29 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father. We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, ...

Romans 12:1 ESV / 2 helpful votes

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

Romans 6:23 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Acts 26:20 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But declared first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout all the region of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance.

John 3:16-17 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

John 8:32 ESV / 1 helpful vote

And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Matthew 18:16 ESV / 1 helpful vote

But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.

Matthew 4:4 ESV / 1 helpful vote

But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Isaiah 57:15 ESV / 1 helpful vote

For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.

Psalm 1:2 ESV / 1 helpful vote

But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.

Joshua 1:8 ESV / 1 helpful vote

This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.

Genesis 9:6 ESV / 1 helpful vote

“Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.

Genesis 6:1 ESV / 1 helpful vote

When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them,

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How Truthful are You? Take the quiz and find out

How Truthful are You?
How honest are you? Most people think they are pretty honest people, but about 83 percent of Christian teens also believe that moral truth depends on a particular situation. Take this short quiz to see if you are as truthful as you think you are:


1. Your best friend asks you if she looks good in her new prom dress. You:
A. Tell her she looks good, even though the dress washes her out.
B. Advise her to get a tan. That will help with the coloring. However, don't tell her why. It will just hurt her feelings.
C. Tell her to return the awful dress. She can look better, and you'll help her.

2. A friend tells you he's been using steroids, and he wants you to promise not to tell anyone. You:
A. Promise, then tell your parents.
B. Promise and don't tell anyone.
C. Don't promise. You know he's in trouble and he really needs help.

3. You get out of the store and realize the cashier gave you an extra $5 in change. You:
A. Go home. Hooray! An extra $5. It's the cashier's fault, after all.
B. Slip the $5 back on the counter by the cashier.
C. Give the money back to the cashier so she can put it back into the till.

4. When the teacher left the classroom someone wrote a nasty work on the board. The teacher asks you after class if you know who did it. You:
A. Say you weren't paying attention. You don't want people to hate you.
B. Tell her you think it was a certain person, but you just aren't sure.
C. Sure you tell her. It was really nasty and that person should be held accountable.

5. You overhear some people talking and whispering about a friend of yours. You don't say anything, but later your friends asks you if people are taking about her. You:
A. Tell her you haven't heard anything. Why hurt her feelings?
B. Tell her you heard something, but sugar-coat it.
C. Tell her what you heard and help her solve the problem.
Scoring Key:

Give yourself the following points for each answer:

A=1

B=2

C=3

5-7: You are a moral liar, meaning you often lie to protect the feelings of others or protect your standing among friends. While you don't lie for the sake of lying, you can find ways of telling the truth that will increase your honesty quotient and keep others from feeling crushed.

10-12: You usually only lie when it depends on someone's feelings. While you may think you are protecting the person, it really isn't. Try to work on being more forthcoming and honest in the way you deal with situations. If you are tactful, you will find that the truth comes out much easier.

15-13: You are a truth-monger. Just be sure that you are not being too brutal in your honesty. Otherwise, keep up the good work.

Psalm 37:37 - "Look at those who are honest and good. For a wonderful future lies before those who love peace." (NLT)


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So you took the test and your guilty of gossip. Now what?

What the Bible Says About... Gossip

Are you a gossip? Did you take the Gossip Quiz to find yourself surprised at the answer? We live in a social society where we share in each other’s lives. We are also curious people, always desiring to be “in the know.”

Yet, gossip is not helpful. Gossip actually serves to break the trust of those the people around you. The Bible has a lot of important statements regarding gossip.

Answer:
What’s Wrong with Gossip?

Everyone likes a good story, right? Well, not necessarily. What about the person the story is about? Does that person like the story? Probably not. Spreading rumors only hurts others and destroys our credibility. Who is going to trust us with anything when they think we’ll tell everyone else?

Gossip is also a way we judge others, which really isn’t our job. God is in charge of judging people, not us. Gossip really only ends up creating greed, hate, envy, murder.

Gossip is also a sign that we are not really active in our faith and in our lives. If you think about it, the busier we are, the less time we have to gossip. We no longer have the time to get wrapped up in someone else’s life. Gossip is bred out of boredom. It may start as a simple conversation about people, and then escalates quickly. The Bible clearly tells us to do more than discuss other people’s lives.

Leviticus 19:16 – “Do not go about spreading slander among your people. Do not do anything that endangers your neighbor’s life. I am the Lord.” (NIV)

Proverbs 11:13 – “A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy man keeps a secret.” (NIV)

Romans 1:29 – “They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips.” (NIV)

1 Timothy 5:13 – “Besides, they get into the habit of being idle and going about from house to house. And not only do they become idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying things they ought not to.” (NIV)

Matthew 7:1 – “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” (NIV)

Proverbs 18:8 – “The words of gossip are like choice morsels; they go down to a man’s inmost parts.” (NIV)

So What Do I Do About Gossip?

First, if you catch yourself falling into gossip – stop. If you don’t passon the gossip there is nowhere for it to go. This includes gossip magazines and television. While it may not seem as “sinful” to read those magazines, you are contributing to gossip.

Also, when you are faced with a statement that may or may not be gossip, check out the facts. For instance, if you hear someone has an eating disorder, go to the person. If you don’t feel comfortable talking to the person yourself, and the rumor is something serious, you may want to go to a parent, pastor, or youth leader. Getting someone to help in a serious situation is not gossip as long as the information stays with you and the person you go to for help.

If you want to avoid gossip, focus on creating helpful and encouraging statements. Let the gossip and end with you and remember the Golden Rule – if you don’t want people to gossip about you, then don’t participate in gossip.

Proverbs 26:20 – “Without wood a fire goes out; without gossip a quarrel dies down.” (NIV)

Deuteronomy 13:14 – “Then you must inquire, probe and investigate it thoroughly.” (NIV)

Matthew 7:12 – “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” (NIV)

Ephesians 4:29 – “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” (NIV)


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