1. Jesus Paid It All (words- Elvina Hall; music- John T. Grape)
2. 
   
3. I hear the Savior say,
   “Thy strength indeed is small;
   Child of weakness, watch and pray,
   Find in Me thine all in all.”
   • Jesus paid it all,
     All to Him I owe;
     Sin had left a crimson stain,
     He washed it white as snow.
4. For nothing good have I
   Whereby Thy grace to claim;
   I’ll wash my garments white
   In the blood of Calv’ry’s Lamb.
5. And now complete in Him,
   My robe, His righteousness,
   Close sheltered ’neath His side,
   I am divinely blest.
6. Lord, now indeed I find
   Thy pow’r, and Thine alone,
   Can change the leper’s spots
   And melt the heart of stone.
7. When from my dying bed
   My ransomed soul shall rise,
   “Jesus died my soul to save,”
   Shall rend the vaulted skies.
8. And when before the throne
   I stand in Him complete,
   I’ll lay my trophies down,
   All down at Jesus’ feet.

I just wanted to share this with you. It's one of my favorite songs ever and a great reminder to me that I did absolutely nothing and could have done nothing. Jesus did everything for us. He paid it all. I hope you're thinking about that as you celebrate His birth. : ) Merry Christmas! or what we could say, "The Anointed One be celebrated!" (ask me about that if you're confused.)

Oh the odd things...

I don't know why, but it's always from 11:30 on that my brain just takes off and I do all of my spectacular thinking...it's really a little sad, but such is life. ; ) This is may or may not be a shocker, but I finish up this semester on THURSDAY!! And if you don't know your days of the week, that is only 2 DAYS from now (considering it's 12:45 AM, I'm counting it as being Tuesday)!!! I am super excited to be going home and to finally be able to attend my own church! : )

A few weeks ago, I started thinking of all the things that I wanted to do over break and the list just started getting longer and longer and longer and longer...I think you get the point now. My point being, I figured out that I was using the word "I" a bit toooooo much in my list. I've been so focused on my studies here that I have had to put so many other things in my life on hold, mostly things like...music (instrumental), artistic projects (woodworking and such, chainmail), and the most important being, VIDEO GAMES!!! lol, jk. I do enjoy video games, but (yes, you may not be able to believe this, some of you) I CAN LIVE WITHOUT THEM! lol.

Going in complete opposite direction, I decided that (instead of my loooong list) all I wanted to do was sleep 13 hours a day and lay around all day (the other 11 hours) reading and playing video games. I'm pretty sure that that is addressed somewhere significant..but I don't remember....OH! how about the BIBLE!! ; ) Here's a verse from Proverbs that I actually found rather amusing and fitting to this context: "The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, But the soul of the diligent is made fat" (Proverbs 13:4 NASB). I don't know about you people, but I don't want my soul to be a scrawny, malnourished thing, I want to be FAT!! lol.

So all of this rambling to say, that I've finally realized that my focus should be and remain to be rooted in God's word and to strive to glorify God through my life and my actions. One of the things that I am not focusing more upon is the edification of the Body of Christ. I hope to become more active in my church body while I am at home and build more relationships with those people who are my brothers and sisters in Christ.

With that, I bid thee adieu. Goodnight to all..or goodmorning, if you want to be smart about it. ; )

Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to

immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.

For it is because of these things that the wrath of God

will come upon the sons of disobedience,

and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them.

But now you also, put them all aside:

anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth.

Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices,

and have put on the new self who is being renewed

to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him--

a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew,

circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman,

but Christ is all, and in all.

So as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved,

put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience;

bearing with one another, and forgiving each other,

whoever has a complaint against anyone;

just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.

Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bod of unity.

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts,

to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful.

Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you,

with all wisdom teaching you and admonishing one another

with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,

singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus,

giving thanks through Him to God the Father.

~~Colossians 3:5-17

Bitter or Sweet?

This semester I have been learning and growing (I hope) in things pertaining to the tongue (speech) and how I have been using it in my life. I believe that I am slowly becoming more sensitive to what comes out of my mouth and how it affects those around me and it's encouraging to me. Some of you may know that I have been going through the book of James this block at school with a phenomenal teacher, Rex, and something he said yesterday in class really hit me. I decided that I wanted to share it with you. : )

"With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God; from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way. Does a fountain send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water?"

--James 3:9-11

After we read the verse, Rex started talking about what James was really getting at with these verses. He used as an example the well of Bethlehem. It's ALWAYS the same, every single time you go get water out of it, it is going to taste the same. It's not going to taste great one day, rotten the next, still bad but not as bad the following day, etc. It is a well that can be trusted. As Rex talked about this, he inspired me to write this in my notes for verse 11 ("Does a fountain send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water?"): "Wouldn't it be nice if a person could come to me and always know that the words I would give to them would be refreshing and encouraging? Do I give out bitter and sweet water? Are they in doubt about what I will give to them? Can they come to me?" The underlying thought behind those questions is "Are people afraid that I will judge them, yell at them, put them down? Or do they trust me with their problems and trials, believing that I will have encouraging words to comfort them and help them, at the very least, pray for them? Or are they unsure about what will come out whenever I open up my mouth?"

Rex asked this question and I adapted it to my thoughts, I've been attempting to meditate on it since class.

"What kind of well am I? Bitter, Sweet, or unpredictable?"