BOOK OF LOVE BIBLE STUDY FOR THE YOUTH

Comment

Comment by SIS LISA ALFORD on February 18, 2009 at 11:21am

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:4-9 TNIV Bible

Comment by SIS LISA ALFORD on January 27, 2009 at 4:11pm

Creative Ideas for Bible Memorization for All Ages.Bible memorization is not just for children, but for believers of ALL ages! The author of Psalm 119 declares in verse 11: "Thy Word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against You." It's doubtful the author was a child at the point he wrote these words by God's inspiration. I am now in my mid-forties (they're wonderful by the way!), and I am not disciplined at physically exercising although I know I need to be. But physical exercise is not all I need; Bible memorization is an exercise of not only our mind, but our spirit.
During the past week, as I had yet another birthday, I realized I better get with it and exercise my ALL! What's the saying..."use it or lose it!"? Well, I'm starting slow, but I'm starting, and this morning the idea hit me to combine all my exercising together.

I hate counting repetitions of exercises because, not only is it boring, but it makes the exercising tedious. Instead of counting, now I say one word of a memory verse for each repetition. Before I was just trying to do ten of each (it's a beginning!); but when I began using verses, I was doing twenty to thirty and not even realizing it! (Well, except for the burning of my muscles.)

Anyway, my point is that Bible memorization needs to be an active part of our daily lives. Paul instructs Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:8:

"For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come."

Four simple suggestions for Bible memorization:

1. When memorizing Scripture, it is imperative that we include learning the Bible reference (ex: 1 Timothy 4:8). It comes in handy when you are wanting to share a verse with someone else. It took me ten minutes to find the reference for the above verse for you! I knew the "jist" of it and about where it was in my Bible, but still had to search because I had not put it to memory.

2. It's also good to have a Bible memory partner with whom we can each be accountable. If no one knows I've started a goal, then no one will know when I let it fall by the wayside. Accountability is important in all areas of our lives. God made us a family - a team, so that we can work together and encourage one another in our walks with Him.

God inspired Paul to encourage the church at Colossae with these words from Colossians 3:16: "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God."

Comment by SIS LISA ALFORD on January 27, 2009 at 8:35am

Comment by SIS LISA ALFORD on January 26, 2009 at 4:44am

Comment by SIS LISA ALFORD on January 22, 2009 at 3:30am

Spiritual Poem
GOD
© By Helen Mccumsey

Why oh why
has my life been......LOST!?
Wonder, wonder
is there such a thing.......GOD
Looking oh looking
for GOD.....to be in my life.
Some say......Open your hearts.....
and you shall see......
The wonderful things of...........GOD!
But why so lost?
Just open your heart!!!!!
You won't be hurt
You won't be hurt.....
Just open your heart!!!!
WONDER,....WONDER.....
IS THERE A GOD??!!

Comment by SIS LISA ALFORD on January 19, 2009 at 2:33am

.God Put A Rainbow In My Soul.I would like dedicate this to Michelle Kidwell...... A rainbow is a beautiful promise of God that he gave Noah when the flood ended. It was a promise that He would not destroy the world with a flood anymore. After a rain He lets us see the beautiful arch to let us know that he has kept his promise He puts a rainbow at the end of every storm we pass through.
GOD PUT A RAINBOW IN MY SOUL
By Myrtle Poor

I awoke this morning
With the sun shining bright.
I thought to myself
This day would be just right.

Then around noontime
A big rain cloud formed.
It was surely certain
There would be a great big storm.

The raindrops started gently
Upon the window sills,
Suddenly there was a downpour
And all the ground was filled.

When the storm seems never ending
And we've accepted it with a sigh
God puts a pretty rainbow
In the eastern sky.

When the storms of life start raging
And overwhelm us so
God does not forsake us,
But puts a rainbow in our soul.

Comment by christy on January 17, 2009 at 10:01am

blessing onto the lord be with you all god bless you all

Comment by SIS LISA ALFORD on January 16, 2009 at 8:37pm

LESSON 1 IS ON GRACE,MERCY,AND PEACE FROM GOD".

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"Grace, mercy, and peace from God."

A few from among mankind have this supreme blessing: the vast majority do not.

"GRACE" -- the favorable attention, and love, and care, and comfort and guidance from God toward us. To come within the scope of His glorious light -- to be accepted as part of His chosen family, constantly overshadowed by His angelic protection.

This grace is extended without partiality to all who, in Truth, yield themselves entirely to Him, and ONLY to such. God makes no exceptions, plays no favorites. Just holding certain beliefs, and going to the meetings, and being technically "in the Truth" is not enough. We must give all to Him, holding nothing back. This must overshadow and dominate everything in our lives -- all our waking moments.

Then, and then ONLY, we enter into the glory of the grace of God.

"MERCY" -- the overlooking, in loving understanding, of all our shortcomings and weaknesses and failures and ugliness and fleshliness -- IF we, like Paul, agonize to repudiate them and be free of them.

TO obtain the mercy of God, the most important requirement is to recognize to its fullness our own absolute NEED for mercy -- our utter helplessness and miserableness without it. God is the essence of all holiness and purity and perfection. We are weak, ignorant, unclean mortal creatures seeking His exalted fellowship.

And, related to this, the more we recognize our own need for mercy, the more merciful we should be toward the faults and weaknesses of others --

"Love beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things and thinketh no evil; love covereth a multitude of sins."

This does not mean ignoring or excusing or condoning what is wrong, any more than a good doctor ignores disease or neglects treatment or won't use the knife, just because he is too "kindhearted."

TRUE love and TRUE mercy are always deeply concerned with correcting what is wrong.

Rather it means that our attitude toward the erring should always be fellow-feeling and understanding and deep and prayerful concern for their ultimate well-being. Always ready -- not to condemn -- but to help and encourage and forgive --

"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy."

MERCY DOES NOT INTERFERE WITH DUTY AND OBEDIENCE TO COMMANDS.

Commands tell us to separate from persistent error, in order to preserve the health of the body and the soundness of the Faith. We have no choice, if we are faithful. But it must be done kindly and sorrowfully, not harshly or self-righteously --

"In the spirit of meekness, considering thyself lest thou also be tempted"

"And PEACE." Peace is not stagnation: not merely a dull and uneventful relief for the elderly and tired of life. Peace is essential for all -- young and old -- though we may not realize it.

Peace is the basic blessing we all need most, if we are God's.

It only comes through the grace and mercy of God. Peace is an impervious mental shield against all fears and disquietudes. Peace is perfect, relaxed harmony and tranquility of mind and spirit. Peace is primarily "peace with God" --

"We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."

To have peace with God makes all other conflict harmless and unimportant. It can only come with complete, undivided dedication to one supreme object of life, for peace is essentially oneness and undividedness.

It is not freedom from external conflict: that's not important. It is freedom from INNER conflict. Jesus said, just before the terrible suffering of his crucifixion --

"Peace I leave with you: my peace I give unto you":

"In the world ye shall have tribulation; but in me ye SHALL have peace";

"Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."

And Paul, chained and in prison for the sake of the Gospel, tells the Philippian brethren to take everything to God in prayer, and assures them that in so doing --

"The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, SHALL keep your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ."

"I besought thee to abide at Ephesus, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine" (1:3).

This is Timothy's first and principal duty at Ephesus -- the preservation in the ecclesia of true doctrine. Paul was always deeply and actively concerned with the preservation of the Truth and suppression of error in the Body. He fully realized this was the foundation upon which all else must be built.

"Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions rather than godly edifying" (v. 4).

This is a very important distinction that must be borne in mind in all our studies, for it means the difference between success and failure.

It is not enough just to study the Word of God: we must study it with a purpose -- and we must study it with the right purpose: to learn God's ways and will, so we may draw closer to His requirements and manifest the beauty of holiness in our lives.

There are many side-issues and dead-ends and unanswerable problems that we can ardently pursue that just "minister questions" rather than "godly edifying."

We must consciously concentrate on getting the practical lesson and instruction for ourselves -- the guidance that will change US more and more from fleshly to spiritual.

Some study the Bible all their lives and become very proficient in it, but it never changes their character or way of life. The true purpose of the Word, says Paul in the second epistle, is for --

"Reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." He says the same here (v. 5) --

"The end -- the purpose, the WHOLE REASON -- for the commandment is love, a pure heart, a good conscience, and a genuine faith."

All God's Word is to develop us -- personally and individually -- in these characteristics. To get side-tracked, or as he says in verse 6, to "swerve" from this is "vain jangling" -- noise and effort without purpose.

"Desiring to be teachers of the Law" (v. 7).

The Law of Moses is meant. Reverting to the forms and bondage of the Law seems to be the principal problem that troubled the ecclesias from the beginning, and we see the development of this deadly tendency in its fulness in all the ecclesiastical rituals and structure of the Catholic church.

We, too, must ever be on guard against ritualism and technicality to the detriment of the true spirit of love and personal holiness.

Paul says (v. 9), that the Law was not for the righteous, but for the lawless and disobedient. As he told the Galatians who were being similarly led astray, the Law of Moses is not the way of life.

The Abrahamic Covenant is the way of life. The Law was added "because of transgression" (that is, the Law was "for the unrighteous"), until the Seed of Abraham should come to whom the Abrahamic Covenant was made.

This leads Paul (vs. 11-17), to a consideration of his own deliverance from the same erroneous devotion to the Mosaic Law which had caused him to reject and oppose Christ and to persecute Christ's followers.

But in God's mercy, because he was sincere, he was shown the right way, and was given mercy and forgiveness as an example of Christ's goodness and kindness.

He concludes chapter 1 by emphasizing Timothy's responsibility to fight a good fight and to defend the true Faith and to separate from the ecclesia any teaching otherwise.









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