Roller coaster.
Skiing.
Go Carts.
Surfing.
Sky diving.
There’s a thrill. There’s a rush. Kids try or want to try those things because of the thrill, the rush, the feelings of danger and intense excitement. But when it’s over, it’s just over. That thrill does nothing to help you in your life. It is just a thrill.
God does that too. There is a thrill, a rush in the presence of God. Very few people in very few churches have seen anything close to what I am talking about so you think I am just saying God is like skiing because they are both good and they are both fun. That is not it at all. I am really talking about a thrill in church. Most honest kids would say that God is really one of the most boring things in their lives. Sadly those kids want God, but they have never felt anything from God. Never any excitement, never any joy, passion, rush, thrill.
You can have that from God. You can have the presence of God that you can feel like a rush of excitement. But when it’s over, it’s not done. When you find God’s presence, you want it more and you love God more. But God’s presence also makes it easy to change your dirty life.
New Year’s is change time. Last week this page was about resolutions. Change for the better is a great idea but almost no one does it alone. If you get the presence of God, you could really make the change you want to make.
So as 2010 begins, a resolution is a great idea. If you want it to work, pray for the presence of God to hit you and pray for God to help you change. Last week I listed twelve resolutions from a dead guy named Jonathan Edwards. I am going to list a dozen more. But first here are a few facts about a great guy to copy.
· Jonathan Edwards was born on October 5, 1703. His birthday cake would have to have 306 candles. But to get more exact, he was born 111,856 days ago. He’s been dead for 91,944 of those days.
· Jonathan Edwards had four older sisters and six younger sisters. He had no brothers.
· Jonathan Edwards was super smart. I am almost sure he was smarter than the smartest kid in your class. At age 10 he wrote a paper about the human soul. At age 11 he wrote a paper about flying spiders.
· Jonathan Edwards started college when he was 12. When he finished college, he had the best grades in his whole class.
· Jonathan Edwards first worked as the pastor of a church when he was 19.
· Jonathan Edwards was a great pastor, preacher, and writer. In 1734 he wrote about the great revival in his church when almost 300 new people came to God.
· Jonathan Edwards most famous sermon is called, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” This sermon and others like it helped a huge revival in the 1740’s.
Through all of his years as a pastor, a writer, a dad, a teacher, Jonathan Edwards practiced living for God all of the time. His 70 resolutions helped him. Here are some of my favorites written in my words.
1. Make everything I say, have some kindness in it.
2. Tell God the truth about me. Tell Him my sins, what’s hard, my fears, my hopes, my dreams.
3. Any time I hear something good about a person, try to copy it.
4. My personality, my mood will always be good, sweet, quiet, peaceable, giving, humble, forgiving, and honest.
5. No other way but God’s way will ever rule what I do.
6. Never from today until I die act like my life is my own. It is God’s.
7. Over and over again renew my love for God and my plan to serve God all the days of my life.
8. Ask myself at the end of every day, week, month and year how I could have done better.
9. Never think any little bad thought about my mom or dad. Never show a bad thought with my words, my body, or my eyes.
10. Check my soul to see if I care about Jesus Christ or not.
11. Always care about Jesus Christ.
12. Never stop or let up even a little bit in my fight against rottenness, sin, evil, selfishness.
Jonathan Edwards read his 70 resolutions every week and he prayed for God to help him keep them. You should copy a little of that. Pick at least one thing to change about you. Write it down. Read it every week. Pray for God to help you do it. But also pray and pray and pray that you could know the presence of God, because that is how lives are really changed.
Here is a church where people find the presence or God and lives are changed: World Revival Church
Find more of Nathan’s writing on Amazon and Helium.
Showing posts with label Jonathan Edwards. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jonathan Edwards. Show all posts
Monday, January 4, 2010
Sunday, December 27, 2009
New Year's Day 2010
New Year’s Day 2010
New Year’s Day is the biggest day of the year for people to choose to change. Most of them don’t change at all. Ever. But they decide to change every year on New Year’s Day. New Year’s Day could be a party for you or just a night to stay up really late, but it is really not much different than all of the other days of your long life. You just have to start writing a different year, and you have to decide if you are going to call it two thousand ten or twenty ten. It is just a day, but writing a new year, starting a new year, the first day of a new decade is a good time to think about who you are, how you act and what you want to change.
A change on New Year’s Day is called a New Year’s Resolution. A resolution is a sure choice, something that you won’t change your mind about. I think a New Year’s Resolution is a good idea. You might even make a list of two or three or four things that you are for sure going to do this year that will make you better than you were last year.
Jonathan Edwards is a famous revival preacher who was born more than 300 years ago. It’s hard to believe that people way back then knew anything, but they did. Jonathan Edwards is a great man to study and you can start right here on this page. When Jonathan was 19 and 20 years old he made a list of resolutions. His list had 70 things on it. For normal people, that is too many. Also, he didn’t make his list just at New Year’s. He worked on it for a couple of years. But he had a lot of great ones and he had some great ideas about how to make them work. First he read his list every week. That helped him to remember what the list said and remember to do the stuff on the list. Also Jonathan Edwards knew that he could not follow the list all by himself, so he prayed for God’s help and God’s power to help him do the good things that he put on his list.
It would be great for you to do some of the same things that Jonathan Edwards did, but his list is sort of hard to read. I read his list and put some of my favorites into easier words for you to read. Read Jonathan’s list and pick a few for you to do.
1. Never lose time. Never waste time. Use every minute in the best way I can.
2. Live my life with all my strength, while I live.
3. Never do anything that I would be afraid to do if I knew I would die in one hour.
4. Any time I feel pain, think about two huge pains: first people who die for God and second hell.
5. Any time I think of a question about science or math or God, I need to find the answer.
6. If anything makes my pride bigger, makes me think that I am great, throw that thing away.
7. Never do anything for revenge. Never try to get back at someone.
8. Never be angry at something that can’t think like a dog or a toy or a baby or a snowflake.
9. Never say bad words about another person.
10. Be careful to eat right.
11. Find anything in me that doubts the love of God and fight against that doubt.
12. Read and study the Bible more and more so that every day of my life I know more of the Bible than I did the day before.
Just 12 of the 70 great resolutions of Jonathan Edwards. Pick something from this list or pick
something else, but remember to write it down and read it every week. And pray for God to help you do it.
New Year’s Day is the biggest day of the year for people to choose to change. Most of them don’t change at all. Ever. But they decide to change every year on New Year’s Day. New Year’s Day could be a party for you or just a night to stay up really late, but it is really not much different than all of the other days of your long life. You just have to start writing a different year, and you have to decide if you are going to call it two thousand ten or twenty ten. It is just a day, but writing a new year, starting a new year, the first day of a new decade is a good time to think about who you are, how you act and what you want to change.
A change on New Year’s Day is called a New Year’s Resolution. A resolution is a sure choice, something that you won’t change your mind about. I think a New Year’s Resolution is a good idea. You might even make a list of two or three or four things that you are for sure going to do this year that will make you better than you were last year.
Jonathan Edwards is a famous revival preacher who was born more than 300 years ago. It’s hard to believe that people way back then knew anything, but they did. Jonathan Edwards is a great man to study and you can start right here on this page. When Jonathan was 19 and 20 years old he made a list of resolutions. His list had 70 things on it. For normal people, that is too many. Also, he didn’t make his list just at New Year’s. He worked on it for a couple of years. But he had a lot of great ones and he had some great ideas about how to make them work. First he read his list every week. That helped him to remember what the list said and remember to do the stuff on the list. Also Jonathan Edwards knew that he could not follow the list all by himself, so he prayed for God’s help and God’s power to help him do the good things that he put on his list.
It would be great for you to do some of the same things that Jonathan Edwards did, but his list is sort of hard to read. I read his list and put some of my favorites into easier words for you to read. Read Jonathan’s list and pick a few for you to do.
1. Never lose time. Never waste time. Use every minute in the best way I can.
2. Live my life with all my strength, while I live.
3. Never do anything that I would be afraid to do if I knew I would die in one hour.
4. Any time I feel pain, think about two huge pains: first people who die for God and second hell.
5. Any time I think of a question about science or math or God, I need to find the answer.
6. If anything makes my pride bigger, makes me think that I am great, throw that thing away.
7. Never do anything for revenge. Never try to get back at someone.
8. Never be angry at something that can’t think like a dog or a toy or a baby or a snowflake.
9. Never say bad words about another person.
10. Be careful to eat right.
11. Find anything in me that doubts the love of God and fight against that doubt.
12. Read and study the Bible more and more so that every day of my life I know more of the Bible than I did the day before.
Just 12 of the 70 great resolutions of Jonathan Edwards. Pick something from this list or pick
something else, but remember to write it down and read it every week. And pray for God to help you do it.
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