Yesterday's sermon

Pastor Paul (one of the elders at our church) preached yesterday on another characteristic of a Christian: how we love one another. The passage he preached from was 1 John 4:7-21. (He and Pastor Voddie have been preaching through 1 John.)


For some time now, I've been thinking about what it means to love the brethren. I know people and am friends with people who don't always agree with some things which are very important to my family and church. However, that doesn't mean we should stop loving them, praying for them, and fellowshipping with them. In fact, as Pastor Paul plainly stated (1 John 4:21), we are obligated to love one another. Who are we to hate others? Are we (who are sinners as well as them) somehow better than they are? Of course not! As 1 John 4:20 clearly says,




"If anyone says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen." (1 John 4:20 ESV)





How true are those words!

My dad pointed out today that hating your brother isn't always open hostility. It can be that but sometimes it's just hateful thoughts about someone. This just happened to me last week. I saw a boy on our block being dropped of by the bus after school. My first thought about him was, "I bet that boy is just like every other unsaved bully". Yesterday's sermon reminded me of that incident. It broke me to think that I had been hateful to a brother and one I didn't even know anything about! At the same time though, I was reminded that, through God's mercy and love, He forgives His children for their sins. It's so easy to resort to the deeds of the flesh but through God's grace, we will learn to love one another.

My friend, Jasmine, has some excellent thoughts on the subject as well.

Micaela

Hi!

Hello! This is Caro. I am sure most people who are reading this already know my name and age etc. (well maybe not all of you) but for the one or two people who might glance at this, I am 12 years old and if you did not read my profile I like to make clay figures and I like to draw and read, we just finished reading "George Muller" mommy the girls and I, oh we bought Cranford and North and South today! hmm.....what else? well I suppose I'll tell you what I have been doing, well daddy has been teaching me some excel for a project I am working on ( military secrets and such) oh and I have been doing some clay not really that much I'm working on a certain family that I know, I guess I shall give you a proper introduction of Benny and Maggie they are from the same litter and they are 3 month old kitty's that are the cutest things Benny's real name is Abednigo but we nicknamed him Benny and he has the colors of a simees cat but is to fat to be one and he is a scaredy cat and has pretty blue eyes, and then there is Maggie real name Magdalene and she is a very pretty Tabby and is a scavenger also very........... mischievous and both of them have also given me quite a few painful cuts and enjoy waking me and the girls up at 3 o'clock in the morning. but we still love them, we took them to the vet a few days ago and my goodness why does everybody like Chihuahua's and those type's of dog?!?! Well half the room was filled with them oh and there was a HUGE dog there a massive great Dane no joke that dog standing up is probably the same height as Elena. and then when it was this dogs turn to go in it tried to hide behind a bench. You know its interesting how dog owners resemble their dog. anyways we finally get into the room and Benny weighs 5 pounds! and Maggie weighs like 3 pounds. Now that I have finished my introduction which was really all about Benny and Maggie and now I'll stop here for now I apologize if I have bored you I shall talk about something differrent (something besides cats) next time. :):)
Love,
Caro :)

Manny the praying mantis

My mom and Elena found this praying mantis named Manny posing for them. He insisted upon his picture being taken before they leave. As you can see, he was all jazzed up for the occasion with his black bow tie. As they were trying to leave, Manny nearly found himself underneath mom's car tire. Fortunately, for him and us, he quickly moved out of the way before the tire mashed him. Upset at the thought of mom trying to crush him, he immediately left the area and sadly, hasn't been seen since.

Micaela

I'm blogging too!

Hello there!

I'm Mica.

I'm fifteen years old. I'm one of the aunts of the two adorable girls pictured below.

Now I generally don't enjoy writing very much (except for the occasional poetry) but I've recently learned how important communication is, particularly through writing. You'll have to be quite patient with me as I try my hand at blogging :).

Soli Deo Gloria,

Micaela

Getting to Know You...

As the three "Single" Marques' girls we will talk a great deal about four significant others:

(Shown here at the birthday party of our cousins-Jacob, Noah, Abby)

Yes, it was a water-balloon war.

Sophia

This is a not so recent but still very good picture of the very yummy, squishy

Mia

No, those band-aids on her thumbs are not to protect an open wound but a precaution against thumb-sucking. It was this or getting her one of those big white cones, but they get in the way of her little brown curls.

And finally the newest additions to our home: Maggie (the tabby) and Ben (the other one).

Now you have met everyone.....except our hundreds of relatives, friends, and acquaintances who are bound to have their picture shown on this blog at some point in time.

I'm blogging!

I suppose I had better write a formal introduction. (Ahem)

My name is Elena Marques and I will be your blog author for this posting.

Sooner or later my other halves will follow and take you on witty and whimsical literary journeys of correctly spelled blogs but I will type the first one here. Although I cannot say I am witty, I consider myself to be quite whimsical in my writing style; and I cannot promise that all of my blogs will pass the spellcheck (You should also know that I am slightly "Lexdysic" and it is prone to show :), they will be honest, true, and will hopefully make you smile.

The decorating part of me can hardly wait to make this blog look cute and interesting but I am also looking forward to posting well thought out posts!

Enjoy!

Elena