Angela’s Weblog

So the verses I liked today were 17-21

17“And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. 18But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. 19 Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, 20that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, 21 whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.

What God was telling me in this passage was that even though stuff that happens is crappy, like the people condemning Jesus to the cross instead of a murderer(which was preeetty crappy at the time), He can use that as part of His plan. Those people had to turn against Jesus and send Him to the cross or else we would not have the salvation in Him that we have. All of that needed to happen to Jesus to get Him to the exact place where God needed Him to be. So, if stuff that is crappy is going on in my life, it’s probably stuff that needs to happen to get me to where God ultimately wants me to be. Christ didn’t have it easy in His time on earth and me, being someone whose goal is to be as Christ-like as possible, will probably have to deal with crap along the way in my walk that sucks, and hurts. I just need to keep in perspective that God’s got somewhere he wants me to be, I just need to keep following Him to get to it.

So chapter 2 of Acts is a pretty amazing chapter. I can’t even do this the way Mike said to do it cause there was just so much that I want to talk about. The whole beginning section verses 1-13 is huuuuge for me. I know a LOT of people think that speaking in tongues is something crazy and while some don’t agree with it others think that not everyone is given the gift. I believe, and this is just my personal opinion, that everyone can. I can do it and Ive seen countless others come to speaking in tongues..and it doesnt have to be something scary! I even know of a case of a man i know going to a different country, speaking in tongues, and a man from that country knowing what the man was saying. God gave him the ability to talk to someone who doesn’t know the same language! I don’t know about you, but that’s pretty darn cool to me. In this case though, when the holy spirit came down on the people, that was the first manifestation of it. It wowed the crowd which really helped Peter lead the unsaved people to Christ! That is what tongues is for. It’s a manifestation of the Holy Spirit in us. But enough about that I just always have to talk about it when I get the chance.

One other super cool part of this chapter was towards the end verses 42-47. I even like the title of the section! It’s called “The fellowship of the believers”. Everyone got saved, came together and were on fire for God. They did all this crazy stuff that is listed really fast and stuck right in the middle is this short part about how everyone just up and sold everything they had for the work of the Lord. I know that weekly I am getting pressed by God to give more when I get my paychecks, and I know that it’s the fellowship that we have with the church that makes me want to give. Basically having everyone around me so sure about Jesus and so sure about this church makes my faith in God and in what we are doing so much stronger! It makes me want to give more! Who knows if that makes any sense when it’s not in my head but lets hope.

I know this is a crazy way of doing this but im in a weird mood today so here’s my weird post.

Lord I pray that my faith in You can continue to grow and that my desire to give gets bigger all the time. I pray that I can stand firm in my beliefs, even the ones that may sound crazy, and never take the gifts You’ve given me for granted. Amen.

So I know this is really late at night, but i didn’t get onto the computer until now. I did read it before 2 AM though! haha way before! People should actually be proud that I didn’t spend my life on the computer today lol.

So I read Acts 1 today. The verse that stood out for me was:

Acts 1:7 He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.

I feel like right now this is a big thing for me, and a lot of people I know. Everyone, especially me, is in a rush for things that they want to happen. I think it may be one of the hardest things for a christian to actually try to wait for God’s timing, instead of thinking that our timing is the right one. I know that personally I get upset when the things I pray for don’t happen immediately. And I get discouraged when it takes a while to maybe get through to someone about God. I’ve been told all my life though that we don’t need to worry about that, but still it’s hard for me to grasp most of the time. The reason why this verse jumped out at me was that I was just talking with a good friend of mine about how he needs to wait for God’s timing in the situation he is in. The more I talked about it with him, the more i realized that there are areas where I need to do the same. Isn’t that crazy? That God can tell us something from us telling other people? It’s just funny to me.

I was just looking up verses for my friend and I found this one that goes with this.

Psalm 37:7 Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for Him;
Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way,
Because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass.

Lord I pray that I can be more patient. That I can wait for Your timing for any need I may have in my life. I pray that I can see when I am being impatient and not trusting that Your timing will be WAY better than mine. I know that Your plan for me is amazing, there’s no doubt in my mind. So I thank You for loving me enough to give my life a plan. AMEN!

I hope that I did this right! Mike tell me if I messed up! haha