Declaring His Glory

Looking at the night skies always amazes me, the beauty and majesty is breathtaking!

A few years ago I competed in a speech competition and did a speech on the stars. As I studied it more and more I was blown away by the greatness of it all! But what was really amazing to me was the great vastness of it all, it's crazy how small our planet is in space.

Our planet is so small when we compare it to the sun, but then you look at the sun next to other huge stars, it is tiny!!
Our planet earth is a small part of a solar system that is 7.3 billion miles across. This solar system is a little speck in the galaxy called the Milky Way which is about 100,000 light years across. And the Milky Way is small in comparison to the billions of other galaxies! Makes me feel pretty small.


You may ask, "Why? Whats the point of all that space?" 
Well Psalm 19:1 says  "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork." It's all about God! I guess we don't have to worry about it, cause it's not about us, if it was than it would be a waste of space. But it's all about God! The heavens are just a small reflection of His glory!! All that space out there with us on a tiny spec of it tells us all about our insignificance and also all about God’s glory! He created it to shine forth His majesty and glory, and it really is AMAZING!!
Have a good night, and don't forget to thank God for His beauty we all get to share in! :)

An Empty Tomb

                                   Source

As we approach Easter, we often think of colored eggs, cute little bunnies, pink dresses, and maybe an Easter sermon.      
But is this really what Easter is about? Have we lost the meaning of this day? As I ponder this day, and actually  realize what happened, it gives me a different perspective. Tonight was the night Jesus would be betrayed by His own disciple, tonight was the night He was delivered into the hands of those who hated Him, tonight was the night He was abandoned by His disciples, tonight He was sentenced to death, tonight He was cruelly beaten unmercifully, tonight He was mocked and made to wear a crown of thorns, tonight He suffered unimaginable excruciating pain, tonight was the night those hands that healed the sick, made the blind see and the lame walk, those hands were nailed to a cross! Tonight the Savior of the world died and was placed in a tomb.
All this happened tonight.

Why? Why did the perfect Son of God die the death of a criminal? Why would He allow this to happen?
Well it all goes back to the very beginning....
When mankind rebelled against God and sin was brought into the world. It was then that the heart of all humanity was turned away from God. It was our sin that nailed Christ to the cross. It was our punishment that He took on Himself, we deserved His death!! Yet He gave His life so that we might have eternal life!!! He conquered death when He arose from the grave after 3 days! He crushed the serpents head, ascended into Heaven and is now ruling over the world as King!!!
I thank you God, for your AMAZING LOVE which you showed for us this night!

I would like to conclude with some of the lyrics to one of my favorite songs, it just fit in so well with this post:

You Love Me Anyway- By Sidewalk Prophets

I am the thorn in Your crown

But You love me anyway

I am the sweat from Your brow

But You love me anyway

I am the nail in Your wrist

But You love me anyway

I am Judas’ kiss

But You love me anyway

See now, I am the man who yelled out from the crowd

For Your blood to be spilled on this earth shaking 

ground

Yes then, I turned away with a smile on my face

With this sin in my heart tried to bury Your grace

And then alone in the night, I still called out for You

So ashamed of my life, my life, my life

But You love me anyway

It’s like nothing in life that I’ve ever known

Yes,You love me anyway

Oh Lord, how You love me

The Hunger Games: Review

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(Warning: You probably don't want to read if you haven't seen the movies, there are spoilers)

I've been taking an 'Art, Movies, and Worldview' class in college, which has been really cool! It's been so much fun to be examining the worldview behind movies (and we get to watch movies for homework!)
So this last week we were assigned to watch the Hunger Games for class. Which was cool, cause I just felt so left out, cause honestly, I had never even heard about the book until the movie came out! And it is so popular right now, I was excited to watch it from a biblical perspective and examine the worldview and meaning behind.

So, what do I think?...Well this movie left me confused, I liked and yet hated it. The whole fact that they were forcing these young kids to kill each other was just horrible. But I liked how they did show it in a bad light, which is what Suzanne Collins had in mind when she wrote the books. However, when you think how wrong it was for all the people from the Capitol to be taking so much delight in the big 'show' of the Hunger Games...and yet we are all in there watching them as well, and taking delight in the violence. I know that in our culture today we do take delight in violence. It's all over the place. I think that when watching this with the wrong perspective can have a dangerous effect on those who actually do lean toward violence.

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Yet there are some good things as well in this movie. The main character- Katniss Everdeen, played a Christ-like role when she volunteered as tribute for her sister Prim. She was willing to die in the place of her sister, which is what Christ has done for us.
I was disappointed though when she did kill two of the tributes, I guess I just thought she would make it through without actually killing. But one was in self-defense and also she killed out of pity, for he was suffering, but that brings up another whole topic on when is it right to kill? If old people are suffering is it right to put them out of their misery? But, this is a big topic, so I won't go there right now.
Yet she never actually hunted someone down and killed them, like the other tributes were doing. She was a hunter we saw at the begining, and it would have been easy, yet she didn't, she stayed in trees and away from the fighting if possible.

Ethics- What is right and wrong?
When you watch this movie we can see that it is going against: Tyranny-Materialism-Violence-
Yet there is no standard for whats right and wrong. We as Christians use the Bible as our ultimate standard of truth, yet for the unbeliever, they don't have a set standard to actually criticize these by. In order to come against these things (tyranny, materialism, and violence) they have to borrow from our worldview. Which is constantly happening with the non-Chrisian worldviews.
They make you wander on whats right and whats wrong? Is it ok to kill when you're forced to? When is suicide right? Near the end Katniss and Peeta are about to commit suicide, but they are stopped..but is this ethically right? But there's also the question of whether or not she was actually meaning to do it, because she does keep saying to Peeta 'Trust me'.

There are lot's of questions and so much to say about this movie, I have only said a little bit. I haven't even talked about all the different characters. But lots of this came from what I learned today in my class, and I just wanted to share it while it was fresh on my mind. I hope it made sense, I'm not much of a writer and sometimes I just ramble away without making sense.

So what do you think? What did you like/dislike about the movie?

I didn't really mean to go all against this movie, there was good things to it, and it was a very well done movie I have to say. I did enjoy it, and I think I'll have to read the books now!

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