Time for a new extended passage!!!

Hey! As today is the last day of August, tomorrow starts a new month, which means we have a new extended passage for September!

Colossians 3:1-17

It teaches us how we can enhance our Christian lives and become more holy like God.

The two verses for this week (August 31st - September 6th) are:

Romans 6:23
Ephesians 2:8-9

I hope everyone has a wonderful second week (or first or third week) of school and I pray that you live and shine at school for Christ! Carry the death of Jesus with you so that His life may be in you too and show it!! :D

Love,
Kaitlyn

Verses for this last week

Well, the verses for this last week (August 24-30) were:

1Peter 3:15

Romans 3:23

For the next few weeks, we are going to be memorizing verses to help us share the gospel of Christ with people. These are so important to know! So we are starting with Romans 3:23.

Love,
Kaitlyn

Week 4! New verses!

It's almost been a month since the ETC Revolution launched and I've already seen God working in others lives, in my life, through others and through me! I've grown closer to some and gotten to know others. And it hasn't been me that has taken the time to go up to people and gotten to know them. It's all been God working in me. Since I allow Him to work in me, He's been able to work through me. :D

New verses!!

Isaiah 50:10

Matthew 7:13-14

Keep on going with memorizing these verses!! Don't let your weaknesses keep you from taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ!! Lean on Him and keep going!! :D

Love ya'll!
Kaitlyn

New Verses

Ok. So this is VERY late and I apologize for that.

The verses for the 3rd week, August 10-16, are:

Collossians 3:14

"And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony." (ESV)

Mark 12:30-31

"And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these." (ESV)

And the extended passage for August is still 2 Corinthians 4.

Love ya'll!
Kaitlyn

Christ - Like Fragrance

Good morning! This morning, I read 2 Corinthians 2.

What really stuck out to me today was the last bit, verses 14-17:

"(14)But thank God! He has made us his captives and continues to lead us along in Christ's triumphal procession. Now he uses us to spread the knowledge of Christ everywhere, like a sweet perfume. (15)Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God. But this fragrance is perceived differently by those who are being saved and by those who are perishing. (16)To those who are perishing, we are a dreadful smell of death and doom. But to those who are being saved, we are a life-giving perfume. And who is adequate for such a task as this?
(17)You see, we are not like the many hunksters who preach for personal profit. We preach the word of God with sincerity and with Christ's authority, knowing that God is watching us."

There were two things that stuck out to me this morning.

1. Our Christ-like 'fragrance' that we should have is so different from this world that people of the world are not going to like us AT ALL. When they see/smell us, they smell "...a dreadful smell of death and doom...". How sad is that?

But that is just Satan working in them so they won't want to smell the fresh, Christ-like fragrance.

But God's side has several advantages to this. First of all, we have God on our side so we don't have to worry about anything! :D Second, since we are such a complete opposite from this world, it's easier for nonbelievers to see the drastic difference from the world and God in us. However, this comes with incredible responsibility on our part to actually obey God and shine for Him. But as long as we trust in God and focus our minds on Him, we will start being smelled as the "...life-giving perfume" that we really are, as we remain in God.

2. We cannot go around saying that we're Christ-like if we "...preach for personal profit." That, first of all, is not good for us because "...God is watching us." Also, we are not being Christ-like if we are looking for personal gain, and the world won't see that much difference in us from them. That is something we definetely do not want and God doesn't either.

Instead of preaching for personal gain (this could mean money, fame, reputation, etc.), preach "...Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as...servants for Jesus' sake." (2 Corinthians 4:5) Also, "preach the word of God with sincerity and with Christ's authority..." while "...knowing that God is watching [you]."

Give God ALL the Glory!

Love ya'll!
Kaitlyn

You Can't Give Someone Something You Don't Have

So last night my family and I watched the movie, Fireproof.

If you haven't seen it, it's about how God heals a marriage that is plummeting downward when the husband surrenders to Him. It's a great movie about how different and more fulfilling your life is when you let God into your life.

Anyway, my favorite scene in the movie is when Caleb and his dad are in front of the cross and Caleb's dad asks Caleb, "If I were to ask you what bothers you so much about Catherine (Caleb's wife), what would you say?" Caleb goes off on this big list of things, starting with "She's so stubborn" and ending with something like, 'No matter how much I show her I love her, she keeps rejecting me.'

Right after he says that, Caleb looks up and his father is standing right below the cross. Caleb was doing that same thing to God; rejecting Him for other things no matter how much love God showed him.

So Caleb surrenders everything to the Lord right then. It's such an amazing scene.

One thing that Caleb's father says is, 'You can't show her your love if you don't have any.'

This is so true. People that don't know God's love don't really know what love is and, therefore, can't show love to other people. So that's why some people fall in love for very wrong reasons, or some stop showing their love to their spouse after they get married, thinking that they've reached the goal by marrying them.

So today, I started reading through 2 Corinthians. I just studied the first half of the first chapter, digging into the words a lot. In verse 4, it says:

"He (God) comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us."

These are the same things.

We can't give others our love or comfort or help if we don't accept God's love or comfort or help that He is always offering to us. If we don't recieve any, we don't have anything to give.

Love ya'll!
~Kaitlyn

New Week = New Verses!

Hey guys! Welp, the first week is over but that means the second week is beginning!

The verses for this week of August 3rd - 9th are:

1 Peter 5:10 (verse 9 if you can too!)
Galatians 2:20

And our chapter passage to memorize till the end of August is

2 Corinthians 4

If anyone needs help, prayer, or anything else, let me know!

-Kaitlyn

2 Corinthians 4:1-6

I was reading/memorizing/meditating on the first part of 2 Corinthians 4 yesterday and I wanted to share some of my thoughts about it.

"Therefore, since through God's mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways, we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said 'Let light shine out of darkness', made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ."

Reading this the first time, I was totally lost. But as I dug into this and read it word by word, I started to get what it was saying.

Basically, since God revealed Himself in Jesus Christ and died on the cross for us because of His mercy, we are able to live with Him shining His light in us. Satan has "blinded the minds of unbelievers" so they cannot see the light that we have. So we preach Jesus as Lord because of the light that God has given us so that unbelievers can see the light shine in us and, therefore, see God.

I love having these verses memorized so I can remind myself and others about shining God's light.

So after reading these verses, I am even more pumped to shine God's light so others can see Him. This school year, if we let God shine out from us, He's going to do amazing things!

I just got together with some people from my high school and we did a prayer walk around the school. Part of the prayer walk involved praying with some custodians that were there. We all met them and now know their names! Last year, walking around the school, seeing them, I thought of how lonely they must get sometimes because no one talks to them. Last year, I never was bold enough to go up to them and talk to them. But how else are they going to see God's light if we don't go and talk to them, thank them, and encourage them. So it was such a blessing to see their faces light up today when we came over and talked to them! We thanked them so much and I could tell that it made their day, having some kids come up to them from the school and tell them how much they mean to us. It was so amazing! And none of that could have happened if we weren't bold and shining with God's light! It was a really neat God time. :D

So I encourage you all to make it a goal to talk to the people that work so hard to make your schools nice and clean for you this year! Be BOLD and SHINE with the light that God has given you!!! :D

Have a great day, ya'll!!

Launching!

Hey guys! I am so excited for this ministry and to see what God has in store! God is going to work so much in this and it's going to be amazing!

What is the ETC Revolution, you ask???

ETC stands for "Every Thought Captive", which is taken directly from 2 Corinthians 10:5.

It is a ministry dedicated to the memorization of scripture to "take every thought captive" and being able to use it not only to enrich our walks with Christ, but to further the Kingdom of God by sharing His love and Word to everyone with love, compassion, encouragement, prayer, and wisdom.

Every action starts with a thought, whether you think so or not.

If we fill our mind with thoughts from the world, our actions and speech are going to reflect that. But if we fill our minds up with God and His word, sinning is going to be very hard to do.

We can only focus on one thing at a time, so if we focus our minds on God by meditating and memorizing His words, our minds won't be filled with things of the flesh.

In Romans 8:6, God's word says this.

"So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace."


So would you rather live a life that leads to death,
or live a life that leads to life and brings peace???