What I Learned at Camp

Camp was AMAZING!!! Out of the 4 years I have been going, this was the best year EVER!!! Our theme was SATURATE.

Our decorations in the tabernacle

                         
Being saturated with God's Spirit so much that others can see it in us without us ever having to say a word. I will say, I came back very saturated with His Spirit!!
                                     
We also learned about loving the Lord with your heart, soul, mind and strength.
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul and with all thy might. Deuteronomy 6:5

Loving God with ALL your heart means giving Him everything.With God, its all or nothing. There is no half-heart with God. You MUST give Him ALL your heart, not just a part of it.

Loving God with all your soul means letting Him in and trusting Him. That means letting Him heal every wound you have. It means letting Him have complete control over your life, ALL the time, in every aspect of it.

Loving God with all your might, or strength, means submitting to His will. You have to give Him ALL your talents and dreams so that He can take them and create something bigger and better than you ever imagined. It means trusting Him no matter what and letting Him work through you.

God can use you, no matter what. He used Moses to free His people and all he had was a stick. Moses wasn't some great writer that had these amazing verbal abilities. No, he was just your average person, running from the mistakes he had made. God asked Moses "What is in your hand?" (Exodus 4:2) All God needs is what we have. He has equipped us with everything we need to fulfill His calling. 

 If we are to serve God with everything we have and be completely saturated, then we need to keep our minds pure. This goes hand in hand with loving God with all your heart. If our minds are taking in inappropriate things, how is God going to saturate us? When you go to watch that movie or read that book, ask yourself this question: "Would I be comfortable inviting Jesus to watch this with me? Would He be proud to sit with me and listen to that music?" If there is even a slight hesitation, then you shouldn't be watching, reading, or listening to it. We need to keep our minds pure because our minds control everything we do. Everything comes to the brain first and then penetrates to the rest of the body. So be very careful what you watch, see, read and listen to. It will effect you more than you know.

Sometimes we, as Christians and/or Pentecostals, tend to think that we are not strong enough. That we are not big enough to witness, to stand up. But think about this: One Holy Ghost filled young person can cast out any devil, but there is NO devil that can cast out God!! Tell me we aren't strong enough!! ONE Holy Ghost filled person is stronger than Hell itself!!!

So that was the basis of Senior Camp 2013!! If you have any questions, feel free to ask!:)

Camp Pictures

I went to Church Camp this last week and I had a blast!! I came home late last Friday night dog tired, but it was totally worth it!! There were about 300 students and 100 staff on the campgrounds. Here are a few pictures from that amazing week. We had some awesome services, but we also had some amazing games :) If you have never been to a Pentecostal church service before, you are about to see little of how they go and what they are about. First, here comes the choir!!

This was the choir Monday night... and pretty much every night!! Singing: Like a Fire

                               

This is Wednesday night... I am in the gray jacket with purple skirt. Singing: Victor's Crown

These two pictures pretty much say it all: choir was one of the best parts of camp!

Now... a peek into the amazing church services!!

This, my friend, is what camp is all about!! Welcome to a Pentecostal youth service!! (There's me again)

                                 

Same amazing service on Wednesday!

This was the preacher the whole week.. Bro. Tony.. He was awesome!

What an anointed preacher!!

For the fun stuff....

This is one of the weird crazy things we did. We were given an egg and we had to make a contraption to protect it when the staff dropped it off the scissor lift in the tabernacle. It was a very interesting experiment:)

                                 

 We so many more games and lots more fun, but if I posted every picture, this post would never end. Just one more thing.....

AWARDS!!

I was a Camper of the Year Nominee, along with some of my wonderful girl friends.. (I'm in the pink shirt)

These are our wonderful staff members.. my youth leader got Staff of the Year, the one in the orange jacket.

Hurray for Sis Turley!!!

So that's what went on at Senior Youth Camp this year! This and so, so much more. In my next post, I will tell you what we learned about in our day classes, our rallies and our services. 

Over all, this has been the best camp ever!!!

A Peculiar People

In case you don't know this yet, I'm Pentecostal. I am that girl that you can pick out in a crowd, the one who has the knee-length hair and the jean skirt. I'm sure you've seen them in Walmart or at the fair. Yep, that's me, the skirtgirl. As you probably already guessed, I get A LOT of comments about the way I dress and sometimes even get made fun of. But I still wear that long hair and jean skirt. Here's a little bit of why I dress that way. There is more to come on this topic, but here is the very basis of why I dress the way I do.

But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. 1 Peter 2:9

The Bible says that Christians are a peculiar people. Peculiar.... this means we are not normal, average or common. Peculiar: belonging solely or especially to one individual... special, unusual, rare, and strange. We are chosen to be peculiar, we are not meant to stand out or be "normal". We are a royal and holy nation. Why are we to be peculiar?? Why can't we just be like the world? It would be easy to just follow along with the others. Christians are to show the praises of God because He brought you out of darkness into His light... that is why we have to be different. We have to show the world what God has done for us!

So that is why I dress the way I do. As I mentioned before, there is more to come about this. 

Even if you aren't a skirtgirl.. you can still show the world what God has done for you! Just because you aren't Pentecostal doesn't mean you can't share the Gospel with the whole world!! Be a peculiar person in everything you say and do!!

Trusting God

 One of the hardest things for me as a Christian is trusting God. Because of my past (I will talk about soon), I find it very hard to trust anyone, especially God. Everyday, I have to remind myself that God is worthy of my trust, He is not like people from my past, He is a faithful God.

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding in all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths. Proverbs 3:5-6

I read this verse everyday to remind me to put my future in God's hands. We can't have a relationship with God and not trust Him 100%, it doesn't work. Take your best friend for example. You go everywhere with her (or him) and do everything she/he does. You ride in her/his car and tell her/him all your big secrets that no one else knows. Could you have done this without trust? If you didn't trust that your best friend was a good driver would you have let her/him drive you? No, you wouldn't. You let her/him drive you because you trusted that she/he knew how to drive, right? Trust is the key word, here. In your relationship with God, He is that best friend you hang with all the time, the one that drives you everywhere. If you don't trust that God knows how to drive, how are you going to get from one place to another? We have to trust God to take us where He wants us to go, to transport us from one place to another. We have to trust that He knows where He is taking us and precisely how to get there. I know, this is really hard, especially when your trust has been crumbled again and again. But I have found that it is worth the risk. God has NEVER let me down. Even when I think He has walked away, I find He is right there, waiting for me to acknowledge Him. I know how hard trust is to repair, its almost impossible, but if you trust Him, He will never break your trust. I know this from experience. So take a leap of faith and trust God. You will be amazed at how your life will change. It may not be easy and it may take time, but it is definitely worth every moment!!

Random Monday

Random posts seem to be the norm for Mondays so I have decided to call them Random Monday!! What do you think?

 

 

 

A BIG Thank You!!

I just wanted to give a big thank you to Storyteller and Natalie for helping me with my design. Storyteller did the main design a few months ago and Natalie just recently added some page tabs and helped me learn how to do that. They are two awesome bloggers and designers, my blog looks amazing thanks to them. Storyteller and Natalie: THANK YOU!!!!

As you probably noticed, there are a few new pages added, but they are still blank. It will take me a while to get everything up and running for those, so please be patient with me. If you have any suggestions about my blog, the design or if there is something you would like me to talk about, feel free to comment below and I will get back to you as soon as possible. I am open to any suggestion. Also, please go check out Storyteller's and Natalie's blog, you won't be disappointed!:)

No Vacancy

In Thursday's post I talked about making room for Jesus in your schedule. What about making room for Him in your heart? There are so many things taking up room in our hearts that we tend to fill it up with junk and then when Jesus comes knocking, we put up the "No Vacancy" sign. We fill up our hearts with worldly things  such as lust, jealousy, anger, bitterness, hatred etc. Soon, there is no room for good things.

                  

We have to take down the no vacancy sign, open the door and let love in. When we do this, there will no longer be room for hatred, anger, bitterness and lust. It all as to go when God enters the picture.
                                         

If you are are filled with anger, bitterness and hatred, take down the "No Vacancy" sign, let love come in and you will never be the same again. I did it and it completely changed me. I know He can do it for you.

                                                         GOD IS LOVE