1 Peter 2:12

"Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us."

It seems that this is where Christianity is struggling, we have the being "accused of doing wrong" down to a science, but we're still struggling with doing good deeds. So much of Christianity in the media is stuff like Quran burning, or the Westboro Baptists, but we have nothing for doing good. I don't know if that's because most good deeds aren't newsworthy, but why aren't Christians the first to respond to disasters like the Haiti earthquake or the floods in Pakistan? It would be so much harder to crticize us if we lived as we were called to.

1 Peter 6-8

I was talking to a friend about unanswered prayers and I was saying how God never seems to answer any of my prayers. It gets very discouraging to keep faith when you have so little to hold on to. In this passage, Peter says that our faith is tested to be proved genuine.

God says that he grants those who seek after him the desires of their heart. I guess you can't really count only praying to God when you want something as really seeking after God. I have my priorities backwards I think.

2 Peter 1:5-9

Peter advises Christ's followers to make every effort to add goodnes, faith, knowledge, and self-control. If we don't, he wanrs that it will make us ineffective and unproductive in our knowledge of Jesus Christ. While faith may save us, it doesn't help us further Christ's Kingdom.

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I got an email today saying I have 2 weeks to decide if I am going to accept my offer. This is a much scarier decision than I thought it would be initially. I was thinking I should pray for guidance about it, but it seems that none of my prayers get answered one way or another. I don't know if that means that God is letting me decide or if I'm just too distant to even hear anything.

1 John 2:15

"Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him."

I have heard this verse many times, but whenever it is mentioned it is always sugarcoated, as in "Oh, it doesn't mean that we can't enjoy things in this life, God just has to be our first love." I have often wondered if maybe the things we enjoy, such as sports, movies, or videogames are more dangerous than we think.

I've heard it said of dieting that total abstinence is easier than moderation. I think sometimes the same is true of how we spend our time. If anyone was to force me to choose between never reading the Bible again, or never playing Starcraft again, I would of course choose to keep the Bible. If I added up the time I spend on each one though I probably play Starcraft half an hour to an hour a day, whereas I'm lucky if I spend half an hour a week on devotions.

In a few years, Starcraft will have faded away, but my time will probably be filled by some other dumb activity. I would rank any of my hobbies as less important than my walk with God. However, if anyone looked at how I spent my time, it would appear that God was closer to last place rather than first.

Jude

There are a couple of books of the Bible that I hear about all the time, but never read. I thought it would be a good idea to read these and decided to start with Jude. As it turns out Jude is quite short, it is mostly about one topic, unbelievers infiltrating the church and corrupting it. 

It is a somber reminder that we need to always be on our guard against such people. I remember a church youth group I went to. The leaders were so concerned about growing in size that they began to strip the gospel away in favor of playing games to attract people. It worked for awhile, the youth group grew quite a bit bigger. But when the time came that they decided to start really preaching, all the bad influences they brought in ended up dragging a lot of the "good" kids away too and we ended up even smaller than before. 

I feel like cornerstone might be smaller than it used to be, but we should use this opportunity to create a group of really strong believers. People who will be able to train and lead other people in the future are worth so much more than immediate numbers.