Romans 5...

Just read it. A friend of mine and I have been trying to get into the habit of memorizing verses from the bible and I came upon this passage the other day:

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

So my goal for the next few weeks is to memorize that passage. Its Romans 5:1-11. As a child, I used to love memorizing verses and would always rise to the occasion whenever the oppurtunity presented itself. As I've gotten older, I have also gotten lazier in this aspect of my life until recently. I just love when I'm going through something and the Lord totally brings to mind a verse that I've memorized! It is so encouraging and yet by not memorizing His word we are robbing ourselves from that blessing. So if you are reading this, I encourage you to pick a verse, ANY verse and memorize it and see what God will do through it.

Well its getting to be the time of year where the mornings and evenings are beginning to be a bit crisp and the sun doesn't come out to play as often as it did a month ago. It was cloudy and gray and rained off and on all day ( thats right, big surprise in the seldom-sunny-always-rainy Great Northwest) But this evening as I gazed out of my window, I noticed that the setting sun reflecting off the clouds painted a beautiful picture so I picked up my camera and went outside.

Beautiful, isnt it? I just think it's so cool how if we look hard enough, we can really see God everywhere. It' s easy to appreciate His beauty when the sky is clear and the sun is shining but we don't seem to view rain with the same relish. To me, rain is somewhat like a trial--it isn't very fun to look at (if you are someone who loves the sunshine, like me) and it doesn't usually make me happy. But what rain produces is beautiful. Water (often in the form of rain) produces life. Green trees, lush landscapes, clear rivers all come as a result of rain. Trials in life are hard! But James charges us to endure them with JOY. They sharpen our faith and as James says, they develop perserverance, which is designed to help us be complete and mature into the beautiful vessel that God has designed us to be.

That being said, yesterday was a gorgeous day. The sun shined throughout the day so just before sunset, I took a few of my friends up to my favorite spot in ALL of Corvallis (for the time being, anyways). It's called Fitton Green and I didn't know that it existed until a friend of the family introduced it to us about a month ago. Needless to say, since the lighting was perfect, I brought my camera and took a few pictures :)

I will leave you with a thought. I podcast a pastor from the Village Church named Matt Chandler and there is something that the Lord has really been teaching me through him.

"God is not glorified by our begrudging sumbission. He is glorified by our joyful obedience".

-Evangeline