Roses of Grace

At the beginning of August, I decided to try an experiment. The experiment was pretty simple. For 30 days, I wouldn't consume a lot of the secular media that I enjoyed. It was during summer break, and I've been wasting a lot of my time on entertainment—and I wasn't being very careful about what kind of entertainment it was. Why did I do this? Well, because I wanted to see what would happen. My hypothesis was that the passive entertainment that we consume on a daily basis affects us more than we think. We read and watch so many things that aren't necessarily sinful but that aren't from a Christian perspective, and the ideas soak into our brain. I wondered how this affects us. And I wondered what would happen if I did something different. I called it the Praiseworthy Project after Philippians 4:8 – "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellenc...

In my Bible reading recently, I read Psalm 24. It's a wonderful psalm full of profound statements about God—that's kind of how the Bible is, actually—but what I didn't realize is that it also contains one of the sweetest of God's promises to us.  I thought I'd go over that promise today with you, so let's take a look at Psalm 24, and how it promises us sanctification.  (You can read Psalm 24 here before we start, or you can follow along with the verses that I've pasted below.)   Verses 1-2 - "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers."  Right away we see God's power displayed. God owns the earth—God made the earth. Nothing in nature is more powerful than the ocean, but God made the seas.  And he also owns every person. "Those who dwell therein"—he made us, and he is the divine author of our stories.  Verses 3-4 -...

This post is provided by Rachel Leitch, a friend of mine who writes at her adventure journal ProseWorthy ! Be sure to check her blog out after you're done here. Her writing is very entertaining and edifying to read.   Quarantine hit us all out of nowhere. What were we supposed to do with all this free time? The only natural answer, of course, was: get a puppy. And that’s exactly what my family did. To be fair, we’d been looking for a while. Our family dog had been showing signs of a serious illness and old age and was reaching the end of his romp. And hey, we were all at home. What better time to train a puppy? Thanks to our mail carrier (who to this day remains one of our dog’s favorite people), we came across a litter of Great Pyrenees/yellow Labrador puppies.  Well, what was left of a litter. Only one was left. We couldn’t resist that white cotton ball puff in the picture. So out we drove to the house. As soon as we rounded the corner towards the dog pen, the puppy in quest...

Welcome, readers, to a very different kind of post—a blog tag.  In case you're thinking to yourself, "what does that even mean?" I'll explain. A blog tag is a kind of challenge. There are rules to follow and steps to complete, and once you're done, you pick a few friends to do the same thing on their blog.  The "What's your WIP?" blog tag is for fiction writers, and though I haven't posted very much about my writing here, I'll give it a go today.  (A note for the non-writer: WIP stands for Work In Progress.) I was tagged by Rose Q. Addams of Rewrites with a Faerie Pen . Check out her blog for fairy tale retellings, book reviews, and wonderful thoughts on bookish things from a Christian perspective.    The Rules      -   Thank the person who tagged you & link to their blog. (Thanks again, Rose!) -   Link back to the creator and add the tag graphic. (That would be Katja from Little Blossoms for Jesus .) -   List the...

This article was originally published last Friday, September 2, on the Rebelution .   Which is better: knowledge or godliness? What should you choose: learning and academia, a word that conjures up an image of an old professor hunched over a notebook amid a ridiculously crowded library, or hands-on actions taken to further the kingdom of God? The way the question is phrased, knowledge seems negative. Many Christians rebel against the idea of stuffy theology or doctrine that gets in the way of more important concerns—like practically serving the people in our lives, or evangelism efforts.  Or maybe do you think of them as separate, though of equal importance. That you have to grow in both your theological intelligence and your day-to-day godliness to grow as a Christian, or that one is more important than the other. But the dilemma is a false one. We aren't forced to choose between doctrine and godliness: actually, they go hand-in-hand. In Titus 1:1, Paul gives his trademark...

Hello there, friends!  Today I have the owner of presenting an interview with my friend Isabella from Inhuman Passion . This is part of the blog tour for Isabella's new blog, The Public-Schooled Christian : resources for Christian teenagers who attend public school and want to live out their faith. So without further ado, let's get to the interview!    1. All right! Welcome, Isabella. Could you introduce yourself for us?   Hi! I'm Isabella, a 15-year-old Christian who lives in North Carolina.  I have grown up in a Christian family and was baptized when I was 9, but I realized the seriousness of faith in Christ and truly started living for Him at 13 years old. I started writing about Jesus at 14 years old, and here I am now—starting a blog about living for Jesus in public school.   2. What made you decide to start this blog? As you might have realized, I go to public school. School has been a big part of my journey with Jesus--in good and bad ...