weed | Still Learning Something New

“No, he’s not a Christian, but he’s got a good heart.”

“NO, he’s unemployed! He lives in his van down by the river. He smokes weed for dinner…”

“But, he’s got a good heart!”

The van in the photo does not have anything to do with our family, it just happened to be parked at the neighbor’s across the street from our house. And that conversation, thank GOD, was not between my E17 and me, or about one of my boys. It was from last Sunday’s sermon. My church is just one of many Life Church TV locations. That means when we meet, we watch a sermon on a video feed along with people all over the world. This past Sunday Pastor Craig tackled the message of purity in the second part of the sermon series, Bless This Home.

Matthew 5:8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”

Usually I do not think much about my long-term goals as a homeschooling mom because I’m so busy just trying to meet our immediate daily goals. But I do have some long term goals. One is to help my children learn to “see God”.

According to Matthew 5:8, this means that I must teach them the importance of purity. I have found that trying to teach my kids purity is most difficult as so much of the world seems so very determined to teach them impurity.

Sunday’s message has me asking myself these questions, and realizing that I currently have much that can be improved on about the attitude of purity in both my personal life and teaching about this Godly attribute to my kids.

1) How would you describe the current condition of your heart? 2) What impurities have you allowed into your family? What can you do to remove them? 3) What steps do you need to take to create a permanent culture of purity in your family?

As my kids and I seek answers to those questions we’ll be meditating on these Scriptures from my sermon notes.

Jeremiah 17:9-10 “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? “I the lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.”

Ephesians 4:18-19 NIV “They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed”.

Psalm 119:9-10 NIV “How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to your word. I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands.”

Proverbs 4:23 NIV “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”

1 Samuel 16:7 NIV “But the lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the lord looks at the heart.”

Ephesians 5:3 NIV “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people”

.Ezekiel 36:26 NIV “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”

To view other teaching purity related posts click here https://stilllearningsomethingnew.com/2013/03/08/keeping-the-code/ and here https://stilllearningsomethingnew.com/2013/03/10/calling-for-reinforcements/

You can view Bless This Home 2 here http://www.lifechurch.tv/watch

betty jo

One of my favorite things about homeschooling is that we do not have to stick to a preset schedule. If we want to veer off the “common core” path, we can. That’s exactly what I have planned for this week.

As I looked at all the different special days to possibly acknowledge, I decided it best if we just have a special kind of week of learning and put our middle ages studies on hold.

This is Holy Week so everyday we will follow what Jesus did these days so long ago. And,

March 25 – Passover (Exodus chapter 12 and we’ll be making unleavened bread and boiling eggs to dye then eat), and Tolkien Reading Day (everyone is already reading other selections, but we haven’t seen the Hobbit yet)

March 26 – “Make Up Your Own Holiday Day” (I wonder what the kids will come up with? I’m thinking, “Kids Doing Mom’s Chores Day”!)

March 27 – Robert Frost’s birthday, 1874 (poetry and biography notebooking)

March 28 – (Don’t laugh, even though I did) “Weed Appreciation Day” (the younger boys can go through our collection of herbal remedy books, but I think I’ll have the older two debate legalization of marijuana). And it’s “National Black Forest Cake Day” (I’m trying not to laugh again, but for someone else this might go hand in hand with the side effects of appreciating weed) – we have never made a Black Forest Cake, so maybe we’ll give it a try. And even more special than weeds and Black Forest Cake, it’s B14’s birthday! (he may not want Black Forest Cake)

March 28 – Good Friday – We’ll have to decide on a movie (Passion of the Christ, The Jesus Film, Story Behind the Cross) and we’ll try making Hot Cross buns.

It’s going to be a good week! I hope you will have one too.

betty jo

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