The Deity of Jesus

    As a Christian my faith is primarily founded upon the fact that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Without that my faith would be useless. Why do I believe that however?

Let's look at some characteristics of Jesus that could only belong to deity.

• He was in the Beginning. "Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was." John 17:5 also see: John 1:1 &14
• He was/is sinless. "For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth:" 1 Peter 2:21 &22. See also: Hebrews 4:15, 2 Cor. 5:21 and 1 John 3:5
• He had/has the authority to forgive sins. "In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us." Ephesians 1:7 & 8 See also: Mark 2:3-11
• "Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me." John 14:6
• " For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form..." Colossians 2:9

Some of the things He did could only be done by deity.

• He shared in the work of creation. "For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones of dominions or rulers or authorities - all things have been created through Him and for Him." Colossians 1:16  See also John 1:1-3 & 10 and Hebrews 1:2
• He upholds all things. "And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much better than the angels, as He has inherited a more excellent name than they." Hebrews 1:3 & 4
• He is our redeemer. " Who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds." Titus 2:14 See also Ephesians 1:7 and Revelation 5:9
• He will be involved in punishing the wicked. "....When the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, when He comes to be glorified in His saints on that day, and to be marveled at among all who have believe - for our testimony to you was believed." 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10

Jesus made claims that could only be true of Deity.

1. "Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am." John 8:58
2. He claimed to be wiser/greater than Solomon. Matthew 12:42
3. "And He was saying to them " "you are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world." John 8:23
4. "I and the Father are one." John 10:30
5. "Which one of you convicts Me of sin? If I speak truth, who do you not believe Me?" John 8:46
6. "For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. "No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father." John 10:17 & 18
7. "Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins." John 8:24
8. "But He kept silent and did not answer. Again the high priest was questioning Him, and saying to Him, "Are You the Christ the Son of the Blessed One?" And Jesus said, "I am, and you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming with the clouds of Heaven." Mark 14:61 & 62
9. "For this is My blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins." Matthew 26:28
10. "But from now on the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the power of God." Luke 22:69
11. "Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgement." John 5: 28 & 29
12. "For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me." John 6:38

These claims that Jesus made are either true or they are false. There is no in between. I believe they (and the many others you can find as you read the gospel) to be true. 

 Many other testified that Jesus was deity - God the Father (Matthew 3:17), John the Baptist (John 1:29-34), The angel Gabriel ( Luke 1:31-35), Philip (John 1:45), The Centurion (Matthew 27:54), Thomas (John 20:27-28) and Peter (Matthew 16:15 & 16).

Do you believe that Jesus is God?

This Week in Pictures

 A few views from this week....

The wood stash in our garage attic. This is from a tree that we had to cut down to build our house and then my Dad took it to his place and we helped him cut it up in his sawmill and then plane the boards. We are enjoying using them to make projects. I hope to share a couple projects with you very soon - my desk and this one that Jonathan is working on below.

 Can you guess what we made?

 Mom recently sent over some baseball stuff that she found at her house. Aaron is quite sure that they are antiques and that we should put them on special display. :-)

 Megan found this glove especially intriguing.

 I tried planting wheat grass for our rabbit (which she loved!) but am just enjoying it as a potted plant as well. I also did some reading on it and think we might try eating it too. I also think I might use it for decorating at the Bridal show in a little over a week (I started some more for that).

 I am working on a couple of new memory verses and so I wrote them out and put them so that I can see them when I do dishes. It is a wonderful time to review.

 I am dealing with a cold today and Mara thought that a walk would help me feel better. So out we headed.

The girls and I with our faithful Kitchi went down the river a ways on the ice. It was lovely out.

What was your week like?

Freebie Friday (Make that Saturday) and a GIVEAWAY!

This post is about celebrating the many wonderful things in life that don't require going out and spending money. 

Five Fun things to do for Free

1. Go Ice Skating
2. Learn to juggle (Aaron recently mastered juggling 3 balls!)
3. Play Hide-and-Seek in the house with the lights off (adults too!)
4. Make envelopes from old calendars 
5. Knit something from yarn you already have on hand. Be creative in combining yarns. I am almost done with a sweater for Megan that I made in this way.

                                                                       Learn for Free

• Khan Academy is a great resource for all sorts of online learning. Megan finds it super fun. I have used for all of my kids at various times.
• Hillsdale College has a free online course to learn about our Constitution. 
• Mara has really enjoyed using Duolingo to learn other languages. 

Read for Free (on your Kindle or possibly other devices)

• "A Tale of Two Cities"
• "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"
• "The Secret of Kite Hill"

Listen for Free

This one is rather fun to watch as well as listen to:

Free Gifts to Give

A Hug

A Song (I know many who love to listen to music - especially at the nursing home)

Make a set of cards

A GIVEAWAY!!!

I have a DVD of "To Joey With Love" to give away!

You can read my review for it here.

To win, please leave a comment telling of one of your favorite things to do for free. Be sure to leave a way that I can contact you if you win.

This giveaway will go through January 21st. Then we will randomly choose a winner.

And the winner is RENEE!

The BEST FREE Gift!

"For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Romans 6:23

Disclaimer: When I say free it doesn't mean that it didn't cost somebody something. Also I may list various activities that are free to me because I already own the equipment needed but if you don't than it wouldn't be free to you - just skip those. Some things that might be listed might not be truly free (like inviting your neighbor to join you for supper) but really aren't going to cost much more than you would already be paying.

What Do You Have in Your Hand? {A Homemade Gift}

The plan for these posts is to encourage us all to look at what we have already to use rather than thinking we need to go out and buy something more. One way that I enjoy doing that is in making homemade gifts for others. I could go out and buy something for them for their birthday or Christmas or whatever but often times I have no really good idea of what they would like or could use. So just going out and buying something just so I can have a gift to give seems to me to be wasteful. So I have been working to do a better job of observing what people enjoy and then trying to figure out something that I can make (usually with things that I already have) for them instead.

Here is one of our recent (It was for Christmas) projects that we worked together to make for Ken using things that we already had on hand. It was a very successful (meaning he liked it!) gift and it was doubly fun because the kids and I had a great time working on it together.

  We made: "Ticket to Ride - Minnesota"

 
We have really enjoyed the game "Ticket to Ride" and we owned the United States version, and had played the Europe version but we thought it would be fun to have a Minnesota version too. Ken had found a map from 1930 that you could see of the railroads of MN and we thought it would be pretty fun to turn that into a game board.

   We had talked about months ago and hadn't done anything about it so as Christmas approached I thought that would be a fun gift to make for Ken. For my birthday in early December Ken bought me another version of "Ticket to Ride" which is Rails and Sails and has a map of the world on one side and the great lakes region on the other. That was pretty fun but we still thought it would be fun to do a MN version and it gave me the idea of putting the new game board on the back side of our original game board.

The items that we used to make the game were:

• Paper. I had bought a 500 sheet package of this heavy, large paper last year which we used for our printing press but I had a lot leftover that I could use. I did have to make it in 6 different sections as one piece did not cover the game board.
• Pencils and permanent markers.
• Modge podge
• Cardstock and a printer
• Stamp and Versamark inkpad.
• MN map
• The computer for lots of research.
• Wood (Jonathan made extra playing pieces)

I drew the outline of MN (the north eastern tip had to by cut off - poor thing - but it didn't have any railroads there anyway) on the papers. Then Jonathan and I figured out which towns we would use. We used the 1930 map as reference but couldn't put in every town and track they had as that would have made a game board that was way to crowded.

 Megan helped with a lot of the art work on the game board though Jonathan and I did some too. Mara and Aaron mainly just offered suggestions though they lent a hand a couple of times. You can see the wooden game pieces that Jonathan made in these pictures.

We were careful to get the towns in the RIGHT places on this map. That is something that bugs us about the USA version - Duluth is placed where St. Paul really is. After everything was drawn then I modge podged the paper to the back of the game board that we already had.

 We had to make new tickets for this game. I had fun researching each town and figuring out what they may have had going or coming from their town in 1930. So our tickets include what the train is hauling on them. We also put a picture of a real train from MN on the back side of our cards and then we stamped a stamp of MN with versamark (it shows up very lightly) on the other side.

On Christmas day evening we had fun giving it a try.

Another gift for Ken this Christmas was extra pieces (so that 6 people - not just 5 can play) for the Rails and Sails Ticket to ride version. Aaron and I made them out of clay and then painted them purple. Game playing is something our family really enjoys - Ken loving it the most so stuff to do with games makes a good gift for him. These ideas worked especially well as our game cupboard is rather crowded but this didn't take any extra space - these things fit in boxes that were already in the cupboard.

  Have you ever made a game? I have seen some other cool ideas out there before but it seemed like a lot of work and I hadn't attempted it. This was a lot of work but a lot of fun too and I was impressed by the educational factors of working on it. We learned our MN geography better, we learned some history (from my researching - and naturally I told the kids all about the interesting things I learned while sitting around the lunch table) and it was a great way to get better at art. 

 Reporting on my "No spend challenge" and "Using what is in my hand" - This past week went pretty well. I didn't buy anything except I did pay for the services of a Chiropractor visit for our dog, Kitchi. He has been limping for some time and the Vet recommended the chiropractor. He came in December once and was able to do some good but thought we better has a check up visit this month. Thank-fully he thought that should now take care of it. Kitchi had lost muscle mass (quite a bit) in one leg and it is now coming back again so that is very nice.

   Another item that did get bought (though not by me) was boxes of facial tissue. Jonathan reported to Ken that we were nearly out and the two of them didn't think that would work very well (even though the majority of us mostly use handkerchiefs) and so Ken went and stocked up on them. He also bought milk but I said that we would do that.

   Not buying is always an interesting challenge in the food department. We stock up tons of food for winter so it would take us a long time to get to the point of going hungry but still when I take a month or so off from shopping we do tend to run out of some things. Popcorn and white sugar have been missed a little bit. We are also running low on fresh produce but I am growing sprouts and wheatgrass to make up for that lack. Spaghetti noodles are also very low and Aaron feels that might be a bad deal but the rest of us think we will be able to survive. :-) Our chickens have decided with this cold weather (I think that is the reason) that they shouldn't need to lay very often so we have had to have quite a lot of eggless breakfasts. That is fine - I just have to think a little more as Eggs is often a normal breakfast for us. We have also been using up quite a bit of the milk that I canned this summer so that we don't have to buy as much. I am very thank-ful for all the good food that we are able to put up each summer and fall.

   Are you working to spend less at your home? I would love to hear your stories!

Our Typical Homeschool Day in the 2016/2017 school year

  I have been meaning to write more about homeschooling and a couple have readers have prompted me to do that now.

Here is our basic day:
The kids get up at 7:45 am or earlier and are supposed to be dressed and ready for the day and ready to help by 8 am.

They all have a chore or so (and that some days is cooking breakfast) before breakfast at 8:30 am.
After breakfast we read a New Testament chapter while still sitting around the table.

Then we clean up from breakfast. Mara sweeps the main area, Jonathan empties the dish drainer, Aaron clears and washes the table, Megan rinses dishes and helps clean off counters and I wash dishes and work on cleaning off counters. I consider working on household and homesteading chores to be as important of an education as book work. If my kids can do algebra well but can't cook or care for a home then I will feel like I have failed. While we are cleaning up we are also working on memorizing scripture. I can keep the Bible propped up on the shelf above the sink to keep us on track and we recite together while we work. Currently we are working to memorize the book of Philippians and so we do that each day and most days we also review a book or chapter that we have memorized in the past (we rotate through those). We haven't always memorized as much. With littler kids you can start smaller and work up.

Next we do music. This can vary a little from day to day and one morning a week when I have early music students it tends to get skipped. It also can get skipped on Homeschool co-op days and nursing home days (both once a month). Anyway our general routine is to sing a round together accappella (I think this helps the kids to learn to hold their own part better and to be able to hear harmony), then we sing a Hymn while I also play the piano (this is to worship and praise our God and also to work on training voices. I also use it as a time to talk some about music theory.). Next we do a couple of bluegrass songs together with everybody playing and singing. One is a review/warm-up song and the other one is the song we are currently trying to get good at.

Next we do stretching and jumping jacks which only lasts around 3 minutes. We generally get done with all of this somewhere between 9:30 and 10 am.

Now each of the kids do their individual work (and 2 mornings a week I am teaching music lessons during a portion of this time).

  MARA -We have had a major change this year with Mara doing college online. She is a junior in highschool and in MN you can choose to go to college for free during your junior and senior years. She could go to classes at a school or she can do it online. I didn't really care for the idea of her going to the local university at this time (and she doesn't have a drivers license yet so it would have been a lot of running for my anyway) and so we chose University of Northwestern  which has a biblical world view. She isn't allowed to take Bible classes with the PSEO program (the state funding) but the other classes that she does take can have a Biblical rather than secular world view and we are happy about that. This past Spring found me figuring out how to make a transcript and helping her with the application submitting.

   So for Mara she took English Comp and Spanish 1 last semester and this semester she is just starting on Spanish 2, Chemistry and Theater. We are all kind of excited about the Chemistry class as she was sent a big kit with chemicals, beakers and so forth and we all hope to watch what she does with it. We also found it quite curious that the only book she was sent for Chemistry was "Miracles" by C.S. Lewis. This looks like it is going to be a fun class. :-)

  Mara has also worked on Math (Saxon advance math) some on her own and is working on an essay this semester that I asked her to do for a contest.

JONATHAN - Jonathan is in 9th grade this year. He is doing Saxon Math Algebra 1. He mostly works on his own and will just call me to help out as needed. He tends to need help with around 2 problems every day. Algebra has been challenging for him and so when he started this book last year we decided to just do 1/2 a lesson every day so that it wasn't so overwhelming. This year he has made good progress and really seems to be understanding things better and is able to work on his own more so that has been wonderful. Jonathan also has a spelling workbook that he works on and he does 15 minutes of copy-work from the Bible every day. We do copy-work as a way to work on handwriting and also to help the kids learn good grammar and sentence structure.

   I also assign Essays from time to time (he is currently working on his second one this year) which we then send off to different contests. Right now the older two are working on ones for the Stossel in the Classroom Essay contest. If you have a highschooler that might be something fun for them to try. Mara has become a semi-finalist before and won $100. That was pretty fun for her. This is Jonathan's first year to compete in this one. We did find out he won at the local level for the other essay contest that he entered this year which gives him $25 (this is his 3rd year of winning at that level and one year he also won at state which gave him another $50).

AARON - Aaron is in 7th grade. He is my guy who is great in Math and Geography but was slow to learn to read (he loves to read now however) and still struggles with spelling and writing. He does Saxon math 87 which I generally read through with him and then he does on his own, very rarely needing any help. For both Aaron and Megan, I only ask them to do every other problem as there is a fair amount of repetition and they grasp it pretty easily and so doing them all is unnecessary. However if they get one wrong they have to go back and correct that one and also do the problems on either side of that problem.  For spelling I am working with him using concepts that I am finding in the book "The Logic of English". I think we are making some progress this year. Spelling has just been a super hard subject for Aaron. He also does 15 minutes of Copy-work from the Bible. He does it very slowly and carefully which is fine - this isn't a speed subject as much as Megan thinks that it should be. He has to do it in cursive and he still refers back to a cursive chart fairly often while he works.

MEGAN -Megan is in 5th grade and tends to enjoy schoolwork quite a bit. I don't think she would mind to much if we had quite a few workbooks but that isn't our style. She does Saxon Math 65. She used to struggle with this more because as she worked on her pages she tended to doodle (she loves to draw and whenever she can get her hands on pencil and paper at the same time a picture tends to appear) and then her page would get very messy and sometimes when she went to do her correcting (Yes I have my kids do all their own correcting as that saves me a lot of time) she wouldn't be able to read what she wrote and would thus get it wrong and then would have to do more problems too. That led to a frustrated little girl. I made a rule not to doodle but she just kept having problems with that. THEN... one day on accident a solution was discovered. She has a typewriter and decided to type out her lesson one day just for fun. That days math lesson went by super quickly. She didn't get any problems wrong. There was no doodling on the page! So the next day she tried it again - similar results. This was discovered by accident but it has been wonderful!!!

 Megan also has a spelling/vocabulary workbook which she find rather fun and she also does 15 minutes of copywork. She loves writing in cursive and is proudly zooming through her writing of the various books in the New Testament.

On Fridays the spelling and copywork is skipped and we try to watch an educational video and write a letter instead.

Voluntary reading is a big part of education around here too.

We try to have all the book work stuff done before lunch.
After lunch we have a read aloud time. I usually read a portion from 4 different educational books and have the kids tell back to me (one child per book - I rotate who does which one - they haven't figured out my rotation method so it is a surprise to them) what they learned from what I read in the Charlotte Mason style. Then we also read 1 fun book.

 In our educational books we read a chapter from the Old Testament, and then we cover history, science, geography, health, poetry and so forth. We don't have every subject all the time and sometimes more than one book is on a certain subject. As we finish a book then I just find a new one and on we go again.

Currently are books are: "Jeremiah" (in the Bible), "The Church in History", "Observing God's World" (and Abeka science book), "Halley's Bible Handbook", "Fanny J. Crosby and Autobiography" and then we currently have a bonus book (I found it at the library and knew the kids would find it interesting too so added it to our current reading schedule) "The Man who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and other clinical tales". The last one is an interesting true book about Dementia and it was in the adult health section at the library but we have all found it very intriguing and interesting and the kids think that is our current "fun" book - Fanny Crosby was supposed to be but they said it doesn't quite qualify.

Some art time in our school. :-)

 That is our formal schooling but education goes far beyond that. I could go on and on about the other ways of learning and how important that is too - things like art, survival skills, robotics, mechanics, wood working, cooking, business, government, politics, website design, sewing, childcare and much, much more! Hopefully I can write a post about that soon too. You can go to a couple of older posts where I also talk about learning from life as well. Here are some from 2013 and 2014.

  I would love to hear about what works for you in homeschooling, and please feel free to share any questions or tips that you might have.

Seeking to Simplify

Hooray! I accomplished all my simplifying goals this past week. That is, all but one. Next week hopefully I can do it all. I didn't sell (or really even work at selling) anything.

But..
I did.....

• Go through one area (box, cupboard, shelf, drawer, closet, etc) every day (Monday through Friday).
• I got rid of at least 5 items each day. In fact I have 63 items written down (and I had trouble remembering to write that down all the time).
• I also cleaned out my e-mail inbox every day!!! This one is super exciting to me as I have really struggled with it but it sure speeds up my day to have all the e-mails answered and out of there. I just have to use some self-discipline and make myself take the time to deal with whatever issue was needing to be addressed right now instead of putting it off until later. This makes my life feel so much more peaceful. I love it!
• I also went through and organized at least 5 photo files each day (Mon-Fri). I am not noticing any great speed change in our computer yet but still it is nice to get organized and make it so I can find things better. I also like getting rid of all the digital clutter of bad pictures.

We also finished my desk last week (I will have a post about it soon - I hope!) and that has been so much fun to work on some organizing with that. My desk has been an area that I have struggled with clutter on since childhood but this year I am really hoping to change some habits there and learn to keep it clean. This week has been very successful in that area.

   I do realize with all these successes that I am at the beginning of the year and I am excited about making some changes along with the fact that this is a much quieter time of year for me (no garden, few weddings, homeschool is sailing along smoothly, some music students have been on break and food prep is pretty easy using all the things that I canned and froze in the summer and fall) but Lord willing I can work to develop some good habits now and then they will stick with me even as times get busier.

Here is some of my clutter that needed to go! Some old shoes that served me well for many, many years. The insides were now falling apart. I did carefully cut off the buckles to go in my sewing/crafting stash.

 I enjoy making cards and so I save things - colorful envelopes, old cards, calendars, magazines, junk mail with cool paper, etc. Though I don't actively save papers as much as I used to I still have a big stash. I would guess that most people could easily toss that whole table full of stuff into the garbage/recycling without a backward glance. But I know how I can use it. That my kids and I can have a fun time making cards together and then when we send them to others it will brighten up there day too.

   So this is where the clutter gets emotional with me. This crafting business is where I have the real struggle with clutter. Yes I have clutter in a few other places in the house and I have to sort through it from time to time. But this is where I have trouble getting rid of things and where things can get so overrun that I want to create but the mess gets in the way.

   In some areas of the house (going through clothes, kitchen cupboards, the bathroom, etc) I have no problem going through things and making quick decisions but this is my area where I contemplate long and hard on things. The thing is -I love to repurpose things so I can see potential in items that I realize many people won't see and so then I feel like I need to keep it because if I don't it will simply get thrown away anyway.

    We all have different issues with clutter. I have seen homes with bathrooms that are overrun with so many different types of hair products, make-ups, lotions and more. That isn't me - my bathrooms are pretty austere. Some families have toys over-running the house. Again that isn't us. Some people go shopping for clothes as a type of therapy and have closets that are bursting. Again that isn't us. I think I bought one item to wear last year - a pair of hiking shoes - and that was it. But my struggle with clutter is largely centered around crafting. It isn't that I buy a lot but I do have a lot of people give me things (as they know I like to make things) and I don't like to turn them down and I also save things that need to be repurposed. Also if I was going to be tempted by good sales - it would be on crafting supplies. I like to...

• Make cards
• Sew (clothes, bags, curtains and much more)
• Make quilts
• Arrange flowers
• Make decorations
• Draw and Paint
• Teach children's classes with crafts
• Crochet
• Knit
• Make things with clay
• and much more....

 Anyway, I think it is good to realize what your real clutter struggle is. Then you can know better how to work towards fixing it. Also it is good to realize that the struggle isn't just with the physical clutter but also how we feel about it emotionally.

   Change isn't going to happen overnight but little by little I think we can work to find a balance. I don't desire nor do I believe God is calling me to get rid of the crafting in my life. That is a tool that I believe He has given me to use to His glory. But I want to control it rather than having it in some ways control me.

 This picture (above) is of some of the cards the girls made during our few days of card making this weekend. It is a blessing to work together with them on projects.

 These (above) are some sets of cards that I made to use as gifts or perhaps to sell.

 These cards (above) are some that I made for us to use and I also am giving some to my Mom who said she needed more (I enjoy keeping her supplied with cards). Hopefully we can use them to share God's love.

These I made specially for Ken as we were out of gift tags and he likes us to wrap presents properly and gift tags are important to him. :-) So these are ready for next Christmas already.

 Going through art supplies is something that is happening gradually. I am trying to do a little bit every day. I am also trying to more closely monitor how much I allow to come in. Some things I have trouble making decisions on immediately but if I can at least make progress it is helping.

   What is your area of struggling with clutter? Do you have a plan for getting it conquered?