TEEN CHALLENGE

 " If it please the king, let it be written that they may be destroyed: and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver to the hands of those that have the charge of the business, to bring it into the king's treasuries.   And the king took his ring from his hand, and gave it unto Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, the Jews' enemy."  Esther 3:9-10 "And the king took off his ring, which he had taken from Haman, and gave it unto Mordecai. And Esther set Mordecai over the house of Haman." Esther 8:9-10      Bro Brad Cranstan came to speak at my church, and I wanted to share the message he preached on Sunday night with you all. Bro Brad Cranstan     He spoke about how who has the ring- who's controlling the government- changes things. Some Christians think we don't need to pay attention to politics and government, but we need to pay attention and try to make a difference. I hope that you will enjoy the message and learn from it as much as I did.

 "Money is really worth no more than as it can be used to accomplish the Lord's work. Life is worth as much as it is spent for the Lord's service." -George Muller     Yesterday afternoon my cousin was talking to one of my friends and I and he asked, "so is it nice not to have any school this year?". I immediately answered "Yes!" and my friend said yes too. My cousin (who is a few years older than both of us) said "yeah now you're just at the time of life when you're trying to figure out what your purpose is". My friend looks at me and said that my purpose was "a cashier at Wegmans". "That's NOT my purpose!" I answered. We laughed, but later I started thinking about what my cousin had said. He had said, "You go to work, come home, and go to work again." It sounded a little depressing, but then I thought why I'm going to work. I'm raising money to go to college next year. When I go to colleg...

      Our youth group has had the theme of "taking the next step" for 2025. For some of us the next step was graduation, some of us it was getting a driving license, some of us it was getting a job. Whatever it was, that was the goal, to take the next step. A few nights ago I was thinking about the theme and about all of the steps I will be taking in the next few years and how much my life will be changing. It all started to seem a little overwhelming for a moment, but then the Lord gave me a thought. "If you just do the next right thing then everything will fall into place". Well, that seems simple enough...maybe.      It sounds simple, but sometimes the next right thing, however small it is, can be hard. Sometimes the next right thing is responding to harsh words with a sweet spirit, sometimes it's being a good testimony at work, sometimes it's going out of your way to give an older person a hug or a smile. Our flesh will fight hard to get its way, and we...

 *I apologize for the two missed posts. I intend to continue posting again, I guess I just took a little break :)     Last Sunday afternoon during our church's choir practice, there was a particular spot in the song that was annoying me. It wasn't the music; it was how we were singing it. The phrase we were singing ended with some really great harmony, but Pastor (who's also our choir director) kept right on going with the music. "It would be so much better if we could hold that note out and enjoy it a little bit" I thought to myself. The whole choir tried holding that note out when we first sang it and then we actually practiced not holding it- that really annoyed me. I thought it was crazy to just fly past it. But then Pastor explained how we were going to end then song. We repeated that section, and what do you know, he had us hold that note out. And since we hadn't held it on all the other times it sounded really special and beautiful at the end. I was ver...