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Hello Friends!
We hope all of you had a wonderful
Christmas with your families.
We had a great vacation.
Before heading to our families, we celebrated our
first married Christmas together with just the two of us
~singing Christmas carols, praying, and opening presents
J.
Ahh!
Look at the cute couple!
Beth
with our little countertop Christmas tree!
Then, we left to visit Beth’s
family in San Marcos and got to go to our Community
Church’s Christmas Eve service.
It was so fun to get to see everyone and relax!
Then, we went up to Waxahachie and visited with
all of Jason’s family.
His mom and sister, Elizabeth, were in town from
Charlotte, North Carolina; so it was wonderful to spend
time together with everyone.
We were also able to make it up to Denison, TX to
see our friends Paul and Sharon Brooks.
God blessed us with awesome fellowship and sweet
refreshment time!
Beautiful
Sunset at Amy's house (Jason's sister)
Before our Christmas vacation, we
were learning in our school about the nature of God and
how He interacts with man.
It was encouraging to see throughout scripture
how our God is so involved in our lives and works with
us. It’s
exciting to know that He invites us to partner with Him
in bringing His kingdom on earth.
We continued our study of the Old
Testament ~ focusing on the kings of Israel and Judah,
as well as leadership. It was humbling to see how men gifted with so much wisdom
such as David could still fall into sin, but it was
encouraging to study how repentance restored him to
fellowship with God.
We came to the conclusion that, as Christians, we
are all leaders and should reflect Christ in every
aspect of our lives.
A leader is someone who influences others, and
our prayer is that God would continue to conform us into
the image of Christ so that people would see in us a
reflection of His face.
Since we’ve been back, we’ve
been studying about the nature and consequences of sin.
We’ve been learning that God expected the
people to obey His law.
In Deuteronomy, God encourages the Israelites by
telling them that they can obey the law and that it is
not out of their reach.
But also, we’ve been seeing how man chooses to
commit sin as an act of the will.
No man will be able to stand before God and claim
that he was forced to sin and could not help it.
God will always provide a way of escape for us
when we are tempted, but we must want to escape.
When we come into relationship with Christ, we
put on His righteousness by His blood and can choose to
continue walking in holiness with the help of the Holy
Spirit. It
is inspiring to know that we have the ability with the
Lord’s grace and the infilling of the Holy Spirit to
walk out obedience before God.
However, the focus should not be on fulfilling
rules and regulations, but upon living an abundant life
with our loving Father.
When we know Him intimately, we are transformed
into His image from glory to glory.
We would love to be in touch with
each of you and hear what is going on in your lives.
Please let us know how we can be praying for you
as well! Thank
you so much for all of your love, prayers, and support
for us. They
are definitely appreciated!
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