Growin' Up Gregory

"No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit.  Each tree is recognized by its own fruit.  People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers.  A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart.  For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of." - Luke 6:43-45 I've been posting periodic pictures of my garden on here because I've been proud of it and think that it's grown pretty good for the first one I've done here.  But all the pictures so far have just been of the plants (trees).  That's the portion of the plant that we are able to see from a distance without being too close to the plant.  It's the showy portion of the plants.  For me, that draws comparison to how we sometimes live our lives.  We are more focused on what we look like, how nice our car is, how big our house is, basically how other people ...

"Whoever pursues righteousness and love finds life, prosperity, and honor." - Proverbs 21:21 So how do we pursue righteousness?  It is defined as the quality of being righteous, meeting the standards of morality and justice, and being virtuous.  My pursuit of righteousness begins by starting each day reading God's word, praying, and trying to grow closer to him.  Learning more about his word, and having a closer relationship with Him will lead us on a path of righteousness. The pursuit of love is one that we may not want to admit its direction but we cannot ignore.  We will go after what we love, whether it's the right or wrong thing to pursue.  Is our main love and motivation to get more money, wealth and power?  Or is it to spend more time with the people that we love and do acts of kindness for others to show them love?  Try to be more loving today by simply a smile, a word of encouragement, or just being more patient with someone around yo...

"For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people.  It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age." - Titus 2:11-12 These verses are pretty straight-forward to me and I'm glad that God put some simple ones in the Bible so I could understand them.  Let's just walk thru these though. For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people:  God is offering salvation and forgiveness to everyone.  It's not for a select few, anyone can accept this gift.  And he is just offering it, we receive it by His mercy.  There's not a checklist of tasks that we must perform in order to be saved, it's all about believing in Him. It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions:  As Christians, we are called to be Christ-like, to be more like God.  Sometimes I think people want to overcomplicate things but if we wou...

I remember how much fun VBS was when I was a kid.  And I used to get to go to a couple every summer, usually Putman where my parents go and then Tabernacle with my grandma.  I love seeing what the theme is every year, the food, and getting to see friends during the summer...out in the country they weren't close by so you didn't see people a lot then. I was fortunate enough this year to be able to help with VBS at Tabernacle a few nights last week.  This years theme was Agency D3 - Discover, Decide, Defend and was based on the verse 1 Peter 3:15 - "But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord.  Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for your hope that you have.  But do this with gentleness and respect." It seemed the kids really enjoyed it and were excited about the theme and excitement around it, kinda like Men In Black.  It's also pretty cool to see children retell the story of Christ's crucifixion in the...

I know everyone who looks at this isn't super tech savvy (Dad) but I use the Bible App for my phone for a verse of the day and I try to write something short on FB when it's something that seems enlightening to me, so I may have some shorter posts on here...so hopefully no one minds. Verse of the Day:  "When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.  But since they could see the man who had been healed standing there with them, there was nothing they could say." - Acts 4:13-14 There was nothing "super" about Peter and John.  They were not scholars, physical specimens, or gods.  They were ordinary men.  And what made the Sanhedrin Council realize that there was something special about them was 2 things:  1)  They had been with Jesus.  2)  Their actions. It was different for Peter and John, they were literally wal...