1 Peter 1:13-15

This is a long and oh how significant passage so we have studied it for two weeks now. "Therefore, prepare your minds for action, be self-controlled. Set your hope fully on the grace to be given to you when Jesus Christ is revealed. As obedient children do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But, just as He who called you is holy, be holy in all you do." To me "prepare your mind for action" means clean out my mind of nonsense things and fill it up with truth, maintain clear focus, pray up, renew myself with the Holy Spirit. Further, I must keep my eye on the prize. Don't be distracted and lose focus to the things of this world. Do not return to my selfish ways of before I became a believer in my precious savior Jesus Christ. Seek Him every minute of every day and stay on the path that He has planned for me. Run everything through the "is this going to bring glory to God" filter just as in Ephesians 4:1. The most significant thing I have discovered about myself on this faith journey with Jesus Christ is that my biggest weakness is my mind so this verse speaks directly to me. I have to be intentional with my thought life and meditate on God's ways instead of just letting my mind wander because inevitably the enemy will try to fill my mind with the wrong ideas and blur my focus. I also must follow 2 Corinthians 10:5 "We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." Therefore, not entertaining any thoughts that are not Godly but take them captive and turn them into truths from God and His Word.

Ephesians 4:1-2

I have not taken time off of my bible study but I also have not been able to blog about it as quickly as I would have liked to. I had notes in my notebook and I just had not been able to sit down and type a blogpost yet. I studied these verses two weeks ago.
"As a prisoner of the Lord, I urge you to live a life worthy of your calling. Be completely humble and gentle, be patient;bearing with one another in love." Michelle liked Ephesians 4:3 so well that she wanted to back up to memorize and study the preceding verses. This again was Paul writing to the people of the church in Ephesus and refers he to himself as a "prisoner of the Lord" because he had yet again been persecuted for his faith and was in prison. I think he refers to himself in this way because he wants to make it clear that he is living out his faith in a dramatic way and thus be more credible and influential to the people. "Live a life worthy of the calling that you have received" recognizes that they have received the calling of God to be His people. It is a high and holy calling completely worthy of the dedication of a Godly lifestyle by the believer. I love the way my Believer's Bible Commentary describes this verse, "Our exalted standing in Christ calls for corresponding godly conduct".

I had a really neat opportunity to discuss this some with my father, who was visiting during the week I was studying these verses. I asked him to read them and tell me what he thought they meant. This was a huge step for us in talking about spiritual things because it made only the second or third time in my whole life. He said that, "we don't want to do anything to bring disgrace to our Lord". He also said, "of course this is what you should do but it isn't always very easy". Right on, Dad...I totally agree. We also discussed the issue of how hard it is to change behaviors and lifestyles that are taught when growing up. This is so true and really takes dedication to God and prayerfully asking Him to guide us in His ways instead of falling naturally back in to the old habits or worldly thinking.

Our Book Club-2

Our book club is still going strong. We finished "For Women (and Men) Only" a while ago and just finished "The Five Love Languages" today. I thank God so much that He has compelled us to be proactive in our marriage instead of waiting for crisis to strike. For us, the book club is part of being intentional with our time and fighting for our marriage in a society where the divorce rate is 50% or more. It doesn't have to be a book club but I believe it would benefit all couples to have their "thing" they do to study each other and grow together. We want to be the best we can be for God and He has called us to glorify Him with our marriage and disciple our children. Therefore, we decided to alternate the books we read between marriage books and parenting books. Since we have finished two marriage books so far the next book will be a parenting book. Though I really want George Barna's "Revolutionary Parenting" to be very soon on our list, I will probably suggest that we start with a couple of books we already own but have not read. I know that one of them is "Raising Effective Children In A Defective World" or a John Rosemond book we have that I can't think of the name of. We'll see what my wonderful husband suggests...

More

Braedon rolling around playing with Kaley and everyone is watching the last firework.

Kaley Is An American Girl

Kaley was having a good time watching all of the action.

Sparkler

Braedon & Daddy Watching Fireworks

Braedon Watching Fireworks

This is the first year Braedon has seen any fireworks. This is him watching store bought fireworks in our backyard.

Braedon Watching Fireworks 2

Braedon Watching Fireworks 3

Savasuk Loudness

Kaley found her voice a while ago and was screaming in delight while I was on the phone with my good friend, Jamie, one morning. I told Jamie that I thought Kaley was going to be as loud as Braedon now that she found her voice. Jamie thought it would be funny (but loud) if they had a screaming contest. A few weeks later at the dinner table they did just that. Take a listen to a normal day around the Savasuk household. It is loud but I wouldn't have it any other way! :-)

Hide N Seek

Braedon & Kaley Love

As I was uploading video from the 4th of July, I realized that I had a few other cute videos that I never posted. These are prior to the 4th of July but wanted to get them posted.

Cold Toast and Coffee

There are rare days I get to enjoy a steaming mug of coffee and a hot breakfast. These are the two days a week that I go to work outside the home. I make my coffee right before leaving the house and it lasts me until about a half an hour after I arrive to work. So, I get to enjoy all of it, uninterrupted, while it is hot. If I so choose, I can visit the cafe in our office complex and purchase something fresh and hot for breakfast and enjoy it, uninterrupted. The days I stay home with the babies I have toast that popped up about an hour ago and coffee left sitting in the microwave from the last time I thought about it and realized it needed a warm up. Usually it is lunchtime and I open the microwave to heat up Kaley's food and find my coffee from the morning still sitting there. Yesterday, I was sitting at our dining room table scarfing down my cold toast and coffee when I realized that I would much rather have it that way and be home with my babies than on the mornings I go to work and miss out on 10 or 11 hours of our lives together. Praise God for my days at home with my babies...even if it means never having a hot breakfast.

Ephesians 4:3

A great friend, sister-in-Christ, and accountability partner has a really neat bible study method. She picks a verse or passage and memorizes it, as well as digging into it to discover the context in which it was written and how to apply it to life today. She needed some accountability in this area so I am calling her on Fridays to discuss the verse of the week and make sure she has memorized it. I actually needed a method of memorizing scripture and love any opportunity to study scripture. Therefore, I decided to do the study with her and memorize the verse.

The verse for the first week is Ephesians 4:3, "Make every effort to keep the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace." In meditating on this verse, I am reminded of other verses that talk about being the pursuer of peace: Ps 34:14 and 1 Peter 3:11 which both say, "seek peace and pursue it." Also, there is the passage which talks about how God desires us to resolve any conflict within the body before we even bring Him gifts (Mathew 5:23). Since we are one within the body of Christ any conflict creates division and subtracts from the unity of the body. In reading my bible commentary, I learned that Paul was specifically speaking about the division between the Jews and Gentiles and encouraging the church of Ephesus to put aside this division, seek peace with one another, and become one under God. Although Paul was specifically writing about the division of Jews and Gentiles, I think this verse is also applicable to divisions of the church in modern days such as worship style, ministry methods, fundraising efforts, and management of church resources. These and many others can all be hot topics that can cause conflict and distract us from our main priority, which is to glorify God. These distractions take the focus off of Jesus Christ. A unified body so beautifully represents His power and His love. Please do not let conflict subtract from it!

Potty Training - Day 1 Down

All in all today went pretty well. After countless hours going to and being in the bathroom, Braedon did go pee pee in the potty three times, we had four number 1 accidents and one number 2 accident. I am looking forward to what tomorrow will be like. I must teach him to sit on the potty without me standing there making him sit on it. The timer works wonders because miraculously he just got it that when the timer goes off he needs to go sit on the potty. The trick is getting him to stay once he sits down. Also, I am thinking that I might need to regulate what he drinks when. The fact that he drank an entire cup of juice right before dinner tonight is certainly what prompted his accident during dinner (even though he went right before we sat down). I am still not sure why a couple of times I knew he needed to go and when he was sitting on the potty he just wouldn't go. So, I gave up and put his underwear on and five seconds later we had a mess. Maybe I should do the naked from the waist down thing tomorrow. I don't know...I do know that I am exhausted and I think Braedon is pretty tired too. He fell asleep pretty quickly. I am going to spend some time with God before bed since I didn't get to today yet.