Essays about the Scriptures....

Okay, I'm gonna post the two essays I wrote for my Christian Worldview class. I wrote the first one at the beginning of the semester and the second I just finished. Tell me what ya think.... and I guess they're kinda long so if you don't want to read through em that's okay to.... I happen to be a little partial to the second one :) Of course that may be because it reflects my opinions and heart, but you know, hey.... :)



Christ commands us to love. He tells us to love Him, one another, and ourselves. He instructs us to forgive, accept, trust, and to live that love out every day. The story of my life is just me, trying to follow His command to love. I look at these words that are my history as an adopted Jew, and they show me where it is that I come from. They help me to learn from others mistakes. These words show me what love means and the Bible gives me hope that a love like that does exist. It shows me that people have lived it out and still do. There are scriptures that have greatly influenced my life as well.
Jeremiah 29:11 tells us not to fear and that God has a plan for our lives. I used to suffer from depression. The first time I read this verse, it really helped me to put my life into perspective. I had a hard time realizing that God really was going to use me for something. After reading this, something inside of me just clicked and it made sense. God spoke to me with this and it made me look at my life in a whole new way. When going through hard times, I have sometimes doubted that I will ever do anything with my life and I think back to this verse and it just revives my heart and makes me realize that I was created for a purpose and that I have a role in God’s story.
Jeremiah 31:3 has also been a very influential scripture in my life. In addition to depression, I, like many girls growing up in today’s society, suffer from low self-esteem. This verse is God telling me of His love for me. “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness.” This verse really explains that God loves me, and it helps me to see that the world’s standard ultimately doesn’t really mean much. God cares so much for me and He doesn’t see me the way that the world does. When I realize that God really cares about who I am and loves me for all that He has created me to be, I can look at myself and accept me for who am I in Christ.
Romans 8:28 is another verse that has touched my heart. It goes with Jeremiah 29:11, saying that God has a purpose for my life. It helps me to know that God is with me. This scripture helps me to know that know matter what happens in my life, things will turn out good in the end because God is working to fulfill His purpose and not just to make me happy.
I think that the Sermon on the Mount is also very influential in my walk with life as well. These things that are said by Jesus are very different from things that the media tells us are true. This section of Jesus’ teaching is one of the most influential parts of why I want to be a missionary. I don’t believe that when Jesus says to feed the poor he means that figuratively. I believe He wants us to go out into society and get our hands dirty. I believe He wants us to sacrifice, not just our money, but our time and our comfort. These words compel me into action. I cannot just sit idly by and watch children starve and go without a home and without love. I feel that I must work my hardest to see that things like that are stopped. I know that Christ can stop them, but His people must stand united against such things, not just with their mouths, but with their lives.







Christ came to earth as a man to live a life, start a revolution, and redeem and restore a Creation through his death and resurrection. His story has forever impacted and altered the course of my story, because now my story is no longer my own. Now that my life is centered on who He is and the plan that He has for all of us, reading His words I can no longer look at the Bible as a rule book. Christ has laid out the best possible way for us to live and for His plan to be fulfilled. We are not called to be moral people, we are called to be spirit-filled and like this Christ whom is our Messiah.
I think that being shown where it is I come from and what it is Christ wants with my life through the scriptures is what really enlightens the way my story is played out. God’s plan and the fact that I have a role in that really has an influence on the day to day decisions that I make. I have grown so much this semester and one of the most important lessons that I have learned is that the story is not at all about us. When I stepped back and took my eyes off of the mirror and looked at God’s big picture, I saw this story of Divine Redemption. I no longer saw a “Christ that died on the cross to get me out of hell”, I saw a Messiah who died to restore the Creation that He had made back to where it was originally intended to be.
My role in that, as I have started realizing over the last few months, is really very important. Christ chose us, giving us a mission. We are to be a part in that restoration process. There are so many things that, as a Christian, I must be doing. He calls us to live our lives differently than those around us. Not to just sit and say, yeah Christ is great, but to get off our butts and do things like clothe the naked, feed the hungry, and care for the environment. Really digging in the scriptures has changed and shaped me into someone new, someone who is full of a purpose not her own.
We are also being restored in our relationships. There were four distinct types of relationships that were discussed this semester. The first was our relationship with God. I have to say that I think its pretty cool that I can come into His presence any time I want without a middle man. He has given me a new heart, one like His. Even though I continually sin and try to put barriers between us, He forgives me and washes them away. The second relationship was my relationship with me. I have struggled all of my life with low self-esteem and depression. Though it is still a struggle for me, Christ gives me a hope and reassurance that there is something greater, something that I am destined for. The ‘esteem’ that the world tells us to have means nothing because we can now find who we are in Christ. We can be sure that we are wonderful, not just because of who Christ made us to be, but that we have an irreplaceable role in His story that He designed for us. Christ also restores the relationships that we have or can have with others. Marriages and friendships can now build us up in Christ and with His direction, things between people can be restored to its original intention. The final relationship is Christ restoring us to the world we live in, and if we do our part as He has called us to, Christ will restore the Earth through us.
The way I live my life and the choices that I make seem so much more weighted in light of all of that. We as Christians must cling fast to the truth of the gospel, and live in a way that is not about who we are, but in a way that shows who Christ is.