personal application :)

          A true prophet of the Lord is someone who is chosen by the Lord. He/She is someone who speaks what only the Lord tells them. They do not preach falsehood like the false prophets. The men of God faced ridicule from the Romans and everyone else who denied God and Jesus, and they were generally not treated well. The prophets were known as kind of "buzzkills", so this caused them to be hated by many citizens and kings, because they were being judged. Knowing Satan and his temptations to God followers, I cant imagine what kind of temptation Satan brought to the minds of the Prophets. Satan's goal is to get us to turn away from God and follow sinful things. Also all the questions and ridicule the prophets received, how easy would it be for them to give in to the ridicule? They did not give in, they kept their eyes on God. Their job would be ridiculously hard because of the temptations, and risk they faced in preaching the gospel.
          Verse 3:4 of Jonah- Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”   That verse represents the story of Jonah, and what he prophesied. Jonah went to Nineveh to try to get the people to repent. I think this applies to todays culture because of how we all know what were doing is wrong, but we dont repent. Nineveh repents and starts to follow God and he saves them. When are we going to repent? I feel as if America would not be capable of repenting. So many people dispise God in our country. Why would they listen to a prophet? Or why would they listen to any follower of christ? Thats why I feel as if all christians in the world are viewed as our own little family or "city". I just feel it would be so hard to get an entire country or city to repent. This brings up the thought of, when is our time? When is God going to take us out? 
           I would say the whole kings unit has kind of been on repentance. God really tries to drive home the point that, we need to repent! I am a part of society and culture too. I have things I need to repent from too. I think sometimes as Christians we label others, especially non believers. I think its important to realize that sometimes, we are no better than any other sinners. We need to all repent as a whole family of God. 

Summary: Jonah 1- God calls Jonah to the capital of Assyria, Nineva. Jonah does not obey, and he flees to tarsish, away from God. God sends a great wind and tears the boat apart, and all the men are calling to their Gods, the captain comes down to awake Jonah and asks him to ask his God for help so that they may not perish. They then throw lots and one lands on Jonah and he is asked who he is, and when jonah tells them they know he is fleeing from the prescense of God. Jonah tells them to throw him over board because he does not want them to perish because of him. As soon as he is thrown overboard, the wind and rain stops. They all fear the Lord and offer him sacrifices.
Jonah 2- Jonah is swallowed by a fish and in the belly of the fish, Jonah prays a prayer of sorrow and asks for forgiveness and the fish spits him up onto dry land.
Jonah3- God calls upon Jonah a second time and Jonah goes to Ninevah and says that they will perish in 48 days. They all repent and fasted and when the word got to the king he removed his robe and layed in ashes. he issued a decree saying to not eat or drink. The whole capitol repented. When God saw this, being the awesome God he is, he did not punish them.
Jonah 4- Jonah tells God of his anger, and how he did not want the Assyrians to be saved. He went out of the city and layed under a tree and God grew a plant over his head so he is comforted. The next day God sends a worm to eat the plant so it is withered. Jonah asks to die and God says no because he pities Ninevah.


Verse: Jonah 3:10  " When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it."    I liked this verse because it shows Gods great mercy, even when the Assyrians were so sinful. It shows that it does not matter how deep of  a hole you have dug yourself into, You can still receive Gods salvation. 


Application: I would say this applied to me because sometimes the things that he requests of me, I have a really hard time doing. Lately I feel he has been telling me to stop obsessing over my truck, and getting my license.. sounds lame I know. I have spent so much time and money on it. There have been multiple sermons Ive heard in the past two months to not obsess over worldy things. Then just the other day I found out I cant take my test to get my license until 2 weeks after my birthday. Which at first I was mad, but then I thought its just God telling me that I need to focus on other things. Id say this applies to when Jonah just kind of flees from what God asked him to do. 

Summary 

Hosea 1- The Lord spoke to Hosea and told him to bore a child with a woman and name is Jezreel and the house of Jehu is to be cursed. She then bore another son and his name was to mean "not my people" because if their God is not God, they're not his people.
Hosea 2- God punished Israel for their unfaithfulness. God has mercy on them and says they will now worship him and not Baal.
Hosea 3- Hosea redeems his wife from adultresness and the children of Israel now will worship the Lord their God.
Hosea 4- The Lord accuses Israel and speaks of the murder and swearing and lying happening in Israel.  The Lord takes their sin and makes them into negatives, so they will not find pleasure in their sin any longer.
Hosea 5- God prepares to punish Israel for their sin. He speaks of all the people who will be punished and how they will be punished.
Hosea 6- In the beginning of the chapter it appears that Israel appears that they are going to repent. Then they do not and they start into they're sinful ways again and do not follow the ways of the Lord.
Hosea 14- The people of Isreal finally confess their sin to God, and God wants them to return to him and worship him. They offer sacrifices and Gods anger has turned from them.

Verse: HOSEA 14:4- "I will heal their apostasy;
    I will love them freely,
    for my anger has turned from them." 

This verse stuck out to me because of how amazing Gods grace is, how Israel betrayed him so many times, but God does not give up on them, and he even forgives them. 

Application: Id say this applies to not as much specifically to me, but what came to my mind is society. Of course I am part of society and I am no better than other sinners. It came to my mind specially when God said "The stealing.. Swearing.. Murdering.. adultery.." that was happening in Israel was causing him to punish them. This made me think, when are we going to be punished? I do not think it will just be the atheists and other religions that will get punished, I feel a lot of Christians will be too. Honestly I have to admit I love this world that God has made me and I love some worldly things, social media, friends, cars etc. I would say Ive given into this world no more than athiests have. I dont party or anything bad, but I feel that if someone saw me in a crowd, they wouldnt say "He is a Christian". This just makes me feel as if our situation is similar to Israel, we know were sinning, but sometimes we dont repent. Thats what came to my mind reading these chapters. 

Psalm 51 Blog- Psalm 51 verses 1-2 are asking to have mercy on us, and wash away all our sin and mistakes, Renew us with clean souls. Verses 3-5 state that we know we are sinners, and we know our sinful nature, and were glad god is the one to judge us. Verses 6-7 state how amazing it is that God uses us, and changes us, even though we are the terrible sinners we are. And that we ask him to wipe our souls clean and help is stay that way. Verses 8-12 asks god to hide his face from

Our sin, and we ask for him never to leave us, or take his Holy Spirit away. And for him to cleanse out heart and make us pure. Verses 13-15 say that we will go and preach the ways of you. Such as how we are saved and you make us pure. Verses 16-19 state that God does not delight in burnt offerings. That our broken souls are an offering for him to make righteous. And he will not abandon that person. 

VERSE: Psalm 51: 11-12 "Do not cast me from your presence or take your holy spirit from me, restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me." This verse stuck out to me, and I found myself re-reading it multiple times because it applies to me tremendously. I've caught myself wanting everything that this verse says. 

APPLICATION: Not only does the verse I picked apply to my life, but the entire chapter does. I often find myself trying to make my own path in life, which almost always ends with me doing something I regret. I often pray a prayer to God to pull me closer to him, and make me stay there. I go through stages where I will be on fire for God, and then 2 weeks later I will be astray from his ways and be saying terrible things etc. This chapter just helps me see that God chose ME to save. He does not pick favorites or he does not look for the most righteous people, he just looks for broken souls. I could say I for sure need to work on keeping myself on Gods path, and not wondering off into Connor's land of stupidity. :)

Summary-- Ehud died, and the Isrealites did evil in the lords eyes again, but then they cried out to God for help, and he oppressed the people of Isreal for 20 years. Deborah sat under a tree and she was judging Isreal at the time. People would come up to her and they would be judged. She then is asked by  Barak to join him and go to sisera with him. She then joins him and 10000 men and goes. They then go and approach the people of sisera, and they are waiting with 900 pound Iron chariots. God then Interferes and eventually and siserans retreat in fear. All of them died. Then sisera fled away in  tent. He then walks into the tent and Deborah covers him with a rug...... and she then tells him to stand by the door and if anyone asks if someone is in there he must say no. Then Jael took a tent peg and stabbed his temple with is, and he died. Then the people pressed and pressed against the king of Cannan, until he fell.

VERSE--- Judges 4:3 Then the people of Israel cried out to the Lord for help, for he had 900 chariots of iron and he oppressed the people of Israel cruelly for twenty years.) This stuck out to me because it confused me, that if the people cried out to God for help, why did he oppress them? 

Application-- The only application That came to mind is kind of reffering back to the verse, if I understood correctly, God did not help the Isrealites. It made me think of how sometimes when I pray for God to help me, or I ask God for something. Sometimes he just simply says no, ive never gotten angry at God, but sometimes I get a little bummed. But it just made me think that God did not oppress me after all the sinful things ive done. It made me thankful. 

CHP1---God tells Joshua that his servant Moses is dead, and that Joshua is to go to Jordan and get all the people and bring them to the land God has promised them. God tells Josh to be strong and courageous because God is with him, and he says no other man shall stand before Josh. God then goes on to tell Josh to not forget about the laws he gave Moses, and to never forsake them. Verse 9 says to be strong and courages, because he is with us. Then Josh tells the people that they only have three days to be to the land God has given to them. Joshua then goes on to tell the people of the law that Moses had given them. The people agree to follow Joshua, and they tell him that they pray God will be with him as much as he was with Moses.
CHP2--- Josh sends two men as spies, to scope out the land, specially Jericho. They lodge at the house of Rahab, a prostitute. Then when some men come and asks for the two spies that Josh had sent, but she hides them, and told them that they had left already. She then went and talked to the men before they lay down, and she tells them that she has heard of what God did with Moses and the Red Sea. She asks to help her and her family and they tell her that as soon as they get to their land God will deal with her Gracefully. She then lets them go and the men tell her to tie a red towel on her window and to gather her family for god to help. They made her swear she tell knowone of their business. They left her place and she tied a scarlet to the window. They then return to Josh and tell him God has truly given us this land.
CHP3---God then Tells Josh to stay at least 2000 cubits away from the Levite priests, and they will spread the ark of the covenant throughtout the people. God then presents the ark of the covenant to the people.He then cuts off the flow of the Jordan river and God is to rest in the waters of Jordan? The priests then come and dip their feet in the water. Then Everyone crossed over Jordan keeping thier feet dry..
VERSE:Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” I loved this verse because it shows how god is truly with us through anything, and he has commanded us to go out and spread his word to everyone. 

APPLICATION--- I can apply this to me because I, of course have sinned. and in chapter one it says that if you do not turn your head from the laws God has given us, we will have succes. I feel that I can do much better in schoolwork, and at home, and at work if I am on fire for the lord, and I don't have crazy modern things in my head. Reading that whole paragraph just made me realise of how important it is to not lean away from God, and follow his ways and laws. 

Summary: Chapter one begins telling us all of Josephs brothers and him died, but the Isrealites were now living fruitfully, and multiplying and fillling the land. Then it tells of the new king who came into power and joseph meant nothing to him, he sais that the Isrealites should be delt with shrewdly, and if they dont do anything there will be even more of them, and they will fight against the Egyptians in war.  So the king made the people of Isreal, because when the king would try to hurt them, they would just multiply more. So the king made the Isrealites slaves. The kitng of egypt told the midwives, if they give birth to a child, if it is a male kill it, and if it is a woman, let it live. but the woman feared God so they disobeyed the king of Egypt and let the men live. the king came to them and asked why they had done this. God deals with the midwives well and gives them families.
Chapter two begins telling us of the birth of Mosethe s, and how she hides him in the reeds, then one day when the Pharoahs daughter comes to bathe, she finds the baby. She then has the ee nurse the baby, and then she claims moses as her own, and names him moses because that means "drawn from the water". Then one day Moses sees his people, egyptian beating a hebrew, then he runs down and kills the Egyptian and burries him in the sand. then the next day Moses sees two Hebrews fighting and goes and asks why, only to hear him accuse him of killing the egyptian the day before, and the Pharoah found out and seeks to kill moses. God the hears the people of Isreals moaning, and God rememebers his covenent with Abe and Isaac, and God knows.
Chapter three begins telling us of God appearing to Moses as a burning bush, and God tells Moses to take off his shoes because it is holy ground. God tells Moses he has heard the siffering of his people, and he tells Moses to bring the people out of Egypt, and Moses is puzzled at first, but God tell him that he will be with Moses. God tells Moses of what to tell the egyptians, and who to tell them is God. God ends saying, "you shall plunder the Egyptians"

Verse: Exodus 2: 23-25- The verses tell how the Isrealites groan, and are in pain, and lift up their problems to God, and God hears, and helps. I found this to just be good evidence that God answers our prayers.


Application: Although I have never been enslaved like the Isrealites, I can relate because whenever I bring my problem to God, he answers. I used to struggle with hearing Gods answers, but now I can see and feel them much easier. Even when his answer isnt what I was looking for, It is nice to know that he knows what is best for me, and he sees my future. I dont.