Worship

Worship - what is it? Is it singing? Is it sitting in a church listening to a preacher preach? Yes. It is all of those. But yet it also includes so much more. As I'm sure we have all heard, worship is a lifestyle. A lifestyle, according to dictionary.com, is defined as, "the habits, attitudes, tastes, moral standards, economic level, etc., that together constitute the mode of living of an individual or group." This is everything we are, every thought, sight, taste, sense, smell - everything. Worship is everything that we as Christians do to serve Christ. Matt this evening talked about miracles. And we came to a conclusion that a miracle is something that happens that is unexplainable, not scientifically stable, or even logically possible. But I got to thinking, miracles happen everyday, every moment, weather we realize them or not, they are there. I believe miracles and worship come hand in hand.

Then the LORD reminded him, "When you arrive back in Egypt, go to Pharaoh and perform the miracles I have empowered you to do. But I will make him stubborn so he will not let the people go.

This verse (Exodus 4:21) happens when Moses is in Egypt pleading with the Pharaoh to let the Israelites go. If you remember in this story, Moses thought of every reason why he should not go, but because of the lifestyle he chose to live, he went. Because he went, and followed through in his worship, miracles came. Miracles happen when our lifestyle matches what God wants us to do. So in a sense, are we not all performing miracles all the time?

Stars

What thoughts do the stars provoke? One of amazement, one of littleness, one of the world? I was looking out at the sky the other night while I was doing the paper route, and saw one of the most breath-taking sites I have ever seen - the stars. I got to thinking about them and night and thought about how stars only appear at night when it is dark. I started looking at just one star, and found that one star, though very powerful (powerful enough to send light to the earth from light years away) almost a tiny detail in the whole picture. One thing I found interesting, while thinking and observing the stars, was that God calls us to each be a light to the world, no matter how dark the sky may be.

You are the light of the world--like a city on a mountain, glowing in the night for all to see. Mat 5:14

One other interesting thing is, if you were to take a step back and look at the world as you would a clear night sky, would you be one of the, seemingly tiny, but yet HUGE, stars?

Changes

This weeks is going to be a little different. This is more of a reflection of my past week and just how God works in my life daily. For a couple weeks now I have finally been having a consistent quiet time where I get to study God's word in a much different way than I ever have before. Since then, my mind has been focused much more and I have been able to see how God works in a much more intimate way. See, since then everything has changed at school, well not my school work, but as far as what I am thinking about while I am there, and also what I do. God has made changed my desires from self-centered to much more generous. For example, I was doing my Dad's paper route last week, and around 3:30 I saw a couple walking down the road. Their car had broken down and had to walk home, and believe me it was frigid. So, to my surprise, when they asked for a ride home, I immediately said yes and took them home. I would NEVER have done that before, I would have just kept driving. God has also allowed me to be more bold in my faith. More people come up to me asking "Why do you carry your Bible around to school?" and I get the chance to minister to them just by having my Bible with me. Since I have started my quiet time before school starts, God has opened up so many doors, allowed me to do many more things for Him and it is AMAZING! For those of you who struggle finding time to have your quiet time, I have found that when I get to school, I have about 15 minutes before the bell rings, so I just sit in my car and do my quiet time. Those 15 minutes a day have changed literally everything, from what I do, to how I think.

Heart

Hey everyone! Sorry about the missed week last week... it was super duper busy around here as I'm sure it was for all of us. Along with that I hope you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving! I have recently started up my daily devotional again and one of the verses I came across was Job 22:24-25. In these verses it talks about lust for money and how, "If you give up your lust for money and throw your precious gold into the river, the Almighty himself will be your treasure. He will be your precious silver." Yea, I think this verse has a lot to do with lust, however, I think this verse talks more about the change of heart after you are saved. See, when I read this passage one thing that really stuck out to me is the switch in verses from "precious gold" to "precious silver." Every time I can think of a reference to gold, it is a bad one. First, there was the golden calf that was made an idol while Moses was on the mountain recieveing the Ten Commandments, and the other is in Daniel when King Nebuchadnezzer made the golden idol for everyone to worship. Then there is silver. Silver is seen as a more pure metal. I think the switch in metals represents the change in our hearts after we become saved. I think this because it says "give up YOUR LUST for money," I highlight "your lust" because it talks about us and what we choose to do, then in verse 25 everything changes to "the Almighty himself will be your treasure." We should all see Jesus as our treasure and our precious silver. One more thing I find interesting is that it says "precious silver." If something is precious to you, you would not go around trashing it or doing things that would hurt its reputation. SO, as we go through our week this week lets just remember that the Lord is OUR precious silver.

Leadership

A very good friend gave me a card last year around this time and at the end of the note this person left inside the included the verse Mark 10:31 "the first shall be last and the last shall be first." Kind of confusing right? Well according to just about any leadership course unselfishness is the key to a good leader. See, we don't run our lives and I think most of us know that God is actually in control. When we give up our lives to the Lord, the Lord takes leadership in our lives. Through His leadership in our lives we can intern be a leader to groups of people. Because God is our leader, we have to give him complete control of our lives.We have all heard of giving God control, but what does that include? In Matthew 22:37 it says, "Jesus replied, ' `You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.'" These three things represent the three aspects of our body, our physical being, our mental being, and our soul, which is everything that we are, love, and do. So, in order to be a good and effective leader we have to give up everything and in turn God will lead us to where we are to be.

Unending Love

What do you think about when you heard about metals such as gold, silver or platinum? Do you think about how expensive they are? Do you ever think about the time it takes to make something that pure? In Malachi 3:3, it says, "He will sit like a refiner of silver, burning away the dross. He will purify the Levites, refining them like gold and silver, so that they at once again offer acceptable sacrifices to the Lord." When refining silver and gold it has to be heated over an open flame to remove all the blemishes. Well, if the silversmith doesn't keep a close eye on it, it will burn, thus ruining the metal. However, if he doesn't leave it in the fire long enough, all the blemishes are not removed, leaving the silver or gold dirty and not as pleasing to the eye. This is what God does with us he removes our sins, but one underlying principle that the reference to the refining of silver and gold shows, is that of his unending love. God cares for us enough to take time and pay attention to our needs. No matter what we do God still refines us like silver and gold, and without that refining we are very unpleasing to the eye. We need God in everything we do, and the cool thing is God is here for us spending lots of time trying to remove all the sins so that we can worship him with everything we have.

-Kevin Kassakatis

Do you want fries with that?

Ok so this week i have had servanthood on my mind. One of the main characteristics a servant must have is humbleness. Humbleness is when we put ourselves below others and serve them. As a Christian we are servants of God. By being defined as servants of God we must therefore serve Him in everything we do. I am reminded of the story where Abraham offered up his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice. Abraham went to sacrifice his only son because God told him. Not only was Abraham very faithful in this, but he was also very humble in that Abraham dropped everything he had planned for that day and did something that he did not want to do at the time. By doing that, Abraham showed us how to serve with a humble heart. I get the title "Do you want fries with that?" from because even though the person taking the order may be having a bad day or may just not want to do anything decides to serve us by putting their feelings down. Granted, its not nearly what Abraham did, it is still serving, and sometimes its the little services we provide for people that make the biggest differences. So as we go through the rest of the week lets try to find some little way to serve someone else when we may not necessarily feel like it.

-Kevin Kassakatis

Mine, Mine, Mine!

So apparently it sounds like I'm stealing everything from Matt, but im not. I was at my band competition on Saturday where we competed against East Davidson. We lost just like the other four years I have been in band, and I became so self-centered on me winning and taking all the trophies. And then on the way to our next competition, I thought to myself "WOW, I have been really selfish, why cant I look at the previous competitions and years and be content with what we have won?" One thing we all struggle with at times is wanting everything, literally everything. There is a verse that says something to the affect of God provides everything the birds need and we don't see them crying for more. We all have plenty of stuff to make it through. Life is so much more enjoyable when we look at what we have and not what we do not have. This is because when we look at what we have we are proud of the effort and time we put into getting that certain possession, rather than looking at what others have and becoming envious of them. So as we go through the week lets all look at all the stuff that we do have and that we have accomplished and be content with that.

-Kevin Kassakatis

Little Things that Make a BIG Difference

Hey everyone! Isn't it amazing how God uses the smallest of things and turns them into big things. So, relating to friendships and relationship, which is what Matt is talking about on Wednesdays, What things make the biggest difference in a relationship? is it the things a person gives you, or is it the thought, the easiest of things to do, that matters the most? See, most of us would agree that the thought is what matters the most in a relationship or friendship. Its the same in every aspect of life. The little things can make the BIGGEST difference. For instance, this email chain started as just a class email, and now has turned into a church-wide thing. In Matthew 13:31 and 32 Jesus refers to the mustard seed and how it is the smallest of all the seeds, however, it produces one of the largest plants in the garden. As we go through the week, look for the little things to do for others that are really easy to do. It shows and means a lot to people when a person says "hey, you look good today" or "how have you been." Have a FANTASTIC week!

-Kevin Kassakatis

Patience

Hey there all of my super awesome friends from church! i hope your week has been fun filled and awesome. I know this week has been super awesome for me because God has shown me just exactly why i am at ledford high school and why i didn't transfer schools after my sophomore year. God put this young girl in my life on Sunday and by Tuesday she was calling me her big brother and now i get to have a positive impact on her life. But see the thing is patience, kinda like Job he had everything going for him and then God took it all away and Job had to have patience in the Lord that he was going to bring him through it. Or Noah, he was asked to build an arc because it was going to rain when it had never rained before and it took him around 100 years to build the arc. If you think about what happened to these guys, Job was rewarded 10 fold of all of his previous possessions and God gave Noah everything on the earth including the plants and the animals (Genesis 9:1-3). So as we finish up the week be patient and know that God will reward you for your patience just as he did Job and Noah. I LOVE you all and hope that this email has been somewhat of an encouragement to you this week. Hope to se you all Sunday!

-Kevin Kassakatis

Miracles

Well Hello everyone, as usual I hope you all are having a FANTASTIC week! So ya know I got to thinking this week because i saw this accident while on my way home from school where a car had completely flipped over and later found out that everyone had come away from the accident with just minor scratches, most people, not knowing what theyre really saying, would say what a miracle. So I got to thinking what is a miracle? is it just the miracles that happened in the bible like walking on water or raising someone from the dead or changing water to wine? And then a quote from Bruce Almighty came into mind, "Finding a suit is not a miracle bruce, its a magic trick. A single mom who's working two jobs and still finds the time to take her kids to soccer practice, thats a miracle. A teenager who says no to drugs and yes to an education, thats a miracle. People want me to do everything for them and what they dont realize is THEY have the power. You want to see a miracle, be the miracle." Miracles happen ALL the time in todays world, maybe not in the same sense as the bible times, but they happen. Miracles happen everyday, for example I have been struggling financially and this month i had enough money to pay for all my bill and have $5 left over. So what i think about this whole thing is we have the power to make miracles. This week while youre going through your daily routine look to be a miracle for someone. I love you all and have a GREAT rest of the week!

-Kevin Kassakatis

McDonalds Winners

Well Hello everyone.. I don't know about you all but the new Sunday school thing is gonna be pretty awesome and i cant wait to get it going. But anyways, this week on Sunday while i was on my lunch break at the ever popular McDonald's i was sitting there staring off into space thinking about what i wanted to do this email on... and then i saw on those papers in the trays all the McDonald's Monopoly winners and thought hmm i wonder how nice it would be to have that much money. Then it hit me, this world is not about the possessions we have on earth, its about the possessions we are storing in heaven. Its kind of like the guy in Mark 10:17-31 (yes taken from Matt's lesson on Wednesday) who wanted to know how to inherit eternal life and because of his stuff he was unable to do so. Now don't get me wrong its nice to have stuff, however, we cannot let our stuff take over and become our number one priority. As we go through the week lets try to focus more on the treasures we are building in heaven rather than here on earth. Hope to see you all on Sunday

-Kevin Kassakatis

Matthew 14:27

Hey Everyone! I hope you all are having a marvelous week so far! I know that mine has been quite stressful with the graduation project, school in general, band, and work. Those four things in general have pretty much consumed my life and it has been very stressful for the last month or so, but the neat thing is God is there for us just like when Jesus came to the disciples when they were on the boat and the storm came up. Storms come up all around us and can cause a lot of stress in our lives, but the cool thing is we don't have to worry about that stuff too much because, like it says in Matthew 14:27, "But Jesus spoke to them at once. 'Don't be afraid,' he said. 'Take courage I am here.'" This is right before Peter walks on water, and when Peter begins to stress about the waves, he begins to sink. Jesus then says, "you have so little faith why did you doubt me?" this is telling us that when we have situations where we do not really understand whats going on we need to have faith and trust that God will bring us through our situations. So, as we go through the rest of our week lets remember to have faith, even in those stressful situations. I love you all and hope you all have a FANTASTIC rest of the week!

- Kevin Kassakatis