Why its meaningless and unfulfilling....

Without seeking the Lord all other things are meaningless and unfulfilling

Study Skills that will help You in LIFE

This content comes from our sub-ministry A Different Approach to College

 

    There are certian study skills that will make your entire life better. They help you learn faster and function better in the workplace and getting the information reviewed that someone wants you to read, but you really don't have a lot of time to spend on it. CollegePlus taught me these things: Speed Reading and Dynamic Memory Skills in addition to thier student-only course on critical reasoning.

      Speed reading helped me take my 300 words per minute and get up too about 2,000 words per minute. Now, I still read my Bible slowly to really process the Word, but the textbooks, books I'm interested in but don't really want to invest a lot of time in, and numerous work projects can quickly be speed read and understood. Now, I do not endorse all the methods that Howard Berg uses, but the core skill is useful. It will hurt your head though for about 2 months before you re-train your mind to read faster.

     Dynamic Memory and Study Skills is a great course full of memory improving ideas. I do not recommed trying to incorporate them all because they will not all fit you. I personally use only a few that Brad mentions; however, the principles have helped me to improve my memory and spend very little time in study and review for my tests in college and training for various other parts of life.

Access Speed Reading and Dynamic Memory and Study Skills here

Find out more about CollegePlus Here

 

Our Resource: Standing for the Christian Faith in College

 

Remembrances of my Childhood

Remembrances of my Childhood

 

       As a child I played some of the things that I actually now do in “adult” life. I would pretend to lead armies, organize assaults against imaginary castles, fight evil creatures; and be the “Daniel Boone” of a group of frontiersmen or an Indian warring against the evil tribe(s). All of these play activities were preparation for my future leadership calling from the Lord. As a man, I would need the leadership skills I played about. And now, as a young man of seventeen, I am learning all the more how important leadership is in the things God has called me to do: I must discipline myself to follow Christ; I must make the choices to accomplish the goals that I have set and the Lord has called me to do; I must teach and disciple others, faithfully leading the best life example that I can.

        As a child, I enjoyed drawing a picture and now I do similar activities with my computer: graphic design, snipping pictures, and newsletter design. I enjoyed writing songs of praise to God; now I enjoy getting written material out to others which will help them to grow closer to the Lord. I started pretend companies and some small entrepreneurial endeavors back then, but now I am forming companies, as well as business ideas on a larger scale. I would sit and build with legos for hours on end, and in the process give names to many of them in addition to homes, families, careers, churches, pastors, and kings. I would form armies and experiment with different economic systems. By doing these things, I set the basis of my interest in basic economics and politics. As I refused to have heathen systems in my play cities (unless they were my idol-worshipping enemies), I learned how God’s Word really apply to life.

    I could say much more of my childhood and how I loved to read; battled with laziness and responsibility until something just clicked in my twelfth year; how I chased girls because of ungodly desire; how I did not have many video games, but played war, city, and economy building for hours on end; how I loved listening to my mother read me great books and how my imagination would soar as she did so; how I would spend much of my time running around the yard engaging in strenuous sword fights, archery attacks, Indian raids, and musket fights with my imaginary foes which would number in the hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands and millions: yet my faithful band of a few thousand, or more often 10 to 400, would manage to kill them all and win the day; and how the Lord was important and murdering forbidden in those imaginary raids. . . .  I could farther talk about my experiences as a young man coming out of childhood and my new convictions and relationship with the Holy Spirit. I also remember the sins: how I lusted, addicted myself to video games and television, how I gossiped frequently and struggled in friendships, how I pursued young women and how God prevented my quest, how I yelled at my siblings, and how I struggled with changing into who God wanted me to be; but again, how faithful and loving God was. And how God gave me purpose when something just clicked inside of me one day as He spoke to my heart and instilled a motivation to accomplish something: a GMA; and then to write a book, and then . . . there is too much to say.

   My childhood was a time of fun and preparation as I look back. No, I’m not married or leading my own family at this time or engaging in political battles, but I believe that those are to come. The Biblical signs of the Last Days are evident and our modern world continues to require great changes in how things are done. Will the changes to come be Biblical? Will godly men change the course of the impending doom as God stirs up revival? Or will society yield to Satan’s destruction and collapse, hopeless and confused? I don’t know, but this I do: God prepares us when we least expect it. . . .maybe even in your childhood.

God’s Overpowering Purpose

God’s Overpowering Purpose

I have appeared to you for this purpose . . .—Acts 26:16

    The vision Paul had on the road to Damascus was not a passing emotional experience, but a vision that had very clear and emphatic directions for him. And Paul stated, “I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision” (Acts 26:19). Our Lord said to Paul, in effect, “Your whole life is to be overpowered or subdued by Me; you are to have no end, no aim, and no purpose but Mine.” And the Lord also says to us, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go . . .” (John 15:16).

 

   When we are born again, if we are spiritual at all, we have visions of what Jesus wants us to be. It is important that I learn not to be “disobedient to the heavenly vision”—not to doubt that it can be attained. It is not enough to give mental assent to the fact that God has redeemed the world, nor even to know that the Holy Spirit can make all that Jesus did a reality in my life. I must have the foundation of a personal relationship with Him. Paul was not given a message or a doctrine to proclaim. He was brought into a vivid, personal, overpowering relationship with Jesus Christ.Acts 26:16 is tremendously compelling “. . . to make you a minister and a witness . . . .” There would be nothing there without a personal relationship. Paul was devoted to a Person, not to a cause. He was absolutely Jesus Christ’s. He saw nothing else and he lived for nothing else. “For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).

 

--Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest

http://utmost.org/god%e2%80%99s-overpowering-purpose/

 

The Three Big Decisions of Your life

The Three Big Decisions of Your life

The way I see it, there are three major decisions/events in a person’s life.

#1 Accepting Christ’s free gift of salvation is the most important event in your life coupled with maintaining a vibrant relationship with Him through communion with the Holy Spirit.

#2 The calling that God has placed on you. Everyone has a calling (2 Peter 1:10). Your calling can be to serve in ministry, your career, a hobby, serving at your church, simply listening to people, and the list goes on. The possibilities are huge and fathomless because God makes us unique people that can use our talents in specific, yet personal ways. God has a specific thing—or things!—that He wants you to do in your lifetime. Have you sought Him for what that or those things are? Why or why not?

#3 The greatest decision that you will ever make in the natural world is who you marry. You will be bonded to this person for the rest of your earthly lives; you will need to follow God’s leading together in your marriage; and the fruit of your marriage may be a family. Are you going to marry the right one? How will you know? Call upon God through prayer. Does God want you to marry the specific man or woman you are interested in? The Bible talks about asking and receiving: if you need wisdom, then ask God for wisdom (James 1:5). Isn’t wisdom required to make the decision of who you will marry? Then why not ask God? God will speak! If you seek Him, you will find Him. Ask Him, you may be surprised what He reveals. If you truly hear His Words, they will line up with the Bible.

Thougth 232 The Year Uzziah died.....What happened the year of your birth? from Ryan's devotional book series Thoughts

Thought 232

The Year Uzziah died…..What happened the year of your birth?

     Well, if you’re anything like me I don’t have a clue. In 1994, all that I know is that I was born, and so were several of my friends. But does the year you were born determine your future? No and Yes. God had you born the year that you were for a very important reason. You must understand that you are here right now, the exact  # of years old you are for a reason. That reason(s) are orchestrated by a sovereign God. He knows every detail of everyone’s life from before time began to after it ends in eternity! God is truly sovereign! If He cares for the sparrows why do you worry? Why do you worry about who you will marry? Do not worry because God will direct you. Besides worrying doesn’t do any good, and each day has enough in it.

  On the subject of God directing you listen to this passage:

      “For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem: thou shalt weep no more: he will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry; when he shall hear it, he will answer thee. And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be removed into a corner any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers: And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left. Ye shall defile also the covering of thy graven images of silver, and the ornament of thy molten images of gold: thou shalt cast them away as a menstruous cloth; thou shalt say unto it, Get thee hence.

        Then shall he give the rain of thy seed, that thou shalt sow the ground withal; and bread of the increase of the earth, and it shall be fat and plenteous: in that day shall thy cattle feed in large pastures. The oxen likewise and the young asses that ear the ground shall eat clean provender, which hath been winnowed with the shovel and with the fan. And there shall be upon every high mountain, and upon every high hill, rivers and streams of waters in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound.”   Isaiah 30:19-26 KJV

Thought 224: A Purpose Driven Life from Ryan's devotional book series Thoughts

Thought 224

A Purpose Driven Life

  A life needs a purpose; otherwise there is no reason for that life to exist, right? No, God doesn’t create mistakes. You might not think that you look the best or are the smartest, but God created you to be you. He loves you and He cares for you.

Read Job 31:15; 1 Corinthians 8:6; 1 Thessalonians 1:4; and 1 John 4:16

The Lord created you for a reason (Psalm 139:13). God wants you to wholeheartedly pursue Him (Matthew 6:33): a fruitful life reflecting Christ will be developed as you intentionally live each day following Jesus (Luke 9:23).

For most of my life I didn’t have a purpose, or at least I felt like it. I would play army men, Legos, and video games for hours on end. Around my freshman year of High School it dawned on me that buying and playing the newest and “greatest” games, chasing “cute” girls, and pursuing having fun had no real meaning or lasting value to my life. My friendships were many and empty: there was no depth, no true understanding or growth for the good of both parties. But one day, the Lord spoke to my heart as I was sitting in my basement writing or reading that He had a plan for me—I had purpose!

You have a Purpose!