Alli's Original: Memories

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=DDfVOIEmfkM

Ingrid Michaelson - You and I {Acoustic cover Alli}

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=TQSNVCZV-ZQ

Alli's Original: Here I am

She sings Beautifully Enjoy <3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=54ezqOPQ8G8

        Alli and I messing around with a favorite worship song late at night <3                                  

Christian girls in a sexy world

Some people may judge you on looks & clothes, but God cares about your heart.

FIONA DEWHURST • MAY 2, 2012

Messages

Each day we are being fed messages about how girls and women should be. The world shouts out that all women are and should be sexy. It is in the television shows and movies we watch, the internetsites we browse, the songs we listen to, the magazines we flip through and even on the billboards we drive by every day. The world tells us that the ideal woman is hot, sexy, sassy and on the prowl.

At school the message is no different. When I was at school, social groups were roughly divided by the clothes girls wore. Generally the shorter the skirt and more flimsy the blouse, the more popular you were with the girls and the more attention you received from boys – I gather the world hasn’t changed much since I left school. The message we receive at school is that if you dress sexy and engage in sexual behaviour the more popular you are in the social scheme. It is a case of the “survival of the prettiest”.

However, these messages are not what God tells his daughters.

Meaning

Your worth and value are not based on your body nor on being sexy. We need to get real about this. Genesis 1:27, 31 and Genesis 2:23-25 express the goodness of our physical bodies which God created. We are made in the image of God and this should be where our value is found. However, we do live in a fallen world where the goodness of creation and relationship have been broken. In our obsession with our bodies and clothing to gain value and acceptance, we make idols of ourselves. We need to realign ourselves with God’s values.

1 Samuel 16:7 expresses that while humans look at outward appearance, God is concerned with our heart and character more than our bodies or clothes. Furthermore, this side of the cross, our identity as Christians lies in Christ and not our outward appearance. We need to be counter-cultural! God loves us (1 John 4:6), has chosen us (Ephesians 1:4) and wants us to be conformed to the image of his son (Romans 8:29) and not the ideal body image. Remind yourself and your sisters that you are a dearly loved child of His.

Modesty

The Bible teaches quite clearly on modesty and sexuality. Ephesians 5:3 says‘But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality.’ This ‘hint’ includes both our actions and our appearance. God desires that sex, a good thing created by Him, be enjoyed only in a man-woman marriage relationship.Genesis 2:24 talks of the beautiful union between a man and his wife as doesSong of Songs. Elsewhere the Bible warns of the consequences of not respecting the place of sex within marriage such as Hebrews 13:4. Women are encouraged also to dress modestly and develop inner beauty, (1 Peter 3:3-6). This is what God desires for his daughters – not because he is a killjoy but because he loves us and in fact knows what will bring us more joy!

Men

Girls – we need to get real about the effect our bodies and actions have on men. If you dress sexy you may receive unwanted attention, or may become tempted to become involved in ungodly sexual behaviours. Furthermore, we need to love our Christian brothers at all times – not just youth group or church!

Sometimes we would like to argue that it is our right to wear what we want and it is the boys' fault for thinking such “bad” things. This is not Christ-like. We need to lay down our lives (and our rights) to love others and encourage them onto godliness. When we dress sexy this isn’t helping our brothers. Think about what messages you are sending when you are buying clothes and getting dressed. Girls, let’s be real with each other too and point out when your sister may be inadvertently immodest especially when the weather warms up.

Marriage

Sex and being sexy has a time and place that God is all for – within the marriage relationship. Baring our bodies and engaging in sexual practices belong there. I urge you sisters to wait till then to be a sexy Christian girl. Any hint before then is only damaging to your brothers and yourself. Be girls who seek to love God with their hearts, minds, bodies and clothes.

If God loves us despite our sin, why did Jesus have to die?

God does not accept you as you are

If God loves us despite our sin, why did Jesus have to die?

RICH CROSBY • JULY 9, 2012

Born this way?

Whether you’re a Christian or not, you’ve likely heard someone say that God accepts us as we are. At best, this is a half truth. At worst, it can be used as an excuse to continue doing things that are stupid, harmful, evil or all of the above. If God accepts us as we are, then what’s the point of bothering with all this right and wrong nonsense? Let’s just live and do whatever we want, because God accepts us as we are … right?

Missing the point

The biggest and most dangerous problem with this feel-good cliche is that it completely removes the need for Jesus. It makes his life, death and resurrection meaningless. The Jesus of the Bible ends up being belittled to suit our convenience, rather than being elevated to his rightful position of Lord and Saviour.

What do I mean? Here's the difference:

• If we say 'God accepts us as we are', then the key to our salvation is God’s unconditional acceptance of us.
• In reality, the key to our salvation is the free gift of grace that has been given to us through Jesus.

Being accepted > being found

So to correct the cliche, God does find us where we are but he does not acceptus as we are. This may seem like splitting hairs, but there is a major difference between being found and being accepted.

Let me give an example.

I recently heard a story of a woman named Sarah, who worked as a dancer in a strip club. One evening, while she was on stage, about midway through a shift she had worked countless times, in front of many of the same customers and other dancers, she suddenly felt the presence of God so powerfully around her that she nearly fell over!

When she told the story to a Christian friend, it didn’t take much to convince her, that God had found her in that strip club. Her Christian friend went on to explain to Sarah that she (like the rest of us) was a sinner - not only because she had done things that were wrong, but also because Sarah was born with sin inside of her. The friend explained that God, in his love, sent his Son to pay the penalty for the sin in Sarah’s life, and that if Sarah put her faith in Jesus Christ, then she would be accepted by God.

When Sarah made this commitment, and accepted God’s free gift of grace that is given through Jesus, that was the moment of her acceptance by God.

Here's the key difference:

• What Sarah had done in her life was irrelevant.
• What mattered was what Jesus had done.

Death before life

It is true that when God invites us into relationship with him, he offers this to us no matter where we are in life. Still, it is vital that we recognise this is simply the starting point of conversion, rather than the final destination of being a new creation in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). God wants us to change, and he will work in all Christians to change them & shape them to be more like Jesus. However, the process of being a new creation gets ugly, before it gets beautiful. In Romans 6, Paul writes,

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

Accepted through Christ

Having an encounter with God is certainly the starting point, but it isn’t enough. The Pharisees of the New Testament had countless encounters with Jesus, who had come to them as God-incarnate - yet they still refused to accept that he was the Messiah. God isn’t interested in random encounters. His desire is that we would be in an eternal relationship with him – one that is only possible when he accepts us because of who we are in Christ, not who we are in ourselves.

Colorful World Original Painting