So I have been both slacking and very busy so I havnt blogged in a while but let me catch up now a little bit and share a bit about what God has been doing in our ministry here at HGC.

The main happening is the change to our theme for jr high.  We have been focusing on the theme "magnitude" over the past year, on making an impact in the world around us.  This year God has really been laying new ideas and themes on my heart where I have such a desire to see the guys and girls take ownership of their faith and really enter into a relationship with Christ.  Not because their parents told them to, or because they go to sunday school, but because they truly want to know Jesus and His love.  So our theme for this year is "immersion".  Being totally and completely submersed in God's love and mercy and grace for us.  Letting Him into every area of our lives, not just immersing ourselves on friday nights for youth group, or sunday for church, but being immersed in Him 24/7.  This is a passion of myself personally to become more of a man conscious of God's work in my life and the spirit moving in me, and I am so excited to see how God works through this in the group!

This past weekend (sept 18-20) we took the jr high on a retreat to Shiloh Bible Camp in west milford and had an incredible time.  We had a group of guys and girls from all spectrums of life, some 6th graders, some 8th graders, some church goers, some not, some have been to youth group almost every week, others it was their first event.  But God brought us all together for that weekend and gave us such a great time.  We connected to each other in great ways and through that we connected to God in deeper ways.  We talked a LOT about what it means to be immersed in God's love and how we can live that out, and many of the guys and girls made decisions to immerse themselves in Christ more completely!  We also had a rockin good time throughout the weekend from jammin to music, to sheet volleyball, to capture the flag, which lead to getting stung by bees, and ended up with everyone coverd in shaving cream, to marshmallow fights around a huge bonfire.  It was great times to grow closer to each other, and God, and get away from reality for a bit!

The weeks before that we have had some bittersweet times.  We said goodbye to our 9th graders as they were promoted up to high school youth group, and we officially welcomed in our new 6th graders!  I will truly miss our 9th graders but I am so psyched to see how God uses them in high school.  We have such an awesome group of 6th graders so far to so I am excited to see them start to fit into the group and get involved!

This upcoming weekend (sept 25) we will be talking more about what it means to be immersed in Christ and looking at some examples of people who are immersed in Him.  It will be a guarunteed awesome time!

God is doing great things in and through our group so lets continue to pray that His will will be done through us!!!

Well another few weeks have just flown by!  The summer is sadly almost over:(  However we have had a pretty awesome past few weeks at Magnitude.  I was away on vacation last week up in NY taking some time to relax with my family, so I wasnt able to summarize the past two weeks until now...so here we go:

For the first time in Jr high we had two different "theme nights".  On august 7th we had a Superhero Night!  We told everyone to dress up as their favorite superhero and we had some phenominal superheros come on out.  From wolverine to superman to superwoman batman and catwoman, even the green lantern came out.  We even had some new superheros that have never been seen before.  It was fun times!  We then talked about having heroes in our own lives.  We talked about the kind of people we choose to "idolize" and put on a pedastool.  Are they really worthy of being a hero to us?  We came to the conclusion that in comparison to Christ, no one should even be close to being our hero.  There are definitely people we can admire and aspire to be like, but Christ should be the real superhero in our lives!

On august 14th we had a 70's/disco night.  This was also really awesome and we had some sweet music pumpin and disco ball spinning.  We had a little disco dodgeball and then even had a disco danceoff which was filled with some pretty fly moves!  We talked about taking risks in our lives and conquoring our fears.  It takes a lot of guts to stand up in front of people and do anything, but when you take that risk, you can get a bigger reward.  In our Christian lives we need to take risks and be willing to step up for Christ!  I challenged the guys and girls to think about some situation this next year in school where they can take a risk for Christ.  Then we broke up in small groups and our leaders led discussions on ways we can make that happen.

Awesome things are happening in our group and as long as Christ stays at the focus that will continue!  I am so psyched for this upcoming year and what Christ is going to do through us!

What an awesome night we had at youth group this past friday!  Amidst sprained ankles, asthma attacks, torn up knees, and even a broken arm, we were able to have an awesome time with each other and get to know God better:)  Dont worry, these sort of things do not happen every week! 

This week we had an extended youth group, from 7-9pm and we spent the first half in the pool, singing songs and worshipping God, and digging into the Word a bit.  We focused on one verse, 1Peter 3:15, which is an amazing verse that challenged us in our relationships with Christ and also challenged our courage levels in being willing to talk to others about Jesus.  The second half of the night we went outside and played the game mission:infiltrate.  This is a manhunt-type game that we play on the property.  it is a non-contact game but with all the rain we've been having, many of us were slipping around and we had a few injuries!  Even so, we had an awesome time in the game, God protected us from anything too serious, and we grew closer to each other and to God as well. 

This week we are having youth group from its normal time 7-9pm and we will be having our first theme night!  'Dress like your favorite superhero" I am psyched out of my mind for it and we will have an awesome time:)

So last Sunday night I came back from a mission trip to Eleuthera, which is an island in the Bahamas. I went with an organization called Touch The World, and I was one of six leaders over a group of 22 teenagers, mostly in middle school. It was an amazing experience not only for the students but for me and the other leaders as well! I've been spending the past week doing a lot of video editing from the trip and thinking about what it is that God showed me on this trip. To start off let me give a little summary of what we did. We were NOT on vacation in the Bahamas haha. We were on a very rural island where there is not much tourism, so we got experience a little more of the real culture of the bahamas. We worked with a camp called Camp Bahamas, which is a summer camp for underprivileged youth on the island of Eleuthera and neighboring islands. The camp was such an amazing place where Christ was openly preached to all of the students and lives were transformed. We didnt have a part in the camp itself, but we were doing construction projects on their new campsite. We built a septic tank for the cabins (luckily we didnt have to clean one!) and we finished the inside walls of many of the cabins as well. Every afternoon after doing construction we would go and host a VBS at a local town that was about 30 min away. We had amazing times there as well and were able to share Christ with all of the guys and girls who came out. We had people from the ages of 1-23 come out and talk with us. We did Bible stories, puppets, dramas, soccer, basketball, and simply spent time investing in these kids lives.
I was particularly blessed on this trip because I had about 11 of the jr highers that come to my youth group come on this trip with me.
Coming into this trip I had two intentions
1- To see God work in the lives of the jr highers that were on the trip with us
2- To grow closer to God myself and bring Him glory

From the first few days of this trip it was evident God was teaching me a lot and convicting me in areas of my life as well.
He immediately taught me that my #2 above, should be my #1 in everything I do.
One of the major things He taught me was that all to often I get in the way of things that God is trying to do. I try to do things on my own power, on my own strength. and so often I fail because of that. The things I do may be good, and may help people, but if God isnt the primary power and focus, the things are shallow. So God really taught me to listen to His voice and follow His calling and let Him be in charge of what happens. Once I began to learn this, it was amazing to see the impact it not only had on my life but also on the teens. God really touched them on this trip and taught them about Himself.
One more thing God also taught me is that the body of Christ is so vital. As leaders on this trip, we all had different strengths and weaknesses and if we tried to do things on our own, we failed. When we all worked together it was amazing to see us compliment each others strengths and God really worked

Overall, the past few weeks have been amazing ones for me where I truly saw God work and change our teens lives and mine as well. Keep praying that all of us on the trip dont "fade away" as we readjust to the states but allow the fire of God to keep burning in us and keep our passion going!

The past few weeks at youth group we have been focusing on testimony.  We had Scott Warren come and share his testimony a few weeks ago, but this week I spoke on the power of any testimony.  Sometimes when we hear a testimony of someone who was brought out of a life of crazy sin we begin to feel inadequate.  Like we need to get into some bad stuff so God can rescue us out.  We talked about how this attitude is wrong because even if we havnt done the same types of sin as the next guy, our sin is just as potent to keep us away from God.  The little things we have done in our lives still separate us from an almighty awesome God!  So it is not true when we say we dont have a testimony!  As long as you have a relationship with Christ and He brought you to that point, we have an amazing story we can share with people!  And those of us with "no testimony" (who were raised in the church, good families, etc) have a great story to tell of how God saved them from gettin into worse things in their lives! 

As Christians our testimony is never over, God is still bringing us along and molding us through different circumstances and trials.  In ending the night I shared with the guys and girls how important it is for us to share our testimonies with others.  The world doesnt necessarily need more people who preach in big rallies and to large congregations, but we need people who are ready to give an account for the hope that is within them!  Imagine if us as Christians would be willing to talk about Jesus whenever His name came up, or whenever someone questioned why we live a certain way!  God would work through that in amazing ways, and thats how we need to be!

Well this past week was awesome and with the summer coming there is so much more awesomeness to come!  This friday we will be having Steve Cobucci share a little bit of his heart with us and we will have a great time guaranteed!!!

We changed up our youth group schedule this past week.  Instead of having our friday night group we switched the day to saturday and had the first pool party of the year!  It was an awesome time to just hang out, get some sun, and spend time with each other.  We had a good crew out and had some watermelon and snacks and such.  The water was freeezzziinnggg too, but it made it all the more fun to throw people in, yeaaa.  Since we didnt have youth group on friday night, a few of us leaders and jr highers went into NYC for the Hillsong United concert.  These guys are one of my favorite bands ever and to see them live and worship the Lord with so many other people there was sweet!  Although our legs almost stopped working toward the end of the night we still had a good time rockin out and listenin to the music.

This week we are back on schedule with a normal youth group night up in theLOFT from 7-9pm so come on out for a good time!  Good luck finishing up those finals!

This past weekend we had a guest speaker come in and share his testimony.  Scott Warren, who has a huge passion for middle and high school students, came and shared how God has worked in his life.  Scott used to be the jr high youth pastor for HGC when I was in high school (around 1999-2003).  I got to see first hand his passion for the guys and girls and it was so great to have him come back and share to the youth again. 

Scott's testimony is one of the more powerful ones I have heard.  Scott came from a very tough childhood.  From growing up in a home with many different men coming in and out of his life, being physically abused by these men, to leading gangs in Paterson, Scott eventually found himself in prison for a few years.  What seemed like a bad event led to him accepting the Lord in the prison and a transformed life.  Now Scott serves at Hawthorne as head of maintenance staff, and as the youth pastor at Calvary Chapel in Passaic.  His love for God is truly contagious and we will defintely have him back to speak again if you missed him this time.

 This week we have NO YOUTH GROUP FRIDAY....aww mannnnn...but wait

We have a pool party on saturday from 11am - 1pm...YEAAA ....so guys bring a drink, girls a snack, and we'll have a good time of games and swimming!

This past week I had an awesome opportunity to get away and visit my sister in sunny Huntington Beach California.  I took time away from the computer and everything else I was involved in just to relax and rest up.  It was an awesome time!  Not only did I get to spend time on the beach but I also was able to quiet down and grow closer to the Lord.  Sunday morning me and my brother (Jordan) went to my sister's church and the message the pastor gave was about Joshua and Caleb.  He talked about how those two were the only ones who trusted God and believed that He would give them the land that He promised.  In spite of all others saying they were wrong they trusted God and devoted theirselves to Him!  It was really convicting to think about the devotion those two men had and how we need to apply that same devotion to our lives.  That night we drove a good 2 hours (LA traffic!) to see Francis Chan speak at his church in Simi Valley.  While the drive was long it was well worth it as Francis spoke a similar message on devoting out lives to the Lord and really DOING things and not just thinking about them.  So overall California was a great time for me to just relax and see Jess (my sister) but also it was a time to help me draw near to the Lord.

May 15  -   Before we left for California we had an open mic night at youth group.  An open mic is exactly what is sounds like.  well not exactly, but we open up the floor for anyone to share something thats been going on in their lives, a favorite Bible verse, a struggle, a praise, a drama, a skit, or anything else that is on their hearts.  I love open mics because they are so unpredictable.  Sometimes you will have a room full of guys and girls and no one will want to talk, or they will just share a funny story from that week.  Other times you will have a group and everyone will want to share what is happenin in their lives and how God has been teaching them things.  I also did not give the guys and girls any advance notice that we were doing an open mic this week, so it was sudden for many of them.  However as the guys and girls took turns coming up to talk my heart was touched by their sincerity and honesty and willingness to share.  They talked about struggles they were going through, praises that happened, a verse they read that God used to convict them, people in their lives that needed prayer, and we even had a few girls perform a drama!  It was a great time just to hear a little bit more about the lives of the guys at girls at Magnitude.

May 22   -   May 22 was a bittersweet day for us at Magnitude.  We had a going away party for Drew Jeltes who is one of our youth leaders in the group.  Drew has been one of the most committed and loyal guys we have had as a leader.  He loves giving his time and resources to the guys and girls and has really made a good impact on the group while he was here.  He has done everything from run the sound board during music, to room setups, to organizing games, sunday school teaching, to even singing (which may not have been the wisest idea:) )  A few months ago Drew took an opportunity to go to Colorado Springs and become a police officer there.  He shared in youth group how God had lead Him down that path and made it clear that that was where He wanted Drew to go.  We have no doubt that God is going to use him in awesome ways but he will also be greatly missed here in NJ!  We had a little party for drew with some food and gifts and all gave him our final goodbyes. This friday he will be on a plane headed toward CO.  Make sure you keep Drew in your prayers and if you want to get in touch with him his phone number is staying the same, 5514276163 and his email is This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

This week we have an interresting scenario going on for friday night!  We are going to be having our youth group up in theLoft from 7-9 and having a guest speaker whose message I am pumped about!  So come on out to hear a testimony you will never forget.  Also, the organization Truth or Die is putting on a rally in the new gym, also from 7-9.  This will be a time full of some basketball games, live music, and the truth being preached.  This event is also giong to be off the hook, so come on out to either event, or hop back and forth, but come ready to get to know God better!

This past friday was another nice day outside so to begin the night we hung out on the back soccer field for a while.  We had some wicked "taps" and soccer games goin on!  Then it looked like it was about to pour though so we went back up to theLOFT and had some music and message.  This weeks message was the last one in our "Who is Jesus" series.

Our theme this week was Jesus is LORD.  We talked about the end of Jesus' life on earth and how no one expected Jesus' life to end like it did.  We know Jesus was a powerful man, he did tons of miracles.  We know He had thousands of followers.  We know His disciples were loyal to Him.  We know the crowds almost always loved Him.  We know Jesus knew everything....Then why did He allow himself to die on the cross?  It seems like He looses all control at the end of His life!  One of his disciples (judas) betrays Him.  All of His other disciples run away after He is arrested.  The people all turn on Jesus and demand his crucifixion.  We know Jesus is innocent and that He knows what is going on.  He claimed to have the power to call down thousands of angels from heaven to save Him (Matthew 26:55-56).  Yet He remained quiet and died on the cross.

I am sure so many people thought that Jesus was either a LIAR or a LUNATIC at this point.  He claimed to be God.  Said He was going to restore the kingdom of God on earth.  Yet He is dead.  What was Jesus doing?  Our question for the night was "is it possible that Jesus was just a good man?"  The answer is NO!  If Jesus remained dead then He would have been a Liar and crazy man!  He claimed to be God, and if He wasnt, He had some loose screws in His head!  However Jesus knew what was happening all along.  He knew that He needed to die to prove something.  He needed to show that He had power over the one thing that man could never defeat.  The one thing that every man faced: death.  And when Jesus rose again He proved that everything He said was true.  This man who was not an ordinary child, was miraculous, always was real with people....finally backed up everything He claimed and conquored death.  WOW...thats pretty nuts.  So Jesus didnt leave an option to just be a good man, either He was God or he was crazy!  and through beating death, He proved that He was LORD! 

After Jake shared this message we split up into small groups and spend some time talking about what this means for our lives.  If our perspectives on Jesus had changed at all in the past few weeks, and what we were going to do about it.

Its been a great past few weeks and I know God spoke to me (Jake) through this series and I'm pumped to see How God is gonna work in our group in the weeks to come!

The first day of May rocked at Magnitude this friday night!  We began this Friday night just chillin for a while in theLOFT, we switched up the order of the night so the first thing we did was music (which rocked as always).  Its such a blessing to worship with every guy and girl that comes out!  We had Monica and Sammi lead a song by Barlow Girl too which ROCKED!  After worshipping the Lord we continued our series on "Who is Jesus?" and after that we went down to the gym to play some volleyball with a huge rubber ball...girls vs guys (and the guy leaders were helping the girls out)....and in the end the guys pulled out the victory by a point.  Good times!

Here is the rundown of the message, part 3 in our series

Our main point this week is that Jesus was REAL.  Duh!  No not "real" in the sense of existing, but real in that He lived out all that he taught and always spoke the truth!  So we looked at 4 different relationships He had.                                                                                                                                     The first is the relationship with His Parents/family.  While we dont know tons about how Jesus related to His parents and family, we do know some good stuff. When Jesus was young, 12 years old, He went to Jerusalem with His parents and when his parents left after the passover feast, Jesus stayed behind for another 3 days with the teachers in the Temple.  While they were amazed at this boy, I'm sure His parents were going crazy!  They lost the Messiah, what were they going to say to God now?!  When they found Him, he ended up heading back with them and the Bible tells us He was obedient to them.  So we see Jesus obeyed His parents.  He also cared that his family was looked after when He was dying.  He told John to make sure He looked after his mother while He Himself was dying on the cross.  Jesus was no homebody, He traveled all over telling people about Himself,  but He still cared about His family.   The second relationship was between Jesus and the disciples, or his close friends.  The disciples were people who had left everything they had and followed Jesus (Luke 5:11).  This relationship was very interresting because while the disciples were with Jesus all the time, they often were confused by what Jesus said and sometimes to afraid to ask for clarification.  Obviously Jesus knew this too, but He just kept right on teaching.  in the end, after Jesus died the disciples remembered the things Jesus said and understood them at that point.  We see in the Gospels that Jesus loved His disciples and poured out His time into them.  This overall relationship was kinda weird, but while the disciples didnt always understand Jesus, it is clear there was a great deal of love between the two!                                                       The third relationship is between Jesus and the people, the 'others' that He ran into all over.  Some of these people followed Jesus to get food, others to be healed, and others to hear what Christ had to say.  In Mark 6:30-34 we see that Christ had compassion on these people.  Even when He may have been exhausted from a long day He would still help these people He came to earth for!  However while He loved the crowds, he would often withdraw to pray.  Jesus had an amazing prayer life and would spend hours talking to His Father.  Even though many of the crowds didnt understand Jesus either, many put their faith in Him and Jesus loved them!                                                                                       The last relationship we checked out was between Jesus and the Pharasees.  in short, there was LOTS of conflicts here.  The pharasees hated what Jesus was teaching and how He attracted so many people and tried to plot ways to actually kill Jesus.  Jesus reacted differently to these people.  He knew many of their hearts were to hard to listen to Him, so while He spoke the truth to them, He would often challenge them on their hardened hearts and tell them about their faults.  Jesus loved these dudes too but He was much more harsh with them about their need to repent and change!

 Overall, Jesus was as "REAL" as someone can get!  He never sugarcoated things, but would tell people when they were doing wrong things and He always had compassion on those people around Him.  We challenged each other to try to spend more time in prayer like Jesus did.  To really spend time talking to God about what is going on in our lives.

Next week is the last message in this series and it should be an awesome conclusion!

So we had a great time at youth group this past week.  We were able to get outside and play some soccer in the awesome weather, then we went upstairs in the loft, played a few games, sang some worship, and learned more about who Jesus is.

This week was part 2 in our series "Who is Jesus Really?"

This week our theme was that Jesus was miraculous in the miracles he performed and in the way he taught.

When anybody looks at Jesus' life while reading through the Bible it is obvious that Jesus did some amazing things.  I love to look at the miracles Jesus did and how they defied all logic, reason, and science.  To start off the night we broke up into some small groups and spent time getting to know each other better and answering some questions.  We talked about who our perceptions of Jesus are, then we tried to remember as many of His miracles off the top of our heads as we could.  Everyone came up with some awesome miracles and teachings that Jesus did!  Finally we tried to remember some of the things Jesus taught about.  Then we came back together as a big group and talked about 4 specific miracles that I love.

1 - Water to Wine (John 2:1-11) - This was the first miracle Jesus performed so I always like to look at this one.  Jesus was at a wedding feast and they ran out of wine.  So Mary, Jesus' mom, goes to Jesus and asks Him to help (you think she would ask him to help with something more important than making wine, but anyway).  Jesus then performs his first miracle and changes the water in 6 large stone containers to wine.  Now I am no expert in wine, but from what I understand wine becomes better with age.  When the the master of the banquet tasted the wine, however, he said that it was the best wine he had had all night.  So not only did Jesus change water to wine, he somehow defied the aging process and sped up the time it takes for it to be good.  craziness.  I was a chemistry minor in college and it always amazes me how Jesus had this power over elements and was able to do something like this that defied chemistry.                                                                                                                                    2 - Paralytic (Mark 2:1-12) - So Jesus was in a place called Capurnaum teaching a bunch of people in a house.  The room was so packed that no one else could sqeeze into the place.  But there were four people who had a friend who was paralyzed and they wanted to take him to Jesus to see what He could do.  So, seeing they could not squeeze through the crowd they climbed on the roof of the house and lowered him through the roof tiles, right in front of Jesus!  Jesus must have been a little surprised but He had compassion on the man and told him "your sins are forgiven" (for some reason I think he wanted something else healed rather than his sins but the story goes on).  Now there were teachers of the law hanging out in the house and they were furious at this and said "Who has the power to forgive sins but God...". Jesus knew what they were thinking and to show he had the power to do so he also healed the man from his paralysis (i'm sure the man was very happy at this point!).  Now in addition to chemistry I was a biology major in college.  Paralysis is associated with a problem with the nervous system.  Any problem with nervous system is very serious because nervous tissue in our body has very limited repairing capabilities.  But Jesus once again defied science and logic and made it possible for this man to walk...                                                                                                                                         3 - Walk on H2O (Matthew 14:22-36) - Jesus told his disciples to head on across a lake on boat because he was going to stay behind and pray.  In the middle of the night however Jesus' decided to catch up to the disciples, and instead of taking the long way around the lake He decided to walk in a straight line, on top of the water!  As he neared the disciples they thought He was a ghost until He got closer and talked to them.  I dont know if you have ever tried to walk on water, but it doesnt work.  We are much more dense than water and we sink.  But Jesus walked on top of this lake like it was solid ground. Now that defies logic                                                                                                                                   4 - Heals Dead Boy (Luke 7:11-17)  Jesus was on his way to another town and as he neared the gates there was a funeral procession going on.  A boy had died.  He was the only son of a widow.  Jesus had compassion on the widow and told the boy (who was dead) to get up.  So what happens?  The boy gets up and starts to talk.  (I wonder what he said!).  Jesus not only had the power over earthly biology and chemistry, but also over death!  Now that shows that Jesus is something special!

After checking out these miracles we talked about how Jesus did them for a few reasons.  He had compassion on people and He wanted to show people proof of his power and claims of God.

Not only did Jesus do these miracles but He also taught some crazy/controversial things.  He said that "salvation is found in no one else'' but Himself.  He said you must repent from your sin to have eternal life.  He said the cost of following Him was everything!  He said that while being his disciple was very costly, salvation was FREE, you could not earn it in any way!  He said that those who believe in Him would have abundant life.  He also taught so much more that we will be looking at this week

There is so much to look at about Jesus and we flew through this information just to get an overview of Christ.  It is clear Jesus isnt the man we sometime percieve in our minds but while he was miraculous and compassionate, he was also very controversial and got many people angry!

This week we are checking out how people reacted to Jesus and how Jesus responded back.

2009-04-28   13:04:15

This is the first blog update that we have for HGCYouth Magnitude, yeaaaaa...
Most of these blogs will be simply updates on what we discussed in youth group so you can go back and check it out again if you want to!
We started a new series on April 17th titled "Who is Jesus Really?". 
In these messages we are trying to figure out if the perception we have of Jesus in our minds is really who He is.  Do we think He lived a certain way but the Bible doesnt back those ideas up?  How did He talk/relate to people?  How did He act when He was my age?  Overall, we are trying to check out what His life really looked like.
We began by checking out that our views of people, even if they may be awesome, may be really wrong.  We've got a perception of who Miley Cyrus, or the Jonas Brothers are from seeing them on TV.  However if we spent a few days with them would our opinions be confirmed or changed?
The same thing can happen with Jesus!
If you check out our video "The Jump" (http://www.cross.tv/20169) we used it as an illustration.  If the newsreporter reported that she saw three people on the edge of the bridge and although she begged them to come down and even went out with them on the edge, the people still jumped....we would think she was a hero, but we would all be wrong! 
What we think of Jesus could also be different than Who He really is!
We spent this first week looking at the events leading up to Jesus' birth and his early years.
Our main point was this:  Jesus was no ordinary kid!
The events that led up to His birth were very unique:
    - Mary and Joseph (Luke 1:26-38, 2:1-7) - Both had a confrontation with an angel (Gabriel) who told them that Mary was going to have a baby who was going to be the Messiah, and Joseph didnt need to be afraid of what people thought (they werent married yet) ... So as the story goes they go to Bethlehem because of a census and this Messiah was born in a stable and placed in a manger...And this baby was supposed to be God, and he was chillin in a manger....I wonder what Mary and Joseph were thinking about everything...Craziness
   - Elizabeth and Zechariah (Luke 1:39-80) - Gabriel came and talked to them as well and told them they would have a son which would pave the way for the Messiah.  Because Zech didnt believe at first the angel made him mute until the baby was born and they named him John...even more craziness
   - Shepherds (Luke 2:8-20) -  These dudes are just relaxing with their sheep out in a field and angels appear to them in the sky and start to sing and tell them to go to this stable because the Messiah has been born...uhh that sounds weird enough to me!  So they go down to the stable and worship this baby, then they go around and tell everyone in the town what had happened                                                                                                                                                                                    - Then we looked at some other crazy events, such as Anna and Simeon (luke 2:21-40) who were waiting in the temple for years and years because God told Simeon he would not die until he saw the Messiah.  When they saw Jesus at 8 days old and told everyone there He was the Messiah.  then @ 12  years old Jesus spent 3 days alone from his parents in Jerusalem, listening and asking the teachers all sorts of questions and amazing them with His answers.

Overall Jesus' early years were not ordinary!
While we dont know much more about how He lived in his "middle school years" we do know that Jesus began His life as a very unique individual!

2009-04-28    11:37:55