Bible Reading #167 - First Response to Trouble

First Response to Trouble

Psalm 59

I pray blessings on you as you read.

(v. 16) "But I will sing about your strength. In the morning I will joyfully sing about your mercy. You have been my stronghold and a place of safety in times of trouble."

Daily Bible Reading with DragoNate #125

The Bible is God-Breathed

2 Timothy 3

I pray blessings on you as you read.

(v. 16-17) "All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."

My Thoughts

The Bible is not just a random collection of writings thrown together by random people. It is a collection of writings that God Himself has inspired to be written and tells us exactly what God wants all of us to know. God has made sure that everything that is in the Bible is there for a reason and there is nothing worthless or pointless in it.

It is often hard for me personally to figure out exactly what God wants to say to me through what I read, and I have said that a few times on this blog. Some things in the Bible I do believe are not specific to us, but more general. When I have absolutely no clue what God is saying in a certain part, or if He is at all, then I think it is a general thing, and not something specific to me. At the very least, it may not be important to me at the time, but later on.

When you read your Bible, and when I read mine, we should read it as if God is speaking to us. I wrote this down a while ago in my journal, and I am just reminded of it now. I don't do that often, but it is something I want to do. When I go to read God's Word, I always ask Him to speak to me from His Word and guide me in it as I read.

Reading God's Word is like feeding yourself. If you don't feed yourself, you starve and eventually die. The Bible is food for your spirit. If you don't read it, your spirit is not being fed. If you read it but you don't listen to it, then you are just regurgitating what you've just fed yourself. That's not a healthy thing either.

We all need to put the words from the Bible into practice in our lives, not just read the words and understand the words, but actually follow the words. I know I may not be perfect, by any means, and I admit I don't follow every single thing the Bible says, and obviously some things are harder than others, depending on the person. But I do try. I do keep God at the center of my life, and I try to correct the things I need to correct.

Prayer Time

Now you talk to God about what you read, and you can even read this chapter of the Bible for yourself before you do.

Let me know your thoughts on this reading as well.

Thank you for taking the time to read, I pray that what you have read blesses and inspires you! Godbless!

Daily Bible Reading with DragoNate #120

A Small Picture

Micah 7

I pray blessings on you as you read.

(v. 7) "But as for me, I watch in hope for he Lord, I wait for God my savior; my God will hear me." (v. 18-19) "Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea."

My Thoughts

Micah 7 gives us a small picture of who God is. He describes God just a little bit, especially in verses 18 and 19. When you get just a small bit of something, you usually want more, if it's good of course! Like when you taste the frosting on a cake, or when you have one freshly baked cookie. You want more of it after, right? That should be the same with God, when we get just a small amount of Him in our lives.

If you want to know God more and hear God more, you have to read His Word and pray to Him. Yeah, there are going to be things in the Bible that are really hard to understand. Look at me, I've said that with a few different posts of mine. I still have a post on Ezekiel 5 there that doesn't have anything to go with it because I couldn't understand it. I asked you guys for help with that and to tell me what you think Ezekiel 5 means. If you would like to do that, you can click here to go to that post.

Those parts in the Bible where you find it hard to understand? Don't worry about it. Maybe it's not important for you to know at the time. God may reveal it to you at a later time. You may know more about what it means when a pastor or a friend or even a complete stranger gives you their thoughts on it. Sometimes God uses others to help us, or us to help others, for a variety of things and reasons.

As you read your Bible more, God will speak to you from it's words. A lot of the verses that stand out to us do so because they mean something to us personally. God knows that, and that's why He speaks to us through them. Those verses are like a small picture of your own life. Maybe it's something very good. Maybe it's something that you need to work on.

Just keep reading your Bible. Keep praying and talking to God. Get to know more who God is and what He wants for you. God does hear you when you call.

Prayer Time

Now you talk to God about what you read, and you can even read this chapter of the Bible for yourself before you do.

Let me know your thoughts on this reading as well.

Thank you for taking the time to read, I pray that what you have read blesses and inspires you! Godbless!

Daily Bible Reading with DragoNate #100

The Word of God

John 1

I pray blessings on you as you read.

(v. 1) "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (v. 14) "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."

My Thoughts

Jesus is the Word of God. The first eighteen verses of John 1 talk about the Word of God. They do not mention Jesus' name, but we know that Jesus is who is talked about. We know this because the Word became flesh and these verses talk about the Word of God as if it is a person or a being. And it is.

If Jesus is the Word of God, what then, is the Bible? Is the Bible still the Word of God? I believe that, in calling the Bible the Word of God, we are correct. Some people do not think so. The words in the Bible are not spoken or even written by God Himself, no, but the Bible is inspired by God. What is in the Bible was put there by God, but used those who were willing to write its words. God made sure that what went into the Bible was what He wanted and that all of it was there, He just didn't write it Himself.

Just because God didn't write the words of the Bible Himself, doesn't meant that it didn't still come from Him. After all, what does 'word' mean? A word is a meaningful grouping of letters that are used to communicate. The Bible is full of those. Jesus is the Bible personified. That is what I believe.

I said in an earlier post that God talks to us in many different ways. Well, one of those ways is through the Bible. The biggest way, which is now in the Bible coincidentally, was through Jesus. No, it is not even close to the same as it would have been to actually see and hear and touch Jesus as it is for us to read about Him, but Jesus shows Himself in many different ways as well.

Jesus is not here with us in the same way that He was then, so how else can God communicate with us through His Word? The Bible. Even the pastors at church preach from the Bible its teachings. God still talks directly to us sometimes, not always. That's why we have the Bible.

So what does the Word of God mean to you? Do you believe that the the Word of God is only Jesus, or do you believe that the Word of God is Jesus and the Bible? Also, why do you believe one or the other? 

Prayer Time

Now you talk to God about what you read, and you can even read this chapter of the Bible for yourself before you do.

Let me know your thoughts on this reading as well.

Thank you for taking the time to read, I pray that what you have read blesses and inspires you! Godbless!

Husk First Impression

Husk is a first-person horror game, made by UndeadScout, in which you basically just walk around and explore. Currently, that is really all there is to it, save for the few items that you can pick up and look at, one of which is a Bible. Personally, I like that there is a Bible in this game! Husk is only a Playable Teaser at the moment, but it would be very cool if, when the full game is released, you can interact more with the Bible than just looking at it, unless there already is more interactivity that I missed, in which case, ignore what I just said.

I am not really big on horror games. I like some of them because of the gameplay, but I don't much care for the ones that have a bunch of things constantly popping out at you with crazy faces and going completely nuts. Husk does not have anything really jump out at you. It is the atmosphere that makes the game scary, and that is how the experience of a game like this should be, not necessarily the horror genre only. If the atmosphere is right, the game becomes more immersive, and makes the experience a lasting, memorable one.

Throughout Husk, there is the repeating theme of the number 4. Now, it is either just the number 4 or the concept of 4. What I mean by that is that, when this theme pops up, it is not only the number itself, but it repeats 4 times. It gets slightly meta in that regard. I couldn't understand why when I was playing, but I thought about it afterward.

What I came up with is that the number 4 in Chinese culture is often disliked and regarded as unlucky, the same way the number 13 is disliked and regarded as unlucky in North America. The reason why is because the word 'four' is pronounced the same as the word 'death.' The character that you play as in Husk seems to be dead, or dying. 'Four' is also pronounced the same as 'fortune,' when relating to a musical scale. There's also some religious ideology that it has some significance for.

When someone is dying, there is usually more thought about what comes after and those thoughts are more often than not based on a religious belief. My thoughts about this symbolism in Husk is that, because the character is either dead or dying, there is thought about what comes after. Maybe also, there is the possibility of something fortunate coming out of the situation as well.

Keep in mind, these are all my own personal thoughts on the symbolism or meaning behind the theme of the number 4 in Husk.

I honestly really enjoyed the game. I was expecting more jumpscares, but I am actually glad that there weren't because I don't believe I would have enjoyed the game as much as I did. It really is all atmosphere because there's not much that actually happens, other than sounds. Loud or sudden sounds, the fear of the darkness or ominous lighting, and the expectation that something bad is going to happen all make for a much better, much more immersive experience and I am thoroughly impressed.

The developers have done a great job so far and I want to encourage them to keep up the great work! I cannot wait until Husk is fully released and I am sure it will be even better than it is now! I played Husk on my channel and, of course, you can check out the video down below. If you enjoy it and you would like to see more, head over to my channel, and don't forget to subscribe, just click on my name!

DragoNate

References

http://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/lucky-number4.htm

Daily Bible Reading #2 - God Can Always Use You

God Can Always Use You

2 Chronicles 34

I pray blessings on you as you read.

(v. 3) "For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father: and in the twelfth year, he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images."

Daily Bible Reading #1 - Creator God

Creator God

Genesis 1

I pray blessings on you as you read.

(v. 1) "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." (v. 2) "... The Spirit of God was hovering over the waters." (v. 26) "... Let us make man in our own image." (v. 28) "... Rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves along the ground."

New Blog Topic!

Hey there again, this post is just to let you know that I am adding a new topic to my blog. The reasons for this are that, one, currently there are not many posts on my blog, and I would like to have more. Second, this new topic is something that I've been wanting to do. I was going to start this later on, but with very few posts on my blog as it is currently, I thought this would be good to have more frequent posts.

So anyway, the new topic I will be blogging about is

Daily Bible Reading with DragoNate

This will probably be a blog specific thing, it's not going to be linked directly with my YouTube channel. I will be reading my Bible and then sharing with you my thoughts on what I read and what I got out of it. I hope you like this idea, and as always, it would be great to hear your thoughts on this! Thanks again, and Godbless!

David. First Impression

David. is a game about overcoming challenges, no matter how much bigger or stronger or anything else they are than you. Created by a Christian developer, David. the game is a representation of the actual David from the Bible. Most people have heard of David and Goliath, and that is who the character of the game represents.

David. is a box armed with a slingshot type weapon, just like he was when he fought Goliath. As the player, you assume the same role and must overcome each challenge: anger, lies, wolf, brood, and more. There are two different difficulties, and both must be completed in order to move on to the final door, Sin. I love this game so much! I am a Christian myself, and I really like the idea of a game being based on the Bible.

Honestly, even if you aren't a Christian or don't read the Bible, the metaphor of the game can be applied to your life. You don't have to read the Bible know that you are bigger than any problem you face and that you can overcome any challenge, no matter how difficult. If you are facing a challenge that feels too much for you, persevere. Reach out to someone you trust for help and guidance. I would also like to encourage you to pray. I can't and won't force you to. I also just want to encourage you, period.

No matter what happens, no matter who says what, you are special. You are loved. There is always someone who loves you. If you can't think of anyone, that is alright. That doesn't mean that there isn't. Just stay strong and reach out for help or guidance. Take a look at my video down below and head over to my YouTube channel to check out more videos that I have done, and don't forget to subscribe. Godbless!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-vIFzTnuCy7_5ii-RPh3rw