Read the super-essays!

Remember to read all the student's super-essays, because we will be discussing them in class on Monday.  I want you to be able to answer the following questions about all of the other students essays. 

1) What was your favorite dress-up?

2) What was your favorite sentence opener?

3) What was your favorite decoration?

4) Did they do the bibliographic entries correctly?

5) What do you think about their topic-clincher relationship? 

Hannah's Super Essay

As Christians 

      Sitting there in shock I could not believe my ears. Did my teacher really say twelve paragraphs? A twelve paragraph essay about our responsibilities as Christians to God and man! In my mind gears were kicking in and my mind was swirling with ideas. I was so anxious and nervous to start. Later that night when I got home I started right away.Throughout my intense researching I found so many exciting verses in the Bible. Researching I realized the Ten Commandments were perfect for my essay, because they are God’s laws and show us how to honor and glorify Him and how to love others. Notably the Ten Commandments were just right for all the information I needed to learn what my Christian responsibilities were.

      As Christians we have many responsibilities to our God and honoring and glorifying God is part of them. Lovingly God formed us in His image for His own glory. We were created to faithfully honor and glorify God. We do this when we show God our love for Him, for the Bible speaks, “ You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” Matthew 22:37. Honoring God shows our love to Him. Living and following the Ten Commandments, which are God’s own laws is a way to show our love for Him.

      Is God first in your life? The first two Commandments in Exodus 20tell us, “You shall have no other God before Me”, and “Do not worship false idols”. Meaning do not worship a person or thing, only worship God. Within we may believe we do not bow down and worship idols.However, we may love something more significantly than God, which iswrong and it may become to valuable in our life. Perhaps more importantthan God. Our responsibility as a Christian is to be positive there is nothing more treasured than Christ in our hearts, our minds, and our actions. We should not worship anything before God.

      Do you watch the words that travel out of your mouth? The third Commandment in Exodus 20:7 teaches us, “Do not take the Lords name in vain”. Using the Lords name in vain is dishonoring to God nothonoring to Him. For instance you may be foolishly playing around with your friends and used Christ’s name disrespectfully. Inwardly your thoughts may have been, “It is just this once it will not hurt anybody.”However you actually did curse God, did dishonor God, and did sin. Colossians 6 informs us, “Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one”. Whenspeaking we need to be responsible and consider every word we use tocommunicate with, because we want our words to glorify God.

      Do you take a day to relax? Following the fourth Commandment,which instructs us, “Keep the Sabbath day holy”, is another way we can honor God. The Sabbath day, which most people honor on Sunday, is the day our mighty God rested after forming and creating this huge world and all that is in it. Honestly God did not need to rest, because He is God. Our Lord rested only to prove to us we need to rest our tired bodies, minds, and actions after a long week of living in the world. Keeping the Sabbath day holy is necessary, just remember to take a day to relax, forget about all the worries of the world and worship God. As Christians it is our responsibility to keep the body and mind God gave us healthy.

      As a Christian we need to be faithful in our responsibilities to watch our speech, take a day to relax and most important, keep God first in are life. So simple. Yet it means so much to God, because we were made to glorify Him. We want following God and His Commandments to becomea habit, which will help us to be responsible in honoring and glorifying God.    

      As a Christian honoring and worshiping God is our duty, however we also have a responsibility to lovingly respect others, because the Bible commands us to. Informing us the Bible commands, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” Matthew 22:39-40. The Bible also instructs us, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving to one a another even as God in Christ forgave you” Ephesians 4:32. Do you see? We are requiredto love one another, and forgive one another as Christ, because Jesus did for us. Giving glory to God as we do so.  

      Do you get angry? The sixth commandment of the Bible reads, “You shall not murder” Exodus 2:13. The story of Cain and Abel shows us murder comes from anger and anger comes from the heart. In our life someone may do something to make us mad and angry. If we do notforgive them it will build up inside. Thinking nasty thoughts about this person we may start to want to take revenge on them. It could even lead to thinking of murder. The Bible tells us, “Love your enemies, bless those who cures you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you” Matthew 5:44. As a Christian we have the responsibility to forgive others.

      Do you always speak the truth? Lying may seem like a little crumb on the floor, not that big of a deal. However lying is as big as ahippopotamus before God. The Bible commands us in Exodus 22:16, “You shall not bare false witness against your neighbors”. Telling a fib about some one or to some one is wrong whether it’s over a crumb, a cookie, or a hippopotamus. Lying is lying! It hurts not just God but others around us and even our selves. Our responsibility as a Christian is to show respect to God and to others by doing our best, no mater what, to tell the truth.

         Do you ever wish you had all the cool stuff your friends have? Well the

Bible commands in Exodus 20:17, “You shall not covet”. Meaning you shall not want everything you see others have. How do we do this? The Bible shows us through Psalms 16:17, “ I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and I will call upon the name of the Lord”. Having a thankful heart for what we have, we will keep are thoughts off what we don’t have. When having a thankful heart and being grateful will show the world we honor God. It is a responsibility of a Christian to have a cheerful attitude about what God gave us and to be glad for others blessings.

         Respectfully and lovingly treating man, which is another way ofshowing honor to God, is our responsibility. Do you get angry, do you covet, and do you lie? I hope you see that this is wrong, because it is doing the opposite of what the Bible tells us to do. Forgiving others, being truthful, and having a thankful heart are ways to love and to show our respect to our neighbors. Honoring God and man should become a habit to work for, because it is our responsibility.

      As I wrap up my twelve-paragraph essay on our Christian responsibilities on how to honor God and love man I am excited to read and share all that I have learned. I thought the Ten Commandments were just right to research, to share, and to learn from. Don’t you? In our life our goal should be to glorify and honor our God, through studying His word and loving our friends, our family, and even our enemies. By being kind to one another, tenderhearted, and forgiving we honor man, byloving the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind we glorify and honor God, which fulfills our Christian responsibilities. 
 

       

Joy's Super-Essay - Week XV

Joyelle Elizabeth Bull                                                                                                     January 19, 2009

Exalt HIS Name

When you are a Christian you have some responsibilities. They are in the 10 commandments, the beatitudes, the creeds, along with many other places found in and out of the bible. One other thing I didn't mention was the confessions. The first question of the Westminster Confession is (1) "What is the chief and highest end of man?" Which means what is the purpose of man? The answer is this: Man's chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever.". Those are two more responsibilities of Christians.

Glorifying GOD is doing things that magnify Him. When we go to the grocery store we need to glorify GOD. We need to live our lives to reflect CHRIST. He set an example when He was on earth. He said, "(2)If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.". (3)Dictionary.com says to follow is to, " to accept as a guide or leader", or to," to conform to...". JESUS tells us to conform to Him conform means to "become similar in ... nature". Our nature is to be similar to CHRIST's even more than that it is to be exactly like CHRIST's, He lived a perfect sinless life. We can never fulfill that calling. That is why JESUS came to die. Now GOD looks at our lives and sees CHRIST's.

We were created for one purpose, to glorify GOD. That's it, Colossians 1:16 tells us, "(4)For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible ... all things were created through Him and for Him.". He created us for Himself. Sole comes from the Latin word solus meaning alone, only, or the only. The only reason we were created is to glorify GOD with every breath we take. When GOD created man He said "It was very good". All the other things were "good". Also when GOD created man he formed him in His image! All the other things were spoken into existence. We were created special but man fell and GOD chose only some of us for CHRIST to die for.

We were chose by GOD. Paul writes to the Ephesians, "(5)Even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us for adoption as sons through JESUS CHRIST, according to the purpose of His will.". John 3:16,17 relates "(6)For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because He has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.". JESUS came to die for His chosen few. He picked us before the world was created thousands of years ago. If the earth is 5,000 years old and you lived to be 80 years old you would have to live 62 ½ times to be as old as the earth. He picked us that long ago.

We were created and chosen to glorify GOD. We glorify GOD by leading a pious life. Again Paul is writing, this time to Philippi, he tells them, "(7)Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things" he goes on to say, "practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.". We are called to not only fill our minds with these things but also to live them out. JESUS tells us, "(8)So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.".

GOD is so great even that mountains crumble at His sight. Nahum 1:5 tells us, " (9)The mountains quake before Him and the hills melt away". Even the sinless angels cover themselves in the presence of GOD. Isaiah 2:6 says, speaking of angels, "... (10)each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces and with two they covered their feet...". Yet we, sinful and vile creatures, are allowed into the presence of the all mighty GOD! Now that is a reason to glorify GOD, in everything we do. Like to catechism says we are to glorify GOD.

The second part of the Westminster catechism's first question is, "(10)to enjoy Him forever". When you think of enjoy you might think of sitting by a warm fire at Christmas time, or cuddling up on a window seat with the warm summer afternoon sun pouring down on you and your favorite book, or maybe even going to Disneyland and riding the Manahorn. The doctoral definition for enjoy is to, "(11)have benefit from", or to, "take delight in". We can take delight in all those things but to glorify GOD we must take delight in Him and receive His benefits.

We need to enjoy GOD by trusting. Luke tells us to "(12)See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how GOD clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? ". GOD provided everything for us so we need to praise Him. We can rejoice in the fact that the flowers are clothed and we need to rejoice in the fact that everything that we have was given to us by GOD. When we doubt our previsions we are doubting GOD, He knows what is best for us.

We are called to praise GOD, even when we think GOD should have made our sorrow and pain stop. A band called Casting Crowns wrote a song called "Praise You in this Storm". Here is an excerpt from the song

(13)I was sure by now, God, that You would have reached down

and wiped our tears away,

stepped in and saved the day.

But once again, I say amen

and it's still raining

as the thunder rolls

I barely hear You whisper through the rain,

"I'm with you"

and as Your mercy falls

I raise my hands and praise

the God who gives and takes away.

And I'll praise you in this storm

and I will lift my hands

for You are who You are

no matter where I am

and every tear I've cried

You hold in your hand

You never left my side

and though my heart is torn

I will praise You in this storm

I love this song because it tells of a man glorifying GOD in a storm. We need to praise GOD because He is holy and we are not. He is the only object that deserves worship. We need to keep trusting in GOD even when we think that there could be no way that this could be used for anything. "(14)For your thoughts are not my thoughts, nor are your ways my ways" declares the Lord.

We are to look forward to future enjoyment and glory. To be in heaven and to see GOD is the reason we are here on earth. But we must be like Paul, willing to which ever one is the will of GOD. "(15)For me to live is CHRIST but to die is gain". This is the best way to enjoy GOD. We have no idea what heaven will be like. In the bible it tells of streets of gold. We know it will be much better because all we will have is to worship GOD. We also know that, "(16)He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore". That verse comes from Revelation 21:4

"(17)O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you.". That was from Psalm 34 written by king David. We can lean from David how to enjoy GOD. He poetically speaks the words, "my soul thirst for you, my body longs for you". We need to thirst and long for GOD this I shoe you enjoy GOD, by earnestly wanting to magnify Him in everything you do.

We as Christians do have responsibilities but they are definitely worth it when we think of the benefits of being a Christian. We are to enjoy GOD in glorifying Him. And in glorifying him we should enjoy Him. So as it says in Psalm 34:3 "(18)Glorify the LORD with me; let us exalt His name together."

1. Westminster Catechism

2. Matthew 16:24

3. Dictionary.com

4. Bible Gateway.com

5. ibid.

6. ibid.

7. ibid.

8. ibid.

9. ibid.

10. ibid.

11. Dictionary.com

12. Bible Gateway.com

13. "Praise You In This Storm" Casting Crowns

14. Bible Gateway.com

15. ibid.

16. ibid.

17. ibid.

18. ibid.

Lauren's Super Essay - Week XV

The Responsibilities of a Christian

What are the responsibilities of a Christian? There are many, but two of the main responsibilities are one, that we should glorify God and two, that we make Him the number one priority in our lives. Glorifying God consists of many things we can do, such as serving others, working hard, and giving the Lord credit for everything good that we do. Also, to make God number one in our lives we must remember to try to obey His commandments, read His word, and most of all pray to God. These are the responsibilities of a Christian and our obligation to Christ for the gift of salvation.

God created us because He wanted to be glorified and praised and share His glory with us. In Exodus 20:5 it says, “I the Lord your God am a jealous God,” (ESV) so we need to praise Him and glorify Him. We can do this by serving others instead of ourselves, by working hard and to the best of our ability, and also by giving God praise and credit for everything. Knowing that we want to glorify God and please Him all the time should be a good enough reason to help us do that, but we still have our sinful nature pulling us away from Christ.

One way we can bring glory to God is by serving others. If we show God that we love and care for others more than ourselves, and truly mean it, it will glorify Him. Knowing that we want to please God should help us keep a glad heart that wants to serve. Joyfully we need to serve. God is only pleased if we do it for the right reasons. Down in our hearts if we are serving others because we want to be noticed by others, we are doing it for the wrong reason. Serving others to glorify God. That’s the reason we should do it.

Working hard glorifies God. If you are doing school, working at a job, or simply doing a little chore around the house, you need to work hard at it and do your best for the Lord. God will be glorified if you work hard for Him and Him only. In Colossians 3:23 it says, “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men… for you are serving the Lord Christ,” (ESV). You also need to have a good attitude while doing your work. To God, if you have a bad attitude it is like not doing it at all. Wholeheartedly is how we should do our work for God.

When we are working hard or serving others and someone compliments us there is one thing we should do that glorifies God the most, give credit and praise to God for everything. God is the one who makes it possible for us to do such things. He is the one who gives us our gifts and talents, and we need to recognize that. Despite what people may say, God still deserves the credit and praise. Thankfully accepting their compliment is okay, but we still need to add in praise to God. He deserves it. We should give it to Him because we truly love Him and want to glorify Him.

Praise Him. Worship Him. Glorify Him. Now you can go out and serve others knowing God is smiling down on you. You can work hard and truly know who you are working for. You can give credit to God and realize it is what glorifies Him the most.

God is the most important thing in our lives. We need to show Him that we love him and respect Him by making Him the number one priority. We can do that in many ways such as obeying the Ten Commandments that He gave us, reading His word, and equally as important by praying to Him. God is the almighty one and we know that He is to be loved, respected and worshipped all the time.

One way we can make God number one in our lives is to obey His commandments. Since the Bible says that no one can keep all of God’s commandments perfectly except Jesus, we know we can’t do it. God will help us to keep them by giving us the Holy Spirit to help us to recognize when we have broken one. When we ask forgiveness, God immediately forgives us. In Psalms 51:17 it says, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” Showing Him that we are truly sorry pleases Him, because He knows we are trying to do our very best. We should confess right away. And that shows we are putting Him first.

Reading God’s word is also a way we can make Him number one in our lives. When we start and end our day with God’s word, it shows we care about what God’s word says. God’s word is very important. Without it we would have nothing to live by, and we would not know God’s will for our lives. Naturally we should be thankful God gave us His word and His laws and we need to read them, and make Him the first part of our day.

Praying to God is another way we can put Him first in our lives. In 1 Thessalonians 5:17 it says, “Pray without ceasing,” (ESV). That’s what we need to do. It is our way of communicating with God just as the Bible is His way of communicating to us. The Lord loves to hear our prayers, and He wants us to pray to him. When we pray to God it shows we trust Him, because we are taking our cares and worries to Him first, and He loves to hear us praise him. Lovingly, he hears each and every one of our prayers and He cares for all of them.

God is our creator. He is righteous, He is all-knowing, all-powerful, and He deserves to be number one. When you get up in the morning and read God’s word and pray about it you can have a peace about why you are doing it. Even though you cannot fully keep all of God’s commandments, you can feel good about knowing He will forgive you, and help you to mature and grown more Christ-like.

Now you have learned just a few responsibilities that we have as Christians. Serving others for God’s glory, working hard and doing our best for God, but most importantly giving God credit for everything are just a few ways we can glorify Him. Also as Christians it should be our main goal to make God number one in our lives. To do that we need to obey His commandments, read His word, and we need to pray to Him. He loves to hear us pray to Him. Those are the responsibilities of a Christian.

Brianna's Super Essay - Week XV

  Responsibilities of a Christian

Ten Commandments

Brianna L. Bowman

      Have you ever broken one of the Ten Commandments?  Well, if you have, are you going to Hell? Are you not a Christian anymore? Miraculously God always forgives. Why does God forgive people who continue to sin over and over again? The most amazing thing happened; God’s only son came to earth and died for all of our sins. The Ten Commandments came from God to Moses and you can read about them in Exodus 20:1-17.  The 1st commandment is: You shall have no other gods before me. The second is: you shall have no graven images. The 4th commandment tells us to remember the Sabbath and keep it Holy Followed by the 5th commandment Honor your father and Mother, Do not lie or covet make up the ninth and tenth commandments. These are six wonderful teachings of the Ten Commandments that I am addressing here.

      Amazingly Mans primary purpose is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. One of the chief ways to do this is by obeying the Ten Commandments. Three of the Ten Commandments that instruct us on how to glorify God are: Having no other gods before the Lord Almighty, Having no idols and remembering the Sabbath and keeping it holy.

      The 1st commandment says “You shall have NO other gods before me.” The word Worship in English comes from the word “worth.” Consequently when we worship something we declare it has great worth. If God is really important to us our life will reallystate it! For this reason we will seek him in prayer as well as reading the Bible. God commands us to have no other gods before him, so we must worship him alone.

      The 2nd commandment says “You must not bow down to any graven images.” We must not make Money, TV, a fancy new Corvette, or an extraordinary Mansion go before God. Many People think that these things and many others will make them happy, but they are wrong. They need God first and foremost. God will fulfill them more than any earthly thing.  Many people make up there own ideas of what they think God should be. However God says you should never trust your own opinion about who God is or even the opinions of others. You must make sure that what you believe about God is from the Bible only.Constantly God has revealed himself to us through the Bible.

      The 4th commandment says “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.” God whocreated the Sabbath day for Sunday; we must rest and make that day out for just worshiping our Lord and Savior, additionally the Sabbath is rest that believers have in Jesus. When we know our Lord he gives us a rest from the burdens of our sins. Faith in the gospel is how we come to enjoy the rest given to us by God and displayed in the Sabbath. MeaningfullyHebrews acknowledges in chapter 4:9-10, “There remains, then, a Sabbath rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters Gods rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his.” We must learn to worship him because we want to, not because someone makes us go to church.  Psalms 103 17-18 “But from everlasting to everlasting the Lords love is with those who fear him and his righteousness with their children’s children, with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts.”

      As you can see from the three Commandments illustrated above honoring God is something every person is created to do. When we go to church on Sunday we are worshiping God in a wonderful place filled with our brothers and sisters in Christ. That is just one way of honoring God. He loves to see us all together in one place worshiping his name! He hates when we put other things before him, and have other gods that go before him.  So we must not make any idols that we think are more wonderful than God, and we must not have any other gods except him. Let us boast in Christ alone!!

       Surprisingly the bible tells us to be imitators of Christ.  How can this be accomplished? Serving others is a wonderful way of loving our neighbors and following the teachings of Christ. The Ten Commandments address these deeds with the fifth commandment: Honor your father and mother. Do not lie and do not covet are discussed in the 9th and 10th commandments.

      The 5th commandment says “Honor your father and mother.”  The first authority we have is our parents. Considerably we are to have God be our authority first, then our parents. But by obeying our parents we are obeying the Lord. Our parent’s authority is God, and ours is to honor our parents as a way of obeying God.  Our parents are here to protect us and love us. God has also provided authority in other areas other than the home. Like the Government, our President is one of our highest authorities. Police Men have authority over us as well.  When we have a problem with our authority we become angry with them and in a sense angry with God.

      The 9th commandment says “You shall not lie!” When we tell other people what we think God should be like we are not only lying but we are blaspheming God.  God only speaks the truth; he created us to be righteous and holy. He also created us to love the truth as He does. The ninth commandment FORBIDS anything that would hurt or injure anyone.  Naturally when we say mean or unkind things about other people we are breaking the 9th commandment! Consequently we need to watch what we say, we need to let our words be glorifying to Him.

    The 10th commandment says “You shall not covet!” It is very natural for us when we see something that we want but don’t have, to start coveting it. Not surprisingly this is a very natural human response, but it is still sin. We can’t fathom why God should call things we do “sin” if we can’t help doing it.  Obliviously God is holy and can not tolerate any sin! This sounds harsh but God is merciful.  By revealing our sin it demonstrates how much we need a savior.

     In these last three commandments we are talking about serving others. Christ put our parents in charge of us, so when we obey them we are obeying God. Also, when we lie, we are disobeying God and his rule. When we covet we are also sinning. Stubbornly we desire what God does not want us to have.

      It is clear that God is our heavenly father; most fathers love their children and want what’s best for them. God provided rules for us to live by. These rules are called the moral laws that tell us how to behave towards God and man. Romans 3:20b illustrates our need for God’s law “Through the law we become conscious of sin.” The moral law came to Moses from God in the form of the Ten Commandments found in Exodus 20 in the Old Testament. The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever and the Ten Commandments reveal to us how to accomplish this. You shall have no other gods before me, you shall have no idols and you shall remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. Clearlythese three commandments demonstrate how to best glorify God.  The Lord is clear on how we should treat others, Jesus himself stated: You shall love your neighbor as your self.  To clarify here are three ways to love your neighbor: Honor your father and mother, do not covet and do not lie. Honoring your father and mother and abstaining from lying shows respect for others.  Coveting creates jealousy and damages relationships with others and God.  God has given us everything we need, tragically we don’t always trust in His perfect plan for our lives. Unquestionably God commandments are always perfect!

Bibliography:

Bible

The Way of the Master for Kids; Kirk Cameron & Ray Comfort 

Training Hearts Teaching Minds; Starr Meade