MasterTruth

Purpose

What is your purpose as a Christian? I think about that sometimes. I think my first purpose is to know God better. It always has been. But there’s another purpose that I don’t think of as often, and I should. The Apostle Paul thought of it and spoke of it often. That is to perform good works. Maybe we don’t talk about that much in Christian circles because we’ve been so well taught to separate “good works” from “salvation.” Like salvation is the goal and good works are the opposite. For a quiet-time exercise, take a day or two to study “good works” in the Bible. I just posted a guide to this under “quiet time ideas” to the right. Click on that, and it’s the first item in the list after the quiet time ideas introduction.

Jody

More musical memory verses

The older we get, the harder it is to memorize verses - or anything for that matter. But verses set to music are another story. For a few years, I put Sunday school memory verses to music, and that's the only music the children sang. They learned dozens of verses that way, and you can too. To the right, you'll see listed NT Musical Memory Verses and OT Musical Memory Verses. All together, there are nearly 40 verses listed with simple sheet music for each. I just updated both files with additional songs. You might take a look and see if it will help revive you in the discipline of Bible memory. Feel free to use the sheet music to help teach others you want to encourage in Bible memory. 

Jody

Morning jolt

I remember sitting on my living room floor one morning several years ago with my Bible and thinking I probably should read it. I had been in the habit of meeting with God daily for years, but I was in a dry spell and hadn't read it for months. I still remember the overwhelming feeling of not having any idea where to begin. I felt like I was at the bottom of a mountain looking up trying to figure out how I could possibly climb this thing. I did end up reading my Bible that day, and with the help of a friend who held me accountable, I got back into spending time reading each day. I imagine many people feel like that. So I have started a list of quiet time ideas to the right. Open that file, and you'll find some reading/study ideas that will help get you or someone you know in the groove. I'd love your feedback. Let me know if any of the ideas are helpful, and let me know ideas of what you have studied that would be helpful to others.

Jody

Good reading

I've just added two new books to the "Book Review" section on the right. I love both of them. They each affected my perspective in different ways. Epicenter helped me get a better grasp of what's happening in the Mideast (the epicenter of end-time events), and Cat & Dog Theology helped me examine my overall Christian view using the illustration of how dogs and cats view their masters. I asked myself: Do I live for God, or do I expect that God lives for me? The book is about the glory of God, not the glory of "me."  Read the reviews and you'll see what I mean. -- Jody Shee

Musical Memory Verses

Happy day! I finally finished putting together the musical memory verses that I've wanted to put on here since the beginning. For several years, I helped out with childrens' music at church and decided I did not want to sing, play or teach Deep and Wide, Arky Arky or I've Got the Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy Down in My Heart. Rather, I thought the kids should learn something more meaningful. So, I put their memory verses to music - every week. Each week they would review the verse/songs from the previous weeks, and that is all they sang. And they learned every single one of their memory verses. Not only that, they thought about and sang those verses throughout the week. Incredibly, I heard stories from moms and and grandparents how the kids thought about those verses, and how they chose to consciously obey them at specific times. My friend Chris Brisciano often helped out and put verses to music himself. He is the one who put the verses to sheet music, and we can all thank him for doing that! Look to the right and you will see headings for Musical Memory Verses New Testament and Musical Memory Verses Old Testament. If you click on those, you have the option to open a pdf. It just takes a minute, and there you will find sheet music to many Bible verses. Enjoy!

Jody

Book Reviews

If you're looking for a great book to read for your own edification, or to pass along to a friend, we're starting a new section to the right - Book Reviews. We just put the first one on there today, "More Than a Carpenter" by Josh McDowell. Why are we recommending it? You'll have to read the review and find out! This will become a running list, so check back now and then and see if there are new books listed. And, if you've read a great book and want to recommend it, let us know. Tell us about the book and why you like it, and we may just add it to the list! (with your permission and name, of course). Jody

New e-book

Notice on the right "Fresh Start ebook." It's new, and I'm excited about it.  It's six lessons for new believers. What do they need to know to get going? It's a pdf file, so you can download and print it and give it to someone you know who wonders "what's next?" after becoming a Christian. They are all lessons I wish I would have known right away. The six lessons are: 1) Assurance of salvation 2) The Bible 3) Prayer 4) Dependance on God 5) Victory over sin 6) Christian fellowship. 

This new e-book is in keeping with our goal to provide free Christian growth resources for individuals as well as churches. With the failing economy and everyone trying to cut financial corners, we think it's important to be able to have free access to the truth that transcends.

Let us know what you think, and also what other kinds of materials you'd like to see.  

The Book of Truth

For anyone not used to regularly reading the Bible, the thought of starting to read it is akin to climbing a mountain. Where do you start? Perhaps you or someone you know has never read it. In that case, it would be important to know a little more about this best-selling book. In either case, help is here. To the right you’ll see the heading “Bible Overview.” Click on that and you’ll learn about the theme of the Bible and a capsule of each of the 66 books that make up this one awesome volume. It will provide great background, and perhaps one of the summaries in particular will grab your attention. You can start reading that book of the Bible.

 

As for how to read it, keep some colored pencils and a regular pencil handy. Highlight verses you like with the color pencils (markers tend to bleed through the pages). Use a regular pencil to write notes in the margins of your Bible. It also might help to keep a notebook handy to write your thoughts and observations as you read.

Just start reading the Bible somewhere. It will seem like less of a mountain adventure once you get started.  

Dealing with Depression

Some temperaments are more prone to depression than others, but I think we all wonder when the dark clouds settle in, where's relief? I've studied the topic, and I think there are some helpful answers in the Bible, which is what the study is about on the right side over there under "Materials: Study: Conquer Depression."

You'll notice that it starts with a quote from D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. He wrote a tremendous book that I'd recommend, and one of the many ideas I share in the study for how to overcome depression comes from his book. It's called "Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and its Cure." You can buy it online. Just Google the book title.

For now, if you are struggling with depression or you know someone who is, feel free to open the study on the right and copy and paste it into a file and pass it along. Let's spread the relief!

Jody

Foundational study

To the right, under materials, you’ll see “Study: Luke in 30 days.” This is actually the foundation for this Web/blog site. It took me probably a year to study and write this, and I originally intended to have it published into a book.

But thinking it through, I pondered why anyone should have to pay for a Bible study. My goal isn’t to make money, but to get the wonderful truth out that I discovered about Christ from the book of Luke. The title of the study is “Fresh Air: A devotional look at Christ’s perfect balance of truth and mercy from the book of Luke.”

I’m a student of the description God gave of himself in Ex. 34:6-7 when he told Moses who he was. “And the Lord passed by before him and proclaimed: The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty…”

I figured, if God is like that, then Jesus must demonstrate that in skin. So I studied through Luke looking to see how Jesus embodied those verses. And sure enough—he was a gracious, merciful, longsuffering savior abundant in goodness and truth. In fact, he was the perfect balance of mercy and truth. You’ll read all about that in the study.

What I hope is that if you’re an individual reading this site, you’ll take the challenge to go through one of these chapters each day for a month and do the “for further meditation” at the end of each lesson.

If you’re a pastor or church leader reading it, I offer the same challenge to you, but also, look at this as material you could pass along to those you think need this truth. It could also be used as a class study going through the “for further meditation” as a class. It will change your life. It did mine.

Jody

Great and green new idea

Welcome to the new blog/web site MasterTruth.com. Over time, you'll learn the big idea behind this new site. But in a nutshell, my goal is for you to be able to read, copy, paste and distribute biblical truth - for free! I think that if some great work of truth is great enough to pass along, it should be free and should be spread freely. Anything you read on this site is available for you to reproduce and pass along however you see fit.

Besides being a great idea, it's a green idea. It eliminates paper. You can copy, paste and pass along entirely electronically. Truth is not limited to paper. You can spread it to the four winds without one scrap of paper!

Enjoy. More later. Jody