Hilde

Abraham was, humanly speaking, the founder of our Jewish nation. What were his experiences concerning this question of being saved by faith? Was it because of his good deeds that God accepted him? If so, then he would have something to boast about. But from God’s point of view Abraham had no basis at all for pride. For the Scriptures tell us Abraham believed God, and that is why God cancelled his sins and declared him “not guilty”.
But didn’t he earn his right to heaven by all the good things he did? No, for being saved is a gift; if a person could earn it by being good, then it wouldn’t be free -but it is!    
                                                          Romans 4:1-4

I think it is pretty cool that God chose a guy like Abraham to be the ancestor of His own people. Abraham wasn’t really anything special, was he?! Perhaps he didn’t even know God before He called him to leave his country and his home and go to another land. It’s pretty amazing how Abraham simply believed everything God told him about promises of a new land, becoming the father of a great people, and other blessings. I would imagine Abraham was pretty well settled where he was, (maybe serving other gods for all I know,) and still he chose to believe in God. He chose to believe Him, and because of that God declared him righteous. How simple! Yet how amazing!
It is just as simple and amazing that God has declared me righteous just because I have chosen to believe in Him. How amazing that anyone who chooses to believe in him is declared righteous and “not guilty”! God is pretty awesome. :)

I just read a really interesting article at http://www.shelleylubben.com/testimony.html. It's a great testimony from a porn star that became a christian. I found it via www.gudergod.no. You all should really read it. It's very interesting. God is pretty awesome!

I am now home with my parents, and it's really cold and "wintery" hear. I love it!!! And it's so great to be able to do whatever I feel like all day (except from getting ready for christmas.) Christmas holiday means doing a lot of things I hardly ever do during the rest of the year, like playing chess and other games, doing puzzles and reading a lot... Merry christmas y'all!  

Only one more final exam left before the christmas vacation. I'm done with three. Today I had my finals in choir leading/directing. It's been a long day since the whole class naturally had to sing in the choir all the while. Tomorrow at 09:00 a.m. we'll be given the last exam which is pop music history. It is to be turned in no later than thursday at 23:59 (11:59 p.m.). So I will sit at home for three days in front of my lap top... I'll write more after that.

It's been way too long since I last wrote. I've been doing other stuff. There isn't really time for blogging, which is too bad!

I've been reading pop music history lately. I'm going to have an exam in December. It's really very interesting! This week I've been reading about the American rock'n'roll wave in the 50ies, the British influence during the early 60ies (which I really enjoyed reading about!), and the Hippi movement and folk music and after that folk rock. I've learned that there are genres I had not even heard about before. For instance the english "skiffle". I did not know there was a genre called beat music either, even though I of course had heard of many of the bands playing this sort of music.

Now I'm going to start reading about the 70ies, which I think will be very interesting! (I hope none of my class mates will read this because then they'll know that I'm way behind where I should be. Our teacher tought about hip hop last week...haha.)

Other than reading about pop history, I experience many cool things with the people from my church. We had a weekend together a while back where we worshipped God, and He spoke to us. We also ate a lot of chocolate and other good food, relaxed, laughed a lot, and went for a hike in the Norwegian mountains. Great! On thursday we actually went and visited Freia chocolate factory in Oslo. That was great. (I got to eat as much chocolate as I wanted. Mmmmm!

Today I'm at home. Mom is turning 55 today, so both my brother and I are home, which is very nice.

I'm going to try and update more often again!