Message from Cathy Birdsong, High School Teacher

In my quiet time recently, God has revealed scriptures reminding me that all of us are at different points in our spiritual journey with Christ.  Scripture is the basis for training of discipleship in Christ.

I shared with my student advisory class last week:  Psalms 51:10 “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”

I explained the cost of a clean heart through Jesus and the daily renewing of our spirit comes from God alone.  We usually struggle, as Christians, to consistently live as an example of Christ in every single moment and situation – every single day.  1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  

I encouraged students, as well as myself, to renew our hearts and spirits through God’s power each day with prayer and bible reading.  We are human and God created each day as an increment of time for us to manage physically, mentally, emotionally, and especially spiritually.    In Philippians 3:13-14 Paul meditated on the journey by “Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

As a teacher at Phoenix Christian, I take my call seriously.  The entire faculty and staff strive for God’s direction with your children and we are NOT perfect.  My recent motto I feel God has laid on my heart personally is “Not Perfected, but Persistent!”  It is in the striving that we grow closer to God and are able to love and guide others.

Message from Phil Adams, Superintendent

As we begin this new school year we have much to be thankful for. God has preserved Phoenix Christian for many decades. We are the current caretakers of this ministry. We are grateful to those who have come before us. We are preparing for those who will come after us. I am comforted by the fact that the One who loves me most is also the God of the universe. This passage from scripture has always blessed me. I hope it blesses you too.

Psalm 139

O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
² You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
    you discern my thoughts from afar.
³ You search out my path and my lying down
    and are acquainted with all my ways.
⁴ Even before a word is on my tongue,
    behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
⁵ You hem me in, behind and before,
    and lay your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
    it is high; I cannot attain it.

⁷ Where shall I go from your Spirit?
    Or where shall I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
    If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
⁹ If I take the wings of the morning
    and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand shall lead me,
    and your right hand shall hold me.
¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
    and the light about me be night,”
¹² even the darkness is not dark to you;
    the night is bright as the day,
    for darkness is as light with you.

¹³ For you formed my inward parts;
    you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
¹⁴ I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
    my soul knows it very well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
    intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
    in your book were written, every one of them,
    the days that were formed for me,
    when as yet there was none of them.

¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸ If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
    I awake, and I am still with you.

¹⁹ Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God!
    O men of blood, depart from me!
²⁰ They speak against you with malicious intent;
    your enemies take your name in vain.
²¹ Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
    And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
²² I hate them with complete hatred;
    I count them my enemies.

²³ Search me, O God, and know my heart!
    Try me and know my thoughts!
²⁴ And see if there be any grievous way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting!