Rockin' the challenge!

I hope you are loving The 90-Day Challenge as much as I am! If you haven't started yet, it's not too late! If you need to download the bookmarks and get started reading, you can get them HERE!

I don't know about you, but the challenge has given me a new hunger for God's Word! I can't wait to read my 12 or 13 chapters when I wake up in the morning! It's crazy to think that in 5 days, we'll have already read the entire first book of the Bible! I was just looking at a normal reading schedule for reading the Bible through in a year and it would take 25 days usually to read as much as we'll read in 5! Awesome! Anyway, as you may remember, when we started our study in Revelation, we looked closely at Revelation 1:3 - Blessed is he who READS and those who HEAR the words of this prophecy, and KEEP those things which are written in it; for the time is near. I fully believe God is so honored that we are spending hours in His Word every day and I know that you will never regret any of the time you give or sleep you lose. It's really important to remember, however, that just reading it isn't enough - there MUST be application. So, don't just read, DO WHAT IT SAYS!

I was stoked to find out today that Taylor started a blog about her 90-Day Challenge experience, and as I checked it out today, I found out that there are a few other students doing them too (see below). If you have a 90-Day Challenge blog going and you'd like us to know about it, leave a comment and let us know the address. I'll throw some links up on the side so people can read what God is showing you!




Here is Taylor's blog.










Check out Ashley's blog here.









And make sure to swing by Hannah's blog while you're at it!





Also, don't forget that I'll be doing a weekly video update each Friday summarizing what we've been reading (below is the first episode). They will also be available through iTunes soon as a weekly video podcast so you can download them straight to your iPod! If you want to subscribe to our YouTube channel, go to youtube.com/velocityabq and click on the "Subscribe" button at the top by our profile info. It will email you each time we update our channel.

Oh, and one more thing - if you're on facebook, make sure to join the 90-Day Challenge group!

A Real-Life Nightmare

Here's a pic I took with my iPhone tonight right when I got up in
stage. I talked about how the old brick phones from the 80s seemed so
high tech then but if you look at technology now, the 80s was just
the tip of the iceberg. The illustration corresponded with Revelation
6 & 8. Revelation 6 was bad, but it was just the tip of the nightmare
that chapters 8 & 9 would turn into! We saw some more indirect forms
of punishment on the earth in the forms of earthquakes, meteor
showers, and such, but then in chapter 9, as the 5th and 6th trumpets
sounded, we saw a new direct form of attack. 2 different armies of
demons were released to infest the already crumbling, godless earth.
Nightmares came to life as people sought esape through death, but were
unable to die for 5 months while they were tortured! Wow. It was
heavy, but a great reminder that God is in control even when he world
falls apart.

Revelation 8-9

Revelation 9:1-6
1The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss. 2When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss. 3And out of the smoke locusts came down upon the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth. 4They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. 5They were not given power to kill them, but only to torture them for five months. And the agony they suffered was like that of the sting of a scorpion when it strikes a man. 6During those days men will seek death, but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.

Some people believe the locusts John talked about here are actual demon-possessed insects, others believe he was describing today's technology the only way he could think of.

Could THIS be what he was talking about?

What do you think?

New Year's Eve

Our New Year's Eve service was so cool on Wednesday. We had some awesome visuals of how Christ saved and during the Bible study, we asked the question, "How Does Your Future Look?" as we looked ahead into the new year. After the Bible study, 6 of the leaders performed a skit to a song by Lifehouse called "Everything." It was a really powerful skit. Here it is. Make sure to tell your friends about this and if you go to our youtube channel (youtube.com/velocityabq), you can post the video in your own blog or your facebook or myspace or whatever. Enjoy!