What is a Gospel Tract?

      I had someone ask me what a gospel tract was on one of the comments on this blog. So that is why I am writing a post about it. I myself did not know what a gospel tract was either until I was 21 years old!  It is sad to say I never received one or had someone take the time to explain to me I was on a path to destruction and that God had provided a simple escape in His Son Jesus Christ.
       I lived my life in a way that was right in my own eyes until the day I realized that I was not born again and would not see heaven for even a  second unless I turned to Christ and accepted Him as my savior! I heard this message at a non-denominational church in Blacksburg,Virginia after a cadet in Chemistry class (now my husband) invited me to church one Sunday. After having received the free gift of salvation, naturally I wanted to share that gift with all that I loved. I began to pray earnestly for my family and wanted to share the gospel so badly, yet I didn't even know a single bible verse not even John 3:16. I was a heathen of the worst sort not even having a prior form of godliness aside from in elementary school I had got some water poured over my head and brought some wine to a priest for a year or two.  I began to read my bible right away and soaked up as much about God as I could. Still I didn't know how to communicate to my family effectively and so my only hope of having them hear the good news was to get them to come along with me to a church where they could hear the same message of salvation.

     Praise the Lord during summer break my sister Charlotte came to a Baptist Church in Alexandria, VA with me and got saved! 2 years went by without much progress in communicating the gospel. Then while in Las Vegas a friend of ours introduced us to Chick Tracts. I was so excited that there were little booklets that outlined the gospel in an easy to read format citing all the powerful verses that would lead one to trust in Christ!  We ordered hundreds of them and passed them out to friends, family and strangers. On the back of the tracts it said to read your bible daily the King James Version only. I was intrigued by this and began to research the reason why. It didn't take long before we left our current church that used any type of bible some not even having bible verses.  We began to look for a church who used the KJV only and we landed ourselves into the world of  Independent Baptist Churches. On our first visit to an independent baptist church we fell in love. They had tons of gospel tracts and even went out on visitation or "soul winning", salvation was preached so clearly all the time, there were so many bible verses cross referenced not just one or two quoted with stories to fill in the rest of the sermon. There were not any flashing lights and loud guitars, and we were encouraged to continue to share our faith by word, actions, and gospel tracts =)

     In short a gospel tract is a small booklet with the bible verses that explain God's plan of salvation. Some are very short, some are longer with pictures too like the chick tracts. The ones we have now have our church's information on it and even a  picture of our pastor and his wife. I hope that explains things to anyone wondering what a gospel tract is =)

This is the inside of our Gospel tract from our church. I love our Pastor and his family I can't believe that more people don't want to hear good preaching and fellowship with them. It shocks me it really does!

On the back the gospel is put in a concise form with the necessities of salvation highlighted with corresponding bible verses.

 

Money Saving Mom's 4 Week's to a More Organized Home Day 20: Clean Medicine Cabinet

 Well I guess I am off the hook for the last day because I don't have a medicine cabinet just a mirror from Hobby Lobby......just kidding!

 I keep our medicine in the kitchen cabinet.

 Most of it is actually herbal supplements though.

 Amazing Grass, Vitamin C, and CocoCardio! YUM

 Tea is also a good thing to drink when you are feeling under the weather and will not give you side effects like destroying your liver.....

 And here is my medicine basket.

 These are vitamins, enzymes and whole foods juiced and put into capsules.

 Okay I do have some "real" medicine too some baby tylenol which I have not used in over a year. It is not expired yet though. Also some aspirin I only got only  because it was free from Walgreens back in January. I should put that in my get rid of pile...lol.

 An up close of some of our supplements.

Then I put them back in the basket a little neater.

 Horray for my get rid of pile I think this bucket of legos catches me up on the whole month challenge since I didn't find things to get rid of everyday! The white shirt came out of the dryer and was not even worthy of getting folded it had a big hole and innumerable stains you cannot really see in the picture.

Well this is kind of sad that today is the last day of the challenge! It was fun though I learned that, there are many dirty places in my home I didn't ever clean like the top of the cabinets! Also looking at other ladies blogs and seeing their progress, I can improve on some area's like labeling my pantry like Crystal did!

Money Saving Mom's 4 Weeks to a More Organized Home Day 19: Clean Windows

Today's assignment was to clean all your windows, window sills, blinds and curtains!  Lucky for me I only have 9 windows in our whole house =) 

However I ended up spending 2.5 hours on the windows!

 First we started by dusting the blinds.

Christian and Noah were pretty ambitious with helping for about 10 minutes or so.

 I started this project before putting away the kids math lesson.....Joshua did not help out with the windows he just played around and made a mess with coins =)

 We cleaned all the windows and got into the groves with a q-tip. Then I even went outside and with my step ladder to clean the top outside windows. ( The parts I could reach anyway)

Then I got a little over ambitious and just took all the windows off! and cleaned around all 4 sides of them!

 I couldn't stand to have clean windows and really gross window frames.

 So those got a washing too!

 When we did our home inspection it was noted that only 3 out of the 9  windows stayed open! Since we made a cash offer on our home for 8% off the asking price the previous owners accepted the offer only on the condition that they would not fix anything.  We got an estimate for new windows from Lowes for $2,200! I am glad we didn't get the new windows because we really needed that extra savings these last 6 months! When I was cleaning the windows I noticed there were 2 of these things inside the window frames with all the dirt. Then I found the spot where they go!  Then of course I went and tried to fit them into the windows that would not stay up!

 We had just been putting a book or two under the window...lol. That little piece fixed the window!

 Now 6 out of 9 of our windows stay open! Praise the Lord. Can you just see the breeze coming in the window now?  I am hopeful if I go to a couple hardware stores I can find some more of those pieces! Does anyone know what they are called because I can't seem to find them online anywhere???

 We have really cheapy blinds in our room and some of them have broken off. 

 Then I came up with a plan....I borrowed some slabs from the bottom of the blinds.

Now they look much better =)

Now after all of that I don't think anyone could convince me to wash any of the curtains!

Money Saving Mom's 4 Weeks to a More Organized home Day 18: Clean Closet floors

 After two days of really time consuming tasks... today's assignment was just to clean the bottom of your closets with a mop or vacuum. Also to get rid of items that do not belong in the closet. This was 

too easy!

 I moved the vacuum and shoe tree to wipe the floor down. However I found nothing to get rid of!

 I vacuumed the boys closet with the hose because I couldn't move the closet maid (it is anchored to the wall).

 I didn't really find hardly anything to get rid of in here. I most likely did not look hard enough.

 Then we put everything back. 

This is all I found in the boys closet to get rid of. I thought that it had blank paper in it to use for art later. When I opened it I found out that every page had been used. Mainly with Noah's strange people art....lol

 I did find 3 dresses to take down from the hanger and put into the "too small" bin in Rachel's room. Could that go towards my finding 7 items to get rid of? 

 Everything back in it's place.

The linen closet floor: also cleaned and nothing to get rid of in here!

 My closet is now nice and steamed. Nothing to get rid of in here either!

Money Saving Mom's 4 Weeks to a More Organized Home Day 17: Clean Pantry and Cabinets

Well today I definitely didn't expect Money Saving Mom to post another really intense cleaning assignment. Yesterday I spent a good 2 hours working on my vents! Yet today another 2 hours of work!

My Kitchen was not in dire need of a cleaning but I figured we have been here for 6 months now and it couldn't hurt to get everything back to perfection!

We pulled everything out, wiped all crumbs out, and scrubbed spots on the cabinet liners.

With everything out of the pantry I got to wipe out all the cubby holes and dump all the baskets out over the trash to clean them.

I don't know what that is considering I only store dry box food on this shelf....

The after of the pantry, I really need to get stock piling but Mom's Best cereal has not been on her Best price lately...lol.

The pantry baskets after: I even have 2 empty baskets =)

I lined all my cabinets and pantry shelves when we bought our house. Some of the liners had gotten a little out of place though.

This looks sloppy because Rachel likes to come play with the pots and pans while I clean or cook =)

All of my Pyrex!

Cups plates and bowls in every size and shape.

I can't believe that the minimalist in me has 2 sets of measuring spoons and cups!

One of my favorite kitchen appliances!

I even wiped out everything under the sink =)

I just basically needed to do some light rearranging in all of my cabinets. It would take forever to show you each cabinet! So I made a video of the after results. It is a silent video in just 30 seconds because I sound really dumb on video and I couldn't email myself a file bigger than 30 sec from my phone..lol

I have been failing miserably at the finding things to get rid of task lately so I was pretty excited that today I actually came up with a nice pile =)