i am off for a week to refurbish some home in new orleans for a week. i will see you all then. updates to come
please for the team. there are 17 going in all.
nathan
Saturday, April 22, 2006
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
confronting (the cover up)
with each sin there is an effect. someone or something is affected because of what happened earlier. because of achan his whole family was stoned to death. because of the act that david took with bathsheba, their baby had to die. it is amazing to me to realize how far someone has to take their sin in order to deal with it.
achan buried his silver and the coat. he had to have this stuff, that he disobeyed God, in order that he could bury it underneath the tent. someone would have realized that he had taken it. so because of this he hid his plunder. he obviously knew it was wrong since he buried it. but when it was found his whole family was affected.
david's cover up was pretty harsh as well. he tried bringing uriah home from the war, but he wouldnt sleep with bathsheba. so then david sent him back to the front lines and had him killed. it continued to escalade until the baby that he had with bathsheba died. luckily for david he had a friend named nathan. nathan came to tell him about his sin with a story about a farmer stealing the lone sheep of this poor guy.
wake up calls are awesome and very prompt. i like them better then alarm clocks. every time i go to a hotel i love calling the front desk for a wake up call. nathan was david's wake up call. i always wonder how far david's sin would have gone if it wasnt for nathan. nathan was a true friend to call him on his sin.
today however we do not have many people like this. today if i approached someone about a sin in their life, they would reply "you cant judge me, you dont know the situation." and they are right, i do not. i do not know how many times they were tempted before they fell. or "i am no able to change who i am." and they are right a lot of people have storied past and have grown up in some horrible situations. or "i do not believe in mistake, i only believe in learning from my experiences." now this part i have to differ with them because if we minimize our sins to a learning experience then it is not good enough. granted i think when we do fall we have to learn from them and take with us to make us become who God wants us to be.
but when we minimize the sin to just a learning experience is there a sign of repentance? and as i have learned many times, with out my repentance there can be no forgiveness. and i think without the forgiveness there can be no idea of change and moving on from the situation.
with david and achan, someone approached and confronted them with their sin. i wonder how long they would have held onto their sin if they hadnt been confronted. i think we as Christians need to learn how to confront people with their sin, not as an act of judgment, but as an act to get things right between them and God.
so how do we do this? how do we set this example?
achan buried his silver and the coat. he had to have this stuff, that he disobeyed God, in order that he could bury it underneath the tent. someone would have realized that he had taken it. so because of this he hid his plunder. he obviously knew it was wrong since he buried it. but when it was found his whole family was affected.
david's cover up was pretty harsh as well. he tried bringing uriah home from the war, but he wouldnt sleep with bathsheba. so then david sent him back to the front lines and had him killed. it continued to escalade until the baby that he had with bathsheba died. luckily for david he had a friend named nathan. nathan came to tell him about his sin with a story about a farmer stealing the lone sheep of this poor guy.
wake up calls are awesome and very prompt. i like them better then alarm clocks. every time i go to a hotel i love calling the front desk for a wake up call. nathan was david's wake up call. i always wonder how far david's sin would have gone if it wasnt for nathan. nathan was a true friend to call him on his sin.
today however we do not have many people like this. today if i approached someone about a sin in their life, they would reply "you cant judge me, you dont know the situation." and they are right, i do not. i do not know how many times they were tempted before they fell. or "i am no able to change who i am." and they are right a lot of people have storied past and have grown up in some horrible situations. or "i do not believe in mistake, i only believe in learning from my experiences." now this part i have to differ with them because if we minimize our sins to a learning experience then it is not good enough. granted i think when we do fall we have to learn from them and take with us to make us become who God wants us to be.
but when we minimize the sin to just a learning experience is there a sign of repentance? and as i have learned many times, with out my repentance there can be no forgiveness. and i think without the forgiveness there can be no idea of change and moving on from the situation.
with david and achan, someone approached and confronted them with their sin. i wonder how long they would have held onto their sin if they hadnt been confronted. i think we as Christians need to learn how to confront people with their sin, not as an act of judgment, but as an act to get things right between them and God.
so how do we do this? how do we set this example?
Saturday, April 08, 2006
judas: now a book
it is still early into the investigation if you ask me. but all the buzz lately is about the discovery of the book of judas. they say judas was asked by Christ to turn him in. as i watched the news, i sat there as reporters asked questions such as "will this change what they teach in sunday school this week?" i wondered to myself the same thing. would it change? we have grown up thinking of it as a betrayal. then they talked to another "scholar" who said that the word betrayal in greek means to hand over. which i checked. it does.
it all goes back to did Jesus really tell Judas to turn him in. the answer, maybe. Jesus did tell judas that he would be the one to betray him. however Jesus told him this after judas had already went to the chief priests and agreed to turn Christ in for 30 silver coins. this would be comparable to 4 months of work.
the whole controversy with this book is that if Jesus really told judas to betray him then it would not have really been a betrayal in the first place. it would have been judas following orders.
aside from the book of judas, i wonder what he was really like. how deceptive a man was he. we have heard that he kept the money for the disciples and possibly could have stolen from that. but i wonder what was going through his mind when he turned jesus in? did he really do it for the money? was the greed in his life so big that he turned in a friend of three years? did he turn him in so he could see the prophecy fulfilled? did satan really take over his body so the judas that all the other disciples knew was totally different? these are the questions that go on in my head every so often. specifically during this time of year.
i realize this was a bad thing for judas. Jesus said "it would be better for him if he had not been born." but in the long run someone had to do it. someone had to turn the Christ in so he could be arrested and give His life for us on the cross. i am personally very thankful for the man they called a traitor. it had to happen somehow.
it all goes back to did Jesus really tell Judas to turn him in. the answer, maybe. Jesus did tell judas that he would be the one to betray him. however Jesus told him this after judas had already went to the chief priests and agreed to turn Christ in for 30 silver coins. this would be comparable to 4 months of work.
the whole controversy with this book is that if Jesus really told judas to betray him then it would not have really been a betrayal in the first place. it would have been judas following orders.
aside from the book of judas, i wonder what he was really like. how deceptive a man was he. we have heard that he kept the money for the disciples and possibly could have stolen from that. but i wonder what was going through his mind when he turned jesus in? did he really do it for the money? was the greed in his life so big that he turned in a friend of three years? did he turn him in so he could see the prophecy fulfilled? did satan really take over his body so the judas that all the other disciples knew was totally different? these are the questions that go on in my head every so often. specifically during this time of year.
i realize this was a bad thing for judas. Jesus said "it would be better for him if he had not been born." but in the long run someone had to do it. someone had to turn the Christ in so he could be arrested and give His life for us on the cross. i am personally very thankful for the man they called a traitor. it had to happen somehow.
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