Thing one and thing two

In honor of the newly formed blog of a friend, I figured a good ole reference to Dr. Seuss was necessary. Plus, I have two things to talk about.
Thing One:
GROW class continues. I missed last week because of daylight savings time. I appreciate the weather, I loathe the lost hour of sleep!

We are in a series about healing, and yesterday discussed the healing we receive through forgiveness. While next week we will cover the human to human forgiveness, this week we stressed God's forgiveness of our sins. It was beautiful! It is beautiful! So let me explain...

It starts with God naming our sin. We probably have never approached it this way before. But for those of us who understand that we are utterly sinful, it makes sense. But to avoid that cop out, let's revert back to the garden. Eve ate of the fruit while her husband Adam stood by and watched. Then he joined.

We have been cursed ever since. If you don't buy that you can read this verse, or you can try this little experiment and test out whether or not sin is inherent. Put two toddlers in a room with one toy in between them. Or maybe you'd like it better if all of your thoughts were placed on a screen above your head for all to see--that thought about that person of the opposite sex, or the thought to say something hurtful even if you don't say it. We have a natural rebellion toward God.

We've been trying to become God on our own ever since that moment in the garden. See Tower of Babel.

Throughout Scripture, God himself, or sometimes through a mouthpiece called a prophet, will tell us where we've messed up. Over and over, He speaks against the rebellion of Israel. In our own lives it seems we have an internal rule book that helps us to feel guilty when we've done something wrong.

The second part to forgiveness is to agree with God. In simple terms, He says, "You, Sharayah, are a sinner."

I say, "Yep. That's me!"

Enter part three. Though we should pause to say that part two is actually very difficult. We are too proud to admit it. We are too broken to think ourselves worthy of God talking to us at all. Some of us use what is called the Shark approach. Say a shark bites you and then swims off. Well, a shark was doing only what a shark knows to do. We like to call ourselves products of our environment; to say that our sin is a result of others. Yet sin is more than this. For one, no matter how much you'd like to quote Elephant Man, you are not an animal. To a degree, and probably to a greater degree than you are willing to admit, you still have a choice in the sin you commit. I still have a choice in the sin I commit (so as to make sure you know I'm not just pointing fingers here).

And if we can't swallow part two, part three is a doozy!

That is, God does what only God can do. He gives us the gift of Christ. If it weren't for Jesus, we would be utterly hopeless. For the religions that believe that Jesus was not God, let us look to the implications of this. If God allowed for a regular human to die as a sacrifice, that would make for an immoral God--One who is not loving by any means!

Indeed, Jesus was God. His death and resurrection verify not only the truth that He is God, but also that He is completely loving. He is gracious to give us something we could never deserve. The history laid out for us in the Bible makes it clear that we are in need of the Savior Jesus. People wonder why the Old Testament is so long, and I think that it has to do with showing us the depravation of man if left to his own devices. It's not just second and third chances that God gives mankind, but hundreds and thousands and millions! See I and II Kings.

Part four then is accepting the gift. The teacher gave the illustration of how he could give a Rolex to someone, but unless that someone actually took the Rolex home with him, there would have been no gift exchange. God presents us with the gift of complete covering of our sins through Jesus, we just have to accept it!

Again, so easy to say, but putting into practice is also quite difficult for most of us. A lot of us, as was discussed at Merge last night, want to clean up our mess first before inviting Jesus into our lives. But ladies and gentlemen, there is no time to wait! We must accept the gift now, so that the next and final part of the act of forgiveness can take place--reconciliation.

Reconciliation means bringing us back to the way we were. And by way we were I don't mean back to innocent baby stages, but back to the way God meant for us to be. In a personal fellowship with Him. I've referred to it before as walking together in the garden again. It may be a funny picture to some, but I can't help but think of Narnia, of the final book in the sequence, and think of all the creatures running back. They can't wait to get there, because that's where they were supposed to be all along!

Questions arise as to why God wouldn't just let us stay there. Why wouldn't He just keep us from sinning? Again, we must think of the lovingkindness of God, who gives us a choice.

We must remember too, that reconciliation is like forgiveness, a process. This short time on earth is something God wanted. I wrestle with this, because it hardly makes sense. But if we are given the ministry of reconciliation on this earth, then there is even more to this life than we know. How do I explain these things?

I can (for the most part. I still have questions), but I won't. You'll just have to discover some answers for yourself. Trust me, it's better that way. I do encourage going to a class like GROW though, a place to talk about these things and better understand them for yourselves.

Thing Two:
I attended Iglesia Vida Nueva yesterday. I figured it was an opportunity to invest more time in hearing Spanish, and to be able to hear in church language. I'll put it this way, it was like when we did Bible translations when I was in college. I had a better grasp on the language when I already knew the subject matter.

A really cool gal named Maria sat next to me. She helped me when I had questions, though I tried just to soak it all in this time. I loved the singing part, and getting to use my Spanish Bible.

How interesting to realize more what full emersion might be like. I mean, it's one thing to go somewhere for two, almost three weeks (like Russia), and to be on a team of English speakers. It's quite another for two years, and to be on a team where we only speak Spanish! Estoy muy entusiasmada! (<--thanks to my Argentina team leader, I've learned this new adjective)

Perhaps going to Spanish speaking church every week, and listening to noventa y seis punto cinco en la radio will help. But there will be nothing quite like only Spanish all the time.

Prayers are more than welcome.