September 1st, 2024

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Sunday was nice. another opportunity to see the fellowship found in brothers and sisters in Christ. After our morning and afternoon service, we were invited to a get together at one of the church families houses for games and dinner. I could truly see God in these people. They didn't need to drink or smoke anything to talk to eachother, but were content by simple things, simple games and the acknowledge ment of the simple truth and glory of God. It made me so happy to see this, I saw God truly working in these people, I never witnessed such purity in my adult life. I have witnessed and have taken part in so many gatherings of people and so many times I have seen a constant lack of contentedness. This is seen in how selective and full of gossip people can be, or the drugs they need to take just to be comfortable around eachother. In Christ we all find rest and comfort, because of our faith we are able to live in such a optimistic view of the world, that though we are all deserving of punishment, God has proclaimed wonderful news through his son Jesus. Christ died on the cross for our sins and now anyone can be saved from this fallen world. We were holding such interesting conversations with people we barely know. In our fellowship with Christ, we are able to have a clearer view of the original image God made us in. We can see the good God has bestowed to us out of pure grace. A lot of people from our church were there, we all had a big prayer together where we reflected on our sin and showed thankfulness to God for our union as followers of Christ. After that we ate a nice meal, there was burgers, hot dogs and a lot of corn and following that, people played music and we all sang songs together. We then spent a lot of time talking to people, telling stories and talking about our faith, our struggles and everything else. It all came so easily to people I did not know too well personally but because we shared that faith in Christ, I felt like I knew them very well. I must insist that the people are not good, any good we see in myself or the people is because of God and his perfect grace. I have recently started school, which means a 30 minute trip there and back, which has given me the chance to listen to more christian material, such as RC Sproul sermons on Ligonier and John Macarthur on Grace To You. Their sermons and series on different topics have helped me to better understand the meaning of being a christian and how to better interpret the text as a human. The internet is a great tool as a christian to learn new and important things about the faith, but we must be careful as we can easily end up in domains of misinterpretation or heresy. The backround image on the main page of the website represents something I have been longing for, and through Christ and the gift of fellowship He has given us, I have found (all thanks to Him). I pictured sitting in a room like that with no distractions, a few other people and pure conversation despite all human restraint to not do so, talking about anything and everything. In Christ, we find in his teaching that we must be content, meaning no distraction, we must be grateful, meaning a willingness to participate and an appreciation, and see pure kindness, so that even if we may not like what a person has to say, we will show them constant love and care to show them your way, your perspective. Christ was beaten, stabbed and publicy humiliated, yet through all that torment, as christians we know that he was still showing constant love and affection, hoping that we show faith in Him. Because of Christ, I can find that real human connection (again, thanks to Him). The scripture above really helps to illustrate how incredibly blessed we are to have such a glorious God. He gives us so much, despite how little we have to offer Him. In our sinful and decrepit ways, falling further and further into sin and self destruction, he gave us a way out. He is definitely more than worthy of our constant worship, and we are not worthy of much of anything He does for us. He lets the sinner live their lives, enjoying their ignorance to possibly one day show them the way. He is perfect and the only real preservative in a rotting and diseased world.