Micah 7:7-8

But as for me, I will look to the Lord;
I will wait for the God of my salvation;
my God will hear me.
Rejoice not over me, O my enemy;
when I fall, I shall rise;
when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me.

He is Jealous for you!

You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, "He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us"? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble."

I feel heavily the adulterous longings of the old man still in me today. I feel wretched and hopeless, but I remembered that he who is in me is greater than he who is in the world, and that it doesn't depend on the man who runs or wills, but on God who has mercy.

He yearns jealously over the spirit he made to dwell in me. I take this to mean he will not let me utterly slip away to ruin. He made a spirit to dwell in me, and he's jealous over it. He will go head to head with my opponents for me, just like I will take out anyone or anything that stands in the way of me and my wife and children.

Our right standing with God is not dependent on how well the day goes, but on how well Jesus lived, which was perfectly. We have been filled with Jesus, therefore our days are well, forever!

A line from one of my favorite hymns, "I am his, and he is mine!" This is true and worthy of rememberance when I feel my heart pull toward things that are but a shadow of a thought of satisfaction.

More Tess

Congratulations Harms!

Yay for another healthy happy baby girl! Tess Matea (?? sorry, i probably totally botched that spelling) Harms. Born Saturday April 24th at 3:30pm. Right? 7 lbs something ounces. :) I'm totally botching all of these facts too. One thing I do know is that she is a beautiful little bundle of preciousness. And blessed to be a Harms.

We love you guys!

Suffering

As I spend time reading the new testament concerning suffering, it seems to me that it is in fact a central concept. I have heard mentioned a few times in the past few weeks at small group that BBC focus on suffering, while other churches focus on etc, etc, etc...

This morning I realized perhaps what is going on. The new testament talks about it in a way that's like this, "and after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you!" This is encouraging right?! At BBC it seems to be more like this, "you're going to suffer if you're a Christian, this life isn't easy, deal with it!" Not really encouraging to me.

(I'm making a point here so I'm being drastic about it...)

But I think the real difference is that the NT talks about it in a way that focus more on the end result of the suffering, namely your reward in heaven, and BBC talks about it in a way that mainly combats the American, fluffy, desire to be happy and have everything handed to us on a platter, complaining spirit (which I'm never guilty of). I don't thing BBC has a wrong view, I think they're probably just trying to not foster a "lazy" spirit.

What do you think? I think I'm on to something here. Realizing this will help me hear it now and deal with it more healthily.

Last Tuesday's Activity

Member #1:

• Learning a new language without a text book
• Gardening - planning, planting, weeding...flowers
• Talking with one person who is very different from me (after getting over the anxiety...)
• Sailing on a small boat, with a special person, on a sunny (but not too hot) day, with a great but not too strong wind.
• Learning something random; a new skill, fact.

Member #2:

• Being outside in beautiful weather
• Exercising - especially outside
• Traveling - experiencing new places/people
• Sitting with a cup of coffee or tea and a book in the morning
• Wine and cheese picnics

Member #3:

• Photography
• Volleyball
• Snowmobile
• Hike
• Play music

Member #4

• Wake-board
• Songs
• Learning
• Creating
• Casual-competitive sports

Member #5:

• Cooking
• Sitting in the library or bookstore
• Shopping
• Staying in resorts/hotels
• Traveling/camping/living in less than desirable circumstances
• Anything Latin/living and being with Latino/Latin food/salsa dancing

Member #6:

• Bake break
• Watch old movies
• Go on walks
• Read
• Quilt

Member #7:

• Befriending people not like myself
• Photo-taking and editing
• Learning (example: a language)
• Exploring place I have not seen before (new place in the world, state, city, etc.)
• Driving all sorts of vehicles over all sorts of terrains.

See if you can remember who was who. Terry, can you figure out who's who?

Convicted

I was convicted after small group for my flawed thinking, so I changed the way I think.

After we read our passage from Colossians, I was convicted that I'm not extending our children the same grace and patience that I extend to the adults. This was manifest to me when I was getting frustrated that all the children we crying instead of sleeping.

They are just as much a part of our small group as the adults, therefore I ought to extend the same amount of grace to them, and therefore complete our vision for the group. It is nothing short of contradiction that I talk about adjusting our agenda to accommodate the needs of the group members, but have only the adults in mind - pure selfishness.

So, I'm sorry for my lack of compassion.

This will definitely help me to temper myself when we have our discussion concerning childcare and group functionality.

I'm blessed by all of you (that includes you Jamin, Ira, Graydon, Baby Harms, Elijah, Corban, and Jadon).

lean mean grillin' machine

Man = ?

Emily and I had a good discussion after church today. It was spawned by hearing the words "man" and "sin" used many, many times together frequently.

Is "man" synonymous with "sin"?

Emily and I came to the conclusion, "not entirely", but it is sure talked about that way a lot. It is incomplete to stop at man = sin, because man equals at least one more thing that is very, very important, namely, created in the image of God.

Is it fair to say, "apart from God all we can do is sin."?

It says at the end of Romans 14 that "whatever does not come from faith is sin." True for both the believer and non-believer.

Here's the progression I have trouble with.

1. A non-believer performs an act of service (like helping save someone's life at a car accident scene).
2. It's a sin because it does not proceed from faith.
3. Sin deserves punishment.
4. A non-believer doesn't have a propitiator.
5. Therefore the non-believer suffers more of God's wrath in hell because the performed an act of service.
6. It would have been the same for the non-believer if he had just sat there and watched the person die, even though he could have helped.

I don't know about this, it's troubling to me, and perhaps I thinking about things all wrong.

Emily and I came to the conclusion that for the non-believer, an act of service toward someone else out of a "genuine" heart isn't a wrath-heaping act, though it doesn't achieve the ultimate purpose of glorifying God. Our rational for this is that, the non-believer is created in God's image, and when performing acts of service is doing what he or she is created to do, and that shouldn't be something that produces for them more wrath.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this. I know there really isn't such a thing as "neutrality" in Christendom, but I'm a little confused on this one.

Let me sum up my thoughts with these statements:

1. When the believer serves it blesses God and people.
2. When the believer sins and repents, the wrath is absorbed through Jesus' atonement.
3. When the non-believer serves it blesses people, but not God.
4. When the non-believer sins and they don't repent (ie, get saved), they incur wrath for their sin.

word association

What's the first word (or concept) that comes to your mind when you hear the word:

"people"

"man"

"men"

"humans"

Be honest, I'm curious.