(no subject)
So it is the second day that I have had this and I am updating it again. But, unfortunatly, I have nothing better to do, since I am not in school, so you guys get to listen to me ramble on. Get excited!! Here are some things that God has been showing me lately. 1) Immediatly following the Fall, Genesis 3:7 records that "Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves." I think this is one pattern that we all follow daily. We become aware of the fact that we are dirty, disgraceful, and undesirable, and entirely unfit to enter the Prescence of our Heavenly Father. "All have turned away; they have together become worthless." (Romans 3) So, like Adam and Eve, we attempt to piece together some worthy wardrobe ourselves. The problem is that, as recorded in my oft-quoted verse, "All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away." (Isaiah 64). In the Parable of the Wedding Banquet (Matthew 22:1-14), God compares His Kingdom to a wedding feast, where the Father invites a group of people (symbolizing Israel) to come. However, they refused, and so the Father invites anyone on the streets that He can find, "both good and bad." (vs. 10) However, when the Father notices among them someone without wedding clothes, He commands for him to be thrown outside to the darkness, "where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Obviously, the "wedding clothes" we need cannot be made by our own righteousness any more than the fig leaves Adam and Eve tried to use. But, in verse 21, God "made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them." The only question that remains is, will we be prideful enough to try to make our own garments from our own righteousness, or will we have faith that they are already prepared for us through the death of Christ?? "Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may recieve mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." (Hebrews 4). 2) I really do not need to say anything more about this quote from The Ragamuffin Gospel (incredible book- I have it if anyone wants to borrow it): "If our faith is going to be criticized, let it be for the right reasons, not because we are too emotional, but because we are not emotional enough; not because our passions are so powerful but because they are so puny; not because we are too affectionate but because we lack a deep, passionate, uncompromising affection for Jesus Christ."