the woman's tools

Saw this on a blog that Joyce sent me.. Hilarious :P
Girls are funny ;)

the heavenly crown

Awesome sermon today. Ever since I've been at CCC&C for services I've been challenged to look at the word in a more "gospel-centered" way. Every passage relates back to the gospel - that God substituted himself so that we could have what we don't deserve.

Today Donny went through 1 Cor 10:24-27. It was a very familiar passage - about training and running in a way as to get the prize. To run our life in such a way as to get a crown that will last forever. And I used to always think that that crown was some kind of heavenly reward - heavenly riches. That for some reason I'd get fancy cars and big houses and all these big toys in heaven. But Donny brought us back into the context of the passage. If that is what Paul really meant, it goes against everything that he stood for; everything that he preached about. He brought up two passages: 2 thess 2:14 ("He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.") and Phil 1:4-6 ("In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.") What was Paul's crown? In the context of Paul's life, his crown was the gospel. It was his purpose, his goal. The crown or "reward" that he was pressing on to win were people's hearts for Christ. He wanted to share his joy with others - the joy of knowing Jesus Christ. And in the same way, when we look at the life of Jesus, what was his crown? Donny said that a person's passion is something that he is willing to die for. For Jesus, it was you. It was me. He gave up what he deserved so that we wouldn't have to get what we deserved. His crown was us.

So I took away a few things from the sermon today. It made me realize that I'm quite a materialistic person - more so that I would have liked to believe. And it made me realize the power of studying the bible in a gospel centered way. When it is gospel centered, it is about me and God in a community. It is about what God did for me instead of what I can do to gain God's favor. It's more about grace than works. I've realized that when I study the bible as a "do or do not" list, I become more judgemental. I may be doing this and not doing that, according to biblical standards, but I start realize that others may not be following the bible as I am - so I become judgemental. And I believe that one of my struggles is my judgementalness. It is hard for me to not judge others because I'm a disciplined and structured person and I expect people to be able to do things that I am able to do. I'm very legalistic (even tho I try not to be!). So I pray that I will be able to grasp how wide and long and high and deep the love of Christ is by seeing the gospel work in my life everyday - so that I can be more loving, and less judgemental each day.

"17And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." ~Eph 3:17-19