the New Testament + pain

central to Christianity is the idea of grace and that righteousness...rightness with God...comes from faith - by grace through faith. and central to the idea of grace is that it is not earned. so central to Christianity is the idea that being right with God is not earned, not something that we deserve.

when you see Christians walking around, you can call them out on it. ask them if they deserve their salvation, their lives. any good thing - ask them if it is their own or a gift. ask them if they have gotten to where they are because of what they've done or because what He's done.

an interesting thing is who i really am. my heart is easily distracted and disillusioned. i am quick to feel my own shame and disgrace, quick to be discouraged and focused on other things. my real faith is small and hesitant, my hands dirty, my mind unclean, my body prostituted to other gods. i am selfish and often hype myself up. i do not see myself as soberly as i should sometimes. i am cocky and believe i don't need God. then i am foolish and seek Him for my own gratification.

does not God know and see all of this, all that is in my heart? nothing is hidden from Him. one of the Psalms reads that He knows our very nature - He knows that we are made of dust. He understands where we are coming from. and if that didn't stop Him from giving everything away for me, i think it foolish that all of these things should stop me from giving everything away to Him. if He didn't disqualify me, how can i disqualify myself? if He already suffered and bought me and purchased me with His blood, is He not now alive? and are we not His, then?

i think that God knows how much we fall short and how much pain we can cause. it's funny thinking that God didn't die for us when we were at our best. when He died, He died for all of us. our best and our worst - what's beautiful about us and what's ugly about us. He's bigger than our shortcomings. and i really believe that He couldn't care less about our shortcomings.

by the law, we have no redemption, no hope. if you only had the Old Testament, all you would have is something telling you how you have strayed from the commands of God. when Jesus came, He brought forth a new covenant, or testament, and with that New Testament comes grace, hope, redemption. with that, our shortcomings suddenly became nothing. while there had been a chasm between us and righteousness, that gap had been bridged by grace, a free gift.

so if we are worried about hurting Christ, i think there is something wrong with that picture. the hurt has already taken place, it's behind us. God wants us and longs for us in remarkably ridiculous ways, but it is not like He cannot take the pain we cause Him. that doesn't mean we should take as many stabs at Him as we want - that's really not any kind of point i want to make. but i think it means that we don't have to worry about being too bad or too painful for God to want, pursue, or handle. besides, He knew what He was getting Himself into when He sacrificed it all, and He still went through with it. and He didn't go through with it begrudgingly. He wouldn't have done it if He didn't want to - and the result of His doing it? so that you could know Him and have Him.

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things have been going well. was in Dallas this past weekend for the EPIC central conference. got a lot of rest, had a great time with my friends from OU and some of my old friends from project. really enjoyed small groups, the worship, and the speaker - and i am not just saying that. coming back, i'm a little more sluggish than i should be. i have forgotten to honor God in my schoolwork - to be holy in literally everything that i do.

in terms of Epic - it's nice. we're coming up on the point where we, again, have no real idea what to do. hopefully we can just get small groups started again and pursue God together. i'm not sure how much real growth we've been able to do since the beginning of last semester. or perhaps it's something that has a lot to do with personal initiative. anyways, we are very close to being able to turn in our application to be a student organization, and we are planning on introducing a community service component to the organization. the weather is great, so we will hopefully be able to have some more prayer nights.

may i never forget to dream impossible things. as adidas said it, impossible is nothing.

anyways, hope you guys are doing well. valentine's day coming up, weekend closing in fast. need to get some homework done - i'm at tutoring right now. getting more mileage though, lately, with the good weather. let's see what happens :) go for broke.