Revelation

I have heard some things about Revelation and the end times, but they always contradicted each other. After hearing these things I always felt very confused, and fearful. After a while I began to believe that we are not meant to understand Revelation. During this week I learned that Revelation is meant to be understood, and it is a book filled with blessing and worship. God is going to judge the world, but if you are already in his family then you are going to receive eternal blessing. You have nothing to fear because your God is the conqueror.
God is going to judge the unbelievers, and they are going to go to eternal torture, and misery. God is telling this to us His believers so that we will be motivated to bring more people into His family.  Revelation was written to remind us that our God wins, He is the conquer of conquerors. God is throwing a party and He has given you a stack of invitations, get out there and hand them out, the more the merrier.

Romans Romance

In the darkness of my mothers womb you created me

You placed within me, all that is beautiful

You came near and whispered in my ear

I love you. You are loved, loved, loved

I have chosen you, and you are mine

In the brightness of the world they created me

They took from me all that is beautiful,

They came near and whispered to my heart

You are imperfect, rejected, worthless.

I have chosen to use you, you are mine

But I remember You, I search for You.

Were is the love that was once whispered in my ear.

Will you show me the way, I know it is near.

I feel the weight of my heart as it cries for You

I have chosen You, You are mine.

They have forgotten You, they no longer search.

Here is love, it will cost you your life

I will show you the way, I know it is here

I feel the weight of my heart, as it strives for You.

I will chose You, You are mine.

You have not forgotten me, You are searching me out

You see who I was, who I am, who I will be.

You gave me righteousness, I have it right here

You are the way, there is no other, only You.

You have chosen me, I am Yours

I have forgotten You, I searched You out.

I saw who you were not, who you would never be

I gave You myself out of fear, I have it right here

You are the way and there is no other only You

I have chosen You, I want to be Yours

Father I remember You, I know You

I remember when you whispered in my ear

I love you, You are loved, loved, loved.

You are right here and that is the way.

I have chosen You, I am Yours.

Father, Your love is beautiful, beautiful beyond imagine

It is like a ray of sun, breaking through the morning haze

It is like a deep blue lake, it never dries up, never runs out.

It is constant, it is unfading, unfailing love.

Father, your love is mighty, might beyond strength

It is a hurricane sweeping through the plain

It is a thunderstorm in the dead of night

It takes me captive, it embraces me

like the waves embrace the sand.

Romans

I do not know where to start, the book of Romans is so richly full of God's love for us. I am feeling very overwhelmed by it all. How about we look at some big questions we all have and the answers that are found in Romans.

Who was I?
You are a sinner, a person that said I want a world without God. You are under the power of sin, and deserve the wrath of God.

How do I get saved?
We all get saved through faith in Jesus Christ. This should be so much more than just saying Jesus I believe in you. Your belief should come from a heart that is so in love with Jesus and what he did for you that it could not possibly think of anything else. Jesus is our wrath taker. He is standing between God's wrath and you. Think of it this way God has a gun and it is pointed at your head, he pulls the trigger and Jesus jumps in front of you and takes the bullet. Jesus' body was broken, and beaten for you. 

Who am I?
You are a new creation. This is the illustration that our speaker gave us. Before you believed in Jesus you were an apple tree, and  produced apples. Then one day you realized who God was and turned your heart towards him. Now you are an orange tree, and produce oranges. You are now under the power of righteousness.

Why does God love me?
Because He loved you even when you were enemies. God is crazy about you.

Why does God like me?
When God looks at you he see's righteousness, and perfection. He does not see your sin, because when he looks at you He is looking through the lens of Jesus to see you. He see's the orange tree not the apple tree.

There is so much more than this in the book of Romans. If you have some spare time and what to study a book I really suggest this one. I am still processing it. 

Creation

Since we have been talking about creation this week, I thought I would share some of my pictures of God's creation. God gave us a beautiful world. Enjoy.

Psalms 2

In the beginning You had a plan, You had a purpose.

You created a place and gave it it to me

You made it beautiful and placed me in it.

You gave me a gift and said take care of it.

You gave me the most important part.

In the beginning I had a plan, I had a purpose,

I created a life, and kept it for myself.

I made it a mess and blamed it on You.

I said this is your fault, take care of it.

I gave You the most difficult part.

Your place was perfect, it was all I could want.

Your creation surrounded me, on all sides.

Your presence was with me, everywhere.

Your image was in me for all to see,

You are Yahweh, Lord of all.

My place was imperfect, it was all I could never want,

My creation trapped me, on all sides.

My presence was all I had, everywhere.

My image was all I could see,

I am wordly, human of all.

You saw me fall, you felt the crash,

You ran to me and called my name.

You picked me up and covered my pain,

You said I have a plan, I have a purpose,

You will see I am the way, Yahweh.

I saw myself falling, I felt the crash,

I felt your presence, and heard my name,

I surrender to you, and accept your pain.

I do not have a plan, I have a purpose.

I am Yours, and You are Yahweh.

God had a plan.

    Welcome to the beginning!!  I know this is week four, but we spent the week “In The Beginning.”

We studied Genesis. I think Genesis has a really awesome story to tell, a story about redemption. Yup that is right I said redemption not creation. You might think I am crazy, but in the end you might agree with me. I will get on with the story.
   Once upon a time God made a plan, for this plan to he needed the 3 P's ( Place, People, Presence ). He created the earth and filled it with many things, one of which, was the Garden of Eden. (Place) In this place he made Adam and Eve, (People) and God said that it was good. God hung out with his people (Presence). Everything was going great; God had his 3 P's, and he was enjoying living with his image bearers. Then we, the people, had go and ruin things. God gave us one rule, and we had to go and break that rule.
    On top of breaking this rule we had to go hide ourselves from God's presence. Now God's plan had 2 P's (Place and some disobedient People). God had to establish a new plan, and this resulted in kicking us out of his place. There goes another P. Now for the really cool part about redemption!! I am so excited. We got kicked out of the garden, suffered the consequences of our sins, multiplied and filled the earth. God chased after us the whole time trying to get our attention so that we could go back to his plan of  3 P's. Finally, after many years of disaster on our part, God got one man to stop and listen to him. This man is Abraham, aka father of a multitude.
    Now God's plan is back on track we have people. God asked Abraham to give up everything, leave his homeland, his family, his life, and go to a place God would show him. Abraham was obedient and did as God asked. In return, God promised to make a nation from him and give them a land, aka the promise land. We now have place. God promised to be with his people (Presence).
     God's plan is back in action; we now have the 3 P's. Do you see what happened? God created us and hung out with us everything was good. We caused trouble, ruined everything and ran away from God. But God made a way for us to came back to him. He redeemed our wrong.
      I told you this was a story about redemption.

1 Peter

    We jumped into 1 Peter this week, and it is packed full of good stuff.  1 Peter was written by Peter to the exiles of the dispersion, to encourage them during a time of suffering. Peter is telling them to rejoice in their suffering. I know this seems like a strange thing to be telling them. Image Peter walking into a room full of suffering people, people that have had to flee their homes, leave family behind, people that have watched relatives die, and say "Rejoice for God is blessing you; come on guys be happy."  If you where there you would probably think this Peter is crazy, and not listen to him. It is a good thing Peter did not do this or we probably would not have the book of 1 Peter.
    Here are some of the things I think Peter was telling us through his letter. Throughout the letter, Peter reminds us of who Jesus is. Jesus is our salvation; he came to us and lived among us, he taught us and showed us who God is. But we rejected him because we where looking for something else. We were expecting a great and mighty warrior to come and lead us in battle and destroy those that where persecuting us. But God knew better, He knew that we did not need a mighty warrior but a teacher, someone who would lovingly lead us. So He gave us Jesus. We did not want Jesus because he was not our mighty warrior, so we beat him and hung him on a cross. Jesus suffered, he willingly chose to suffer for us. Because Jesus submitted himself to the authority and will of his father.
    When Peter was telling the people to rejoice in their suffering, he was not saying okay guys lets have a party, because our suffering doesn't matter. He was telling us to turn towards Jesus; do not run from him, because Jesus knows what it feels like to suffer. He suffered for us and he defeated it. Jesus knows what we are feeling. He knows what we are walking through, because he is right there walking through it with us.  And when we turn towards Jesus we see things differently, we feel God's love for us, and he gives us all we need to conquer our suffering. When we suffer we have an opportunity to experience God in a new way, a deeper way. We experience a part of God we would never be able to experience in any other way. This is what Peter was telling us when he said suffering is a blessing, rejoice in it.
As you can tell from these pictures we had a lot of fun studying 1 Peter this week.

A Psalm

   We spent part of this week looking at the Psalms. We looked at the structure of the Psalms (how the are written). And then we put into practice what we learned and each wrote our own Psalm. We all had a lot of fun doing this. I thought I would share a Psalm I wrote with you. It is not very good, but it will give you some ideal of what we did.

This heaviness I feel is overwhelming.

It is as thick as fog, and dark as night.

I feel the weight like a monsoon rain.

It makes my heart pound and my mind race.

My heart is torn, my thoughts are in a whirlwind.

I feel the power of your love but I do not know how to respond.

You have shaken my world, you struck like an earthquake.

I feel the tremble beneath my feet, and do not know which way to run.

I do not know how to respond to this storm.

I am a small ship in the middle of a large sea.

The waves pour over me, they pound against my side.

They push and pull at me, I am tossed about like a note in a song.

I am here then there, I am in a chord, then a scale.

Am I melody or harmony, soprano or bass.

Can I trust my heart, does it know how to love.

My heart is broken, but yours is whole.

My eyes look through a cloudy perspective.

But your vision is as clear as a rain drop.

I look and judge, but you look and love.

I see only what they have done but you see who they are.

I want your heart, I cannot love with out it.

I want your eyes I am blind without them.

I choose you and your way, I am lost with out it.