Time for thanks

1. Since I thought of them today, Chad, Andy, and Jeff.  They were Nazarenes at my Nazarene school who became Catholic then started a liturgical bible study.  I really appreciated them because, being raised Presbyterian, I felt the Nazarenes could be shallow in their worship.  It hit me, I'm not convinced that many people who follow Trevecca doctrine are Protestant.  These three guys were smart enough to realize it and did something about it.  And ironically, I felt more Presbyterian around them.

2. My Presbyterian heritage.  I was raised in a godly family that believed in grace that God gives that I could never earn.  I'm happy to know I can't lose my salvation and that God will keep me holy so I don't have to lose sleep over it.  I'm also glad I was baptized as an infant so that no one coerced me into making a decision before I was ready.

3.  My home.  I'm glad in this dry economy that I have a place to sleep and a lot of privacy.

4.  My dad.  As much as I love him, he still gets on my nerves, yet he still lets me freeload off of him.  And he's a godly man who never left me or my brother or my mom.

5. Starbucks.  I'm glad they have diet caffeine free stuff.  There music is usually okay.  I'm not thankful for terrible song covers, but I am generally thankful for indie music.

6.  Internet.  I'm Gen Y, what more need by said.  All my friends live in my computer.

7. Dark Chocolate.  It's a MUFA.  Look up Flat Belly diet to see what I'm talking about.

8.  My home church even though I'm not member there.  They're still PCUSA and stay that way lest the Presbyqueerian pirates steal their property, but they are conservative and believe the Bible.  Their annual campmeeting had some amazing preachers (one was PCA with a Scottish accent, the other a Baptist and more of a Schmoozer) who both affirm Christ as the only way to heaven.

9. Disc golf.  I played it Monday after a month of not.  It's amazing how that disc flies even after not practicing.  I feel like that double rainbow guy when I play it.

10. My salvation.  It's truly a miracle that God would save anyone or even die to do so when he didn't have to.

Theodicy and Creationism

Last year I discovered Answers in Genesis.  They erased any lingering beliefs in theistic evolution from my head.  They did so in ways I never expected.  Never before had I thought about dinosaur extinction millions of years ago as a product of evolution, just monkeys to men ideas.  Never before had I realized that belief in aliens stemmed from evolution. 

Last week, exactly a week ago, I went to their museum, blown away once again.  Dad and I bought their whole gift shop, pretty much.  At least dad did; I'm po'.  I got these six talks from Ken Ham on video and have been watching them.  Last night I watched "Why Won't They Listen?"  It blew me away even further.

Ken, always emphasizing the importance of Creation Evangelism explained how the Gospel with Jesus and the cross makes more sense when we talk about creation first.  Now, I definitely agree that Creation and any Old Testament passage is very important, but I'm also trained to not finish church unless I've talked about the death and resurrection.

Then Ken Ham went into expositions of two Acts passages.  The first is Acts 2, the day of Pentecost, Peter preached an amazing message all about Jesus, the Messiah, who they crucified but who rose from the dead.  He converted 300 people that day.  The Jews knew their Scripture backward and forwards.  They knew about Creation, Adam and Eve, the fall of man, the flood, Cain and Abel, and the Tower of Babel.  Now that Peter explained the cross that at first confused them, but now they understood, they could accept Christ. 

In Acts 17, Paul preached to Greeks.  At first he started with just the cross and resurrection.  It was foolishness to them.  They just didn't understand the need for a savior to die for them.  They already had millions of gods.  They could add Jesus to them; the more the merrier.  So Paul had to define God for them, define sin, define God's wrath, before he could define God's salvation.  He had to tell them the bad news, before the could tell them the good news.  So he started with their "Unknown God" and told them that he created the universe in 6 days, that we sinned and brought suffering on the earth, thus earning God's wrath, and it's only by his grace that he even keeps us alive, much less saves us.  That's why he came in the form of Jesus to die the punishment we deserved on the cross and then defeated death by rising from the grave so that we too can live after we die.  Later on, some still made fun of him, but some wanted to hear more, and some even gave their lives to Jesus.

One guy in Wales even shocked Ken Ham by saying that Ken was radical because he was a Christian with answers.  The audience laughed but that's really a tragedy today.  Christians don't have answers because they forgot their foundation and let evolutionists steal the first book of their Bible and make it mythology.  Believe it or not, everything we believe has a foundation in the first 11 chapters of Genesis.  Jesus created the earth.  We first meet God in Genesis 1.  Jesus came to die for our sins that we don't know about unless we read Genesis 3.  In fact, we don't know how bad sin is until we read about brother murdering brother in Genesis 4, God flooding the earth in Genesis 6-8, and people still rebelling even after God saved them in Genesis 11.  We don't realize that sinful humans can't approach God without blood, which is why Adam and Eve now wore garments of skin and why God wouldn't accept Cain's offering, because it wasn't blood.  We don't realize that only a perfect sacrifice could make us permanently approachable to God and that's why only God could have died on that cross and saved us. 

Which brings me to the first part of my title: Theodicy.  Why does a good God allow sin?  Why do I bring this up?  Because an article by John Knight on Desiring God.  http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/hurting-people-need-to-know-the-character-of-god
It answers about God's sovereignty over sin, disabled people, earthquakes, and suffering.  Good new testament knowledge about a loving God who allowed suffering so that he could send Christ to save us and hope for a better world.  But not one remark about Genesis 3 which says we basically brought all this on ourselves.  Of course, I do agree that hurting people don't need to be told it's their fault, even if it is true.  But all the horrors that you see all go back to Adam and Eve rebelling against God.  And we all were born after that, so we carry on that sinful DNA, and the earth groans along with it.

Now, they could have taken John MacArthur's approach and said that God did ordain for sin to happen because he always planned on sending Christ to save us through a bloody sacrifice on the cross.  We'll never know how wonderful a Savior and God we have unless we have something to be saved from.  Everything God does is for his glory.  He didn't do that.  He just skipped over the sin story, getting us off the hook. 

Maybe I should read the article again.  It actually is pretty good.  It's a shame that if articles get mentioned on my blog, they will more than likely be something I either disagree with or what doesn't settle quite right with me.  I am picky like that.  But Ken's video taught me that after I'm done with VBS in two weeks that I'm going to go over the first four Cs of history with the kids before I start a semester studying Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. 

Mission Creep

Michael Horton's ninth chapter in the Gospel Commission has got to be his keystone chapter.  He rounds up everyone from conservatives like George Barna and the pietists, to liberals like Tony Jones and Doug Pagitt, and shows how they contributed from taking the Church's focus off of the Bible and teaching Christ to people and changing the focus to either marketing to people or being the Gospel.  We can never be the gospel.  The Bible is clear that Christ alone is to be worshiped, and he alone is the Gospel.  He is the message.  We don't have to be.

The scary thing is, these guys get their tactics from the New Measures of Charles Finney.  Finney did not believe in original sin, the atoning work of Christ on the cross, and to him Christ was only a great moral example.  Finney was most certainly not a Christian.  His goal was to get people to have better morals and shape society, but he left people not knowing Jesus and still going to hell.  I'm sad to hear that this legacy lives in Barna.  He is an excellent statistician, and he writes good books.  I've known for some time that his research isn't accurate.  For example, he says 50% of Christians have been divorced.  What he didn't check to see is how they define themselves as Christians, if they were a Christian at the time of divorce, or even the circumstances of the divorce.  He just said 50% of professing Christians have been divorced.  I've read his book on children, and he's not a heretic like Finney.  He does believe that Jesus was sinless, that he was God, and the main tenets of Christian doctrine.  However, like Finney, he does not see the importance of the church using the Gospel alone to bring people to Christ.  He is in favor of whatever it takes to get a person saved. 

Jesus clearly pointed it out in his Great Commission.  All authority in heaven was given to Him, and now he gives us the privilege to tell people about him through baptism, communion, and the Bible.  Emergent liberals like Pagett and Bell have not only thrown out church as we know it, they went beyond Barna and threw out the Gospel of the penal substitutionary atonement.  And both sides of the argument act like we actually deserve to be saved, when in reality, if God was truly fair then no one would be in heaven.  The cross truly is offensive, but it is what God used to give us salvation.  There is no other name to save us than Jesus and if we don't tell the church about him and what he did for us, then we fail as believers and church leaders. 

VBS week 2: Christ's Amazing Birth

Here is my spiel from the morning session:

Here is a question for the adults in the room.  Imagine a woman came to you and told you she was pregnant not because the child has a father, but that God had planted the child inside of her.  How would you react?  Would you think of God’s promise 700 years ago that he would send a savior to our world?  Would you think of a man come to save people from their slavery to sin which leads to death or someone who would socially reform the world we currently see?  Would you believe her when she said an angel had told her she would bear a child who would be said Savior? 

            Mary’s people might not have believed her at first.  Joseph didn’t.  But later on, Jesus did prove himself true.  Let’s recall the past promises.  In Genesis 3:15, just after Adam and Eve had sinned, God said that a child would be born of a woman to crush the serpent’s head.  It happened just that way.  A child was born of a woman but not of a man and through his death and resurrection, he crushed Satan’s empire.

Micah 5:2 – He would be born in Bethlehem.  That happened.

Psalm 72:10-11 – Solomon said that kings would worship him.  When Jesus was about 2, Magi from the east came and worshipped him.

Hosea 11:1—He would come out of Egypt, and he did.  He lived in Egypt to escape Herod’s murder of all young children 2 or younger.

            As you read Jesus's birth yet again, remember what set his birth apart from all others.  Realize that he came for you and worship him like the shepherds and Magi did.  Revel in thanksgiving to God for sending Christ specifically for you.

I knew there would be less kids this Sunday.  I didn't know that I'd only have two kids.  Even so, just having one kid is worth having the VBS.   We went to Sunday School taught by Cathy Cutts with our two girls and a 17-year-old helper.  Cathy first talked about how Scribes would copy Scriptures exactly.  The Scriptures were so special to them that they did not want any dirt or mistake messing up the reading.  They would take a bath, write a word, take another bath, write a word, etc.  They would even pull out a hair from their heads and make sure each letter was one hair's width apart.  Faithfully preserved Old Testament Scriptures foretold exactly how Jesus would be born.  He would be born of a woman who had never had sex, in Bethlehem, and rich men would come to him with gifts for a King, and often these men are called Kings though actually, they were Magi.  There are more prophesies than this that came true; Jesus did not miss one of them.  

During worship time, Aunt Sadie found Christ, and as Ragin' Ronny came to steal the town's candy, all the townsfolk scurried about, worrying about candy, while Sadie sat contentedly by reading her Bible.  (this is a skit, for those confused).

Here is my spiel after that:

             Looks like these people need a lot of help.  What are these people worried about?  Is there anyone who isn’t worried?  (Sadie)  Why is Sadie so happy all of a sudden?  (She found Christ).  While the other people are hustling around hiding their M&Ms, Sadie sits quietly and reads her Bible. 

            We all need someone to save us from the evils of this world.  Many people try wars, peace, policemen, Global warming summits, and all kinds of gimmicks to save the planet.  What they have forgotten is that Jesus has already saved it.  He has saved this planet and all the people who will be with him for eternity.  So, while the world panics over unimportant things and rejoices in false saviors, we need to remember a God who came to earth as a baby by a mother but not by a father, who never sinned, and who paid the perfect price that we could never pay to get us out of hell for eternity.  Amen!  Now, the kids are going to go with me for crafts, song motions, and reviewing of the lessons!

politics time -- thoughts on the Bachwomann

In just about seven months the Primary Elections will start.  Up until now I have not been excited about any of the Republican candidates running for president.  Now that Michele Bachmann is running, I can finally vote for someone who didn't run last time, isn't old, and is likely to beat Obama.  I'm still not as excited as when Sarah Palin joined the McCain ticket in 2008, but I'm definitely excited.  I think Bachmann will be an excellent candidate and will do so much that Palin could never do.  Also, she seems like she has a head on her shoulders. 

Now, I will always be a fan of Sarah Palin, but after her brutal beating in 2008, and after leaving the governorship soon after, she's not really ready for the hardest job in the world.  She's an excellent cheerleader and commentator but even Palin has never said that she's running.  If brought up in an interview she always dodges the question.  The country very much needs someone like Palin and I think Bachmann is just the one to do it.

At this point, I should inject some of my Christian faith into this.  America is not my eternal destination.  It is not the promised land.  My citizenship is in heaven, and neither political party can save me from my sins.  I figured out after reading Sarah Palin's book America By Heart, that while Democrats think that they are Jesus and can save this world and build heaven on it, Republicans think that America is heaven.  It's very much not and becomes less of a Christian nation all the time.  In fact, it's more anti-Christian than it's ever been.  It especially drives me nuts when people quote, "Greater love has no one than this than he lay down his life for his friends," and apply it to soldiers.  That's blasphemous.  The soldiers did not pay for my sins or provide a perfect sacrifice to appease God's wrath.  I'm proud of those men and women who fight for freedom every day but they did not lay down their lives for my salvation.  Christ made his statement only for him, that he loves us so much that he will pay the penalty that we deserve to pay but can't. 

Either way, I still live here, so I need to vote for my leaders as long as God allows me to live here.  I refuse to vote for anyone who supports abortion, even in rape and incest.  It's my one issue, and if you can't trust people with it, then what can you trust them with?  Bachmann has lived out her pro-life by having many children, fostering children, and voting against tax raises, especially in Obamacare.  And either way, this next video just gets me excited.:

Creation Museum photos

This is the entrance hall to the museum where a child and a dinosaur play together.  This comes from the belief that dinosaurs did live at the same time as humans and even lived in the ADs.  Why do you think we have ideas of dragons in the first place?

The burning tree mastodon which Answers in Genesis can explain slightly better.  If I recall, this is a replica.

Two more mastodons, my dad and Andrew, standing nearby.

The 7 Cs of Creation on one display.

Models of geologists digging for dinosaurs.  The one bald man is actually in the video at the end of the tour, "The Last Adam."  In this room, AiG explains that secularists and Christians all have the same evidence, we just interpret them from different worldviews.

This could be a future facebook picture.  I'm standing in a tent in the same room as the plastic geologists.

Gotta have a dinosaur.

Adam names all the animals.

At some point, my camera broke down because the gift shop failed to distinguish between camera batteries and cheap-o batteries.  I'm back in the entrance hall after lunch about to go into the museum again.

These guys from right to left are David, Moses, and I some prophet.  They represent the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings, God's revelation before Christ.

Peter and John peer into the empty tomb.  Christ is risen indeed, therefore, the words he gave us in the Bible are completely true.

This is Paul.  He wrote a majority of the New Testament.  God gave him the words to write.

These are modern days when people, even Christians, throw out God's word and replace it with their words.  Just like Eve and Adam wanted to make their own rules and eat the fruit, we still haven't learned from our mistakes.  This sign is the entrance to a hall that shows domestic abuse, pregnant teens seeking abortions, preachers preaching that Genesis is myth, and other atrocities.

Back in creation, These are some zebra horses that Adam names.

Here is a dinosaur in the same room.  If we believe the Bible correctly, then we believe God created a perfect world.  Therefore, nothing died before the fall of man.  Ergo, dinosaurs lived with humans.

This dinosaur wants me to get the camera out of its face.  It's eating.

Took some pictures of plaques because most people won't see this museum.  Dinosaurs only ate plants before the fall of man.

Adam and Eve had the perfect marriage.  Nobody can say that today.

Then a serpent came along and said, "Did God really say?"  Eve believed him, she and Adam ate the fruit, and we've been questioning God's word ever since, even throwing out obvious evidence of dragons and the Flood because "we know that didn't happen."

Now that there is sin, animals have to die.  Humans can't enter God's presence unless blood is spilled.  It should be our blood but God in his mercy was satisfied with an animal, though temporary.  He covered them from head to toe with skin clothes.  Later on, Jesus provided the perfect blood that will suffice for all time.

More plaques contrasting God's perfect world with our Corrupted world.

Dinosaurs now eat meat.

"The creation is no longer perfect, as God originally designed it, because in Adam, we committed high treason against the God of creation."

At this point, God's had enough and is going to show how seriously he takes sin by sending a worldwide flood.  In his mercy he spares Noah and his family.  Noah obeys God and builds an ark.

Noah pleads with his neighbors to join him on the ark, and this display even shows them helping Noah build, but people are foolishly complacent in this world and refuse to see something beyond it.

And basically, any old-looking rocks, rock layers, buried bones, can all be explained by a year-long global flood.

This is the tower of Babel room, when God confused languages and cultures were born.  The top picture is a couple with twin girls: one is black, one is white.  Their biological children.  Thus, there is really no such thing as race.

Evolutionists would rather see us as animals with no creator and no purpose.  With God and meaning out of the way, then who's to say that the Holocaust, abortion, slavery and lynchings are bad?  It's just population control.

But factor in God's word, and we erase racism.  We see all people as valuable to God and as our relatives.  To assault another person is to assault God's image, making murder so heinous.

Babel was also the birth of false religions.

I really wish that the museum had expounded on the last three Cs: Christ, Cross, and Consummation.  They pulled them all into one video.  I did see a place where they were building, so maybe there will be more in the future.  Of course, to have the good news, you need the bad news.  It makes God's mercy so much more amazing.

Christian Cruise Lines

Inspired by another Eddie Eddings Random Word Challenge:

An actor once slept on a cruise ship
A Christian theme sailed this week
On stage the singers wore halos
Off stage 'twas the pubs they'd seek.

On Thursday the singers would use him
As an extra in some of their skits.
Christ died for this actor's salvation,
So why did he revel like this?

Fine dining and wining, swimming and sun tans
Our actor awoke with a fright.
A pain on his leg and a scratch with his hand,
Saw a leech had latched on in the night.

Then he realized, "I need to resign once ashore.
I won't be asleep in the light anymore.
I'll suffer for Jesus and spread the good news.
Perhaps get a real job. I've got nothing to lose."

The Green Lantern

I saw the Green Lantern this afternoon.  After a wonderful, inspiring day at the Creation Museum yesterday, I now see a friendly pro-evolution movie called the Green Lantern.  I still liked the movie and all, it is a super-hero movie after all, but still.  I have no words. 

One, I can't like a hero who is in bed with one girl at the beginning of the movie and completely in love with a different girl toward the end.  They did that in Iron Man and in Troy.  I can't love a main character who uses girls like tissues. 

And lastly, the Green Lanterns are powered by their will.  It is the most powerful power in the universe.  That must mean that the main enemy is a Calvinist.  Actually, he was the embodiment of fear, but seriously, is that a bad thing?  Isn't the Fear of God the beginning of wisdom?  And are people truly free if they are following their wills?  Remember, there is no Biblical concept of free will, and from our perspective, whenever we use free will, we rebel against God and ruin our lives.  That's not freedom. 

So, the Green Lantern is an okay movie.  I liked Pirates 4 way better.

Adventures with David -- Week two

This week, I can't remember much of what I studied in Beth Moore's lessons, but I will go over the main questions and things I underlined. 

First day, I remember this being an excellent lesson from doing this before.  This is where Jonathan makes a covenant with David.  David now lives with Saul as a son-in-law.  Jonathan knows full well that David will take his place on the throne, but he still loves and honors David.  Beth asked if there was in instant bond to a new friend in my life?  I can say yes.  My friend Hannah Collins was an instant best friend the moment I met her.  We have the same beliefs and politics and media tastes.  She's way busy in college now, but I still think she is a swell gal.  Beth compares Jonathan's actions to God and Abraham in Genesis 15.  This was the first time I read about the smoking pot passing through the pieces of the animals.  It was a sign that the one passing through would die if the covenant was not fulfilled.  God passed through the pieces.  Abe didn't.  God eventually did come to die for us because we could not complete our end of the bargain.  Jonathan gave David his armor, risked his life to defend him before Saul, and eventually did die in battle before David could be king.  In 1 John 4:10, 15, it is clear that God loved us way before we loved him.

Good quote, "Few people have 'in mind the things of God' at the risk of their ow favor and position."  This was true of Saul.  He wanted to be king and even God.  He was not going to give his throne up to a runt like David. 

Skipping to day 3, Beth asks if I've ever been talked out of a negative spiral of emotions only to be captivated by those feelings again?  My senior year of college I dated Chris.  I was into bad music, bad affectionate relations, and even fell into despair.  My relationship with my parents were strained and by the grace of God, I got out of that after three months with my faith and my virginity.  During holidays when I separated from Chris, I would go back to before and put away the bad music and want to start over, but when I saw him again, I would revert back.  I finally resolved to break up with him. 
This lesson is when Saul got an evil spirit and David played the harp to soothe him.  He would calm Saul down, and then Saul would be back to his angry self in no time.  "Our best course when negative emotions begin controlling us is to fall before the throne of grace and seek God."  Amen, Beth.  I am totally depraved unless God takes control of my life.  I'm so thankful that he did.  Later, David ran to Samuel when Saul threw a spear at him.  "Why do you think he ran to this particular person?"  Sam had anointed David to be king.  He was wondering if Samuel knew what he had gotten David into.  He had to be reminded that God is in control.  He said David would be king, David would live to be king.  When I'm being tormented by a spirit, I have to pray vigorously for the Holy Spirit to fight for me.  sometimes I need to go to someone older who I trust and talk it out, and thank God for bringing them into my life.  Either way, only God can exercise the demons. 

That's all I will write today.  Would love feedback.

Horton, chapters 2- part of 7

Still reading through Gospel Commission on my Kobo.  This guy has wonderful insights on what is lacking in pop church today, mainly they've forgotten Jesus, who is the message, and now they just want to reach people where they are lest God should have forgotten them, too.  Praise God he didn't or nobody could faithfully serve him.  He has been more than gracious to me in allowing me to serve as youth pastor and counsel at a pregnancy center.

Chapter 2, Michael Horton draws on Exodus and Conquest.  God saved Israel from Egypt and forty years later conquered Canaan for them.  Years later, when Jesus came, the Israelites still could not see a world beyond this one.  They thought the Messiah was going to Exodus and Conquer them from Rome.  They could not see the invisible world that held both the Jews and the Romans captive to eternal damnation, a life apart from the only source of life.  Fast forward to now: the Emergent Church, which infiltrates most of Christian publishing, sees no world beyond this one and has gone beyond and even forgotten that a Messiah has already come and saved it.  They think we have to plant trees and save the planet, along with saving the poor, even though if you save the planet, you must eliminate the poor due to Darwinian theology.  The church has woefully lost sight of her King and Horton is way nicer about it than I would have been or will be.  Even when quoting Brian McLaren, at first he's a bit ambiguous about where he stands on his theology, but later on you can tell he's very much against the monster McLaren has perpetuated.  I'm so glad Horton brings up John Lennon's "Imagine."  I'm glad my dad and I aren't the only people who hate that song.  A beautiful tune with destructive lyrics and a wonderful world with no heaven, and certainly no savior outside of ourselves to get us there.  That is not good, people.

Chapter 3, I loved this chapter.  It is about contextualization.  It confirms my idea that it is a terrible idea.  I have no problem with translating Bibles or using electric guitars to reach the youth, but when it comes to accommodating people so that they are better Hindus, Buddhists, or Muslims, yet not converting them to Christianity, then you are doing more harm than good.  You are making them better hellions than they were originally.  People have really disserviced the Muslims with contextualization by telling them they can believe in Jesus on the inside yet still do all the Muslim duties.  This is tragic.  Even more tragic, my seminary, a conservative ARP seminary, taught contextualization, not so much keeping people in their religions to avoid persecution, but trying to accommodate the Gospel to different demographics.  Jesus didn't come to celebrate diversity.  He came to unify us all into himself.  I'm tired of people paying so much attention to differences when we should focus on what we have in common while throwing off all the sin that so easily entangles.

I honestly can't remember the rest of the chapters.  I assure, it's still a good book.  I suppose they kind of blend together.  Horton makes an excellent case for paedobaptism.  I think soon I'll repost an e-mail a sent to someone appalled at my paedobaptist beliefs if I can find it in my Sent archives.  All I can say here is it was good enough for Calvin who dissected all the Scriptures, and it's good enough for me.

VBS week 1 -- Pictures

This is Nugget the Wonder Horse portrayed by Chocolate

This is Sadie's Sarsaparilla Parlor

The sign for said parlor

Our notorious candy thief.  Duh, duh, duhn

This is the door to my classroom/office

The lovely Petunia, portrayed by Amy Frey

My dad, Andy Smith, who rewrote the Gold Rush skits.  He plays Scruffy

Darlene Cato, Chocolate's owner, teacher, and an amazing blessing to our church and VBS

Nugget on a normal day

By the last week of VBS, Nugget will be married.

Some of our youth.

Me leading in "the Solid Rock."

VBS Gold Rush week 1 -- Bold Claims of Jesus

Here is my talk for the 9:30 gathering.  I told them to come at 9:30 so they'd get there at 10:00.  I started with the hymn, "the Solid Rock."

John 6:48—I am the bread of life.

John 8:12—I am the light of the world.

John 8:58—Before Abraham was, I am.

John 14:6—I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.

John 10:30—I and the Father are one.

In Exodus, Moses asked God what his name was.  He told Moses, “I Am.”  All these things that Jesus said in John are just five of many instances where Jesus declared that he is God.  In many of those instances, the Pharisees picked up stones to stone him because a mere man is not supposed to call himself God.  They knew what he was saying better than Jehovah’s Witnesses today or even many Christians.  Many Christians today emphasize Jesus as God’s Son, and that’s true, but Christ’s death on the cross and life on earth would not be a loving act of the Father had Christ only been his Son.  Isaiah 43 claims that God is our only Savior, and Exodus 20 commands us that we have no other gods except God.  Therefore, we have to believe that Jesus is God.  Nobody else could save us.

I wanted to close with this prayer by Arthur Bennet printed in the leader guide but I left it in the classroom:

"Thou Great I AM, Fill my mind with elevation and grandeur at the thought of a Being with whom one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day.  A mighty God who, amidst the lapse of the worlds, and the revolutions of empires, feels no variableness but is glorious in immortality  May I rejoice that, while men die, the Lord lives; that, while all creatures are broken reeds, empty cisterns, fading flowers, withering grass, He is the Rock of Ages, the fountain of Living Waters."

Here is my Sunday School lesson:

We did a skit in church where a gold miner gives Bibles and tracts to other miners but we were all reluctant to read them.  Here is my spiel after that before we went to crafts and did motions to the songs in lieu of recreation.

Those people sure seemed reluctant to read the Bible.  Do any of you hesitate to read the Bible during the week?  Do you read it at all?  Or is it just boring and irrelevant to you?

Romans 10:17 says that faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the Word of Christ.  Now, the Bible is the Word of God, and Christ is also the Word of God, therefore, the Bible is all of Christ’s words specifically to us.  Christ doesn’t walk on earth to day in flesh that we can touch, so God gave us the Bible to know specifically what he says and how we are to be saved from an eternity away from God.  You need to read the Bible during the week so that you can hear the words that give you eternal life.  If you reject the Bible, then you reject life.  The kids will come with me early today, so at this time, the kids can come with me to Children’s Church.

Overall, I think the day went well except I forgot to call the lady who was going to teach the lesson to the toddler.  She had a death in the family last week and was at a funeral and I totally forgot to call and remind her.  It was too late before I remembered.  I also should have gotten here a sympathy card.

Here's one last picture of me in my role as Sadie.  Note the price tag on the hat.