Church (a slight ramble)

We went to the Greenville Free Methodist Church today for their contemporary service. Got there late, of course, but was pleasantly surprised by the music as they sang "your grace is enough..." Judah joined the Kindergarten Sunday school class in the "harvest kids" area that had a barn theme with bright colors, animal pictures, and even a pretend barn to play in at the center of the room. I returned to the open area multi use room that was their sanctuary, as they started into "His love endures forever....Sing praise...Forever God is faithful!" Toward the end of the song, the music leader started to read the Psalm that inspired the song with the congregation chiming in at "His love endures forever". I filled out the obligatory visitor card and put it in the offering plate as they started to sing my newest favorite worship song I have been rocking out to in my car from the 2010 Passion cd, Awakening:

"Healing is in Your hands"

No mountain, no valley, no gain or loss we know
could keep us from Your love
No sickness, no secret, no chain is strong enough
to keep us from Your love
to keep us from Your love

How high, how wide
No matter where I am, healing is in Your hands
How deep, How strong,
And now by Your grace I stand, healing is in Your hands

Our present, our future, our past is in Your hands
We're covered by Your blood
We're covered by Your blood

How high, How wide
no matter where I am, healing is in Your hands
How deep, How strong
And now by Your grace I stand, healing is in Your hands

Very powerful song and so fun to sing!!

The pastor was a kind looking man with a slightly hard to overlook "lisp" as he started his sermon. It was about remembering... and how hard it is even for the important stuff-- like God's word. He then went into the difference between a contract and a covenant. How a contract is an agreement for something in return for something else and that a covenant is a promise from one to another... and that even if the other is not holding up their end of the bargain, that it is still our duty to continue to carry out that covenant. He illustrated it by using marriage vows as a common covenant. A covenant that many people bail on because one person doesn't hold up their end of the deal. He explained how this wasn't Christ-like as God could say over and over different ways we have not held up our end of the deal like many of those broken marriages --- "He has fallen away from me." "She doesn't respect me." "He makes fun of me in front of his friends." "She left me."
God could say all those things about us, his beloved, and still he doesn't see any of those things, any of the millions of things we do that hurt him, as reasons to break his covenant with us. I thought that was a compelling point and how that applies even outside of marriage, but with any relationship. As Christians, as those seeking to be Christ-like, we have a responsibility to uphold our covenant to each other, to those less fortunate, to those that despise us, to those that fall in and out of favor with us--- we have a responsibility to continue to love them and be Christ to them. And those in marriages, when you and your partner are at odds more than not, you have an obligation to uphold the promise you made to each other(even when they are not). just like how we fall in and out of favor with God yet he continues to keep his promise to us... we must do the same with our partner that has wronged us.

He continues on to go through a few verses that I have read before, but don't think they struck quite as strongly as they did today.

Matthew 6:14-15

¹⁴"^S)">(S)For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

¹⁵"But ^T)">(T)if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.

Matthew 7:2

For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and ^B)">(B)by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.

Yeah, have you ever not forgiven someone??? have you ever judged someone? I am pretty sure I have.... at least once or a million times.... I mean that is packing a pretty hard punch that if I don't forgive, than God wont forgive me? Or that God will judge me by the somewhat fickle and ridiculous way I have judged others??

I feel like I never was aware of this part of the deal I have with Christ. Like somewhere in that salvation and my sins are wiped clean I kinda tricked myself in to thinking that I really didn't have any accountability once I accepted Christ into my life. Like you know, I am a lowly sinner, a stupid human that will make mistake after mistake and so yeah, Christ died for all that and that is the end, but its not. I mean not entirely. He did die for me, and I am going to make mistakes, but there IS some accountability.... its not all roses and frolicking when we get to heaven. We will be judged by how we lived. Yeah if we have received Christ's salvation than we are ultimately in the door to heaven, but we all will be judged. We all will need to stand before God and I am kinda thinking that I should take the time now to re-evaluate how I forgive and NOT judge others.... might make for a more pleasant entry... not to mention that if I can learn to really forgive others, NOT judge them (as is one of my most favorite human past times i must admit), and actually treat people as though there isn't a thing they can do to make me stop loving them and sharing Jesus with them... well, I am pretty sure that is what it is all about-- our purpose in this broken and dying world.

Micah 6: 8

⁸ He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.

There IS a requirement. There is a higher calling than just "phew- I'm saved and going to heaven!" And he says it pretty clearly here in Micah. To act justly (no judging!), to love mercy (yeah that stuff God so willingly gives us which we don't deserve), and to walk humbly with OUR GOD.