Pew Bible pg. 655

Church today was kind of a butt-kicker. But, evidently, that's what I needed. So, here are some things that hit me today....

First of all, the passage the pastor used was Matthew 10:24-42. The first section of verses talks about how we will be persecuted as followers of Christ. We see how some thought horrible things about Jesus and how he was persecuted...obviously if we are going to follow Him and spread his teachings, we're going to run into some trouble sometimes. So, this is not exactly the greatest news...not really a motivator for evangelism. However, we have to read on. The good news comes in verses 26-31. They're saying hey, life's not going to be easy and by becoming a disciple of Christ you are setting up yourself for a possible rough road...but....IT'S OK. Here's the sort of 'duh' statement of the day...verse 28 says - "28 Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. " The pastor simplified it to say, "Don't be concerned about what man might do, but what God will do." Seriously, I get real caught up in what people think of me and what the 'price' may be for my open devotion to Christ. But it really IS a backwards way of thinking isn't it?! Why do I worry about man who is so limited in his power, but take little time to worry about what God thinks - God; the one with ALL the power. So, that was the first butt-kicker.

The second thing that caught my attention was verses 37-38. I'll write them out here and then give a little background.... "37 Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; 38 and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. " Background (short version :) )- James and I are in constant conversation and kind of argument about when the 'right' time to get engaged is. Sometimes it is hard for me to clearly articulate my reasoning for thinking we need to wait a little longer. This is where these two verses hit home. I inserted the phrase their boyfriend/girlfriend into verse 37 in place of "his father or mother." It then read....anyone who loves their boyfriend/girlfriend more than me is not worthy of me. For some reason that statement hit me kind of hard. I need to make sure that God comes before James and James needs to make sure that God comes before me. I'm not sure either of us is fully at that point right now. I guess it makes me think that this is why we need to make sure our love for each other doesn't make our decisions for us. Overall, I want to be worthy of Him and putting my love for James over my love for God is not worth losing that. I guess to go a little further than that, the pastor went on to quote a man who was talking about how we don't necessarily have to have these rigid boundaries between love of God, family, and others. But, here's the idea to consider, "If you love God right, you'll never love another person wrong." I want to learn how to love God right...and through that, ultimately, I do not want to love James wrongly (is wrongly a word?- o well).

So...there ya have it. Church was good today but it gave me a ton to think about and I'm really tired. I should probably go and try to be 'productive.' Yeah, I know that usually when I make a statement like that I'm never actually going to get around to getting work done..but it's an optimistic statement for the moment.....
- - Jennifer
....whoa...I called myself Jennifer...that seems unnecessarily formal...o well...I'll leave it...today I guess I like it...