So I'm not sure if anyone reads this anymore. Summer rushed by with its typical craziness and somehow I have not signed in here in almost 2 months.
I am now living back down in SoCal, just a few blocks from where I attended college. I am attending and serving at the same church I went to during my time here. This year I will be teaching 1st&2nd grade on Sunday mornings and 4th-6th grades for Awanas. I haven't really worked with either age group exclusively before, so it should be a fun challenge and joy to serve those children!
I learned a lot over the summer... maybe I'll do a fun little history blog about it sometime soon. But for now I had something different in mind.
I have been in SoCal for two weeks as of today and just wanted to reflect on those two weeks a smigen. Working (almost) fulltime has shown me a more complete picture of what the 'real world' is and how desperately it needs Christ. Seeing customers and co-workers so far from Christ is a bit of a jolt to my system. The 'Master's Bubble' does exist, and I don't think its necessarily a bad thing - God taught me so much in that environment, but bursting somewhat out of that bubble I've seen the wretched state of a world opposed to Christ more fully.
Doing delivers for my job all over the LA county I see a lot of sin being proclaimed as a respite from worries and cares. Sex, booze, and wealth are the selling points for businesses. City life is different than old suburbia... the sins of both might be the same but city life proclaims its sins on billboards.
I've been thinking a lot about sin and how we interact with it, comfront it, deal with it. I've haven't come to absolute conclusions on everything just yet, but i think understanding the nature and severity of sin helps us as Christians understand the culture around us that hates the Lord. When people swear, act angrily, act loose, or whatever actions offend us... its good to be reminded that those people are not beyond the reaches of God's glorious gospel. God came to save the sinners not the righteous! Its the sinners who need His message of salvation. When people swear against our Lord we should not be surprised... those whom the Holy Spirit has not regenerated cannot do any good. The people that steal, lie, cheat... we were those people before God opened our hearts to his grace!
People seemed surprised by sin. My coworkers always complain that the world has gone down the tubes since their childhood. Has it? Has the world gotten worse? Why are people surprised that politicians aren't trustworthy, that other nations war against each other, that theives break in and steal, that crime seems rampant? Do we not understand the severity and awful digusting vile sin that has corrupted our very nature! NO we are not a good human race, NO we are not kind, loving, unselfish. Man is wicked. Read the histories of Germany, Russia, Darfur, Serbia, China, Japan... the men who committed countless atrocious acts were no different than the gentleman who lives across the street! Sin is devastating, far more awful than most people realize.
But praise be to God that he sent His only Son to die for our sin! Oh what wretched creatures we are, and yet how powerful is His love and grace!! I want to worship and cry out praises to His name for His love is higher than we can ever understand. Oh that our world would only fall to their knees in repentance and humbless and confess their sins to the One who grants forgiveness. He gives grace beyond measure to those that trust in His holy name.
