Will repented sin be brought up in Heaven as "paid in full?"

So this is a question I know that many of us have thought about and to be honest I thought that i knew the answer too. I remember going to a different (i dont want to put the denomination) church with a friend when i was in 5th grade and hearing about the repercussions of our sin...how if i sinned then my children would suffer for it and when i got to heaven that God would show me my sin (they claimed that God would show me the faces of all of those that I didn't share with that ended up in hell). So when our pastor was asked this by one of our church members he decided to preach on this topic. He titled his sermon "Thank God for the Cross: God is Satisfied!" This was a very emotional sermon for him to preach for obvious reasons....the realization that our sin is paid in full should bring you to tears of thankfulness. I know adam and I were overwhelmed with a feeling of love for our God and this was one of those sermons that we actually talked about over lunch with our friends (joel, you know what i mean). So here it is....in my words. First of all, the church member told our pastor that she just kept going back to her salvation and wondering if she would ever see her sin again.
He responded with Romans 8:38-39 " For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to seperate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord".
In other words God's love for us is final and secure. To prove this even more, we looked at Genesis 12:2-3 which is God's covenant with Abraham GET READY, THIS IS GOOD STUFF!!! "

I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you And I will curse him who curses you. And in you all families of the earth shall be blessed".
So we learn that that from Abraham there will be many people who will form a nation that God will bless. But, in Genesis 15: we learn that Abraham and Sarah are not able to have kids and Abraham is worried that Eliezer, the son of one of the servants of thier household will be the heir of Abraham. God comforts him and says
" This one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body will be your heir"- vs. 4
God tells him that the # of offspring that will come from him will be like the # of stars in the heavens . Abraham asks God how he can know these things are true and here is where the covenant is made. Abraham is commanded to bring a heifer, a goat, a ram, a turtledove and a pigeon and to cut them in two, except for the birds. In ancient covenants the two who were making the covenant would walk between the cut carcasses, affirming that the same should happen to them if they broke the covenant. God had different plans for the covenant between he and Abraham though. While Abraham was waiting for the next move from God, God caused him to fall into a deep sleep where he revealed to Abraham that he would not see the promise of this blessed nation played out in his lifetime. He would die before the blessed nation would reach the promised land. God put Abraham to sleep because the covenant did not involve any promise on His part. He would not walk through the peices as a pledge.When Abraham woke up he saw a burning lamp and a smoking oven passing between the two peices of the carcasses. The burning lamp is Jesus-he is called the light of the world and the smoking oven is God-when an offering is completely done all that is left is smoke....the smoke symbolized the satisfaction of God. Therefore instead of God making this covenant with Abraham he made the covenant with himself. Instead of God and Abraham walking through the carcasses, God and Jesus walked through them...the covenant was that Jesus would die for our sin and God would be satisfied with it. God promised in this covenant that Abrahams descendents would be heirs of this promise.....WE are the HEIRS OF THAT PROMISE....OUR sin has been taken care of because of the covenant between Jesus and God. God knew that Abraham couldn't keep this covenant with him....Abraham is human and would die, and b/c of that his part of the covenant would be conditional. We see that this is true in Hebrews 6 vs. 13
" For when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself......vs. 15 " And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise". vs. 17 (this is the GOOD PART) Thus God, determing to show more abundantly to His counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us.
The two immutable things are God's promise and the fulfillment of it.....the oath of cofirmation that is the end of all strife, GOD IS SATISFIED.
Isaiah 53:10-11 tells us this " Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grieft. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see the labor of His soul, and be SATISFIED. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, For He shall bear their inquities.
Isn't that powerful, to know that our salvation doesn't rest in God's commitment to us, but in His commitment to Himself? Therefore we can rest in the sacrifice of Christ, and God's ability to keep his promise. We were judged as sinners at Calvary. We are judged as sons now. We will be judged as servants at the Judgement Seat. Don't let the sin in your past burden you. Don't allow Satan to tell you that your salvation can be taken from you. GOD IS SATISFIED.

MAKE IT WORK

So my love for Brenna Glasgow grew so much that it overfloweth my cup last night when she called to tell me that in 5 minutes THE SHOW would be coming on. Project Runway has been a staple in our friendship for a long time and this season she and her husband have graciously allowed us to enter thier friendly competition. The four of us will each pick two people that we think have a chance at winning....individual couples decide on the reward should one of thier people win. Here are some comments from last night though.....First of all I think one of the requirements to be a contestant this season was to have ridiculously bad hair...hair that is either asymmetrical, from the 80's or should only belong to a bird of paradise. Secondly, the fact that there is a women named Sweet P who designs motorcycle club wear and has an alter ego named Mean P leaves me speechless. However, based on what we saw last night, here are our two picks....Adam-Christian and Kevin.....He likes Christian's attention to detail and i think he picked Kevin b/c he is the only straight man contestant. If Adam's picks dont hold out very long I will take full blame since he missed about 5 minutes of the show spooning me up a HUGE BOWL of fudge ripple ice cream. My picks are Kit and Rami.......suprising even myself, I loved Kit's red and black dress...its different and she seems focusesd. I picked Rami before he won,(i yelled it in adam's face so he wouldn't pick him as well) because of his draping and favorite choice.....i would definitely choose him to make my runway dress....if and when the public discovers my talent. Ok, thats all...can't wait to read the glasgow's thoughts. Peace out!!!

The Heavenly Life

Alright...this is my first post. I'll attempt to keep this short and I will try to get everything out and still make sense.
Well......I have been reading a wonderful book about heaven. God has opened up a new perspective on reading the Bible and thinking about our lives here on Earth.
We are all sinful creatures. It is a SIN that the first man and woman made by disobeying God's one rule. Now we are subjected to following a different rule amongst utter chaos (it is crazy out there people). That rule is to Love. I don't mean just hug your friend or pat your teammate on the bottom. I mean true love. It breaks my heart to hear about the struggles and turmoil occurring in our world today. Jesus came to show us that "Love" and to lead a sinless life in one of the most corrupt ages. That is why I accept Him as my Lord and Savior so that I might be able to live as one church in Heaven.
I guess that is why this book hit me smack in the face. I never considered how much more of a witness I could be by understanding where we all will end up. Let me start by asking a single question....What do you imagine heaven to be like? think about it......the details people. Ok, I thought we would be disembodied spirits hovering and living in glass houses while constantly praising God!
What could be better? Has it encouraged your spiritual evangelism to have this picture of heaven looming in the back of your mind? Have you ever imagined what Earth would be like if it were perfect? Well....that is what God made in the beginning! What makes you think that he will just give up his creation to the devil and sin! Exactly, many verses in the Bible (Revelation 21:1, Isaiah 65:17) suggest that Heaven is a New Earth and the New Jerusalem, where God lives currently in Heaven, will be brought down and He will live with His believers after sin is eradicated. He did not make our spiritual body then force the spirit into this disgusting sinful flesh. No, He created man in His image with spirit and flesh together to create a living being.
That is also why Jesus came to save us and the Earth. Jesus came as God in flesh and therefore to become the new Adam and pardon the universe from sin. From the beginning to the end the alpha and omega. Since God cannot be around sin He has sent His Spirit to live with us and Guide our life on this Earth. How amazing are those quiet times alone with God. Just imagine all of God together living on a physical Earth and being able to walk with Him for eternity. Don't you want to be a part of this amazing plan!?
I am too excited! I want you to ask questions and search through the Bible. Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!

Respectable Sin

So we have found a really great church home and in all honesty have become more involved there than we were at Parkway. I guess thats good since we prayed that God would use us while we dont have children and therefore have less responsibility. Anyways, our preacher is Calvanist and preaches strong biblical truths....like I have never heard before. The first Sunday that we were there he spoke about Christ as our witness. He summed up the sermon with putting up a picture from the Holocaust. The picture was black and white except for the jacket of a small girl that was red. Its a very famous picture and you may have seen it. Anyways he went on to say that during the Holocaust the Nazi's had this one method of killing the different families in groups..so children would see thier parents die right in front of thier faces. This in itself is horrible...but then you think How can anyone shoot a mother right in front of thier childs face? Our preacher pointed out that the Nazi's knew that there wouldn't be any witnesses because right after killing the parents they would move on to the children and eventually the entire jewish race. The Nazis believed that in the end there would be no one to stand up to testify on the behalf of the jews. Then he reminded us of how Christ came and was put to death and 3 days later rose again...to be our witness. How awesome is that...we have someone who is willing to testify for us, against our sin and give an account on our behalf. It gives us a whole new look into the many titles that our Lord occupies. He will be there at the judgement and the good news is that He is on our side...they couldn't kill Him, they couldn't get rid of our witness. ( I am picturing myself , along with Mark Murphy, yelling Amen and Hallelujah about now). That gets me excited......now on to respectable sin.
I have to preface this with some current news in Johnson City. There is a park, about 5 mins from where we live that has frisbee golf courses, soccer fields and a baseball park. A couple of weeks ago a undercover cop was there and was approached by a man who invited him to come to the mancave. The Mancave turns out to be a meeting spot in the woods of this park where over 40 local men have been meeting and participating in homosexual activity. Obviously, there were other things going on b/c all 40 men were taken to jail. Whats worse is that the next Sunday, the Johnson City Press put pictures of all 40 men on the front page of the paper...exposing thier sin. Two of these men were pastors and one was a deacon from various churches around here. Our preacher was deeply affected about this article and knew some of the men. That Sunday morning he was quick to respond and told our congregation that the only difference between them and us was the fact that our sin just hadn't been exposed to the world. Our church decided to reach out to these men by writing letters and offereing them a church family that would take them in and love them through this time and despite their sin. One man however committed suicide the very next day. Another one called our church and weeped to our pastor about how his wife had died 6 years earlier and now everyone that he knew had turned against him...he will be attending our church after all of his court hearings are over. Another man has called and asked us to take in his 18 year old son who has just announced his homosexuality. I believe that our church is really acting like the church in these situations and taken in the people that society is marking as sinners and the unloveable. Todays sermon was called Respectable Sin and our pastor quoted several men on this topic. One is by Jerry Bridges who wrote a book on sin and he says " We have become so preoccupied with the well-known sins of society that we have lost sight of the need to deal with our own more "refined" or subtle sins". Another quote is by sociologist Martha Witten "the concept of sin has been accommodated to fit secular sensibilities...the language frequently cushions the listeners from their impact...". Our pastor went on to say that in the church we tag our sins as "undesirable habits" or "problem areas" in our life. Isn't that true?....I know that I myself have trouble calling my sin, SIN. I instead ask for prayer about my small problems and then remind myself that I am human...like that is an excuse. He urged us to start our judging on ourselves and remind ourselves that admitting we were a sinner is how we received salvation. I was really hit strong by this sermon, not because I have so much sin in my life...and i do, but because of the way I play it down, not realizing how much I water down the crucifixtion when doing so. So to tie up all of this deep stuff...well deep for me that is, our pastor introduced me to a new verse today...one that i will cling to when enveloped in my own sin and looking for God's righteousness to restore me. Psalm 85: 9-10 Surely his salvation is near to those who fear Him, That glory may dwell in our land. Mercy and truth have met together. Righteousness and peace have kissed.
I took this verse to mean that those who renounce their sinful nature and put trust in Christ will receive salvation and participate in the future kingdom, and there mercy, truth, righteousness and peace will all be in perfect harmony in an intimate setting....I can't wait!!!

Something Creative

I couldn't think of anything great to name my first posting .....but, I have a lot of stuff to put on here. Im not sure how witty or creative these blogs are suppost (yeah, shane, joel and virg...i used it again) be. I just wanted to start with a nice little lesson on the importance of chewing your food. I have been choking a lot lately. In class the other night I swallowed a peanut m & m WHOLE!! I then proceeded to give myself the hemleich (spelling ?). Then the whole class became concerned and I was escorted to the nearest water fountain where I coughed up everything but the stupid peice of melt in your mouth chocolate. Then my good friend Aaron showed me how to do the hymlick (spelling) to yourself over the back of the chair, in case i should ever swallow another whole peanut m & m. Therefore I am committed to chewing my food more. Laura Edgar told me one time that the reason she is such a slow eater is b/c she chews her food more, so it will be smaller, and her body will digest it quicker and wont keep so much of it around to store. I dont know if I believe her, I really dont think she believed herself, but its a good theory. I also found out that if you chew on a peice of lettuce past the point of being able to swallow it then the nothingness that is normally the flavor of lettuce will somehow gain a whole new flavor of gross. I am just rambling now...thats what i do best...especially at work. I work in basement (until Jan 2nd..whew hew) and not only is it either freezing or super duper hot, there are a bunch of stray cats around here and when it rains all of thier poop washes up at our door...GROSS. I always am afraid that I will carry that smell to church with me. Anyways, I am now going to send Adam our blog name and password so he can get on and add his two cents...by the way that reminds me..I saw a guy...who will remain nameless...spell the word nonsense like this noncince.....now I know that i previously spelled highmlych wrong but come on....that word is super easy. Ok. Peace Out. And, dont make fun of the title of our blog.....there aren't a lot of kewl words that start with H...we will work on it!