LORD have mercy, Christ have mercy

Lately, God's been revealing my depravity and sinfulness.  By society's standards, I'm a pretty good kid; I don't engage in illegal activities, I'm not violent, pretty much I'm a stick to the rules kind of girl. Often when I go to pray, I've struggled to think of many things that I need to confess.  Over the last few weeks, God's been changing my heart and opening my eyes to just how sinful I truly am.  On top of pride (which is crazy evident by my prayer), God's showing me struggles with anger, bitterness, self-centeredness, deception, and a whole slew of other things.  I don't share this because of some need to confess my faults but because I want to confess God's grace.  As I discover more and more the depth of my depravity, I see more and more the depth of God's mercy and grace.  I learn the depth of His love for me, that as ugly and broken and messed up I am, His love remains.  And I'm learning that I am powerless to address my sinfulness without His grace and without Him empowering me to overcome my sin nature.  We live in a messed up world, my friends, but my God is bigger.

LORD, have mercy; Christ Jesus, have mercy; LORD, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Stained Glass Masquerade

Somehow at Bible study last night, we got on the topic of religiousity in America.  Isn't it interesting that the Bible teaches that we are a broken and depraved people yet our church culture often teaches us to act as if our lives our perfect?  Does this mean that our churches are teaching us something that is unbiblical?  How did masking our imperfections become such a part of our churches and Christian community?  What are its roots?  How is it affecting our understanding of the Bible, of God, and of His people?


Part 2
After talking to Nathan about this, he informed me that throughout history, all of the nations surrounding Israel recorded only their successes in history.  Israel, on the other hand, recorded both successes and failures to show the strength of God.  Which of these does our church better resemble today?

Busy

This is a word that frequently takes part in my vocabulary, though I'm quickly beginning to despise it.  How did we get to a point where our lives are controled by our adgenda?  How did we let activities take control of us rather then us controling our activities?  Granted, there are events in life that we simply must do though we might not always want to.  However, this becomes a problem when we're so consumed with everything that we feel like we must do that we no longer invest in the things that we see valuable.

The idea that we have no control over our time is a lie.  We invest our time in what we find valuable, invest it according to our top priorities.  We set our schedules; they don't control us.  How different would our world be if we no long hid behind the excuse of, "I'd love to, but I'm simply too busy", and were honest in telling others that the request or activity simply isn't priority for us?  How would the things that we say yes and no to change?