Domingo... and Nadal

Today was fantabulous! Praise the Lord...

It started off well, going to the park with Sarah, although also not so great, because I discovered Spenser to be quite ill. Sarah has been reading "Velvet Elvis" by Rob Bell and we had some good discussion about the book (scroll down for a mini-sermon). We headed to church after the park and it was great! Edison, my friend Christian's dad, preached and he did a fabulous job. One of the things that influenced my opinion was my ability to understand most of it :-). Praise God for that! He spoke about the obligations and responsibilities that come along with the rights we have as believers...

After church we were reunited with Spenser and went to the Coupe's house. After treating the patient a bit, we ordered Chinese via phone and then headed out the door to pick it up. The four of us (Mr. Bill, Sarah, Spenser, and I) drove to the restaurant, picked it up, and then dropped the ladies off at the bus station. Please pray for Spenser as she's probably still not feeling well and has classes tomorrow! It was a lot of fun having them here and I'm thankful to God for the blessing of this weekend...

After a pleasant lunch with just Mr. and Mrs. Coupe and myself, we turned on ESPN to see if the Wimbledon Final was still happening (Federer vs. Nadal). All I saw on the screen was 6-4, 6-4, 6-7, 6-7, 8-7. My jaw dropped. We turned on the TV and two serves later, Nadal won one of the best matches in the history of tennis. I had the privilege of watching most of the match later in the evening and both players lived up to the hype. The level of competition was ridiculous... praise God for the sport of tennis and for players as good as these two!

After hanging out for a bit and reading more of "Mere Christianity" (man... I'm learning quite a bit and plan on sharing when I don't already have a "sermon" in mind for the blog), I headed to church via my house for a quick bite. Because John Mark and I were four minutes late last week and everyone was there, I made sure I was there early today and, you guessed it, no one showed up for the first 10 minutes. Only one person was there until 12 after, when another showed up. About 20 minutes past the hour we had four women and one little guy (tagging along with his mom) including two new people! Dina and Jackie are there names... we had a fun time studying the Word of God, although there was great potential for awkwardness as I had the privilege of explaining the words "circumcision" and "stripping" to the women. Mmhmm........ thankfully it wasn't too bad. I didn't make that big a deal of it so they didn't either. Some good lessons were learned, like how we were dead in our sin but Christ has stripped the sinful nature from us and given us new life by His death on the cross.

I returned to the Coupe house and watched tennis magnificence. Now, for my "sermon":

One of the things that really stuck out to me from the little I read in Velvet Elvis was a very simple truth that we seem to take very lightly... "Christian" means follower of Jesus Christ. This does not mean "one that attends some church once a week". This does not mean "one who attempts to pray a few times a week, maybe goes to church, and cracks open the Bible once or twice a week". This means one who is passionate after Christ and seeks to emulate His every move.

There are quite a few people who think that the word "Christian" had bad connotations to it (ie hypocrite) and I would agree that it has a few in some places. But the reason it has these connotations is because people don't take the real meaning of the word seriously. Philippians 2:5-11-

"Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped
But made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death-
Even death on a cross.
Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

Can you see how seriously God takes the name of Jesus Christ? If we have the name "Christ" in what we call ourselves, "Christians", we need to take it more seriously. If you don't remember how Jesus lived, take a gander at any of the four Gospels. 1 John 2:6 tells us our responsibility as "Christians":

"Whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did."

Wow... if you consider yourself a Christian, you are claiming to live in Him, and so you MUST WALK AS JESUS DID.

I am a Christian, but I also know that I am as far if not further away from perfection than most. The Lord is continually revealing to me areas that I need to work on, and I am thankful. This is not a condemnation or a judgment I'm trying to pass, but more of an encouragement and call to action from all the "Christians". We need to begin to take this more seriously! We cannot just go through life thinking that the Christian life is "safe, soft, comfortable, and easy". Was Jesus' life like that? So please... stop what you're doing right now and pray that the Holy Spirit would reveal to you areas of your life in which you are not living like Jesus, pray that the Lord would give you the wisdom and discernment to go about changing that (right NOW), and pray for the strength to follow through with His will for your life.

Go.







Praise the Lord for His gift even though we fall short of His glory (Romans 6:23/3:23). Like Paul, I would agree that I am one of the "worst of sinners" (1 Timothy 1:15), but the grace of God has allowed me the opportunity to turn from the sinful nature and to "do good" (1 Peter 3:11). Jesus, I'm not perfect, but am thankful for Your power shining perfectly in my weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9)... may we all continue to seek You and to live as You did for the greatest glory of Your name and get people serious about being a "Christian" again.