Sharks, sin, and the law

The law is like a warning sign you find at the beach. The sign of sharks is there to help us, to protect us, to guide us--and we have the choice to ignore it or follow it. The sign doesn't kill the shark or prevent it from being present at the beach, just like how following the law doesn't correspond to a sin-free life.

Warning sign: Law
Sharks: Sin
Beach: Life

Sometimes I get so upset about not being able to swim in the water that I start despising the sign and the one who put it there. This illustration came up last night as our LIFEgroup was discussing Romans 7.

Will you spend your life wallowing in sin and bitterness, or will you devote it to warning others about the sign? I hope I will always choose the latter.

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Delirious

delirious (adj): marked by uncontrollable excitement or emotion; ecstatic; filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy (1 peter 1:8); me I don't think I had a personal relationship with God until 2 weeks ago. There have been a lot of formative moments and experiences in the past 6 years of me considering the existence of a higher-being, 3 yrs of being a Christian, 1 year of living by faith, 6 months of serving on church leadership, 1 month of dire circumstances, each of which have been challenged and supported by specific instances in my life.* But it's only been 2 weeks of finding pure joy, satisfaction, and freedom in Christ (alone). Though it's been 6 years since I first stepped into a church building and 3 years since I accepted Christ, I was always afraid to admit that I didn't know what grace, freedom, repentance, or Jesus meant--in terms other than the ones I had heard or read--it was always a theory and never a reality in my own life. After years of doing chur

And just when you least expect it..

Today I went down to the food court with another intern and as I opened my box of sushi, I hesitated. Feeling as if there were too many eyes on me (I only ate with one other person -_-), I questioned whether I should pray before my meal, in fear of social rejection. After I prayed, she asked me if I was a Christian, and I awkwardly responded that I was. Then she said, "Finally! What a relief to know that there are other Christians!" WHAT THE.. I couldn't believe it. Here I was, sitting with a co-worker that I had simply exchanged cordial greetings with, now talking about God haha. Even though I was scared and honestly did NOT want to pray, God used a habitual thing like that to open up opportunities for me to invite her to small group and share my faith. Crazy how He works when you least expect it.

Honesty

If you're my friend, teammate, lifegroup member (or you have any context with me at all), I've probably hurt you. I've probably hurt you in the way I approached you, made you into an agenda, or seemed disinterested in our friendship at times when we weren't being "purposeful". I probably gave you the idea that I didn't value our time together unless we were doing something "productive"--and in all honesty, you were right--you read right through me, and knew exactly what I was thinking. Ever since experiencing God (personally) for the first time three weeks ago, I've seen how my skewed relationship with God has affected so many other parts of my life. Before, I saw having a relationship with God as a list of tasks--in my warped point of view and biases of being an already-too-task-minded person, if I wanted to know God, I needed to read the Bible, persevere in prayer, get involved in biblical community, and serve the church. If I did all these

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