I talked too much

      I talked too much on Friday night.   For those of you who know me you might find this hard to believe (except when I preach :)) but it is the truth!  It seemed like I talked on and on and on and on and on.  My mouth was dry.  My throat hurt.  I talked too much!  Why?  I was trying to explain to my 6 year old son Ethan the game of football as I took him to his first vikings game on Friday!  Have you ever tried to explain football to someone who really has no idea about any of the rules of football?  It is exhausting!  I have watched, enjoyed, and played football for a good part of my life!  I love it!  I understand the game, the rules, and what both the offense and defense are trying to do.  When you know something really well, it can be hard to explain in such a way that someone who is clueless about it can understand.  One example of how this proved to be true at the vikings game!  It was a boring game, too many field goals and not enough touch downs!  Throughout the game I kept quizzing Ethan about how many points a team gets when the kicker kicks the ball between the uprights (the two yellow polls that are sticking up into the air).  He had it down, the answer was 3, he knew it!  However, near the end of the game the vikings scored a touchdown tying the game at 9-9!  After the touch-down we kicked the extra point!  To Ethan this seemed to be identical to a field-goal because the kicker kicked the ball between the two yellow polls sticking up in the air and he excitedly exclaimed, "Daddy, we now have 12 points!"  I then had to explain to him that when you kick the ball through the yellow things after you score a touchdown it is only worth 1 point, not 3.  In the midst of explaining field goals, how far a yard is, how you have four tries to get 10 yards, field position, penalties, punting, kicking off, offense, defense, and on and on, I was exhausted!  However, I think Ethan walked away with a much better understanding of the game of football as a result of the effort I put into explaining it in a way that would make sense to someone who was clueless about all the details of football.
      As we were driving home from the game (which in classic viking fashion we lost on a last second field goal, because surprise our prevent defense for the one millionth time did not work) I was thinking about how explaining Christianity to someone who has no knowledge of the Bible, Jesus, God, is very difficult and time consuming!  However, it is incredible important that we do it!  As fewer and fewer people have contact with the Church, and the Bible, the more important it will be for us to learn how to explain our faith in ways that make sense to people who don't understand the Biblical language.  We need to know how to explain extremely important concepts such as sin, repentance, salvation, redemption, propitiation, justification, sanctification, faith, grace, mercy, who God the Father is, who Jesus is, who the Holy Spirit is, the trinity, and so forth!
       So how would you do, how would I do, in begin able to explain these concepts to someone to whom these concepts are completely foreign?  Do you know these concepts well enough to explain them to a four year old?  If you don't we need to keep working on your understanding of these concepts.  It is true that if you know something really well, you will be able to explain even really complicated ideas, in an easy to understand way.  Do you engage in theology?  Do you study the above concepts?  Do you discuss these with your brothers and sisters in Christ?  Do you ask questions about the above concepts?  It is easy when your life is surrounded with the above concepts that we assume everyone knows what we are talking about.  They don't, and we need to do the hard work of preparing ourselves to explain the vital concepts of the Christian faith to those who desperately need to hear the good news of Jesus Christ!  Talking too much once in awhile might prove to make an eternal
difference!

Faith Like A Child- Big girl beds, sin, and the throne of grace!

        We recently made the big transition with our two year old getting her crib taken down and replacing in with "A big girl bed."  For those of you who have never gone through this transition, let me share with you a bit of the ramifications of moving from a crib to a "big girl bed."  A crib has four sides which confine the child.  Meaning:  when the child is in bed, they will stay in bed (unless they begin climbing out of the crib but that's a story for another day).  A big girl bed has..... no sides.  Meaning:  They can get out of bed whenever they want to.  The first several days of the switch were great and we had no issues of Anaya getting out of bed when she was supposed to be sleeping.  However, in recent days that initial success has come to a screeching halt.  It was a few minutes after putting her to bed and she came walking back out into the living room, so we calmly reminded her that it was bed time, and that she needed to stay in bed until morning.  A few minutes later she was back in the living room, and this time we were a bit more stern about reminding her that she needed to stay in bed.  A few minutes later, she was back again.  This time we were even more firm and stern with her as we picked her up and quickly deposited her back into her bed.  

      A few minutes later...... here she comes again!  However, this time it was different.  She was walking incredibly slow and she had covered her face with her blanket because she knew very well that she was doing something she was not supposed to be doing and she was hoping that if we did not see her that she would avoid getting in trouble.  You can probably guess how well that worked for her.... it didn't!  That was the last battle of the night.  Mom and Dad finally proved victorious as Anaya did not make another appearance until morning!  There is nothing quite like the calm and quiet of a house full of kids who are sound asleep!  

      The whole event got me thinking about sin.  We all sin, that is not a surprise to any of us!  We all have sin that we seem to struggle with more than others.  That one sin that we seem to commit time and time, and time, and time, again.  It is often with those repetitive ongoing sins that we attempt to hide them from God.  We no longer want God to see our sin, we no longer want to ask God for forgiveness for our sin because we have come to him time and time, and time, and time again with our sin and we are to the point where we just want hide our faces in hopes that God will no longer see our sin.  

      Friend, this brings us to the beauty of the Gospel message.  We can take the blanket off, we can stop trying to hide our sin from God (because it doesn't work), and we can allow Him through His spirit to transform us more into the likeness of Jesus.  If you have entered into a relationship with God, through Jesus, when God looks at you He no longer see's your sin, He see's the perfect righteousness of Jesus which has been imputed (placed) on you!  How incredible is that!  It is not because you deserved it, it is not because you only came out of your room 3 times last night, it is totally and completely the grace of God given to you, a sinner.  

       Hebrews 4:14-16 is the perfect description of what this looks like, "Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are- yet was without sin.  Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need."  Friend, approach the throne of grace with confidence, take the blanket off your face and go before God knowing that you will find the grace and help you need!