I did start addressing envelopes today for my sister's wedding invitations, it is something I very much enjoy though it can get long. I know one thing, I will never forget the address to my parents house, between doing this for Caitlin's graduation announcements, and my own, now for her wedding and most like someday for mine, it is permanently embedded into my brain.
Here's me right now, you can probably tell that I'm rather out it.
I've been doing a lot of studying lately based off some conversations I've had with others and things that have been being taught and discussed in our church. Warning: if you get involved in a doctrinal conversation with me and it doesn't get fully resolved(or even if it does), most likely you will have to talk with me again next time I see you so I can unload everything I went home and discovered.
Most recently my studies have been on a question I overheard two good friends discussing and which I later discussed with them myself:Did God create evil? It is definitely a difficult thing to think about. We have a God who created everything, nothing can be created outside of Him, so with that in mind it is simple to say yes, He created evil. But we also have a God who is holy and many question how a holy and righteous God who cannot sin could be responsible for evil. When talking with my father about this, he brought out the point that much of it has to do with our human perspective of evil, everything God does is righteous, and what man may intend for evil He uses for good. He has ordained that some men are going to be wicked, has prepared "vessels of wrath for the for destruction." If man had not fallen into sin, we would never know the richness of His grace and mercy.
Rather than questioning God in His creation, we should look at ourselves and who we are, how we can have the arrogance to question our God, on this note please watch the video I posted a few days ago by Voddie Baucham.
In the end, I believe the question of the creation of evil is not one we find a definite, biblical answer on. Nothing can be outside of His creation, He is sovereign over all things and holy and righteous in all that He does, who are we to question it? What are your thoughts? If anyone has done some study on this and has some Scripture to help clarify on this please share.
The other studies I have been doing has involved listening to a series of sermons by Dr. S. Lewis Johnson on Systematic Theology, this was suggested to me by my father and I have been very much enjoying it. My family has had this view point on studying Scripture, but this is really helping me to get a clearer view and solidify it in my own mind.
This past Sunday we listened to a sermon on the way to church by John MacArthur teaching on Romans 15:1-7, it was mainly teaching on some things that we had studied in church the week before and my father wanted to look into a little more as well as have our entire family hear some things on. Basically being about serving one another as Christ and how we in the church are to love one another. Many have a clouded or even mistaken view of how we are to love one another. Truly loving one another in Christ means speaking the truth to one another even when it may hurt the other person, some would call this harsh and question if it is truly loving, but for my part if I see a good friend of mine who is following after the things of the world I would rather say something to them and have them be offended than know that they may suffer eternal damnation and I never showed them the truth of where I knew they were headed. Loving each other as the body of Christ is constantly seeking to build each other up which means at times discussing doctrines that we may disagree upon, one or both of us has to be wrong. And we need to be able to discuss and consider the other person's side, able to defend our own. If we cannot defend it from Scripture than we need to seriously reconsider our belief. And when we do defend with Scripture be oh so careful to keep that Scripture within it's proper context, studying the entire passage, not just the one verse that may apply to the situation.
When we are speaking truth into another's life as part of loving them, I think we also need to look carefully at our own attitude coming into it. Are we doing it because we love them or to point out all the problems we see in their life and put them beneath us because of them. Many choose to be silent about issues and say it because they love them and don't want to hurt them, this is wrong and not truly loving that person, but very carefully consider your motive when you do feel the need to go someone on a difficult matter that you feel should be addressed.
"Love is an act of the will, accompanied by emotion, which leads to action on behalf of it's object." Voddie Baucham
1 comment:
Thought provoking...
God is not man and we can not always understand Him, but we know that He is good and he is merciful!
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