Waodoni People

The story about the Waodoni People is very touching because it is a story of God's love and forgiveness being manifested between two people with a tragic history together. One man killed the father of another man, but the son of the man who's father was killed, forgave the murderer. This showed me the extreme case of God's love in action. You hear about how you are supposed to forgive people no matter what sin they committed against you, and we take this lesson and keep it in the back of our heads, but if someone killed my mother or father, and I met the person who did it, I probably would not forgive the murderer. It requires knowing the command from God that we should show EVERYONE love and forgiveness no matter what sins they have committed, just like Jesus did for us. No matter what sins we commit, Jesus will forgive us. By doing this to others, forgiving them and loving them unconditionally, we can witness to others without saying anything. This reminds me of the quote by St. Francis of Asisi "Preach the gospel at all times, when necessary, use words."

Unit 1 Review

Chapter 1
The Bible from Genesis to Revelation tells the story of God's purpose
The Bible is where Christians get their entire data base of knowledge about God and how to live their lives according to His will. But from this chapter, I learned something about the bible i never knew: the Bible acts as the story of God. It is a story of suspense, adventure, rebellion, violence, drama, but it is mostly a love story. It is a love story about His love for us. God is the main character of the story. This means to me that He doesn't just know what is going to happen, but He has an active role in the events that take place. He is not some petty god that ists back and watches without involving himself into the lives of the other characters. The story God tells in the Bible is about the history of the world. To me, this is crazy because to us, part of the story is the future, but to God it is the past. The coolest part is by reading the Bible we can see the future God has blessed us by giving a guide to the future so we can know that in the End we will win the spiritual war.

Chapter 2
God's purpose is relationship, redemption, and reconciliation
We, as God's children, crave his redemption, relationship and reconciliation. Because God made us, we have a God-shaped hole that only he can fill with these things. without them we struggle through life, something I have learned through experience. God wants to know us on a personal intimate level! what other god from other religions wants that? This excites me because now I can be confident that I will never be alone, I will always have a friend. from the bible we can see His relational nature by His interactions with His children. God wants to redeem us through Christ. This allows us to have a relationship with Him, something He desires so much, He let His Son die a brutal death. We are reconciled with God because of Christ, which means we are renewed, strengthened, and sustained. All of those things (relationship, redemption, and reconciliation) are vital to Christianity.
Chapter 3
God invites us to participate in His purpose; He blesses us so that we can bless others
God desires all His children to be reconciled and redeemed, so He can have a relationship with them all. This can only happen if we spread His message and let them know there is a God who desires to know them. This is our immensely important job. God's call is a missional call to all of us. He blesses us in many ways so we can bless others. We should use our blessings for missional and selfless purposes, not for selfish purposes. I have taken this bit of truth and thought a lot about it because i am hugely blessed. To me, this means i can use the money I am blessed with to donate to worthy missional based causes. Also i am blessed with the spiritual gift of teaching, so i could be a Sunday school teacher and teach underprivileged children about God. God instructs us to keep an eye on His plan when we read the bible, not on our own desires and pictures of purpose. sometimes this is hard because I use the Bible for personal comfort.

Chapter 4
God's story is unfolding as we see and participate in God's Kingdom throughout the earth
The Kingdom of God is a real and present Kingdom on earth right now. I never really thought about this until recently, it is hard for me to always be aware of spiritual warfare and God's Kingdom when it isn't exactly visible accept through the Church. Even then it is hard to remember/see. Tight now, our progression with spiritual warfare is that Satan's kingdom is currently ruling. But I have learned that we shouldn't be afraid because Jesus will come back and His Kingdom will be re-established. This gives me great relief, because Satan's kingdom does horrible things. The church is one way Christians can help fight awful things that devil does. Every time we get more people to convert, the closer the Jesus' return we are getting. THis is encouraging to me. The church's purpose is to gain more territory for God's Kings=dom. Once we have the most territory, we will win.

Chapter 5
The spread of God's Kingdom takes place in the context of warfare with Satan
I have learned through chapter 5 that this war is just a civil war. Satan used to be good, but went bad, and created his army to try and rival that of God. one day, God's army will defeat Satan indefinitely and His Kingdom will be whole once again. ways to battle the kingdom of Satan include first, receiving the Holy Spirit's empowerment, defend ourselves and God, and to rescue people from the Evil One. To me, receiving the the empowerment of the Holy Spirit is to hear his calling and arm myself for battle through truth and scripture. The armor of God would help me do this. The armor of God actually helps with defending ourselves and God, and rescuing people from the Devil. i never really understood that this was the purpose for the armor fo God until I looked at it in the context of spiritual warfare.

Let the Nations Be Glad by John Piper

John Piper wrote an article called "Let the Nations Be Glad" and we read it in missions class on Friday the 29th. I really loved this article because it really put the calling of God into perspective for me. In missions class we have been harping on missions and the missionary calling of God to all people, but this article reminded me that the church's, and consequently our, main purpose and goal in life is to worship and praise Him all the time. Missions should be a response to our constant worship and praise to Him. it should be the product of our excitement and on fire attitudes toward God. Piper boldly states that "Missions is not the ultimate goal of the Church. Worship is." Piper goes on to say that we only have missions because we have praise and worship to God. the Bible, especially psalms, commands and encourages us to worship God. We should worship Him when we are happy with Him and when we are angry with Him, because He works all things out for the good of those who love Him. Piper even goes to the extreme when he calls for a diminishing of missions and a "magnifying of God." I thought this was interesting because it seemed like he was saying there is too much missions and not enough God worshiping. this could be true, I personally don't know. It seems to Piper, and to me, that people do things because they see it in the bible, like going to church and praying occasionally. The dame thing happens with missions. People see/hear that God want people to spread the good new of His Son, and so they do it without their heart really being in it. They do it without praying about it and without being led by the Holy Spirit. This kind of missions needs to stop. We need to go back to the heart of worship, as the famous song says, and refocus our thoughts on Him so that when we tell others about God we know it is Him telling us to do that and not us doing it on our own accord. This way our hearts are truly in t and we are not just doing it because we want to be good cookie cutter Christians.