In the United States, someone blogs every 3 seconds...this is one of them.

Ha ha, ok that's not a real fact, but I just wanted to pay homage to Strong Bad.

Retreat Stuff

I suppose I've waited long enough to write about this. So I won't talk about everything that was talked about at the retreat, but mainly just the stuff that stuck with me. There was this great message on forgiveness. The text was Luke 17:1-10. Upon first reading this passage, it doesn't seem like all of it is talking about the same thing, but let's look closer.

So verses 1-4 are basically saying, people are going to do rotten things to you and you must forgive them. Many times we have struggles in our lives where a person will offend us so many times where we're just like, "that's it, no more!" and we feel a sort of bitterness towards that person from then on. It's easy to justify it in our minds, but the Bible says forgive them anyway. Even if they sin against us 7 times in a day, we are to forgive them. So when the disciples hear this, obviously they struggle with the concept and they say, oh this is so hard, this is beyond my capability, "increase our faith." Sometimes I've asked God for this where there is just a trial too difficult that I say, "I'm not ready to deal with this in the way You want me to, increase my faith, so I can obey You!"

Then Jesus responds to the apostles in verse 6. He basically says if you had the teeny tiniest bit of faith, you would have the power to rip this huge tree out of the ground and have it planted in the sea just by saying so. That tree would obey you. So the disciples are probably wincing when they hear that because Jesus is saying, you already have all the faith you need to accomplish what I have asked you to do. So that's one punch, now here comes the uppercut in verses 7-10. So imagine you're a servant and you've been working all day out in the field for your master. It's hot, you're all dirty, and you're really tired, and above all, you're hungry, and when you've finished working outside, the master asks you to cook his meal and after you have finished with that, then you can cook your own. And you do that because you're a servant. Your master isn't going to respond too kindly if you say, "but I've been doing all this work and I'm tired and hungry too. I need what is due to me." What good are you as a servant if you're not going to do what's expected of you?

Likewise, we are servants of God and must do what He asks. Sometimes it is hard or inconvenient for us, but His expectation of us is to obey regardless and so we must forgive others out of obedience. If that's not enough for you, just think how many times you have asked God to forgive you for the same thing and yet He always does. He is willing to forgive you as soon as you ask. Can you imagine what it would be like if God said, "I'm sick of you constantly apologizing for the same thing over and over. Haven't you learned by now? Perhaps my salvation should go to someone more deserving than you." Aren't you glad our God is so gracious and patient that He can forgive all of our sin? We should extend that same grace and patience to others if we are to be His people. Check out this parable.

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Another thing that stuck with me at the retreat was just a small simple yet very visual and convicting analogy. We are to guard our hearts like it contains a valuable treasure. The Bible often refers to the heart yet it's not talking about that beating muscle in your body. The heart is everything that is you that isn't physical. By nature our heart is wicked and wants to serve the self so how do we keep our desires pure? The heart can only be influenced by what you put into it. And the only way to get input is through the 5 senses. Think of your heart as a city and there are 5 gates into this city. It is useless to protect 2 or 3 gates and forget the rest because enemies will get inside. Clearly some gates are more crucial than others. You're probably wondering, how does my sense of smell cause me to sin? Yet if the power of smell didn't influence us, then why is there such a huge market for perfumes and cologne? As Christians we often look at things and characterize them as being not that bad and so we let our guard down. But Jack Hughes (the speaker) made the best analogy and said, "Would you drink from a 5 gallon bucket of the purest water if someone had put a teaspoon of manure in it?" Of course you wouldn't. That's gross! Yet how often do we do that?

Look at Prov. 4:23. What does that mean? It means guard your heart because everything that comes from your heart will influence your life and project that life to others. If you fill your mind with garbage, you will only have garbage to offer to others. Don't you know, Christian, that what you speak of shows what's in your heart? "From the heart, so the mouth speaks."

There is this cool book written by John Bunyan called The Holy War. I haven't read it yet, but it's on my list. John Bunyan is probably best known for his book, Pilgrim's Progress. His writing style is pretty straight forward. You don't have to read too deeply into his symbolism to see what he's saying. If there is a character who represents cowardly people, he just names him Coward and stuff like that. Anyways, The Holy War is about a town called Mansoul and how there were five impenetrable gates that protected it: Ear-gate, Eye-gate, Mouth-gate, Nose-gate, and Feel-gate. Sound familiar? Anyways, there was an enemy and his name was Diabolus and he wanted to take the town for himself and dwell there. Well, his plan wasn't to destroy the gates because that would be too hard, but if he could convince the people inside to open them, then he could take the town. Well, his plan succeeds and the rest of the book is about getting him and his riff-raff out of the town. Sounds like a cool story to me.

Guard your hearts! See you next time.