Moses, Peter & Setbacks

         Lately this semester, my small group and I have been on a study through the book of Exodus and looking closely at Moses’ story and his relationship with God. We looked into how he came to be someone whom God decided to use to present His glory to the world. It was quite interesting as to the kinds of questions we've had so far.

Life with God

What exactly does life with God look like? I think that it looks like a life where we are actually listening to God, and understanding that He wants to give us. I also came across this video on the web a few weeks back and thought that it would sum it up better than I could.

Lost (Not the TV Show)

Taken from: Wikipedia

Today's Bible study with Mount Christian Fellowship has brought up a rather interesting topic. We talked about the parables of the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin (Luke 15:1-10), which made me reflect from More Ready Than You Realize a little bit and about being lost (I'll get into that later). What exactly do we learn from these parables? There are a few things that have stricken us.

First of all, taking a look at the first two verses, we see that Jesus is being welcoming and teaching sinners and tax collectors and the Pharisees and teachers of the law are rather disapproving of this ("But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, 'This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.'" - Luke 15:2 TNIV). I think that the Pharisees believe that Jesus is upsetting the status quo and they're rather uncomfortable with what Jesus is saying, even though what Jesus is preaching may be considered as a new way of interpreting the Old Testament texts. I don't blame them. But God doesn't want us to be living like lumps on a log, but to be active, learn and grow. So by looking at this reaction, what exactly does Jesus do? He creates parables to teach the importance of life.

Taken from: childrenschurch.wordpress.com/tag/parable-of-the-lost-sheep/

 The Lost Sheep and Coin help us to see that God loves and values everyone equally. After all, he did make us in his image. They explain that when a sinner repents, all of Heaven rejoices, or celebrates because there is now one more life being reserved to have a heavenly home in Heaven. To me, that gives a sense that as a father, God knows what's in our best interests, and loves us enough that he would sacrifice his son for us, so that we can have that better relationship with him.

Now, how does this passage relate to the book? If you took a look at what I mentioned from my previous post about being lost, you would remember that the author wrote about how we often refer to our Non-Christian friends as "lost people" and he wondered if the adjective of lost could still be applied to us. I think he's on to something as I compare the two texts as well as what's happening around me. Many of us are trying to understand our purpose in life, and have yet to reach where we fully need to be. So let me conclude by asking you these questions: "Are you lost? If so, shouldn't you pray that God gives you vision through the Holy Spirit so that you know where to go next?"