I love Sundays

This week was a long week (even though it was technically a short one). BUT I realized something this morning. No matter how bad, how long, my week was or how much work there is to do, etc. I look forward to my Sundays. They're like a breath of fresh air in my monotonous week. God and the company of saints refreshes me in a way that nothing else can. As Pastor Philip Mantofa once said, "One of the greatest joys I have in my life is to know and stand with the servants of God".
Anyways, so last night, I celebrated what I did accomplish, the things that I did do after the day was done. I didn't allow myself to think what I could have done, what I should have gotten done, etc.
And I was flipping through some old journal entries and came upon this one that I had written during a retreat of silence...and as I read it, the words resonated with my spirit and watered my soul: (an abridged version)
You cannot take my God away from me. You can burn down my church, you can take away IV, you can take away my friends and family, but you cannot take my God...
If you offered me the world, I would not take it. If I have not God, all other stuff is meaningless. He is the meaning of my life. He IS my life.
He is my reason for living, for being, for dying...
He is not just my strength when I am weak. He IS my strength...
I would not be disappointed if I turned down the world for God. Because He has given me the world and even more. It wouldn't be a loss. It's a gain more than infinity times over.
I would follow Him to the farthest reaches of the earth because He asked me to.

Other things that resonated with me at church today: (Pastor Huffman taught on Chastity: the discipline of abstinence...although these things are out of context so they will not seem to connect to this topic)

- "You must ask for God’s help. Even when you have done so, it may seem to you for a long time that no help, or less help than you need, is being given. Never mind. After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again. Very often what God first helps us towards is not the virtue itself but just the power of always trying again. For however important chastity may be, this process trains us in habits of the soul which are more important still. It cures our illusions about ourselves and teaches us to depend on God. We learn, on the one hand, that we cannot trust ourselves even in our best moments, and, on the other, that we need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven. The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection" - C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity

I love that quote. I emphasized the parts that stuck out to me. This quote (and Pastor Huffman this morning) finally helped me to understand why grace can make us bolder against sin. I finally understood Rom 6:1, 15: "What shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?...What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace?". Grace is what picks us up when we fall down and allows us to keep fighting that fight against sin with renewed determination. In boxing terms: our corner never throws in the towel because of Grace. If we do throw in the towel, then sin has won and we go down the path towards guilt, condemnation, unsatisfaction, emptiness, etc, a path that I've been on and it wasn't fun. But now, because of Grace, we don't have to go in that direction. We have a choice now: Grace.

A quote from John Piper's article "Gutsy Guilt" (it's in the Christianity Today):
"The distinguishing mark of saving faith is not perfection. It is not that I never sin sexually. The mark of faith is that I fight. I fight not with fists or knives or guns or bombs, but with the truth of Christ. I fight anything that diminishes the fullness of the lordship of Jesus in my life. I fight anything that threatens to replace Jesus as the supreme treasure of my life."

It is this attitude...the "I will not be dominated by anything" attitude. I am no longer a slave to sin, a slave to the things that are temporal and less valuable, the things the give me only emptiness, confusion, guilt, and pain.

This is something I'm still sorting out in my mind...but it was a huge light bulb today =P.

- oh and Steph, I haven't forgotten about your request for verses about discipleship (on a post awhile ago). I'm just a tad busy AND, since we talked about purity today at church, I wanted to discuss it with one of the pastors. I want my response to you to be God-centered with an interpretation of the Bible that only glorifies Him.

Alright. That's it for now =P. I have about 1/2 hr of my sabbath/break before more studying starts again.