Currently Watching Pirates of the Caribbean - The Curse of the Black Pearl (2-Disc Collector's Edition) By Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Jonathan Pryce see related

Each Wednesday morning during the summer, the women of Believers Fellowship have a Bibly study at the church.  While the ladies partake of the Bible study, their lucky children get to attend the Happy Bible Club.  The Happy Bible Club, started by Bobby Blakey, is a fun-filled time that includes wild games of Happy-Happy-Sad, Sharks & Minnows, and Days of the Week, along with times of singing, teaching, and snacking.  This Wednesday I had the wonderful privilege of leading the Happy Bible Club.  During the teaching time, I talked to the kids about forgiveness.  I told them, "You cannot be truly happy unless you have been forgiven."  We talked about Psalm 32:1, where David says, "Blessed (Happy) is the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered."  One of the things that stood out to me the most as I prepared was that God's forgiveness is complete.  David talks about sin being covered.  I received a vivid mental picture of this today as I painted the laundry room in my house.  Our dog, Baxter, sleeps in this room, and therefore the walls were filthy.  However, as we painted, any stains on the walls were covered by a fresh coat of pure white paint.  All the stains were covered.  When I look at the walls now, I do not see the old stains, I only see the new paint.  The same is true for us.  When God looks at us, he does not see our sin, he sees Christ's righteousness.  "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."

Tyler and I continued our study of Galatians this week.  While we were discussing Galatians 4 at Taco Cabana, I was feeling quite nauseas.  I think it was only because there was a McDonald's right across the street.  (For background on that, see the May 19 entry.) Anyways, we talked about this chapter where Paul makes a comparison between a slave and a son.  Slaves are forced laborers.  They do not receive the blessing of being a son and an heir.  They serve because they are forced to.  The son does not do the forced labor of a slave, yet he received the blessings of being an heir of his father.  Slaves spend their days in toil, hoping that they will find favor in the eyes of their master.  A son inherently finds favor in the eyes of his father because he is his child.  Therefore, the service that a son does for his father is different; it is not done out of a mercenary desire, it is done out of love.  Thank God that he saved us from slavery to sin and adopted us as his own children. "See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are."

That's all for today; I'm off to play Strat-O-Matic.  Until next time, waste not.

I'm alive.