Thanks for making me feel a LOT better :-) btw, it's been fun toting you around :-P haha.
Thank you so much for choosing us, giving us such amazing things. What I must remember is, it's all for you. You deserve it. Not to us, but to you!
Love,
Revelation 1
v1 Jesus is coming soon. God wants us to know what's gonna happen, so he tells John. Woot! (Ironic that, when Jesus told Peter what kind of death he would die, Peter asks about the ONE person who isn't martyred. Of course.)
v3 pay attention.
Grace and peace from GOD! Awesome! That's something I feel I could never get enough of.
To Jesus. AMEN!
All the peoples shall mourn b/c of him. Not all non-Christ-followers. All people. Why? I dunno.
Awesome vision starts. John's in for a crazy 21 more chapters :-)
Romans 1:1-7
1Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God— 2the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures 3regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, 4and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. 5Through him and for his name's sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith. 6And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.
7To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints:
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
God promised this gospel beforehand. Pretty much since the fall :-) He told it through the prophets, and the prophets were right. And because they were right, my dad is a Christian. Ok, that's not the only reason, but... Hey, this is a good website. It has all the prophecies and stuff on it. Click HeRe. Woo that's fun.
God promised the gospel beforehand. Why? Because we messed up "Plan A." And God wasn't about to give up on us. His love is awesome. His love is amazing. His love is huge.
Jesus was from David. Jesus was from God. The former one we have genealogical evidence. The latter is harder to know for sure. But Jesus proved it when he rose from the dead. Only Sons of God can do that. God approved Jesus' sacrifice by raising him from the dead. A lot happened that Sunday morning. :-)
We call people why? FOR HIS NAME'S SAKE. We don't do it because he told us to. We don't do it so we can be rewarded. We don't do it so we feel like good Christians. We don't even do it to hear God say "Well done, good and faithful servant." Why? Those are all ME reasons. We do it because he deserves it. Simple, and yet as hard, as that.
In the first place, we need to be calling people. We've received grace, we are now children of God. We have apostleship now. That's a weird churchy word. So I look it up. And every single one of those definitions (except for the nautical term?) is all about great awesome churchy people, early followers, higher status in the quo of the church, etc. But every single one of us have received apostleship. We're all "higher" Christians called to call. It's not for someone else to do.
Obedience that comes from faith. We start with faith in God, and then obedience comes from that faith. See Hebrews 11 for more details. Especially if you want details on the result of faith and obedience. Ok. Faith and obedience. Doesn't sound too hard. HAH! Impossible without God. I'm pretty darn sure.
I am called to belong to Christ. Can I say it again? I am called to belong to Christ. This opening should feel pretty good right now. I have grace, I have apostleship, if I have faith and obedience, lots can happen. I belong to Christ. God wanted all this to happen so that he could show his love for us. I should feel pretty special. But what I cannot lose sight of is that my faith is in him. I have grace and apostleship because of him. I obey him because he deserves it. I am a servant to HIM. I belong to him, so he can do what he wants. Not what I want. I MUST remember that.