Stemming off from Brittany's blog

From Brittany's blog - "people throw around the term "God is love" a lot. I've heard a lot of people say that and use it as an excuse to do whatever they want. So what does God REALLY want us to do when we see something not right in the world? It seems like I can't win sometimes. When you accept people for who they are is that the same as saying their lifestyle is ok.... or should you say something and risk being the judgemental holy roller that the world seems to hate?"

This of course is just my opinion stemming from what I read on Brittany's blog (go to brittany on "my favs" to read more).

To further expand on "God is Love" and to the question...."So what does God REALLY want us to do when we see something not right in the world?" I believe that we as Christians are supposed show God's love to others. We are not supposed to judge others for the choices they make. We are not supposed to gossip about others. I will be the first to admit that I am human and have been and still am guilty of both of those actions. However, to show God's love to those who are making sinful choices that you as a Christian may not agree with, shouldn't we love them as their person and show God's love to them? We shouldn't judge them for the choices they have made. We may not agree with those choices...but we are not the ones to judge them, that day will come for all of us when we are to be judged. I do believe it is okay, if the opportunity presents itself, to let people know that you are not "ok" with the choices they have made...that you don't agree with them, however, you love them just as Jesus does and go from there.

"You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things." Romans 2:1

"So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God's judgment?" Romans 2:3

"because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment!" James 2:13

These are good reminders....but the passage from James makes me remember that "God is love" his MERCY and GRACE will triumph over judgment, over sin, over US. We are God's people and HE loves us unconditionally, as a parent loves their child no matter the wrong they have done.

"who has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of HIS own PURPOSE and GRACE. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time" 2 Timothy 1:9

It is good for all of us, me especially, to be reminded of HIS awesome word. I love having access to the website www.biblegateway.com because it allows you to search for any keyword and a whole host of scriptures come up. It is a great tool to have if your bible is not with you at the time. I love it - thanks to LeeAnn for showing it to me!

This past weekend

I'm very thankful the weather was not bad in Dallas this past weekend. We got some good rain on Saturday and Sunday was cool, breazy and sunny. Great combinations if you ask me.

Not much to report

So there really isn't too much to report on my end. Basically life is good, work is good, church is good. We just got moved to another Sunday School department at church. The dept. is comprised of 19-29 year olds and there are three branches of classes (young married, singles and college). It's nice because Joseph and I are finally in a class with married couples our age instead of in the other class with couples who are older and already have kids and are experiencing different things in life than we are.

So Texas is expecting Hurricane Ike to hit it's coast line sometime in the early hours of Saturday. They have said all along that it will mean heavy rains, flooding, high winds, and possibly tornado's for the Dallas area. So we are in preparation mode to get our house ready in case we loose electricity and such. Instead of going to the football game tonight we will be working on that. Hopefully, we won't have any problems, but it's better to be prepared than not.

Well, that's all I have to say today. I'll talk later.