Gods Passion

Passion was the topic of my pastors sermon today. Renewing or recovering passion. Hpw important passion is as a motivator to action. How do you find your passion??? it was a very good sermon. It got me to thinking about what is Gods passion??? I think from reading the Bible and reflecting on the entire story God tells in His book His passion is His creation and reconciling us back to Himself. It is pretty amzing to concieve that God became a human!!!! That He chose to leave His place in eternity in the fellowship of the Trinity and take on our condition allowing Himself to face all the temptations and struggles that we face and handle it all without sin. In 1 Timothy it says *God desires all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth* Karen at The Sword Is Still Out has a very solid post discussing this verse as well a few other issues.

I saw the movie * The KIngdom* yesterday. I highly recommend it handles so much of all the varying points of view concerning the war in Iraq, war on terror and the differences between moslem countries and the usa. I wont give anything away but the issue of religion,faith and God is dealt with to a degree. We have been reading the Psalms in a sunday school class I coteach for a long time now and last week a question came up as to how far does the forgiveness of God extend??? Is there a limit to Gods forgiveness??? I held that God forgave all but not all accepted it. The only way to not be forgiven is to refuse the forgiveness basically. Another in the class said this was wrong that God did not forgive all citing how He had the Israelites slay entire groups of people in the OT including women children and animals. Of course that was in the OT under the Old Covenant grace was not at work but law then.

So much swirls within my head. Listening to my pastor was tough today. He spoke of when he was in semianry and in preaching class. How he recalled God calling him to be a minister. I had planned on being in his position, not as a senior pastor but as an associate one. I have a pastors heart and do always want to encourage and care for those struggling or hurting whatever the cause may be. I just felt a lump in my gut thinking how i once was in a place where i was on the path of serving in a church and being used by God as a helper. How I chose behaviors which made me ineligible to be in that position and which went against what I knew to be right and good yet i still caved and in a very huge way. It stings even now it hurts even now I struggle with so much of the same thing even now. I find it hard to realize attimes God forgives me EVEN NOW

I cannot be more thankful for and to so many of you who have become friends and special encouragers to me fron interacting on this blog. I think its amazing how we can bond and become truly close even without seeing each other talking to one another and just communicating via our computers. Letters are always very special arent they???? Sooooooooooooo giddy to recieve a piece of mail from someone and open it!!1 Well to me blogging is just as good as a letter!!!! I am dobly blessed because I share this with my family, both my mom and sister. it is such a mix on here going from thrills to spills to chills and the ups and downs of a rollercoaster but thats life!!!!

God desires me to know Him. To walk in step with His Spirit. To take on the life of His Son. To love,deny and die to self,serve all,rejoice always,have an attitude of gratefulness and humility. Seems so often I get self-absorbed in my own hurts and pains, my sins and their consequences trivial stuff that ultimately doesnt matter at all. But God does help me to have those times where I can see His way and act as He commands me to and reach out to others. I pray He will help me to have that be my focus more and more that i can forget about myself praise His Name and worship Him like a worship song says!!!