Nashville

I mentioned before that we were leaving for Nashville on my birthday. For the past few months we have been helping out with the college ministry at our church and we went for a collegiate ministry conference with our friends the Braddys. We both felt led to work with college students. I know for me, it was because if ever there were a time where I needed that support system, it was in college. The opportunity kind of fell in our laps and it has been such a blessing in our lives and our marriage.

So on my birthday God decided to slap me around a little bit. You know when someone's sleeping and you slap them in the face and yell, "WAKE UP!" ? Yeah, it was just like that - a divine rude awakening.

David Platt brought the message Thursday night and he didn't hold back a bit. He "brought" it in every sense of the word. He began by talking about how ministry is often sugarcoated. In one part he said we often talk about how God loves the sinner, but hates the sin. That's simply not the case. He mentioned Psalm 5:5: "The arrogant cannot stand in your presence. You HATE all who do wrong." So my bubble was burst. We often underestimate God. We view him as a loving teddy bear that is there when we need Him when in fact, although he is loving and gracious, He is also a powerful, angry God with an enormous wrath. He is angry and our sinful nature needed someone to come and make us right with God. And He did.

Throughout the Bible, God's wrath is often referred to as in a "cup." The very cup Jesus prayed would be taken from him the night he was crucified. I guess my feeble mind always assumed that Jesus sweat blood because he was scared of dying and the torture that it would entail. But Platt talked about the cup and it became clear. God's wrath, his anger towards all of us sinful people, was poured out like a torrent on Jesus. Platt said, "He turned the cup of God's wrath up, swallowed every last drop, and threw it down and cried out, 'It is finished.'" That blew me away. I needed to be reminded about the gift that Jesus gave. He made us right with God by taking on our sins, our wrongdoings and I owe Him every aspect of my life and nothing less.