Sin

I am fascinated by people they call hoarders.  They often have homes full of junk, paper, trash, and even rotting food and are unwilling to get rid of it.  It becomes especially perplexing when folks come into to help, point out the problem, give them some wise counseling, and even volunteer to clean up their home throwing away the often stinking refuse, and they still resist the help.  Jesus gave His life on the cross certainly to show us how much he loved us, but even more he did it to forgive us our sins, enter our world where we hoard sin and its guilt and its effects,we are way too often defined by these piles of what we have done to ourselves, to others, and what has been done to us.  The standard of the clean up, the forgiveness of sin, is the cross.  We can be set free for the asking.  “Grace greater than all our sin”, and the standard of God on a cross is sufficient to clean up the little messes our lives can easily become.  Matthew 26:28″ This is the blood of the covenant, which is to be shed on the behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins!”

24 Hours that Changed the World

This Wednesday, February 17th, is Ash Wednesday, the first Day of Lent, the season that leads up to Easter.  For the next 6 weeks we will be looking at the last 24 hours of Jesus life, the few hours that led to and included the crucifixion.  What about those hours, something as egregious as a crucified Jesus, changed the world, led to 2 billion people claiming the Christian faith.  He was betrayed, doubted, and denied.  Yet somehow, those moments on the cross draw us to Him.  Can someone love us this much?  Is there more to this than just a cruel death?  If I have rejected these claims, should I reconsider them?  If I have embraced the claims of the cross, how should I respond?  Why, and how did a piece of wood stuck in the ground on an insignificant hill outside Jerusalem 2000 years ago change the world, and can it still change me?