I CHECKED MY DEMOGRAPHICS LAST NIGHT AND HELLO READERS FROM RUSSIA!!!!!
This is the second session bit from Wednesday, a lot of people were nodding in this session because it was right before sleeping time. I was sandwiched between my two friends and both were nodding pretty hard. I was half listening half poking my friends back to reality!
So yeah! My sermon notes weren't so detailed so this post will be shorter. But I hope I can still get the point of the session across to those who want to listen!
Alright! Lezz gooo!!!!!
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Day 2 17th May Wednesday
Session - Walk pt. 1
The passage for this session is Ephesians 4.
The theme of the next two posts is learning to walk it right, as in learning to walk our life right in Christ. How many of you guys have been subjected to earthly expectations?
Expectations such as WEALTH, FAME, BEAUTY, POWER. Most parents nowadays want their children to be able to achieve those four things(perhaps not beauty or fame so much) and so set up their child's life in such a way that they end up walking a path that is not right.
Some of you may be protesting and saying that the path is not incorrect, but necessary. Yes, it is necessary but when the expectations of the world become your idols, then that is not right.
In Ephesians 4, our speaker highlighted two words which were in Greek for us - peripateo and mataiotes. Any Greek readers? I would love to know how to pronounce the latter XD.
Why these two words though? It could be any other complicated Greek vocabulary. Peripateo means to walk, to behave, and to conduct one's life. Mataiotes is a word to describe something that is devoid of truth and appropriateness, perverseness or depravity. So when you put the words together(which Paul is describing some of the Ephesians) it means to walk in a way that is perverse or depraved of the light of God.
Basically, with less complex words, it means to walk in futility. And one should not walk in futility because it pulls one's path away from God.
It deviates from us trying to "walk it right".
Our speaker gave us the example of Brian Stewart's testimony. I don't really remember what he said... sorry.... I'll try and look for it though!
Oops, I can't find it, but it was vaguely about Brian Stewart of CBC News changing his walk to suit the path that God has given him.
So the first part of walking it right is not to walk in futility, or in other words, don't walk in the way the world has set you up to walk and don't bow to the idols that are the new earthly expectations that the world wants you to have in your life.
That sentence sounded very convoluted. There were small group questions, but I don't have them written down... actually, for all the coming posts, the small group questions will be replaced by devotions out teachers have given us.
So, Wednesday's devotion...
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The passage for the devotion was Ephesians 3:14-21, and we were called to reflect on how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.
This ties into yesterday's post on the session.
God has a plan for everyone, and he doesn't leave anyone out. His love is so infinite, and unimaginable and amazing that perhaps through these little deep posts of mine that I might be able to preach the gospel like this. Maybe God's plan for you is to be a Christian after reading this.
I don't know.
But I am sure that through checking my traffic demographics, you readers in Hong Kong and Canada and Russia and the USA are most likely to be "Gentiles", people who were excluded from the great plan of salvation.
But here we are, reading about this, and some of you I would assume that you are converted as opposed to us "Gentiles" being excluded from the Jewish culture because we aren't in the plan of God's love and grace.
Christ died for all, not just a single nation, a single culture, a single ethnicity. Christ died for the whole world, and that's pretty unthinkable. The world is so big, filled with so many people, however, God has counted every single hair on our head.
That is God's love for you and me and to those who have not yet come to know his name.
That is how wide and long and high and deep God's love is, it is as high as the sky and as deep as the Mariana Trench and as wide and long as infinity.
Are you ready to accept his love which will never run out?
Okay, that finishes day 2, for real!
Stay tuned
and BYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
