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Yeah, Robert!!! It must have been, as my dad would say, that "you just weren't holding your mouth right," whatever that means. Anyway, as Alan says, now you have no excuse."Pssst! Get a Mac!" :) I like what you said there, "just as the bread and wine...so are we joined to Christ without ceasing to be individuals..." That's good stuff--did you think that up yourself? I think I'm going to need to meditate on Romans 12 for several days before I'm able to even scratch the surface of what's there for us as a "rule" of life in community. What we discussed was very good, and deep, and deserves much more thought on my part before I try to pigeonhole it. One thing Alan said that I thought was particularly good was his differentiation between "conform" and "transform"; that "conformity" is an outside-in, more temporal kind of change, whereas "transformation" is an inside-out, eternal change. Good stuff.
I got a copy of the tape from my former church--the speaker's name was Desmond Frey (pronounced "fray"), and he's the dean of Rhema Bible Training Center in Bonn, Germany. I will post my notes from the tape on The Scriptorium, but one thing I will tell here. He referenced a couple of scriptures together that I had never thought about in conjunction with each other before; Isaiah 55:10-11 and John 1:1. Together they read,
"As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose of which I sent it......In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
This is also going to take much meditation to glean what God wants me to from it. What I have so far is this: Not only did Jesus accomplish all that He was meant to before He went back to the Father, but, in virtue of the fact that He lives in us, we will not go back to the Father before accomplishing all that He intends for us. This is very encouraging, but I am sure that there is much more that God wants me to learn through this before He's done with it.
Well, it looks like the Vine & Branches Singles Group (otherwise known as Brian, Matt, and myself) will be going to a Lexington Legends game tomorrow night. (They are our local "farm" baseball team and I have never seen them play. It should be fun.)
| posted by #Debi | 8:05 PM | |