ch.4 a

This next chapter starts out with the story of a gay man offering a christian (Rich Mullins) a ride to a camp while he was on a long hike. After riding for awhile, the gay man told Rich that he was gay, and Rich told him that he was a christian. And than began to tell him the gospel. He explained to his own surprise that you dont go to hell for being gay, any more than you go to hell for being a liar, a racist, or a thief. You go to hell because your rejecting Jesus free gift (A lot of this is taken right from the book) of grace that is sufficient for alllllll sins! Im hitting this head on. I had the blessing of meeting a young man named Isaac Peterson! Hes a drug dealer, he commited arm robbery, he slashed a guys face with a blade. But hes got a great heart!!! He was only trying to survive. Hes from the bronx, hes hurting, in jail. He tried to kill himself. After hearing the story, someone that I love a lot overheard me talking to a friend about him. As I declared hes a good guy, this person declared, how can he be a good guy? Hes a drug dealer! That angered me, I guess the true answer is that none of us are "good guys" like Isaac, and this unnamed gay guy, we are sinners. Sinners that God died for! Your past, present, and future sins have been paid for! God loves you! God can declare you righteous and holy, set apart for Him by His blood. All you need to do is accept Jesus as your savior and repent in true belief!

This next part talked about how sins have so much power when we keep them in the dark. God knows this of course, and His word talks about it in James 5:16.

" Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective."

See we all struggle with some type of sin! We are not alone in our failures! God knows your failures, and loves you anyway! And if we bring our sins out in the open to mature brothers and sisters in Christ, it will be an amazing blessing to you! There is freedom when we confess to God, and those we trust. A group of people in the ministry got together for the sole purpose of having a private time of confession. NOT FOR THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS!!! God forgives, and you confess DIRECTLY to Him, please dont get me wrong on that. But in the book after the meeting, this is what the author James Smith had to say. "Our faces looked different after that time. They shined. Later that night I thought about how all of us-literally all of us- struggle with sin. One thing was strange: even though I could remember their faces, I could not remember their sins. I suppose God couldnt either." What an awesome thought! God is truly forgiving, He truly throws our repented sins as far as the east is from the west. Its gone, His love sets us free :-)