Week 4

Eileen Hartzler was our speaker this week and she talked about Grace and Holiness aka Forgiveness and the Cross. I got a deeper understanding of "the fall" and how because of Adam and Eve sinning we have separation of man, from God, from himself, from other men and from creation. I haven't really grasped the separation from creation before. I used to question why God would allow natural disasters to happen, because we all know that He is capable of stopping them. But the thing is, those disasters are not what God had planed! It all goes back to the fall, where "man" chose to disobey God and as a result of that, separation from creation, and as a result of that we have floods, hurricanes, disease, and other natural disasters.
God see's that we are sinners and need a way back to having a relationship with Him. I really liked how Eileen said this: God came to this earth to live the life we couldn't live and die the death we should have died. God took his wrath and anger our on HIS SON! because of the cross we are now legally declared righteous! Think about that... we are and will always be declared righteous, even when we really aren't worthy and living our a righteous life. We don't even how to earn righteousness, actually we don't have to earn anything at all. I so desperately want to show God all the good things I am doing, trying to earn His love and acceptance. And that is why I have a hard time accepting Grace, because I feel like we have to earn it. I can't earn God's grace because He has already given it to me.

Ask yourself why do you have a hard time accepting God's Grace? Is it because you are prideful? or because your have control issues, or you don't feel like your good enough? Do you struggle with working to please God? Are you competitive with other Christians, always comparing? Just like Elieen challenged us to answer this question and so I'm going to ask you to do the same. Ask God why you have a hard time accepting His Grace.

We had a fun weekend. Saturday we went Carambloa beach! There was a nice resort we had to go though to get to the beach. The weather was perfect, sunny and hot, great tanning weather! The water temperature was just right and the waves were awesome! Soft sand and hammocks to nap in! SO GOOD!
Sunday we branched out and attended a local island Baptist church. Non of the staff had ever been to this Church before, but the pastor knew we were coming. So we get there and follow a lady into the sanctuary where a guy appeared to be preaching and we were interrupting! Oh the best part is we walked in the front of the sanctuary where all eyes fell on us, even the man who was talking (i mean if i were a local i would be staring too, at the line of 11 white people walking in and interrupting their service.!) The man who was speaking welcomed us and said something about us being late and did a small recap of what they had gone over in their Sunday school. Thank goodness he was finishing up Sunday school! The service started off with some intense worship, loud singing, moving around and some clapping, it was awesome! The paster was a rather large man with a sweet islander accent. He defiantly kept our attention with his pacing around and extremely loud voice! It was a great experience!

Hope all is going well at home! I really miss the crisp fall weather, the beautiful leaves and barn parties! live it up at home for me please!

love and miss you guys at home!
morgan

On the beach with Alyssa!
Waves! :)