nothing really

that was my first blog ever... and i really feel like i'm talking to myself in front of a bunch of people...don't like that

i think this template looks cool, but does anyone know what the 565 is for and how i can change it

offerings...

Talked about the idea of offerings at hungry Sunday night, how fractured relationships require some form of sacrifice, whether it be an apology or a gift or a service, to make things right.

The question I asked people to respond to was this:

“Can you remember a time when you hurt somebody or they hurt you so badly that it required either an apology or a gift of some sort to make things right?”

What was the offense?

I hit a girl in the head with a croquet mallot on accident

What was needed to make things right?

I apologized and visited her in the hospital

What was the offense?

Was caught by two of the girls I was dating with another girl at the skate rink

What was needed to make things right?

Got kicked by 2 of the girls with skates and ask for forgiveness from the third

What was the offense?

I shot my roomate with a BB gun. It was an accident.

What was needed to make things right?

I bought him dinner.

All very nice…

Well, if you were there, you heard me try to translate this to Cain and Abel trying to make things right with God by bringing an offering…blah,blah,blah (if you weren’t there, this won’t make much sense)… but I don’t think I adequately described the end of the matter, and the more I think about it, the more it changes me.

I think Abel really got it. Abel really lowered himself before God in an admission that he owed God everything. I think Cain was bringing this offering not in an attempt to lower himself, but to raise himself up in his own eyes, in God’s eyes, and in the eyes of others. I do that all the time. I use my spiritual life to prop myself up, to make me and God and everybody else think I’m ok and I’m acceptable. It’s probably not all that often that I come to God like Abel did and any type of offering or worship that raises me instead of lowering me probably just takes me further from God instead of restoring me to Him.

(This last paragraph doesn't look different on purpose, I just don't know what I'm doing)
And I think Abel did it because he understood that the wages of sin is death. That when God said, “Eat from this tree and you’ll die”, He wasn’t kidding, and He wasn’t punishing out of anger, that’s just the way it had to be, for reasons we can glimpse but only God can understand. And until we come to grips with that, these first 4 chapters, the rest of it won’t make sense.