Twenty Fifth

I read this blog today about "gaining credibility", as a young person this was an awesome post, good encouragement.

http://bradlomenick.com/2009/03/19/gaining-credibility/

Twenty Fourth

So I created a twitter account today, which just officially means I am now owned by the computer and all it's crazy antics. Here is the link http://twitter.com/Dun86 . I wrote a devo that I will be sharing with a group of high schoolers in a week, in FLORIDA! Tell me what you think:

I am a whore. But it’s not just me you too are whores. Shocked?

If you read through the Old Testament you will find a number of times when God refers to his chosen people as ‘His adulterous children.’ In Ezekiel 16, this is most clear. The Lord refers to His nation as a child who was born and then cast aside. Squirming, covered in her own blood, the child kicked. Her death would be imminent without intervention. But the Lord passed by, took notice, and began to care for the child. He cleaned her and dressed her in fine clothes and jewellery. He watched her grow from a young child into a young woman. And the Lord entered into a covenant with her, and she became His wife. She was very beautiful, because the Lord had made her so. Yet she shared her beauty with others, instead of reserving it for her husband. She took the attractive clothing her husband had made for her and transformed them into shrines to worship. She remade the gorgeous jewellery given her by her husband into idols to revere.

She has become an adulteress. A whore. And so have I. I am that whore.
In the Jewish culture before you were married you entered into a betrothal period. This was a period where a husband and wife were considered to be together but they could not yet share a bed. The betrothal included vows, and for either person to break those vows would make them an adulterer. And the results of adultery were divorce, or worse, death. After a period of time the groom would come for his bride and then there would be a huge and celebration then they would be brought together as husband and wife and then they could live the rest of their lives normally.

As Christians we are betrothed to Jesus Christ. We have entered into a relationship with the Lord. We have made a vow to love Him and serve Him alone. We have promised to be faithful to Him alone. At our baptism, we forsake all others who may pledge for our allegiance, and we become His bride. As a bride, I am supposed to love and place Jesus, my groom, above all in my life. But I fail in this. I sometimes love to sleep in more than I love to get up and have a quiet time of reading the Scriptures and prayer. As a bride, I am called to be faithful to my future husband. But whenever money gets tight in my home, I often find that it’s much easier to put my faith in worry than in the God who can meet all my needs. As a bride, I am expected to remain pure both in what I see and hear, but also in what I think and do. But my innocence is lost so quickly in the age of the media, combined with my lack of self-control. In actuality, whenever I embrace somebody in my life as more important than Jesus, I am committing adultery. If my job consumes more of me than my Jesus, I am prostituting myself out. If I forsake Jesus in order to indulge in any sin, than I am a bride who sneaks out on her groom and sleeps with another.

But here is the great part about our relationship with Jesus. Ephesians 5.25-27, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing [a] her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.”

Jesus loves His adulterous bride. So much that He gave His very life up for her. Our infidelity has dirtied us and our disloyalty has blemished us. But this sacrifice by Jesus frees us, who are whores, to wear white on our wedding day. We are forgiven as we walk down the aisle. We are in His eyes, the most beautiful and most precious bride that the world has ever known. And He is the one, by His death and burial and resurrection, who has given us that beauty.