Tuesday, August 2, 2005

Good Morning!

Good morning from Chicago - another clear and hot day here.

Don't forget that our site on the web -- www.leapclass.blogspot.com -- has the current daily email, plus all of the back emails posted, plus links to other information from the United Methodist Church.

The new unit for this week is Unit 14 -- Forgiveness

Focus Scripture for the Week: Luke 24:45-47

Then he opened his minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations"

Today's Scripture: 1 John 1:5-10

Today's Discussion:

-- this is an interesting take on the forgiveness issue. This passage challenges those who are resistant to asking for forgiveness for their sins because they think they don't need to ask for forgiveness.

-- in this passage, it essentially says that if you think you have not sinned, you are making God out to be liar, because God's word says that all have sinned and fallen short. To claim otherwise is counter to the word of God.

-- so, in the last couple of days, in both our scripture and our other reading, a couple of scenarios -- there are those who feel that their sins are so great that God can't forgive them, and then there are those who feel that they haven't sinned and are not in need of forgiveness. In the first case, we are saying that our sins are too big for God, in the second, that we have not sinned at all. In these cases, for these people to be right, God has to be weak, or wrong or a liar.

-- looking at where we are so far this week, one thing that I draw from this is that the barriers preventing us from asking for forgiveness are ones that we put up ourselves - barriers built based on unwillingness to admit that God's forgiveness is a gift, freely available to all and that God can forgive.

-- as part of our daily prayer life, we ought to ask God for forgiveness for those things we do each day that put distance between us and God.

Question for Sunday:

-- Do you know of someone who thought that they were beyond God's power of forgiveness?

Today's prayer request: Our bosses and others in positions of authority at our workplaces.

Part of our Christian calling is the idea of serving faithfully in our roles as employee and citizen. Let us pray for those in authority at our workplace -- pray for them to make good decisions, to be fair and to be honest.

Today's class member prayer:

Krystle Hatton

Have a great day.

Jay