Ezra

So... recently I just finished reading Ezra and while there are a lot of interesting points this one at the end really struck me. So Ezra led the second of three waves of returning exiles to Jerusalem. They were sent back to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. Well upon returning many of the Jewish people had intermarried and born children with people not of the Jewish faith and of the different lands. Okay, so you might not think this is a big deal...but the Jews who returned to Jerusalem were to separate themselves from the other peoples. The point of keeping themselves separate is to keep them pure and not let the ways of other peoples and their beliefs cause the Jews to stumble into sin. Well needless to say that is exactly what was happening to the Jewish people and thing that was most surprising was that the leaders of Jerusalem were leading the pack of intermarriage!!! I thought it was neat how all of Jerusalem came together and admitted their sins before God and sought to make things right. The people realized that this sin that they had committed was so huge that it would take a while to make things right, but they were committed to it and they eventually made things right. I thought that was very interesting and neat! So many times we hide our sins and hope they go away. Or even confess our sins to God and hide our true selves from the body of Christ. But here is a people who came clean with eachother admitting their sins publicly and in front of God. (They even recorded everyone's in particular and their confession of intermarriage in the Bible!) The other really awesome thing is that these people realized that their sin was so huge that it wouldn't fix itself over night. I make that mistake a lot! I think that with a wave of the magic wand that everything will be better and I won't have to deal with the results of my sin. But that is so wrong. What the Lord's people knew was that it took honesty, humbleness, and commitment to follow in His ways and truly get rid of the sin that they had committed. So that is my prayer, that I would be honest, humble, and committed to God in order that He might be at work through me and so that I can continue to discover the blessings that He bestows on those whose complete trust is in Him. I pray that I would have a sacrificial kind of love, less of me and my stupid ways of sin and more of Him and His amazing love! Well that's kind of what I was thinking about today.
Right now I am in a coffee shop with my friend Maggie and tonight we are going to a fun movie! I am currently still working on support and sent out a TON of letters. Next week I have a lot of phone calls to make but I am trusting that the Lord is walking before me in those conversations. I like being home but at the same time I am so ready to get started in ministry work!!!! So I am very excited to be going to Virginia at the end of the month to check things out and do some support raising there. I think it will help spur on the excitement of it all! I guess its now time to do some real work! Uuugghhh! God bless everyone!