Archive for September, 2008

The past weekend I attended CIU’s Grad Life Retreat for all the graduate and seminar students.  Friday and Saturday over a hundred students and professors gathered to be challenged by Dr. Robert McQuilkin’s words and spent time in fellowship together.  Many great friendships were formed as I tried to meet new people throughout the masses, even during a twelve-person game of settlers. The retreat ended Saturday at dinnertime while most people stayed around to chat.  Each person I talked to I asked one question, what was one thing God taught you this weekend?  After avoiding answering the question for quite a long time, I revealed with tears what the Lord taught be.  Here are the thoughts of a broken man.

Each day I wake up thanking the Lord where he has taken me in this life.  I excelled in the theology department at Malone College, traveled over-seas seven times to minister the gospel to others, worked in many different jobs, and now live in Columbia going to Columbia International University.  Through the knowledge and experiences God gave me, I think I’m a pretty decent fellow.  Many of you might disagree, however it is said we think too highly of ourselves.

Dr. McQuilkin talked about many things but the one that struck me the most was pain.  Conflicts, painful experiences and difficult time may be a struggle to us but as Paul says trials bring forth perseverance, character, and the other godly characteristics.  Dozens of experienced flooded my mind at firth but they subsided to make way for a single thought; I am a sinner.  Ephesians 2 states, “like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath” before we accepted Christ.  At the core of my being, I am a filthy, rotten sinner who can sin with the worst of them.  When Christ died as a sacrifice for me, I lived a life in blatant opposition to him.  “Thanks be to God, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us,” for you and for me.  Now I ask the Lord to challenge and change me daily, for I want to love and serve others as he did, something I am not capable of doing without the Spirit living through me.

The story of Hosea was brought forth in one of my small group discussion.  God called Hosea to marry a prostitute named Gomer.  After years of marriage including having children together, Gomer left her husband for her former lifestyle.  A beautiful and loving marriage was not enough to keep Gomer to her husband therefore she left.  At once, an overwhelming force of shame shot throughout my body.  Every time I had read or heard the story of Hosea and Gomer previously I thought, “How could she do that, after all the love he showed her.”  For the first time in my life I realized, I do the same thing to God every day.

God shows such a great amount of grace, love and mercy to me every single day.  Yet everyday I willingly decided to follow my desire or the desires of the world resulting in walking away from God, just as Gomer walked away from her husband.  I am the bride of Christ and I abandon my husband, Christ, every time I choose to sin.

Chapter 2 of Hosea describes God calling Hosea to reconcile himself with his wife.  Hosea sought after his wife resulting in the need to pay, to offer material objects to reclaim his wife.  What mercy; what grace.  After he returns home with his wife, Hosea loves her with every ounce of energy he possessed.  Everyday I choose to succumb to sin, willingly walking away from God.  But no matter how many times or different ways I find to betray Him, each time God buys me back from the world I chase after by the death of his perfect, sinless son.  “While when we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

The last session of the retreat communion was taken as a body. After the elements were concentrated, each table was given a basket of muffins and a pitcher of grape juice.  This was a new experience for me.  Asked to recognize Christ’s sacrifice, as stated in 1 Corinthians 11.29, we slowly and consciously ate the bread and drink the juice.  Robert McQuilkin, the speaker for the weekend, sat at my table with two people I knew and another I didn’t.  As I sat praying, I eventually took a bite of the bread.  Then another.  At this point, I began to cry, tears streaming down my cheeks.

Communion is usually served as a wafer or broken piece of cracker with a thimble size cup of grape juice.  One eats the bread and drinks the cup, as a representation of Christ’s sacrifice for our sins.  But here, this time, I slowly ate away at the bread, bite by bite.  Each bite taken, I realized how much of a sinner I am.  How everyday I choose to walk away from the Lord by willingly sinning.  Each bite I took, the pain of Christ flooded into my heart.  Every piece of bread was a lash or flog Christ endured for me, a sinner.  While I was and still am a sinner, daily running away from God, Christ died for me, my sin; the sins of my past, the sins I committed today and the sins I will commit tomorrow.  Christ died for me.

Each bite of bread and drink of the cup brought forth a wall of emotion, experiencing the love of Christ in a way I never experienced before.  Now matter how unworthy I feel, or dirty I become, it is insignificant.  Christ died for the ungodly, the scum of this world, sinners, of whom I am the worse.  That, that is a gospel.  One I will willingly follow to the ends of the earth.