We just had an awesome church service at Authentic. I don't know what was different tonight, but it was so awesome. I felt God so close tonight, closer than any other night, at least, as far as I can remember. We had great worship and then a great word on Nehemiah 9. We talked about covenants and the importance of a covenant. I learned that a covenant is like a contract, except if someone breaks a covenant they die. We talked about the old covenant God made with Abraham and how God made Abraham and His descendants (the Israelites) many promises, gave them many mercies, and blessed them abundantly. We also talked about how the Israelites ignored, disobeyed, and rebelled against God. And we talked about the new Covenant that was created when Jesus died for us.
It was really interesting how we approached this study. We first wrote down all the things God gave the Israelites in Nehemiah 9. Then, we wrote down all the responses from the Israelites to the things God gave them.
This really put things into perspective for me because I know we are much like the Israelites. As we were writing all these things down on the dry-erase board, I thought about my own life and how it resembled the Israelites. God has blessed me abundantly and given me so much and yet I continually disobey, ignore, and rebel. I'd like to think I don't intentionally ignore God, but I know I do.
As I thought about my life, I thought, "Gosh, I must really drive God nuts. One minute, I love Him, the next minute I'm ignoring Him, the next minute, I'm asking Him for favors. I must seriously drive Him crazy."
As much as I would love to think I am NOT at all like the Israelites, I am exactly like them. When I read about how God made them promises and then two verses later, they are doubting Him, I think, "OMG they are so stupid! I would NEVER do that! I wouldn't doubt!" But if someone read a book of my life, they would find the same thing. They would see God make me promises and then two paragraphs later me doubting what I clearly heard Him tell me.
I don't like coming to this realization, that I am exactly like the Israelites. I like to pretend that I would be better than the Israelites. I would like to think that I would obey God and listen and serve Him perfectly, but I know I will always be just like them.
This makes me feel bad. I feel bad that I can't do a better job. I feel bad that God created us and we fail Him constantly. I feel bad that His children constantly ignore Him.
At the end of our service, we had an in depth theological discussion about all sorts of things and my mind was overwhelmed. I am not an abstract person. I like concrete ideas that have steps and can be figured out. Anything else is hard for me to grasp. I came to the conclusion at the end, that despite me being just like the Israelites and failing constantly, and no matter what I think about free will or the rapture or death, Jesus still loves me and nothing can change that. He will ALWAYS love me no matter what I do, say, think, or feel. He will always love me, even if I am like the Israelites. And I will always love Him. I won't love Him perfectly like He loves me, but I will try.
That's all that matters.
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