I'M MARRIED!!!

Wow. The last few weeks have been a whirlwind adventure. Cheesy to say, I know, but true. Got married, went to the AG youth convention called Momentum. It was interesting. More than anything it made me question the lines we draw in denominations. The kids looked exactly like my kids, they looked exactly like the kids at Ascension. It made me irritated with the stigma I was taught as far as AG goes. I did have one moment where I was somewhat uncomfortable with what the speaker was talking about. It had so much emphasis on money...it was a good message, the idea that if God calls you to give $800 and all you have to your name is $830, you still give that $800 and you have faith that God will provide. But his stories always ended with the person who was faithful getting some sort of giant cash back reward thing. And that seemed...I don't know. Dangerous. You can't give expecting to get back, that takes away from the act of worship that giving is supposed to be. And sometimes, to be fair, you don't get a giant cash back reward. Sure God takes care of you, but it isn't always how you think it will be and it doesn't necessarily mean you'll recoup that $800 x 7.

All in all it was a good conference and I really enjoyed spending time there with my *husband* and spending time with Erica and Trinity and Bella.

Then was the honeymoon and it was beautiful and everything a honeymoon is supposed to be. I read Lamb on the plane there and while there and finished on the plane back. I forgot how much I love that book. I also started reading Velvet Elvis, by Rob Bell. I am enjoying it a lot so far. One of the last things I read was that when a rabbi was teaching his pupils and he would ask them to interpret the law and someone interpreted it badly the rabbi would respond "You have abolished the law" and when they did good he would say "You have fulfilled the law" and how one of the first things Jesus said of himself was "I have not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it" - and that struck me as so interesting.

I am currently reading in James. I started in Florida and thought that I had a commentary I could come home and supplement with but alas, alack, I do not. Thus I will have to look into buying one. Meanwhile I have been enjoying James. This morning I was reading about faith without works. My whole life I've sort of gotten the impression that you are either on Paul's side or on Jame's side. Either you believe Paul and you're saved by faith, or you believe Jame's and you're saved by works. I don't think this is true. I think that Jame's isn't saying that works save you, I think that James is saying that works are a symptom of your faith. If you have a real, genuine, ALIVE faith and belief in Christ and the Bible, an outgrowth of that will be your works. How could you NOT help the poor, and love the lost if you claim to be a Christian? I think that Jame's saying that if you have no works it is a symptom of your dead faith. If you love Christ you will follow his commandments which will lead to works. The whole point of loving Jesus is to obey him, to obey him you will have to feed the hungry, take care of the sick, love the lost, be generous to the poor, these are works, this is fruit, this is the natural outgrowth of your faith. Faith without works isn't dead because there are no works. There are no works because your faith is dead. Works and fruit are the evidence of that faith. They are not at odds with each other, FAITH VERSUS WORKS, works are an extension of your faith. You cannot have faith without developing works.

I am praying to have an alive and vibrant faith, full of fruit and works, not so much for my own name, but because I want to live a life pleasing to the Lord. I want to have works as small and mundane as being polite, and expressing love to the people in my everyday life that they might see Christ within me. I want to have the joy and love of the Lord shining through me in everything I do. That is what I want.

The end.

*James 2:14-26 is the reference I was basing this on.