| SUNDAY: Worship service at redeemer, what i learned... Well just woke up from our trip to NY for our softball tourney. Sunday we went to church at redeemer and heard a sermon on the 9th commandment from those stone tablets. It reads: "You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor", Deut. 5:20. This struck me at first b/c I thought to myself, I'm pretty honest with people and I try to give them truth in a way that doesn't "hurt". But Dr. Keller had mentioned that people don't need these factual statements that are misleading. They need truthful speech acts that can liberate them from being enslaved. For example, if you hurt your leg and I know it's hurt, but I tell you, "it's hurt, but you could still play basketball." The statement that I just gave to you is truthful, but it's misleading. It puts the person in this illusioned state of mind and reality becomes blurred. These subtle truths are seen all over our society, when dealing in business, buying/selling, relationships, etc. What should our motivation be for telling these people truths especially when we are 'summoned' too. Well we can look right into the bible and see our Lord Jesus when he was summoned by Pilate. Pilate asks, "Are you a king?!' Jesus replies in John 18:37, "You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me" To hear Jesus say that knowing that this would lead him to death shows me that he is my savior. His time to escape was there, but Jesus stood his ground and testified the truth and his words spoke just as loudly as his actions of surrendering on the cross. That is how we can love our neighbors, we speak the truth because Christ spoke the truth for us. It's not what we can do, but it's what Christ already did, that's the key motivation for us when we speak to one other. SATURDAY: Running roots Hmm a lot to recap =)  Well we won again, once again a great team effort. We had a couple of different people this time around and half the amt of people as last time. I kept thinking to myself what was the commonality between this year and last year. Something just special about the people we have and that we never get down on each other. And even if we did, we would back each other up in various ways. A glimpse of what our fellowship would strive towards as we seek God's kingdom each and everyday, not as individuals but as a team. We don't play to beat the other team. I've discovered we play for each other. Sounds like a cheesy line from a movie, but I've been known for that. Oh and I will try to post a video of the water dunking on phil!!! Stay tunedd
Thanks to the runnings roots organizers for a chance to play and add these little glimpses of what could be. Blessings! Gotta take care of the donation thing (my job) =P |
