Sunday, May 25, 2008

New Attitude Conference '08 Session #1: Joshua Harris
















Title: "Ripping, Burning and Eating"

This evening we had our first session. The excitement level was high and we raced to find good seats. Needless to say, we found some pretty good seats. The worship was wonderfully God-focused and the message was challenging and a great kick-off to the conference.

The basic question that was asked during this session was, "What is your attitude towards God's Word?" The challenge was that we should respond logically and emotionally positive towards God's Word (i.e. - if I say that the Bible is from God, then I should revere the words of Scripture and respond accordingly whenever I read the Scriptures).

Joshua Harris exhorted us by using three examples from Scripture (two positive, one negative) on how to respond to the Word.

1. Josiah (2 Kings 22) - when Josiah was confronted with the Scriptures, he tore his robes and repented. God granted forgiveness and Josiah followed the Lord all the days of his life.

2. Jehoiakim (Jeremiah 36) - Josiah's son who didn't follow his father's footsteps. When confronted with the Word, he burned each page.

3. Jeremiah (Jeremiah 15:16) - Jeremiah, during a time of complaining, basically says that the only place he finds hope is in the Word. When he found the Scriptures, he "ate" them.

Below are some quotes that I thought were convicting and encouraging:

Subtle Ways We "Burn" God's Word:
1) Through ignoring it
2) Through ignoring parts of it for application (ex: focusing on passages of hope and neglecting passages that mention God's righteous anger)
3) Through how we listen to God's Word preached (ex: we focus more on the person preaching than we do the words of God being proclaimed)

Truths From Jeremiah 15:
1) God's Word meets us right where we are
2) Delighting in God's Word is sometimes something we must fight for
3) We don't love God's Word so that we can earn a standing before God. We love God's Word because he's given us a standing before him (v. 19)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

SOUNDS Good, can't wait to download! tell J thanks for standing up so i could see him in the pic!!
SIA says HI!!-K