Ahhh fiction...

If you had known me in high school, you would have known that the only things I ever read were the stuff assigned in school...if that. When I hit college, I started getting interested in reading more, especially theological stuff. Thanks to my super-awesome-my-facebook-status-changing girlfriend, shortly before Christmas I picked up and read through my first fiction book since...well. A long dang time. And it was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. If you had known me in middle school, placing that book in my possession would have meant condemning it to a firey death in a bonfire. However, I whipped through the series like apparating from one country to another and loved it (often staying up til 3 or 4AM to finish books). So to keep the fiction train going, I started reading the Chronicles of Narnia. I'm starting with The Magician's Nephew because it's the first in the chronological story of Narnia, and let me tell you, I'm loving it. Please, go get the series and start your reading with this one. It's epic. You will not regret it. I'm sure I will have more posts that come from this series. Also...read more fiction. And C. S. Lewis.

On The Sinfulness of Sin by Ralph Venning

First, I must thank James Brown for giving me something to read on our journey down to RUF Winter Conference. The Sinfulness of Sin was certainly an interesting read for what I got through, and I really want to buy it now. Anywho, at Eternal yesterday, Skip encouraged us to contemplate our sin throughout this week leading up to our annual celebration of Easter. Not in a self-condemning way, but to reflect on the meaning of the cross. Just how vital it is to us, and how beautiful it is to us. So to share a bit of what I will be reflecting on this week, and maybe to give you a little food for thought as well, I thought I'd share this passage from Venning. If you haven't felt a good dose of conviction in awhile, then you might want to brace yourself. But I encourage you to not stop there. The following is a description of why the cross is necessary when you think about it. But that's part of the point: we have the cross. And as Jesus himself said with his last breath, "It is finished." 

"Sin is the dare of God's justice, the rape of his mercy, the jeer of his patience, the slight of his power, the contempt of his love. We may go on and say, it is the upbraiding of his providence (Psalm 50), the scoff of his promise (2 Peter 3:3-4), the reproach of his wisdom (Isaiah 29:16). And as is said of the man of sin (i.e. who is made up of sin) it opposes and exalts itself above all that is called God (and above all that God is called), so that it as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing itself as if it were God (2 Thess. 2:4)." - Ralph Venning