Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Week in the Life of Clint:

Clint's mission if he chooses to accept: 5 sermons in 6 days, yikes:
Pastors Schedule this week:
Tuesday: Prep for funeral service
Wednesday: Funeral, and Premarital Counseling
Thursday: Prep for Good Friday Sermon
Friday: Good Friday Service and Cornerstone study (17 pple came!)
Prep for Sun Morning
Sat: Prep for Sunday
Sunday: Preach it! 2x
Monday: Crash and burn


Our kitten is now a cat! Her nickname is "Niz" :)


So I've been studying the book of James, and this verse totally confused me cause right in the middle of chapter one about trials, he says this:

9 But let the brother of humble circumstances glory in his high position;
10 and let the rich man glory in his humiliation, because like flowering grass he will pass away.
11 For the sun rises with a scorching wind, and withers the grass; and its flower falls off, and the beauty of its appearance is destroyed; so too the rich man in the midst of his pursuits will fade away.

So I looked it up, and Heibert (my favorite commentary) describes James's description of a rich man who while reaching out for the riches with his hands, he dies. It reminded me of the Pirates of the Carribean ride right at the end where there are these 2 skeletons pushing up a box of treasure out of the cave as you exit. So vivid. Right in the middle of storing up our treasures on earth, we die. So right after I'm feeling the full impact of this verse I am in the car with a friend to pick up her little boy from a birthday party. Its about a 20 minute drive through beautiful fields with horses, with trees lined up in perfect rows, and we end up at this house. Or mansion should I say. It had a 180 view out the front of hills looking out to the sea with one of those neverending pools and horse stables, and her house was...well awesome. And I was coveting it. And this verse was still on my mind, and it struck me right there that I hadn't applied it, even though I knew it!! At the end of the day it doesn't matter if you have an amazing garden with a 180 view of rolling hills. Its your heart the Lord looks at. And its harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. People here are rolling in the money, and right next door are people living in tin shacks. Its amazing. Materializm is huge cause it shows your status. And sometimes its easy to play the "in the midst of the persuit" game, as James puts it! But its all the Lord's anyway. As Paul would say "I am content with little and much" Amen to that! :)

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