Nugget

I think I'm going to dedicate this week's blogging to nuggets from church this morning (if I can remember them all week). Unfortunately, I don't have my sermon notes with me, and I'm not taking them on my laptop anyway, so you get the paraphrased/abridged version rather than the "real thing."

Along the lines of my post last Wednesday, Pastor Alfred was talking about the excuses that we use for not reading and meditating on God's Word, and thus growing in our walk with the Lord. The two excuses he addressed were boredom and busyness. And the first step to growth is to call boredom and busyness the sins that they are.

And now the paraphrase:
"It's not like God is going to go, 'Ahhh! you used the "S" word (sin); you can't come close to me.' "

He went on to remind us that God loves to invite broken and repentant sinners into his presence; and it is there that we are in a position to grow, hungering and thirsting for the blessed life that God offers to those he died to save.

I just love the fact that he called sin "the S word." Isn't that true! So often in our lives we want to call sin a "shortcoming" or a "mistake," especially when we're not obviously transgressing a commandment. (In our confession of sin this morning, we asked God to forgive us for the good that we've left undone, as well as the wrong that we've done.) But it's when we see ourselves with God's eyes, looking into the mirror that Scripture holds up for us, that we can actually grow in faith and godliness.

UPDATE: I just changed the title of this post from "Nuggests, Part I" to "Nugget." That way I can perhaps diminish some of the expectation that this will be a multi-part blog ... given the fact that it's Wednesday night and there has been no Part II. The big problem is that my sermon notes are never handy when I blog.