Metro Bible Study

I should be sleeping, but instead I'm going to write more on my blog...I find that it's somewhat addicting although no one reads it except for Adrian. :)

Tonight I went to Metro Bible Study at FBC - Houston. I really like the speaker, Ben Stuart. He's very descriptive when he talks and it's easy to completely imagine the stories and illustrations that he uses. These past few weeks we have been doing a series in Ephesians. Basically, (I hope I get this all right) the first 3 chapters in Ephesians is about the new relationship we have with God through Christ. There is only one imperative in these chapters and it's to remember this relationship and the love that God has for us. Tonight, we segued into chapter 4, where Paul instructs us on how we are to walk in our new relationship with God.

It is interesting how there were many illustrations of us being Christ's bride both tonight at Metro and last night at Central. The concept of presenting ourselves to be beautiful and pure for Christ, as a bride does for her husband is a very important one. Ben just got married a couple of weeks ago, and his favorite illustration is to explain that after his and his wife's wedding ceremony, they did not go their separate ways. Instead they left the ceremony as a new creation, bound together in love. And this new relationship affects all aspects of his life now...from sleeping in a new bed to learning how to pop blackheads. The point is that once he entered marriage with his wife, he became steeped in this new relationship and this is how our marriage with Christ should be. Every decision we make is not our own anymore, everything we are and everything we are about includes Christ and is tied to Him.

Ben explained to us that when we are walking in this new relationship with God, it is not just me and Christ but a whole community and Christ. Ephesians 4 helps us to understand that we must preserve unity with each other in order to really be able to worship God. We need to learn how to show love for each other and to be tolerant, because we are all bound together in Christ and therefore, our worship is also bound together. And this is a good thing. We all have different strengths and if we work together as a group, we can build each other up and help each other....

Chapter 5 becomes even more intense as Paul instructs that we must forgive each other like Christ forgives us and we must forgive with the same kind of quickness and intensity. But it is easy to be flabbergasted at this command and wonder how are we to be expected to do this...? The answer is that we need to filled with the Spirit. There is no way that we can love and forgive like Christ on our own; it is only the Spirit that gives us this ability...

I thought tonight's talk was very good. It covered so many things that I need to work on - I need to learn to be more tolerant and kind to people. Too often, I can become impatient and frustrated with people when I shouldn't. I need to practice patience and love. It really hit me how Ben said that it isn't really practical to think we can be completely free to worship God after losing our temper with a brother or sister in Christ. So my prayer is that I can be the kind of person that Paul instructs us to be...a person who only desires to lift people up, not to bring them down...