EMMAUS SCHOOL OF BIBLICAL STUDIES

Today we went to do a service project, painting a stain on this guy’s barn. It was a really great experience because it got all of us off the camp ground to serve someone, which is something we keep getting the desire to do because of how much the Bible motivates us to serve and today we finally got to get out there and do it. The reason we did this for Obadiah is because of the judgment coming on Edom for allowing Israel to be taken over and not helping them. Edom is a people group related to Israel because Esau’s descendents became the Edomites and his brother Jacob’s descendants became the Israelites. So because Edom didn’t help a brother out, we went to serve and help a brother in Christ out today. That is the correlation between why we did a service project today. I have thought about how I want to get more involved in the community and service projects prior to today but doing it today really made me excited about when I go home and things I want to be able to serve people with.

Joel is a prophet book that is warning God’s people of judgment that is rapidly approaching them. He speaks in an urgent kind of language, telling them to “wake up… weep and wail” (1:5) and “cry out to the Lord” (1:14). God’s heart is seen in the book because the response and the reason Joel is telling these urgent things in such a way is because the response God wants is repentance. 2:13-14 says, “return to me with all your heart… return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.” God is just and has to judge evil and at the same time his heart is always set on making a way for his people to return to him. Israel has horrifically sinned and they know they have sinned. God wants their heart and he wants to rescue them because it is who he is. Repentance is truly a beautiful thing that reveals the heart of God’s grace. I have never known how beautiful repentance is until I came to this school. It used to have a negative connotation of street corner preachers telling people to repent in an unloving way. This is not true repentance. It is wonderful thing to be able to even return back to God because we don’t deserve repentance. Repentance has become something that I cling to and want to walk assuredly in for the rest of my life. It is a red flag in my opinion whenever I sin in life and the kind of response I feel like having is to not run to God with it. Knowing who God is allows me to want to run straight into his arms in repentance because I know how wonderful it is that he takes me back every time.

Isaiah is a phenomenal book, full of so many great things. At the beginning you see the problem of sin and how it causes judgment. Israel has been turning away from God and being just like the sinful nations around them. Judgment has to happen on them and the other nations yet it is absolutely incredible how God loves. Isaiah 43:4-5 “Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you, I give people in return for you, nations in exchange for your life. Don’t fear, for I am with you…” God’s plan of judgment and redemption is for all nations. There is a problem with humanity (sin) and they cannot get themselve out of it. Matthew 12:18 uses Isaiah 42:1 to give understanding to what it means, “Here is my servant, whom I have chosen, my beloved, with whom my sould is well pleased. I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles.” The word “Gentiles” is referring to when Isaiah talks about justice for nations. This is important because I am not Jewish, but a Gentile and it is crucial to see that God had you and me, non-Jews in mind for his salvation for us, even in the Old Testament. Talking about God’s redemption, Isaiah 12:1-2 “You will say in that day: I will give thanks to you, O Lord, for though you were angry with me, your anger turned away, and you comforted me. Surely God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid, for the Lord God is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation.” God bridged the gap between sinful man and Holy God by becoming our sin. Isaiah speaks in past tense, which was a common thing for prophets to do when it was something so certain to happen. Isaiah 53:12 “…he poured out himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” Isaiah 53:3,5-6, 10 “He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity… But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all… Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain.” I love how the gospel is so evident like this in the Old Testament. It bridges the misconception gap that people have of the Old and New Testament so greatly. He really did have Christ in mind from the beginning and it doesn’t make sense but he loves us more than we can understand.

Something I see in Micah that is also in most of the prophets really, is that God’s love is in the judgment of sin. He has to discipline things not good because he is good and wants people to know him in a good way. Through the sin of unfaithful Israel and the judgment they are to receive for it, God is seen being faithful as the only source of redemption. Along with sin and judgment, he executes hope and restoration, which finally came to completion through Christ. God is the only one who can pardon iniquity and he does because he wants us to know him and know his goodness. I really like the key verse, which is 6:8 “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” It is interesting that he doesn’t mention to follow the commandments and I think that is for a reason because God wants our hearts and not a legalistic, religious system that turns us into not truly knowing God’s heart. He wants us to walk humbly with him and see his justice and kindness. It is a very good thing. Many times people have a hard time understanding how all the sin and judgment lines up with God’s character of being good, genlte, compassionate etc but it is important to keep in mind that God is not bi-polar. All of his attributes and characteristics work together for good, which is how he is just, loving, good etc.

Amos is the first prophet book we are starting and for the rest of the year we will be studying them. The prophets are books a lot of Christians today seem to ignore and stay out of except for the occasional verses like Jer 29:11 but I am just really excited to final understand the big picture meaning, the backbone and heartbeat behind all these prophetic books. They aren’t meant to be vague and scary to read but to allow us to see more clearly the heart of God. Amos is a mere shepherd who was told by God to go tell Israel that judgment was coming on them for being in idolatry and perverting justice. This book really gives you a glimpse into God’s heart for the poor and needy. They are people made in his image that he loves dearly and he hates injustice being done to them. He repeatedly tells Israel how he hates that they practice deceitful things like “buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals” (8:6). The Israelites are living in a “prosperous” time of luxury and their hearts are turned away from God. They worship other gods and they oppress the poor.

It is heavy on my heart how much this reminds me of our own culture. I am one that tries not to be critical and negative but I cannot ignore the fact that we as American people are living luxeriously while we promote unjust causes and trading so that we can have an oversupply of what we want. I know there is a deficit of communicating how much God hates injustice in the American church today. Most Christian Americans probably don’t even realize the severity of this issue and how they promote it. Many of the prophet books deal with how God hates injustice and I think the lack of the American church wanting to understand the prophet books has been a part of this problem. There are not very many churches that will preach from the prophet books. It can be discouraging to think how we can change injustice because it is such a complicated situation worldwide that seems like it will never completely be stopped but that does not mean we should quit promoting justice. I have made efforts in my own life to be careful what I buy. If the tag says “made in China” for example, it is not guaranteed that it is from an unjust sweatshop or not but if I have the choice to buy something else made in the USA for example, where I know it has not been unjustly manufactured, then I will choose to buy that instead. It is important to not just give charitably to organizations that give to those in need but to also be in awareness of where our money is going when we buy things for ourselves. It is also important to pass on to others the importance of this idea and I think as word gets around, change can happen and I believe that the small things I do in life like this can have effect on the world and it can start changing mindsets collectively. I think of Mother Teresa and how her simple mindset of wanting change has made a difference. She wasn’t looking for fame but justice and change in individual’s lives who were in desperate need. She gave her whole life to this and it is such a beautiful thing to see the results of it.

1 and 2 Samuel are actually one book that got split into 2 because of how long it is so we studied them together. There is so much in it that I could write forever but I will just focus on one really great part. 2 Sam 9 deals with the story of Mephibosheth. A little background: Saul was first king of Israel and didn’t fear the Lord. His son Jonathan and this guy David were really close friends. David had been anointed to take over king after Saul by God instead of Jonathan as heir. So that in itself is strange that Jonathan would love David as much as he did. Saul hated David and tried to kill him all his life. After Saul and Jonathan died and David is king, David wants to know about any survivors related to Saul so he can show them kindness. Jonathan’s son Mephibosheth, who is crippled in both feet is found and brought to David. It was proper in those days to kill all the remaining relatives of a family of the king you overthrew. So in a way, Mephibosheth “deserved” death or it would have been ok to do so since he was related to the former king Saul. So Mephibosheth enters King David’s presense probably trembling with fear for his life, useless and unable to do anything for himself. David tells him not to be afraid and that he is going to show kindness to him. David makes Mephibosheth eat at his table with him everyday from that day on. Mephibosheth asks David why he is doing this to him, a “dead dog.” Through this story, God’s grace is greatly seen. You and I are Mephibosheth. We are useless, crippled in the feet, dead dogs that don’t deserve to be eating at the kings table but God the great king of all invited us to be with him always and we did nothing at all to deserve it. Because of Christ Jesus we can sit and eat with the king forever in eternity.

Ruth is a beautiful short book about a volume of important truths. It portrays the gospel so clearly. Ruth has a choice to go back to her home town to find “security” among the Moabites but they do not worship the true God. She decides to go with her mother-in-law into  Judah where security is not promised them since they are widowed with no male to support them, which was a really bad thing to happen back then. Naomi, her mother-in-law wants Ruth to go back to her home land to find security but Ruth proclaims in 1:16 “Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.” I love that verse because Ruth is choosing to find true security in God almighty instead of what seems like a better decision on an earthly basis. What happens is that that God proves to be their true security through a man named Boaz who for no reason at all it seems, goes above and beyond what the law required of a person to treat those in need and ends up marrying Ruth, giving her and her mother-in-law security all their life. Boaz wasn’t looking for a wife. He was an older wealthy man who actually lost a little money in doing what he did but the love of God is seen passionately in his life and he values people. Ruth is not an Israelite and it is so cool to see that Ruth and Boaz become the descendants of King David who becomes the descendant of Christ Jesus. It proves to show that God had all people in mind with Christ and not just Jewish people.

Joshua is a book of God completing his promises to his people, the Israelites. In Deuteronomy 1:30, God preps them before going into the land to fight by saying “The Lord your God, who goes before you, is the one who will fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt.” God is seen fighting for Israel everytime in the book of Joshua. Take for instance the destruction of Jericho in chapter 6. All they had to do was obey God’s orders to march around the wall, blow some trumpets, and shout when told to and God miraculously made the wall fall down and they defeated them, except for Rahab the prostitute who helped them. It is cool to see how God invites non-Israelites to be an Israelite because in 6:25 it says that she and her family lived in Israel ever since. It is proof of God’s mercy on those who believe him to save Rahab from destruction like that. Another example of God seen fighting for them is when they battle the city of Ai. 10:10-11 “The Lord threw them into panic before Israel… the Lord threw down huge stones from heaven on them… and they died; there were more who died because of the hailstones than the Israelites killed with the sword.”

Another cool aspect of the Joshua is that God was faithful to give them rest as he promised in the end through all the fighting. Deuteronomy 12:10 (and other verses) talk about when they cross the Jordan and live in the land God is giving them for rest. Joshua 1:13 “Remember the word that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, saying, ‘The Lord your God is providing you a place of rest, and will give you this land.” Then at the end of Joshua after all the fighting was over in 22:4 it says, ”And now the Lord your God has given rest to your kindred, as he promised them.” It is comforting to know that God wants his people to be at rest when it comes down to it. Sometimes you have to get through the battles first and see how God fought for you before you get there but ultimately, God wants to give you rest.

Deuteronomy is a neat book that reviews Israel’s history up to that point (Genesis-Numbers) and also reniews them as a nation before they enter the promised land. This is the 2nd generation of Israelites now that need reminding of how good God has been to them and their ancestors because they have been complaining for 40 years in the wilderness, not understanding that this was a special time for them to know God. Deuteronomy 29:5-6 “I have led you 40 years in the wilderness… so that you may know that I am the Lord your God.” The wilderness was meant to be a special time where they come to know God and rely on him for provision. God has always been about heart attitudes. It is seen in the Old and New Testament and Deuteronomy is packed full of references to God wanting them to obey and love him with their heart. Deuteronomy 30:6 “The Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, so that you will love the Lord your God will all your heart and with all your soul, in order that you may live.” God wants them to choose him in obedience and love from the heart so they will live. 30:19 says “Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him.” All of these commands and laws that they are required are meant to be a response from the heart and the New Testament refrences this as well. Romans 2:29 “A person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart, spiritual and not literal.” This goes right along with Deuteronomy 30:6. In Mark 12:28-31 a scribe asks Jesus which commandment is first of all, meaning out of the 10 commandments. Jesus answers with what is seen in Deuteronomy 10:12-13, 19 “What does the Lord your God require of you? Only to fear the Lord your God, walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord your God and his decrees that I am commanding you today, for your own well-being… You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Christ answers the scribe in Mark 12:30 “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second one is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment great than these.” The thing is with these commands to love God and to love others is that it is a sum of the 10 Commandments, which relate from a heart attitude of love toward God and others.

At first glance Leviticus is a tough book to read because it is full of very specific and seemingly grotesque laws that God wants the Israelites to do. He is very specific about offering sacrifices for certain things and a lot of people get stumped on why they had to do it then and why we don’t have to now. A part of our assignment was to read Hebrews again along with Leviticus and it really serves as a bridge to understanding why they had to do such specific sacrifices etc. Leviticus is such a foreshadowing book of what Christ was going to come and fulfill later. Everything that they had to do served as a purpose to remember who God is and how their sins cause innocent bloodshed. Twice a day they would sacrifice a lamb so that they would remember that their sins need atoning for. They never atone for their own sins but the priest serves as the mediator before God to atone for sins. Once a year the high priest would enter the holy of holies in the tabernacle and atone for his sins and the sins of Israel. He had to continually do this over and over again until Christ came and did away with this symbolic sacrifical system that could never completely wipe away sins.

Hebrews 9:6 says that the priest had to continually go into the tent and 9:9 talks about that being a symbol of the present time. Hebrews 9:11-14 says “But when Christ came as high priest of good things that have come, then through the greater perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation), he entered once for all into the Holy Place, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, with the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer, sanctifies those who have been defiled so that their flesh is purified, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God!”

The priest would go in continually to offer an animal sacrifice without blemish to atone for his sins and others. Christ became the great high priest by sacrificing himself without blemish to atone for the sins once and for all. He doesn’t have to continually sacrifice because he didn’t have to atone for his own sins because he didn’t have any. He atoned for our sins for us. Atoning always had to do with God doing it and never man. We are incapable of atoning for our own sins. Christ was the sacrifical lamb. This is why John the Baptist says in John 1:36 when he sees Jesus “look, here is the Lamb of God!” Christ fulfilled what Leviticus was pointing to, doing away with its old covenant and became “mediator of a better covenant” (Hebrews 8:6).

God had deep pure reasons for giving Israel all these very specific laws. He wasn’t doing it arbitarily but had his holy purposes for them. Leviticus 11:44-45 says “For I am the Lord your God; sanctify yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not defile yourselves with any swarming creature that moves on the earth. For I am the Lord who brought you up from the land of Egypt, to be your God; you shall be holy, for I am holy.” The nations around Israel were not holy. They were perverse and God was wanting them to not associate with them so that by being separate from them they would be holy. The Israelites came out of Egypt where they were slaves to a nation that didn’t worship the true God and now they are about to run into the Canaanites that have a really perverse way of living. God was going to refuse to be worshipped in the way that the Canaanites worshipped their gods and this is why he gives them all these specific orders. He wants them to be holy as he is holy. God was blessing them with all these things because they didn’t know any better, not cursing or burdening. He has their best intrest in mind the entire time whether they see it or believe it.

Exodus is a really great book. I was actually surprised with how packed full it is of really wonderful things. The heartbeat behind the whole book is God’s redemption/deliverance of his people so he can dwell and have relationship with them. Exodus 6:6-7 “I am the Lord, and I will free you from the burdens of the Egyptians and deliver you from slavery to them. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as my people, and I will be your God. You shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has freed you from the burdens of the Egyptians.”

Everything that God does physically with the Israelites is a foreshadowing of what Christ was to do later for all mankind. He delivers his people from bondage, breaking the powers of the Egyptian gods with his almighty power, then forming them into his nation set apart from the world. Christ set us free from the slavery/bondage of sin that we could not get ourselves out of. He gives the Israelites the law as a guideline as to how they are to live because before, while they were in slavery, they didn’t know how to do this, just as without Christ, we do not know righteousness. The law was never meant to give them salvation (as Galatians tells us) but it was a disciplinarian that they much needed and it was such a blessing to them, not a curse. We are like children who need a parent to raise us because we don’t know any better and that is what God does so patiently, compassionately, lovingly, graciously, and mercifully. God’s great characteristics are powerfully seen through out the entire book.

One of my favorite passages in the whole book is Exodus 34:6-8. Prior to that the Israelites had committed to the covenant and then turned right around and broken it by creating a calf to worship. Moses comes down the mountain and in his anger throws the tablets with the covenant on them down and breaking them, symbolizing the brokeness of the people and the inhability to keep the law. God tells Moses that he is going to restore and mend the broken covenant that the people couldn’t restore. After this is when God tells Moses what he says in Exodus 34:6-8, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, yet by no means clearing the guilty, but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.’ And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth, and worshiped.”

This book has a lot of difficult things in it that ultimately reflect the difficulty of understanding a lot of how life works. It is so applicable today for people searching for the meaning of life. People throughout time have searched for meaning to life. It doesn’t always make sense and it doesn’t seem fair that people can work hard for something and never get anything from it or people get something that they didn’t even work for. People search high and low to find what fulfills this emptiness in their soul. People try and put value in what they do, in what they have, in who they are etc but things never seem to completely make sense when they begin to think about it all. Everyone will die someday. What is the point in working so hard in this world? Ultimately, people try to understand life as if they were God. Only God can understand the non-understandable. We can’t seem to let go of the questions that don’t have understandable answers. It is great to ask these questions because they challenge you to see who God is and the ultimate purpose in life is to know God. We can say that the reason we live is to tell others about God and to love etc but what are those things if we don’t even know God? Our main purpose and source in life is knowing God and knowing that we don’t understand everything but he does and he is so good. This is what I rest assured of. There have been moments during this study that I get bogged down by not being able to understand things but those things are not even what I am concerned about anymore. Like being able to understand the trinity or how free will and God’s will works at the same time. I have been able to let go of them and say that God holds things together whether I understand it or not. I live in a corrupt world that has confused my mind and caused misunderstanding of who God is. I have a peace about my non-understanding questions even though I don’t even have an answer. I suppose because the answer is: God knows and relief comes in knowing God.

Song of Songs is a beauiful book of love God intended for humanity. God created us as sexual beings and this is meant to be used exclusively between a male and female in love. Some could read this book and think it is dirty and inapproprate to be put in the Bible but in reality, we are dirty and inappropriate. This book is not “dirty” but our world has corrupted sex so much that we read it with “dirty” eyes. This book is the pure example of how love is meant to be. We are made to be attracted to someone and we are made to be in love with someone. A lot of people think God is trying to take away a person’s natural way of having sex by making people wait until being married but this is not how God is. We need to see God as someone who created us with a purpose in mind of how we have sex and when it is done the way we were created for, it is the best experience. In reality, those who don’t find it necissary to “wait until marriage” really miss out on a wonderful experience God intended for humans to have. We have abused this wonderful gift God has given to experience sex the way it is meant to be experienced and people are really lacking something. It truly is worth being “pure” until marriage because sex in marriage is pure and how it is supposed to be, dispite what the world tells us. Why would you want to waste such a wonderful thing God has given you?

Job is a great book dealing with finding wisdom in time of suffering. This was written so long ago yet humanity still deals with the same issues of asking why. Why does God allow suffering if he is so good? Do we really deserve an answer to this? Everyone deserves death ultimately because we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The brilliance of God in this book is that he doesn’t have to answer Job as to why he is suffering but he does by blowing him away with himself. Job wanted to understand why this was happening when he really needed to see that God is in control. He doesn’t need to understand but only needs to understand that God is good and understands all. True wisdom is seeing God as ultimate source of life. Job was so conflicted that he forgot who God is, wanting to argue his case to him to maybe change his mind. His friends give him poor advice thinking they are giving him wisdom when they are all put in their place to see God as ultimate wisdom. It is great how Satan thought Job only worshipped God because of the blessings he gives him with possessions and such and God totally proves Satan wrong because Job never curses God. He does get lost in his own humanisitc way of thinking but he never cursed God. When God speaks, humanistic reasoning is silenced because it is foolishness compared to the true wisdom of God who is the source of all life.

Revelation is the least studied book of the Bible among Christians (at least in the west) today. This is due to the fact that it is controversial and quite hard to understand. People have different views on how to interpret what happens when Christ returns and it is so easy to read it out of context. I was one who never made up my mind on what I thought about the different views of the end times because it was all too confusing and quite frankly, made me afraid to think about. This is not the way to understanding this book. Revelation is the gospel told in a different way. It is Christ revealed. It is the same gospel that Paul preached. It is the same gospel that is written in the gospel of John, who is the same author of Revelation. The gospel is never meant to put ungodly, unhealthy fear in my life as a believer and if Revelation does that to a believer who reads it, they are interpreting it wrong. 

I liked what our teacher (Judy Smith) had to say about interpreting this book. My interpretation of Revelation is probably wrong if: (1) it makes no sense to the people it was originally written to (2) forces me to alter clear statements about what the rest of the Bible says about Christ’s 2nd coming (3) it causes me to redefine symbols defined in the book (4) it alters the gospel in any way. 

This book is so hard for people today to read because we are not use to this style of writing but it was something able to be understood by the people it was originally written to in the 1st century. We have to put ourselves in their position in order to understand it. I have done that and realized that this book is not that complicated. It is pretty incredible how it is the same gospel message that I am reading over and over again in the New Testament, just in a different way told. It is incredibly symbolic with the same idea constantly being repeated. It is not chronological, which was something common back then but for us today it is hard to understand why it is written that way. This book is meant to be an encouragement to believers in Christ and it is for us today just as it was for them then. We are not going to face God’s righteous judgment wrath of evil in Christ’s 2nd coming because Christ has already taken our judgment. That’s the gospel and that is the message of Revelation to believers. 

The reason fear is seen so often in Revelation is because for unbelievers, this is a really scary book and it is meant to be scary for them. It is a black and white book with good guys and bad guys, no in between guys. Anyone who doesn’t want Jesus to take their judgment for them (unbelievers) is going to experience God’s eternal judgment. This book is wonderfully glorious for believers and horribly awful for unbelievers. That is the truth of the gospel. As a believer reading Revelation, it compels me to tell people about Christ. We see things here on earth in such a small spectrum. We can’t get our head out of our butt to see that life is bigger than what we can see right now. There is eternity after death on this earth and you really don’t want to reject the only person who can save you. 

The message for believers in this book is one that causes a strong hope to hold onto Jesus while things on earth are difficult. John is writing to churches that are being persecuted and he is encouraging them to hold on until the end when they will be in God’s glorious presence forever. Revelation 21:4 “he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” Here in the west, we don’t see the face of persecution but it is there. There have been more martyrs in the 20th century than all the other centuries combined. God is doing incredible things all around the world that we are never exposed to and we don’t have to ever be exposed to it if we don’t want. We are not persecuted here in America but that doesn’t mean people aren’t in other countries. I don’t want to be an ignorant westerner but a wise woman of God that seeks to action.

I have come to the end of studying the New Testament for this Bible program and thinking about how the Bible all meshes together with the message of the gospel being the same, it gives me such a perspective I never had as strong before. It has given me an eternal perspective I have never had before but have heard and only brushed off as unimportant. We are aliens with the only light of Jesus Christ in our life in this dark world. We are camping in the woods and soon we are going home but until we are home, we have responsibility to love just as our light has loved. This responsibility is not burdensome but a joy to carry out. This responsibility is to tell people about Christ because we care about them. I don’t want the people I love to go to hell and if I truly love them, I will tell them about Jesus. I want to be bold and courageous. What do I have to lose? Shame? My life? Philippians 1:20-21 “It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be put to shame in any way, but that my speaking with all boldness, Christ will be exalted now as always in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain.”