Last night we had our weekly Euphoria church meeting at Ryan’s house. Although Ryan was out of town, we had a guest speaker, Jaleb Gillman, who is currently serving in an internship position at Cornerstone Church in Highland, Michigan. After a delicious dinner prepared by yours truly…yes I picked up pizzas…we made our way upstairs for the lesson. As we sat around chit-chatting, Jaleb began setting up a little table to set his Bible and lesson notes on. Nonchalantly he picked up the side table stand and stated “Hey this used to be mine.” Funny how things have a tendency to come full circle like that. Moving on, I knew he was ready to begin as soon as the cuffs of his newly bought black and white plaid shirt became unbuttoned and rolled up to the elbows (ya’ll might find it interesting to note that not only was this shirt quite fashion forward, but it even had black cuffs that were revealed as they climbed their way up his arm). Sure enough, he got everyone’s attention and gave a brief introduction of who he was. Next came the good stuff… “Alright, everyone if you could turn in your Bible’s to Genesis Chapter 4. The story of Cain and Able.”
I was thinking…really…Cain and Able?? As in “Cain killed Able with the leg of a table.” I know what you are thinking…ummm that is not exactly true, but hey I bet you won’t forget who killed who now will you? He said we were going to dissect the different sections of the chapter and discuss it…oh my, now there is a lesson after my own heart. Then he even included life application principles and anecdotes to relate to. Cha-ching! Now that is what I call a million-dollar devotional! What were the principles? What were the anecdotes? What were the applications? I am sure those three questions, amongst others, such as, “Where can I get a shirt like Jaleb’s?” are going through your head right now. Ok, I won’t let you wallow in the feelings of being left out of a lesson any longer; I will do my very best to summarize for you: Master the sin in your life. Yeah, that’s my summary. Master. The sin. In. YOUR life.
Wait…are you saying you want to hear a bit more? Ok then, I suppose I could include some of the highlights, but that one principle is a necessity for getting that vertical relationship in check. If there is sin that hinders one area of your life it WILL spill over to hinder ALL the other areas as well; trust me, I know what I am talking about. Now I want you to read Genesis 4:1-16 and then you will get so much more from this little summary that won’t even do Jaleb’s lesson justice, but it might bring a little bit of insight into your life. He started out by discussing how Cain sacrificed “some of the fruits” of his labor to the Father, whereas Able gave God the good stuff: the fat portions…MmmmMMM, you know what I’m talking about. Then he went on to talk about how Cain became jealous of Able and murdered him; the sin began to eat and eat and eat at him. God had mercy on him though and did not allow anyone to kill Cain. Jaleb spoke about how many times we have sin in our lives that we need to master.
Now what does it mean to master sin? My interpretation is this: We need to acknowledge the sin. Confess the sin. Ask for forgiveness for the sin. Ask God to take control of that area of our lives. Then we need to stay away from and ask God to help keep us from that sin. Jaleb gave some great applications that I will just quickly go over: We need to have accountability, we need to pray, we need to read our Bibles. When I reiterate that we need to read our Bibles I am not just saying we need to read the same verses we always read…we need to READ ALL OF OUR BIBLES. Jaleb made the comment on how oftentimes we just read our favorite verses, but it is so important to read the entire Bible; hence, the whole invention of those marvelous yearly Bible plans.
Time for another random Amanda moment (don’t worry, I will tie it in). This morning I was looking through old Word documents on my computer and came across an old e-mail from a great friend. The last line in the e-mail quoted a verse: "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all other things shall be added unto you". Cue the light-bulb, fireworks, and lightning!! Jaleb quoted this verse last night and I remember thinking, “Whoa, God really wants me to listen to that!” Was my coming across that verse this morning a coincidence? I don’t think so; I think it was confirmation of what needs to be done in my life. I need to stop putting other things first and stop solely focusing on MY future plans and start asking God “Hey…I am ready to give you control…where do you want me to go? What do you want me to do? How can I glorify YOU?” Oh one more thing…that e-mail I came across…it was from November 2008. Like I said…funny how things have a tendency to come full-circle.
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