Romans 8:31-39

TEXT The first internship I did was in Canton, TX. I was 20 and going into my junior year of college. I really had no idea what I was doing. The youth minister at the church stuck around for about the first two weeks of my internship and then moved his family to Dallas and I heard from him once in the next 8 weeks. There was nothing on the calendar and I had no previous experience with youth ministry, I just thought it would be a fun thing to do over the summer. I learned a lot about youth ministry and church that summer, things I will never forget as long as I live. I put together a canoe trip for the end of the summer for the students and we ended up taking about 15 kids to Oklahoma for three days of fun. The canoe trip was a disaster (ask me later), but the camping was a lot of fun. Each night was spent in Romans 8:28-39. We had some really good discussions and thoughts over this and all in all the weekend was a success. One of the things that I cannot leave behind as we go through 2008 is this passage. It is something that has stuck with me and will always bring back good memories of my first youth group. What passages are like that for you?

Colossians 3:1-17

TEXT My NIV labels this section of scripture as “Rules for Holy Living”. I really don’t like the usage of the word rules because it makes me think of God as a principal or cop, but I will go with it today. One thing that has stood out to me over the last couple of weeks is how inconsistent I am with scripture. Some things I follow to the letter of the law and others I just don’t see them as that important. Colossians 3 is a great example of how I read scripture in a very inconsistent way. The focus seems to always be on verses 5-9 and that is the meat of what we talk about. How many lessons have I heard about not having sex, don’t be greedy, stop cussing, and don’t ever get angry? It was all about what I was not supposed to do. If I just DON’T do these things then I will be holy! What happened to verses 10-17? I think one of the biggest problems the church faces today is that people have no idea what it means to be a Christian. They know what it means to NOT be a Christian, but we are lost when it come to looking like a follower of Christ. Maybe we should finish chapters in the Bible instead of just picking and choosing what we want to read.