Post Spring Break Stuff

A few things that I want to remind you about...another I want to let you know about, if you don't already:

1. If you want to go to the Astros game, I need to know ASAP. Just email me or text me and let me know how many tickets you'll want. $7 for adults (14 and up), $2 for everyone else.

2. Still no interest in the Casting Crowns concert, so I'm kind of assuming that'll be a no go.

3. If you haven't checked your email, please do. I sent out some information about camp this summer that I need your feedback on ASAP (this probably more so than the 'Stros game).

Now a different note...

Online articles. Tim Keller tweets. Reading for my Master's program. Everything I've been reading lately has been focused on one topic: Depravity. Depravity is moral corruption. It's how bad we really are. And, let's face it. We are bad.

I think sometimes we get so focused on comparing ourselves to everyone else that we forget how sinful we really are. I know I fall into that trap all the time. It's so easy to find ourselves thinking, "I don't do ________, so I'm not as bad as _________."

When we think like this, we lose sight of just what we've been saved from. Grace becomes less amazing to us because we forget just how much grace has been bestowed. The good person doesn't need much grace. It's the bad person that does. Jesus said this to those who scoffed at him for dining with "sinners and tax collectors" in Mark 2. Jesus said, "It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

That's me, friend. That's you. We are the sick. We are the sinners. Read Romans 3:10-18. Paul paints a pretty humbling picture of not just who I am, but who you are and who everybody is. Not righteous. Not good. We've all turned away from God. We're all "useless."

Seriously?

Did Paul say "useless?"

Yup. Sure did.

We're low down, no good, dirty rotten scoundrels. Completely...useless.

Let that soak in for a minute.

Isn't grace super amazing now?! We sing of it all the time. How often do you really take the time to think about it? We're all of those things and yet Jesus still saved us. We are wretched sinners and yet Jesus still died for us. We are totally and completely useless and yet the God of Creation still uses us.

There is nothing about that that isn't amazing. It should leave us breathless. Stunned. If God was going for "shock and awe", that should've done it.

Grace really is amazing...and that word doesn't even begin to contain just how amazing God's grace is to us.

Remember who you are.