Ash Wednesday

often times brandon and i will switch books, unless he is reading one of mine then i just tell him how good it is and how he needs to quit being a slacker and read it, and my current reading of generous orthodoxy: Mclaren is no different. Brandon recieved the book as a gift and after the first chapter he kindly informed me that i was required to read it when he was finished. wow, that is pretty much all i can say. he has a way with words much like miller, causing me to see the obvious in incredibly wonderful ways. the one thing that has stuck out so far is how correct mclaren is about the current view of Christ in america. we see salvation as something that will happen and everyone needs to be "saved" from hell. we forget that we all need to be saved from greed, lust, anger, pride, selfishness, envy, materialism, americanism, christianism, etc... i need Christ to save me now, daily, and to continue to save me from myself until the day he returns to save us all permenantly. when Christ is only needed for salvation from hell the necessity to have a daily relationship with him is lost, and His power in our lives is nil.

this, inturn, leads or perhaps stems from a very poor view of sin. in fact we have almost convinced ourselves that we are 99% there, and only need Jesus for the last 1%. we believe this so strongly that we can't even specifically name our sins, which means we aren't aware of our sins, and if we aren't aware of them how much do they truly matter to us. "if your sin is small, your saviour will be small also; but our sin is big, and what does that say about our saviour"

may this lentian season draw you closer to your savior, may it make you aware of your great need for a saviour.

~H