Having A Relationship. With my Dad.

http://across2u.com/Declareduntreatable.html. An article about Pastor Ray Johnson. He preached today at my church service, after an absence of nearly 2 years, and I'd like to dedicate this post to him.

I missed church twice this month I think, both times because of some very silly reasons. To console myself, I tried self-reasoning : ' Not going for service and listening to the sermon regularly doesn't make you less of a Christian, God understands, after all, it's basically entertainment if you look at it objectively - we sing a bunch of songs, some guy talks, we all laugh, we read a bit, sing some more, and leave -. And all that socializing is really tiring sometimes, I deserve a break '

But today, I made myself go. I just needed to go. I..I actually miss going to church in a way. I miss the spiritual discipline/fervor I used to have. All those 7.10 am chapel services at school before assembly, Wednesday C.F lunch meetings, Friday night CG meetings, and 8.45 am church services I used to attend ever so religiously. Not to mention HUGE camp, WMS CF camp, church camp, my prayer partners...

Apa yang telah berlaku ? And I made a New Year Resolution to start 2008 clean ! Be all ' Godly Girl ' and model Christian and all....fuck la, I fail noone but myself when I fail to fulfill my daily prayer commitment. It's not anyone's fault but mine. And I could only blame myself for being so behind in all those Bible readings I was SUPPOSED to have completed. Wtf, and I haven't even started school in full swing yet. Grrr...

Wallowing in self-doubt, anger, and misery, and trying very hard not to show it while sitting next to Jo and her darl bf ( I tell you, they're the cutest couple ever la, he wore green, she wore orange, and I wore purple..See how coordinated THEY are..and how uncoordinated I look sitting next to them..),

I really tried to distract myself from all those ' FFFFF ' guilt-piling thoughts and concentrate on the message. And Pastor Ray was preaching !!! He came back all the way to preach and he's such a swell guy - he's the portrait of an all American dude; his accent, skin, eyes, hair, build, etc.

And something he told us just snapped me out of my selfish tirade.
Christianity doesn't end with forgiveness. We were cleansed by the blood of Jesus, ( ya know, the dude who died for us, the totally humiliated one who was nailed on the cross ), our sins were forgiven because the Son of God died for us.
But it doesn't end there.

We were forgiven so that we could come home to the Father. The real purpose of the whole 'dying for our sins' part ? So that we could come to the Big Daddy's mansion up there, Heaven in other words.

'Forgiveness is not the goal, going home is.' - As quoted by Pastor Ray Johnson.


Please correct me if I'm wrong, but my train of thought goes like this ( I've simplified it somewhat, because I'm not one of those technical people who like using jargon ) ;
If Jesus didn't die for our sins, we'd still all be sinners and it would be impossible to us to be totally sin-free. Which would technically mean none of us could go to Heaven, because you would need to be sin-free to be in God's house.
So Jesus died to pay the wage of our sin which is death by the way, according to the Big Book ( Bible ). So, we're technically clean and sin-free. Which means we can go to Heaven to be with our Abba Father. Which means that Jesus died so that we can go home.

Faham ?

' Abba Father. So tender and precious these words, and God allows us to use it with Him. God allows us to call him Abba Father.. He's there to welcome you.......remember the story of the Prodigal Son ?.........Our Father's just so glad to see you and He wants to let you put your arms around him and crawl on His lap and hug Him........When my children call ' Daddy'.......it's the most beautiful sound to me '. - As quoted by Pastor Ray Johnson.

I'm so glad he spoke about the importance of having a relationship with God, our Abba Father. Going to church regularly shouldn't be my main goal, I should be focussing on getting closer to God, and trying to relate to Him as a Father. It's really hard for me to work on a relationship with God because I find it so hard to relate to a father-daughter relationship, since I've never really had a good one with my other dad.

But I'm trying.
And gonna try harder.

I mean..it's my old Man we're talking about ;)

'Forgiveness is not the goal, going home is '