Panera and Prodigals

This is a picture of the house where I am living in Grosse Pointe:

I am not what people would refer to as or "computer savvy" or "a guy who can figure out how to post multiple pictures in one blog entry in a neat orderly fashion," therefore I'm just gonna post this one picture right now and keep you tuning in to see pictures of say...my office, or...the couch in my office, or...my bedroom while my roommate Phil was still asleep in his bed when I took the picture because I took the picture early in the morning. 

These last two mornings have consisted of meetings with Patrick and former students at Panera Bread. My breakfast choices have consisted of a Cobblestone muffin with orange juice on Tuesday and some sort of Egg/Turkey Sausage/other miscellaneous ingredient souffle with coffee today. Tuesday's meeting was with a former student who is two years into the Coast Guard Academy who was home on leave, and this morning's meeting was with a former student who just graduated from the U of M and is raising support to return to U of M as a campus missionary. 

I spent much of the last two days reading about the chronology of the Old Testaments prophets and how they correspond with the events in II Kings. I'm considering doing a chronological walk through of the Old Testament this spring after preaching through the life of Christ this fall in order to give the students an idea of how books like Ezekiel and Habakkuk fit into the Biblical historical framework. 

I'm also considering doing a little series on "Bible stories that never made it to the flannelgraph board" which might include Elisha calling down the bears to attack to kids who made fun of his bald head and/or the woman in Judges who put a tent peg through a guy's head. I doubt the series will ever come to fruition, but it is fun thought. Maybe I'll recommend those stories to the creators of Veggie Tales to see what they could do with them.

On a more serious note, I am leaning towards preaching the parable of the two sons in Luke 15 on Sunday. I want to primarily focus on the religious lifestyle and mentality of the older son. I feel that those of us who struggle with self-righteous attitudes subconsciously believe that God owes us happy, pain-free relationships, financial security, godly kids and/or a stable job if we faithfully provide him with our acts of service. The more we serve God, the more he is obligated to give us in return. The problem with this mentality is the Bible. Scripture teaches us that God doesn't need us and consequently we can never put Him in a position of owing us anything. If our salvation is a gift offered purely out of God's gracious heart, and we cannot earn it in the least bit, then there is nothing that God cannot ask of us because we have nothing with which to barter. God says, "I have given You my Son, and at no point in your Christian walk will you get to a point where the tables have turned and all the sudden I owe you something. In fact, every act of obedience you do is a result of my sanctifying grace therefore you are not paying me back, but rather falling deeper and deeper in debt everyday." God is a good, loving God who gives us grace upon grace so our response should be that of worship and thanksgiving for who He is and what he has done. 

Don't forget, that picture of my office couch will be posted relatively soon. Don't act too excited.