In the blanks below write the two most significant statements in today’s reading assignment. Be prepared to discuss why the statements you chose were significant to you.
“No attribute of God is more emphasized in scripture than His loving care for His people. Yet no quality of God is doubted and more than His love when we are under the burden of a difficult trial.
“The Almighty has made no mistake and deserves no rebuke. The creature cannot make demands of the Creator without revealing his arrogance.”
David tried to manipulate the outcome of his sin. Look at Proverbs 28:13 and consider its message; then ask yourself the following questions: Am I covering anything that needs to be resolved before God and others? Have I been totally honest in my dealings with others? Does what God knows about me differ from what others know about me? If so, describe what is happening.
“Of course God knows of many sins that no one else or almost no one else knows about. Generally, it’s none of their business. In a few cases, the whole truth is more than some need to be burdened with. I have repented to God and I know my sins are as far as the east is from the west.”
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In the blanks below write the two most significant statements in today’s reading assignment. Be prepared to discuss why the statements you chose were significant to you.
“Someone has said, ‘There is a God in heaven, and you are not Him.’ – good reminder and pithy and catchy. 
“God is not impressed with our abilities; they came from Him. He is not impressed with our opportunities; they are gifts from Him as well. He is impressed only with our humility; it testifies of our sense of dependency.”
Explain this statement: a man’s potential for God lies not in his ability, nor his opportunity, but in his humility before God.
“As my quote above – the sentence just following it explains, the first two are God’s gift to us, the third is the only real gift we can and really should give back to God.”
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Dearest Rachel –
Ironic that it would be today – Easter Sunday – when I find myself looking at a couple of days’ worth of your homework that only wound up half-completed, so I have to include both days to assemble enough from you to comment upon. I suspect that, based on a previous ‘repent’ section, you were preoccupied by the fact that we had Kevin over during this particular week (which, ironically, suggests that this was during a holiday weekend as well, albeit not Easter; he would generally come up either during the Independence Day or Labor Day festivities).
Ironic, too, that on a day in which we celebrate His payment for all of our sins – known and unknown, public and private – you would be addressing the fact that we still cover ours up before others. To be sure, it’s quite true that most of them are nobody’s business but ours and God’s, and as He’s paid the penalty for them, nothing more needs to be said about them. At the same time, there are those that weigh upon us – significant sins from days long ago that we can’t seem to purge from our memory, or certain habitual sins that (since we can’t seem to refrain from going back to) we almost try to justify, or at least ignore – and they interfere with our ability to properly live the Christian life. It may explain the silence that seems to come from heaven from time to time, to be honest.
I don’t know whether to be amused by your correction from “no one else” to “almost no one else” regarding otherwise hidden sins – I’m pretty sure I was the source of that alteration, more often than not. We were at times each others’ confessors, knowing and absolving each other of wrong done. Indeed, it may well be that each of us might have been a little too lenient in our absolution on occasion; not that, again, everything we have done hasn’t already been paid for, but there were and are behaviors that could benefit from course correction. They may not be visible to the world, but they may represent damage to one’s inner life to be left unaddressed – not that one should be spelling things out to the internet at large as a means of confession.
With that having been said, though, I’d ask for you to keep an eye on me, and nudge me in the direction of confession where I need to be, honey. And wish me luck at it, too… I’m going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 