MONDAY, October 6th, 2008

Hey guys! Sorry for the delay in the devotions! It has been a very crazy busy two days...
Yesterday was quite the busy day with church in the morning and then a long day of driving back to Port Charlotte to arrive back at Suncoast Baptist Church for the evening service at 6:00pm and then finish the days with praise team practice and quartet practice until almost 10:00pm.

This morning Katie and I got up and made plans to go to the Sarah Palin Rally at Germain Arena! It was great! We went with Pastor Chip, Carl Motteller and of course our favorite... Will! :) It was great fun! The place was jammed! There were easily over 10,000 people there including the masses of people outside that did not even make it inside! It was really neat to see Sarah Palin in person! I especially thought it waws great when she called me up on stage to shake my hand. Wait, I think that was a dream that I had last night, but anyway... she was great and it was a fun time!

Romans 2

1 Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things.
2 But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things.
3 And do you think this, O man, you who judge those practicing such things, and doing the same, that you will escape the judgment of God?
4 Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?
5 But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God,
6 who “will render to each one according to his deeds”:
7 eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality;
8 but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness—indignation and wrath,
9 tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek;
10 but glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
11 For there is no partiality with God.
12 For as many as have sinned without law will also perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law will be judged by the law
13 (for not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified;
14 for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves,
15 who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them)
16 in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel.

The Jews Guilty as the Gentiles
17 Indeed you are called a Jew, and rest on the law, and make your boast in God,
18 and know His will, and approve the things that are excellent, being instructed out of the law,
19 and are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness,
20 an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, having the form of knowledge and truth in the law.
21 You, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that a man should not steal, do you steal?
22 You who say, “Do not commit adultery,” do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?
23 You who make your boast in the law, do you dishonor God through breaking the law?
24 For “the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,” as it is written.

Circumcision of No Avail
25 For circumcision is indeed profitable if you keep the law; but if you are a breaker of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.
26 Therefore, if an uncircumcised man keeps the righteous requirements of the law, will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision?
27 And will not the physically uncircumcised, if he fulfills the law, judge you who, even with your written code and circumcision, are a transgressor of the law?
28 For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh;
29 but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God.

Wow! Once again! This chapter is full of lotsw of great stuff! I would say that the theme of this chapter would be something like this: Don't judge someone else for doing the exact same thing that you do...

I think there are many times we as Christians are guilty of being hypocrites because of this. We are so quick to judge one group of people because of their sin, but we overlook our own sin. I am reminded of how many Christian men are so quick to oppose homosexuality, while they are at home watching porn. This passage is for those kind of people... this passage is for us!

This passage is so powerful when you see verse 24 which says: The name of God is blasphemed among the unsaved because of your fake lifestyle.

That is dangerous ground teenagers... Take a few mintues and pray to God today. Ask him to show you where you have been a fake in your life... Ask God to show you what you can change about your lifestyle so that you do not blaspheme the name of God.

Be Real! dont judge others! Judge yourself! Dont pull the splinter out of your neighbors eye, while you have a tree trunk in your own eye!!! Ever heard that one before? That is some good stuff! See you tomorrow! [on the devotional page!!!!!]


Lee Tomlin's Personal opinion: Sarah Palin for President!! :) [ok, for Vice President] :)

7 comments:

Amy :) said...

SWEET FIRST!!

Pray to God and ask him what you need in life and he will show you. Everything you ask God for we will give you an answer. Just trust God cause He knows what He is doing and we don't. Let God do this in His time and at His pace because everything has a purpose and a time when it is supposed to happen.

Once again thanks Pastor Lee and Katie for bringing us to COllege Days it was so much fun and oh yea..

josh, josh, josh, josh, is, is, is, is, so, so, so incompetant!! --See ya Wednesday!

Godservant said...

To me, judgeing others is probably the most common sin we make in our lives. We don't even realize that we judge others because they "look" wierd, or they "act" wierd, because, lets face it, it is most likely a habit in you life and definetly in my life. Overcoming that to be at a minimum or not at all is like uprooting a tree by yourself! But, if you just keep practicing(and prayer!), you can eventually uproot the tree with a few "tools."


("Tools"= God's help)

Anonymous said...

wow i bet iti was cool to see her in person!!! i was home all day with a horrible headache so i am kinda tired wel i will try and make up tomorow!

Jonathan M. said...

Wow this is something i see a lot HYPROCRITES and i know you can accuse me of that and im sure weve all done it two and my personal opinion is i do not like hyprocrites i dont think anyone does and you know what i dont think we should be judging people anyways because were not the judge God is.

Im jealous that would have been so cool to see Sarah Palin i like her so much.
Im starting something new the COUNTDOWN TO MILEYS BIRTHDAY WHICH IS NOVEMBER 23.
47 DAYS!!!!!

Rachel☺; said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Rachel☺; said...

♥rachel; said...
WOAH this is majorly useful, i think for everyone. WHoeve didnt read this today should make it up; i know i needed it.!

& Pastor Lee, lol, that tree trunk illustration totally sounded like something i would say.

So i know ive been guilty of not 100% "practicing what i preach", and i know everyone has been sometime in their life; its natural human way.
Right?
Well, we have to, as Christians, act against the natural ways of ourselves in order to be the Christians God has intended us to be.
It says here that we are blaspheming the name of the Lord when we are speaking it but not obeying it.
Basically it says that when our faith through action does not meet our verbal faith, we are putting God in a bad light for others to see!
He doesnt even have a bad light, so we must really be doing something wrong!
We can turn non-believers off to the teaching and consideration of Christ and often give ourselves a bad name as Christians altogether.

It even goes on to say that even if people arent completely knowledgable & even if not everyone knows your faith, its more important to start at your core; your heart, and truly follow the faith with your it rather than be a hypocrite or misrepresent Gods name.


For me personally, the biggest thing is being afraid to speak my faith, because i dont want to ever slip up, and give others the wrong impression.
I definitely need to not just let people notice that im different, but letting them know & know how; get to a point where i DONT slip because and its not merely a practice, but my new & natural way of life.

Rachel Evelyn said...

This is such a close to home topic. As a Christian in college I realize that people judge me so harshly; if I ever make a mistake people wonder how I can be a Christian. I need to pray a LOT so that I can live up to the standards of the Lord much better. I know that I have been deviating from his path as I live my college life. I pray that I will gain Godly knowledge rather than worldly knowledge. I can feel myself craving the Lord though and that is certainly a good thing.

:] It's Tuesday but it's still Monday for me. College life means no sleep.

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