Review from Easter Sunday

Hey all,

Hope you had a great Easter Sunday.  Many of you were away this week, so you can see what you missed, and find your homework questions in a few places on the blog.  Here is what we did on Sunday

Our topic was "Can I do something so bad, it will keep me out of heaven?" 
In class, we looked at a few notorious, infamous people.  People that society may consider the worst of the worst.

Al Capone, Josef Stalin, Adolph Hitler, Osama Bin Laden, Jeffrey Dahmer.

Have your parents share what they know about these guys if you want more informaton.

The real shocking story is that of Jeffrey Dahmer.  His crimes were gruesome and head scrathing.  He was sentenced to over 950 years of prison.  While he was serving his time, he was murdered.  But before that occured, Jeffrey Dahmer decided to ask Jesus to be his Savior.  Some people, Christians included, found it hard to accept that God could forgive him. 

In the story of Jonah, we see the same thing.  Jonah has undergone a great ordeal to get to Nineveh.  He ran from God, dealt with a storm at sea, was swallowed by a large fish, spent 3 days inside the fish's smelly belly, got vomited out onto the shore, and then walked across the huge city of Nineveh, calling for their repentance and a changing of their evil ways.  Then, to his utter dismay, the people of Nineveh actually listened, and obeyed, turning from their sin and embracing God. And God showed them grace and spared them.  We read this story as part of our discussion - Here are the other verses we discussed.

Jonah 3.10-4.2  Jonah reveals why he fled from God in the first place.  He knew that God was a gracious God who could forgive the people of Nineveh, which apparently, Jonah was not prepared to do.
Hebrews 10.26-31 - God's forgiveness does not give us permission to do whatever we want.  We are called to a pure and holy lifestyle.  We will still make bad choices, we will still disobey God, but God's grace is not to be treated as a "get out of hell free" card, so we can continue deliberately sinning, and living life doing whatever we want to.
Luke 23.39-43 - One of my favorite parts of the Easter story.  This shows us that it isn't the good deeds that we do that captures God's attention so He will extend grace to us.  The thief didn't do anything but acknowledge that Jesus was innocent and ask that Jesus would welcome him into His' kingdom.
John 5.24 & John 10.27-30 - Listen to Jesus and trust God and you will have eternal life, and once they know me and have received eternal life, NOTHING can take them from my hand!  What a great promise that is!

What a great way to spend Easter - discussing how God's grace will reach to cover all sin.  Praise Him for His amazing plan, based on His love for us, and extending to anyone that will receive it.

Sorry for this late post - it was a crazy week.

See you tonight and/or tomorrow at church

~~chris