Difficulty and Rejuvenation

Today was a rather difficult day, but I made it through. School work is tough. I have to do it to get my degree since it was one of the stipulations in my review from Bryan. He explained that he didn't want to see me end up losing out on any future opportunities because I lack the degree. So, I'm going for my IT degree in Software Engineering with the University of Phoenix.

I managed to keep positive for the majority of the day. I pushed through all of the work for my team, by myself, and then capped it off by almost finishing my work on my individual paper that's due on Monday.

We went to church then and heard Pastor Tom preach. He taught on Galatians 2. I seriously felt like I'd never heard any of what he said before. He spoke about Paul, Titus, and Barnabas going up to Antioch to investigate the Christian Gentile phenomenon and whether it was necessary to induct a Greek follower into the Jewish religion before he or she qualified for Christianity. The current series is called "Vote No on Religion" and focuses on eliminating the religiosity, or works, as a means to gain acceptance by God. Paul sums it up at the end of Galatians 2 by saying "if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!"

Now, this is a great truth, but there was a great deal more. For instance, Tom spoke about Paul's statement, "I went in response to a revelation and set before them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. But I did this privately to those who seemed to be leaders, for fear that I was running or had run my race in vain." (verse 2 of chapter 2) He explained that Paul really believed what he had been doing was right, but thought it wise to seek counsel as to whether he could be mistaken. Tom informed us that he seeks God's will with great sincerity to know whether he is telling us what is the right thing to do. He mentioned that things he's said have caused people's lives to be completely changed--they've up and moved or something on that kind of large scale. With that kind of power to reach people and affect them, he says it's really important to be sure what he's saying is right.

Without going into more detail, I'll just recommend that you download the sermon or watch it online. It may not be tonight's (it might be Sunday's), but I'm sure he'll still cover many of the same things. He did go over on time, which I'm always grateful for, but probably will not when he does it again tomorrow. I praise God that my Pastor can kindle the flames of my relationship with Jesus so well. I'm continually inspired and rejuvenated each and every time I hear him deliver a message.

Now I'm closing off the night by unwinding through writing. I hope to eventually slide back into writing my Atomorphism story on a more regular basis as well. Time is difficult to come by right now, however, so it may be a little while before I can develop a good system for managing all of this. I'll ask for your prayers on this matter. As it is, I stay up too late so I can get out some of my pent up creativity. The next day I always get up tired. I'd like to correct all this. So pray for me. Thanks.