Ephesians 2:1-10

I've got an action item I need to create based on our study of Ephesians chapter one from last week. Our study group discussed the lost art of letter writing. Of course, after the discussion, the next day I realized why letter writing is so much more then what you get in an email or especially on Facebook, etc. Letter writing is really much more in-depth which is much more likely to ellicit emotions from the reader. These emotions are what keep us connected not the short here's what I had for breakfast junk you see on Facebook. So, my action item is to start a letter writing campaign. I am going to try to get a letter written to someone once a month and I will be doing more updates, thoughts and feelings emails to the grandparents. I feel disconnected from my parents so I can imagine my kids probably don't feel so connected with them either.
This week's lesson was on the beginning of chapter two and had much to do about grace. The sermon Jim Singleton preached on it was very passionate. He had a coffin out as his "big prop". This is your funeral he said. I already have a good fondation on this concept of what Christ did for us but sacrificing himself on the cross he brought us back to being Alive! We are all dead. It's a spiritual dead but that means when your body dies you won't be going to heaven to live forever. "Dead! We are all dead!",he said. But thankfully we have good news, because of God's great love for us and Jesus' death on the cross we are brougth back out of death into life in the light with Christ. The things that most stood out to me on this sermon were the phrase dead man walking. Most people out there are dead men and women walking. The other word that captured my attention was the word desparate in this quote Jim gave "Salvation is not for the well-meaning but for the desperate. I so remember the time before I came to truley know and accept Jesus when I was in an emotional state of desperation. I was at rock bottom with how to deal with not getting pregnant and the abortions of my past. I had always justified my abortions but finally changed my feelings about that because of the desperation. I needed the forgiveness that only through Jesus anyone can have. Realizing that what I did was a sin was the first step into my new life. So, are there things in your past you are rationalizing. Are you living in denial of what you have done? I thank God for leading me back to him and helping me to understand what I did was wrong but through Jesus I am forgiven and am now ALIVE!