Connections, Convictions, Condemnation, Carne Asada

(not in that order)

This week we had three events to connect people to the church... We went to see Transformers 3 (El lado oscuro de la luna) on Wednesday, went to Santa Lucia on Thursday and then had a carne asada tonight (pretending that today is still Friday)...The movie was fun, though only one new guy came; a bunch of robots beating each other up...what's not to love?

Santa Lucia was excellent... Liz, Lulu, Carolina, Lulu's friend Sussie all came as did a good number of people in the church. Santa Lucia is like the Riverwalk in San Antonio, but it's much better. It's green and lush and feels far away from the city even though you're in the middle of it. It runs all the way from the Mexican History Museum to the Parque Fundidora (which is an old iron foundry that the city renovated to make a huge, beautiful park). We all hung out and played a bit in the fountains and on the playgrounds until the security guards told us the playground had an upper age limit (age discrimination man!)... Afterwards, we hung out in front of the museum for a while then took everyone home. When we took Carolina back; we met her whole family, who invited us in for tacos and hanging out. We met her youngest sister, who promptly stuck us all in the corner..then taught us how to dance. The hospitality here is amazing...They didn't know us, brought us in, fed us and just talked to us, even though it was already pretty late.

The carne asada (carne asada is a big part of Mexican culture... it's basically a cookout. Literally it means "grilled meat," which is basically all that we ate tonight. It's food, friends and fun and is fairly common) today went pretty well... Miguel, Carolina and Sarahy all came and seemed to have a great time. Everything got started pretty late, but the food was delicious. Chuck Norris* did the grilling and Henry provided the entertainment through riddle games with Forks, Brooms, Umbrellas and Music Boxes.

*There is a guy in the church named Evelid, who, when he was baptized, joked about getting a new name with his new identity and said he wanted to be called Chuck Norris... it's easier to say Chuck than Evelid, so it stuck and now he is Chuck to almost everyone.

On Tuesday in Alex's group, Carlos taught about redefining Love using of 1st John (he did an awesome job, you can tell he's a teacher). When i was reading a verse caught my ee and i underlined it then left it alone until the next day. (Wednesday we met on the Tec for a mini-devotional time) 1st John 3:19-20 says "This then is how we know we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts and he knows all things." (emphasis added) The whole thing about our hearts condemning us caught my eye (i had never noticed it before) and made me think a bit about the difference between conviction and condemnation.

So, i'm a judgmental person. But i'm also usually fairly accurate in my assessments. Something i think is important to realize is the difference between judging actions and judging people: we have God's Holy Spirit within us and we know the difference between right and wrong. As Christians, the world (especially the postmodern world) hates us because we say "this is wrong" and "this is right" (y'all just narrowly missed a diatribe on postmodernism). We have the authority to condemn people's actions... However, we don't have the authority to condemn those people (though we certainly can warn them that God will condemn them). So... anyway, back on target.

We know that in Christ, we are not condemned (Romans 8:1-2-"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death."), however, we know that that same Spirit convicts us of right and wrong. So..what's the difference? Condemnation means separation from God; conviction leads us to seek reconciliation with God (yes, i am proud of that sentence, that's why i made it italicized).

So, what does it mean when our hearts condemn us and how do we put them to rest? First off, you don't ask double-barreled questions. My heart condemns me all the time...it's one of its favorite activities, actually. My heart says to me, "you lied.. you're prideful.. you failed.. you're rude.. you're cold..etc and you're no good because of it." And that's true... if you ignore the whole Jesus thing. So, when our hearts condemn us, it's because we still don't understand (or we're forgetting) the gospel... My heart yearns for justice and perfection and doesn't realize that it's already been taken care of, so it condemns me. 1st John 3 also says "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us" (v. 16). So this is how we put our hearts to rest; we accept Christ's love and love each other as we ought to ("with actions and truth" (v. 18))... So, learn the difference between the Spirit's conviction and your heart's condemnation (note the fruit; does it lead to reconciliation or separation)...accept one and put the other to rest.

"That sounds so easy!"
It isn't. Guilt doesn't like to let go and if you're at all legalistic, self-righteous or prideful (i think that covers all of us), it's really hard to move past condemnation. But God gives us strength as we turn to him.