I've been studying Romans with a group of people and it's just been cool. I'm always amazed at how there is much new stuff i learn from reading the same arrangement of words in the bible. It's so powerful. For me, this is the third time i'm studying Romans in a group. It all started at KCPC in December 1998. Although i'd been a Christian awhile, that was the year i first started studying and reading the bible. and it changed my life and my understanding of God.

So right now we're looking at Chapter 6:1-14.So last week we talked about how all people are sinners because of Adam's sin. But how in an amazing way God's free gift, broke the power of sin once and for all. We started discussing Chapter 6 and we got stuck on the question of sin's power. I think the question was "why did sin have mastery over us?" We discussed how sin entered the world and how it's been conquered by Jesus's death. So if it's conquered how come we can still sin? What really seperates us from people who don't believe in Christ when we sin? One hypothesis is that we have to die and infinite amount of deaths to sin. then someone asked me what i thought. And that was really good because in answering that question, my confusion was cleared as i spoke. It was in some ways God speaking to me through myself. it felt kinda weird but simultaneously exciting.

Paul says that sin reigned through death because of Adam's sin. For something to reign it needs a source of authority and it needs subjects. All people are born into sin's Kingdom through her allegiance with our father Adam. We are in bondage to this king (sin) because we owe a huge debt that we've inherited and it's impossible to pay. Therefore we're virtually slaves of it and must obey it's cruel dictates. Then a more powerful king pays the penalty of sin, which is death, for all the sinful subjects. To receive the benefits, you must chose to become a citizen of his benevolent kingdom instead. Now Sin is still alive and its upset that its lost citizens. It roams around enticing its former subjects to return to his kingdom. We can at times choose to forgot who our new King is and go with Sin. The difference is we don't have to, we owe nothing to sin and we're no longer it's subjects. If we choose to forget that fact and go back with him we still have to suffer its consequences, but that doesn't change our citizenship, or the new power we now have over it. if at anytime we call on our new king we can be restored to our new and rightful better citizenship.

it's so hard to explain the christian perspective at times. but i think the greatest rewards for me are just trying to get a handle on a concept, cuz when it finally makes sense it's like i feel my mind's perpetual haze of confusion being cleared away. One thing that was tight was going on the Mexico City project and sharing that experience with a friend. You know someone who kind of thought you were strange before, but now understands what drives you. That wasn't the best part of going on the project. I loved how when i'd talk to people about what it means to believe in Christ, and they understood they became overjoyed. It was such a reminder that it is an awesome privelege to serve the true and living God.

well i saw this cool analogy on the way back from san mateo. We were driving down the 101 and saw this huge blockade on the other side. The blockade stretched for about a quarter of a mile and all the cars on that side of the freeway were forced to exit because the freeway was closed. We kept driving and cars were backed up for about 5 or 6 exits solid not moving at all. So i thought, those drivers are going to be wondering what's going on and they are not going to have any idea why they are moving so slowly. Then we saw another minor accident also on the other side after about the 6th exit from the original blockade. And then i thought these people are going to see this little accident and think it's what was causing the backlog and have no idea that there's more traffic to come. How different they would feel if they knew everything to come- and what if they could ask someone who had seen what was going to happen. This i thought was a cool analogy for life.