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| Mary Haag: OMF missionary in Cambodia |
Mary has served in Cambodia since the late 1990's as a counselor for those who've experienced severe psychological trauma. She also trains counselors. Cambodians have a history of extreme trauma. Remember the Killing Fields, where over a million people were slaughtered and buried under the Khmer Rouge regime between 1975-79? The youngest survivors with memories of that era would only be in their forties today. Please come and encourage Mary this Wednesday.
On April 5 we had a good study on Romans 1, discussing the meaning of God's righteousness. Scholar John Stott describes three ways of viewing God's righteousness: 1. A divine attribute of God: He is intrinsically righteous. 2. The activity of God: His actions are righteous. 3. The gift of righteousness that God bestows on believers.
If you are a Christian, then you are perfectly righteous and fully pleasing in God's sight. This is positional, based on faith, not works. "But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets [the Old Testament] bear witness to it -- the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith." (Romans 3:21-25).There's an old saying, "If it sounds too good to be true -- then it's not." Well, our right standing before God is a very good thing -- and it's true! Sometimes because of guilt feelings or our struggles with sin, we feel that God's gift of righteousness doesn't apply to us. Well, it's time for us to say "No!" to those feelings and thank God for imputing His righteousness to us through faith. Praise the Lord!
See you this Wednesday.
Blessings,
Tom
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