Bus Ride Revelations

Honoring your parents is a matter of life and death... at least it was for Mulan. Is it the same case for us today? Why does the fifth commandment really matter?

What does it mean to be holy? God calls us to be holy because he is holy. That command seems impossible.... because it is... and it isn't. You may not realize it, but, in a way, you declare things holy all the time.

Check your privilege. That's what someone said to Esther and her heart was changed. God gives us privilege and it is always attached to God-given purpose. In order for us to use our privilege for God, we have to be willing to give it all up and never benefit from it. Only then can our privilege be used for God's glory. But how do we get the power to surrender our privilege? Nobody wants to do that naturally...

It doesn't matter how much we know about God's forgiveness, unless we have had a personal experience with it. The story of Jonah and the Ninevites reveals to us what it means to encounter God's forgiveness personally versus encountering God's forgiveness from a distance. Jonah could "wow" the people with his theological insight to God's forgiveness. But the story ends before we can find out whether or not he truly received God's forgiveness for himself.

True repentance is something that is detestable to most people today. Yet, Jesus commands that if we are to have eternal life through the Gospel, then true repentance must be the first step on that path. The story of how David responds to his "big sin" shows us what it really means to repent. “I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me.” Psalm 51:5.