I love her “scared bunny eyes” in the above picture.?? Heidi used to tell me when we were young that I had scared bunny eyes – NOT when I was pouting hee hee – just in general.?? Tori has an adorable pout – she is headed for it in the above picture.

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I am meeting Jodi to go shopping for Braxtyn’s birthday present so just taking a quick moment to write.?? Last night we had our first book discussion at Dad’s on The Shack.?? Darin and Jodi and I didn’t leave until midnight.?? :)?? Dad decided to just give us all a list of about 10 dig deeper questions from the first sections of the book and then let everyone choose a question that they wanted the group to discuss in more depth.?? This format worked great I thought.?? There was so much that came out between us all in the discussions.?? What an awesome time of fellowship.?? My favorite line of the night was this:

Quote:?? I was a Christian all my life.?? Then I fell in love with Jesus.?? – Darin

Jim and I stayed up until 1:00 AM on Wednesday night because he recently finished reading The Shack and is now such an advocate for it.?? I love how the discussions stemming from this fictional book are giving such opportunity for us to grow in Grace.?? How absolutely fantastic is that?

Last night someone asked Dad a question (“someone” because she is shy and doesn’t like attention being drawn to herself hee hee) and I really appreciated the answer.?? The question was “How do you hold on to inner conviction??and try to??live a holy life without coming off as legalistic to those who don’t have the same convictions?”

Dad’s answer was so good I thought.?? He reminded us of how Jesus was the perfect example of that.?? Jesus KEPT EVERY LAW perfectly – all 600 something of them but no one accused him of being a legalist.?? :)?? Instead, he was accused of heresy.?? What mighty competition he was for the Pharisees on the works scale because they had zero chance of keeping the laws in the manner that Jesus did (even though they pretended to).?? In fact, he went much further than merely keeping the law.?? Have you read the Sermon on the Mount recently??? Matthew 5-7.?? Matthew 5:20 said that our righteousness must surpass that of the Pharisees (don’t imagine that went over well with them).?? Why??? Because the Pharisses knew how to keep the law (at least to degrees) but they didn’t know Jesus who came to fulfill the law.?? Everytime I read the Sermon on the Mount I picture Bruce Marshiano in the “Matthew” bible DVD delivering it and I smile – he did such a fabulous job acting out this passage I thought.

So how did Jesus be a law keeper and avoid the legalism title??? His deep, wide, profound love for people.?? When we take our own inner convictions and act on them but free them from the neck of those around us and choose to let the Holy Spirit deal with our brother and sister and we just LOVE – we get freed (and so do they).??

Dad has posted the questions we discussed last night on his website.?? www.papaponderings.blogspot.com.?? Feel free to jump on over there, take a look at them, and jump into a discussion.

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