In honor of Men’s Day (a Ukrainian holiday), the Bible School ladies made personalized t-shirts as gifts for the men.
A few weeks ago in one of my Romans classes, we were studying chapter five. I was highlighting verse eight which says, “But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (ESV).” The simple connection that I was making was the inseparability between the love of God and the cross. So often we hear of God’s love, yet we don’t hear of the ugliness of the cross. Well, in the middle of class an unexpected blessing occurred to drive this point home. The Russian text for this verse (of which I had previously not consulted, which was the reason for this little surprise) creates a rather beautiful and profound picture. In our English Bibles, we read “God shows, or God demonstrates his love.” The Russian Bible uses the word, “доказывает” which means to prove, or gives evidence. It’s a much stronger word than to say He simply “shows.” Isn’t that a cool picture? God proves or gives evidence of his love at the cross of Christ.
How do we know that God loves us? Do we search for an experience? Do we look into our hearts? No, and definitely no! How do we know that God loves us? We look to the historical, objective event of the cross of Christ. There, in real time and space, we find God dealing with our sin problem. There, in real time and space, we find the merciful, passionate, and immensely intense love of God on display.
This is the simple truth that I need to hear every day. This is the simple truth that we have the privilege and responsibility to communicate with our students. Thank you so much for praying and supporting this very important work of transforming lives, one at a time.
We want to share with you another small sample of what God is doing here. What you will read was written by a Bible School student in response to the question, “What is the most important thing that you have learned about yourself?”
”I have realized that I am 100% sinner, but also 100% holy before God because of the righteousness of Jesus Christ. I must remember that I am a sinner, because when I see someone's faults, in my heart there is condemnation. When I think that I'm better than someone else, pride is the result. But I must remember that I am a saint. When it comes to judgment, thoughts like, "You're too evil, God will not forgive you," occur. I need to remember that I am a saint in the eyes of God, not because of my works, but through the righteousness of Jesus.
I have realized that I am weak and powerless against sin, and the only way to deal with it is to be open to God, to confess my sins to Him, and allow Him to change me.
I have also realized how important it is under any circumstances to seek God and praise Him. When I went to school, I imagined it as a place where it would be very easy to devote myself to God, seek His will, pray often, read the Bible, and that I will have no distractions. But I have now seen that the problem is not in the environment, but in me. I am just too lazy to pray, read the Bible, just as life is full of temptations. As it is written, "Behold, now is the accepted time, behold now is the day of salvation." Our nature is such that we are always waiting for something in the future, some favorable circumstances, but we are already in the circumstances. The Lord has placed us at the right time and the right place, and has done everything that we find Him.”
In His Grace,
Andy, Monica, Moriah, Isaiah and Josiah
Editor’s note: To find out how you can pray for the Coyles, please click here.
